What’s The Points – Korea Update

Previous entries:

    What’s The Points
    What’s The Points – China Update
    What’s The Points – Spain Update
    What’s The Points – Monaco Update
    What’s The Points – Turkey Update
    What’s The Points – Canada Update
    What’s The Points – Valencia Update
    What’s The Points – Great Britain Update
    What’s The Points – Germany Update
    What’s The Points – Hungary Update
    What’s The Points – Belgium Update
    What’s The Points – Italy Update
    What’s The Points – Singapore Update
    What’s The Points – Japan Update

Below is a comparison of the World Championship positions for this year’s points (left), last year’s points-system (middle) and the older 10-6-4-3-2-1 approach (right). Ties are decided by count-back.

1		Alonso		231		Alonso		93		Alonso		77
2		Webber		220		Webber		88		Webber		70
3		Hamilton		210		Hamilton		87		Hamilton		65
4		Vettel		206		Vettel		84		Vettel		64
5		Button		189		Button		77		Button		55
6		Massa		143		Massa		57		Massa		36
7		Kubica		124		Kubica		48		Kubica		24
8		Rosberg		122		Rosberg		47		Rosberg		24
9		Schumacher		66		Schumacher		23		Schumacher		11
10		Barrichello		47		Barrichello		15		Barrichello		6

A horrific race for RBR, with their first double-no-score of the season. With an eleven point lead, things look good for Alonso. If the Korea result were to be repeated in Brazil, Fernando would be World Champion. If Webber can win the remaining two races, that would put him on 270 which Alonso could not beat even if he finished second in both. As well as Alonso moving above Webber and Hamilton moving above Vettel, Kubica takes a place off non-finishing Rosberg in all three systems.

With all the top contenders having had such up-and-down seasons, it is not so surprising the top places are the same in all three systems, it was always unlikely that which of these points-regimes used would change the eventual ‘Champion, but for all three top-tens to be identical in order is unexpected. By this year’s points, Fernando’s lead over Webber is 44% of a race-win, last year’s points, 50% of a race-win, and 10-6-4-3-2-1, 70% of a race-win. Under the latter system, Button would be mathematically out of the chase.

Nineteen drivers have scored points in this year’s ‘Championship (all the drivers except those for the new-teams) , eighteen under 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 (Alguersuari is yet to finish top-eight). Liuzzi’s sixth-place brings up to fifteen those that have finished top-six this season.

This is the order purely on count-back.

		Wins	Seconds	Thirds	Podiums
1	Alonso	5	2	2	9
2	Webber	4	3	2	9
3	Hamilton	3	4	1	8
4	Vettel	3	2	3	8
5	Button	2	3	1	6
6	Massa		2	3	5
7	Kubica		1	2	3
8	Rosberg			3	3

Pure count-back gives exactly the same top-eight order as the points, with the number of podiums still looking like the biggest title-factor.

The next table shows the points scored by the World Championship contenders over the last five events.

	Driver	Score		Average
1	Alonso	90		18·8
2	Webber	59		11·8
3	Vettel	55		11·4
4	Hamilton	53		10·6

If these mean averages of recent performances are multiplied by the three remaining races, added to the points the drivers currently have, and rounded to the nearest point, it gives this projection of the final tally.

1	Alonso	267
2	Webber	244
3	Hamilton	231
4	Vettel	228

With only two races left, the value of this indicator is very limited. The title will probably go to the highest placed driver that puts in two strong finishes in the last two rounds.

Alonso has won three of the last five races, plus a third and a DNF at Belgium. It seems very much his title to lose. Hamilton has always looked off his best in Brazil, and the long flat-out stretch will not suit Red Bull, so it should be another good weekend for the Spaniard.

These are the points if given to engines:

	Engine	Score		Average per Team
1	Mercedes	655		218·3
2	Renault	569		284·5
3	Ferrari	428		142·7
4	Cosworth	65		16·3

Ferrari took a 1-3 with both Saubers in the points to take 46 points. Mercedes had Hamilton, Schumacher, and Liuzzi in second, fourth, and sixth, for 38 points. Renault only got ten for Kubica’s fifth-place. Cosworth had both Williams in the points for 7.

