The winners of the team mate battles in 2014

2014 F1 season review

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Drivers have little room to hide when being compared with their team mate – their only rival who has the same car.

While some drivers easily had the beating of their team mates in 2014, at other teams the two were much more evenly matched.

As a result some teams faced difficult decision over which of their drivers to drop for the squad, keep for next year or – in the case of Red Bull and Toro Rosso – promote to the top team. In the latter case Jean-Eric Vergne not only missed out on his chance to move up but lost his seat as well – meanwhile his former team mate will be driving an RB11 next year.

McLaren, however, are yet to confirm whether Jenson Button or Kevin Magnussen will be retained for 2015.

Four key pieces of data have been used below to compare how each pair of team mates performed during 2014: who qualified ahead (ignoring penalties and sessions where one driver did not set a time), who finished the race ahead (ignoring non-classifications), how many racing laps each spent ahead of the other, and who scored the most championship points.

Too close to call

Sauber: Adrian Sutil vs Esteban Gutierrez

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Last year Esteban Gutierrez was soundly beaten by Sauber team mate Nico Hulkenberg. But this time with the benefit of a year’s experience Gutierrez fared better alongside new team mate Adrian Sutil – to the extent they could hardly have been a closer match.

However the fact neither of them managed to score any points, despite arguably having had opportunities to, will have been a greater concern for Sauber. Replacements for both drivers have already been announced for next year.

Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg

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Mercedes were so far ahead of their rivals, and their racers were so evenly matched, the battle for the drivers’ championship seldom involved any other competitors. And while the team were concerned unreliability might play a deciding role, that turned out not to be the case.

Nico Rosberg became the first of Lewis Hamilton’s team mates to out-qualify him over the course of a season since Fernando Alonso in 2007 – and that was back when drivers qualified with their starting fuel loads. However Hamilton was usually he quicker of the two on race day, and often made that advantage count: hence his eleven wins to Rosberg’s five.

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Toro Rosso: Jean-Eric Vergne vs Daniil Kvyat

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Jean-Eric Vergne was dropped by Toro Rosso at the end of the season while his team mate Daniil Kvyat gained a promotion to Red Bull. That may seem harsh given how closely-matched they were, but it was partly a question of circumstance.

Vergne was in his third season with the team, Kvyat his first, and when Red Bull got sufficiently excited about Max Verstappen’s potential to place him in a car for next season, Kvyat’s greater potential understandably led to him being retained.

Then came the surprise news of Sebastian Vettel’s departure from Red Bull, which led to Kvyat being promoted. Carlos Sainz Jnr, who had already been passed over for Vergne, then won the Formula Renault 3.5 championship – something no Red Bull junior driver had done before – giving him a strong claim on Kvyat’s now-vacant seat. Sainz sealed the deal with a successful test at Yas Marina.

Williams: Felipe Massa vs Valtteri Bottas

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In his second season of F1 Valtteri Bottas showed up very well once again. However towards the end of the season Felipe Massa looked to be back to his best and finished ahead of his team mate in the last three races.

One driver ahead

Red Bull: Sebastian Vettel vs Daniel Ricciardo

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Daniel Ricciardo’s successful first season at Red Bull and the defeats he inflicted on four-times champion Sebastian Vettel made him one of the most talked-about drivers in 2014, and deservedly so.

The contest between the two wasn’t quite as one-sided as it might have seemed – Vettel defeated Mark Webber at the same team much more emphatically last year. But nonetheless Ricciardo more than justified his promotion to the four-times champions – a move which some questioned when it was announced last year.

Lotus: Romain Grosjean vs Pastor Maldonado

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Pastor Maldonado endured a difficult season after moving to Lotus – Romain Grosjean usually had the better of him.

McLaren: Jenson Button vs Kevin Magnussen

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If McLaren do decide to retain the youth of Kevin Magnussen over the experience of Jenson Button for next year it will be a tough verdict on Button. Particularly in light of his emphatic superiority in the all-important measure of which driver finished ahead the most.

