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It’s half time break coming up and I thought I would look at how things are shaping up. Below you see the teams: First the official score, then converted to the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system (it seems best for comparison with the past), and finally teams’s results expressed as share of the total available (10×25=250 under the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system).

RBR   277   81   32%
Mer   208   57   23%
Fer   194   50   20%
Lot   183   51   20%
FIn   59   5   2%
McL   57   5   2%
STR   24  1   0.4%
Sau   7   0
Wil   1   0
Mar   0   0
Cat   0   0

Some observations:
1. RBR leads by pretty much any points system. Which makes me wonder: There are two major influences on the standings, first, points awarded, second, different systems for dropping worst races. How about calling a championship (WCC or WDC) “indisputable” if it holds under all point systems and also under worst race dropping as applied in the past? I’d love to know how what results are indisputable and how stats would change by going from system to system, but I do not have data in a proper form and time to work it out. Any takers?

2. RBR is doing reasonably well. Here’s results from the past years (Red Bull’s final WCC standings):
2009: 28%, 2010: 32%, 2011: 44%, 2012: 27%.
So it would seem that this year shapes as a sort of middle way for Red Bull, not as dominant as 2011, not as tight as 2012.

3. Of note is McLaren’s result, measly 2 percent. This is the single worst result for the team since they started to run two cars in 1968, and you can take it both ways, either comparing with a final score, or with points earned after the first 10 races a season.
To put things in perspective, Ferrari has never been so bad, again comparing both with seasons totals and totals after the first ten races.

Has there ever been a team that would sink so low and them make it back to the top? Yes, twice, but in both cases it took a change in ownership and team name. Honda had a slump in 2007-8 and won the next year as Brown, admittedly using a trick. The second case I could find was Benetton getting low in 2001, winning a few years later under the name Renault. Will McLaren become the first team to climb back up again in its original form? My guess is that yes, they seem to be too strong to fall.

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