The scores by nationality of drivers are:

	Nation	Points	Scoring Drivers
1	Germany	465	6
2	Britain	399	2
3	Spain	240	3
4	Australia	220	1
5	Brazil	190	2
6	Poland	124	1
7	Japan	31	1
8	Italy	21	1
9	Russia	19	1
10	Switzerland	8	1

The win for Spain was enough to win the week and take third off Australia. Webber has to defend his country unaided, but Alonso can not expect much help off Alguersuari, or any more from de la Rosa. Massa and Barrichello gave Brazil 21. Hamilton gave GB 18. Sans Vettel, the German hoards still took 4th, 9th, and 10th for 15. Poland got 10. Liuzzi’s sixth-place gave eight to over-take Russia for eighth. Kobayashi added four for the Land of the Rising Sun.

This is the Nations’ Cup only counting the score of the highest driver in a race for each country. I have also decided to use 10-6-4-3-2-1, partly because I think it a better scoring regime, partly because it meant less work. Thus, for example, the McLaren 1-2 in China would give Britain 10 points for the win, nothing for second, and Rosberg’s third place would give Germany 4 points, with nothing for Vettel’s sixth place.

	Nation	Points
1	Britain	94
2	Germany	80
3	Spain	77
4	Australia	70
5	Brazil	42
6	Poland	24
7	Russia	2
8	Japan	1
9	Italy	1

Alonso’s win with Webber’s DNF sees Spain move up to third. It was with Monaco the second race this season to have the top-six feature six different nations. Liuzzi gave Italy its first point, remaining behind Japan on count-back.

This next table shows the standings based on qualification using current points.

1	Vettel	341
2	Webber	311
3	Alonso	207
4	Hamilton	192
5	Button	134
6	Massa	132
7	Rosberg	119
8	Kubica	116
9	Schumacher	48
10	Barrichello	44
11	Hülkenberg	24
12	Sutil	21
13	Liuzzi	10
14	Petrov	9
15	Kobayashi	5
16	de la Rosa	4

Little change in the status quo. Rosberg’s strong fifth did enable him to climb one position pushing Kubica down a place, the Pole disappointed to only qualify eighth after his car had developed a handling issue since FP3.

These are the fastest-lap points with the number of outright fastest laps in brackets.

1	Webber	247	(3)
2	Alonso	224	(5)
3	Vettel	216	(3)
4	Hamilton	181	(3)
5	Kubica	128	(1)
6	Button	124	(1)
7	Massa	122
8	Rosberg	95
9	Schumacher	72
10	Petrov	59	(1)
11	Barrichello	54
12	Sutil	44
13	Buemi	42
14	Alguersuari	39
15	Liuzzi	26
16	Kobayashi	19
17	Hülkenberg	15
18	de la Rosa	9
19	Heidfeld	1

The top-five in this discipline in Korea were Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, Massa, Liuzzi. Kubica came seventh, Button outside the top-ten, promoting the Pole to fifth. Liuzzi’s good showing took him past Kobayashi to 15th.

Click here to see my Google documents laps-and-distance-completed spreadsheet.

See also RG’s Korea update for his championship for new teams.

Korea Pretent Points

If the Korea race-result was to be exactly the same as qualification order, this is how the points would pan out.

Webber	238
Vettel	231
Alonso	221
Hamilton	204
Button	195

Japan Snippets

In Japan, Vettel garnered his eighth win and 13th pole. He has taken six wins from pole-positions, his other two wins being from second and third on the grid. Six of his seven failures to win from pole happened this year. It was the thirteenth win for Red Bull from 104 races, but bearing in mind the team only won their first race in China last year, it is their 13th win in the last 31 races. It was the 128th win for a Renault-engined car. These are the top-five win-totals for engines.

