Driver's (bad) luck

[myurr]

So what your saying is Lewis Hamilton has better luck than Sebastian Vettel ?

That seems to be his central belief. Despite his own analysis showing that Hamilton lost out on the 2012 championship through luck: http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =1&t=14409

[CHT]

Are people still responding to MNMRacers posts?

Don't you lot know he spends half is life on Autosport forums coming up with New stats and excel formula to paint his hero Seb Vettel in a favourable light.

Even though a rookie completely dominated him in Qualifying and he was making mistakes galore now his magic diffuser has been taken away from him.

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.

[NathanOlder]

So what your saying is Lewis Hamilton has better luck than Sebastian Vettel ?

That seems to be his central belief. Despite his own analysis showing that Hamilton lost out on the 2012 championship through luck: http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =1&t=14409

So it looks like Sebastians bad luck continued today. All this bad luck is going to cost him the title again. oh wait....

[zeph]

Interesting. But wrong. Luck is derived from comparing an actual result to an expected result?
That is not what luck is.

From my dictionary:

Luck - success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

And that is all there is to it.

And how do you determine success and failure? Right, by comparing an actual result with an expected result...that wasn't too hard, was it?

Wrong again. But I can see there is no point in continuing along these lines.

Luck is by definition the antithesis of statistical assessment. The word describes that which can not be anticipated or accounted for.

But this is the internet. Out here luck can be whatever you think it is. So I'm done here, feel free to have the last word.

[mnmracer]

I was not that surprised Hamilton dropped out, he has retired roughly once for every two poles he has achieved.

Not true actually.
Hamilton has retired in 7 races (8 if you count the 2009 last lap crash), from the 32 where he has had pole position.
He converted 12 pole positions to a victory and another 6 to a podium finish.

Your stat is correct, but I meant generalized across his career. Overall it is something 17 retirement to 31 poles?

Yeah, overall he has had 17 retirements, but that alone doesn't say anything without understanding what happened to other drivers.

Hamilton has had 17 retirements from 130 starts, or 13%.
Alonso has had 33 retirements from 218 starts, or 15%.
Vettel has had 19 retirements from 122 starts, or 16%.
Button has had 48 retirements from 251 starts, or 19%.
Räikkönen has had 44 retirements from 195 starts, or 34%.

Retirement-wise, Hamilton's got the best score from all the champions.

[mnmracer]

So what your saying is Lewis Hamilton has better luck than Sebastian Vettel ?

Why did you edit out the part of my response that answers your question?

The overall points scoring situation ... is a whole other story, and neither you nor I have the data at hand at this moment to make a claim on that.

Sorry WTF ?

What is not clear about my question about you editing out my response?

[Ultra_Tech]

I remember MNMracer telling people on Autosport how Sebastian Vettel was actually the fastest driver in F1 and that the exhaust blown Diffuser trickery he had, that no one else did, had no bearing on race results over the last 3/4 years.

I wonder what excel spreadsheet he has that has explains how Sebastian Vettel got utterly destroyed in qualifying by his rookie teammate, and consistently made driver errors through said qualifying.

[thomin]

Interesting. But wrong. Luck is derived from comparing an actual result to an expected result?
That is not what luck is.

From my dictionary:

Luck - success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

And that is all there is to it.

And how do you determine success and failure? Right, by comparing an actual result with an expected result...that wasn't too hard, was it?

Wrong again. But I can see there is no point in continuing along these lines.

Luck is by definition the antithesis of statistical assessment. The word describes that which can not be anticipated or accounted for.

But this is the internet. Out here luck can be whatever you think it is. So I'm done here, feel free to have the last word.

Obviously you have problems grasping the point. You're right insofar as the individual case of luck is a violation of the statistical average. I have never claimed otherwise. But that doesn't make it the antithesis to statistical assessment, on the contrary, as you only find out about it by comparing that individual result to an expected result. So you see, it's all about numbers.

[NathanOlder]

What is not clear about my question about you editing out my response?

I quoted your response word for word, Page 45, 8.29am. I haven't edited your response, so i'm just informing you, as you seem to have been misinformed that my post included the exact post you posted.

[henra]

What is being discussed now for 5 pages plus after the first race is a good indication that something is terribly amiss again in F1. We are discussing stats about luck of World Champions of the past rather than what happened and why in the first race in a completely new technical format and: No this is not deep in the winter break where there's not much to discuss otherwise.
Oh dear. Can we pretty pleeeeeaaaase stop this?

[Helios]

Your stat is correct, but I meant generalized across his career. Overall it is something 17 retirement to 31 poles?

Yeah, overall he has had 17 retirements, but that alone doesn't say anything without understanding what happened to other drivers.

Hamilton has had 17 retirements from 130 starts, or 13%.
Alonso has had 33 retirements from 218 starts, or 15%.
Vettel has had 19 retirements from 122 starts, or 16%.
Button has had 48 retirements from 251 starts, or 19%.
Räikkönen has had 44 retirements from 195 starts, or 34%.

Retirement-wise, Hamilton's got the best score from all the champions.[/quote]

Would be more interesting if you could include how many times each of these guys retired when in a winning position or podium place.

Alonso was driving for Minardi for a season. He retired 8 times, and he didn't lose a single potential points position due to that.

Vettel drove for TR and retired 9 times during that period, he did lose some big points like in Fuji 2007 but for the rest of the races it's hardly as many points lost as Hamilton in 2010 alone (even if you calculate everything with the new pointssystem).

