The 2024 Formula 1 season became so close and competitive it was hard to remember that after the first race it seemed little had changed following a year of Red Bull dominance.
“Business as usual” ran our headline after the Bahrain Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen cruised to victory, the nearest non-Red Bull 25 seconds adrift. Few thought his closest championship challenge would be Lando Norris, who took the chequered flag 48 seconds behind in sixth place that day.But within a few months the competitive order was turned on its head and Red Bull suddenly had a fight on his hands. The championship hung on the question of whether Verstappen could fight a rearguard action to keep Norris from catching him.
In the final reckoning, after 24 rounds and 30 races, who had the quickest car outright over a single lap in 2024? Verstappen won the drivers’ championship but should Red Bull have claimed the constructors’ title too? RaceFans crunched the numbers:
10. Sauber
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.90%
Best ranking: 7th (x2)
Worst ranking: 10th (x11)
Sauber’s C44 was the only car which was slower than the field average at every round in 2024, and all their rivals were quicker than them in half of the races this year. Given that, it’s no wonder the team took until the penultimate round of the season to get any points on the board.
There was some cause for optimism by the end: Sauber finished the season on an upward curve and last weekend’s race was one of its most competitive showings. Valtteri Bottas claimed their best qualifying position of the year in Abu Dhabi with ninth place, but a pair of collisions during the race ended his hopes of avoiding a point-less season.
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9. Williams
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.54%
Best ranking: 5th
Worst ranking: 10th (x5)
Williams began its second year under the leadership of James Vowles in a compromised situation due to the late completion of its latest car, a consequence of the restructuring which is taking place at the team as it looks towards future opportunities. The FW46 was initially overweight, and the team’s efforts to develop it were complicated by a series of crashes, one of which reduced them to running a single chassis in the Australian Grand Prix.
A delayed mid-season update brought some gains, but the team’s hopes of repeating its seventh place in the championship faded as more crashes forced further compromises on them over the final races. Nowhere was that more obvious than in Brazil, where Alexander Albon threatened to claim a place on the front row of the grid before crashing.
The team made a swathe of major technical appointments at mid-season and will expect to make significant progress next year, and when new regulations arrive in 2026.
8. Alpine
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.45%
Best ranking: 3rd
Worst ranking: 10th (x4)
Alpine brought up the rear over the first four races of 2024, leading to yet more changes behind the scenes as several leaders members of its technical team were shown the door, then it changed team principals yet again. It did secure the services of David Sanchez, who briefly appeared at McLaren after leaving Ferrari.
The team made faltering progress, picking up low-end points places after a weight reduction programme, then slipping back, before rallying at the end of the season. Their double podium finish in Brazil was one of the biggest surprise results of the season. Pierre Gasly received the only examples of their final updates and used them to good effect as they clung on to sixth place in the constructors’ championship which flattered their pace compared to Haas and RB.
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7. RB
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.28%
Best ranking: 4th
Worst ranking: 9th (x4)
For many teams, 2024 was the year of the ‘downgrade’. Extracting more performance from the current generation of cars proved challenging even for the likes of Red Bull.
Their second team RB endured perhaps the clearest example of an upgrade which backfired. CEO Peter Bayer described it as a “belly flop” and you don’t have to look hard on the graph below to spot its introduction at the Spanish Grand Prix. The team struggled to regain the lost ground, but were in better shape by the end of the season.
6. Haas
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.25%
Best ranking: 3rd
Worst ranking: 9th (x2)
One team which bucked the ‘downgrade’ trend was Haas, who deserved sixth in the championship on pure performance alone, but had to settle for seventh behind Alpine. New team principal Ayao Komatsu tackled what he felt was a defeatist internal mindset when it came to upgrades, and the team made clear progress with its new packages at Silverstone and Austin – though the gain made with the latter wasn’t immediately apparent.
