[magon4]

After Vettel’s win in Bahrain, I’ve heard some comments that the young German „only wins when he’s on pole“ and lacks the ability to win races „from behind“. It is true that only 5 of his 22 victories have come from outside of the pole position, but the ability to start in 1st should also count – or shouldn’t it?
Well, I’ll leave the discussion to you. I did prepare some stats for us to comment on, taking into account all seasons and WDCs and comparing the pole/win performance in various ways. This is what I’ve got:
MOST POLE POSITIONS
1. Sebastian Vettel (2011) – 15
2. Nelson Mansell (1992) – 14
3. Ayrton Senna (1988) & Alain Prost (1993) – 13
5. Mika Hakkinen (1999) & Michael Schumacher (2001) – 11

LEAST POLE POSITIONS
1. Niki Lauda (1984) & Denny Hulme (1967) – 0
3. Jack Brabham (1959), Graham Hill (1962), Jody Scheckter (1979), Keke Rosberg (1982), Nelson Piquet (1983), Alain Prost (1986) – 1

MOST POLE POSITIONS PER RACE PARTICIPATED
1. Nigel Mansell (1992) – 14/16
2. Juan Manuel Fangio (1956) – 6/7
3. Ayrton Senna (1988) & Alain Prost (1993) – 13/16
5. Sebastian Vettel (2011) – 15/19

LEAST POLE POSITIONS PER RACE
1. Niki Lauda (1984) – 0/16
2. Danny Hulme (1967) – 0/11
3. Alain Prost (1986) – 1/16
4. Nelson Piquet (1983), Jody Scheckter (1979) & Keke Rosberg (1982) – 1/15

MOST WINS FROM POLE
1. Nigel Mansell (1992) & Sebastian Vettel (2011) – 9
3. Michael Schumacher (2004) – 8
4. Ayrton Senna (1991) & Ayton Senna (1988) – 7

MOST WINS FROM POLE PER POLE POSITION
1. Michael Schumacher (2004) – 8/8
2. Alberto Ascari (1952) – 5/5
3. Jenson Button (2009) – 4/4
4. Jack Brabham (1960) – 3/3
5. John Surtees (1964), Emerson Fittipaldi (1974) & Jochen Rindt (1970) – 2/2

LEAST WINS FROM POLE PER POLE POSITION
1. Niki Lauda (1977) – 0/2
2. Graham Hill (1962), Nelson Piquet (1983) & Keke Rosberg (1982) – 0/1
5. Phil Hill (1961) – 1/5

LEAST POLES CONVERTED IN WINS
1. Mika Hakkinen (1999) – 3/11
2. Sebastian Vettel (2010) – 3/10
3. Alain Prost (1993) – 6/13
4. Niki Lauda (1975) – 4/10
5. Ayrton Senna (1988) – 7/13

MOST WINS WITHOUT POLE POSITION
1. Michael Schumacher (1995) – 7
2. Michael Schumacher (2002) – 6
3. Jackie Stewart (1969), Niki Lauda (1984) & Michael Schumacher (2004) – 5

NO WINS WITHOUT POLE POSITION
Ayrton Senna (1991), Nigel Mansell (1992), John Surtees (1964), Mike Hawthorn (1958)

HIGHEST POLE-DEPENDANCY TO WIN RACES
1. Nigel Mansell (1992) – 9/9
2. Ayrton Senna (1991) – 7/7
3. Sebastian Vettel (2011) – 9/11
4. Ayrton Senna (1988) – 7/8
5. Alain Prost (1993) – 6/7

LOWEST POLE-DEPENDANCY TO WIN RACES
1. Niki Lauda (1984) – 0/5
2. Michael Schumacher (1995) – 2/9
3. Graham Hill (1962) – 0/4
4. Jackie Stewart (1969) – 1/6
5. Niki Lauda (1977) & Nelson Piquet (1983) – 0/3

[magon4]

i did this in the past few hours, so do correct mistakes you might find, please.

[magon4]

Two more basic stats, just to complete the picture:

MOST WINS PER RACES PARTICIPATED
1. Ascari (1952) – 6/7
2. Fangio (1954) – 6/8
3. Schumacher (2004) – 13/18
4. Clark (1963) – 7/10
5. Clark (1965) – 6/9

LEAST WINS PER RACE (from a WDC)
1. Rosberg (1982) – 1/15
2. Hawthorn (1958) – 1/10
3. Hulme (1967) – 2/11
4. Piquet (1987) – 3/16
5. Surtees (1964) – 2/10

[Kingshark]

Not taking anything away from your great effort to put these statistics together; but really, what point are you trying to get across?

