2013 F1 season in stats: The year in context

22 comments on “2013 F1 season in stats: The year in context”

1. 

   Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
   30th December 2013, 13:14

   I wonder if the current generation of tyres are helping reliability – the cars are rarely being pushed to their maximum during race stints because of the high levels of degradation, which perhaps is helping conserve the mechanical components of the car, such as gearboxes, engines and brakes as they aren’t being stressed as much as they would have been on a more durable tyre.
   1. 

      Ivan (@wpinrui)
      30th December 2013, 14:34

      That’s a good point, I would never have thought of that till you mentioned it.
   2. 

      Robbie
      30th December 2013, 14:39

      I think you are right that not being able to push likely helps reliability, and so does the mandated reliability that has only become more and more stringent since they started to regulate numbers of engines and gearboxes that teams can use in a season.

      Should be interesting in 2014 as indications are the tires won’t be as limiting, and they’ll have gobs of torque to deal with. LH has already hinted at the possibility of blown engines, so penalties could come into play if that is the case.
      1. 

         HK (@me4me)
         30th December 2013, 15:56

         @Robbie, you had me scratching my head there by saying “blown engines”. For a couple of seconds i thought you meant something like a blown diffuser.. but for engines. lol
         1. 

            George (@george)
            30th December 2013, 16:47

            @me4me well in that sense they’re all ‘blown’ next year :P
   3. 

      George (@george)
      30th December 2013, 14:59

      It’s interesting that ‘other DNFs’ have been steadily dropping too. Assuming this is mainly driver errors, do you think that’s mainly due to the cars getting easier to drive, the tracks becoming more lenient or the quality of drivers improving?
      1. 

         Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
         30th December 2013, 15:30

         I think it is quite likely to be a combination of the lesser need to “push” along with the more forgiving tracks @george – the quality of the drivers is high but it hasn’t improved vastly in recent years IMO. What must have also contributed this year though was the complete lack of rain.

         On which basis, I’m expecting a slight increase next year as the cars are going to be more difficult to drive with less downforce and mire torque, along with possibly more elements on the car to be managing at any one time.
      2. 

         Steven (@steevkay)
         30th December 2013, 16:22

         I think it’s a mix, since many drivers and F1 personnel have mentioned the lack of punishment for really pushing the limits. Before, you’d end up in the grass or gravel trap, these days you just carry on as if nothing happened (in most cases).
   4. 

      Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
      30th December 2013, 16:07

      Indeed, 2011-2013 have the lowest percentage of “other” retirements in the last 20 years, and (besides 2011, which is slightly above 2008 & 2009) also have the lowest percentage of mechanical failures.

      Of course that is also due to the relative stability in the regulations at that time but it is really rather low all-round, and if Pirelli stick to their word I think that may be a contributing factor towards a greater number of retirements (unless the fuel is indeed marginal, which I don’t think it will be).
   5. 

      Arki
      31st December 2013, 3:29

      I wonder if reliability has to do with the freeze in development regarding engines and gearboxes? When the teams were able to update components or when they were introducing new technology (eg. traction control) reliability was a big issue.
      In response to @steevkay‘ s comment; I agree totally. Very seldom do cars end up in a barrier or beached in gravel traps compared to past years.
   6. 

      GeeMac (@geemac)
      31st December 2013, 6:39

      The bigger factor is probably the fact that the engines are running well within the rev range they were designed for in order to last the required number of races. Renault Sport F1 reckon that without the engine freeze engine speeds would be up to 22,000 rpm by now and they’d be producing a bit more power too.
2. 

   mnmracer (@mnmracer)
   30th December 2013, 21:00

   %car failures
   Lewis Hamilton – 4.65%
   Sebastian Vettel – 8.66%

   Others are harder to compare directly because of different era’s, but having both raced since 2007, this is a shocking difference.
   1. 

      Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
      30th December 2013, 23:07

      9.3% for Webber, most of which came before Vettel was in a Red Bull. And if we wait until Vettel’s debut, that drops to 7.14%.

      Conspiracy theories = gone.
      1. 

         XR650
         30th December 2013, 23:26

         Here’s a conspiracy theory for you that is almost certainly believed by many.

         Vettel is in fact a lizard/robot under control by a shadowy group that have total control over F1. They made it so that “Vettel” had many mechanical failures, so when he achieved the record of 9 consecutive wins in a season, (and they’ve arranged it so he’ll win in Melbourne next year thus surpassing Ascari’s record,) it would seem more plausible and no one would doubt that he was genuine and conspiracy theorists would “blame the car”

         But face facts, the driver you support is nothing more than a well programmed robot, he has never agreed to take a DNA test, the reason being, he’s not human, he’s a mechanoid.

         If this turns out to be true I will laugh/cry so much
         1. 

            Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
            30th December 2013, 23:50

            It’s very possible – a funny German‽ That can’t be real!
            1. 

               XR650
               31st December 2013, 0:47

               @vettel1

               Thanks for more evidence that Vettel clearly isn’t possibly a human.
               The only other funny German I can think of is Henning Wehn – who’s a professional comedian (and not incredibly good, robot Vettel is “naturally” funnier)

               The robot Vettel is simply clearly using comedy derived from the English language as part of one of his techniques of “crowd pleasing” and I think that we, the fans, shouldn’t have to endure such robotic driving techniques, unless other teams can produce equally good robots…
3. 

   Michael
   30th December 2013, 21:30

   Great stats and I like the adjusted Points/finish* as a way of measuring a drivers prominence over their career. The only weakness is that it drivers in eras of high unreliability actually do disproportionately well by this measure as their cars unreliability is removed from the comparison but when they did finish they benefited from the unreliability of others cars. For example currently the 10th fastest driver could well finish 10th with no retirements however in some eras the slowest driver who finishes could be 10th. Though how much drivers have actually gained over many races is very hard to quanitfy. Perhaps you could include a luck factor of “individual mechanical reliability/whole grid mechnical reliability”? Although even then it could be that the slower less reliable cars may be the more unreliable ones so that may skew things. Anyway I like the idea and it got me thinking.
4. 

   SauberS1 (@saubers1)
   31st December 2013, 2:20

   Kimi is 17., he has a lot of opportunity for improve this number.
5. 

   Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
   31st December 2013, 10:47

   Looking at the data, I would say that the eras match it quite well (pre-97, 98-08, 09-13). With each large revision of the rules comes a change in the characteristics of F1.
6. 

   Tricky (@tricky)
   2nd January 2014, 16:07

   I guess the worsening reliability in 2010 was due to the new teams arriving.
7. 

   Jeevan (@jee1kimi)
   11th March 2014, 11:48

   So,according to the list,which current F1 driver has the worst car reliability rate??
   Kimi Raikkonen
   2nd worst – Jenson ,some 5% less..

   And Lewis,Alonso have had the least car reliability issues among those in the list..
   1. 

      Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
      12th March 2014, 16:16

      Indeed, Kimi lost a lot of wins in 2005 through reliability issues (and a shot at the WDC). I think (like Rindt) he is somewhat underrated, possibly because of this.

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