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Who would have thought?

12.07.2021 - It's already been determined that this will be a record year for the Red Bull MRC F1 team. Not only will they be recording a record-setting 17th Constructer's championship, but they have already set a season points record of over 700 points which can only be expected to inflate with 2 races to yet be completed.

However, there's also another record that will be set that is perhaps more reflective of the current state of F1. At this point, 8 teams have been unable to record a single point. The previous record for this was 6, which had been reaching in only 4 of the previous 34 seasons.

All of this got me to do a deeper dive into the success of teams over the history of MRC F1, and I'd like to share my finding. I simply took the point totals earned by each team over the seasons and averaged them out. Here are the results.

AVERAGE POINTS PER SEASON
Red Bull 481
McLaren 405
Porsche 238
Jordan 202
Scuderia 141
Alpine 119
Williams 102
BMW 92
Sempre 83
Tesla 62
Mercedes 46
Ford 38
Respsol 27
Trabant 22
Lotus 2

Now contrast that with the current standings:

CURRENT POINT STANDINGS
Red Bull 703
McLaren 506
Porsche 347
Jordan 211
Scuderia 182
Alpine 82
Williams 8
BMW 0
Sempre 0
Tesla 0
Mercedes 0
Ford 0
Respsol 0
Trabant 0
Lotus 0

Does anyone think this is merely a coincidence? One of the things that I recall from taking courses in statistics is that a sample size of at least 30 results generally provides some sound statistical results, and with 33 seasons of data, the correlation may be more than mere coincidence.

I've been following recent proposals for change by DebiK and the rebuttals of F1 managers. From my perspective, these findings are highly suggestive that the current financial system may need to be overhauled as it is largely tied to past performance. Winning currently drives both points and income as it relates to higher prize money, and higher sponsorship deals.

I then went further into my analysis and calculated the mean (average) points per season. I then further calculated the variance between the team points obtained and the mean. The idea here was to determine on a seasonal basis which teams were successful (determined simply by whether they were higher than the mean or lower). Some might argue that this might not be an appropriate definition, but it does provide an unrefutable point for statistical comparison, which was the intention. I then plotted the results for each individual team and compared how many successful seasons they have versus how many unsuccessful seasons they had.

The results I found to be interesting. Only 5 teams have ever won the Constructor's championship and 3 of those 5 teams (Red Bull, McLaren, and Porsche) indicated undeniable positive seasonal variances (i.e. successful results).

Scuderia was generally less successful, but their more recent results were largely successful and helped to drive their overall seasonal average up.

Alpine was the first team to ever have won the Constructor's championship and their early successes helped to boost their overall seasonal average, but they have largely been unsuccessful for the majority of their years.

Jordan, while having never won a championship, has been a good contender in the early years and faltered somewhat more in recent years. Despite this, they were one of the 5 most successful teams and have similarly bounced back this season.

The remaining 9 teams can all be categorized as unsuccessful and all earned less than the mean in most seasons. It should be noted that many of those teams did have some highly successful seasons, but overall they had more unsuccessful seasons than otherwise.

What I would suggest is that these findings appear to support DebiK's suggestions to overhaul the financial system towards one that is less variable than it currently is and provide teams the ability to at least score points at some time during a season. The only season that all teams scored points was the inaugural season 9.

So while teams scoring zero points in a season has been a common result, the current trend of more teams scoring zero points should thus not be taken lightly.

I would hope anyone who ever dreams of becoming an F1 driver takes a close look at this. As a former F1 driver, a former F1 team manager, and an aspiring F1 driver, I believe that every driver wants the ability to be competitive if they can reach this level. Drivers work hard to develop their skills to get to that level and their hope is that their car is equally competitive so that they can at least maintain the driver rating that they have worked on in order to get noticed as a driver capable of reaching the elite level. The current financial system has not assisted in that, and with only a handful of teams that are capable of consistently finishing in the top 10 positions, the odds of a driver losing rating are relatively high. Consider that the top half of the field gains rating and the bottom half loses rating. If 10 spots are hypothetically (based upon statistical foundation) taken by the top 5 teams, the odds of finishing in the top half are roughly about 1:3, (ie 5/20 spots = 1/4 or 1 winner and 3 losers). I find that concerning.

Hoping this helps to provide some enlightenment regarding the current state of F1, and will assist MRC and F1 managers towards a decision that is beneficial to the general membership who aspire to reach the elite level of F1.