There are three drivers who have beaten their team mates in each qualifying session and race so far this year.
So is that because they’re much better than their team mates – or some other reason?
Here’s a look at the side-by-side comparisons of the F1 drivers so far this year.
Ferrari
Qualifying Kimi Raikkonen 1 – 3 Felipe Massa
Race Kimi Raikkonen 3 – 1 Felipe Massa
Laps completed Kimi Raikkonen 232 – 182 Felipe Massa
BMW
Qualifying Nick Heidfeld 0 – 4 Robert Kubica
Race Nick Heidfeld 1 – 3 Robert Kubica
Laps completed Nick Heidfeld 237 – 226 Robert Kubica
McLaren
Qualifying Lewis Hamilton 3 – 1 Heikki Kovalainen
Race Lewis Hamilton 2 – 2 Heikki Kovalainen
Laps completed Lewis Hamilton 236 – 192 Heikki Kovalainen
Williams
Qualifying Nico Rosberg 3 – 1 Kazuki Nakajima
Race Nico Rosberg 3 – 1 Kazuki Nakajima
Laps completed Nico Rosberg 211 – 233 Kazuki Nakajima
Toyota
Qualifying Jarno Trulli 4 – 0 Timo Glock
Race Jarno Trulli 3 – 0 Timo Glock
Laps completed Jarno Trulli 198 – 166 Timo Glock
Red Bull
Qualifying David Coulthard 1 – 3 Mark Webber
Race David Coulthard 0 – 3 Mark Webber
Laps completed David Coulthard 202 – 179 Mark Webber
Renault
Qualifying Fernando Alonso 4 – 0 Nelson Piquet Jnr
Race Fernando Alonso 3 – 0 Nelson Piquet Jnr
Laps completed Fernando Alonso 205 – 132 Nelson Piquet Jnr
Honda
Qualifying Jenson Button 2 – 2 Rubens Barrichello
Race Jenson Button 2 – 2 Rubens Barrichello
Laps completed Jenson Button 141 – 204 Rubens Barrichello
Toro Rosso
Qualifying Sebastian Vettel 2 – 2 Sebastien Bourdais
Race Sebastian Vettel 0 – 2 Sebastien Bourdais
Laps completed Sebastian Vettel 39 – 118 Sebastien Bourdais
Force India
Qualifying Giancarlo Fisichella 4 – 0 Adrian Sutil
Race Giancarlo Fisichella 3 – 0 Adrian Sutil
Laps completed Giancarlo Fisichella 176 – 68 Adrian Sutil
Super Aguri
Qualifying Takuma Sato 2 – 2 Anthony Davidson
Race Takuma Sato 1 – 2 Anthony Davidson
Laps completed Takuma Sato 207 – 119 Anthony Davidson
Twister 27
30th April 2008, 12:39
"Qualifying Lewis Hamilton 1 – 3 Heikki Kovalainen" Wow is that right?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
30th April 2008, 12:54
No it was back to front – fixed it, thanks.
Alex Andronov
30th April 2008, 12:54
I know it’s a lot more work but I wonder what the stats would look like if you treated each of the quali sessions as separate. As it is the results of Q3 is, I would guess, less of an important predictor of success than performance in Q2.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
30th April 2008, 12:58
If someone wants to work that out and send it to me I’ll post it on the site: Contact form.
Journeyer
30th April 2008, 14:44
Hmmm… Alianora La Canta? Are you there? Keith’s challenge seems to be tailor-fit for you! :)
Scootin159
30th April 2008, 14:50
Seems irrelevant to me to look at the performance of drivers in Q2 who make it into Q3. Yes, it should theoretically give us an indication of performance on low fuel, but wouldn’t it be smart for drivers in top cars to not give 10/10ths in Q2 and risk a shunt, when 9/10ths or even 8/10ths is enough to ensure an entry in Q3?
Alex Andronov
30th April 2008, 15:42
Well once we have the data we’ll know. Is Q2 or Q3 a better or worse predictor of sucess in the race?
Scootin159
30th April 2008, 15:44
That would be interesting to know. We should probably run the routine on last year’s data for a more accurate judgment. This would be a good use for one of those open F1 stats databases like we were referring to in a previous post.
Fred Schechter
30th April 2008, 17:03
Wow, so the most even is the Jenson Ruebens duo,, Jarno is the man (who knew?!) and Nico and Kubica are a wee bit better than we gave them credit for.
Great analysis Keith!!! (man that must’ve taken some time)
Rafael
30th April 2008, 19:54
Pagerank 6!!! It was a great update!
Bbbut
30th April 2008, 20:12
These statistics are pretty worthless and trying to analyse driver strengths with them is foolish.
I watch the races on German TV. Of course they do interviews with each German driver after each session.
I find it remarkable how often they talk about technical problems that hold them back and so on.
It is like half of them experience problems during a race weekend. I can only assume that this is the case with all the other drivers as well. But if there is a question mark behind every second drivers result, how can you learn anything from these comparisons? You just can’t!
Take Sutil’s qualifying in Barcelona for example. In his first run he matched Fisichellas time to almost the hundreds of a second. In his second run he was hold up by another car so he had to give up this run. And in the third run his brake disc bursted (he had been over 0.3 s faster in the first sector than Fisi).
So now, for the so called experts he lost 0:4 and they already writing him off the next years driver list. ;)
Like I sad, I am sure half of the drivers could tell you stories like this after a race (like turning down the revs "because mechanics see something in the telemetry" and so on).
That is why I stopped looking at these stats long ago. If you really want to judge drivers than read between the lines of an team managers interview.
Fred B
30th April 2008, 20:28
Be interesting to see comparative fastest race laps too.
Haplo
30th April 2008, 20:28
The exRenault guys are really trashing their partners.
You know what would be great? An analysis of everytime DC has crashed closing the door this season.
Becken
30th April 2008, 21:55
I had some doubts about Bourdais and he is doing great against Vettel.Nelson, despite some has said he would learn some tricks from Fernando, is the greatest deception.Something interesting about Mclaren drivers is that Lewis seems to be the “Mclaren man”. He is the only one that could fight Robert/BMW until now (AUST/SPAIN). When the mission remains to Heikki he fails absolutely (BAH/MALAY).
Alianora La Canta
30th April 2008, 23:25
I’ve now picked up the raw data (as well as the practise data; may as well do this thing properly!) and will set about analysing it as requested tomorrow.
Alex Andronov
1st May 2008, 6:47
Alianora you are a legend!
Alianora La Canta
1st May 2008, 14:37
I’ve has an e-mail saying D Winn’s looking at this data as well. It may well be that he finishes his calculations before me.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st May 2008, 14:45
Might want to hold your fire there Alianora I’ve had some stuff through from D Winn and someone else and it’ll be up on the site shortly. If you’ve got any extra stuff though please do send it!
Melanie
1st May 2008, 22:18
In the Kimi and Massa teammate stats, I assume that you have included Australia in the qualifying but not in the races. With the technical problems I would assume that Australia should either include both the qualifying and the race, or both qualifying and the race should just be excluded.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st May 2008, 22:23
Melanie – good spot, no Australia should have been included because, of course, Raikkonen finished. I’ll fix that.