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RB7 vs MP4-26 – was it really that big a difference? (17 posts)

Topic tags: jenson button, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, mp4-26, rb7, Sebastian Vettel

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magon4 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

after this season’s conclusion, i’m opening this thread to get some input from you guys on how to go about comparing these two cars based on hard facts.
it used to be my belief that the best comparison between two cars take place when you evaluate what the 2nd best driver in each race was able to do with it in qualifying and race pace. if i were to do this for 2011, it would virtually be a tie between these two cars.
i could also do an average of all qualifying times in q2 and q3 (q1 can’t really be taken seriously) for both cars of each team, which probably would also show only a slight advantage for the RB7 – which has been perceived as being faster on one lap than for a whole race.
so i started asking myself if the rb7 was really that much superior.
i want to do the number crunching – what would you suggest me to do to try to answer this question based on facts?

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magon4 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

well i couldn’t wait… seems no one is really interested or i was just in a hurry.
i computed all qualifying times in q2 and q3, giving twice as much weight to q3. with some exceptions (webber’s q1 exit in china, button’s q2 exit at spa) i used the same differences to their team mates to keep it consistent.
in silverstone, the rb7 was much stronger than the mp4-26, by a margin of 1,2 seconds. only four other races had a 0,5 second difference or above; there were even 5 races were mclaren obtained better times than red bull, most clearly in korea and japan.
all in all, the average lap time of a rb7 in q2 and q3 (with weight 2) was 1:29.024, against 1:29.296 for the mp4-26. a 0,272 difference, which makes this statistically a somewhat significant difference, but by far not comparable to other supercars who crushed the opponents in the past.
and if you take into account that the race pace had a perceived lower difference, it would be wrong to assume that the red bull was really that much better than the mclaren.
i would argue that vettel had a lot to do with what he achieved, it surely doesn’t seem the case that the car gave him the title.
still, i hope for an even lower difference next year, around 0,1 seconds over a full season would be a dream!

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

Well I think it’s quite clear that the difference in points between Vettel and Button, or even RBR and McLaren, is not the size of the difference of the cars.

In terms of your methodology, the faster RBR and the faster McLaren should make a better comparison – it’s better to compare a McLaren on the limit, and an RBR on the limit. The slower driver will mean that you’re comparing the driver that is underperforming; and underperforming to different extents. The faster guy will be closer to 100%.

The problem is – we don’t know who’s driving at 100% or not. Sure they’re all pushing, but what if, for example, one guy is not as good as the other? What if 1, for example, is getting 99.9% out of the car. The other, for example, is getting only 99%. That already skews the picture.

I’ve tried at another forum to initiate civilized discussion on the matter, but it only started a fanboy shootout.

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magon4 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

well the numbers seem to indicate that vettel got more out of his rb7 than hamilton or button out of their mp4-26.
these numbers show it beautifully:
vettel’s average laptime for 2011 in q2 and q3 (with weight 2 for q3) was 1:28.838.
hamilton had an average of 1:29.185, webber 1:29.210 and button 1:29.407.

to get an average laptime 0,347 better than hamilton speaks for the rb7.
for webber to be slightly slower than hamilton over the year and no even 0,2 seconds faster than button speaks for vettel.

i’m not arguing that the two cars were on the same level, but i am making the point that this season vettel made the difference, not the car. in other words, we would have had an exciting season if vettel were driving the mp4-26, and he might have been wc even with that car.

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@magon4 don’t get me wrong. I agree with you 100%.

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Kingshark said 1 year, 5 months ago:

Occasionally Mclaren had a faster car, although usually RBR was the team to beat. Who really had the best car? Every race was different, although this would be my opinion:

Melbourne:
1. Red Bull, 2. Mclaren, 3. Renault

Malaysia:
1. Red Bull, 2. Mclaren, 3. Ferrari

China:
1. Red Bull, 2. Mclaren, 3. Mercedes

Turkey:
1. Red Bull, 2. Ferrari, 3. Mercedes

Spain:
1. Red Bull, 2. Mclaren, 3. Mercedes

Monaco:
1. Mclaren, 2. Ferrari, 3. Red Bull

Canada:
1. Ferrari, 2. Mclaren, 3. Red Bull

Europe:
1. Red Bull, 2. Ferrari, 3. Mclaren

Great Britian:
1. Ferrari, 2. Red Bull, 3. Mclaren

Germany:
1. Ferrari, 2. Red Bull, 3.Mclaren

Hungary:
1. Mclaren, 2. Ferrari, 3. Red Bull

Belgium:
1. Red Bull, 2. Mclaren, 3. Ferrari

Italy:
1. Mclaren, 2. Red Bull, 3. Ferrari

Singapore:
1. Red Bull, 2. Mclaren, 3. Ferrari

Japan:
1. Mclaren, 2. Red Bull, 3. Ferrari

And the rest of the season was pretty much Red Bull, Mclaren, Ferrari, in that order.

