GPR-A wrote: ↑10 Oct 2017, 16:06
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).
turbof1 wrote: ↑10 Oct 2017, 16:36
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.