A different Team Classification

[Schummy]

Do you want a kind of classification where Red Bull is not dominating? I mean a reasonable classification that measures performance, not any weird characteristic!

Enter Team Base Level Championship (LOL, the name is pretty horrible). Just to be clear: this is not a "scientific", obscure, deep data neurological type of classification. In fact, it is very simple, logical... and not very redbullian.

The score is as simple as a Biden's shoelace (not offense intended, just a plain joke, I hate shoelaces). In every race, each team receives the points indicated by the race classification of his worst car. For example, RedBull does an 1-2, then it gets 2 points; Ferrari bros end the race 2nd and 4th, then Ferrari gets 4; Astons end 5th and 13th, then Aston gets 13.

The big event is when a front team has one of its cars eliminated at the beginning of a race (typical crash in the 1st lap?). In that case, the team is given a very bad score, independently of how well the other car does in the race. That type of event is important in our Championship.

Surprisingly, RedBull is not the first in this classification, nor the 2nd... or the 3rd. It is currently in 4th position!! Perez has had two nightmares in the last two races and it has sunk RB from 2nd to 4th.

Anyway, Ferrari leads the classification since Australia!

Here is the table of this (absurd)nice Championship:

    BAH|ARA| AUS| JAP| CHI| MIA| SMA| MON| CAN| SPA
FER  4 | 7 |  2 |  4 |  5 |  5 |  5 |  3 | 19 |  6 =  60
MCL  8 | 8 |  4 |  8 |  8 | 13 |  4 |  4 |  5 |  7 =  69
MER  7 | 9 | 18 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  7 |  7 |  4 |  4 =  82
RBR  2 | 2 | 19 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  8 | 18 | 18 |  8 =  84
AST 10 |19 |  8 | 12 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 14 |  7 | 14 = 135

[Schummy]

LOL, if someone with superpowers wants to fix the title of this thread...

[Richard C]

Interesting scoring. And welcome back Schummy!

Richard

[Schummy]

Thanks, friend!

[Schummy]

Updating this classification after Hungary:

    BAH|ARA| AUS| JAP| CHI| MIA| SMA| MON| CAN| SPA| AUS| GBR| HUN|
FER  4 | 7 |  2 |  4 |  5 |  5 |  5 |  3 | 19 |  6 | 11 | 14 |  6 | =  91
MCL  8 | 8 |  4 |  8 |  8 | 13 |  4 |  4 |  5 |  7 | 20 |  4 |  2 | =  95
MER  7 | 9 | 18 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  7 |  7 |  4 |  4 |  4 | 19 |  8 | = 113
RBR  2 | 2 | 19 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  8 | 18 | 18 |  8 |  7 | 17 |  7 | = 115
AST 10 |19 |  8 | 12 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 14 |  7 | 14 | 18 |  8 | 11 | = 172

In the last 3 GPs, the four first teams have done a similar job, with a slight advantage for Mac (MCL 26, FER 31, MER 31, RBR 31, remember the reverse scoring: less is better). So, McLaren is closer to Ferrari and nothing else to add.

The max swing in one race is 19 points, thus it is almost if the two firsts and the 3rd and 4th are making two separate groups by now. Aston is in a different league, probably I will leave then out in next editions.

I have attached a graph with the evolution of this "championship". It shows the points' gap with the leader. Ferrari has dominated it from the beginning. Now the Macs are closing the gap. Red Bull continues its declining and, finally, Darth Toto's Empire rebounded powerfully from the 9th race (Canada) and now it is matching RB.

[NaBUru38]

This system is similar to cycling's team time trial and team pursuit. Nice work!

[Schummy]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

This system is similar to cycling's team time trial and team pursuit. Nice work!

Very true!

Apart from this particular scoring, I suppose that putting more weight in the scoring of the "worst" car than in the "best", gives a different twist to the Team Championship. Teams would be more careful with the performance of the second driver, because he will usually be the most important for the score.

Gracias, amigo!

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Schummy

I suppose that putting more weight in the scoring of the "worst" car than in the "best", gives a different twist to the Team Championship. Teams would be more careful with the performance of the second driver, because he will usually be the most important for the score.

Well, Red Bull is allegedly not satisfied with Checo Pérez, yet his contract was extended. The issue is that they care more about keeping Max happy than about winning the constructors championship.

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Well, Red Bull is allegedly not satisfied with Checo Pérez, yet his contract was extended. The issue is that they care more about keeping Max happy than about winning the constructors championship.

