[Driver] [History] Dominant Drivers

[Schummy]

My (naive) intention is to put in this thread some stat info about drivers/teams who are dominant in some way. I write "driver/team" (let's say DT) because the level of success is related to the performance of the driver and the performance of his car, as we all know.

As a starting point, I've done a graph showing the percentage of wins for each World Champion so far.



A sort of pattern can be seen, a V shaped line say us that in the early years and in the later years has had a higher level of domination by DT. Reversely, in the middle years the domination has been much lower.

I see several distinct zones:
1 - Ascari-Fangio years: the highest domination ever (and short championships).
2 - PostFangio-Stewart age: an average high domination during two decades.
3 - PostStewart-PreProstSenna age: low domination.
4 - ProstSenna-Schumacher age: another high epoch, with a peek with Schummy.
5 - PostSchumacher age: low DT domination again.

Zone 2 is produced by excelent drivers as Brabham, Clark, Stewart. After the retirement of Stewart and before the Prost-Senna era, appears a relative shortage of very great champions coupled with dominant teams. It's interesting to note how Lauda/Ferrari doesn't mark any significant high zone (however 1976 could be somehow affected by the infamous Nurburgring accident).

Zone 4 is produced by the arriving of a host of great champions and very dominant cars: Prost-Senna/McLaren, Mansell/"Active" Williams, Schumacher/Ferrari.

After the retirement (first retirement, that is) of MS, domination has lowered precipitously towards 70s level. Interestingly in 2011 Vettel/RBR can open a new epoch for higher domination, but will happen if Vettel becomes a really dominant driver and RBR continues going on strongly, or if appears a very strong team with a strong driver.

A kind of resume:
- Very high dominance: 70% or more percentage of wins.
- High dominance: 50% or more.
- Low dominace: about 30%.

With 2 or 3 more wins, Vettel would placed himself into the "high dominance zone".

[Purist]

If I'm not mistaken, Fangio has the highest winning percentage based on wins/F1 starts (24/51=47.06%).

Schumacher, by comparison, is at around 30%, with 91 wins to roughly 300 starts.

[MGDavid]

so where does that leave Senna, who topically (due to the film) is called the greatest of all time?

[Louis Agilais]

if you count backwards, from the "Schummy" caption (toppest) (assuming it's 2004, as it was his best year (ratio wins/GP Starts), one point per year, Senna's years are 88, 90 and 91: so it seems a litle above 50% in the first WC and then a litle above 0.4 in the next two (same figure for 90 and 91). Senna's years look like the beggining of the rising of the domination trend towards the Williams/Hakinnen/Schumi era, according to Schummy's (the poster) data.

Curious to note in the 60's and low 70's almost always high domination one year, no domination the next.

[mattt]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

so where does that leave Senna, who topically (due to the film) is called the greatest of all time?

Theres a different between greatest and dominant. dominance depends on the rest of the generation whereas greatness does not.

[Hawkwood]

Fangio surely is the most dominant ever, with 1 championship for every 10.2 races he took part in.
Makes everyone else's stats look amateurish (I know it was a different era - eg, shorter championships - but still, a simply phenomenal record regardless).

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by mattt

Theres a different between greatest and dominant. dominance depends on the rest of the generation whereas greatness does not.

disagree; the truly great, dominate. However as this scenario tries to grade the combination of team, car and driver then it's true that a great driver in a crap car will not look so dominant.

[mattt]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

disagree; the truly great, dominate. However as this scenario tries to grade the combination of team, car and driver then it's true that a great driver in a crap car will not look so dominant.

but if there's several "great" drivers, it is more difficult for one to dominate

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by mattt

but if there's several "great" drivers, it is more difficult for one to dominate

which period of the graph are you referring to?

[herowassenna]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

disagree; the truly great, dominate. .

I'm assuming you mean Schumi is the truly greatest ever then??? He had questionable competition, he had a subserviant in his teams other car. The only real challenge he had from team-mates in 1992 and 1995, they didn't appear the following year.
A team where funding wasn't in question, a team that had 2 exclusive test tracks and test team working to his glory. Bridgestone designing tyres exclusively for him...
I would list him in my top 10 drivers in history, but there's too many question marks about his F1 legacy.

As a matter of interest, what was his stats pre 2010 return?

[beau1]

Brundle and Herbert Challenged Schumacher? :S They were nowhere near him.

