It’s also the first time a Brazilian driver has led the championship in 15 years, since Ayrton Senna topped the table after the 1993 Monaco Grand Prix. There was more good news for another Brazilian driver, Nelson Piquet Jnr, who finally scored his world championship points.

Ferrari, who dominated today’s race, now have a 17 point lead over BMW in the constructors’ championship.

Drivers’ championship

Felipe Massa 48
Robert Kubica 46
Kimi Raikkonen 43
Lewis Hamilton 38
Nick Heidfeld 28
Heikki Kovalainen 20
Jarno Trulli 18
Mark Webber 18
Fernando Alonso 10
Nico Rosberg 8
Kazuki Nakajima 7
David Coulthard 6
Rubens Barrichello 5
Timo Glock 5
Sebastian Vettel 5
Jenson Button 3
Sebastien Bourdais 2
Nelson Piquet Jnr 2

Not scored

Anthony Davidson
Giancarlo Fisichella
Takuma Sato
Adrian Sutil

Constructors’ championship

Ferrari 91
BMW 74
McLaren 58
Red Bull 24
Toyota 23
Williams 15
Renault 12
Honda 8
Toro Rosso 7

Not scored

Force India
Super Aguri

Call it the credit crunch, call it the sub-prime crisis, whatever you call it, I call it trouble.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what the consequences of the developing global economic downturn will be for Formula 1. But it’s hard to imagine them being good.

And to the pessimists it could look very bad indeed.

The car manufacturers

When I first began following Formula 1 in 1989 the only manufacturer-run team in the sport was Ferrari. Renault and Honda were both present as engine suppliers.

Today the car manufacturers account for six of the ten teams and supply all the engines. And much of that transformation has happened since the turn of the millennium. Consider when the each of the various manufacturer teams arrived in F1 in their current guises:

Ferrari 1950
Mercedes* 1995
Toyota 2002
Renault 2002
BMW 2006
Honda 2006

*As engine supplier to McLaren

The popularity of Formula 1 among the world’s car makers is undoubtedly part of the sport’s attraction. But however vast their budgets are, they are subject to the same financial forces as the rest of us.

The impact of the financial down turn on the car manufacturers is starting to become clear. Toyota, which has been gradually edging ahead of General Motors to become the world’s largest car manufacturer, revealed last week its profits in the first three months of the year were 28% down – substantially below expectations.

Only last winter we were hearing rumours that Toyota would can its F1 project if solid results didn’t materialise. All the manufacturers are in F1 to succeed – and they can’t all win the world championship. And, in the form of Max Mosley’s well-documented indiscretions, they all have the perfect excuse to leave.

Withdrawal

Whatever slick and glossy marketing spin they use to market their involvement in Formula 1, let’s be clear about one thing: for them F1 only has value as a marketing exercise. Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited are not using F1 to sell cars, they’re only in it purely to win it. Apart from Ferrari, who’ve been there since the start, you can’t say the same of the other manufacturers.

If F1 ceases to make sense financially, the manufacturers will simply up and leave. Renault did it in 1985 as a constructor and again in 1997 as an engine supplier. BMW did it in 1987 as an engine builder as did Honda in 1992. Others have left the sport and not returned, such as Ford and Peugeot, who currently feel other forms of motor sport (rallying and sports car racing respectively) fit their marketing needs better.

One might argue “yes, but most of them returned, which proves the enduring appeal of Formula 1.” That may well be the case – but if several of them were to abandon F1 at short notice, where will all the cars come from in the meantime?

On leaving the manufacturers couldn’t sell their old chassis to GP2 teams to run in F1, because that’s not allowed. And besides which they may not wish to leave their intellectual property lying around for others to grab – when Opel left the DTM in 2005 it refused to let anyone use its old cars for exactly that reason.

In the 1990s F1 had independent constructors and engine builders to fall back on. Today they are increasingly marginalised in Formula 1 – no independent constructor has won an F1 race in four years, since Juan Palo Montoya’s last hurrah for Williams at Interlagos.

Chain reaction

One manufacturer leaving could prompt others to do the same. If Toyota left would their fierce Japanese rivals Honda stay long? What about BMW without rival premium car builder Mercedes?