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5. Aston Martin
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.19%
Best ranking: 2nd
Worst ranking: 10th (x2)
Aston Martin failed to build on the remarkable progress they made last year. If anything, their late-2023 dip in form persisted throughout this season, leaving them outsiders for points by the end of the year. They were slowest outright in Interlagos and Las Vegas.
The team showed technical director Dan Fallows the door having hired him from Red Bull two years ago. However its incoming recruit from the same team is none less than star designer Adrian Newey, of whom big things will be expected when new rules roll around in 2026.
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4. Mercedes
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.55%
Best ranking: 1st (x3)
Worst ranking: 6th
Mercedes continued to struggle with the ‘ground effect’ regulations introduced two years ago, but despite falling to fourth in the constructors’ championship arguably produced their best car of the last three seasons. The W15, the product of a change in philosophy compared to its predecessors, looked close to unbeatable at times.
The problem was Mercedes were seldom able to make it consistently operate at its best. They hit a brief purple patch at the middle of the season where they won three out of four races, and ended the year in good shape, but were too often frustrated to see their strong performance early in a race weekend disappear for reasons they couldn’t fathom.
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3. Ferrari
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.43%
Best ranking: 1st (x4)
Worst ranking: 7th
Another team which fell victim to a mid-season’ downgrade. Ferrari actually set the quickest time of all in the opening round – just fractionally ahead of Red Bull – but continued their 2023 trend of not quite being able to match their rivals’ race stint pace at this early stage in the season.
After losing their way with a floor upgrade, Ferrari engineered their way out of their dip, though not quite quickly enough to beat McLaren to the constructors’ championship. It was often nip-and-tuck between them for who had the fastest car over the final races, however.
2. McLaren
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.27%
Best ranking: 1st (x9)
Worst ranking: 5th
Red Bull undoubtedly started the year with the quickest car and McLaren clearly set the standard later in the season. But when and how the two teams overlapped is key to understanding which team was fastest and when.
The raw numbers put McLaren very slightly behind on average over the year. But the gap – just 0.02% of lap times on average over the season – is so small it was more than enough for driver performance to tip the scales over the course of the year.McLaren lagged behind over the opening races but the upgrade introduced in Miami – on Lando Norris’s car only to begin with – put them on the right path. It was not a ‘light switch’ moment, however – the Safety Car helped Norris to victory that weekend and they didn’t set the outright quickest lap time at a race weekend until Catalunya, four rounds later.
From then on they were usually in the hunt and on occasions they were simply untouchable, notably at Zansvoort and Singapore, which Norris dominated.
1. Red Bull
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.20%
Best ranking: 1st (x8)
Worst ranking: 4th (x4)
Red Bull had the quickest car on average over the whole of 2024, despite the fact they only set the outright quickest time at any grand prix twice over the last 17 rounds. This is partly a reflection of how competitive 2024 was: At some events Red Bull weren’t quickest, yet they were still ahead of McLaren, who had the next-quickest car on average.
Much speculation surrounded the reason for Red Bull’s drop in form after the first seven races. It seemed too much of a coincidence that it followed the departure of Newey so closely, and the team will be watched closely for signs it has righted its course in 2025.
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Deficit to fastest lap time – season averages
While Red Bull had the fastest car on average, McLaren set the outright fastest lap time slightly more often: Nine times to their rivals’ eight. When McLaren were ahead, it was usually not by as large a margin as Red Bull enjoyed when they were at their best in the early part of the season.
However the defining feature of this year’s championship compared to previous years is less a matter of which of those two teams were ahead, but how close the season was for much of the time. Many will be hoping that trend continues into 2025. If it does, F1 could have one of its most open and competitive championships in years.
Deficit to fastest lap time – all races
The opening races of 2024 looked similar to much of the previous season. Red Bull were comfortably ahead, with a tight-knit group of teams behind.
That all changed around a third of the way into the season. The field began to converge and the fight for victory from weekend to weekend became much more interesting. Verstappen’s back-to-back wins in Canada and Spain were the last consecutive victories for any driver all year.