Kimi comes very close to Lewis in terms of how many points he has lost due to no fault of his own (mostly because of the McLaren-years)

Button was driving for BAR when they had their worst years, he retired 10 times in 2007 and 2008 alone. Not many points lost there, as he was nowhere for most of the time.

[mnmracer]

Yeah, overall he has had 17 retirements, but that alone doesn't say anything without understanding what happened to other drivers.

Hamilton has had 17 retirements from 130 starts, or 13%.
Alonso has had 33 retirements from 218 starts, or 15%.
Vettel has had 19 retirements from 122 starts, or 16%.
Button has had 48 retirements from 251 starts, or 19%.
Räikkönen has had 44 retirements from 195 starts, or 34%.

Retirement-wise, Hamilton's got the best score from all the champions.

Would be more interesting if you could include how many times each of these guys retired when in a winning position or podium place.

That was not what he asked, so that's why I didn't answer that
I don't have the stats for podium retirements, but here's the "retired when in a winning position" from mechanical retirements.
I won't post the entire list here, but if you're interested, feel free to ask me via PM.

In the last 10 years:
- Sebastian Vettel retired from, or lost, the lead 7 times due to mechanical issues
- Kimi Räikkönen retired from … the lead 5 times …
- Lewis Hamilton retired from … the lead 4 times …
- Fernando Alonso retired from … the lead once …
- Rubens Barrichello retired from … the lead once …
- Felipe Massa retired from … the lead once …
- Michael Schumacher retired from … the lead once …
- Jarno Trulli retired from … the lead once …

- Fernando Alonso inherited 8 wins from a competitor’s mechanical failure
- Jenson Button inherited 2 wins …
- Giancarlo Fisichella inherited 1 win …
- Lewis Hamilton inherited 1 win …
- Heikki Kovalainen inherited 1 win …
- Felipe Massa inherited 1 win …
- Kimi Räikkönen inherited 1 win …
- Nico Rosberg inherited 1 win …
- Michael Schumacher inherited 1 win …
- Ralf Schumacher inherited 1 win …
- Sebastian Vettel inherited 1 win …
- Mark Webber inherited 1 win …

Then there's also a couple non-mechanical non-driver issues that have cost drivers victory:
2012 Brazilian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton retires (crashed into by Hülkenberg); Jenson Button wins
2011 British Grand Prix: Sebastian Vettel loses the lead (slow pit stop); Fernando Alonso wins
2010 Hungarian Grand Prix: Sebastian Vettel loses the lead (safety car miscommunication); Mark Webber wins
2010 German Grand Prix: Felipe Massa loses the lead (team order); Fernando Alonso wins
2010 Turkish Grand Prix: Mark Webber loses the lead (crashed into by Vettel); Lewis Hamilton wins
2009 European Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton loses the lead (slow pit stop); Rubens Barrichello wins
2008 Singapore Grand Prix: Felipe Massa loses the lead (pit stop); Fernando Alonso wins
2008 Belgian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton loses the win (post-race penalty); Felipe Massa wins
2008 Canadian Grand Prix: Kimi Räikkönen loses the lead (crashed into by Hamilton); Robert Kubica wins
2007 Brazilian Grand Prix: Felipe Massa loses the lead (team orders); Kimi Räikkönen wins
2003 British Grand Prix: Jarno Trulli loses the lead (priest on track); Rubens Barrichello wins

[thomin]

That is interesting, thanks for pointing that out. I do tend to compare the stats that show success/fail, which means wins/poles/retirements, rather than per race, but that is also quite interesting. In that context you could say he is pretty lucky compared to many drivers, which seems to be counterintuitive.

I think the major issue is confirmation bias which we're all prone to being human beings. We tend to remember the hits and forget the misses. Like "wow, what a coincidence, I was just thinking about you when you called," not taking into account all the other occasions you thought about the other person and he didn't call. Or more F1 related: "Vettel was so incredibly lucky in 2010 that Alonso was stuck behind Petrov in Abu Dhabi," forgetting that he only had to be lucky there because he was incredibly unlucky by throwing away a sure victory in Korea due to an engine failure just two races before.

The only way out of that is to take your subjective self out of the equation and to look at the hard data.

[mnmracer]

Yeah, overall he has had 17 retirements, but that alone doesn't say anything without understanding what happened to other drivers.

Hamilton has had 17 retirements from 130 starts, or 13%.
Alonso has had 33 retirements from 218 starts, or 15%.
Vettel has had 19 retirements from 122 starts, or 16%.
Button has had 48 retirements from 251 starts, or 19%.
Räikkönen has had 44 retirements from 195 starts, or 34%.

Retirement-wise, Hamilton's got the best score from all the champions.

That is interesting, thanks for pointing that out. I do tend to compare the stats that show success/fail, which means wins/poles/retirements, rather than per race, but that is also quite interesting. In that context you could say he is pretty lucky compared to many drivers, which seems to be counterintuitive.

I do have a feeling there is some Sabermetrics-type analysis to be done on driver numbers. Hamilton has some interesting stats compared to other senior drivers (he has to be considered senior now at about half way through his career I guess) that may reveal where he should focus his talents to be more successful.

I don't know if you've ever read the 'championship without misfortune' topics (2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 1976) but those are an attempt to create some context.

I've been looking into a Sabermetrics-type system, but it's tricky. There's so many variations in Formula 1.