The F1 thread

TimmyO

TimmyO said:

<googles>

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11561837/jenson-button-joins-sky-sports-f1 ;

holy jesus fucking forum 

TimmyO

TimmyO said:

TimmyO said:

<googles>

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11561837/jenson-button-joins-sky-sports-f1 ;

holy jesus fucking forum 

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11561837/jenson-button-joins-sky-sports-f1

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Cols said:

Here’s a couple of chilling statistics:

Lewis Hamilton has won over 50% of the races since the hybrid era began.

For all his outstanding skill, Juan Pablo Montoya only won 7 races in his F1 career.

It's a measure of Mercedes reliability, the skill of Hamilton, and none of his rivals as drivers and teams being able to top the Hammy-Mercedes package. 

Er .. tell that to Rosberg .. :-)

Clearly talking about the entire hybrid era, not one season.  When broken down into the three years that they were in the same team: 

2014. LH 384 to 317. Poles 11-7 NR. Wins 11-4 LH. Champion LH. 
2015. LH  381 to 322. Poles 11-7 LH. Wins 10-6 LH. Champion LH. 
2016. NR 385 to 380. Poles 12-8 LH. Wins 10-9 LH. Champion NR. 

Overall: 

Points 1145 to 1024 = LH win
Poles 34-22 = LH win
Wins 32-19 = LH win
Championships: 2-1 = LH win

Jesus ... I give up. I make a mildly funny comment (Rosberg dines out on his win as if he is Schumacher - I'm the only guy to beat Lewis) and you go all data on me. You do this a lot .. you have too much time on your hands .. I knew what you meant.

Shakes head and leaves ..

Fretwired

stickyfiddle said:

Button is with Sky, not C4

I have no idea why I typed C4 .... they only have highlights. bat the British GP.

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

Jesus ... I give up. I make a mildly funny comment (Rosberg dines out on his win as if he is Schumacher - I'm the only guy to beat Lewis) and you go all data on me. You do this a lot .. you have too much time on your hands .. I knew what you meant.

Shakes head and leaves ..

'cos the data simply reinforces how dominant Hamilton has been.  And going all data in a sport that is all about data is better than me turning into some of the Hammy fans on the BBC HYS section

Cols

Ross Brawn seems to agree on the lack of competitiveness being immensely damaging to the sport, highlighting that only once in 2018 did a driver outside the Big Three (Sergio Perez) finish on the podium.  It would be nice if some of the words resulted in substantial action.

F1 podium domination by top teams is unacceptable - Brawn - Reuters https://apple.news/AlZ4w2OQgQPGCeAy9iB9HKQ

prowla

There's always one car that's way better than the rest; they'll never stop that.

stickyfiddle

prowla said:

There's always one car that's way better than the rest; they'll never stop that.

Of course, the main problem is reliability. When the top 6 have easing reliability, the chances of anyone else getting in the top 3 tends to zero.

Cols

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

Jesus ... I give up. I make a mildly funny comment (Rosberg dines out on his win as if he is Schumacher - I'm the only guy to beat Lewis) and you go all data on me. You do this a lot .. you have too much time on your hands .. I knew what you meant.

Shakes head and leaves ..

'cos the data simply reinforces how dominant Hamilton has been.  And going all data in a sport that is all about data is better than me turning into some of the Hammy fans on the BBC HYS section

If you just went on data, you would conclude that Sir Stirling Moss and Gilles Villeneuve were pretty average drivers.

sinbaadi

stickyfiddle said:

prowla said:

There's always one car that's way better than the rest; they'll never stop that.

Of course, the main problem is reliability. When the top 6 have easing reliability, the chances of anyone else getting in the top 3 tends to zero.

Irrespective of whether it's an underdog on the podium or not as a result, I don't like to see races decided by unreliability.  Creating more unreliable top 3 team cars might on paper make it look like it was a better season, but in reality apart from the roulette breakdown element it would be just as dull.

FX_Munkee

prowla said:

There's always one car that's way better than the rest; they'll never stop that.

And there's a good argument that it was a Ferrari this season.

stickyfiddle

sinbaadi said:

stickyfiddle said:

prowla said:

There's always one car that's way better than the rest; they'll never stop that.

Of course, the main problem is reliability. When the top 6 have easing reliability, the chances of anyone else getting in the top 3 tends to zero.

Irrespective of whether it's an underdog on the podium or not as a result, I don't like to see races decided by unreliability.  Creating more unreliable top 3 team cars might on paper make it look like it was a better season, but in reality apart from the roulette breakdown element it would be just as dull.

Sure, though I don't mind the odd last-lap engine blow up tbh. If nothing else it added an element of suspense that we do't often have now.

