F1 Fanatic

@mnmracer @freelittlebirds If I may try my hand at tackling this detractor issue…

Despite my previous associations with motorsport I am, in one of my jobs, for lack of a better word – a practical psychologist. (Not as different a profession as you might think). Or if you’re familiar with the term – an NLP coach.

People feel very attached with what they feel is “theirs.” Emotions run high in sport – and people feel very attached to who they choose to support. This embeds itself subconsciously in the human mind.

Look back now to 2008. People were hailing Vettel’s drive, and immediately calling him a future world champion. Some were lamenting “Oh poor him. Stuck in a Red Bull for next year.” Look to 2009 – no one was really detracting his speed (though he was rightly being berated for making on-track mistakes such as his clash with Kubica in Melbourne).

Come 2010 Bahrain – and no one complained of Vettel. A lot were feeling sorry for him losing a surefire win – and the bigger talking point was the rubbish on-track action of the Bahrain GP.

Then after we see a pattern of pole after pole after pole – THEN people started complaining and detracting.

Subconsciously – that “link” you have to your supported kicks in. It’s not a conscious thing – it happens in the background without you knowing it. Just like your brain is controlling your eye blinking and your heartbeats without your knowledge of it. Of course in your subconscious mind is already embedded that “The driver I support is one of the top 3/whatever F1 drivers” – and immediately the rest of the logic process kicks in.

“Hang on – I’ve never labelled this Vettel guy as better than Hamilton/Alonso/Raikkonen – and if his results are so much better than my Driver X; it can’t possibly be the driver making the difference, because obviously, I “know” (based on their subconscious anchor) that my driver is the best. Therefore it must be that he has an advantage. The car.”

Note that I’m not saying the Red Bull wasn’t quickest. But in my opinion a large part of the detractors have come from psychological reasons, rather than outright blunt logic. I’m not saying they’re all irrational buggers, but no one is immune to what the subconscious mind tells us.

@RBAlonso 14 poles, 13 fastest laps that season. Out of 20 races, 18 were wins, and the other were podiums (1 P2, 1 P3). (off wikipedia)

Forget obscene. That’s downright pornographic.

Ultimately, Vettel’s speed is inextricably tied to Webber as he’s spent his last 4 year on the same team with him. We can’t compare Vettel to Liuzzi nor DiResta to get a sense of his speed – we don’t know if Vettel’s really faster than those guys but he has been faster than Webber and Bourdain.

How fast were Webber and Bourdain?

Here’s what I had posted in another article abour Webber. Again, Webber’s speed is defined to a large extent by Vettel’s speed so we’re in a catch-22 with those 2 guys. You are fast, therefore I’m fast.

To be honest with you, I REALLY do not know how fast Webber is so I went through his career.

@freelittlebirds Hang on now – are you trying to look at performance? Or speed? Results do not indicate speed. Button beat Hamilton over the 2011 season, but Hamilton was still faster the whole way.

Of course… in 2000 Webber beat Alonso over a season of F3000, too. Both were rookies that year (Both had 2 fastest laps, both have 1 win, Alonso has 1 pole, Webber 0. Webber ended the season with 22 points, to Alonso’s 17 points)

If, again, we’re looking at speed only, let’s take a look at qualifying. Only a few races have qualifying data available. I have no idea why – I don’t follow F3000, never did! If I manage to find the missing gaps, or if you do – please help to fill in the gaps.

Round 4 Nurburgring
Webber 1:30.941 – Alonso 1:31.226 (0.285 gap, 0.31%)

Round 5 Monaco
Webber 1:29.954 – Alonso 1:30.986 (1.032 gap, 1.15%)

Round 7 A1-Ring
Webber 1:33.776 – Alonso 1:35.716 (1.940 gap, 2.07%)

Round 8 Hockenheim
Webber 2:12.261 – Alonso 2:12.758 (0.497 gap, 0.38%)

Round 9 Hungary
Webber 1:28.620 – Alonso 1:28.196 (0.424 gap, 0.48%)

Round 10 Spa
Webber 2:07.885 – Alonso 2:07.184 (0.701 gap, 0.55%)

If we combined all of these gaps to a single “superlap” then we’d get Webber doing a combined superlap of 10:23.437 (over 10 minutes) and Alonso doing a combined superlap of 10:26.066

The gap would be 2.629s over 6 circuits (average of 0.438s), which is 0.42%.

