[Race] Team Mate Battles - German GP

[ottostreet]

A little bit later than usual, but here is the external link to the article on FormulaSpy.

Marussia:

It’s very interesting to hear Jules Bianchi describe his race start in Germany as ‘very poor’…he only lost one position off the line. High expectations then, but expectations that were not going to be met, as even though Jules recovered from his mediocre getaway to be in 18th place approaching the first stops, his engine wasn’t particularly interested in working as hard as the Frenchman. Chilton was a second slower than Bianchi in Q1, and solidly behind in the race.

Chilton may not be causing issues for the team in the way of accidents and repairs, nor does he seem to be dangerously slow, but at this moment, halfway through their first season in F1, Jules has the biggest advantage over a team-mate of any of the drivers.

Fastest lap: 1-0 to Max Chilton
Qualifying: 1-0 to Jules Bianchi
Race: 1-0 to Jules Bianchi



Caterham:
Pic outqualified Van Der Garde, but had to start at the back due to a gearbox change, and so the initial advantage was handed to the under-fire Dutchman. He certainly made the most of it at the start, jumping past Bianchi & Valterri Bottas, and even passing Jean Eric Vergne on the first lap. The cards played out well for him during the race too, being able to unlap himself behind the safety car, to start the second half of the race from 16th place.

Running a very long final stint meant Charles Pic was able to pass Giedo as Van Der Garde’s tyres faded in the final laps, but it was a competent drive from a man who badly needed one. The bad news for Giedo though, is that Charles was able to unlock much more single lap pace, in both qualifying and the race, by almost a second.

Fastest lap: 1-0 to Charles Pic
Qualifying: 1-0 to Charles Pic
Race: 1-0 to Charles Pic



Toro Rosso:
A race to forget for the Toro Rosso boys. Ricciardo qualified excellently on the Saturday to line up 6th, but fell backwards during the race, complaining of no grip as the temperature rose. Vergne hadn’t qualified well to begin with, and lost 4 places during the opening laps, to even be behind the Caterham of Van Der Garde. He only made it to Lap 23 before the team retired him due to hydraulic issues, but it was a particularly off-colour event for Vergne, at a time when the performances of the STR drivers will be inspected minutely.

Ricciardo didn’t have a great race, but it was better than Vergne’s. Those quali performances are keeping him ahead in the race for Red Bull.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Daniel Ricciardo
Qualifying: 1-0 to Daniel Ricciardo
Race: 1-0 to Daniel Ricciardo



Sauber:
The Sauber looked altogether more hooked up at the Nurburgring. The consensus on the explanation for the increased pace was down to the revised tyre construction suiting the Hinwil squad better, and Nico, in particular, upped his game to match.

Hulkenberg was one of the stars of the race, qualifying a respectable 10th place, before putting his defensive skills firmly in the shop window, holding the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton at bay in the mid-section of the race. Indeed, Lewis had to wait until Nico pitted to make his way past.

Despite a much better race than one he has grown accustomed to recently, Nico was disappointed after the race, saying he had thought the car would be faster and have more pace. Gutierrez fared little better than usual, qualifying and finishng 14th.

Hulkenberg is driving to save his career at the moment. With the apparent financial struggles of Sauber, there doesn’t seem to be much long term stability there, and he will be doing his utmost to get out of the Sauber, and into a stronger seat as soon as possible.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Nico Hulkenberg
Qualifying: 1-0 to Nico Hulkenberg
Race: 1-0 to Nico Hulkenberg



Williams:
Not a terrible showing for Williams, Maldonado was all set to score the team’s first points of the year, until his final pitstop went all wrong. Employing a two stop strategy, he went into the pits on lap 50 in 7th place, and emerged in 16th place, having lost around 15 seconds during the stop. Valterri had out qualified Pastor, but had lost places at the start. To make matters worse for the Finn, both of his pitstops were also disastrous, losing around 12 seconds on the first, and 25 seconds on the 2nd and costing him a lot of track position.

Both drivers showed good race pace, as well as being able to make their tyres last, but were both badly let down by pitstop problems. Both drivers are awarded half a point for their races, as there was little between them at the Nurburgring.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Valterri Bottas
Qualifying: 1-0 to Valterri Bottas
Race: 0.5 point to each driver.



