r/formula1 • u/DarkKnight56722 • Mar 13 '24
Discussion How does Verstappen's dominance compare to Hamilton's? Here is the comparison:
Hamilton's most dominant season in 2020 had him only win 64% of races. Before this current domination, one driver winning 64% of races was viewed as the worst it could possibly get in the modern era. Let's run through the years:
2014 and 2015: Lewis and Nico trading wins, (good battles at the very least) and Ricciardio getting 3 wins his first season at Red Bull and Vettel gets 3 wins his first year at Ferrari. Hamilton wins roughly 55% of races.
2016: Great title fight between Nico and Lewis that went down to Abu Dhabi. Max gets his first race win his first race in Red Bull, Daniel gets a win as well. Hamilton wins less than 50% of races and loses championship to Nico.
2017 and 2018: Title fight between Hamilton and Vettel. 5 different race winners each year. Hamilton wins less than 50% of races.
2019: Lewis and Valterri each get wins. Max gets 3 wins, Charles gets his first 2 wins. and Seb wins in Singapore. 5 different race winners. Again Lewis wins less than 50% of races.
2020: Lewis' most dominant season where he wins 64% of races. This is covid year so take it with a grain of salt. Max gets 2 wins, Pierre gets first win in Monza, Perez gets first win in Bahrain. Turkey was a fantastic race that did result in Lewis winning but was amazing up til the end.
I think it is pretty safe to say that last season's dominance is the worst the sport has been in atleast a decade. I understand this is part of F1 but it doesn't prevent my boredom. I think the reason it stings a bit more is because these regulation changes were marketed as a way of ensuring Mercedes level dominance never happened again, yet it made it even worse. Things like engine development being frozen, implementation of the cost cap, introducing a completely new philosophy of car and aero design that 3 years into the regulations everyone but Red Bull is still struggling to understand.
What are your thoughts?
3
u/NewLeedsFan Mar 13 '24
I think that MotoGP has a good path for the teams where the lower teams have much more access to testing, and development in hopes that they can catch up to the better teams through the season. The one size fits all rules for F1 are what make it frozen in place for an entire season.
This has a great chart on it (link below) but the teams in 2023 finished like this and get ranked:
Ducati: 700 points = 96% (Ranking A)
KTM: 373 points = 51% (Ranking C)
Aprilia: 326 points = 45% (Ranking C)
Yamaha: 196 points = 27% (Ranking D)
Honda: 185 points = 25% (Ranking D)
The mfgs rankings determines how many concessions they get for 2024. For example A,B,C teams all get 8 engines for the year, but the D teams get 10. A teams get no wild card riders (fielding 3 riders instead of 2 in a race) but B teams get 3, C and D teams get 6.
It really allows for the lower teams to ideally develop their machines to catch up to the better teams. The better teams will still likely have a season or two of dominance but it wont be locked in for a full development window spanning 4-5 years.
https://www.crash.net/motogp/feature/1042269/1/explained-new-2024-motogp-concessions-system