More data. I have added the seasons back to the beginning of the post Senna-Prost era, i.e. from 1994.
I also have added some new columns.
Code:
Year WC CIX1 CIX2 NW %DW SDIX Wins
2011 VET 2.68m 3.35m 5 58.9% 1.08 11,3,3,1,1
2010 VET 4.16p 4.75 5 26.3% 0.68 5,5,4,3,2
2009 BUT 4.18p 5.10p 6 35.3% 0.91 6,4,2,2,2,1
2008 HAM* 4.33p 5.43p 7 33.3% 0.89 6,5*,2,2,1,1,1
2007 RAI 3.47 3.88 4 35.3% 0.79 6,4,4,3
2006 ALO 3.00 3.67 5 38.9% 0.78 7,7,2,1,1
2005 ALO 3.11 3.81 5 36.8% 0.76 7,7,3,1,1
2004 SCH 2.22m 2.61m 5 72.2% 1.16 13,2,1,1,1
2003 SCH 5.25p 6.30p 8 37.5% 1.17 6,2,2,2,1,1,1,1
2002 SCH 2.06m 2.60m 4 64.7% 0.99 11,4,1,1
2001 SCH 3.00 3.72 5 52.9% 1.06 9,3,2,2,1
2000 SCH 2.53m 3.16m 4 52.9% 0.93 9,4,3,1
1999 HAK 4.38p 5.28p 6 31.3% 0.84 5,4,2,2,2,1
1998 HAK 2.38m 2.89m 4 50.0% 0.85 8,6,1,1
1997 VIL 3.47 4.38 6 41.2% 0.92 7,5,2,1,1,1
1996 HIL 2.63m 3.26m 4 50.0% 0.91 8,4,3,1
1995 SCH 2.76m 3.53 5 52.9% 0.99 9,4,2,1,1
1994 SCH 2.38m 2.89m 4 50.0% 0.85 8,6,1,1
New columns are:
%DW = percentage of wins for the dominant driver.
SDIX = SuperDominant Driver Index, LOL another bombastic name
. It's an obscure index that I'll try to explain later. Basically, it tries to mean the drivers who won more races that were statistically expected. For the moment, let's consider it as a curiosity
The added seasons are mostly monotonous, 4 or 5 monotonous against just 1 plural season. It was probably the worst F1 epoch in terms of race predictability. LOL, the only "good" season was 1999... because poor Michael broke his leg, otherwise...
The only other "reasonably fought" season was 1997, when the dominant team (Williams) began to have opposition from other teams... and its drivers were not particularly dominant.
An interesting by-product of that table is to see how the more winning driver always won the title, except the (in)famous 2008. Even the three times that the WC tied his numbers of wins, he had won counting back 2nd, 3rd,..., positions. The funny thing about it is that the three times that there were a tie in numbers of wins, Alonso was involved in them! (his two titles and in 2010, where he lost to Vettel).
The %WD percentage is a certain measure of the predictability of race winners. For example, in 2011 Vettel won 58.9% of the races. It means that betting for him (that is the optimal betting) had won 58.9% of the bets. Thus 2011 winners have been predictable 58.9% of times. Obviously, the lower value for %WD, the more unpredictable are race winners.
As you can see %WD is pretty much correlated with "monotonous" or "plural" seasons. %WD > 50% results in a monotonous championship, while the cut point for a plural championship is about %WD < 35%. In short, years with predictability more than one half are monotonous, years with predictability lower than one third are plural.