2017 Championship Permutations

[GPR-A duplicate2]

The outcome in Baku should have been a disqualification for Vettel not any other permutation.

Absolutely!

The other assumption often made is that Vettel would have won in Singapore. As soon as it rained, that race was going to be between Verstappen and Hamilton for the victory, regardless of how much twisting anyone does to explain otherwise.

Even if the first corner incident wouldn't have occurred, the first Safety Car that made Ricciardo to pit and Hamilton not, would have surely been a place of unpredictability. There is every reason to believe Ferrari would have pitted Vettel, just like Ricciardo did. Mercedes would have stayed out the way they did. So, the Singapore result wasn't a given that Vettel would have won.

Beating an unlucky Hamilton is a hell of a lot easier than beating a lucky one.

I assume the context of Hamilton being lucky, is "SIMPLY NOT BEING UNLUCKY".

In my opinion, with the kind of restrictions that are being put on the PU elements, from 5 per year to 4 now and 3 for next, obviously the reliability is ENFORCED with PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE. So in that context, a DNF today due to reliability issue is equal to 3 or 4 DNFs in 2000s for the same reasons, where teams were not restricted on engines and hence, could potentially ignore reliability for performance. So, if Mercedes, specifically Hamilton goes without any reliability issues for this season, it is as good as a driver going with just 1 or 2 DNFs in 2000s. And that is hardly surprising.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Tag,

The reason why I have calculated Baku as a Hamilton win and Vettel 2nd is because I am more interested in alterations that consider and highlight the cars performance, not drivers performance. The cars performance is important, because it shows what is potentially possible, assuming a driver capable of delivering the performance that is expected and possible. Car performance trounces everything and is the most important performance differentiator. If you'd adjust Baku to be anything other than I suggested, you'd be off in fantasy land making your numbers subject to all kinds of outside circumstances like the stewards ruling.

In that case, you have to consider the best results possible FOR THE CAR than for Hamilton. So, with that modified logic, W08 has won in Russia and Austria and a 4th place in Monaco. That should obviously tilt the balance towards W08 than SF70H.

[TAG]

Tag,

The reason why I have calculated Baku as a Hamilton win and Vettel 2nd is because I am more interested in alterations that consider and highlight the cars performance, not drivers performance. The cars performance is important, because it shows what is potentially possible, assuming a driver capable of delivering the performance that is expected and possible. Car performance trounces everything and is the most important performance differentiator. If you'd adjust Baku to be anything other than I suggested, you'd be off in fantasy land making your numbers subject to all kinds of outside circumstances like the stewards ruling.

In that case, you have to consider the best results possible FOR THE CAR than for Hamilton. So, with that modified logic, W08 has won in Russia and Austria and a 4th place in Monaco. That should obviously tilt the balance towards W08 than SF70H.

Yeah that's where I'm failing to grasp it, I know the limitation is me. In F1, I'm always a fan of drivers first and and of cars 2nd. Maybe when Porsche comes a long that might change.

[turbof1]

Wasn't the topic's intend to calculate probability going forward, instead of backward?

[Phil]

In that case, you have to consider the best results possible FOR THE CAR than for Hamilton. So, with that modified logic, W08 has won in Russia and Austria and a 4th place in Monaco. That should obviously tilt the balance towards W08 than SF70H.

Indeed, however the fact that the Mercedes had/has extreme set-up issues (highlighted by the narrow operating window) makes this a flaw of the car. The reality is that with such a car, it's feasible that one driver may be able to extract quite a bit more out of the car than the other, especially if both drivers drive their cars differently. An easier car to drive will narrow the gap between the two drivers considerably. I do however feel that altering race results to that extent would be going rather far. Hamilton finished where he did, not because of personal issues, but because he had trouble with extracting what the car could potentially offer (Russia, Hungary).

But yes, if you feel more comfortable, we could attribute Bottas wins to Hamilton, but on those only two occasions, I doubt it will make a large difference to the underlying fact that the Ferrari has been consistently strong and the Mercedes strong when it dominates and vulnerable when it doesn't.

