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

[Cam]

Let's try it this way then: hypothetically program two android drivers with the ability to take any car they operate to the razor's edge of their performance capabilities without committing a single error in the process. Now put those identical android drivers into two cars of varying capability and allow them to race each other. The android in the fastest car will win every time even though both androids performed at the exact same level. Does that then make the winning android the best android anyway?

This is why it's always the car, and it's quite easy to determine a car's capability by what it enables, because if a car does it, that means the car can do it, because the car did do it.

My problem with this argument is robots don't race, humans do. Humans are fallible and prone to not being able to repeat performances again and again. So we need to argue horses for courses here.

Humans succumb to stress, pressure, fatigue, depression, etc and these need to factor when in a car. A human will never get 100% out of a car all day every day. Impossible. So why argue "it's the car" when 100% performance can never be achieved?

In this context, driver performance must be considered as a factor in determining how well a car can perform.

[xpensive]

Put Marcus Ericsson in a Mercedes and I guarantee he will make the podium at his first attempt.

[mnmracer]

Put Marcus Ericsson in a Mercedes and I guarantee he will make the podium at his first attempt.

No doubt, but will he win? I guarantee you not (unless Chilton's in the other car, or HamilBerg retires).

And that's why there is still more to it than just the car. That is why one Red Bull and one Ferrari were fighting for the championships in '10 and '12, and the others were not. That is why Chilton is considered a pay-driver and why Bianchi is waiting for a Ferrari seat to open up.

And that is why Formula One will still always be a test of driving skill [-o<

[Cam]

I reckon I could put that Mercedes on the podium too

But every race, day in day out? Not every driver can do that.

[xpensive]

Right, and Alonso would put it on pole blindfolded? =D>

[turbof1]

Put Marcus Ericsson in a Mercedes and I guarantee he will make the podium at his first attempt.

No doubt, but will he win? I guarantee you not (unless Chilton's in the other car, or HamilBerg retires).

And that's why there is still more to it than just the car. That is why one Red Bull and one Ferrari were fighting for the championships in '10 and '12, and the others were not. That is why Chilton is considered a pay-driver and why Bianchi is waiting for a Ferrari seat to open up.

And that is why Formula One will still always be a test of driving skill [-o<

He will not win mainly because he'll have a driver against him much more accustomed to the car. Put a Alonso or Vettel in a Mercedes car; 100% guaranteed he'll not win. It takes a huge load of time to adapt to the car.

A driver can only extract as much as 100% from the car. How close the driver is to that 100% depends on many, many factors. Last year Red Bull's car and Vettel's specific driving characteristics were much more aligned then Webber's, this year Ricciardo is much lined up with the car.

Of course you also have drivers that just aren't born for the job, or some drivers with such a high adaptiblity they quickly regain what is lost.

Ultimately though, if we look at top teams and car A is better then car B in a given situation, driver skill is near to impossible to overcome the delta performance, especially since both top teams will have good drivers who can get close to the 100% of their cars.

[Cam]

F1 drivers are athletes and as such the level of 'athleticism' must surely factor. They train to overcome it. Some would do better than others.

Hinchcliffe has a regular mental fitness test in which he starts with a few quick laps in a racing simulator before working out for an hour or two. When he’s done training, he gets back in the simulator and won’t leave until he matches the lap times from when he was fresh.

Then there's sports psychology:

Choking isn’t just poor performance. It is worse performance than you are capable of precisely because there is a lot on the line

Put an average driver in a dominant car on the fastest track surrounded by 21 cars going into the first corner, the world watching, and swear to me he's finding 100% car performance. Now tell me a 'great driver' wouldn't do a better job. All the experience, skill, confidence. That would be a huge factor.

[xpensive]

When Alonso drove this shitbox he didn't score a point all season, five years later he was a double WDC;

[Just_a_fan]

When Alonso drove this shitbox he didn't score a point all season, five years later he was a double WDC;

That's a rather unfair description of the car.

Minardi had almost no budget - for example, they hardly ever got wind tunnel time because they couldn't afford it.
It's not an exaggeration to say that Michael was paid more than the entire Minardi budget for a season. And yet they still came up with some aero tweaks that other teams took on and used to good effect.