[Louis Agilais]

These seem to be year-by-year stats, so if you are interest in Schumacher stats you have from where his name is (2004) and count 4 more backwards. All Schumacher stats. Still, that's not enough, you still have to go to the 90's and examine two more: 94 and 95

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by herowassenna

I'm assuming you mean Schumi is the truly greatest ever then??? .....?

not at all, your assumption is wrong. I was speaking generally and semantically, and was not referring or alluding to any driver in particular. But don't forget, the OP wishes to discuss the combination of team and driver .

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by beau1

Brundle and Herbert Challenged Schumacher? :S They were nowhere near him.

Close enough to make him ask questions of his team boss and engineers.

Brundle's always been pretty candid about how good Schuey is/was, but I always felt he was being hard on himself and whilst doing so adding to the Schuey is miles better than everyone else myth unecessarily.

I like the emphasis in these stats of periods where there was no one dominant team/driver. Basically these were far more competitive, and more interesting periods for fans, as we are seeing at the present time.

[beau1]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Close enough to make him ask questions of his team boss and engineers.

Brundle's always been pretty candid about how good Schuey is/was, but I always felt he was being hard on himself and whilst doing so adding to the Schuey is miles better than everyone else myth unecessarily.

Well all you have to do is compare the stats of their season together. His dominance of his 'better' teammates such as Brundle is hardly a myth. Lets not forget it was Schumacher's first full season in F1 and he achieved Benetton's only victory and more podiums that his vastly experienced team mate (Brundle). Both of them retired from 4 races, Brundle was fairly beaten by a better driver...

In 1996, Schumacher moved to Ferrari and Herbert was never going to go there too.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Close enough to make him ask questions of his team boss and engineers.

Brundle's always been pretty candid about how good Schuey is/was, but I always felt he was being hard on himself and whilst doing so adding to the Schuey is miles better than everyone else myth unecessarily.

I like the emphasis in these stats of periods where there was no one dominant team/driver. Basically these were far more competitive, and more interesting periods for fans, as we are seeing at the present time.

Brundle had been testing for a week when they brought Schumacher forhis first test and he immediately was close to asecond quicker!
Martin has written that he was so demoralised that he was ready to go home and just pack it in!

Seb's taken how many points in the last ten races .....?

[chunterer]

Vettel isn't head and shoulders better than the rest, at the moment. The competition is stronger than in those periods when one car/driver won all the time.

However he is one of the best drivers in a damn good car, so the combo could end up being the next addition to the dominant combo half of fame. I just can't see McLaren and Ferrari (or even one or 2 other well heeled teams) allowing that to happen!

Certainly hope not as F1 at the moment is better for the openness.

[Schummy]

Following the subject of that graph, I have done a bit of calculation in order to a better comparison between the strongest "dominances". The calculations take in account the winning ratio and the number of GPs in the season. It is more significant to win 10 races out of 10 GPs that 5 races out of 5 (because this last case would be easier to be produced by a particular series of lucky events). In the same way, it is stronger to win 8 out of 10 that 4 out of 5 GPs.

2004 Schuey/Ferrari   0.629
1952 Ascari/Ferrari   0.623
1954 Fangio/Mercedes  0.582
1963 Clark/Lotus      0.573
2002 Schuey/Ferrari   0.572
1955 Fangio/Mercedes  0.518
1953 Ascari/Ferrari   0.516
1965 Clark/Lotus      0.514
1992 Mansell/Williams 0.510

The technique used is a bit involved with statistics, it takes in account the historical level of success of world champions in their titled seasons. The meaning of the index is the percentage of wins if the context of that season were prolonged along his entire career, i.e. Mansell is expected to have won 51% of races if he had enjoy the 1992 circumstances during his career. Only the cases >50% are showed in the table.

Schumacher 2004 and Ascari 1952 appears as the most dominant seasons ever. Ferrari, with 4 cases is the most highly dominant maker, Lotus and Mercedes follow with 2 cases (with the big help of Clark and Fangio) and Williams is the fourth maker, with its famous electronic car. Only Ferrari has been highly dominant in two different epochs and with two drivers.

[JeremySmith]

Great stuff Schummy! Thank you...

[Schummy]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

Great stuff Schummy! Thank you...

Thanks a lot, Jeremy!

BTW, as a by-product as former graphs/calcs I can show the evolution of number of GPs by year. It is not related to driver dominance but I think it is curious.