Again, if you look at the alterations I did - I think you will find that most of them are rather reasonable and consistent. And there are not that many to begin with - to the point, Silverstone, Baku (minor adjustments) and the 3 last races (adjustments made on reasonable assumptions based on various factors that I listed).

Wasn't the topic's intend to calculate probability going forward, instead of backward?

To get a better picture of what will happen in the future, I'd argue that the past races are quite relevant. For example: if Ferrari had simply not performed in the last few races and shown no speed at all, I'd be inclined to say as much. However the fact remains that the Ferrari, again ignoring the blatant driver and technical issues of the past 2-3 races, has shown to be an extremely strong competitor and to have the speed. This changes the odds for the next races, surely.

Ignoring the championship for a second, if one were to come up with reasonable predictions on the pecking order for the next 4 races, I think one would be hard put to Mercedes as clear favorites based solely on the cars performance, especially based upon recent performances and Mercedes own assessment (according to AMuS) of the last 3 tracks.

Taking this into account, the best I can come up with is, as I said, that CotA could pave the way for a very easy Hamilton WDC, but if not, and if worst-case scenario there is some issue that results in a DNF for Hamilton and a Vettel win, that it could end up being quite close.

[Fulcrum]

@Phil

There are many what if scenarios that could be motivated in favour of one or the other party. Personally, I'm going to stick with the evidence as registered in the record books. Given enough data, and specific questions the data can adequately address, statistical analysis is useful enough.

I understand your perspective though - things could be a lot closer in various hypothetical universes that are not beyond the realms of imagination. If I were to conduct a bootstrap analysis of the data up to Singapore, I think the results might be more sympathetic to your perspective. Looking forward though, Vettel's chances, as evidenced by the data only, are negligible.

One fact I would highlight is Hamilton's finishing record this season. Only Ocon can match his lack of retirement so far. This contrasts rather oddly with the situation earlier this season, where we where praising Vettel's consistency in comparison to Hamilton's slightly more erratic performance. Hamilton has obviously benefited from his relative reliability, and 0 retirements would be an outlier value in any context other than a Mercedes-powered car.

While I agree the performance differential between Mercedes and Ferrari, to a lesser extent Red Bull, is smaller this year than previous years, I think Mercedes are doing a fantastic job overstating the temperamental nature of their car. I'm sure they're not wrong, in the sense that they may be finding it more difficult to set up and automatically put it on pole, just embellishing it (or encouraging the idea in the media) slightly.

The hard facts suggest the Mercedes is as good as ever when it comes to scoring points though. After 16 rounds, Mercedes have scored:

565 points in 2014 - 82% of the maximum
574 points in 2015 - 83% of max
553 points in 2016 - 80% of max
540 points in 2017 - 78% of max

This year is the worst so far, but then this year is different as they no longer have Rosberg. Rosberg averaged 270 points after 16 races during 2014-2016; Hamilton 294 in the same period; Bottas has 234 from the same interval this year.

I can only wonder whether some of the setup issues relate to not having two very experienced Mercedes drivers. Bottas isn't inexperienced, but he definitely doesn't have the same level of experience as Rosberg within that team.

[turbof1]

To get a better picture of what will happen in the future, I'd argue that the past races are quite relevant

Except if the point lingers too much at past races, does not involve sufficient coupling back to predicting future races and essentially crowds out the topic "championship permutations" as the talking point.

Note I'm not moderaring here, just suggesting the topic should move on from a debate of "driver POV vs. car POV". Why not simply discuss both. For instance next race, what will be the strengths and weaknesses of both cars and drivers. Who or what will be more susceptible to risks or opportunities?

[NathanOlder]

Id like to add with all these what ifs , and best case scenarios for Ferrari ect ect

WHAT IF...... Mercedes had their car set up correctly for the races they struggled.

Maybe they would have won an extra couple of races.