Force India: Nico Hulkenberg vs Sergio Perez

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Nico Hulkenberg led the way at Force India but Sergio Perez settled in well and was responsible for the team’s best result of the season – third place in Bahrain. Both drivers had respectable years.

The dominators

Marussia: Jules Bianchi vs Max Chilton

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The 2014 season at Marussia was a continuation of what we saw last year when its drivers were rookies. Jules Bianchi was comfortably the quicker of the two, until that awful crash in Japan.

Caterham: Kamui Kobayashi vs Marcus Ericsson

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Given his experience, Kamui Kobayashi’s superiority over Marcus Ericsson was to be expected. However Ericsson was starting to look more comfortable with the car, and particularly its braking system, before the team ran into trouble.

Andre Lotterer and Will Stevens made one-off starts during the season: Lotterer out-qualified Ericsson at Spa but retired, while Stevens lined up behind Kobayashi in Abu Dhabi but made it to the flag.

Ferrari: Fernando Alonso vs Kimi Raikkonen

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The most one-sided team mate battle in 2014 occurred at the only team with two world champions in its line-up. Fernando Alonso was rarely headed by Kimi Raikkonen, who despite a couple of false dawns never got the Ferrari F14 T handling to his liking.

It would have been fascinating to see whether Raikkonen might have fared better against Alonso with the benefit of a second season at Ferrari, or whether he would have been humbled by Alonso in the same way Massa was during their four years as team mates.

But with Alonso moving on, Raikkonen will now go up against another champion – Vettel – in what promises to be one of the most absorbing driver duels of 2015.

Over to you

Which driver surprised you by beating their team mate in 2014? What do you expect to see from the new driver line-ups for 2015?

Have your say in the comments.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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90 comments on “The winners of the team mate battles in 2014”

  1. Wow Alonso wiped the floor with Raikkonen…

    1. kimi and Seb have had their light dimmed a little bit. Well, not a little bit but a lot, but at least these 2 have the chance to regain some of that next year as team mates. Having said that though can you imagine what a defeat will do to one of these 2? For Kimi it will be virtually the end for him and he will leave the sport and this time for good. For Seb a defeat will ensure that we never again hear him mentioned as an All Time Great.

      1. @blackmamba

        For Seb a defeat will ensure that we never again hear him mentioned as an All Time Great

        I don’t think that is true, WDC wins are generally more memorable than losses, particularly when they are losses against another WDC. Alonso was beaten by a rookie in 2007, has gone nearly 10 years without a championship and has “only” won 2 WDC but is still mentioned as one of the greats. Schumacher didn’t do so well for his last 3 years in the sport but his greatness isn’t up for debate. A defeat would soon be forgotten if Vettel made it to 5 championships, and at his age and with a Ferrari contract in his pocket that doesn’t seem too far fetched.

    2. Kimi was humbled, that is certain, but let’s not forget that the car was developed primarily for Fernando, to suit his driving style. Raikkonen was never happy with the handling of his F14T. It’s a standard practice at Ferrari, that they center their efforts around one of the drivers and this time Kimi received the short end of the stick.

    3. That was a massacre. Now I think Massa wasn’t as bad at Ferrari, he managed to keep Alonso honest quite a few times.

      1. Not sure whether it is a case of Kimi being awful or Alonso being outstanding. Don’t think anyone could live with Alonso in that awful Ferrari.

  2. There’s no nice way to put it. Alonso simply walked all over Raikkonen this year. Also those who claim that Ricciardo absolutely destroyed Vettel this year needs to look at the statistics again.

    1. he didn’t “absolutely” destroy him, everyone knows that. but 3 wins to 0 speaks for itself in a season where every race should have been won by Mercedes.

