F1 2015 - The Final Five
Formula One might be dominated by Mercedes, but that hasn’t stopped four F1 drivers from winning a race this year. Unfortunately for Vijay Mallya and Nico Hülkenberg himself, the popular German did his winning in a different racing series. It was still pretty impressive, of course.
While Hamilton is speeding off towards his third championship title with eight wins, Rosberg has won 'just' three races. Sebastian Vettel has also won three, but that’s probably three more than anyone had expected. After a winless 2014 both Vettel and Ferrari returned to their winning ways in Malaysia, with further victories in Hungary and Singapore.
The great numbers
- It’s no surprise that Lewis Hamilton has the best average finishing position at 1,77. He leads Rosberg, Vettel and Räikkönen – who is the last driver with an average lower than 5. In this case, of course, lower is better.
- Sebastian Vettel is the only non-Mercedes driver to have been on the podium more than two times. Ricciardo, Massa and Räikkönen were there twice, Vettel no less than ten times. Rosberg has been to the podium eleven times, and Hamilton twelve times.
- Williams has had just one retirement – narrowly beating Mercedes which has had two. The two are equal on two if you include Bottas’ Australian no-show.
- Both Mercedes cars have scored points in each of the races they finished. Ferrari trails them with 24 point-scoring finishes out of 25. Vettel’s late race tyre failure in Belgium dropped him down to 12th.
The not so great numbers
- Kevin Magnussen participated in just one Grand Prix. Unfortunately for the young Dane, his McLaren-Honda failed to even take the start.
- Pastor Maldonado and Carlos Sainz have both scored just 27% of their team’s total number of points. Among the top teams things are fairly equal with the exception of Räikkönen, who reaches only 35%.
- Lotus-Mercedes are the crash kings of 2015 so far, with the most number of race-ending crashes or collisions.
- McLaren-Honda has failed to finish 14 times out of a possible 28. Lotus-Mercedes joins them with 13 retirements.
If any of these numbers is wrong - please point out where I've mixed up the numbers.
This not entirely accurate reflection of the average F1 fan brings us to the second part of this post:
Three questions for the Final Five!
The battle to upset the order in the WDC
After the Japanese Grand Prix, the top eight in the driver's championship is nicely arranged by team. Hamilton leads Rosberg, followed by Vettel leading Räikkönen, Bottas leading Massa and Ricciardo ahead of Kvyat. But things are not as simple as they seem. There are only 11 points between Vettel and Rosberg, and just 8 points between Bottas and Räikkönen with Massa a further 13 points behind. Ricciardo’s lead over his team-mate Kvyat is just 7 points as well.
After a disastrous year against Fernando Alonso, Räikkönen seems to be much better off this year. The problem: his new team-mate is still outscoring him by massive numbers. It’s 218-119 as the F1 circus leaves Japan. Nevertheless, he holds on to 4th in the WDC battle ahead of both Williams drivers. Can he keep this advantage?
Rosberg’s collision in Hungary turned a virtual tie with Hamilton into an increased gap to his Mercedes team-mate. Two races later an engine failure put him right in Sebastian Vettel’s sights once more. Just 11 points separate the two after Japan. While his team-mate seems to be on his way to another title, can Rosberg keep Vettel behind him on the points table?
The battle for 5th in the WCC
The top four teams seem to be well established by now. Mercedes is 169 points clear of Ferrari – the only other team that could still win the WCC, though only if they score 34 more points than Mercedes during each of the remaining races. This is as good as impossible. Ferrari itself has 129 points more than Williams, which leads Red Bull by 69 points. Below the 100 points line, and 62 points behind Red Bull we find Force India.
With five races to go, and ten possible point scoring finishes up for grabs we have a little fight on our hands for the 5th place in the constructor’s championship:
Force India-Mercedes is on 77 points, ahead of Lotus-Mercedes on 60 points and Toro Rosso-Renault with 44 points. While Force India is ahead, Lotus has a higher ‘conversion rate’ with almost a full point more per finish. Lotus problem is that they haven’t been finishing enough. Toro Rosso looks to be out of contention, but up until Grosjean’s surprising podium at Spa-Francorchamps Toro Rosso’s youngster Verstappen had the highest finishing position of this group with his 4th place in Hungary. Toro Rosso has nevertheless struggled to collect a lot of points.
Which of these fine teams will take 5th place in the WCC?
Lewis Hamilton, World Champion again!
This last question is straightforward. Do you think Lewis Hamilton will win the world title, and if so – will there be cachaças, al Machboos, or even some elotes at the subsequent party? In other words: where will Lewis Hamilton put Rosberg out of mathematical contention for the 2015 F1 driver’s title?
Other things to look out for?
There is plenty of drama off the track, from drivers to teams to engines, almost all with a dedicated thread of their own, but what are the things you are looking for on track during the final five races of the season? Please share the F1 action behind the headlines that you’ll be following with special interest.
Please note that team-mate battles are to be discussed in the appropriate specific threads. Please also note that while we all have opinions about the United States of America, the Russian Federation, Abu Dhabi and the like the Autosport moderators want these political discussions to take place elsewhere or in the Paddock Club!
Ceterum censeo… turn three at Sochi should be named in honour of that great Russian icon Cheburashka. The link to the Olympics that pervades Sochi is already there and the radius of the corner is a perfect fit for his most prominent feature. Get on this, Russians!
Edited by Nonesuch, 27 September 2015 - 15:39.
I wasn't too excited when I first saw the layout, but from the F1 2015 game the speed seems to be quite a bit higher than I expected. It also has plenty of corners that flow into one another, so it should be interesting to see how much it resembles other tracks in regards to the relative performance of the cars.
