F1 Performance: is it the car, is it the driver?

[Stradivarius]

If it's always the car, why did Fisichella finish in 5th place for Renault in 2005, while Alonso won the title? Alonso won the title with a margine of 21 points over Raikkonen, but Fisichella lost out to Raikkonen by 54 points. In other words, the difference between the drivers was greater than the difference between the cars, in terms of results, and thus in terms of overall performance.

This season we see that one car is superior to all the other cars, but that is by no means evidence that it is always the car. We also see this season that some drivers have a massive advantage over their team mate. The car is the same, while the performance is very different. Just look at Alonso and Raikkonen. They have the same car, but not the same results, not even close to similar results overall. Or look at Hulkenberg and Perez. The difference is not exactly negligible. If it is the driver performance that causes Hulkenberg to have more points than Perez, how can we exclude the possibility that it is also the driver performance that causes Hulkenberg to have more points than Massa and Magnussen? If we can't exclude the driver performance in these cases, how is it possible to claim that it is always the driver?

The data I presented above, includes some very high numbers in the second column. If I am not mistaken, there are ten numbers larger than 100. This is more than one hundred points over one season. That is quite a lot. And the car is the same in all those cases. How can this data be dismissed without any objective reasons? Be aware that I am not looking only at who wins the championships, I look at all the points scored. And I see that for example Kubica was worth more than a hundre points more than Petrov in 2010. Why did Kubica score 109 points more than Petrov? Was it because of a better car, or was it because of better driving skills? Anyone who claims "it's always the car" please explain this one to me.

The most extreme example I can think of right now is Benetton in 1994, where Schumacher won the title and actually was as dominant that season as anyone has ever been, while his team mates rarely even scored points in the same car. With Lehto and Verstappen, Benetton would have been nowhere in 1994. But Schumacher claimed the title despite being disqualified from two races and excluded from another two races.

[djos]

I'm not sure the Shuey 94 example is entirely fair, I was under the impression that Shuey www getting getting all the illegal "special sauce" tricks and the other car was always legal spec?

http://www.vitalf1.com/article.asp?a=665

[Just_a_fan]

This season we see that one car is superior to all the other cars, but that is by no means evidence that it is always the car. We also see this season that some drivers have a massive advantage over their team mate. The car is the same, while the performance is very different. Just look at Alonso and Raikkonen.

In a good number of cases, one driver doesn't like the car's inherent setup and so never gets comfortable with it. The biggest factor in driver performance is confidence; if the driver isn't confident in the car's responses then he can't extract performance from it. Alonso and Raikkonen have very different requirements from the car and Raikkonen has not been able to get the Ferrari to "feel right" for him. He made a comment after one weekend where he and Alonso were very similar in pace this year - "I have been able to set up the car nearer to my requirements" (or a monosyllabic Kimi-version of that).

Any given car will have a best minimum lap time that it can achieve on a given day on a given track. How close to that time it gets is down to the driver. If the driver is confident in one car and not in the other one, he could get a better lap time in a theoretically slower car. But ultimately, the car has a maximum performance set by the laws of physics. You can't go quicker than that, no matter how good you are.

[FoxHound]

If it's always the car, why did Fisichella finish in 5th place for Renault in 2005, while Alonso won the title? Alonso won the title with a margine of 21 points over Raikkonen, but Fisichella lost out to Raikkonen by 54 points.

If we look earlier in the thread, you'll find your answer.
A cars total maximum performance cannot be transcended by a driver. It is impossible unless he can climb out and push the vehicle faster while driving.
If a car has 100 percent performance potential, the driver can only ever extract 100 percent from this potential.

Why did Alonso trounce Fisicho? Same car different results, with Alonso able to extract more from the car than Fisichella. So you could naturally conclude Alonso being better. What Alonso did not do, was go beyond what that Renault was capable of.

So it is pertinent to say the best drivers extract the most potential out of the cars they drive without ever going over what the car is possible of achieving.