    2. @craig-o I think people were more surprised by Red Bull’s drivers’ relative performances because everyone expected completely different outcome. I admit I thought Ricciardo was promoted over Kimi just because they wanted to have a #2 driver who wouldn’t cause too much fuss, while still collecting points. The reality turned out to be much different, and the amazement is enhanced also by the way in which Ricciardo showed such speed and consistency, not just beating some no-name teammate who has no pace.

      With Alonso and Kimi, many people assumed Alonso would have an upper hand, except Kimi’s fans perhaps.

      The main difference is that people were more amazed by Ricciardo, then disappointed by Vettel, because again many thought that Vettel isn’t as skilled as Alonso and Hamilton to begin with.
      In Ferrari, it was more disappointment in Kimi than amazement by Alonso, since majority F1 world agree that he is the best one out there. Kimi on the other hand disappointed beyond belief, because many, including me, believed him to be much better than this.

    3. @craig-o I think both Ferrari’s and Red Bull’s results show how some drivers need a car that suits them more than others. I think we saw that with MSC at Merc as well. I would have loved to see MSC in the W04 and 05 these past two years to see if it was the car that was holding him back or if he had lost a step.

      I think that is what we saw with Vettel and Raikkonnen this year. I’m hoping both are on better form next year, along with the 2015 Ferrari.

    4. I actually find it interesting that Vettel was ahead of Ricciardo almost as many laps as Ricciardo was ahead of Vettel, but Ricciardo ended up finishing ahead a lot more often.

      1. @mike-dee and that takes into consideration races like Spain and USA where Vettel was hampered in qualifying and Austria where his engine cut out.

        1. @craig-o and Monaco as well with the engine turbo failed he forced to pit from P3 after the first SC went in spent some laps at the back and eventually got retired. So if we consider Spain , USA, Monaco , Austria i feel Vettel was ahead more laps than Daniel ahead

    5. Actually, Button was much better at ‘destroying’ his team mate than Ricciardo. Interesting.

  3. ColdFly F1 (@)
    3rd December 2014, 15:52

    I was not as excited about Alonso’s performance this year as I had been in the past. That was probably due to the high expectations I have of him.

    But seeing he trashed KR in these comparisons it seems that I was too harsh on him.

    I hope he gets the results he deserves in the future.

    1. please consider the car the driver is driving next time you judge a drivers performance.

      1. wan’t it the same car Alonso drove? How could I imagine, mate.

        1. Kimi got humbled, simple. I cant imagine why anybody would want to make excuses for him.

  4. Raikkonen should return 75% of his salary to Ferrari, his performance this year is embarrasing, with or without the car being to his liking.

    1. that is the lamest excuse of a professional driver being paid millions of dollars, the car not being to their liking. the driver needs to get the best out of the package he/she gets from the team, it is not just the job of the engineers to prepare a car to perfectly suit mr. primadonnas driving style. kimi failed this year, and that is that. if he fails next year against vettel, which is quite likely, that is the end of his f1 career, and he will go back to nascar or wrc and make up the numbers like last time, he isn’t the type of driver to learn the craft of these other racing series, ie like Kubica is trying to do in WRC.

      1. It is not just the job of the engineers to prepare a car to perfectly suit mr. primadonnas driving style

        And yet, they did exactly that for Fernando. Yes, Raikkonen definitely underperformed this year, but while he had to adapt to the car, the car was being adapted to suit Alonso.

        1. No. Alonso too as never really satisfied with the car. The thing is the he, like Ricciardo and Hamilton drive a round the car problemas. You can see that from any onboard footage of him driving this year.

          1. Ed, there is quite a differance between adapting the car to suit a driver as much as possible and the car actually being good to drive for anyone.

            From how it handled, its pretty clear that it was even less suitable for Kimi’s style than it was for Alonso, something I think both Kimi and Alonso have confirmed.

  5. ColdFly F1 (@)
    3rd December 2014, 15:55

    @KeithCollantine, any chance of including FP results in these comparisons?