[Phil]

I don't believe I've been suggesting anything remotely far fetched here. If anyone wants to suggest that Hamilton/Mercedes wasn't extraordinarily lucky with how Singapore (the rain & start incident), Malaysia (Vettel & Kimis technical issues) and Japan (Vettels technical issue) turned out, I don't know what to say. Teams don't operate on the assumption that their closest rival will simply disintegrate over technical and driver errors. They assume the worst-case scenario from their view - e.g. assume their direct rival will perform at their best. I'm doing the same here, analyzing Ferrari's and in particular Vettels performance across the entire season and also taking into account the temperamental nature of the Mercedes.

Credit where credit is due and we're left with some rather easy conclusions:

- the Mercedes doesn't like certain conditions, e.g. hot weather and particular tracks with high downforce
- the Mercedes has a smaller operating window than Ferrari & RedBull
- the Ferrari has been consistently quick on all tracks (easily 2nd fastest when not fastest)
- the Mercedes is still fastest in QF which influences how good the chances are to win on Sunday
- RedBull has increased their performance, especially on Sundays, significantly since Spa making them potential GP winners or runner-ups

I'd also argue there's a very big difference in being handed a win due to failings of your closest competitor, or winning because you were the quickest. Example in case:

A.) Hamilton winning in Monza
B.) Ricciardo winning in Baku through extraordinary circumstances
C.) Verstappen winning in Malaysia
D.) Hamilton winning in Singapore
E.) Hamilton losing a guaranteed victory in Monaco 2015

Case A is a simple case of Hamilton was quickest in the fastest car (by quite a margin), ergo the conclusion is logical. Case B is not quite a logical conclusion. RedBull wasn't close to being the fastest in Baku and the events of the race threw the order up side down in that the 4 quickest cars (Ham/Bot, Kim/Vet) ended somewhere down the grid and out of position. Case C is a bit simpler, as Max was quite clearly faster than Hamilton in the Mercedes. From the front starting cars, he was the fastest. Although on the day, all indications are that he too benefited by the misfortune of Ferrari with both their cars. Case D is again a win through circumstance. Had it not rained (which it never did before in Singapore on Sunday) and Vettel not imploded on a track as notoriously difficult to pass, it would have been difficult for Hamilton to take that victory from the position he started in. He benefited through the circumstances of rain and the crash of Vettel/Kimi/Max. Case E, well, we all know how that turned out. Rosberg took that one and wasn't even close in pace.

Hamilton winning Singapore was against the odds of who had by far the quickest car and his relative starting position. Hamilton finishing 2nd in Malaysia was also hugely against the odds once you contemplate the issues Mercedes had on race day. He directly benefited again of the misfortune of having his strongest rival start from the back of the grid and his team-mate in the other car having an issue that prevented him from starting.

Surely, this has to account for something if you want to assess the probability of who is going to win in the next 4 races?

To me it's clear: all indications are that Ferrari still has a car that can easily contest for wins on Sunday, though Mercedes still probably has (and will continue to have) the fastest car in qualifying which will be especially important on the tracks where overtaking is difficult. I also think there's a large probability that Mercedes may find itself struggling on some of the up coming tracks due to the nature of their car on race-day. This creates a highly interesting outlook for the next 4 races. As I said though, there are some question marks, especially in regards to potential technical glitches hitting Hamilton as a result of components being stretched out and Vettel who has a larger quantities of PUs available with the question mark over the engine used in Suzuka and how well that spec4 actually works.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Regardless of what you think about the previous races, and wether the results were down to luck or not, the results stand and the championships is what is right now. Going down avenues such as "If [driver] finished the race he would have won" is totally irrelevant, because the actual result is what counts, not the potential result. Looking at the championship now, the odds are very much in Hamilton's favour and he's had the momentum since after the summer break. There's no question mark over the PU, Mercedes has already said the vibration was not a PU issue. Vettel has some new PU components, but they clearly didn't help in Suzuka and it was a new part that caused issues in Malaysia. It's quite clear that despite the Mercedes having a narrower operating window, it's definitely the more reliable package and I believe this is partly due to the fact they turn the engine down as soon as possible in the race. You don't win extra points for finishing 30 seconds down the road, and Mercedes have mastered this strategy.

[NathanOlder]

Lewis wasn't lucky in Singapore. Vettel was just silly. If Lewis was where Max was and he come out of the incident undamaged, then i would regard it as lucky.

