Nothing has changed since last December, when Racing Point confirmed they would give their second seat – the last open seat on the 2019 grid – to Lance Stroll. There was still a chance the results would change if one of the announcements was retracted or if a temporary replacement was needed for one of the drivers. That did not happen, and so we can finally congratulate TurnOffTheLights on a well-deserved victory in the 2019 Silly Season Trophy.
2003: Brian O Flaherty
2004: Flying Panda
2005: lukywill, Viceroy, Makarias
2017: ANF
2018: Marklar
2019: TurnOffTheLights
TurnOffTheLights submitted his prediction 473 days ago, on November 30, 2017. His predictions were mostly popular and sensible. Indeed, his pick was the fifth closest to the average pick. Perhaps the key pick (one that he shared with the third placed Costaz) was predicting Toro Rosso would field an unknown driver, which came true as nobody back in late 2017 imagined Alexander Albon would join the grid.
The best players managed to get 10 exact picks out of the 20 available. This signifies a much sillier season than before, as last year Marklar won with 16 exact picks. Last year, the players scored between 71 and 101 points, while the range has dropped to 65–86 this year.
Here are the full results:
Place Name Points Exact Subm 1 TurnOffTheLights 85.12 10 10 AVERAGE PICK 82.00 10 2 noikeee 81.71 10 7 3 Costaz 80.41 10 15 4 DutchQuicksilver 79.65 8 16 5 RaikkonenFan96 78.24 9 11 6 Kev00 78.24 9 12 7 Grayson 75.06 8 18 8 markelov74 74.35 8 5 9 Makarias 72.29 8 8 10 KWSN - DSM 72.00 7 6 11 turk157 72.00 7 13 12 sladealonso 70.41 7 3 13 SpaceHorseParty 70.29 7 1 14 scheivlak 70.18 8 9 15 M2000-5 69.65 7 14 16 Brawn BGP 001 69.53 7 4 17 f1paul 65.88 6 17 18 Marklar 65.47 6 2
Even in a truly silly season, it seems that it pays to be sensible. The average pick, which uses sensible picks by design, was only beaten by the winner.
Now, some quick statistics on the 2019 drivers:
Name Team Total In team Most popular team Alexander Albon Toro Rosso 0 0 n/a Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 18 8 Mercedes (8) Pierre Gasly Red Bull 18 0 Toro Rosso (18) Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 14 11 Alfa Romeo (11) Romain Grosjean Haas 14 9 Haas (9) Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 16 16 Mercedes (16) Nico Hülkenberg Renault 18 18 Renault (18) Robert Kubica Williams 7 4 Williams (4) Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1 1 Williams (1) Charles Leclerc Ferrari 17 6 Ferrari/Haas (6) Kevin Magnussen Haas 13 13 Haas (13) Lando Norris McLaren 11 6 McLaren (6) Sergio Pérez Racing Point 18 12 Racing Point (12) Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo 7 0 Ferrari (7) Daniel Ricciardo Renault 18 0 Red Bull (9) George Russell Williams 8 1 Racing Point (7) Carlos Sainz McLaren 18 0 Red Bull/Renault (9) Lance Stroll Racing Point 16 0 Williams (16) Max Verstappen Red Bull 18 18 Red Bull (18) Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 18 18 Ferrari (18)
The most popular driver not on the 2019 grid is Esteban Ocon, who was picked by every player. He's followed by the former McLaren duo of Alonso and Vandoorne. Both of them were picked by 17 out of 18 players (and none were bold enough to leave out both of them). Other omissions were picked by less than half of the participants. They are led by Marcus Ericsson and Brendon Hartley (7 picks each) and Nirei Fukuzumi (5 picks).
Once again, congratulations to TurnOffTheLights! I invite you to follow the interim results of the 2020 Silly Season Trophy, as well as to prepare for the 2021 Silly Season Trophy. We have just over seven months until submissions are open!