The most dominant car in F1 history? The numbers..

[DAMNINice]

What about the MP4-13 ?? I remember a freaky dominance in the first race (3sec faster then the next which was Ferrari)

but I don´t know the Win-rate etc.

[FW17]

MP4-2

Wins 12/16 in 1984
pole 3/16

[Cold Fussion]

Shouldn't the FW14 be seperated into the FW14 and FW14B?

[elf341]

Shouldn't the FW14 be seperated into the FW14 and FW14B?

Agreed. Please seperate FW14 from FW14B. FW14 had only pseudo-active 'reactive suspension'. The 14B was first tested at the last GP of 91 (australia), but was only properly calibrated and evaluated in the offseason, so it is really just the 92 races that were the 14B.

The record of the 14B would have been better had it not been for some incidents of Mansell. e.g. 14B was actually dominant at Monaco, qualifying 1.1s ahead of Senna's McLaren, and leading until lap 71 when a suspected puncture forced Mansell to pit, even after the extra pit stop he was at Senna's gearbox until the last lap unable to pull off the pass.

[Cocles]

I would think the Mercedes silver arrows would be worthy of some acknowledgement in this thread

^^^This. Come on guys... there must be some old farts on here who havent' forgotten who Fangio was.

How about Grand Prix racing of the 20's and 30's? Mercedes, Alfa-Romeo, and Auto-Union had some pretty dominant cars in that era. Let's not fall into Ferrari's narrative by pretending Grand-Prix racing started in the 50's. (Yes I know the thread refers to "F1 history" not "Grand-Prix history", but still... 20's and 30's racing made the 50's-70's almost look safe by comparison; let's not discredit them.)

Full disclosure: I'm a Tifosi, no hard feelings intended.

[Gerhard Berger]

The F2002 had a Win-rate of 78.9%
The F2002 had a Qual-rate of 57.8%
The F2002 had a Fastlap-rate of 78.9%
__________________________________

The F2004 had a Win-rate of 75%
The F2004 had a Qual-rate of 60%
the F2004 had a Fastlap-rate of 70%
__________________________________

The RB6 had a Win-rate of 47.3%
The RB6 had a Qual-rate of 78.9%
The RB6 had a Fastlap-rate of 31.5%
__________________________________

The RB7 had a Win-rate of 63.1%
The RB7 had a Qual-rate of 94.7%
The RB7 had a Fastlap-rate of 52.6%
__________________________________

The FW14 had a Win-rate of 53.1%
The FW14 had a Qual-rate of 65.6%
The FW14 had a Fastlap-rate of 59.3%
__________________________________

The FW15 had a Win-rate of 62.5%
The FW15 had a Qual-rate of 93.75%
The FW15 had a Fastlap-rate of 62.5%
__________________________________

The MP4/4 had a Win-rate of 93,75%
The MP4/4 had a Qual-rate of 93,75%
The MP4/4 had a Fastlap-rate of 62,5%



Edit: needs more cars since i made a mistake with calling the F2002 the most dominant car.

Interesting data. One can say it shows that the Ferrari 2002 was set up for outright race pace. Reminds of the disgusting race pace of the Brawns in 2009. Those cars were qualifying on 60kg of fuel and still demolishing everybody else in Q3(up on until mid season). But boy, I really like when a car is set up for the race - like a freight train gathering momentum.

Also, do not forget the tyres. Bridgestone was not as good over 1 lap as the Michelins, but was better over a race distance.

[raymondu999]

Are you not quantifying time gap though? Eg. if a car took 100% of poles by 1 tenth; vs if the car took 100% of poles, by 3 seconds.

[Robbobnob]

If we extend the field back to the pre WW2 Grand Prix, one car stands out amongst the rest

the Bugatti Type 35

the car won over 1000 races

for more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Type_35

[Nando]

Are you not quantifying time gap though? Eg. if a car took 100% of poles by 1 tenth; vs if the car took 100% of poles, by 3 seconds.

I guess you can say that how much quicker the car is compared to the rest is less important then actually just taking pole, wins, fastest laps.
But when you have two cars that have similar stats and one was 2s clear of anyone else i guess you have to say that was the most dominant of the two.


I will update the thread, if anyone know a site where you can check wins, poles, fast laps for the FW14B without doing it manually that would be great!

[raymondu999]

It's difficult I know. For example which is more dominant - a car with 100% poles at 1 tenth each; or 50% at 1s each; and only loses the other 50% by 0.005s?

[Nando]

I would probably give it to the 100% car seeing as no matter what the teams throwed at it, they simply could not outpace it over one lap.

The 50% car seems to be extremely delicate and only "works" on certain tracks but when it does it just blows the doors of the cars.

Tough call but i´d have to give it to the 100% car.
Now if both cars had 100% and the other 1s gap´s then obviously it would ve the most dominant one.

Either way, i think we have a small collection of very fine cars indeed.

Notice that all the cars have been designed by what we refer to as geniuses.

Rory Byrne
Adrian Newey
Gordon Murray

[elf341]

I will update the thread, if anyone know a site where you can check wins, poles, fast laps for the FW14B without doing it manually that would be great!

1992 canadian GP was the only race which didn't have the FW14B on pole. So the qualifying record is 15/16 = 93.75%

This seems to be a good site for data. (if you press the plus next to the race, you get the fastest lap)

Another interesting statistic that might point towards a car's dominance, at least over a single lap, is the percentage of qualifying 1-2 - i.e. front-row lock-out. Since this gives the impression that it doesn't matter who the driver is - the car is simply superior in lock-out.

E.g. comparing the qualifying and win stats for the FW14B and the RB7 reveals very similar cars, perhaps with the balance tipping towards the RB7:

Code: Select all

Car      Wins(%)   Poles(%)   

FW14B    62.5%     93.8%
RB7      63.2%     94.7%

But, then consider the front-row lockouts of the FW14B, it shows a very different picture!

Code: Select all

Car      Qualy 1-2(%)

FW14B    62.5%  (10 / 16)
RB7      31.6%  ( 6 / 19)

In fact, the FW14B never qualified lower than 4th, compare that with the RB7 which qualified lower than 4th a total of 4 times (all in the hands of Webber)

[Nando]

That´s a great site! really nice

[Nando]

FW14B

The FW14B had a Win-rate of 62.5%
The FW14B had a Qual-rate of 93.75%
The FW14B had a Fastlap-rate of 68.7%

Found a better view on that site,
http://f1pulse.com/constructor/Williams ... ofile.aspx

[raymondu999]

I would probably give it to the 100% car seeing as no matter what the teams throwed at it, they simply could not outpace it over one lap.

The 50% car seems to be extremely delicate and only "works" on certain tracks but when it does it just blows the doors of the cars.

Tough call but i´d have to give it to the 100% car.
Now if both cars had 100% and the other 1s gap´s then obviously it would ve the most dominant one.

Sort of agreed. I mean there is a threshold after which then they're just dominant - with no difference. I'd consider a car with 100% pole rate; at 5 tenths each race; just as dominant as one with a 100% pole rate at 3 seconds each race. Reason being it doesn't matter that you got pole by 3 seconds; or lapped the second place man 3 times over.