Comments on: F1 2009: The year in stats (Part 1)

By: VXR

VXR — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:27:01 +0000

Of course the only ’stats’ that matters are the one that tell us which driver and which car came out on top.

By: Patrickl

Patrickl — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:18:42 +0000

Hamilton only once showed that he was fed up with the car. I’d hardly classify that as “throwing toys out of pram”

By: sumedh

sumedh — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:04:10 +0000

Can someone please tell Keith that it is off-season, he can take some rest

On a serious note, Red Bull should have decimated Brawn from Turkey onwards. They missed European, Belgian, Italian Grand Prixes. These 3 races really guaranteed Jenson the title.Many things happened during this part.
1) Renault engine broke down too many times
2) Force India rose out of nowhere
3) Mercedez engine showed that it was a class apart
4) Rubens Barrichello managed 2 wins in a car that was not the fastest.

By: Adam Tate

Adam Tate — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:37:17 +0000

Can there by any doubt now to how good Massa is? He finished third on the position change mark despite missing so much of the season! It took Heikki a full season in a much improved McLaren to score as many points as Massa had accumulated by Hungary! Were it not for the injury I suspect he would have been deep in the fight with Kimi and Lewis for best of the rest behind the Brawn and RBR guys and certainly had a victory or two. Sure would have shaken up the standings. But here’s to 2010!

By: Macca

Macca — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:16:37 +0000

Driver of the year for me would have to be Button but Webber would be a close second. With 69.5 points, Webber more than doubled his carrer tally. That to me shows he had a great year.

By: Alpha

Alpha — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:11:38 +0000

Thanks Keith, Nice stats and graph you’ve put together!

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:30:18 +0000

It highlight a few things about drivers though, Webber is really world class, despite all the negative comments that normally come from ‘f1 fans’…
It shows vettel is a true star but still needs time to develop.
It show Rubins got robbed by his team with strategy calls, and is still a great wheel man, even though the oldest on grid(age isnt a barrier), it also highlights that Button while WDC is not the greatest driver ever to win title.
Deserving yer..he did end up with most points and wins but he really went belly up when car wasnt perfect, where Rubins could drive the car and be competitive from start to end…
How many times did he had less than perfect car and still be in the hunt in races…or how he had weird pit calls..???

I am no LH fan but after he stopped throwing toys out of pram and had a better car he showed true grit, only bettered by Kimi IMHO as the Ferrari stop all development where Mclaren kept it going.

Sutil is a danger on the road, and Nico is over rated. Heikki was a disappointment and is lucky there is a host of new teams to fall back on.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:18:04 +0000

huh?

RBR retirements weren’t car issues really, apart from a few engine blowups the real problem had nothing to with car one bit…sure they had a performance dip but the car was still capable of points.
RBR lost the WDC and WCC in the pits and in front of the strategy screen.

The car itself was quite bullet proof.

By: wasiF1

wasiF1 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:54:11 +0000

How on earth does you get so much time to make stat like that,great job.

By: AP

AP — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:28:44 +0000

Can see the WDC was a real shot for Webber there at one point. Shame Red Bull had a mini self destruct mid season.
Had Webber not gotten 2 or so bad pit strategies and pit errors he would have scared the crap of Button.
He went from Valencia to japan with no points.

Lets say he only collected 3 each round he would have beaten Vettel.
At Spa he was in for good points, he should have finished in front of button at Valencia except for pit strategy call, Japan was really his own fault…could have been on podium for sure, Monza? who knows maybe a single point?
Add that up and look how he and mainly RBR missed their best shot at winning this year.

By: saffsd

saffsd — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:51:31 +0000

Interesting analysis as always!

Just out of curiosity, I’d like to see a graph of which race each driver dropped out of contention for the WDC. Maybe also for the Constructors’.

For example (if memory serves), Button would be 17, Barrichello 16, Vettel 15, and so on. I’d like to get an idea of if there was a particular race when the frontrunners broke away from the rest, or if drivers just drop out gradually during the season.

By: Maciek

Maciek — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:26:35 +0000

NIce stuff – especially the ‘points per’ and the drivers’ championship evolution – one other that would be great to see: driver lap-time consistency for the season. (Come to think of it, that will be much harder to quantify without refuelling next season.)

By: Mike "the bike" Schumacher

Mike "the bike" Schumacher — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:22:53 +0000

They wouldn’t have been in the title hunt if it weren’t for his aggressive designs. 2004 Mclaren were nowhere near the pace of Ferrari or even BAR, and the Renault engine is surely what cost Red Bull the title this season along with newey’s non-agressive decision to not use a double diffuser from the begining also some blunders from Vettel.

Hey keith, why not have a graph analysis of the predictions championship?

By: mp4-19b

mp4-19b — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:14:23 +0000

For Sure, he was horrendous in the 1st half.

By: mp4-19b

mp4-19b — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:17:19 +0000

I wondered at the start of the season if Newey would come up with a fast but fragile car as he has sometimes done in the past.

Newey always does that. Did it on numerous occasions when he was with Williams & McLaren.

No doubt he is the greatest designer of the modern era. But his aggressive designs have cost Williams & McLaren world titles, most notably in 1991,2004,2005 & now Red Bull.

By: PJA

PJA — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:48:49 +0000

I wondered at the start of the season if Newey would come up with a fast but fragile car as he has sometimes done in the past.

Also like in previous years its all very well saying if someone had had better reliability they would have been champion but if the team had gone for a reliability first approach they may not have been as quick as they were. It is often a trade off between speed and reliability.

By: Woffin

Woffin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:53:04 +0000

Exactly. Mark Webber 2009 F1 champion. Sounds quite cool actually. If only they didn’t have all those problems you mentioned

By: Ned Flanders

Ned Flanders — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:18:46 +0000

On the drivers championship graph, did anybody notice the huge big horizontal line stretching across Mark Webber’s season? He went 5 races without scoring!

I bet Red Bull will be kicking themselves over their mid season loss of form, 2009 was their one big chance to win the title and they blew it with their performances at Valencia, Spa and Monza in particular.

By: Ned Flanders

Ned Flanders — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:12:07 +0000

It shows how bad Hamiltons’ first half of the season was that despite all his poles his average grid position was only around 9th.

By: vettelfan

vettelfan — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:57:40 +0000

I noticed about Mark Webber’s DNFs too.

But other than that, good stats Keith. As you say though, the lap one position changes and the average position changes can’t be taken as just the stats alone as qualifying heavily influences that too.