Annoyed at yet another Schumi fanboy claiming he is the undisputed F1 rain master of all time, I did a little stat calculation tonight...
Some very interesting wet race stats (also for a pro-Senna vid explaining who F1's only rainmaster is), and on comparing a few drivers, I got some interesting results...
Basically I've been through every F1 wet race since 1981 and compared the form of Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel, Mansell and Keke Rosberg (Rosberg subject to my sketchy knowledge of 1979 wet races) so far - all drivers known to be to be exceptional in the wet.
These stats are a win ratio and the number of points they would've scored on a 10-8-6 scoring system to make it all equal.
As this is to gauge wet race ability/talent/form I exclude races where the driver had a mechanical failure beyond their control, did not start or were disqualified/black flagged, but include races where they crashed by themselves with unforced (ran-out-of-talent) errors.
Senna wins 70.6% of wet races started, scoring an average of 6.5 points per race.
Schumacher wins 42.9%, average 6 points per race.
Hamilton wins 40%, average 5.1 points per race.
Rosberg wins 33%, average 5 points per race.
Vettel wins 25%, average 4.2 points per race.
Mansell wins 21.4%, average 4.4 points per race.
Points to note:
No surprise Senna is ontop. But he is ontop by miles with only 1 bad race of 20 - in Spain '92. And if he had been able to see Brundle's Brabham in Oz '89 in the spray instead of running into the back of him as Brundle pulled off-line to be lapped, instead of stay on it, that was a certain win. Also worth noting that Senna retired with mechanical failure with about 3 laps to go in Canada '89...
Schumacher made 9 unforced errors, putting himself out of the race and on one occasion Senna (which I didn't count toward Senna's unforced crash count as he was a totally innocent victim in France '92). Schumacher also scores a lot of points due to the massive number of wet races he started in and superb car reliability. Currently these stats count running to the back of Coulthard as his own fault, because we all know it was his fault, not Coulthard's (Coulthard stayed on the racing line, 100% the correct thing to do in heavy spray. Schumacher is an obvious for not admitting this ).
Mansell's record would've been massively better if it were not for Senna! (42.9% win ratio and average of 5 points per race. Yes, without Senna would've been equal with Schumacher). Nige also had a tonne of mechanical failures and actually would've/could've had a much better win and points score ratio anyway.
Hamilton's stats for talent purposes, include Belgium '08 as a win, simply because we all know it was and includes the likes of Nurburgring '07 where he aquaplaned off with about 5 others, but got going a lap down and finished 9th. Had he retired his stats would be better. His stats also include China '07 as his fault, not the teams'. Still, if he wins his next wet race, which is a distinct possibility, he will surpass Schumacher.
Vettel's record suffers somewhat due to 3 unforced errors spread from '07 - '09. More starts to wins will cure that, but like Mansell-Senna, he has Hamilton to deal with...
But like all stats, they could mean anything.
btw, wet race's were sourced from
http://www.cliptheapex.com
btw 2, I make no apology for an error or two. It was really for my own info to prove to myself just how much better Senna was than Schumacher.
...Now, back to making my Senna Rain Master video with peace of mind that I was right in the first place!