The loss of Super Aguri has left F1 with just 10 teams and 20 cars. This is believed to be the minimum number of entrants Ecclestone is required to bring to Grands Prix. If it fell below that, he may require two teams to each bring a third car.

And if that responsibility fell to regular points-scorers like Ferrari and McLaren the likes of Renault and Toyota could face the prospect of not scoring any points for the rest of the season while their rivals lock-out entire podiums. How well would that go down in their board meetings?

Recovery

A recovery in the markets would not necessarily improve the situation in Formula 1 overnight.

As Ron Dennis has pointed out, because the most valuable F1 contracts tend to be long-term deals, sponsors and the like may be forced to remain in F1 as the economic going gets tough, and already be long gone as the wider economy begins to recover.

The engine freeze regulations might add another unwelcome complication for manufacturers returning to the series or new ones joining. Engine development is presently banned for F1 teams. But if a new team were to join they could spend as long as they liked covertly developing a 2.4-litre 19,000 rpm V8 and hand themselves a whopping advantage when they do join in. Which would not go down well with their rivals…

Admittedly this is a deliberately pessimistic outlook on the future. But I do think the sport is vulnerable as the economic forecasts continue to worsen.

More on car manufacturers in F1

• F1′s new reason for cost cutting
• The FIA must solve the customer car problem
• Green F1: right idea, wrong approach
• Should Tata bring Jaguar back to F1?
• The Ben Evans column – DTM’s lesson for F1

I’ve had a rummage through the data and pulled out some interesting statistics and facts on the Turkish Grand Prix. Have I missed anything? Post your findings in the comments.

Plus the full drivers’ and constructors’ championship tables after round five.

Felipe Massa won his third Turkish Grand Prix in a row from his third pole position in a row at the circuit. Giancarlo Fisichella crashed on the first lap of the Turkish Grand Prix for the third race in a row.

Happily, Sebastian Vettel did not retire on the first lap for the third consecutive race this year, and was a classified finisher for the first time in 2008. He is the last driver to finish a race this year.

Massa’s seventh Grand Prix win puts him level with Rene Arnoux and Juan Pablo Montoya. It was also his 11th pole position and 20th podium finish, and he passed the 5,000 laps raced mark having now amassed 5,022.

Massa also has the best average starting position (see right) of 2.2. Robert Kubica is second with 3.2 as his fifth on the grid this weekend was his worst starting position of the year. There are some big gaps between team mates, particularly the Toyotas (Jarno Trulli 6.4, Timo Glock 14) and Renaults (Fernando Alonso 7.8, Nelson Piquet Jnr 14.8).

It was the 23rd consecutive race won by a McLaren or a Ferrari, which equals the all-time record held by the same two teams between the 1987 Japanese and 1989 United States Grands Prix. Of those, 19 were won by McLaren and four by Ferrari. This time, Ferrari have 14 and McLaren nine.

Heikki Kovalainen started from the front row of the grid for the first time in his career. Compatriot Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap for the second race in the row, his 27th, which puts him fourth in the all-time list of drivers with the most fastest laps, one behind Jim Clark.

Mark Webber scored points for the fourth consecutive race, which equals the best he has ever achieved. He scored points in the Bahrain, San Marino, Spanish and Monaco Grands Prix for Williams in 2005.

With Super Aguri no more the race saw the fewest entrants since the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix when there were also 20.

It was the 40th consecutive points-scoring finish for a Ferrari-engined car.

Alonso is poised to break the 500 points mark having now scored 499. Nelson Piquet Jnr finished 15th, Renault’s worst finishing position since Kovalainen in the French Grand Prix last year, who at least had the excuse of being hit on the first lap. The worst classified finish for a Renault car was Arnoux’s 16th in the 1982 Swiss Grand Prix (“Isn’t motor racing banned in Switzerland?” I hear you ask. Indeed it is – the race was held at Dijon in France).

Jenson Button completed his 100th race distance from 142 Grand Prix presences.

And last, but certainly not least, Rubens Barrichello set a new record for the most Grand Prix starts, with 257. He eclipses Riccardo Patrese’s mark of 256, which has stood since 1993.

