PACKAGE RATINGS AFTER THE BRITISH GP: RACE 2012/9

Lewis Hamilton

This season has been excitingly unpredictable, with seven different winning packages in nine races. Added to which is surprising competitiveness from teams that were backmarkers last year. A really mixed bag of results at the front, and the usual and really tight battles in the midfield.

Hamilton was penalised grid places in two races which he could probably have won from his front row positions. Vettel was walking away with the European GP until his alternator failed. Raikkonen and Alonso both lost top placings due to their tyres ‘falling off the cliff’ near the end of races. The falling from form in races of Button and recently Rosberg. Newboy Maldonado winning a race for Williams-Renault, their first in eight years. The competitive return of Raikkonen and his equally fast young team-mate Grosjean. These are some of the many variables that have made the season so unpredictable and more exciting than the Vettel/Red Bull-Renault dominance of 2011.

My package ratings after the British GP are set out in the table below. Bear in mind that the figure of 100.0 is the ultimate, fastest rating, and that the stats in the table are the average for the nine races so far.

PACKAGE RATINGS AFTER BRITISH GRAND PRIX: Race 2012/9
PRE-RACE			RACE
Pos.	Package	Rating	Pos.	Package	Rating
1	Hamilton/McLaren-Merc	100.0	1	Hamilton/McLaren-Me	100.0
2	Rosberg N/Mercedes	100.36	2	Grosjean/Lotus-Renlt	100.1
3	Schumacher M/Mercedes	100.42		Raikkonen/Lotus-Ren
	Vettel/Red Bull-Renault		3	Alonso/Ferrari	100.2
4	Webber/Red Bull-Renlt	100.43		Vettel/Red Bull-Renlt
5	Grosjean/Lotus-Renault	100.5	4	Maldonado/Williams-R	100.3
6	Raikkonen/Lotus-Renault	100.6		Perez/Sauber-Ferrari
	Button/McLaren-Merc		5	Webber/Red Bull-Ren	100.4
7	Alonso/Ferrari	100.8		Schumacher M/Merced
8	Maldonado/Williams-Rn	101.0	6	Rosberg N/Mercedes	100.5
9	Kobayashi/Sauber-Ferr	101.1	7	Massa/Ferrari	100.7
10	Massa /Ferrari	101.3		Kobayashi/Sauber-Ferr
	Perez/Sauber-Ferrari		8	Button/McLaren-Mer	100.9
	Di Resta/Force Ind-Merc			Hulkenberg/Fce Ind-F
	Hulkenberg/Frce Ind-M		9	Di Resta/Fce Ind-Mer	101.0
11	Ricciardo/Toro-Rosso-F	101.4		Senna B/Williams-Ren
	Senna B		10	Ricciardo/Toro Rsso-F	101.2
12	Vergne/Toro-Rosso-Ferr	102.3		Vergne/Toro Rosso-F
13	Kovalainen/Caterhm-Cos	103.2	11	Petrov/Caterham-Cosw	102.1
14	Petrov/Caterham-Cosw	103.6	12	Kovalainen/Cathm-Cos	102.4*
15	Glock/Marussia-Cosw	105.2	13	Glock/Marussia-Cosw	103.3
16	Pic/Marussia-Cosw	105.5	14	Pic/Marussia-Cosw	103.5
17	De la Rosa/HRT-Cosw	105.9	15	De la Rosa/HRT-Cosw	104.5
18	Karthikeyan/HRT-Cosw	106.7		Karthikeyan/HRT-Cos

* explanation below

Because perceptions are formed so much by race results, particularly successful ones, it is perhaps surprising that the Hamilton-McLaren-Mercedes heads both tables. However he was twice relegated five grid places from his front row qualifying positions, which probably cost him two wins. His hypothetical total then of three wins would gel with his top ratings here.