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@Kingshark it’s very difficult to say though. We’ve seen many times this year, that the pecking order is different in qualifying and the race; and also on the different compounds.

For example I’d say Spain, the order would be Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari in qualifying. In the race, at least on the harder tyres, you could see that given the way the McLaren was able to just look after their tyres; they could maintain their lap times for longer; and as you could see at the end of the race Hamilton was catching Vettel by 1.5s/lap. And Barcelona is NOT a circuit where a driver can make a difference.

I’d agree with most of your choices though. Except probably Germany. Germany I remember very well everyone was having trouble switching on the hard tyres. Lewis moved to the hard tyres and Webber and Alonso couldn’t come close to him. He just started streaming away.

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rdpunk said 1 year, 5 months ago:

Ultimatly you have to say Red Bull because they won the constructors championship but a majority of that was because of a certain germans dominance. It is difficult to compare as there is so many independant varibles that change, like tyres, track, drivers, accidents, penatlies ect. You could also compare that Red Bull have been quicker over the single lap but Mclaren haven’t been, which as a result put them in a position where the car had underperformed. This knocks on to the race where the Mclaren have to make up lost ground ect.

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Todfod said 1 year, 5 months ago:

I would have to disagree with @Kingshark. I do not think the Ferrari was the fastest car at any race this year. Maybe at Britain the exhaust gas ban helped them more on Sunday, but it was still a Red Bull hunting ground.

Mclaren was the fastest car on many Sundays – China, Spain, Monaco, Canada, Germany, Hungary Japan. They were the fastest car on atleast 3 sundays as well. To be honest neither Button or Hamilton capitalised on their opportunities as they should have, while Vettel did on every occassion. That is what made the Red Bull look so much more dominant than the Mclaren, when it reality it the margin wasn’t all that exaggerated.

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Todfod said 1 year, 5 months ago:

Argh! Why doesn’t the edit feature actually work?

They were the fastest car on atleast 3 *saturdays as well.

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Eggry said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@Todfod Yeah, I also think Ferrari wans’t the fastest car even at Britain. of course we know Alonso won and there was exhaust bad but I think it was quite lucky. In my opinion, Alonso was just the fastest in critical moment of the race, not whole time. There was also misfortune of Vettel.

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magon4 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

I’d conclude that the RB7 was only slightly better than the MP4-26 and hope next year it is the other way around. If it were to be a competitive season, this would prove even more that what Vettel achieved in 2011 was very special indeed.

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Kingshark said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@Todfod and @raymondu999

Ferrari have always been better in the race than in qualifying, or in 2011 at least.

In Australia and China Ferrari were some 1,4 seconds slower than Red Bull in qualifying, yet only 3-5 tenths slower in the race.

In Monaco and Canada Ferrari were very much on par with Red Bull, if not quicker. In Britian and Germany, Ferrari had the best car in my opinion. In Hungary, they were equals to Red Bull, and not much worse than Mclaren.

In Belgium, they started to decline, and than continued throughout the season, although they were damn compitive in Japan.

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raymondu999 said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@kingshark I won’t argue with Canada; nor Britain. Monaco is very difficult to read because of the tyre strategies of the top 3 drivers. Germany I take issue with – they couldn’t get the primes switched on quickly even if their life depended upon it. It was a race where no team could do it quickly – not even Red Bull. Ferrari even worse off. The McLaren however was able to just kill the primes. (By kill meaning set super fast times).

If you look back at the race, it was very competitive; until Lewis bolted on the harder tyres. At that point it was really a one-horse race

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Deleted User said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@Todfod agree. I don’t think Ferrari were ever the best car. The best chance they had pace wise I feel was Canada given that even Massa was fighting for pole but then the rain came and that chance went. At Silverstone I feel it was RBR who was still the strongest and apart from those two races Ferrari barely got a look in.

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