The data and its limitations
The analysis above is based on the fastest lap times set in every session at every grand prix this weekend. How well it reflects the performance of each car may vary for different reasons.
Fastest lap times are usually set in qualifying sessions. As track conditions tend to improve throughout qualifying, and cars are eliminated as the sessions progress, the slower cars’ deficit to the faster cars tends to be slightly exaggerated. Wet weather conditions can further distort the picture.
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notagrumpyfan
12th December 2024, 7:31
This is a great analysis, and as close as one gets (without more detailed insights/data) to the relative strength of each car/team.
A simple (mean) average however excludes:
– The relative strengths of the drivers;
– Some teams (e.g. Red Bull) the data is based on the performance of one driver, vs the best of two drivers for most of the other teams;
– It includes outliers (see graphs) which mostly is caused by unique circumstances that weekend beyond the strength of the car.
Hotbottoms (@hotbottoms)
12th December 2024, 7:47
Indeed, this analysis isn’t really about ranking cars but ranking car-and-driver combinations. The drivers are quite significant variables in fastest laps
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
12th December 2024, 14:41
Not only that but fastest lap for each car is usually set during qualifying and we’ve seen some swings between quali and race.
On the other hand, it is difficult to come with a better, more reliable method which doesn’t add significant complexity.
Also interesting to visualise the variation in form and trends for some of the teams.
SPArtacus
12th December 2024, 22:27
Indeed, the Haas and RB would have been much more highly ranked had someone like Alonso, Hamilton, Russell or Leclerc were driving them. It was clearly a superior car to the rest of the midfield.
David
13th December 2024, 10:12
but that isn’t just true for Haas and RB. probably all team (maybe even Ferrari a little bit). if any of the cars were driven by a pair like Leclerc and Verstappen would have been a bit higher. that we’ll never know
Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
13th December 2024, 8:44
I’m not so sure the analysis is that great, but what is great is that the analysis and the discussion there on is now worth having. It’s been a great season. There are many years where one car dominated and this analysis and discussion would have been pointless.
Can’t wait for next season.
Señor Sjon
12th December 2024, 8:28
Nice work. We did see Red Bull (well one of them) performing in most qualification sessions, but the race pace wasn’t there anymore.
GechiChan (@gechichan)
12th December 2024, 8:51
Kind of misleading. The qualy pace doesn’t mean very much in a race. We’ve seen Charles make incredible qually poles just to fall back 40 seconds in the race. That is not the fastest car of the field, it’s just a great one-lap setup.
Plus, Max extracted everything from a hard-to-drive car, almost no other driver would have gotten it that competitive. My hunch is that the McLaren car was faster this year (both in qualy and racepace), but the drivers and the team failed to expoilt the full potential.
MichaelN
12th December 2024, 8:58
While qualifying is a limiting factor, especially with how important managing tyre performance through a stint is to actual competitiveness, it’s probably the only way to meaningfully make comparisons. There are just so many variables in a race, which unlike 20 years ago, is not so much about speed but rather about managing pace, charge and deployment, tyre temperature, etc. It’s very hard to clean up that data.
Davethechicken
12th December 2024, 9:39
@gechichan
“Plus, Max extracted everything from a hard-to-drive car”
Demonstrably untrue. Max had lots of mistakes and poor races. The car was not “hard to drive”, did you read what Yuki said yesterday???
“almost no other driver would have gotten it that competitive”
That is your opinion, but there is a reason Red Bull have put Perez there, to play second fiddle.. in my view several drivers could have been that competitive, but red bull want Perez for team harmony. Put an Alonso, Lewis, Charles, George or Lando as Max’s teammate and see what happens.
lucifer (@lucifer)
12th December 2024, 10:54
well said
Ben
12th December 2024, 11:08
+1 Davethechicken
Max is a very good driver, but I’m getting fed up of people thinking he’s the chosen one and no one else could do what he’s doing. If he’d won the championship in the Sauber then I’d agree, but the facts are that he’s won the championship in the best overall car with the full focus of the team and against the worst driver on the grid.