Drivers’ championship standings

Kimi Raikkonen 35
Felipe Massa 28
Lewis Hamilton 28
Robert Kubica 24
Nick Heidfeld 20
Heikki Kovalainen 14
Mark Webber 10
Fernando Alonso 9
Jarno Trulli 9
Nico Rosberg 8
Kazuki Nakajima 5
Jenson Button 3
Sebastien Bourdais 2

Not scored

Rubens Barrichello
David Coulthard
Anthony Davidson*
Giancarlo Fisichella
Timo Glock
Nelson Piquet Jnr
Takuma Sato*
Adrian Sutil
Sebastian Vettel

Constructors’ championship standings

Ferrari 63
BMW 44
McLaren 42
Williams 13
Red Bull 10
Renault 9
Toyota 9
Honda 3
Toro Rosso 2

Not scored

Force India F1 Team
Super Aguri*

*Team has withdrawn from the championship

Felipe Massa’s love affair with the Istanbul Park circuit goes on. He took his third pole position in a row at the circuit where he scored his first in 2006. It leaves him perfectly poised to turn the trick again in the race tomorrow.

Joining him on the front row is McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen. He and Lewis Hamilton, third, held championship leader Kimi Raikkonen back for fourth.

With Super Aguri missing from the grid and only 20 cars participating, the first two stages of qualifying would see five cars eliminated instead of six, with ten progressing to Q3 as usual.

Part one

Giancarlo Fisichella led the charge at the start of the first part of qualifying, knowing that wherever he qualified he would lose three places on the grid following his penalty for going through a red light in qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton moved to the top of the times early on with a 1’26.192 and then stayed in the pits. It took the Ferraris several attempt to beat it, Felipe Massa eventually putting in a 1’25.994.

Also lapping quickly late in the session were the Toyotas with Jarno Trulli and Timp Glock rising to fourth and fifth in the dying moments.

The battle at the other end of the times sheets was even more fierce. Sebastian Vettel defied expectations to get into Q2, leaving his team mate Sebastien Bourdais and, not surprisingly, both Force India cars behind.

Kazuki Nakajima failed to beat Vettel by a tenth of a second but the bigger surprise was Nelson Piquet behind him in 17th, knocked out in the first session just as he was in Melbourne.

Bottom five drivers’ times for part one

16. Kazuki Nakajima 1’27.547
17. Nelson Piquet Jnr 1’27.588
18. Sebastien Bourdais 1’27.621
19. Giancarlo Fisichella 1’27.807
20. Adrian Sutil 1’28.325

Part two

Ferrari returned to the fore in the second part of qualifying with Kimi Raikkonen topping the times sheets ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Late in the session Robert Kubica’s BMW took over third.

Further back a poor lap from Timo Glock saw him 15th, a full second slower than team mate Jarno Trulli, and knocked out of qualifying. Vettel slotted in 14th behind the two Hondas.

The last driver knocked out was Nico Rosberg in 11th, the Williams now clearly lagging behind the Renaults, Red Bulls and Toyotas on raw pace.

Bottom five drivers’ times for part two

11. Nico Roberg 1’27.012
12. Rubens Barrichello 1’27.219
13. Jenson Button 1’27.298
14. Sebastian Vettel 1’27.412
15. Timo Glock 1’27.806

Part three

With BMW not showing the pace of previous races, and Renault not going as light on fuel as they did in Spain, the battle for the front two rows was entirely between Ferrari and McLaren.

A third straight pole position at the Istanbul circuit for Felipe Massa rarely seemed in any doubt. He was comfortably quicker than anyone else – especially Lewis Hamilton, who lost a second in sector two on his first attempt at a flying lap.

Hamilton elected not to run a lap on the softer option tyres, feeling they were running low on grip late in the lap. He did his final effort on scrubbed hard tyres and it was enough to lift him into third place – albeit behind his team mate Heikki Kovalainen, who did use the softer tyres.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth, three tenths of a section behind his team mate and just 0.007 off Hamilton.

Top ten drivers’ times for part three

1. Felipe Massa 1’27.617
2. Heikki Kovalainen 1’27.806
3. Lewis Hamilton 1’27.923
4. Kimi Raikkonen 1’27.936
5. Robert Kubica 1’28.390
6. Mark Webber 1’28.417
7. Fernando Alonso 1’28.422
8. Jarno Trulli 1’28.836
9. Nick Heidfeld 1’28.882
10. David Coulthard 1’29.959

You have to give credit to Force India – they’ve set themselves a target and they’re sticking to it. Here’s what Adrian Sutil said before the Malaysian Grand Prix:

Q2 is for sure my aim, and I really think we could make it this time.