    1. @coldfly I don’t see a reason to because there’s nothing at stake in them, they aren’t ‘competitive’ sessions as such.

      What does everyone else think?

      1. @coldfly @keithcollantine Free Practice shouldn’t really be included in this. Those sessions are somewhat irrelevant except for getting a bit of momentum building. It will also be difficult especially when one driver has sat out FP1 for a friday driver.

      2. I agree @KeithCollantine. There’s far too much going on in the FPs that doesn’t involve competition between the 2 drivers. They often run completely different setups, trying new parts etc.

      3. The majority of drivers are running very specific programs. We often see two drivers from a same team running different ones, so that the data is more complete. I don’t see how we could compare teammates in FPs, really.

      4. ColdFly F1 (@)
        3rd December 2014, 16:24

        I’d like to see it (no surprise) for the following reasons:
        1) this review is not an official ranking, but merely a flavour how teammates performed;
        2) drivers are extremely competitive, and want to beat their team mate (even in FP);
        3) most reporting, also on this blog, ranks and focusses on positions in FP as well;

        And if only competitive comparisons are to be included:
        4) you can also argue that ‘laps ahead’ (except for 19 final laps) is not ‘competitive’.

        1. @coldfly:
          About point 4: Spending laps ahead of everyone (or anyone) else is pretty much the point of racing. I see what you’re getting at, tyre strategies, incidents and other factors can influence this statistic to the point that a driver can lead almost 100% of the race, but still finish behind his team mate. So it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Just like the number of finishes ahead of the team mate, btw, since these can also be affected by factors that aren’t in the drivers’ hands, especially in backmarkers.
          To get a better picture, you have to take these complementary statistics into account.

          1. @nase Spending laps ahead of everyone is not the pint of racing. Spending the LAST lap ahead of everyone is the point of racing. People give laps ahead way more weight that it should get. Like you said, it’s affected a lot by strategy.

          2. @trublu:
            Well, usually, the best way to make sure you finish ahead of someone else is to overtake them as early as you possibly can. Or even better, not to drop behind them if you can avoid it. We’re not talking about a sport that is as heavily based on slipstreaming as e.g. the lower categories of Moto GP. In F1, track position is extremely valuable, and the strategies tended to be very similar between team mates in 2014. Consequently, the instances of races where the comparison of track position between team mates is misleading are few and far between. You can still analyse every single race to check if the data is flawed, but in general, the rough information that this statistic conveys is quite reliable.

      5. Can’t have too many infographics, but FP is clearly a very weak statistic. If you were to include it, you could feature it as an additional statistic than can be used to make a point under certain circumstances.

      6. @keithcollantine – I don’t think FP data adds any value here.

      7. @keithcollantine No it will just add clutter and more work for you to do that hardly any visitors here will appreciate.

      8. I wouldn’t include it either but I think at least in FP3 they seem to be rarely running different programmes but in almost all cases simply trying to maximise speed for qualifying.

        FP1 and to some extent FP2 are often very random. Also there are technical issues with the cars quite often as well.

      9. @keithcolantine, definitely agree with your view, I am almost contemplating de-valuing qualifying results as well because it is fairly obvious that these tyres require compromising race setup in order to provide ultimate 1 lap times.

      10. @keithcollantine – I’d like to see a comparison of the total votes (over the season) for Driver of the Weekend, for each driver. It may be a good subjective measure of how “interesting and entertaining” a driver is. Also quite easy to implement, I expect. It could be presented as a proportional bar just like the ones for the other stats on this page.

      11. I agree with that Keith. FP sessions can be about testing completely different parts, fuel loads, tyres or going extreme on settings to test what works, and should not be taken in account to compare drivers.

  6. The Mercedes drivers’ comparison deceives a bit, doesn’t it? Apparently a quite balanced result in all four areas, yet one driver won more than twice the number of races than the other one.

    1. @timothykatz that’s probably because there was very, very little to choose between the two all season long, hundredths at a lot of times.