Yes, being the 2nd driver in Red Bull is not about how good you are, it’s about who can’t threaten Max

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Well, Red Bull is allegedly not satisfied with Checo Pérez, yet his contract was extended. The issue is that they care more about keeping Max happy than about winning the constructors championship.

At the beginning of this season it wasn't a problem, nor was it much of a problem in 2022-23.

But once we got to Imola and things started to shift then event by event the pressure rose.
Convergence of machinery has also accelerated the problem.
Having a number two who is less than a second slower than your number one isn't an issue until a second covers the first ten or twelve cars. Then your No.2 is eight or nine cars further back, and with convergence he cant pass the cars in-between because there is not enough difference in the machinery to allow a pass.

Spa is a good example of what happens with convergence.
Perez is third fastest but .606 slower than Max, which normally is not a lot.
But Perez is not a Leclerc, or a Hamilton, nor a Sainz, a Norris or a Patrisi.

And at Spa it became clear that following someone affected you big time. So much so that even with DRS passing was difficult.
But in clear air you were king, as Oscar found out, and George.

You couldn't sit and follow less than a second behind because it would take too much out of your tires.
On live timing through much of the race the gaps were around 1.2-2 seconds between cars unless they were really attacking.

Perez was able to stick with George at Hungary with a good strategy, but he had poor strategy from RBR at Silverstone and Spa.

The set up wasn't aligned to top speed but similar to Max's one which hoped to use sector two to gain ground on the others. But it didn't work. And Perz could hold back Sainz. He could stay with him which gave him a 25 second buffer over Alonso so he pitted and grabbed a point for fastest lap.

But there is no point in blaming or criticizing Perez.
He is where he always was relative to max unless it was Baku or Singapore where he has an outstanding ability to snatch the most because his driving in those circumstances is very precise.

Most of the criticism of his ability is just absolute rubbish when you look at the history over all three seasons and race by race data.

Was the RBR car dominant in 22 and 23? Yes.
That is why Max exploited it.
But Perez won in 22/23. But he is the number 2 driver.
Is Max outstanding?
If your answer is 'Yes' then your criticism of Perez is unjust and unfair because he is not in Max's class, nor that of Leclerc, Sainz, Alonso, Norris, Hamilton and maybe Oscar. He did better than George in Hungary when both started from the rear after missing Q2.
He's not useless. If you had seen him in Singapore when he won, it was an outstanding drive.

But the RB20 is NOT the dominant car in the latter half of 2024 so max is struggling with two fifths on the road in the last two Grand Prix.
To expect Perez to match Max is ludicrous if Max is as good as people say he is. He simply isn't that driver and he wasn't employed to be that sort of driver.

He was employed because he wouldn't be a threat to Max in ordinary circumstances. And even max says the RB20 is a difficult car to get the best out of now. So if it is difficult for Max how much more so for Perez.

Sometimes people just don't think things through.
There are four cars very even now, and Perez is the least highly regarded of the eight drivers, so it makes no sense to expect him to finish better than eighth. Maybe 5-8th on a good day, a third or 4th on an exceptional day.

People wanted convergence; they wanted a hard-fought championship. Now they have what they wanted they can't cope with the second driver being in the bottom half of the top eight, where on ranking all the second drivers should possibly be.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Well, Red Bull is allegedly not satisfied with Checo Pérez, yet his contract was extended. The issue is that they care more about keeping Max happy than about winning the constructors championship.

They are still leading and have 7 wins and 13 podium, that's more than any other team can claim

[Schummy]

Update after Spa:

FER  4  7   2   4   5   5   5   3  19   6  11  14   6   6 =  97
MCL  8  8   4   8   8  13   4   4   5   7  20   4   2   5 = 100
RBR  2  2  19   2   3   4   8  18  18   8   7  17   7   7 = 122
MER  7  9  18   9   9   8   7   7   4   4   4  19   8  20 = 133

The "cheat" (or double "cheat") of Merc in Spa has gone very wrong in this pseudo-championship. They got 20 points (I have put Russell behind Zhou, because the Chinese driver run with a legal car), while Fer, Mac and RBR have scored 8, 5 and 7 points (the lesser, the better). So, Merc passes to 4th, promoting RBR to 3rd, although still far from the two leaders.

I think Toto will be very angry with all this, because, I think, he follows this classification very carefully. Specially when he has known that Mr. Ben Sulayem is interested in promoting this classification to distribute money among teams. [News facilitated by ChatGPT 4x]

[NaBUru38]

Back to championship formats, I think that sports car racing should abolish drivers standings. It's a team sport, and part-time drivers deserve as much credit as full-timers.