When his car hasn’t been the best he’s actually had some very poor races. He’s also cost himself positions through to be honest terrible wheel to wheel racing in Mexico and Abu Dhabi.
This isn’t personal to Max, every top driver needs the best or second best car to win. But I don’t see Max doing anything at least another 5-6 drivers on the grid couldn’t do. When the car is there he wins. When it isn’t he finishes down the order as expected.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 16:23
The thing with verstappen is he’s really good at maximising the opportunities, in this particular case I don’t see 5-6 drivers winning with the red bull vs norris at all, only maybe leclerc, and that would be marginal, not with a huge gap like verstappen had, simply cause other drivers make mistakes or have off weekends far more often.
So ofc norris, russell and the likes can win too, but they need a bigger car advantage than this season to do so, in fact verstappen had a car disadvantage this season compared to the mclaren in race pace.
MacLeod (@macleod)
13th December 2024, 8:28
Dave the quote:
Max had little ‘poor’ races the last one and Mexico maybe Austria so I would not use LOTS and mistakes in the same sentences or you mean Lando ….
Is from the end car with the latest upgrades and watching Perez the last race he did much beter (qualify) so Yuki saying he had no problems does NOT say the car was bad to drive before this test.
Davethechicken
13th December 2024, 13:35
Add Hungary, Monaco, Baku to that list and you have lots.
The mistake in qualifying in Monaco ruined his race. Baku and Hungary are self explanatory.
Hardly “extracted everything” from the car those weekends.
Silverstone he should have won, Spa he had the fastest car but couldn’t overtake. Sergio ran comfortably ahead of him there too until the sacrifice from the pit wall.
Let me see that makes 8 races is that not lots?
RH
15th December 2024, 17:30
Do the math for number of points dropped by each driver and number of points gained by each driver. Do this while being objective and actually using race pace data from F1-tempo.
You’d see that over the year, since probably 2019, Verstappen would come out as the guy who minimizes the number of points lost over a season.
Also, objective here means being able to say races like Spain, McLaren had the quicker car based on data of course.
That’d probably tell you why it’s an achievement to win with the RB20. If that’s hard, there’s no discussion to be had since someone really does get on your nerve for being actually good.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
12th December 2024, 11:05
The RB20 may not have been the absolute fastest car over a season, there were races where McLaren was clearly ahead of the competition. Though RBR lost the constructors by a small margin (77 points) because Perez has been extremely poor even by his own standard.
sumedh
12th December 2024, 9:17
So Ferrari was actually closer to Mercedes than it was to Mclaren and Red Bull in terms of final pace. I find it agreeable as there were many races where Ferrari over-delivered inspite of a poor car – e.g. Leclerc got 4th, 3rd, 3rd in Budapest, Spa, Zandvoort and Sainz got 3rd in Austria – and this is when their car was at its worst.
Although, you could say Ferrari got lucky more often too thanks to Verstappen; – e.g. Max’s retirement in Australia, Max’s crash with Lando in Austria, Max’s crash with Lewis in Hungary, Max’s push to Lando in Austin Lap 1, Max’s clash with Piastri in Abu Dhabi
Billys (@bilarxos)
12th December 2024, 18:05
And Mexico also.
frood19 (@frood19)
12th December 2024, 22:02
This is just outright pace, it says nothing about race pace. Ferrari emphasised race pace this year (sensibly) and with a stronger start to the season, fewer errors and better reliability they could have won both titles. Kind of a lot of big ifs but maybe not too big. On the other hand, Max really maxed his point scoring opportunities, it’s a hugely deserved title for him.
Ben
12th December 2024, 10:57
It nice to see an article which looks at actual data rather than thoughts and feelings. The amount of nonsense I’ve seen on here and social media about Max winning in the 3rd best car this season is laughable.
