r/F1Discussions

Fans of every team: are you happy with your current driver lineup? Why or why not?
And now that we’re at the mid-season, how satisfied are you with their performances so far? Who has exceeded expectations and who do you think needs to step it up? Would you keep the same lineup for next season?

If Liam Lawson scores points this weekend with Red Bull does it just go on to his personal tally and then toward the constructors of Red Bull as well?

How was albon linked to redbull last year, and iirc in 2023 there were talks with Ferrari yet Gaslys name is just never thrown in the mix, I get he's committed to alpine for some reason but has he ever bothered to look for another seat?

While I understand that qualifying pace and race pace are two different disciplines, Russell's terrible race pace compared to his really good qualifying pace always amazes me.

​If you compare Russell with Norris and Leclerc—given they are of a similar age and drive for top teams—you realize that while Norris and Leclerc are strong in both areas, they are significantly better in one (Leclerc in qualifying and Norris in race pace). With Russell, however, he is easily top-three in qualifying, but at the same time, he has the second-worst race pace among top-team drivers.

​The problem for Russell is that in the ground-effect era, qualifying pace was valued more than race pace. Taking last year into consideration, it was nearly impossible to overtake your teammate under the same conditions, so his race pace deficit was largely masked. This year, the situation is different: the qualifying margin between teammates has shrunk, and a qualifying lap can easily be compromised by poor energy deployment. Moreover, race pace is now far more critical because, in almost every race this year (excluding Hungary and Monaco), you can overtake your teammate if you are faster. Consequently, his race pace issues have become much more exposed. What surprises me even more is that across all races this year, Antonelli has held the average race pace advantage, even in Australia.

​Another problem is that true race pace usually starts to develop in a driver’s second year and continues to improve until they reach their prime. This means we haven't even seen Antonelli's full race pace yet, suggesting the gap will only get bigger next year.

​In the end, what is the reason for Russell's poor race pace, and how can he have such good qualifying pace alongside bad race pace? Ps I'm not talking about his race pace problem this year only I'm talking overall from his Williams days

Does anyone else remember this?

BMW stopped updating their 2008 car around Canada time when they won that GP, and Kubica stayed in contention really all the way up until Japan that year.

BMW said they were focusing all their money into the 2009 car, that if I remember correctly was a hunk of shit

Kubica was a great driver. I think he’s very underrated in historical F1 discussion

In the 1979 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder - the sixth of 15 races that year - Jody Scheckter took victory after Alan Jones broke down while leading just after half distance, while Gilles Villeneuve ran out of fuel on the final lap while running third in his bid to recover from being the innocent victim of a lap two collision between Scheckter and Clay Regazzoni. 

Scheckter went on to beat Villeneuve to the title with two races to spare at Monza, when Villeneuve obeyed orders not to fight his Ferrari team leader. Jones had been eliminated from title contention before that race. However, had Jones or Villeneuve finished in the positions they had occupied at Zolder, they would have beaten Scheckter to the world title. 

How were both of these outcomes possible? Prior to 1991, only a set number of a driver’s best results counted towards the world championship. From 1967-80, there was a split-season version of this format, in which a set number of scoring races from each half of the season counted towards the championship. In every season from 67 to 90 - except 79 - the lowest figure of counting races was 66.6%, and the lowest under the split format was 71.4%.

In 1979, only four races from each half of the season - 53.3% of all races - counted towards the championship. Assuming my maths is correct, this meant the following…

• If Jones had won at Zolder, or if Villeneuve had finished third, Scheckter would have lost the world title despite scoring the highest number of total points.
• Despite scoring at eight races, only seven of Villeneuve’s scores counted. 
• Jones had two non-driver error DNFs while leading, at Zolder and Silverstone. He had a third while fighting for the lead at Watkins Glen. Had Jones gone on to win at Zolder, the resulting 12-point swing relative to Scheckter would have made him world champion. Had Jones gone on to win either or both of Silverstone and Watkins Glen, he would have added zero points to his season tally. 
• Jones was mathematically eliminated from title contention after the Dutch GP, while Villeneuve was not, despite Jones having more points.
• Entering the Italian GP - with 27 total points possible from the final three races - Scheckter and Laffite could score a maximum of 19 points. Villeneuve could score 21. Jones could only score six. 
• In the second half of the season, it was possible for two drivers to score a 100% points tally. This is the only time this was possible in F1 since 1951-53. In two of those years, the only way it was possible was for one of the two drivers to win the Indy 500, while the third was the only year in which fewer than 50% of races counted.

While the 1981-90 format is often criticised for not making Prost the 88 champion when he scored more total points than Senna, the modus operandi of this format is clear. It existed predominantly to ensure that a contender with an unusually reliable car wouldn’t become world champion solely on the basis of reliability. This worked every year except 88, as McLaren only suffering two defacto mechanical failures from 32 combined starts was completely beyond the realms of precedent and expectation. The system was not inherently flawed, it was a logical idea that fell victim to an extreme set of circumstances.

The 1979 system simply cannot be defended in the same way. It’s modus operandi is completely unclear…

• If it sought to reward consistency at various stages of the season, why was it possible for Jones to become champion while only scoring twice in the first seven races? 
• If it sought to reward strong results, why was Villeneuve the only driver (other than Prost in 1988) to drop a second place finish since 1963? 
• If it sought to reward consistency over the season, why did it make Scheckter have to drop four(!) scores, while also making him champion with two races to spare anyway? 
• If it sought to increase the value of later races in the season, it did the exact opposite. It meant Villeneuve’s erratic Spanish GP meant everything, but his thrashing of his car at Zandvoort meant little to nothing despite the same result being possible at both races. It also meant Villeneuve’s Monaco GP mechanical failure from P2 cost him six points, but Scheckter’s Watkins Glen failure from the same position cost him just three.

The obvious defence of the 1979 system is that it seemingly did at least crown the best car and driver combination as champion, and that Zolder was not the only race that played a pivotal role in deciding the title. Aside from that, it was a complete mess and thankfully never seen in that exact manner again.

But what do you think? Is there a worse points system than 79? Were pre-67 systems worse because they counted too few races, sometimes resulting in points being dropped from race wins? Or did they succeed in reducing the value of shared drives? Could the 'best 11 results' system have feasibly found a way to accommodate for a scenario like 88, or been scrapped earlier?

2000:

1. Michael Schumacher

2. Mika Hakkinen

3. Rubens Barichello

4. David Coulthard

2001:

1. Michael Schumacher

2. Ralf Schumacher

3. Rubens Barichello

4. David Coulthard

2002:

1. Michael Schumacher

2. Rubens Barichello

3. Juan Pablo Montoya

4. Kimi Raikkonen

2003:

1. Michael Schumacher

2. Kimi Raikkonen

3. Fernando Alonso

4. Rubens Barichello

2004:

1. Michael Schumacher

2. Jenson Button

3. Fernando Alonso

4. Kimi Raikkonen

2005:

1. Fernando Alonso

2. Kimi Raikkonen

3. Michael Schumacher

4. Jarno Trulli

2006:

1. Fernando Alonso

2. Michael Schumacher

3. Jenson Button

4. Kimi Raikkonen

2007:

1. Lewis Hamilton

2. Fernando Alonso

3. Kimi Raikkonen

4. Felipe Massa

2008:

1. Fernando Alonso

2. Robert kubica

3. Lewis Hamilton

4. Sebastian Vettel

2009:

1. Fernando Alonso

2. Lewis Hamilton

3. Nico Rosberg

4. Sebastian Vettel

2010:

1. Lewis Hamilton

2. Fernando Alonso

3. Sebastian Vettel

4. Nico Rosberg