2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

[Fulcrum]

I see there is too much of hype for Rosberg as a driver here. No other driver, other than Prost had that lucrative opportunity of qualifying right behind his team mate, regardless of how poor he performed in qualifying, because there was no credible competition. MP4/4 and MP4/5 had no competition and I had posted comparison runs in the McLaren thread of Prost and Senna, where the average gap between the two was more than a second! Yet, no one in between them. Same applies to Rosberg, while the qualifying performance difference was an average of 0.3 to 0.4 second (thanks to modern sophisticated cars and obviously, learning from the team mate's data), there were times when Lewis got pole by over half a second and yet, it was Nico who was next to him. 2016 Monza was a classic example where Lewis got pole by half a second and when he fluffed the start, it was Rosberg who was taking advantage. In all his years, Rosberg never had any issues in qualifying, whereas Lewis had a number of failures that didn't allow him to challenge Rosberg in quali, which in turn gifted wins to Rosberg.

Unlike no other teams before, Mercedes brought rules of engagement that always preferred the leading driver the right to pit first. Despite that, a number of times Rosberg was the beneficiary of the rule break (Bahrain 2015, Austria 2016), while Lewis never enjoyed that. In 2015 Monaco, a win was taken away from Lewis and gifted to Rosberg. Austria 2016 was almost a gift too. In Russia 2016, Lewis was asked not to charge towards Rosberg by quoting a water issue in engine. 2016 was full of questionable decisions from Mercedes and not to mention the mechanics swap. Despite having a absolutely trouble free year on mechanical side, Rosberg still needed a host of issues for Lewis in the early part of the season, that forced Lewis to take an extra PU and penalty for that, and most importantly, a Lewis' DNF to get the title.

No other team mate ever enjoyed so many advantages against one of the potent drivers of all times, which enabled an average Joe to come across as more than that. In the end, Rosberg appeared more competitive than he really was, due to various factors. His race craft was as good as that was on display in Spain and Austria 2016 and not to mention the hydrophobic driving qualities.

You're quite wrong about their respective qualifying pace.

Of 52 qualifying sessions where both set times, the average difference was 0.053 seconds; Hamilton being 0.053 seconds faster.

If you remove outliers from each of 2014, 2015 and 2016 - i.e. Hamilton's best performance, and Rosberg's best performance - the gap is 0.106 seconds in Hamilton's favor.

If you also remove all wet qualifying sessions, the difference is 0.085 seconds.

Take your pick, none of these differentials are anything like as much as you proclaim.

Of the extreme cases, Hamilton qualified ahead by 0.5 of a second (or more) on only 6 occasions; Rosberg managed this on 2 occasions.

To suggest Rosberg was consistently so far behind would be forgetting those occasions where Rosberg qualified in front of Hamilton; 28 of 59 races in fact - roughly half of the time. Even if you remove the instances where Hamilton experienced an impaired qualifying session, being unable to set a time, Rosberg still qualified ahead approximately 40% of the time.

There is absolutely no mistaking the fact that Hamilton was faster than Rosberg, especially during races. Simultaneously, the data simply doesn't support your supposition of an enormous gulf in performance between the two during qualifying.

[Phil]

I was waiting for Fulcrum to come in and set the record straight. And he did.

[TAG]

Thanks for doing the work I was too lazy to do myself! The numbers are clearly not as skewed as I'd imagined. I would have said 70/30 instead of 60/40. It still doesn't account for the data sharing aspect which we know benefited Rosberg. Did you remember to remove that one Monaco qualifying?

I'd also be curious to know what you get when you add in 2013, there's no real reason to remove that data.

[Fulcrum]

Of the 19 races in 2013, I have it as 11-8 for Hamilton.

Remove 2 instances, 1 each, where one driver was prevented from advancing to Q3 (team error in Germany in Rosberg's case, blocking in Monza in Hamilton's case), and that becomes 10-7, with a time advantage of 0.226 seconds to Hamilton.

Remove wet or mixed qualifying (4 of them) and the head-to-head becomes 7-6 in Rosberg's favor, with an average difference of 0.058 seconds (Hamilton quicker by this margin). I don't think it is entirely reasonably to drop every instance of wet qualifying (Hamilton was legitimately faster in each case), I simply do so to demonstrate their relative performance with 1 less factor of variance; some of the sessions were wet but drying - a bit of a lottery.

