Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
You are right, good point. I didn't think of it from that angle... *thumbs up*
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
Lewis will be crowned Champion sooner or later. Not only 2015 but I can say that he will remain champion in 2016 also. Merc engine is too powerful and there is not a championship material driver in Merc team to compete. 2012 was the last season where some permutations here and there helped when things were even from competition point of view. Today we have no evidence to state otherwise that Merc and Lewis will not win in 2016 also. There is a lot of effort behind the scenes from the team and the driver.
Its time F1 enthusiast like me stop spending too much effort figuring out why Ferrari/Renault/Honda is unable to produce a powerful engine like Merc or why the rules are not been changed to help the competition etc. F1 is going to carry on the way it is even if some of us do not enjoy it anymore.
Lewis is currently at 302 points. In order to seal the WDC over the next 4 races, he needs to achieve 34 points (and 27 over Rosberg). Doesn't matter how he spreads those points, he has 4 races to do it. That can be a win and a 5th place (25+10), or two 2nd place finishes (18+18) or 2 3rd places and 8th place (15+15+4). This is vs. Vettel. IMO, Vettel is irrelevant, so if we look at simply 'beating' Rosberg a 3rd place and a 4th will knock him out (15+12) with two races to come. Once Rosberg is out of contention, he only needs to beat Vettel to seal it for his team-mate.
Looking at these stats, assuming no technical glitches or DNFs, I think he'll 'seal it' on paper in Mexico. Although Lewis goes extremely well in Austin.
Another interesting fact: If Rosberg for whatever reason takes out Lewis and himself on track (or the other way around), the gap remains at 73 points vs the two Merc drivers and Rosberg would still be in contention with 3 races to go. Assuming Vettel wins, the point gap to Vettel will be 41 with 75 points left, thought it wouldn't change the above math on how many points he would need to achieve over the remainder of races. But I'm not even going to entertain that scenario...
Yeah... Thanks for rechewing what I said earlier .
Turbof1 wrote:Infact, Hamilton will need to score only 34 points in the last 4 races combined to cover every and all situations.
As you yourself mentioned, Hamilton is by probability not going to need to score 34 points. Also you made an error in your calculations:
That can be a win and a 5th place (25+10)
By winning he'll be taking away points by default from vettel and rosberg. How many and if he then still needs points depends, but in the very worst case where Vettel wins every race bar one race for Hamilton, Hamilton will only need to score 2 more points.
EDIT: like GPR-A said basically. Basically I just rechewed what you said .
turbof1 wrote:Yeah... Thanks for rechewing what I said earlier .
pfff and I thought I was the first one to come up with all those super mighty complex calculations...
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
turbof1 wrote:We should somehow have expected this, but the contructor's championship is now going to be potentially decided off-track. If Raikkonen either gets disqualified or a penalty heavy enough to drop him to 8th, Mercedes concludes the championship.
The Constructors Title was decided On Track...
When Ferrari gave the All or Nothign Radio Call to Raikkonen who then decided to take a lunge that from that distance back was never going to end in anything but at least Damage to Bottas's car.
Wording was one step below Audi's Scheider Incident earlier this year but the meaning was there.
Such a shame I have to think about this about one of my favorite teams. Was loving Seeing my top 3 teams battle in Sochi.
turbof1 wrote:We should somehow have expected this, but the contructor's championship is now going to be potentially decided off-track. If Raikkonen either gets disqualified or a penalty heavy enough to drop him to 8th, Mercedes concludes the championship.
The Constructors Title was decided On Track...
When Ferrari gave the All or Nothign Radio Call to Raikkonen who then decided to take a lunge that from that distance back was never going to end in anything but at least Damage to Bottas's car.
Wording was one step below Audi's Scheider Incident earlier this year but the meaning was there.
Such a shame I have to think about this about one of my favorite teams. Was loving Seeing my top 3 teams battle in Sochi.
Well, I beg to differ although I understand your point of view. Ultimately, the moment that Mercedes took the WCC was not when they crossed the finish line, but one and a half hours after in a tiny stewards room. You can't take the title away, but it does take some of the "bravoure" away. Now the Mercedes guys had to celebrate while they were packing up far away from any podium celebrations.
turbof1 wrote:
Well, I beg to differ although I understand your point of view. Ultimately, the moment that Mercedes took the WCC was not when they crossed the finish line, but one and a half hours after in a tiny stewards room. You can't take the title away, but it does take some of the "bravoure" away. Now the Mercedes guys had to celebrate while they were packing up far away from any podium celebrations.
I think the flight back to the UK was quite enjoyable for Mercedes.
Yes, they still have 4 tokens. They'll be keen to give those some track time.
