I understand your hypothesis, but the effect of having a competitive teammate is very hard to measure. Although I can very well imagine that being threatened by your team mate can somehow make you nervous and reduce your confidence and affect your performance negatively, I see nothing that really proves that this is the case. And if there is any significant negative effect it is difficult to quantify it. You could very well present the opposite argument, as I saw Ross Brawn did a while ago: Having a competitive team mate that beats you now and then, keeps you extra focused and boosts your performance. When Rosberg beats Hamilton, Hamilton will do everything he can to get on top of it again, and vice versa. I can't see any evidence of this either, but I can imagine that it is true. Also, when your team mate some times demonstrates that it is possible to drive faster than you are doing, it may very well help you and motivate you to develop into an even quicker driver, which is good for the team. It is the same in football, where the best teams in the world tend to want more than one player for each possision. One purpose is to have a back up in case of injury or suspensions, but another purpose is to have a competition internally, to keep the players focused.sennafan24 wrote:Correct.Stradivarius wrote:I assume we are not discussing whether or not a team should exercise team orders when they already have a clear title candidate, as this is obviously advantageous to the team. This is about wether or not a team with one top driver should make sure they don't employ another top driver as his teammate.
I think there is a balance here. For example Mika/D.C I would say most years it was formatted that Mika was the clear number 1, this was the case it would seem in their prime years of 1998-2000. D.C was still a "competitive" enough driver but a firm number 2. I am not calling for a complete nobody as a number 2 as the way forward, but some akin to a D.C or Rubens who can score points but do not upset the applecart.
I think a team with a clear food chain seems to function better, look at Senna/Berger as another example. McLaren never had to worry about internal problems with drivers in the years of that partnership. Berger would not take points away from Senna, but he would score enough to ensure WDC's would come McLaren's way and take points away from Senna's rivals on occasions.
My theory is that having two bulls creates strife that hinders the teams performance, as two ego's are needed to be catered to.
I don't understand why the argument should loose any validity because of speculations that the relationship between Kimi and Ferrari was breaking down. The fact remains that Kimis results helped Massa. However, the logic doesn't only apply to Ferrari in 2008, it also applies to Ferrari in 2007 when there was no spekulation of a bad relationship between Kimi and Ferrari. It also applies to Alonso/McLaren in 2007.I get the logic of 2008 with Ferrari, but the gains you mentioned were minimal. Plus, there was strife in the team that year with Kimi and Ferrari's relationship breaking down.
While the psychological effect of having a competitive team mate is unclear at best, the advantage of being able to steal more points from your rivals when your car is best, is very clear and easy to measure in points.
By the way, I have totally different explaination to the success of Senna and McLaren and Schumacher and Ferrari. I don't think it had very much to do with their team mates. I have reason to believe that it was a result of the drivers themselves being the class of the field, while having a competitive car.
I think that Senna in his prime was the best driver of the field and as long as McLaren had a competitive car, Senna would have performed well regardless of the team mate. Of course, McLaren did give him strong competition in Alain Prost in 1988 and 1989, but those were the two most successful years of McLaren ever and I don't see how Prost moving to Ferrari, and being replaced by Berger was a strengthening of the team. The results say that it wasn't.
I also think that Schumacher was the best driver of the field while he drove for Ferrari. I actually don't think it would have been possible for Ferrari to find any driver who could match him. But if it had been possible, I am quite sure that Ferrari would have won the WDC both in 1999 and 2006 in addition to their success with Schumacher. Irvine came very close in 1999 and a stronger driver would have made more of it when Schumacher got injured. And in 2006, Ferrari would have been a lot stronger if Schumacher's team mate had been quick enough to beat Alonso a bit more often. If Massa hadn't spun in Bahrain in 2006, after qualifying ahead of Alonso, he would have been able to hold Alonso back enough to hand Schumacher the victory (he lost by a car's length when Alonso came out from his last pitstop. A stronger driver would probably have been able to do so, as well as beating Alonso at Nürburgring, France and Suzuka. And maybe even Imola and China. And in Turkey, Ferrari could have played it safe and secured a "multi 12". That would have been more than enough to win the title.
I might also add that in 2010, when Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel was very close, Webber stole 12 points from Vettel, and 24 points from Alonso. In other words, if Webber hadn't scored any points this season, Alonso would have beaten Vettel to the title by 8 points (by simply excluding Webber's results). Now, I do remember an episode in Turkey, when Vettel collided with Webber while leading. So if Webber had been out of the picture, Vettel might have taken an extra 25 points there and taken the title after all. I think this is a rare exception and Vettel really just put himself out of the race, but I still want to make the reservation that the team needs to make sure both drivers keep the risk at a minimum in battles between themselves. Obvious sabotage, as Alonso did to Hamilton during qualifying in Hungary in 2007 is also something the team needs to actively prevent.