1	Ferrari	215
2	Ford Cosworth	176
3	Renault	128
4	Mercedes	82
5	Honda	72

(See gpguide.com for full list)

There was a fair bit of action in Sunday’s race, and whilst I enjoyed watching the event, I am somehow surprised I did not enjoy it more. One suggestion I read was that it was marred by poor TV coverage, and although the live-editing was erratic at times, I do not think that was it. It certainly led to more screen-time for home-driver, Kobayashi, but his series of overtaking moves coincided to justify that, and provided much of the best of the afternoon; it is widely known that overtaking is just too difficult in Formula One, but it seems Kamui did not get that memo. The five ‘Championship contenders finished in the order they qualified in, with Button’s alternate tyre-strategy having no impact. We were denied Kubica’s part in the race action after his early retirement, or the opportunity to see Hamilton mix it with the Red Bulls and Alonso’s Ferrari by his gearbox-change grid-penalty, followed by his transmission issue in the race. With Massa out early and Rosberg’s retirement, the best-of-the-rest battle some way back from the big boys was not that inspiring. The points-gaps between the top-three were closed up by the result, but with one less race left on the season, so not a huge change in status quo; the McLaren pair were pushed further back in the points but it had already looked pessimistic for their chances before Suzuka. It was all a bit anti-climatic.

There are those who argue Nick Heidfeld has had his chance and is not especially deserving of a place in F1 but I disagree. As was once the case with Webber (who was dropped by Williams for not being good enough, although Patrick Head now concedes it might have been the car that was the problem), Heidi has never been in the right team at the right time, except once in Canada 2008, when team-ordered to let Kubica past to steal the win. This is a comparison of Nick’s performance against his F1 team-mates, with the year(s) and team, then his points on the left, the team-mate’s on the right.

2000	Prost	0	:	0	Alesi
2001	Sauber	12	:	9	Räikkönen
2002	Sauber	7	:	4	Massa
2002-3	Sauber	6	:	13	Frentzen
2004	Jordan	2	:	0	Pantano
2004	Jordan	1	:	2	Glock
2005	Williams	28	:	24	Webber
2006	BMW	13	:	7	Villeneuve
2006-9	BMW	150	:	137	Kubica
2007	BMW	0	:	1	Vettel
2010	Sauber	4	:	6	Kobayashi

It is fair to ignore Heidfeld being out-scored by Glock, Vettel, and Kobayashi as he has had them as team-mates for only one to three races. He was trounced by Frentzen in 2001, but has out-performed everyone else including Räikkönen, Villeneuve, Massa, Webber, and Kubica, who, with better opportunities, have collectively won two World Championships and forty-seven Grands Prix. He is also a driver that in the 2008 season overtook two drivers simultaneously not once but three times. Thus it was unfortunate news, issued even before quick Nick had had time to settle in with the team, that Sauber will be replacing him for 2011 with Mexican pay-driver, Mexican Sergio Perez. The reasons for the Swiss outfit recruiting Heidfeld were de la Rosa being disappointing and wanting a known-quantity driver to work out where the car is. With the scintillating but inconsistent Kobayashi partnered with an unproven rookie next season, heaven knows how they plan on evaluating the development programme if Pedro’s experience was unhelpful. For Nick, however well he does in the remaining races, it is difficult to see any opportunity for him unless Schumacher quits, Renault chose talent over money for the second seat, or he is willing to go to Force India, all of which look unlikely.

I looked at the circuit map for Korea with horror. Tilke has packed eighteen corners into the 3·5 mile (5·6 km) design. As you can see, fourteen of the turns are barely interrupted by any straights to speak of. With the bareness of the landscape, reconising one part of the track from another on TV will make the turns at Valencia look as individual as fingerprints; it might even be quite hard for drivers to remember where they are on the circuit. This sequence will of course spread out any cars that were close going into it. By the end of the start-finish, any minor ground that has been made up on a car in front will soon be lost in turns one and two, so it is very unlikely the longest straight that follows will be enough to slipstream to catch up by turn three, which anyway, by the look of the on-board footage from Chandhok’s run, is surprisingly narrow for a modern circuit, so will be easy to defend at. There only appears to be the one grandstand, on the start/finish, and we will find out if they can fill that. The grandiose plans include building a city around the circuit, so at least their optimism can not be faulted. There may be a good chance of a very lively weekend as with the tarmac so recently laid, as explained by Radio Five Live’s Anthony Davidson, the surface may still be emitting oils that will make the track very slippery indeed. Even in the sunshine, it could be a weekend for drivers that are good in the wet; if not careful, they may Korea off the track.

(If you have not already viewed it, have a look at the pictures from Korea in this post by Joe Saward.)

