Mercedes without Hamilton in numbers

[Gillian]

I updated the first post with analysis of 2015. I added one more statistic for the aggregate qualifying position per season for Mercedes. Especially 2015 is telling: only a total of 9 places dropped (combined for both drivers, so Hamilton P1, Rosberg P2 is same as Rosberg P1 and Hamilton P2) over an entire season with a 0.5 slower qualifying time for Hamilton.

[adrianjordan]

I just want to say that this just boggles my mind. That you were able to work all this out. Wow. Great job!!

[AeroDynamic]

The problem with all these analysis is the assumption that the driver would be the same basic lap time as other drivers and all the difference is attributed to the car and engine. But nobody knows unless all are in the same cars. Maybe all those tenths are pure engine. Maybe there’s a difference of twice that many tenths and the Mercedes drivers were several tenths slower than the next best drivers / cars. Maybe the next best drivers / cars are actually not going as fast as other drivers and the perceived gap between the competition is attributed to the drivers in those next best cars more than people think, I.e. the Mercedes drivers were pretty fast and faster than the next best drivers. How do you quantify it with certainties? It seems like a lot of speculation and assumption.

Imagine if the McLaren had two drivers uncomfortable with it, and we didn’t have the lando reference. Everyone would assume the McLaren was a dog of a car because Daniel said his laps and the experience in the car felt good, it just didn’t look it relative to his teammate.

[Sieper]

That’s true, and often (if there indeed is an advantage, like Merc enjoyed for quite some time) you only go as fast as you need to. Otherwise you are just making it harder on yourself for no reason at all. Even in qualy. But that will skew the figures.

[WaikeCU]

Mercedes without Hamilton, would not be what Mercedes are today.

End of thread.

Maybe start a thread with what if Lewis never competed in F1

[ringo]

Yes its no point saying what nercedes would have been.
What would Ferrari be without Shumacher if we did similar to his pole times or even race times?
what if we took 10 or 15 seconds of his race times. Not much would change.
But it is hard to imagine Ferrari without Shumacher, Williams without Mansel, Mclaren without Senna or Prost who had massively dominant cars.
What if Gasly was driving this year's redbull? Would he be leading the championship? Maybe.. who knows!

[Gillian]

No worries, when we get to 2017 and beyond it will look better for Hamilton.

I would not mind doing this for other drivers. Schumacher? Might be a good idea to do it. It will shine some more light on the Mercedes domination.

[Henne]

Wow, that is quite some data to process. Nice work!

However I do believe there are many factors that would change if Hamilton wouldn't be there, its hard to calculate what would've happened.

Its one of those "What if" questions, you will never be able to answer.

[WaikeCU]

Oi lads, shall we start a thread about "F1 without Max"?

I think Kvyat or Gasly might still be at RB alongside Ricciardo

[AeroDynamic]

I don’t see anything to bash with Hamilton. He beat all his team mates, maybe not every single season, but overall. And that was in teams that had a strong philosophy of equal opportunity and about as equal treatment as you can hope for. All these other drivers followers support drivers who never beat the lineal champion aka the man that beat the man in their prime, and in the same car.

[Ryar]

Please feel free to ignore. Those who want to debate, can freely debate. There are always different perspectives and not everything can be put into black and white boxes.

[Gillian]

Those comments really make me a little sad. I try my hardest to say nothing bad about Hamilton and still I get talked down as if I am a Hamilton hater. It's disrespectful and I don't understand why it's needed. I was so happy when Hamilton won 2014 and 2015 and seeing him loose 2016 really bugged me. I however did not think for a second there was any fair competition in those years.

I am adding the stats for 2016 - 2020 when I have the time and if I find a way reliable way to add in race performance I will add that too. It will highlight at what years Hamilton really made a difference and what years not. It's not bashing Hamilton, it's putting it into perspective.

And for those comments about doing this for Verstappen, I would do it gladly. I am pretty sure chopping of 0.1 to 0.5 seconds from his laptimes in the 2015 to 2020 seasons would see a much larger drop. And before I get shot down again, that says barely anything about the driver. It's about car performance.

[aral]

Why is it that any thread that has the name Hamilton, in it, descends into pro and anti arguments . People can have different opinions, and just because you dont like them does not mean that you have to report them or make unfair comments. Instead, try a little bit of polite debating ! It would make my job a lot easier.
So, please discuss how the loss of Hamilton could affect the Mercedes team.

[Gillian]

Why is it that any thread that has the name Hamilton, in it, descends into pro and anti arguments . People can have different opinions, and just because you dont like them does not mean that you have to report them or make unfair comments. Instead, try a little bit of polite debating ! It would make my job a lot easier.
So, please discuss how the loss of Hamilton could affect the Mercedes team.

Thank you.

Maybe wait until I've added more seasons. I was not being sarcastic when saying 2017/2018 would show a different picture. I will add it soon enough.

[wesley123]

No worries, when we get to 2017 and beyond it will look better for Hamilton.

This difference in results exposes the problems in the method, because the method used omits the fact that Mercedes was significantly clear of the rest of the field for the years 2014-2016, data isn't going to change much for 0,5s if the gap with the rest of the field is 0,5s.

The thing is that a driver can add, or take away, so much that will not be directly measurable through statistics.