Sound familiar? Here’s what Colin Kolles said previewing the Spanish Grand Prix:

Our targets this time out will be to reach Q2 in qualifying and to score points. We are working very hard to reach these targets and I am confident we will reach them sooner rather than later.

And sure enough in their Turkish Grand Prix preview it was Giancarlo Fisichella’s turn:

Of course at the moment the field is so close that one tenth of a second can mean the difference between Q2 and just missing out, so we have to make sure we are completely on top of the game.

This is not meant to scoff at them – they know where their car’s performance is and the realistic next step for them is to do better in qualifying. I fancy Fisichella’s chances of doing it at Monte-Carlo, where he’s usually quite handy and had his best qualifying and race performance last year.

But on raw pace at a track like Istanbul? I’m not sure. Toro Rosso, who many predicted to do well after winter testing, have also struggled and without the new STR3 this weekend it looks like the back rows of the grid will feature the familiar faces minus, of course, Super Aguri.

Exactly how the qualifying system will work with 20 cars is not explicitly clear but we can make an educated guess. The FIA Sporting Regulations say:

33 Qualifying practice
33.1 The qualifying practice session will take place on the day before the race from 14.00 to 15.00.
The session will be run as follows:
a) From 14.00 to 14.20 (Q1) all cars will be permitted on the track and at the end of this period the slowest seven cars will be prohibited from taking any further part in the session.
Lap times achieved by the seventeen remaining cars will then be deleted.
b) From 14.27 to 14.42 (Q2) the seventeen remaining cars will be permitted on the track and at the end of this period the slowest seven cars will be prohibited from taking any further part in the session.
Lap times achieved by the ten remaining cars will then be deleted.
c) From 14.50 to 15.00 (Q3) the ten remaining cars will be permitted on the track.
The above procedure is based upon a Championship entry of 24 cars. If 22 cars are entered only six cars will be excluded after Q1 and Q2.

Presumably with 20 cars participating five will be excluded after Q1 and Q2. That gives Force India and everyone else one car fewer to beat to make it through – but two of the cars they could have counted on beating will no longer be then.

If anything, Force India’s goal of reaching Q2 might now be even harder.

It comes two days after it was revealed Super Aguri’s transporters had been barred from entering the Istanbul paddock ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix. It emerged that Honda, who were istrumental in funding and setting up the team, did not want to incur any further costs from supporting them, and were not convinced by the Weigl Group’s efforts to save the team.

It’s bitterly disappointing to see F1 lose another team. I’d like to give my sympathy with the team’s dedicated staff (who are based at Leafield in Oxfordshire), who worked so hard to get Super Aguri on the grid in the first place, and kept them going despite being one of F1′s least well funded teams.

The sport is poorer without them, and their drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson.

Following the disappointing news that Honda are about to give their pet dog Super Aguri the Old Yeller treatment it looks as though Formula 1 will have just 20 cars for the rest of the season.

When I first started watching F1 in 1989 the series had just set an all-time record for the largest number of cars trying to qualify for a Grand Prix: 39.

So how many cars should be on an F1 grid? Is it a problem if there are more cars than there are places on the grid?

The era of mega-grids

The entry list for the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix dwarfed modern F1 entries:

Honda Marlboro McLaren – Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost
Tyrrell Racing Organisation – Jonathan Palmer and Michele Alboreto
Canon Williams Team – Thierry Boutsen and Riccardo Patrese
Motor Racing Developments (Brabham) – Martin Brundle and Stefano Modena
Arrows Grand Prix International – Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever
Camel Team Lotus – Nelson Piquet and Satoru Nakajima
Leyton House March Racing Team – Mauricio Gugelmin and Ivan Capelli
Osella Squadra Corse – Nicola Larini and Piercarlo Ghinzani
Benetton Formula – Alessandro Nannini and Johnny Herbert
Scuderia Italia (Dallara) – Alex Caffi and Andrea de Cesaris
Minardi Team – Pierluigi Martini and Luis Perez-Sala
Ligier Loto – René Arnoux and Olivier Grouillard
Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC – Nigel Mansell and Gerhard Berger
Equipe Larrousse – Yannick Dalmas and Philippe Alliot
Coloni SpA – Roberto Moreno and Pierre-Henri Raphanel
Euro Brun Racing – Gregor Foitek and Bernd Schneider
West Zakspeed Racing – Aguri Suzuki
Moneytron Onyx Formula One – Stefan Johansson and Bertrand Gachot
Rial Racing – Christian Danner and Volker Weidler
Automobiles Gonfaronaise Sportive – Gabriele Tarquini and Joachim Winkelhock