[Andres125sx]

If it's always the car, why did Fisichella finish in 5th place for Renault in 2005, while Alonso won the title? Alonso won the title with a margine of 21 points over Raikkonen, but Fisichella lost out to Raikkonen by 54 points.

If we look earlier in the thread, you'll find your answer.
A cars total maximum performance cannot be transcended by a driver. It is impossible unless he can climb out and push the vehicle faster while driving.
If a car has 100 percent performance potential, the driver can only ever extract 100 percent from this potential.

Why did Alonso trounce Fisicho? Same car different results, with Alonso able to extract more from the car than Fisichella. So you could naturally conclude Alonso being better. What Alonso did not do, was go beyond what that Renault was capable of.

So it is pertinent to say the best drivers extract the most potential out of the cars they drive without ever going over what the car is possible of achieving.

This again?

Ok, here I go, I´ve discussed about this so many times I can explain it in few lines

Car A, fastest. Car B, second fastest. Driver A only get 90% of his car. Driver B get 95% of his car. Difference from car A and car B is lower than that 5% so driver B win the championship with a slower car.

Is driver B overperforming his car? He´s not improving his car potential, but he´s improving the position his car deserves, so IMO, he is outperforming his car

Agree or disagree?

[Just_a_fan]

He is not outperforming his car, no. He is getting closer to its maximum potential than his rival is with his car. You can not outperform the car. The laws of physics dictate the maximum performance of the car - the driver can only determine how close to that performance limit the car is driven.

Think back to Button and Hamilton at McLaren. Some days Button was faster than Hamilton. On other days, Hamilton was faster. The usual reason for one being less quick than the other is "not happy with the balance", something that Button particularly suffered from. Hamilton seemed to be slightly less worried about that so he was often quicker. But neither man was capable of outperforming the car. All they did was outperform each other.

[FoxHound]

Andres

Who is to say driver B in car B is at "95%".

This is not kosher. Its subjective and purely based on personal opinion. This is the problem when using percentages to fathom driver performance.
If Alonso can bang a 1.25,000 lap you know the car is at least capable of of a 1.25,000.
Raikkonen does a 1.25,500 so you know he is slower in the same car. But does this factor in Raikkonen's issues?
Should it factor in his issues?

But, how does that compare to a guy in a completely different car, Car A Driver A?
We have no idea if he is at "90%" or at "100%".
The car, above all else and by a massive margin is the factor that determines results.

I say that, because in F1 front running drivers are not a second apart consistently in performance. They just would not be racing in f1 if that were the case.

Bury the percentages already.

[Aesto]

Andres

Who is to say driver B in car B is at "95%".

This is not kosher. Its subjective and purely based on personal opinion. This is the problem when using percentages to fathom driver performance.
If Alonso can bang a 1.25,000 lap you know the car is at least capable of of a 1.25,000.
Raikkonen does a 1.25,500 so you know he is slower in the same car. But does this factor in Raikkonen's issues?
Should it factor in his issues?

But, how does that compare to a guy in a completely different car, Car A Driver A?
We have no idea if he is at "90%" or at "100%".

Like this:

Assume that car A, when driven by a theoretical perfect driver who makes no mistakes and always takes the optimal line, is capable of a lap time of 84 seconds.

Meanwhile, car B, when driven by the same hypothetical perfect driver, is capable of 85 seconds.

Now, let's say driver A is good enough to achieve an actual lap time equal to 101 percent of what the perfect driver can do. Hence, he laps at 84.84s. For driver B to be just as good as driver A he needs to lap at 101 percent of what the perfect driver is capable of in his car, or 85.85s. If he is faster than that, he is better than driver A, if he is slower, he is worse.

Now, obviously the problem here is that we don't know what the perfect driver is capable of, and how far the actual drivers are away from that mark. The only people who do know are the teams' engineers who operate their simulators.