Force India:
A very disappointing weekend for the Force India team, having had some strong outings recently. Neither car made it into Q3, and neither made it into the points, despite Massa spinning himself into retirement, despite a safety car bunching the field, and despite Mark Webber’s issues. Paul outqualified Adrian at Sutil’s home race, but the two ran close together for most of the race. Both employed a two stop strategy, and, while Adrian couldn’t make the tyres last and switched to a three stopper, Paul looked on for points in the latter stages, with his two stop strategy working out a little better.

However, Paul was to lose two places in the final few laps, and ultimately finished outside the points. Unusual for Force India to be beaten comprehensively by McLaren, as well as by a Sauber. They’ll be hoping for better at the Hungaroring.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Adrian Sutil
Qualifying: 1-0 to Paul Di Resta
Race: 1-0 to Paul Di Resta

McLaren:
Things didn’t look good on Saturday, with Button scraping into Q3, while Perez was under pressure right from the start in Q1, but Sunday was one of McLaren’s better race days so far this year.

Sergio had a great start to the race, jumping from 13th up to 7th before his first stop on lap 7. With the race essentially reset by the safety car, Sergio had a very long final stint on his tyres, over 35 laps, and looked like it was going to pay off handsomely, running in 5th place with ten laps to go. As his tyres faded, he was unable to hold off Jenson, Lewis & Mark, but it was a great drive in which he, yet again, showed Button he wasn’t afraid to go wheel to wheel.

Jenson, equally, had a strong drive, but was mugged by Lewis on the final lap, due to Button getting held up the duelling Caterhams towards race end. Getting overtaken around the outside by an ex team-mate has to sting a little bit, but a strong drive from the McLaren #1.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Jenson Button
Qualifying: 1-0 to Jenson Button
Race: 1-0 to Jenson Button

Jenson Button has scored 33 out of 49 points for McLaren, 67% of their points.
Sergio Perez has scored 16 out of 49 points for McLaren, 33% of their points.
Sergio Perez has scored 48% of Jenson Button’s points total.



Lotus:
Either Lotus driver could have (and probably should have) won on Sunday. Raikkonen was hampered by Lotus’s decision to pit him slightly too early on his first set of tyres, while Romain showed what could have been achieved. Had Kimi stayed out just a handful of laps longer in the opening stint, then he wouldn’t have had to make the final pitstop with ten laps to go. However, the early stop placed Kimi back in traffic behind Lewis, which cost the Finn around ten seconds, and allowed Romain to lead him fair and square on track.

Equally, Romain could have attacked Sebastian with great gusto, had he not had to stay behind Kimi in the opening laps. At this tense stage of contract negotiations, can you imagine having to be the one to ask Raikkonen to move aside and allow Romain through? Those valuable seconds lost behind the Finn cost Romain the lead, and possibly, the win.

The unfortunate thing for Lotus is that both drivers performed to a great standard, with both delivering potentially race winning performances. The faster driver got stuck behind the other at different stages of the race though, and as a result, Lotus cost themselves a 1-2, all because they didn’t have the courage to tell Kimi to move over. Kimi didn’t do anything wrong, but the race point is awarded for Grosjean for putting the interests of the team ahead of his own.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Kimi Raikkonen
Qualifying: 1-0 to Kimi Raikkonen
Race: 1-0 to Romain Grosjean

Kimi Raikkonen has scored 116 out of 157 points for Lotus, 74% of their points.
Romain Grosjean has scored 41 out of 157 points for Lotus, 26% of their points.
Romain Grosjean has scored 35% of Kimi Raikkonen’s points total.



Mercedes:
Lewis all round this weekend. Even with the safety car bunching the field up during the race, Nico finished twenty seconds down on Lewis. Hamilton beginning to get to grips with his new steed and putting some daylight between himself and Rosberg, or was this just a once-off? Nico will certainly hope to be closer to Lewis in Hungary.

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Lewis Hamilton
Qualifying: 1-0 to Lewis Hamilton
Race: 1-0 to Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton has scored 99 out of 183 points for Mercedes, 54% of their points.
Nico Rosberg has scored 84 out of 183 points for Mercedes, 46% of their points.
Nico Rosberg has scored 85% of the points total of Lewis Hamilton.