As I’ve said all year it’s clear that overall RedBull has been the strongest package. They started the year as easily the strongest and built up a big lead which was impossible to catch. Sure, we’ve had weekends where Mclaren, Ferrari or Mercedes were the fastest car in both qualifying and race pace, but in each of those weekends RedBull were still close and never worse than 3rd fastest.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 16:24
While 3rd best car is laughable, it also goes for the other side of the spectrum, this only counts quali pace, which matters very little with drs: the feelings mclaren was better are based on the race pace.
Ben
12th December 2024, 21:16
Proving my point that these “feelings” are meaningless…
WesselV1
13th December 2024, 7:07
I would argue that McLaren wasn’t 0.63% off the race pace in Austria, what the graph presents as the single biggest advantage of the top constructor all year.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 16:25
Also mclaren threw away so many points that they hardly gained anything in the majority of the season despite being faster.
Alesici
12th December 2024, 11:14
This is excellent. Thank you for the effort put into this useful analysis.
I think it would be nice if its averages had been presented possibly with each team’s worst result removed.
I’d also like a quantified measure of how variable each team’s pace had been. The fact that each team’s graph scale is different clouds that, but the all-team graph shows it. But a variability number would help interpret that.
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
12th December 2024, 11:50
If Perez had a semi-decent year and Red Bull had won the constructors as a result I could possibly agree with the rankings. But I feel like McLaren have had a faster car through the majority of the season and they’ve just not fully capitalized on the results where as Red Bull mostly through Max, have.
Bob
12th December 2024, 11:54
Interestingly, if you calculate the points they’d get if they all finished in the order of fastest to slowest for each race, Alpine would jump up from 8th to 6th. Shows that the order of fastest to slowest isn’t necessarily the same as the best to worst car. In fact, it rarely is. Another infamous example is in 2018, Ferrari had the faster car overall, yet if they each maximised their opportunities Mercedes would still win the championship and hence had the better car.
Interestingly though, the Alpine is the only one out of order this year, the rest are in the same order. What’s also interesting is that excluding Red Bull, they all finished the championship in the order they should’ve. Which is surprising in itself, especially considering how close the point tally would’ve been if they finished that way. It does show how badly Red Bull (or rather Perez) performed given they not only failed to win the title, but they were out of contention before the final round and ended up finishing 3rd.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
12th December 2024, 11:57
There is a recency bias when looking at cars/drivers for 2024. People forget how dominant the RBR looked early on this season, like Perez regularly on the podium good!
In my opinion Verstappen got more out of the Red Bull than the McLaren boys got out of their McLaren, but over an entire season I do feel the RBR just pips the McLaren as the best car over 24 rounds. To be honest, I think I agree with every rating in this article.
Edvaldo
12th December 2024, 14:01
A competent and experienced driver could be WDC in Red Bull and McLaren.
Let’s not forget Red Bull was still in 2023 mode for the first 5 or 6 rounds and just then the cracks began to show.
They had some low points like Monza but always seemed able to return to a form that was faster than Mercedes or Ferrari, or both.
McLaren on the other hand was 3rd fastest at the beginning and that’s exactly when Max built his comfort gap, so, even if Norris made some crucial mistakes, you can’t start the campaign for a championship on round 6 and still expect to win.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 16:30
There’s been some analysis this year showing that norris and mclaren threw away so many points that they’d have been up there with verstappen otherwise by las vegas.
Carl Parker (@mysticarl)
13th December 2024, 11:43
And that investigation article missed the mark a few times – ignoring McLaren having better 1 lap pace and Land out-performing the car over 1 lap as well, and saying he then ‘lost points’ due to his performance rather than just not having the fastest car (there are of course times that he/the team DID throw away points).
Slightly tongue in cheek but by the logic of that article Trulli should have been WDC at least once by now had he not thrown away so many good qualifying spots!
McLaren also have a 2nd phase start disadvantage, possibly in the gearing given they didn’t really rectify that over the season. Might even just be not using their battery enough to help but whatever it is I think that’s an area for improvement.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
12th December 2024, 14:11
Until Red Bull has a competent 2nd driver, we’ll never know how good VER was. I can’t believe they passed on SAI.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 16:27
Verstappen outperformed ricciardo of old, that makes him a pretty good driver.