Of those 39 entries, one-third would not even start the race. “Pre-qualifying” (which ain’t been seen in these parts since 1992) would involve a group of the teams that had scored the fewest championship points in the previous year.

At Imola in 1989, nine drivers were out of the Grand Prix before qualifying proper had even begun: Weidler, Schneider, Suzuki, Raphanel, Winkelhock, Johansson, Ghinzani, Foitek and Gachot. A further four were knocked out in qualifying (Moreno, Danner, Arnoux and Alboreto), leaving 26 cars to start the race.

Thinning out their numbers

Why are there so fewer teams today? Largely because the cost of competing has rocketed, pushed up by the ever-increasing cost of buying success (wind tunnels, supercomputing systems for computational fluid dynamics research, etc…).

The FIA also placed a significant hurdle to entry for new teams in the form of a $48m bond that had to be lodged with them. The purpose was to keep out the undesirables – notorious marques like Andrea Moda and the later owners of Brabham whose dubious business practices harmed F1′s reputation.

How well these measures have worked is open to debate. The F1 field today boasts several major car manufacturers, while in 1989 there were only a few and they only operated as engine suppliers (Ferrari being the exception as usual).

But it is also very small and the future of some of these teams is in doubt – not only Super Aguri but also Toro Rosso, and we must not forget that the team that is presently Force India has had a different name in each of the last three years.

How many teams does F1 need?

Exactly what the FIA should do to increase the number of teams has been discussed here in a series of other posts about customer cars:

• Poll: Allow customer teams in F1?
• The FIA owe Prodrive an apology
• The FIA must solve the customers cars problem

What I want to know today is: how large do you think an F1 field should be?

Formula 1 races at some of the largest motor racing circuits in the world: Sepang and Shanghai are gigantic places, and F1′s 22-car grids look feeble when assembled together opposite the sprawling stands for the start of a race.

The FIA has strict limits on how many cars may be allowed on a track of a certain size, for safety reasons. But I think larger numbers of cars should be allowed at bigger tracks like, say, Shanghai, that can comfortably accommodate them. At somewhere like Monaco, on the other hand, the number of entries clearly needs to be smaller.

I think a 26 car grid should be F1′s minimum target. At tracks like Shangahi, Sepang, Bahrain and F1′s future venues in Abu Dhabi and India, surely 30 car grids or even larger should be possible?

To me the argument is simple: more cars in F1 equals more action on the track. And a lot of fans think the same – one of the widely-overlooked findings of the FIA’s surveys on Formula 1 (which they now seem to have lost interest in) was that 69% of fans want more teams in F1.

So let’s have some more teams. What do you think?

According to reports a Super Aguri transporter has been barred from getting into the paddock at Istanbul. Autosport claims this is because the team will not be racing next weekend.

Honda team principal Nick Fry told the magazine he does not believe the Weigl Group, who recently made a bid for the team, are able to support it.

Fry is believed to want to get rid of the team because he does not want to spend any more money on it. Honda spent $200,000 on ensuring the team was able to compete in the Spanish Grand Prix after a previous attempt by Magma Group to save the team collapse.

As has been discussed before on this site before it seems the manufacturers who jumped at the opportunity to set up ‘B teams’ a few years ago when it appeared customer cars were going to become legal are now dropping them as customer cars will not be allowed. Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz is also trying to sell his second team Toro Rosso.

Without Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson on the F1 grid will be down to just 20 cars, which is believed to be the minimum number Bernie Ecclestone is contracted to bring to Grands Prix. If another team were to disappear, three-car teams might be permitted in order to fill up the grid.

Thanks to D Winn and David Watkins who sent in further analysis of how each team’s drivers compare against each other in each part of qualifying, in response to yesterday’s comparison of team mates so far this year.

If you want to contribute an article to F1Fanatic, have a look at the guest post section.