Not too different from any other year they were paired. That time differential also includes a gap of 1.019 seconds in the USA, where Rosberg failed to progress to Q3 - without which they're basically dead even.

[TAG]

^^ Muchas Gracias

[GPR-A]

You're quite wrong about their respective qualifying pace.

Of 52 qualifying sessions where both set times, the average difference was 0.053 seconds; Hamilton being 0.053 seconds faster.

If you remove outliers from each of 2014, 2015 and 2016 - i.e. Hamilton's best performance, and Rosberg's best performance - the gap is 0.106 seconds in Hamilton's favor.

If you also remove all wet qualifying sessions, the difference is 0.085 seconds.

Take your pick, none of these differentials are anything like as much as you proclaim.

Of the extreme cases, Hamilton qualified ahead by 0.5 of a second (or more) on only 6 occasions; Rosberg managed this on 2 occasions.

To suggest Rosberg was consistently so far behind would be forgetting those occasions where Rosberg qualified in front of Hamilton; 28 of 59 races in fact - roughly half of the time. Even if you remove the instances where Hamilton experienced an impaired qualifying session, being unable to set a time, Rosberg still qualified ahead approximately 40% of the time.

There is absolutely no mistaking the fact that Hamilton was faster than Rosberg, especially during races. Simultaneously, the data simply doesn't support your supposition of an enormous gulf in performance between the two during qualifying.

This is exactly where you are going wrong!

The problem of averaging out performances is, it takes away the contextual realities.

You can simply take the qualifyings where Lewis was ahead of Rosberg and do an average, where there were no dramas and both drivers had a normal qualifying. Then you take another where Rosberg was ahead, again without any dramas to any driver. Then look at what the numbers come out!









On one hand, the average seems to have come down from 2013 to 2016, but on the other, the number of times Nico managed to outqualify Lewis also came down over the years in straight battle!!! And obviously, not having Wet qualifyings in 2015 and 2016 certainly helped, along with change of Mechanics!

Wet qualifyings are never a drama or lottery, excelling in such circumstances requires special skill that very few drivers possessed over the decades!

[GPR-A]

I was waiting for Fulcrum to come in and set the record straight. And he did.

Too quick to judge I guess! He only gave a perspective that favors Nico.

[Phil]

Too quick to judge I guess! He only gave a perspective that favors Nico.

I dont think your numbers are any more or less truthful. In the end, the most important metric is how many times a driver outqualified the other. If it was by a margin greater or smaller IMO isnt that important.

A small mistake can easily mean that the other driver outqualifies the other by a significant margin. In the end, it doesnt matter. He was beaten fair and square, however big the gap was. Point being; Rosberg outqualified Hamilton on numerous occasions. Sure, at times, Hamilton made mistakes (as a result of being under pressure), sometimes the car let him down etc. This courtesy extends to both drivers.

On the whole, yes, Hamilton was better in difficult conditions (wet/changeable) and mostly better in the dry. Sometimes, the gap was small. And sometimes, Rosberg was just quicker. So as i said (no one ever said otherwise), Hamilton still wins. But i think Rosberg was closer in overall performance to Hamilton than any other driver so far.

I can count the times Bottas or Button outqualified Hamilton on pure pace probably on one hand. Rosberg did it way more often.

[TAG]

There was a philosophical change in the way Lewis focused on qualifying. In 2014 the realization of Nico being in front and being given priority changed the way the Hamilton camp focused on qualifying. The change between 13,14 to the subsequent years through 2016 is very indicative of something different being done to focus on qualifying so he could assure that lead car status strategy come Sunday.

[Just_a_fan]

There is also the fact that Hamilton's pace comes, in part, from his ability on the brakes. This is also why he is good at overtaking. Some tracks really benefit from this braking ability, others are more flowing. I remember seeing graphics where Rosberg carried a bit more speed through flowing sections than Hamilton. At other points, Hamilton made time on big braking events. Over a season, I'm guessing the "braking required for laptime" circuits outnumber the "carry speed for laptime" circuits.

By such margins are titles won and legends made..

[Fulcrum]

I was waiting for Fulcrum to come in and set the record straight. And he did.

Too quick to judge I guess! He only gave a perspective that favors Nico.

Your numbers depend far too heavily on making allowances for one driver over the other. That is the very definition of bias - which you call "context".

Also, for the record, in my original post I stated that I had removed the instances (7 of them) where Lewis was unable to set a time for one reason or the other. Hence the reference to 52 qualifying sessions and not 59. That is fair.