We also have a good number of wide open "car park" circuits, meaning mistakes go relatively unpunished too. How many times in a weekend does someone spin off only to rejoin having only lost a handful of seconds. In the past they would have been out. I get why circuits want open runoffs for bike racing and track days, but it's a bit of a shame for car racing.

I miss gravel traps

Boromedic

Wiz'd and one could argue that one mistake was the turning point in this year's title race when Vettel went off into the gravel at Hockenheim under pressure from Lewis.

Fretwired

stickyfiddle said:

sinbaadi said:

stickyfiddle said:

prowla said:

There's always one car that's way better than the rest; they'll never stop that.

Of course, the main problem is reliability. When the top 6 have easing reliability, the chances of anyone else getting in the top 3 tends to zero.

Irrespective of whether it's an underdog on the podium or not as a result, I don't like to see races decided by unreliability.  Creating more unreliable top 3 team cars might on paper make it look like it was a better season, but in reality apart from the roulette breakdown element it would be just as dull.

Sure, though I don't mind the odd last-lap engine blow up tbh. If nothing else it added an element of suspense that we do't often have now.

We also have a good number of wide open "car park" circuits, meaning mistakes go relatively unpunished too. How many times in a weekend does someone spin off only to rejoin having only lost a handful of seconds. In the past they would have been out. I get why circuits want open runoffs for bike racing and track days, but it's a bit of a shame for car racing.

I miss gravel traps

I do prefer wider run off areas as in the past a car would beach in the gravel or if it had an engine problem it may stop in the gravel and it could take ages to move it. And a minor mistake could mean a car is out of the race.

Stewards could simply give a penalty for exceeding track limits - may it a tough one such as a drive through penalty.

Octafish

Cols said:

Ross Brawn seems to agree on the lack of competitiveness being immensely damaging to the sport, highlighting that only once in 2018 did a driver outside the Big Three (Sergio Perez) finish on the podium.  It would be nice if some of the words resulted in substantial action.

F1 podium domination by top teams is unacceptable - Brawn - Reuters https://apple.news/AlZ4w2OQgQPGCeAy9iB9HKQ

Ha, ha, says one of the key men behind the Ferrari/Schumacher boreathon of the early-mid 2000s and who was behind putting the pieces in place for the current Mercedes 'superteam'. The main reason there used to be more podiums place outside the top 2-3 teams was due to unreliability, the current engine limitation rules have if anything encouraged much greater reliability.

not_the_dj

Balance of performance, reverse grids and success ballast ;-)

Fretwired

not_the_dj said:

Balance of performance, reverse grids and success ballast ;-)

Hoses ... if the race is boring soak the track.

Cols

Sports thrive on unpredictability.  If the result of the race is pretty much a foregone conclusion, less people will be inclined to lash out a few hundred quid for race tickets or spend two hours in front of the telly on a Sunday afternoon.  This has a knock on effect on team finances, as sponsors will drift away due to the lack of exposure.

The manufacturer teams and Red Bull can absorb this as they’re largely self funding.  For the independent teams sponsorship is their lifeblood, and this further degrades their ability to compete.

stickyfiddle

Cols said:

Sports thrive on unpredictability.  If the result of the race is pretty much a foregone conclusion, less people will be inclined to lash out a few hundred quid for race tickets or spend two hours in front of the telly on a Sunday afternoon.  This has a knock on effect on team finances, as sponsors will drift away due to the lack of exposure.

The manufacturer teams and Red Bull can absorb this as they’re largely self funding.  For the independent teams sponsorship is their lifeblood, and this further degrades their ability to compete.

Yep. To use a somewhat obvious analogy, football can be interesting to watch because whoever is playing, you know there's a chance either side could win. Barnsley aren't likely to beat Chelsea, but there is a chance of it, and there's at least a possibility that they'll still knock in a goal or two on the way to getting trashed. 

In modern F1 you know that Mercedes or Ferrari will win and Williams/McLaren/Sauber will be at the back unless something really weird happens. 

Heartfeltdawn

Cols said:

If you just went on data, you would conclude that Sir Stirling Moss and Gilles Villeneuve were pretty average drivers.

I quite agree. Data doesn't tell you everything. It's why I say that Colin McRae was a truly great driver despite the solitary world title, and why I say that some of Alonso's drives with Ferrari were better than anything he did in title winning cars. 

In this instance of the Rosberg-Hamilton years at Mercedes, I went with data alone because that in itself nails home the case for how good Hamilton was. That would bring me to another point about the stats I posted: Hamilton managed to beat Nico in all metrics despite having 6 retirements to Nico's 4 over 2014 to 2016. 

So if data alone says that Hamilton has been dominant, then you go with the stories behind some of that data. Number of pole positions tells you so little of the story.