      1. There was plenty to choose btwn them. Nico failed all season long to pass his team mate on track. If you are gonna be world champ in an equal opportunity team like Merc you need to win the majority of the duels in wheel to wheel racing, and Nico was tantamount to woeful in that regard.

        1. I agree. Nico was very consistent and fast but he didn’t pass Hamilton all season even with newer tires. I guess that’s what separates the good from the great.

          1. How does that imply that there is lots to choose between them @blackmamba ? The simple fact is that on a lot of occasions the two were separated by incredibly little. It was a small fact of Hamilton’s marginally superior racecraft and race pace on the day which made the difference in the end, despite Rosberg’s superior speed on the Saturday – but even then, there was often just hundredths in it, not seconds. It was a similar case last season.

          2. @craig-o Winning twice the number of races as a teammate is not marginal especially when you describe Rosberg on Saturdays as superior.

    2. That is because the car was so good that they were always fighting for the win.

      If Hamilton and Rosberg were in Marussia this year, we would be talking about how Hamilton got twice the number of 14th places compared to Rosberg and Rosberg came 15th 10 times.

      1. Exactly. The team’s dominance was so complete that there was almost always the situation where if one driver didn’t win, the other one would.

  7. I’ve just realized that Alonso never finished behind his teammate in his entire career, except drawing with Hamilton in 2007, but being classified behind him on the number of second places.

    1. Keisoglou Alexandros (@)
      3rd December 2014, 17:09

      Well, actually he has finish one more time behind his teammate, again level on points though… at 0. That happened in 2001 when Tarso Marques got the edge on him with a couple of 9th place finishes, if i remember well.

      1. That is correct.
        It is however also correct that Alonso was virtually always faster than Marques, but was less lucky with his finishes, as he never saw the end of a race with high attrition, unlike Marques.

  8. Here’s what I don’t get: Ricciardo and Vergne were close in TR. Ricciardo gets called up. Ricciardo shows up a 4 time champion. Vergne is slightly better than Kvyat. Kvyat gets promoted? Wouldn’t the stats imply Vergne is the better choice? Sure, you could say Vergne had more time in F1 than Kvyat and Kvyat has more promise, but I would think it’d make sense to let Kvyat cut his teeth a little but longer before promotion. They could always promote Vergne and if he doesn’t perform, ditch him for Kvyat. I simply disagree with how they’ve treated some drivers over others at Red Bull. By all accounts it looks like Vergne is comparable to a driver who just beat a 4 time champion. How is that not deserving of being promoted?

    1. Red Bull looks at qualifying speed in Toro Rosso more than anything else. They understand that points scored in Toro Rosso are more luck than anything.
      I think apart from qualifying speed, they are looking at how the drivers do in wheel-to-wheel driving.
      Ricciardo and Kvyat were both better qualifiers and hence their promotion to Red Bull.

      1. @sumedh @joey-poey – That may be what RBR is doing–looking at STR qualifying–but given that Nico outqualified but not outperform Lewis, I’m not sure that’s the best plan. I agree with Joey-Poey that I think if they were keeping the RBR seat in-house, Vergne should have had a shot.

    2. Not promoting Vergne makes absolutely no sense.

      Has anyone realised we went from four French drivers in F1 in 2013 to just one in 2015?

    3. if you looked at the stats, you would see the JEV was fairly comprehensively beaten by DR. Most fans pay attention to the results at the end of races as well as the constructors.

      – JEV had one of the worse qualifying records against DR both in terms of H2H and average gap (who would hire a driver that is up to and over 0.5/sec slower than his team-mate)
      – Majority of JEV’s points actually come in mixed/wet conditions. If you did a H2H in dry races DR easily beats JEV.
      – DR always used an extra set of tires because he made it into Q3 a lot more times than JEV which compromised his strategy
      – If you go by 2013, points wise DR was way ahead, JEV was only probably better than DR in Canada/Monaco but the rest of the year was behind DR.
      – Do you not think that RB have tonnes of data to compared the two drivers? If JEV was that good even given the beating of Seb, do you not think RB would have done it already. It would have just been more of the same > JEV getting beat. RB want potential WDCs in their main team, not midfield drivers.