Other than that, I'm simply averaging what the record reflects. When measured over 4 years (adding in 2013), your conclusion is still patently invalid.

Nowhere, not once, have I asserted anything other than Hamilton being quicker. The margin remains much closer than what you're willing to accept.

[GPR-A]

Too quick to judge I guess! He only gave a perspective that favors Nico.

I dont think your numbers are any more or less truthful.

Truth, is simply what you want to believe.

some of the sessions were wet but drying - a bit of a lottery.

By terming the wet, wet-dry sessions as lottery, you are giving away which side you want to stand for. When the point itself is to prove that the difference between performances was low, you start on the wrong foot. You first need to put the statistics and consider the circumstances under which these statistics have come to then look at how the outcomes plays out. Ultimately, we are trying to prove the qualitative characteristics through driver comparison and for that, we are using statistics and circumstances. This exercise is NOT about simply putting the numbers.

For those who simply want to believe the difference was small and for that, use average of 4 years of drivers' competition in the same car, then you can walk away happily with your agenda.

With the kind of reliability that Mercedes and Ferrari have achieved this year, you have to give the benefit of performance to the driver who faced the most problems in qualifying due to mechanical issues in the past years.

The basis of argument that I started with was this. With the kind of competitive car that Ferrari have produced, Nico would have been starting 3rd or 4th in all those races where Lewis would have started ahead of Nico. That was evident with the qualifying performance statistics that I have posted above (without any issues to either driver), especially with the mechanical reliability that Mercedes has now and the way they have executed the qualifyings by getting it right almost every single time. Which means no drama and no drama means, there would be more chances of Lewis starting ahead of Nico with a margin of 3 to 4 tenths. That 3 to 4 tenths today means, there would be a minimum of one Ferrari in between OR two, because Kimi has lifted his performance in qualifyings this year. That is the point.

[Fulcrum]

You started out referencing a gap of 0.5 seconds, emphasizing the instances where the gap was even larger than that. Your subsequent statements then moved to 0.4 - 0.3 seconds. Your latest post, applying your own preferential logic, suggested something closer to 0.2 seconds.

You're slowly walking back your own statements until they'll eventually approximate my apparent "truth".

Truth, is simply what you want to believe.

After reading your recent posts, I'm not surprised you believe this. Quite a shameful attitude to adopt for a technical forum, but each to their own.

[GPR-A]

You started out referencing a gap of 0.5 seconds, emphasizing the instances where the gap was even larger than that. Your subsequent statements then moved to 0.4 - 0.3 seconds. Your latest post, applying your own preferential logic, suggested something closer to 0.2 seconds.

You're slowly walking back your own statements until they'll eventually approximate my apparent "truth".

You need to read first before hitting the keyboard.

This was the first post on this topic I started with.
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=26885&start=510#p797762

Same applies to Rosberg, while the qualifying performance difference was an average of 0.3 to 0.4 second (thanks to modern sophisticated cars and obviously, learning from the team mate's data), there were times when Lewis got pole by over half a second and yet, it was Nico who was next to him.

Nowhere I mentioned or concluded that the difference came down to 0.2 seconds like you have convinced yourself. The 0.284 second difference in 2016 isn't 0.200, anyone in the right mind would read it close to 0.3 second. If you want to believe the trend on one side, where the difference came down, you also have to believe the other side of the images that I have posted, where the number of times Nico out-qualified Lewis kept coming down!

Truth, is simply what you want to believe.

After reading your recent posts, I'm not surprised you believe this. Quite a shameful attitude to adopt for a technical forum, but each to their own.

Are you emotional by nature? Just asking. In this whole argument, people take one or the other side of the statistics. I did not term Phil to be wrong. Phisophically, when you are dealing with situations like this, no one is going to be a winner. You take what you want to believe and live with it. I would never go out there to change anyone's mind. You are a free man and so is Phil, so you can choose to believe what is right! We can continue showcasing our point of views. Let the others decide what they want to believe, instead of you terming something as shameful!

[NathanOlder]

On the whole Rosberg Hamilton debate, would anyone have any clue on the number of overtakes they managed to pull off on each other ? Not including pit stops or the run down to turn 1 on lap 1.

Proper overtakes or errors where one pressured the other in to a mistake to pass (Like Monza 2014)

From 2013-2016 (4years) I don't recall many times Rosberg passing Lewis and making it stick.