Changing weather and track conditions, debris dragged onto the circuit or oil dropped by other cars, traffic, tyre wear, graining, team instructions to short-shift or limit revs because of a looming problem, slight damage to aero components by running over debris, slow punctures - none of these factor into the equation?

Every of this factor should be considered. I thought it's quite clear that if you want to compare driver's pace consistency you have to exclude other factors that's why I didn't write about them. That's why it's usually not possible to compare last stints because drivers turn down the revs. I tried to look to many options how to compare drivers but pace consistency seems the best one which excludes car's performance. Have you got any other idea how to compare drivers from two different teams?

And live timing gives you all the information you need to reach an objective and factual conclusion on these factors?



No. Certain trends become apparent over time. You didn't have to be a genius nor did you need exhaustive telemetry data to figure that Ayrton Senna was doing a better job than Satoru Nakajima.

But on an individual race or stint basis, there are only a handful of people who genuinely know what a driver is dealing with - and that's the driver himself and the engineers monitoring his progress in the pits. Everybody else - you, me, Martin Brundle, Niki Lauda, Eddie Jordan, Michael Schumacher, Bernie Ecclestone, Charlie Whiting, rival team owners - is, at best, making educated guesses to varying degrees. It sucks not to know, but you can't have everything in life.

Its a fact that they used to drop their scores, so, rather than me prove it, you look it up.

And then I suggested this caused improved racing because there was less of a penalty for not finishing - I never said it was its sole intention - so your asking me to prove something I haven't claimed.

I didn't think I was being in any way controversial with such an obvious remark?

No Kerbs are not part of the circuit. The boundry of the circuit is defined by the white lines. The reason they use the kerbs is the rule normally is that the driver must keep two wheels on the circuit. It anoys me to see wide tarmac run offs being used as circuit such as the exit of turn one at Hockenheim the two wheel rule should be strictly enforced if they carry one using tarmac run offs.

No, you analyse the stints after getting as much information as possible after the race. It's not an easy task but sometimes it's possible to find clean stints and over long term it can give you some conclusions just like seeing some trends and common sense you mentioned.

But of course there is no perfectly objective way to compare drivers, especially when they are driving for different teams.

If you take away the extra points schumacher gained over the years by teamate help, he'd still have exactly the same number of championships. That may or may not be true for this years champion depending on how it works out.

I think Massa should've been awarded extra points for the comedic value of that one...

His mistakes might not cost more points than the other drivers, but they surely tend to be the funniest ones!

The world does not work like that, like one could take one mistake of the past and count the "lost" points and say that the points lost there were crucial and with those one were a champion. The only mistake that could decide the title now is a possible mistake on next sunday. It is only relevant to say, which team or driver has been more error prone though and should have focused on reliability and coolness to raise his general level of performance.

to you perhaps..

I actually felt pretty bad for the guy at Silverstone. He's come such a long way and to see him spinning like a top on every other lap wasn't great.

The Ferrari fans were ready to burn Massa at the stake after Silverstone --- it was so bad I felt moved to defend him.

Still worse things could happen to a driver than getting burn't at the stake by your own teams fans --- signing for Honda springs to mind..

Which championship Schumacher won because of the help from his teammates and without that help he would have failed to win WDC?

ISTR he has been gifted more than a few extra points this season

Jim Clark ? I followed his career from 1962 through to his death in April 68 don't seem to remember him ever making an on track mistake or for that matter doing anything dubious or depending on a team mate.

Fangio didn't make mistakes either alhough he did occaisional use of the support of a team mate.

Why does 5 spins count as one mistake ?
Was his one mistake getting out of bed that day ?

I think you have to remember with modern levels of mechanical and aerodynamic grip, and driver aids, and wider tyres, it's become increasingly difficult to tell when and where your car crosses 'the limit'. And the cars are safe enough that the drivers have to continually seek it. So naturally there are going to see far more drivers losing control than there used to be, unless in the last 30 years the motor racing gene pool has become catastrophically polluted with error-prone lackadaisies.

And wasn't there that one occasion when Clark was proper spooked by Dan Gurney, and slid off? I seem to remember reading about it -- the one occasion when Jim was forced actually to race with someone, and he was a little, uh, out of practice.