Davethechicken
12th December 2024, 17:21
Riccardo out scored Max over the2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons despite having many more mechanical failures especially in 2017 but also 2016.
Seriously why pretend different?
Since then he has avoided any teammate of a Riccardo standard and let’s face it Riccardo was nothing special.
At the time is was reported they blocked Hulkenberg joining in favour of Perez.
Grapmg
12th December 2024, 20:20
In 2015 Max was driving for Torro Rosso also still there the first half of 2016 until spain. You can’t compare Max and Riccardo based on total points in those years. Max aged 17 outperformed Sainz in 2015. After Riccardo no teammate came even close not Albon, Gasly, or Perez. What more do you need to know?
Davethechicken
12th December 2024, 22:09
@Grapmg
You make my point for me.
Why do people exaggerate his achievements???
“In 2015 Max was driving for Torro Rosso also still there the first half of 2016 until spain”
He joined RBR after round 4 of 21!!!
That is not half, it isn’t even a quarter….
Peat Smoke
12th December 2024, 15:44
Fastest cars based on a single lap, lol. That’s like judgeing 10K runners based on one of twenty-five laps. Points are scored on Sundays, over a race distance. Race pace analysis like the ones posted by nerds all over internet after every grand prix is way more representative than this garbage in, garbage out.
Alonslow
12th December 2024, 16:56
Yep, title should be more clear it’s qualy performance, anybody not blind can easily see that Mclaren was the best car with inmense pace at the end of a stint, Red Bull is flattered by their early pace but post Miami they were caught and practically never took the top spot except in maybe Austria, Spa and Qatar and it could never put Lando on the dust like Lando did a couple of times.
An Sionnach
12th December 2024, 21:08
…now let’s see what happens when we get the average lap speed of each car by adding every racing lap for both drivers over the entire season. Would that not tell us which car was actually the fastest?
Bob
13th December 2024, 3:45
You’d be better off taking the times of the faster driver each round instead of the average. If they’re driving the same car, the faster driving is simply extracting more of the performance, by including the slower driver you’re simply skewing the results. That’s going to have a huge impact on teams like Red Bull with 1 driver underperforming massively which would hide the true pace to an extent. You’d also want to filter out laps affected by yellow flags, safety cars, pit stops etc. You’d also want to do the same for situations where they pit for softs just to get the fastest lap.
If you look at that, you’d still need to consider the huge impact that strategy would play, and not just tyre choice and number of stops, but also how much they’re simply managing their position. Similarly with how much of that performance the driver could extract. So you won’t get a result for the car’s performance, but rather the whole team’s optimal performance.
That said, you’d end up getting a rough order for the fastest team in each race and by how much. You can also add some upside error ranges to account for driver skill, but also calculate the likelihood of a reliability issue (simple frequency would work), and also estimate the time lost from one. From there you can roughly simulate how the championship would’ve looked if everyone finished in the “correct” order, plus the likelihood and impact of a reliability issue to find out who really had the best car. At least for the WCCs. For the drivers, you also have to factor in how often they’d be the driver who finished ahead to find the optimal performance. You wouldn’t use the driver’s individuals performance unless you were trying to predict how that particular driver would perform instead of the optimal performance. For a driver like Max against Perez you’d expect Max to almost always finish ahead, but for anyone else in top 4 teams that’s not realistic (even if you put Max in the same car). You could easily scale this for specific scenarios as well to see the impact.
Needless to say though, nobody is really doing all of that unless they get paid to do so. A journalist certainly isn’t because they probably don’t understand undergraduate probability and statistics. So a quick analysis like this will suffice for now, and it’s probably reasonably accurate for the time put in.