Source: http://www.f3000.com/results00.htm

PS: Alonso has the edge in 9 and 10, Webber in 4, 5, 7, 8

So to update the F3000 comparison above, it turns out Bourdais also competed back then, also a rookie. Just for the hell of it:

Round 4 Nurburgring
Bourdais 1:30.861 – Alonso 1:31.226 (0.365 gap, 0.40%)

Round 5 Monaco
Bourdais 1:30.739 – Alonso 1:30.986 (0.247 gap, 0.27%)

Round 7 A1 Ring
Bourdais 1:34.771 – Alonso 1:35.716 (0.945 gap, 1.00%)

Round 8 Hockenheim
Bourdais 2:12.309 – Alonso 2:12.758 (0.449 gap, 0.34%)

Round 9 Hungary
Bourdais 1:28.782 – Alonso 1:28.196 (0.586 gap, 0.66%)

Round 10 Spa
Bourdais 2:08.291 – Alonso 2:07.184 (1.107 gap, 0.87%)

Interestingly 9 and 10 are where Alonso edges ahead again.

Combined superlaps:
Bourdais – 10:25.753
Alonso – 10:26.066
Gap – 0.313 to Bourdais (average of 0.052s), which is 0.05%

Quite surprising really. I didn’t think Bourdais would hold up that well…

@freelittlebirds What do you mean, that actually was great research? Is it not a given that whatever I post is good and great and reliably awesome? :P

Do you know if they were qualifying on the same tires? Some of the deltas sound really high.

I don’t know! Lol. All I know of F3000 is whatever Wikipedia gives us, and the numbers from those websites. From what I understand, each other gets to do 2 laps in a shootout format – then the better time is taken as their qualifying time.

it suggests that Alonso was a late bloomer

No, it doesn’t. It just suggests that Alonso, in 2000, was a weaker qualifier than Webber and Bourdais (slightly less so Bourdais). Whether he has progressed or stagnated in terms of qualifying speed, we don’t know.

That year, they qualified as such:
Alonso – 11 – dq6 (disqualified FROM 6th) – 17 – 20 – 13 – 3 – 15 – 6 – 3 – 1
Webber – 3 – 2 – 16 – 16 – 7 – 7 – 3 – 3 – 11 – 7
Bourdais – 8 – 13 – 15 – 13 – 2 – 1 – 9 – 4 – 16 – 14

Source: http://dizzy1000.tripod.com/intl00stats.htm

That means their average qualifying positions (albeit not the best indicator of form) would be:
Alonso – 9.5
Webber 7.5
Bourdais – 9.5

@Kingshark I hear you.

Firstly though – we’re not talking of completeness or anything. We’re just talking b*lls out speed comparison.

The fact that Alonso is 5 years younger is only half-relevant – because that is something that will never change. He is, and forever will be – 5 years younger. Same with experience. If someone now says “look – Alonso outqualified Massa” no one ever goes “well yeah but Massa has had less seasons in F1…”

Sadly, therefore – this F3000 record is the most recent info that we have on Alonso vs Webber in equal machinery. Unless anyone has karting times from when they’re doing a charity race or somesuch.

Like I detailed at the start of the thread – there is no single correct methodology on this. Do it one way and someone slams you. Do it another way, someone else slams you. It’s a no-win scenario.

In fact if you read that post you’d see that I was the first to say the info would be outdated.

Heidfeld IIRC did beat Webber on points until Pizza Boy stepped in his place – that is true. But how is this different to Trulli-Alonso? If we’re to take the 2005 season in a snapshot, for Webber vs Heidfeld, then we should for Alonso’s 2004 too. You could argue – “Well hey, 2003 went to Alonso; shouldn’t we take that into account?” True, but you have to take things as they come, in the sense that until Trulli’s summary dismissal, he was beating Alonso in the 2004 Renault (as opposed to the 2003 Renault)

It’s a dicey one – because as I’ve said in the past, it’s never as clear cut a case as “Driver A is faster than Driver B” – it always is “Driver A is faster than Driver B in Machine X.” The way a driver’s style suits the machinery has to be taken into account. Just because Alonso beat Trulli in the 2003 Renault, doesn’t mean he will in the 2004 Renault.

My personal feelings being that if Rosberg and Webber went up against each other again in equal cars, Rosberg would win.

I don’t begrudge you that opinion. I personally think it will be closer than most people think. But this thread is trying to quantify these – not feel them.

Another issue I’ve brought up is – who is a benchmark? Some say that because Hamilton stood up to Alonso over a season in 2007 – it proves him to be able to equal to Alonso over a season. Fair enough. Don’t dispute that. But why is Alonso a benchmark?

Again I’m not slating Alonso here – but we’re talking in a logical roundabout that never ends. You could say, “Alonso is a benchmark, because he beat Massa Trulli Fisichella Piquet.”

Ok that’s nice. But in a roundabout fashion – why are Massa/Trulli/Fisichella/Piquet benchmarks? Because they beat XYZ. Why is HE a benchmark? So on and so forth. There is no absolute reference frame in relativity.

Note again that I’m only using Alonso as an example – and not to slate him.

In the same fashion, we could apply it to Webber.

Webber’s bad/good/average, because he beat/equalled/couldn’t beat Driver XYZ. So why is that a good benchmark? Well Driver XYZ beat/equalled/lost to Driver ABC. So why? And yadda yadda yadda.