Ferrari:
Felipe has received the dreaded ‘vote of confidence’ from Ferrari. Was Sunday the death knell for a driver that has spent far too long occupying a seat he can no longer handle? Or is Felipe suffering from odd Ferrari setups, which may be on a knife edge? Felipe out qualified Fernando, although neither were running at full pace, but then made another rocket of a getaway to be three positions clear of Alonso on Lap 4. Entering the hairpin, the Ferrari locked up under braking and speared left off the track…just like he did twice at Monaco, only this time there was no Armco to hit.

Felipe had done a great job up to that point of the weekend, that’s undeniable. Has he changed his braking style, causing these recent ‘opposite to the corner direction’ lock-ups? Driver errors of that magnitude are unforgivable at this level. We can only rely on his word, which is that of admittance of a driver error. If it isn’t driver error, then why is Felipe allowing himself to be the scapegoat and publicly ridiculed?

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Fernando Alonso
Qualifying: 1-0 to Felipe Massa
Race: 1-0 to Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso has scored 123 points out of 180 for Ferrari, 71% of their points.
Felipe Massa has scored 57 points out of 180 for Ferrari, 29% of their points.
Felipe Massa has scored 46% of the points total of Fernando Alonso.



Red Bull:
Yet again, the two Red Bulls get separated by external factors when it looks as though battle may actually break out between them. Up until Lap 9, Sebastian and Mark had done all they could do, beating Lewis off the line, and setting about pulling away. Mark’s race was undone by another pit debacle, while Sebastian didn’t put a wheel wrong to deny Lotus the win.

Still waiting for the day where Sebastian and Mark are battling for the race win with only a handful of laps to go…

Fastest Lap: 1-0 to Sebastian Vettel
Qualifying: 1-0 to Sebastian Vettel
Race: 1-0 to Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel has scored 157 points out of 250 for Red Bull, 63% of their points total.
Mark Webber has scored 93 points out of 201 for Red Bull, 37% of their points total.
Mark Webber has scored 59% of the points total of Sebastian Vettel

Totals:
Marussia: 24-3 to Jules Bianchi
Caterham: 21-6 to Charles Pic
Toro Rosso: 14-13 to Daniel Ricciardo
Sauber: 21-6 to Nico Hulkenberg
Williams: 18.5-8.5 to Valterri Bottas
Force India: 15-12 to Adrian Sutil
McLaren: 16-11 to Jenson Button
Lotus: 21-6 to Kimi Raikkonen
Mercedes: 16.5-10.5 to Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari: 20-7 to Fernando Alonso
Red Bull: 24-3 to Sebastian Vettel

Until the Hungarian GP…

[wnut]

Thanks for the analysis Otto.

The Maldonado / Bottas figure is really interesting.

Maldonado is really quick, so it begs the question how good is the inexperienced Bottas. Very I would hazard.

[ottostreet]

Cheers. I'm going to be changing the points weighting during the 4 week gap after Hungary. Going to work my way through each article then to change the scoring. Some gaps will increase, some decrease.

Bottas is really putting Maldonado in the shade so far this year IMO. Considering Pastor's experience, a gap shouldnt exist at all really.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by ottostreet

Cheers. I'm going to be changing the points weighting during the 4 week gap after Hungary. Going to work my way through each article then to change the scoring. Some gaps will increase, some decrease.

Bottas is really putting Maldonado in the shade so far this year IMO. Considering Pastor's experience, a gap shouldnt exist at all really.

As far as weighting goes Otto, do you think that fastest race laps matter?

Once strategic race position is no longer important it is always easy to start show boating.

Being nit picky could you break the figures down? i.e.

Name: Quali/ Fastest Lap/ Race Result/ Tot - Tot Quali/ FL / Race Result

For example with fictitious figures

Bottas: 10/5/3 18 - 13 3/5/7 Maldonado

Thanks it is a very interesting analysis it is amazing to see how the numbers often differ from idle perception.

[ottostreet]

I'm going to keep some recognition of fastest lap from the race, as individual single lap pace during the race is still important...just not as important as I've made it with current weighting.

1 point for fastest lap, 3 points for qualifying, 5 points for race.

I'm going to be changing the formatting of the articles too, to make them a little easier to follow who's scoring points where, much like your suggestion wnut...thanks very much for the feedback!

[wnut]

Thanks Otto, nice to see an open minded person!

That seems like a pretty good scoring system Otto, look forward to seeing the fruits of your labour!