I think Kimi will take the new engine along with the penalties on the Grid. Seb will still get to race on the 2015 spec till Hamilton gets crowned. Both drivers taking penalties for the 5th engine is unlikely but lets see. Glad to see that Ferrari already is working on 2017 spec already. This sounds interesting. =D>
I'm bored, Russia does this to me, so please skip if it gets too long. For kicks, I'm going to try and calculate the odds of Vettel or Rosberg winning from the current situation. But first...
When Raikkonen won in 2007 he was 17 points behind with 2 races, or 20 points, still available. In today's money that would equate to between 40 and 43 points. Lewis is currently 66 ahead of Vettel and 73 ahead of Rosberg. A similar points differential per race as in 2007, but requiring an additional race or two of weirdness.
To lose the championship, Lewis would basically have to experience a sequence of events an entire order of magnitude more rare than those of 2007. 2007 being the sequence where, after comfortably leading in China, he managed to park his car on a gravel apron as wide as a small patio after very suspect team decision-making; followed by Brazil where he experienced rather remarkable sporadic unreliability. Oh, and Raikkonen winning both events, and Alonso going missing for both.
So, here is an equivalent, but not probable, chain of events that results in Lewis not winning the championship:
2 DNFS - one for reliability, one a collision (I'll blame Kimi as he has nothing to lose in attempting to pass, and is one of 4 people with a competitive car).
1 additional compromised race (speeding in the pit lane, poor pit stop(s), exit over a white line, track limits, etc...). Finishes 5th or lower.
1 less dominant race - no major issues, just doesn't come 1st.
Vettel/Rosberg win everything, or at worst finish 2nd in every race. If they both win races, they steal points from each other, so pick your poison.
[or any set of outcomes worse than this]
Just saying all of that seems unlikely, but what other possibilities are there, and can we describe their relative likelihood?
Using this year as a barometer, Lewis has been involved in 1 crash, 1 reliability related retirement, and had 1 noncompetitive race. He's won 9/13 races without issue, and finished on average second in the other 4. If you assume issues don't occur in the same race, his outcomes could be described like this:
Cycling through all possible permutations of these events indicates Hamilton should expect to score about 75 points in the remaining 4 races. For Rosberg or Vettel to even have a chance, Hamilton needs to score less than 27 points (for Rosberg or Vettel), or less than 34 points (Vettel). Relative to the probability of each permutation, Hamilton has a 0.901% or 1 in 111 chance of scoring fewer than 27 points, and a 1.266% or 1 in 79 chance of scoring less than 34 points.
The odds are long indeed, and this still doesn't account for the odds of Vettel or Rosberg exceeding Hamilton's total, given that total.
Considering we're conditioning on Hamilton basically not finishing, and certainly not finishing 1st or even on the podium, I've had a look at how Vettel and Rosberg score when Hamilton does not win. Its actually fairly even, but Vettel has been more consistent (3 wins, 2 other podiums, 1 non-podium points finish) than Rosberg (3 wins, 1 other podium, 2 non-podium points finishes).
The car should dictate Rosberg has the better chance, but Vettel has the better results on paper, and is closer, so he appears to be the more likely candidate. I can't believe I'm contradicting my earlier post.
Anyway, by now you're getting bored. The net result of conditioning against Hamilton's outcomes is Vettel's chance of winning is something like 1 in 700. Rosberg has a 1 in 1250 chance.
This is obviously not very involved, but at least it describes the order of magnitude well. 1 in 500 (assuming Rosberg or Vettel) is the bookie's equivalent of almost never, so Hamilton would need to experience something completely unprecedented to not win from this position.
Fulcrum wrote:1 in 500 (assuming Rosberg or Vettel) is the bookie's equivalent of almost never, so Hamilton would need to experience something completely unprecedented to not win from this position.
Hamilton is out walking and Roscoe drags him off balance, causing an injury that prevents him from racing.
In all honesty, he'd recover in time from that to score the necessary points. Remember Niki Lauda? That guy got horribly burned, but was back in the car after several weeks.
Chances are that Hamilton will not even need to race anymore. I can very much imagine the replacement of Hamilton stealing points from Vettel and Rosberg. Would temporarily solve Vandoorne's issue on getting into F1.
I think the biggest asset Lewis has, is that he only needs to beat Rosberg. Once that is accomplished, Rosberg will inadvertently help him by simply trying to win himself and beats Vettel in the process. In other words, assuming Hamilton wins next race, Vettel 2nd (stays in contention) and Rosberg is out, Hamilton could then go and DNF the remaining 3 races and Rosberg really just has to beat Vettel once (and prevent him from scoring) for Hamilton to still bag it.
Still, as a Lewis fan, I'm prepared for anything to go wrong. Still can't believe he lost the 2007 championship (even though I wasn't rooting for him at all) and that 2008 one was way too close, as was last years. lol.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
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