What’s The Points – Japan Update

Previous entries:

    What’s The Points
    What’s The Points – China Update
    What’s The Points – Spain Update
    What’s The Points – Monaco Update
    What’s The Points – Turkey Update
    What’s The Points – Canada Update
    What’s The Points – Valencia Update
    What’s The Points – Great Britain Update
    What’s The Points – Germany Update
    What’s The Points – Hungary Update
    What’s The Points – Belgium Update
    What’s The Points – Italy Update
    What’s The Points – Singapore Update

Below is a comparison of the World Championship positions for this year’s points (left), last year’s points-system (middle) and the older 10-6-4-3-2-1 approach (right). Ties are decided by countback.

1		Webber		220		Webber		88		Webber		70
2		Alonso		206		Vettel		84		Alonso		67
3		Vettel		206		Alonso		83		Vettel		64
4		Hamilton		192		Hamilton		79		Hamilton		61
5		Button		189		Button		77		Button		55
6		Massa		128		Massa		51		Massa		30
7		Rosberg		122		Rosberg		47		Rosberg		24
8		Kubica		114		Kubica		44		Kubica		22
9		Schumacher		54		Schumacher		18		Schumacher		8
10		Sutil		47		Sutil		15		Barrichello		6

The top-five in the ‘Championship standings all finished top-five in the race. Webber increases his lead, but sees his team-mate make up ground to join Alonso on 206 points. Hamilton falls behind Vettel, and to more than a win from the front. Button is creeping up on his team-mate, but both McLaren drivers needed a better weekend. Massa, Rosberg, and Kubica failed to score points in Japan, with before these retirements Massa looking fragile against the other two.

Vettel in real points is only behind Alonso on count-back, this only being the German’s third win to Alonso’s four this season. Sebastian has a slim advantage over Fernando under last year’s points, but, with more emphasis on outright results, the Spaniard has the edge under 10-6-4-3-2-1. Webber’s lead is about 60% of a win under this and last year’s points, but things are closer under 10-6-4-3-2-1, with Mark only leading by 30% of a win (both he and Alonso on four wins), and the top-four all covered by less than the ten points for a win. Under 10-6-4-3-2-1, the Australian’s two eighth-places and a ninth early in the season give his total no help, with the five real points they provide perhaps will prove to be critical at the end of the season. When this new scoring system was devised, the plan was to help smaller teams get the chance to score, but probably not that such minor positions decide who wins the title.

Nick Heidfeld’s eighth-place at Suzuka increased to nineteen those that have scored points this season (only excluding the new-team drivers), and made up to eighteen those that would have scored under last year’s points (Alguersuari is yet to finish top-eight). Fourteen drivers have finished top-six, not including the STR drivers, de la Rosa, quick Nick, or Liuzzi.

This is the order purely on count-back.

		Wins	Seconds	Thirds	Podiums
1	Webber	4	3	2	9
2	Alonso	4	2	2	8
3	Hamilton	3	3	1	7
4	Vettel	3	2	3	8
5	Button	2	3	1	6
6	Massa		2	2	4
7	Kubica		1	2	3
8	Rosberg			3	3

Pure count-back promotes Hamilton over Vettel, and Kubica over Rosberg to seventh. This is the table in the order of the real points-standings.

		Wins	Seconds	Thirds	Podiums
1	Webber	4	2	2	8
2	Alonso	4	2	1	7
3	Vettel	2	2	3	7
4	Hamilton	3	3	1	7
5	Button	2	3	1	6
6	Massa		2	2	4
7	Rosberg			3	3
8	Kubica		1	2	3

As after the last race, and suggested by Alonso as the likeliest Championship decider, the number of podiums seems to have the greatest influence. Webber’s points race-average is 13·75, behind 15 points for third-place, ahead of 12 for fourth.

The next table shows the points scored by the World Championship contenders over the last five events.

	Driver	Score		Average
1	Webber	84		16·8
2	Alonso	83		16·6
3	Vettel	70		14·4
4	Button	46		9·2
5	Hamilton	35		7·4

If these mean averages of recent performances are multiplied by the three remaining races, added to the points the drivers currently have, and rounded to the nearest point, it gives this projection of the final tally.