And even then the concept rests on two assumptions, but I think they are fairly reasonable:

A. The engineers are actually capable of programming a perfect driver. This is a fairly reasonable assumption, it should be doable either via some form of numerical optimization or some iterative algorithm.

B. The simulators are an accurate representation of reality. Obviously not true (yet). However, they might be sufficiently accurate (otherwise they would be somewhat useless anyway). Or alternatively, one could use the lap times the actual drivers managed within the simulator to compare to the perfect lap time.

[mcalex]

I remember that Kimi in F60 was sometimes faster than what simulations showed.

[Aesto]

I remember that Kimi in F60 was sometimes faster than what simulations showed.

Yes, that definitely happens on occasion. Which is why I noted these two assumptions. In this case the problem is most likely the latter one. The people programming them always need to make guesses about ambient and track temperature (optimally not just one number for the whole circuit, it's possible for vastly different temperatures if one part of the track is covered by shadows, be it because of clouds, trees, buildings, etc.), air density, amount of rubber on the surface (and therefore grip), and so on.

However, these are practical problems that can be solved, they do not preclude the concept in principle.

[Andres125sx]

Andres

Who is to say driver B in car B is at "95%".

Me!

Obviously each one will have his own opinion, as you said this is completely subjective, but that is part of the fun, discussing about how much credit deserves the car and/or the driver

Bury the percentages already.

The percentages are just illustrative to clarify my point of view about the usual he´s outperformed his car statement. No car can be outperformed, but drivers can outperform the natural position his car should finish.... if they perform better than his rivals with faster cars and beat them.

The example with percentages was just to explain this, if someone win with a car wich is not the fastest, he´s not outperformed his car, but he´s improved the position his car should finish, so I don´t find that bad to say he´s outperformed his car

[djos]

I have to agree, thinking back to Mark Webber's jaguar days, he was infamous for dragging that thing much further up the grid in qually than it deserved to be but then falling backwards in the races as the cars weakness were exposed.

[PlatinumZealot]

I disagree with anyone who says a driver cannot drive past a rated mechanical limit. Absolute rubbish. The limit is unknown by the designer in the factory. The limit is found at the track.... And though it may sound confounding... A driver must drive over the limit to find the limit! (get it?)
Ask any engineer about the limit of a material or of some system, he can only guess. Even those enhineering tables and charts are only estimations... And sometimes a system can operate over its rated limit for some period of tIme.

[SectorOne]

Oh come on people... No driver can break the laws of nature. It is physically impossible for a driver to go beyond what the car can do.

[Andres125sx]

I disagree with anyone who says a driver cannot drive past a rated mechanical limit. Absolute rubbish. The limit is unknown by the designer in the factory. The limit is found at the track.... And though it may sound confounding... A driver must drive over the limit to find the limit! (get it?)
Ask any engineer about the limit of a material or of some system, he can only guess. Even those enhineering tables and charts are only estimations... And sometimes a system can operate over its rated limit for some period of tIme.

If engineers doesn´t know the limit doesn´t mean the driver is passing the limit, he´s just finding out where the limit is, very different to driving past the limit.

No system can operate over it´s rated limit, but there´s a limit for short use wich involves the ultimate resistance of the material and first intant you pass it it will break (if not the limit was not correctly rated, wich is usual, but because of safety margins, not because you can go past the limit), and a different limit for long term use wich involves fatigue. In this case you could pass the limit for a few instants if the average use is below the fatigue limit, but both are limits and neither of them can be exceeded without damaging the element. If it´s possible, the limit was not correctly defined, safety margin was too high, but that´s our fault defining the correct limit, not that the limit can be exceeded.

Depending on manufacturing quality standards the safety margin may be higher or lower to cover any unperfection on material or manufacturing process, the higher quality standards, the lower safety margin. But that´s a known reduction of the real limit to be safe, not that you´re surpassing the limit