      Not promoting JEV makes absolute sense to me. Why would a top team promote a driver that has already been proven inherently slower previously?

      1. Because if you looked at the statistics at the time of his promotion, Vergne was significantly far better in terms of points scored and race pace. Ricciardo had the odd exceptional Saturday, but Vergne usually picked up the points. Ricciardo was better on the Saturday up until that point, Vergne on the Sunday. As points are awarded on Sunday, you can see why Red Bull could have promoted Vergne instead at the time, but then again Ricciardo hasn’t turned out too bad.

        1. Significantly far better in terms of points scored and race pace? I’ve got to laugh at that.

          – Majority of points scored for JEV in 2012 was in mixed/wet conditions, DR smashed him when it comes to dry races.
          – 2013 DR was on a 5 point race streak except for Japan when he got a drive through penalty and still finished right behind JEV despite this
          – During this streak, DR finished in the top 10 while posting the 3rd fastest lap of the race in the TR in Belgium for example. Lets see another race, Korea where DR was running easily the top 10 and where was JEV? racing the Caterhams
          – Or how about DR keeping back Schumi in a much faster Merc to get into the points for last third of the race, again against Alonso in India to get into the points
          – Or when DR was ahead of JEV by 10+ seconds in Korea only for his brakes to fail and JEV collecting the points

          From all the arguments I’ve seen by JEV supporters claiming he was better on Sundays I’ve yet to see anyone come up with examples of where JEV stood out and beat Ricciardo on a consistent basis. There are plenty examples of where Ricciardo stood out.

          You say that you can see why Red Bull could have promoted Vergne but nope they did not, they did not give Vergne the opportunity to test and they discounted him early because they have all the data in the world to compare the two.

          So prove to me by giving examples where Vergne has been a lot better on race day vs. DR on a consistent basis if you want to put forward your argument. The whole he was better on race day is a whole load of rubbish IMO because there are not enough examples of this JEV’s fans who claim that was the case.

          If Vergne put in races like Canada 2013 on a regular basis throughout the season, we would be seeing him in RB vs. Vettel and not DR. Again, why would you hire someone who got smashed in qualifying by a large gap into a top team?

          Again if JEV was so good on Sundays, why would a driver like Lewis Hamilton say the driver that impressed him the most out of the up and comers (July 2013 Q&A) was Ricciardo because of his qualifying speed and being up there almost racing with them. Where is JEV?

    4. I think that what Vergne mentioned himself makes some sense:
      The team decided to drop him to make room for Verstappen in the Summer, and had already started to quit their ties with him from then on. When they learned about Vettel going they were in a difficult position because of having quit his contract already and chose to promote the driver left on a contract, i.e. Kvyat.
      It implied, that had they known up front that Vettel would quit the team, they would have probably promoted Vergne to make room for Verstappen that way instead of firing him @joey-poey

  9. The graph between Alonso and Raikkonen makes for horrible reading! Even Massa wasn’t beaten THAT badly in any of his years.
    Also, this season has proven to be a bit of a reality check for Bottas. I (along with many others) expected him to beat Massa more comfortably than he eventually managed. He will have to do a better job than what he has managed in 2014.
    It was a good year for Massa too. He is not that fast, he never was. But he has proven that the Alonso years were certainly not due to performance issues on his end. The worse Raikkonnen did this year, the better Massa seemed

    1. Glad people are getting more realistic about Bottas. I never considered him Hamilton- or Alonso-like championship material. We’ll see how he does next year.