1	Webber	270
2	Alonso	256
3	Vettel	248
4	Button	217
5	Hamilton	213

McLaren had both drivers score points for the first time in five races, but with only three rounds left, both of their drivers’ title-chances look very tentative. Mark Webber looks strong as long as he does not drop the ball. The Red Bulls have a reputation for being fragile, but Mark has had 100% race-reliability, scoring in every GP except for his crash at Valencia, and Vettel has had very good reliability this season, except for three separate issues early in the season, all of which were those sort of strange one-offs, such as a spark-plug or brake-disk failing, that a driver usually expects one or less of a season. Post-race in Suzuka, Webber said he needed to win again to win the title. I question if that is true. If Mark gets a second and two thirds in the last three races, that would put him on 268 points. Vettel or Alonso, on 206 currently, would need 62 to match that. Two wins and a third would give 65, but that is something neither Alonso or Vettel have achieved in any three consecutive races this season. Obviously, if Mark has a bad race, he might need a win, but conversely if a McLaren wins in Korea, it will make life much harder for Mark’s title rivals. (I have this sneaking feeling that the title might just be decided by Brazil, denying us a last-round decider.)

These are the points if given to engines:

	Engine	Score		Average per Team
1	Mercedes	617		205·6
2	Renault	559		279·5
3	Ferrari	382		127·3
4	Cosworth	58		14·5

With first and second, Renault led the scoring with 43, but might have done even greater damage to Mercedes’s lead had Kubica not had his calamity. Mercedes had Button, Hamilton, and Schumacher behind the Red Bulls and Alonso for 30. Ferrari received contributions from Alonso, Kobayashi, Heidfeld, and Buemi, for 26. Barrichello’s Williams gave Cosworth two points.

The scores by nationality of drivers are:

	Nation	Points	Scoring Drivers
1	Germany	450	6
2	Britain	381	2
3	Australia	220	1
4	Spain	215	3
5	Brazil	169	2
6	Poland	114	1
7	Japan	27	1
8	Russia	19	1
9	Italy	13	1
10	Switzerland	8	1

Cripes, yet another German driver adds to the pot with Nick Heidfeld scoring four points, with Vettel’s win plus Schumacher’s sixth making 37. Lewis and Jenson added 22 for Britain. Webber took 18 for Australia, Alonso 15 for Spain, Kobayashi 6 for Japan, Barrichello 2 for Brazil, and Buemi 1 for Switzerland. No changes in position with the top-five gaps all widening.

This is the Nations’ Cup only counting the score of the highest driver in a race for each country. I have also decided to use 10-6-4-3-2-1, partly because I think it a better scoring regime, partly because it meant less work. Thus, for example, the McLaren 1-2 in China would give Britain 10 points for the win, nothing for second, and Rosberg’s third place would give Germany 4 points, with nothing for Vettel’s sixth place.

	Nation	Points
1	Britain	88
2	Germany	77
3	Australia	70
4	Spain	67
5	Brazil	38
6	Poland	22
7	Russia	2
8	Japan	1

Germany gain on Britain, but no changes in position. Only the top-four nations in the table scored.

This next table shows the standings based on qualification using current points.

1	Vettel	316
2	Webber	293
3	Alonso	192
4	Hamilton	180
5	Button	128
6	Massa	124
7	Kubica	112
8	Rosberg	109
9	Schumacher	46
10	Barrichello	43
11	Hülkenberg	24
12	Sutil	21
13	Liuzzi	10
14	Petrov	9
15	Kobayashi	5
16	de la Rosa	4

Massa fails to make Q3 for the second consecutive race, and the third time this season, losing a place to Button. Kubica, qualifying third after Hamilton’s penalty, moves up one place over Rosberg. The Red Bull drivers remain the only two to qualify top-ten (indeed top-six) every race. Despite optimism for Suzuka, neither STR driver has yet to score in this category, with the new-team drivers and Heidi also pointless.

These are the fastest-lap points with the number of outright fastest laps in brackets.