[magon4]

You’ve got a point there @Kingshark.
But some things simply surprised me:
Prost really wasn’t good at getting poles and by the numbers didn’t really have a great year in 1993, comparing to Mansell’s 1992.
Vettel’s main difference from 2010 to 2011 was converting more of his poles into wins – but in those two championship seasons, he had 25 poles and “only” 12 wins, not even 50%.
Senna really relied on poles. 36 poles and 19 wins from pole is a slightly better performance than Vettel, but he only had 2 wins not coming from pole in his 3 championship years – two out of 21! Vettel had 4 ou of 11.
Schumacher shows to be a race pace man with great strategy – in his seven title seasons, he had a total of 50 poles (converting 34, thats more than Senna & Vettel), but he had 31 out of his 65 wins outside of pole – pretty impressive.
All in all, the numbers say a lot, I just found it interesting to provide the data.
But you’re right, no real point to it unless anyone picks up on something and goes from there…

[Andrew81]

When talking about Vettel’s apparent reliance on being on pole to win, his conversion of poles to wins isn’t really relevant, because you’re looking at it from the wrong way round. It’s also better to look at drivers’ careers rather than championship years. Here are his 5 non-pole wins… Abu Dhabi 2009 he inherited when Hamilton retired (though he did pass him in the pit stops). Malaysia 2010, he started third but was leading by the first corner. Brazil 2010, he started second and passed Hulkenberg (who was much slower than the leaders) on the first lap. Spain 2011, he deserves some credit; he started second, and was second behind Alonso after the first corner. He made some important (albeit fairly straightforward) overtakes on his out lap and passed the Ferrari before holding off Hamilton for the win. Korea 2011, he slipstreamed Hamilton on the main straight on the first lap. Also a mention for Italy 2011, where he started pole, but got passed by Alonso and had to repass him after the safety car. Nevertheless, you can see that on the rare occurrences where he won from somewhere other than pole, he was either in front after the first lap, or passed in the pit stops.

Compare this to Hamilton, for example, who has taken 8 of his 17 wins from outside pole position. Monaco 2008 (was slightly fortunate), Britain 2008 (started fourth, team orders to take lead, but dominated), Hungary 2009 (starts fourth, passes Webber, inherits lead from Alonso), Turkey 2010 (we know what happened here…), Belgium 2010 (inherited lead at start), China 2011 (series of overtakes to take win), Germany 2011 (battle with Alonso and Webber, including great overtakes), Abu Dhabi 2011 (inherited from Vettel). Add in races such as Germany 2008 and Canada 2010, where he started from pole and still had to race for victory and the difference is clear. Hamilton has demonstrated at least five times that he can fight for wins from further back, while Vettel has done it maybe once or twice last year.

The reason I have compared Vettel and Hamilton is that they have raced roughly the same amount of time and are both good qualifiers. Plus it’s usually Hamilton that gets brought up in this discussion anyway. I must also say that it was interesting looking through those stats on their own merit, e.g. Lauda taking no poles in 1984.

[magon4]

@andrew81 you make a very good point. Vettel still has something to show. I’m convinced he’ll show it, though.

[mnmracer]

While Andrew comes to a different conclusion, his story pretty much supports magon4’s conclusion: it is just a fable that ‘the great drivers’ lways win by fighting through the pack. As you listed, there’s only two races where Hamilton really won because of doing ‘much’ overtaking, so not because of failures or leading into the first corner: China and Germany 2011.

I actually did an article on this though (updated until 2011): Winning from the front

* Juan Manuel Fangio has never finished on a Grand Prix podium if he didn’t start from the first two rows.
* Ayrton Senna only won 2 races starting lower than the second row, and finished on the podium only 6 times not starting in the top 6.
* Out of his many wins, Michael Schumacher won only 6 races starting lower than the second row, and finished on the podium only 9 times not starting in the top 6.
* Juan Pablo Montoya, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have never won a race starting lower than p4.
* Fernando Alonso won only 3 races starting outside the top 4.

The only really relevant thing in this (kind of) discussion is not the numbers (which fail to take into account the circumstance), but the question: “when did a drivers (apparent) lack of overtaking skills inhibit a driver from winning.”

As this is usually a point of discussion by Vettel’s critics, the situation with him is that he usually puts his car where it belongs. It would be a valid point of criticism if Vettel is often racing around really fast, but then when he comes up to another driver, his progress stops; that’s not the case. If Vettel (like many of the other champions) are ‘in the back’, they are usually there because their car doesn’t have the pace, regardless of whether or not they are stuck behind another driver. However, if Vettel has a car that does have the pace, he puts it where it belongs: on pole position.

[Andrew81]

@mnmracer I would add Germany 2008 (had to pass Massa and Piquet after safety car put him back) and Canada 2010 (two passes for the lead on track) to Hamilton’s record, even though he started from pole in both races. But you are right to an extent; most races are won from the front. It’s just a case of demonstrating that you can also overtake to win, even if it’s only a couple of times. It is brought up in Vettel’s case in particular because of his domination in the last year-and-a-half, which has mostly been from pole. I hope we get a race this year where Vettel starts a bit further back with a car capable of winning, to see if he can prove himself. His pass on Rosberg at Australia this year was quite impressive.

[magon4]

On Alonso at Monza 2011 equally. That did help him to get the win.

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