It is conspicuous that there are two "phases": almost linear expansion from 1950 until around 1975-76, going from 6-7 GPs to 15-16 Gps and a long plateau until recently at around 16-17 GPs. Those two phases are very neatly separated.

In the last seasons appears a slow trend to a new expansion. Bernie seems to want +20 GPs and there is an ongoing "trade" with several sectors in the sport to achieve this goal. In ten years or so we will see actually how the graph has evolved!

This is a sort of "self-offtopic"!

[Schummy]

Incidentally, in 1978 FOCA and Bernie began to take control of things...

In the 1950-1976 phase, the growth was pretty exactly exponential, that means the yearly expansion was mainly at a percentage basis; that's the reason the growth was a bit accelerated.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by Schummy

My (naive) intention is to put in this thread some stat info about drivers/teams who are dominant in some way. I write "driver/team" (let's say DT) because the level of success is related to the performance of the driver and the performance of his car, as we all know.

There are so many factors to consider, or course. I would extend the above by saying driver/car/team tactics (lets say DCT) make a huge difference to who appears to be dominant - and this inevitably varies year by year as different cars rise to technical dominance.

This year, for example, Vettel has had 7 poles in 7 races and 5 wins from 7 poles, so we consider that Vettel/Red Bull is dominant (so far - and presumably without any tactic to delay Webber's progress).

Though this season isn't over yet, the last driver/team to come close to Vettel in 2011 was Mansell with Williams in 1992, when Mansell achieved 14 poles in 16 races and won 9 races out of 16. Next best is Senna/McLaren in 1988 and then Prost/Williams in 1993.

However, if we look at wins from races, Schumacher/Ferrari/Tactics in 2004 managed 13 wins from 18 races (72.22%) (though only 8 poles/44.44%) and so far in 2011 Vettel has only managed 5 from 7 which is ONLY 71.43%!

Or do we look at how early in the season the championship was won? In which case, Schumacher/Ferrari/Tactics won in the championship in 2002 after only 11 of the 17 races. I mention the tactics here because Schui only managed 7 poles (41%) and 7 fastest laps (41%) though he won on 11 occasions. Incidentally, by my crude, unweighted analysis, Mansell in 1992 comes next by this measure as he won after 11 races out of 16 and Clark/Lotus 1963 comes 3rd because he had the championship wrapped up after 7 races out of 10.

Maybe drivers who win despite not having pole position should be regarded higher, because they might have done well despite inferior equipment? In which case Lauda/McLaren in 1984 won the championsip with no pole positions and 5 wins - and it took him until the last race of the season to clinch the championship.

Again, crude analysis with no weighting says that in 1952 Ascari/Ferrari won 75% of the races. Despite only being on pole only five times out of eight races he managed to set fastest lap in 6 races - overall a record not since beaten. At the other end of the scale, Keke Rosberg/Williams won the championship in 1982 with one pole, one race win and no fastest laps..... It took him all 16 races to win the championship though, which is probably no surprise!

Schummy - over to you to make some sense of this!

[Schummy]

phoenix, as you say, lots of factors and measures! (That's well, so we can go on putting numbers on it, it will never be the last word!)

About race wins against poles, it is a reasonable ratio to consider. Somehow, drivers tend to be in one of two classes: those clearly better in qualifying and those clearly better in fastest race laps. Both of them produce wins by two different ways. Senna and Prost come to my mind. Prost, Schuey, Alonso are best in race laps than in qualify. Senna, Vettel are better in qualify than in race laps. At the end of the day it is something like the difference between raw speed and strategy or race craft.

A very interesting subject that deserves attention, I agree. I'm going to see where is an old post with comparison between poles and fastest laps.

[Born Racer]

Brundle was often ahead of Schumacher in races in 1992 and gave him a reasonable challenge. Brundle could easily have won Spa had he spotted the tyre-change moment like Schumy did.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by Schummy

I'm going to see where is an old post with comparison between poles and fastest laps.

There are very few years (8/61) where there is a direct match between poles and fastest laps. More obvious is the fact that in 43 years, the championship winner scored more race wins than fastest laps and 7 years where the championship winner had more fastest laps than race wins and 12 years where the championship winner had the same number of fastest laps as race wins. Overall, I don't think the ability to set fastest race laps is that important in determining a champion or dominant D/C/T, most of the time.