1	Webber	247	(3)
2	Alonso	199	(4)
3	Vettel	198	(3)
4	Hamilton	166	(3)
5	Button	124	(1)
6	Kubica	122	(1)
7	Massa	110
8	Rosberg	95
9	Schumacher	68
10	Petrov	59	(1)
11	Barrichello	46
12	Sutil	44
13	Buemi	42
14	Alguersuari	37
15	Kobayashi	19
16	Liuzzi	16
17	Hülkenberg	14
18	de la Rosa	9
19	Heidfeld	1

Many will be aware that on the very last lap, Webber pipped team-mate Vettel for the fastest-lap, denying Sebastian the win-pole-FL triple. On the last lap, Button also beat Vettel’s best lap-time, enabling Jenson to move up two places at the expense of retirees, Kubica and Massa. Kobayashi managed the sixth-best lap-time, moving up two places to fifteenth.

Click here to see my Google documents laps-and-distance-completed spreadsheet. Before the Japanese GP, Massa had only failed to complete one race-distance, finishing one lap down in Canada, but his early bath at Suzuka drops him several places for laps completed.

See also RG’s Japan update for his championship for new teams.

Japan Qualification Pretend Points

If the Japan race-result was to be exactly the same as qualification order (allowing for Hamilton’s five-place drop), this is how the points would pan out.

Webber	220
Vettel	206
Alonso	203
Button	187
Hamilton	186

Will Vettel help Webber? Probably not. Both Button and Hamilton should make up places, but look in danger of badly falling away from the title-battle. Alonso needs to hope Red Bull are not as fast in race-trim, or return to finding some way to mess up the races. Mark could do with making a good start for once.

Singapore Unfair Result

In Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix, Sutil and Hülkenberg initially finished eighth and ninth, but after each receiving 20-second penalties (both of which were for cutting corners), were demoted to ninth and tenth behind Massa, putting the pair as the last two to complete the race-distance. What struck me was this gave them time-differences to the winner that had become much more than a lap’s-worth, with a number of drivers not that much over a lap-down behind them in the results.

At the end of the race, there was very little in it between 8th and 14th. The last-gasp battle with Alonso fending off Vettel for the win by 0·293 seconds saw the two leaders lap the 12th and 11th placed cars on the last lap, with Sutil, Hülkenberg, and Massa starting the last lap only just soon enough to avoid being lapped by the leaders, the three finishing the full-distance covered by less than a second.

The only way I can think of to judge this is to calculate the time-differences between the relevent cars at the last lap they all completed, that is the sixtieth, second-last lap. I have the .pdf file from FIA that gives me the lap-times for the cars that completed the last lap, and the post-penalties result page from gpguide.com (not only does it contain more useful information about the finishing times of the lapped cars but the race-result on f1.com has added ten seconds too many to Hülkenberg’s time). I have used the time at which Alonso finished the race as the zero-point, so this table shows how many seconds earlier or later the cars in question completed the 60th lap.

8th	Sutil	+	2·067
9th	Hülkenberg	+	1·643
10th	Massa	+	0·903
11th	Petrov	-	4·040
12th	Alguersuari	-	6·167
13th	Schumacher	-	12·934
14th	Buemi	-	17·450

The next car behind was another lap behind so can be ignored. The time-difference between Sutil and Buemi with a lap to go was 19.517 seconds, so surely it would be just to have relegated the two penalised drivers to 13th and 14th, with Petrov and Alguersuari gaining the points for 9th and 10th. Otherwise a driver that is last to finish on the lead-lap could be given a penalty of a million seconds with no effect on his race-position whatsoever.

It could be argued that had all the drivers had the opportunity to complete the full distance, even if lapped, then with the tendency of cars further up in the race to be faster, the gaps would have increased, so another way to do it would be to work out the average speeds of the penalised cars based on their race-time including the time penalty, and use that for comparison. That data is available in the gpguide.com results, and would have resulted in Adrian and Nico being only put down to 12th and 13th, in front of Buemi.

(Incidentally, five-times Le Mans winner, Emanuele Pirro, will be the driver-steward at the last round, and thus was present at Monza to observe the process. He was not at all happy about, as he saw it, Hülkenberg being allowed to get away with cutting the chicane so many times to defend his position against Webber. The drivers at Abu Dhabi would be wise to bear this in mind, although it is possible not all of them read this blog.)