    2. Look, I always liked Felipe, and it seems to me that the expectations that he would be ragdolled by Valtteri were more due to the out-of-hand bashing towards Massa in the last year than due to Valtteri’s real credentials. Massa showed that Williams was right to call him to build a stronger team, help to develop the car, and reconstruct a team able to populate podiums. The fact that they called Rob Smedley was the signal of where Williams saw the stepping stone. (By the way, I feel that Smedley was way too timid sometimes this year in terms of strategy).
      The points hauls is also very deceiving, as Massa lost valuable points that looked in his pocket (Canada), and was taken out of the race on the first lap in a race when he had a very good car in his hands. Obviously, Williams can’t bother to take care of the bashing in social media (this amazing blog included) and signed him for another season (it probably will be his last).
      Now, with that being said, I am convinced that Bottas will be at some point a Championship contender.
      He is really fast, he rarely is involved in accidents, he is a very good qualifier, have a rock steady and consistent pace, and bring in lots of points. It seems to me that he lacks some killer instinct, but somehow he reminds me of drivers like Emerson Fittipaldi (my first F1 idol, in 1972) and Alain Prost. On several of the radio transcripts this season he passed the image of a bit of a lippy boy, but I guess at that level they have to be. And I have no doubt that he is championship material. Truly, I will be in trouble to mention here one memorable move from Bottas this year, or an amazing overtake, but he was always there.
      All in all, Williams have a nice pair of drivers at disposal.

  10. Someone should email the Button versus Magnussen chart to every member of the McLaren board. I think the old man should get another season..

    Very well-presented information, Keith, thanks.

    1. McLaren is building a team for long-term success. The decision of Button/Magnussen is not based upon their past performance, but upon their expected performance in 2016 and beyond.

      1. If that is the case, and I’ve no reason to suggest it isn’t, there’s no reason why they still wouldn’t go for Button. It isn’t like there will be a shortage of other younger, fast drivers to choose from in 2016, and on the evidence presented so far Magnussen isn’t a driver to build your next 5 years around.

        Magnussen’s on a bit of a hiding to nothing. If he isn’t selected then he has limited options elsewhere on the grid next year – none in fact. If he is selected and then subsequently is frequently trounced by his other team mate (assume Alonso) then he will face constant indirect questions about how Button may well have fared better.

        Perhaps it is wishful thinking, being a Button fan, but the momentum seems to have shifted slightly in his favour. Then again, perhaps that is just all the support on social media. I’d be really interested to see how this story is being reported in Denmark, from the other perspective. Do we have any Danish readers here?

        1. I do hope you’re right!

    2. Yeah, it’s not like Ralf Schumacher never thrashed his rookie team mate in 2000.

  11. Raikkonen did much worse compared to Alonso than Massa ever did. Massa was either super-consistent (2011) or had ups and downs, which at least brought some good results. But we’ve seen how much Felipe has improved this year. And while I believe Massa was psychologically demotivated by partnering Fernando, I don’t think Kimi was, though of course adapting to such a horrible car was easier for the man who had it build to his needs. Anyhow, what promised to be the most interesting duel of the season turned out not to be, with Red Bull turning out to be the most surprising.

  12. So where is the person claiming Bottas would be WC in the Merc? He is not all that if Massa can score podiums i mean Alo would have won a race or 2 in that thing. Massa when he finshed was the better racer.

  13. In 2009 when Fisi got a podium on a force India with Kimi winning it only because of KERS start at Spa, everyone thought he would be very competitive when he joined Ferrari… but the guy who managed to get pole at Spa was no where near Kimi till the end of the season and did not even score a point for Ferrari.

    Kimi’s situation is more a less like that, the car was Alonso customized and he could not get it to work for him. This will change for next year… Kimi will get a better car that will suit him for next year…

    1. +1
      Some comments on this page about Kimi are just ridicilous. I’m absolutely sure things will be completely different next year and Kimi will get an upper hand against Vettel when the car can be built to his liking.

      1. “Kimi will get an upper hand”

        I’m both a Kimi and Vettel fan (that means I will be able to compare them objectively next year haha!) but to be honest I expect Vettel to beat him eventually.