[Jolle]

Lewis wasn't lucky in Singapore. Vettel was just silly. If Lewis was where Max was and he come out of the incident undamaged, then i would regard it as lucky.

Indeed. Baku and Singapore are within Vettel's "profile". All trough his F1 career he had small snags that costed him points (overtaking under red, crashing into a teammate, crashing under safety car) or were on/over the edge (Multi21, comments over the radio).

He did have some bad luck this year: Malaysia, Silverstone and didn't he had a gearbox penalty somewhere?
Hamilton had bad luck in Austria and Baku, the rest was pretty rock solid.

These "silly little mistakes" will cost you a WC, so, in the end, maybe... he should look a bit towards his behaviour to make a real chance next year.

[turbof1]

Lewis wasn't lucky in Singapore. Vettel was just silly. If Lewis was where Max was and he come out of the incident undamaged, then i would regard it as lucky.

Indeed. Baku and Singapore are within Vettel's "profile". All trough his F1 career he had small snags that costed him points (overtaking under red, crashing into a teammate, crashing under safety car) or were on/over the edge (Multi21, comments over the radio).

He did have some bad luck this year: Malaysia, Silverstone and didn't he had a gearbox penalty somewhere?
Hamilton had bad luck in Austria and Baku, the rest was pretty rock solid.

These "silly little mistakes" will cost you a WC, so, in the end, maybe... he should look a bit towards his behaviour to make a real chance next year.

Again, I feel this is more about looking back than analyzing behaviour/weaknesses to assess probability for the next 4 races. Creating a profile for the driver is fine, but shouldn't more effort be put into using the profile to, for instance, predict the start at the next GP?

(For the record, turn one of the US GP is nicely wide and open, favouring a more agressive approach, which benefits Vettel imho).

[Jolle]

Lewis wasn't lucky in Singapore. Vettel was just silly. If Lewis was where Max was and he come out of the incident undamaged, then i would regard it as lucky.

Indeed. Baku and Singapore are within Vettel's "profile". All trough his F1 career he had small snags that costed him points (overtaking under red, crashing into a teammate, crashing under safety car) or were on/over the edge (Multi21, comments over the radio).

He did have some bad luck this year: Malaysia, Silverstone and didn't he had a gearbox penalty somewhere?
Hamilton had bad luck in Austria and Baku, the rest was pretty rock solid.

These "silly little mistakes" will cost you a WC, so, in the end, maybe... he should look a bit towards his behaviour to make a real chance next year.

Again, I feel this is more about looking back than analyzing behaviour/weaknesses to assess probability for the next 4 races. Creating a profile for the driver is fine, but shouldn't more effort be put into using the profile to, for instance, predict the start at the next GP?

(For the record, turn one of the US GP is nicely wide and open, favouring a more agressive approach, which benefits Vettel imho).

For the last few years an aggressive Vettel is a crashing Vettel.

[turbof1]

Indeed. Baku and Singapore are within Vettel's "profile". All trough his F1 career he had small snags that costed him points (overtaking under red, crashing into a teammate, crashing under safety car) or were on/over the edge (Multi21, comments over the radio).

He did have some bad luck this year: Malaysia, Silverstone and didn't he had a gearbox penalty somewhere?
Hamilton had bad luck in Austria and Baku, the rest was pretty rock solid.

These "silly little mistakes" will cost you a WC, so, in the end, maybe... he should look a bit towards his behaviour to make a real chance next year.

Again, I feel this is more about looking back than analyzing behaviour/weaknesses to assess probability for the next 4 races. Creating a profile for the driver is fine, but shouldn't more effort be put into using the profile to, for instance, predict the start at the next GP?

(For the record, turn one of the US GP is nicely wide and open, favouring a more agressive approach, which benefits Vettel imho).

For the last few years an aggressive Vettel is a crashing Vettel.

#missingthepoint

I think there was only one occurance of a crash in turn one at a start of the us gp, back in 2015. In the middle of the pack that is. Vettel surviving the first corner raises his chances on scoring a podium position, which means the title is normally not going to be decided in the USA.