[xpensive]

Which is true of course, but when he drove this he had six wins and three seconds in the season's first nine races;



Get my point here?

[JimClarkFan]

Which is true of course, but when he drove this he had six wins and three seconds in the season's first nine races;

http://www.formula1.com/wi/gi/597x478/4 ... ur1315.jpg

Get my point here?

No one has ever said that you can win a championship in a poor car..

However there seems to be a tone here that cars only make championships and little can be read into a drivers ability. The insinuation by some, is that the Ferrari in 2012 was potentially a championship winning car all by itself.

My point and that of others have been, is that yes it was a potentially championship winning car, but only in the hands of certain drivers who were capable of extracting a winning performance

Great drivers shine in crap cars. They exploit a poor car much better than others can and that is when they stand apart.

Those people who only seen Alonso in a Minardi might not remember his name ever again, whereas those who seen him in the Renault might think he was great.

A full body of evidence is required before making a judging, simply pointing to a car saying it was all the car is equally as dumb as saying it was all the driver.

Get my point?

[xpensive]

To some extent true. When Robin Herd's 721X was a dog, MrM had the F2 car converted with a DFV and sideboard tanks,
he had sold all 711s, the 721G. Ronnie was 4th on the grid and came home 3rd at the at the time daunting Nurburgring;

[bhall]

[...]

My point and that of others have been, is that yes [the F2008] was a potentially championship winning car, but only in the hands of certain drivers who were capable of extracting a winning performance

Great drivers shine in crap cars. They exploit a poor car much better than others can and that is when they stand apart.

[...]

What's the difference between a backmarker who manages to unleash every last ounce of performance from his car and a frontline driver who does likewise in a much faster car? They're both getting as much out of their respective cars as possible, which is the highest achievement for any race driver and all you can ever ask of them anyway. Nevertheless, only the one driving the faster car will win the race.

That doesn't necessarily make him the better driver, though. It just makes him a race winner.



And that's why it's always the car.

[SpecialCircumstances]

IMO, if you put all the current drivers in the same car, there would be less than 1 second between 1st and last. Yes, even Chilton. And I'm probably giving too much of a margin there.

Personally, I look at certain things to form an opinion on how good a driver is other than a certain rough level of talent tier you can place them in.
Mistake prone - How many (and what kind of) mistakes they make.
Qualifying efficiency - how often do they deliver max perceived potential, how clutch are they in nailing a lap.
Overtaking efficiency - you need a faster car to overtake. Any professional driver knows how to. The question is can they take advantage of every opportunity? Not crash? How much time will they waste behind the other car? (I am not talking backmarkers obviously)
Tyre/car management.
Adaptability.

I also think you need many years to form a solid opinion on a guy.

[Edax]

When Alonso drove this shitbox he didn't score a point all season, five years later he was a double WDC;

http://www.grandprix247.com/wp-content/ ... aus147.jpg

But you fail to mention that he did manage outqualify those blue and yellow cars (then only blue) in that "shitbox" on several occasions. Plus he was regularly 1 to 2 second quicker than his teammate.

People don't get the best car for no reason. At the moment you don't even get the worst car for no reason. But there are so many things that go in the equation.

Good drivers need a natural speed adaptability and consistency, and that shines through in their performance in any car. But heroic performances in bad cars can be deceptive. By those standards Johnny Herbert should have been one of the greatest drivers of all times for putting a Steward on the highest step, so there is more to it.

I think the matching of the car and driver is underrated. In Moto GP the front end of Casey Stoners bike is said to be so agressive, that it is undrivable by anyone but Casey Stoner. Indeed it made the former world Champion (Nicky Hayden) look like a complete idiot. The same has been said of Schumachers cars. Some drivers get to develop their car around their specific wishes, but at least half the drivers don't. And that is assuming that all manufacturers can deliver a car with specific characteristics.

Then there is something which is hard to define. In a sport where the difference between a great overtake and a fantastic crash is sometimes measured in centimeters, the difference between hero and zero is equally slim. Something just everything works out, sometimes it doesn't.

So while it is fun to discuss the qualities of drivers and I certainly like to participate. At the same time I have to acknowledge the fact that even the top teams with their highly paid advisors and scouts, manage to place "the wrong" driver in their car on a regular basis. So who am I to say who is better than who?