Here’s how the drivers stack up so far in 2008 and how they did last year as well:

Ferrari

Qualifying 3 Kimi Raikkonen 1 – 3 Felipe Massa
Qualifying 2 Kimi Raikkonen 1 – 3 Felipe Massa
Qualifying 1 Kimi Raikkonen 1 – 3 Felipe Massa

BMW

Qualifying 3 Nick Heidfeld 0 – 4 Robert Kubica
Qualifying 2 Nick Heidfeld 1 – 3 Robert Kubica
Qualifying 1 Nick Heidfeld 2 – 2 Robert Kubica

McLaren

Qualifying 3 Lewis Hamilton 3 – 1 Heikki Kovalainen
Qualifying 2 Lewis Hamilton 2 – 2 Heikki Kovalainen
Qualifying 1 Lewis Hamilton 2 – 2 Heikki Kovalainen

Williams

Qualifying 3 Nico Rosberg 2 – 0 Kazuki Nakajima
Qualifying 2 Nico Rosberg 3 – 1 Kazuki Nakajima
Qualifying 1 Nico Rosberg 4 – 0 Kazuki Nakajima

Toyota

Qualifying 3 Jarno Trulli 4 – 0 Timo Glock
Qualifying 2 Jarno Trulli 4 – 0 Timo Glock
Qualifying 1 Jarno Trulli 4 – 0 Timo Glock

Red Bull

Qualifying 3 David Coulthard 1 – 2 Mark Webber
Qualifying 2 David Coulthard 1 – 3 Mark Webber
Qualifying 1 David Coulthard 1 – 3 Mark Webber

Renault

Qualifying 3 Fernando Alonso 3 – 0 Nelson Piquet Jnr
Qualifying 2 Fernando Alonso 4 – 0 Nelson Piquet Jnr
Qualifying 1 Fernando Alonso 4 – 0 Nelson Piquet Jnr

Honda

Qualifying 3 Jenson Button 1 – 0 Rubens Barrichello
Qualifying 2 Jenson Button 2 – 2 Rubens Barrichello
Qualifying 1 Jenson Button 2 – 2 Rubens Barrichello

Toro Rosso

Qualifying 3 Sebastian Vettel 1 – 0 Sebastien Bourdais
Qualifying 2 Sebastian Vettel 2 – 2 Sebastien Bourdais
Qualifying 1 Sebastian Vettel 3 – 1 Sebastien Bourdais

Force India

Qualifying 3 Giancarlo Fisichella 0 – 0 Adrian Sutil
Qualifying 2 Giancarlo Fisichella 0 – 0 Adrian Sutil
Qualifying 1 Giancarlo Fisichella 4 – 0 Adrian Sutil

Super Aguri

Qualifying 3 Takuma Sato 0 – 0 Anthony Davidson
Qualifying 2 Takuma Sato 0 – 0 Anthony Davidson
Qualifying 1 Takuma Sato 2 – 2 Anthony Davidson

2007 team mate qualifying statistics

Here’s David’s data on 2007. He explains: “I did the qualifying break-down session by session for the 2007 season. I only scored points when both drivers set a time in the same session and that time counted regardless of engine changes/penalties that affected grid position.”

Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen 22-24 Felipe Massa

McLaren

Fernando Alonso 27-23 Lewis Hamilton

BMW-Sauber

Nick Heidfeld 23.5-24.5 Robert Kubica
Nick Heidfeld 3-0 Sebastian Vettel

Renault

Giancarlo Fisichella 15-21 Heikki Kovaleinen

Red Bull

David Coulthard 8-22 Mark Webber

Toyota

Jarno Trulli 23-10 Ralf Schumacher

Williams

Nico Rosberg 22-2 Alexander Wurz
Nico Rosberg 1-0 Kazuki Nakajima

Honda

Jenson Button 11-16 Rubens Barrichello

Super Aguri

Takuma Sato 8-11 Anthony Davidson

Toro Rosso

Vitantonio Liuzzi 5-6 Scott Speed
Vitantonio Liuzzi 5-5 Sebastian Vettel

Spyker

Adrian Sutil 6-2 Christijan Albers
Adrian Sutil 1-0 Markus Winkelhock
Adrian Sutil 6-0 Sakon Yamamoto

Read more team mate comparisons for 2008 so far

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