My ratings are completed only at each season’s end, and are weighted almost totally towards race performances rather than pre-race times. I use the term ‘pre-race’ in place of ‘qualifying’, because best times are quite often set in earlier timed sessions.

For my calculations, only the first eight events have been used for pre-race stats, the British GP times being non-representative due to the rainy weather. For the race ratings, only five events have been used, four of the races having had safety car deployments which always skews times and results. Prime example was the Vettel/Red Bull-Renault walking the European GP at Valencia by 20 seconds at over half distance, when the safety car came out; five laps later on the ‘re-start’ he had only a 0.1 second lead!

It is principally for these reasons that I prefer time differentials for rating competitors, rather than race results, placings wins, points or championship standings. My season average ratings havealmost always reflected the most competitive, the winners, at the top.

The outstanding pre-race ratings of the Mercedes pair Rosberg and Schumacher just behind the Hamilton/McLaren-Mercedes, are put in perspective on race day: they are ‘overtaken’ in the race time ratings by seven other packages! Obviously a problem with race-pace for Ross Brawn and his team for the third successive year, although 2012 is their best. Rosberg at last scored a win, in China.

Unexpected is the rise of the ex-Renault-now-Lotus-Renault team. Their race ratings are just behind the Hamilton package! The de-retired Raikkonen seems to have been fast from day one, and his young, re-employed teammate Grosjean is matching the experienced Finnish WDC for speed.

No surprise is the persistent speed and racecraft shown by Alonso in his off-pace Ferrari. Only pre-race rated at 100.8, he completed the races within 0.2 of the top-rated Hamilton package. His starts have been electrifying. James Allen and Murray Walker both reckon Fernando to be the best driver of all. The red car has improved from being over 0.8% off race pace in China to its current 0.4% on average.

Two new drivers who have performed so competitively at or near the front are Pastor Maldonado/Williams-Renault and Sergio Perez/ Sauber-Ferrari. Pastor impressively held off Alonso to win the Spanish GP, the first ‘ top-step’ for Williams since Montoya in 2004! The Williams car turnaround from its 2011 rating of 101.7 has been exceptional. As has Sauber’s, from their last year’s 101.2 car rating, driver neutral.

Now for those who unexpectedly underperformed.

The Red-Bulls are no longer tops; and nor has Vettel been notably faster than teammate Webber. As in 2010 Mark has been within one or two thousandths of a second per lap in both pre-race and race ratings. The ratings of the two Mercedes

and the Red Bulls in pre-race times have been shown to two decimals, between 100.36 and 100.43, so close are they to date this year.

Ferrari driver Massa has again not managed to race rate within 0.5% of Alonso. The big surprise has been Jenson Button: 0.6 off in pre-race ratings, he has dropped to 0.9 off his top-rated teammate in the races. JB says it is definitely not tyres. Can he be suffering an off-season as did Webber in 2011? Or from being too long in the game, as Jody Scheckter and Hakkinen were in 1980 and 2001, when they dropped off rapidly after great success?

One who is probably misrepresented on the race rating table here is Heikki Kovalainen, ranked 0.3 behind teammate Vitaly Petrov. In the five safety-car- free races, Heikki suffered collision damage pitstops in China and Bahrain, was on average 0.2 faster than Vitaly in Spain and Canada, but finished at a slow 102.9 at Silverstone, for which I have yet to discover if there is a reason. This drops him down in relation to Petrov. As the season progresses his ratings should climb again. As mentioned in my ratings explanation, events when the cars suffer problems are not counted.

The rest of the packages rate much where one would expect, based on car performances.

A fascinating season, and exciting for the great fighting spirit exemplified by Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel, Webber, Maldonado, Perez, Grosjean, Raikkonen and Kobayashi, and the talent and professionalism of the whole field. The 2007 and 2008 seasons were close-fought, but 2012 is as close among more packages at the front.

© Patrick O’Brien. Nothing from this page can be used without the permission of Patrick E. O’Brien.

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