      2. But who says the car will be built to Kimi’s liking? What about Seb – do you think they will tailor a car to Kimi, who will race for them one more year rather than set it up for a newly signed 4 time world champion who they are betting their future on? Next year Kimi will find out quickly who runs the show (Vettel) and the friendship will dissolve.

    2. Ricciardo joined Red Bull and beat Vettel on his first year, driving “Sebastian’s” car (what would be the point to include anything Webber-friendly int he RB10?). Massa stood up fairly well against Bottas, again jumping into a car at the last second. Even Kvyat has proved to have much better raw speed than Vergne, coming from Gp3.

      There is no excuse Raikkonen’s performance, his results compared to his teammate is worse than Ericson’s and similar to Chilton’s.

      1. @austus I disagree that it was Vettel’s car. He clearly likes them with tons of rear downforce and if this didn’t have it or did not have enough due to the torquey nature of the turbos/kers, then it wasn’t really his car even if he was around for the design.

      2. @austus A lot of Vettel’s dominance was due to the rear downforce on the Red Bull. When the level of rear downforce was reduced in the beginning of 2012, Vettel and Webber were matching each other. In the second part of the season, when Newey found a way to circumvent the new rules, Vettel crushed Webber. To be honest, I think Vettel would have crushed any team-mate with the RB 9, whether it would have been Ricciardo, Hamilton or Alonso.

        The RB 10 behave nothing like the RB before, having a lot less rear downforce. It was never ‘Vettel’s car’.

        1. Vettel wants a car with lots of rear-end downforce and Kimi needs the front-end to stick. I do wonder how Ferrari will give both drivers what they require…

        2. In a car designer for him, he is the best. Fair enough. But sharing a tema with someone as trustworthy as him, like Alo or Ham, se would never get to the point where the car development is 100% guided towards him.

      3. Maybe Vettel and Ricciardo and Massa and Bottas both favoured similar types of cars

  14. Keith, I would love to see a comparison of drivers weights and the estimated effect the difference would have had on lap/race times. Thanks.

    1. @tenerifeman @keithcollantine

      I would like to see just driver weights vs results to see if it matches up at all.

  15. Overall Massa fared pretty well with Bottas (who is supposed to be the second coming of JC). Williams has got a decent pairing there.

    1. There will never be another Jim Clark.

      1. +1 beer!

  16. I has lot of expectations on Alonso’s performance but this year results are not in his range. i hope he will have good results in coming season.

  17. The best thing in the season is finally got a true world champion.Alonso showed his class again.Vettel exposed.two emerging talents Ricardo and Bottas.Jenson button and nico rosberg did decent jobs.unsurprisingly maldanado did it again.promising Bianchi suffered unfortunate accident.

  18. Just found a chart saying that Vettel weighs 58Kg against Hulk at 74Kg A big difference and quite a lot of time to be gained or lost.

  19. @Keith, Maybe you should include the # of car related DNFs to show a more complete picture

  20. Did Alonso actually out-qualify Hamilton in 2007? The results say that Hamilton out-qualified Alonso 9-8 (arguably 9-7 due to Hamilton crashing out in European GP qualifying after a wheel gun failure meant that the wheel wasn’t properly secured on the car), with Hamilton setting 6 poles and Alonso only setting 2 poles.
    Are there some different fuel adjusted results or something? I’m confused.

    Also, do the race and qualifying results exclude times where one car had a mechanical failure?
    E.g. Do Hamilton’s two mechanical failures in qualifying count as Rosberg out-qualifying him, do Alonso’s mechanical retirements in Monza and Suzuka count as Kimi beating him in the race, etc.

    1. Regarding my “arguably 9-7…” comment, I just remembered that Alonso had gearbox problems in qualifying for the 2007 French GP, so I guess the qualifying reliability problems would actually even out anyway (so 8-7 to Hamilton).

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