2012 in statistics part one: The year in context

25 comments on “2012 in statistics part one: The year in context”

1. 

   vickyy (@vickyy)
   14th December 2012, 10:08

   Great stuff as usual.
   Best”est” site on F1, no wonder @keith you are being followed on twitter by 5 F1 teams :)
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      14th December 2012, 10:43

      @vickyy Thanks very much – hadn’t noticed that about the teams on Twitter, will go have a look…
   2. 

      Xusen (@xusen)
      14th December 2012, 11:42

      Agreed, great work Keith, I am on this more than any other and even during the off season it is worth a visit.
      Folks if you are buying f1 related presents at this time of the year, make sure you check out the shop section on here and help keep this site running.

      Another amazing stat is that Hamilton is the only driver to reach Q3 in every race of year, yet he finished 4th!
2. 

   Imre (@f1mre)
   14th December 2012, 10:24

   Vettel’s race average in 2012 is 1.2 places lower then Alonso’s, both of them had two DNFs and still Vettel scores the more points???
   Vettel’s race average was 3.44444 not counting the DNFs. Alonsos was 3.277777. If I counted right.
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      14th December 2012, 10:42

      @f1mre I suspect you’re discounting Italy where he was classified 22nd. That was obviously because he’d stopped with an alternator failure, but nonetheless he was still classified.
      1. 

         Imre (@f1mre)
         14th December 2012, 10:58

         Oh, okay. With Italy it is indeed 4.42 avg.
   2. 

      ^Mo^
      14th December 2012, 10:44

      Vettel was qualified as 22nd for the Italian Grand Prix, as he retired when he had completed 90% of the race. So that’s a big impact on the average finishing position.
3. 

   DD42
   14th December 2012, 11:31

   Is it just me that can’t see the points column for 2012 in the first table?
   1. 

      bosyber (@bosyber)
      17th December 2012, 11:49

      had the same thing initially: two ways to counter that, reduce font or widen browser window both worked for me. They might not be ideal for you :)
4. 

   ajokay (@)
   14th December 2012, 13:34

   Great stats Keith, amazing as always. Ahh 1994… the most drivers in any one season in recent memory. I have a little almanac book at home of the 1994 season. The driver profile section is endless.

   Which season holds the record for most participants? Is it possible to exclude the Indy 500 years, as that takes the tally artificially high, I feel.

   also an error in this paragraph:

   The last three season have been unusual in that the three most successful teams

   Should be ‘four’ teams.
   1. 

      Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
      14th December 2012, 23:35

      I haven’t a clue either! I suspect it would be during the 90’s, with participating car numbers often reaching the 30’s and many pay driver changes in those many awful teams – who failed to qualify frequently and then dissolved into nothingness (Pacific Racing for example).
5. 

   Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
   14th December 2012, 18:17

   @keithcollantine

   the last three seasons have been unusual in that the three most successful teams – Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes

   I assume you mean the four most successful teams?
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      14th December 2012, 18:25

      Yes, thanks.
6. 

   Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
   14th December 2012, 23:04

   This was my major gripe against Schumacher’s comeback: all he has really achieved is to lower his percentages. On a personal level the experience may have been valuable but the statistics will remember his comeback as a failure sadly.
   1. 

      AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
      19th December 2012, 19:42

      @vettel1 Statistics are over-rated. Those of us passionate about F1 will remember how he did. He did lower his percentage, but if that doesn’t matter to him I don’t see why it would matter to anyone else.
      1. 

         Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
         19th December 2012, 22:08

         @andrewtanner – I’m not disagreeing with you but given what he was aiming to achieve I don’t think he was successful. He probably gained respect though because he wasn’t winning all the time!
         1. 

            AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
            24th December 2012, 11:07

            @vettel1 I’d say that’s more a reflection on Mercedes’ dismal effort than Schumacher’s.
7. 

   OmarR-Pepper (@)
   15th December 2012, 17:32

   People say Vettel has better luck than Alonso and Hamilton, but see his stats in the “car failure column”, and you can see how Lewis and Alonso have both more reliability with their cars. How far are they from Senna though! It’s incredible to see how Senna could achieve so much with so big car failure %. I wonder what woudl have happened if Senna would have raced in the modern, reliable era.
   1. 

      bosyber (@bosyber)
      17th December 2012, 11:55

      It helped that Senna raced in an era when the reliability was generally lower though, still quite a feat I agree @omar-pepper – Vettel probably got most of those failure from 2010, while Hamilton had a really generally reliable car at McLaren, it’s just that it failed him this year at some high-profile times when it was really costly (as opposed to when his team couldn’t do pit stops, or at Silverstone ;). Alonso has had great reliability in his years at Ferrari – that’s something they learned during the Schumacher era and retained, it seems.
8. 

   Jon Sandor (@jonsan)
   15th December 2012, 20:59

   The most closely-matched team mates during this time have been the McLaren pair. Lewis Hamilton has held a clear upper hand in qualifying, though Button has reduced that margin of superiority in the race.

   A fascinating matchup, that. Two contrasting styles of racing driver, Button as “Steady Eddie” and Hamilton as “Roy Racer” – and they ended up in the exact same place results wise. I prefer Hamilton’s style of doing it though.
9. 

   Jon Sandor (@jonsan)
   15th December 2012, 21:03

   Fernando Alonso’s domination of Felipe Massa at Ferrari …

   .. leaves a slightly bad taste. There is ample precedent in F1 for one driver insisting on a doormat for a teammate, so Alonso is hardly unique in that respect. But it does make this sort of teammate comparison a little meaningless.
10. 

    Jon Sandor (@jonsan)
    15th December 2012, 21:13

    Those car failure stats are fascinating. Who would have guessed that “lucky” Vettel has had a worse failure rate than “unlucky” Hamilton? I wouldn’t. Sometimes the numbers contradict the conventional wisdom.
    1. 

       tmax (@tmax)
       17th December 2012, 19:26

       Very True. Hamilton himself thinks that he fares badly with respect to car failures. I mean he once commented on that. But Statistics shows that Vettel has double the failure rate than both him and Alonso. I would have never seen that. Even I believed Vettel had a good average there. Welll Numbers Speaks….. Thanks @keithcollantin
       1. 

          katederby (@katederby)
          2nd January 2013, 17:20

          Vettel and Alonso have a very close rate of car failures, about 1% worse for Vettel, not twice as bad. But yes, much worse than Hamilton’s.
11. 

    CGrin
    16th December 2012, 20:09

    Not related to the most recent championship results, but a clear standout for me was Jochen Rindt: more than 13 points per finish with a 55% car failure rate (yes, that really is 10x that of LH!). How do you remain motivated to deliver such a high level of performance when your car lets you down in more than half the races you start?

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