An Sionnach
13th December 2024, 12:15
I think my suggestion is a better idea. While Pérez is underperforming, there is a driveability issue with the car, so using both drivers should take that into account. Not all drivers are equal and this will always mean it’s more of a car and driver rating. One serious issue with the methodology used here is that Max was the most consistent qualifier this year, almost always setting a representative time when it mattered. Others faltered to greater degrees. This doesn’t make the Red Bull a faster car as it was the man (or machine?) driving it that made it seem so consistently fast.
Once you start taking this and that into account, it will never end. It’s best to allow things like pit stops, yellow flags and the rest even out. With so many races this season, each car will have done thousands of racing laps (counting both drivers). The sheer number of data points should smooth things out. When it comes to drivers who cannot get the most out of the car, you have to count on the teams to get drivers who perform. This will mean inaccuracy where neither driver is performing (like Sargeant and Albon at Williams).
TheNewNo2
13th December 2024, 0:20
I’d like to see a year-by-year chart of % deficit 1st to 10th (not by team, just by place in pace rankings). Intuition suggests this was the closest season in a long time, it would be interesting to see how it compares historically. Heck, in the 90s when we had 107% qualifying you’d (obviously) get cars 7% off the pace, and now 2% seems a country mile.
ADUB SMALLBLOCK (@waptraveler)
13th December 2024, 3:46
Thanks for this great analysis! As I read it, I focus less on “qualy lap time not always representative of race pace” or “the driver is part of this”, etc, my big takeawy is how dang close the field is compared to, say 20 years ago.
Ithrandir
13th December 2024, 6:05
To reduce driver effect, why don’t you run this analysis taking only the second driver times into account? This is easy for some teams (e.g. it’s Sergio and Lance) but can just be based on some metric for others.
BenHur
13th December 2024, 18:03
Interesting but I cannot buy it. This is obviously a car+driver combination, not just the car. By the fastest lap in quali.
The difference is extremely small (0.07% in favor of RBR over McL) over the season but what about the driver factor?
Had the analysis counted the fastest lap by Checo instead of the fastest lap by RBR (always Max’s except in Baku) it would certainly have placed RBR in the midfield. quite far from the top.
The fastest lap by McL was mostly posted by Lando, and while Lando is by no means a bad qualifier, they are not an absolute beast at that like Max. The edge Max has over Lando I reckon more than makes up for the 0.07% difference shown between McL and RBR.
Therefore I still believe that over the season McL was the fastest car, although obviously in the first few races RBR was on top.
The problem with assessing the RBR’s performance is that both Max and Checo are outliers in opposite directions. We would need a pretty-good-but-not-that-great qualifier to get a fairer assessment of the car.
And anyway all this analysis is about quali performance, which does not translate all that well into race performance – and race is were the points are scored.
BenHur
13th December 2024, 18:05
Interesting but I cannot buy it. This is obviously a car+driver combination, not just the car. By the fastest lap in quali.
The difference is extremely small (0.07% in favor of RBR over McL) over the season but what about the driver factor?
Had the analysis counted the fastest lap by Checo instead of the fastest lap by RBR (always Max’s except in Baku) it would certainly have placed RBR in the midfield. quite far from the top.
The fastest lap by McL was mostly posted by Lando, and while Lando is by no means a bad qualifier, they are not an absolute master at that like Max. The edge Max has over Lando I reckon more than makes up for the 0.07% difference shown between McL and RBR.
Therefore I still believe that over the season McL was the fastest car, although obviously in the first few races RBR was on top.
The problem with assessing the RBR’s performance is that both Max and Checo are outliers in opposite directions. We would need a pretty-good-but-not-that-great qualifier to get a fairer assessment of the car.
And anyway all this analysis is about quali performance, which does not translate all that well into race performance – and race is were the points are scored.
Rolfski (@rolfski)
13th December 2024, 23:56
I disagree with this for not taking the driver enough out of the equation. If the general saying “a car is only as good as your second driver” would only be half-true, then Red Bull would for sure struggle to keep even Mercedes behind. On the other side, Max would routinely place that Red Bull in places it had no business.