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[myownalias]

Using the example of Chandhok versus one of the front runners isn't a fair example. Think of the front runners in each others' cars and what the outcome would be. Or even more, think about last year where Reubens and Jenson ran away with the whole thing because Ross Brawn had a great car. Then this year you put Jenson in another great car and he does well. Remind me again how RB is doing this year?

Chandhock and Hamilton are perfect examples; Chandhok is normally right at the back of the grid, Lewis is generally very near the front. If Hamilton was driving a HRT and managed to get the car into the Q2, that would show what a massive difference a driver could make. I'm not saying that the top drivers are miracle workers but having the ability to find and drive at the limit of the cars capability without throwing it at the scenery is what a top driver can do and a lower ranked driver cant; hence why they drive for teams like HRT, Virgin, Lotus and Sauber and not for McLaren, Red Bull, or Ferrari!

[f1ea]

Using the example of Chandhok versus one of the front runners isn't a fair example. Think of the front runners in each others' cars and what the outcome would be. Or even more, think about last year where Reubens and Jenson ran away with the whole thing because Ross Brawn had a great car. Then this year you put Jenson in another great car and he does well. Remind me again how RB is doing this year?

Chandhock and Hamilton are perfect examples; Chandhok is normally right at the back of the grid, Lewis is generally very near the front. If Hamilton was driving a HRT and managed to get the car into the Q2, that would show what a massive difference a driver could make. I'm not saying that the top drivers are miracle workers but having the ability to find and drive at the limit of the cars capability without throwing it at the scenery is what a top driver can do and a lower ranked driver cant; hence why they drive for teams like HRT, Virgin, Lotus and Sauber and not for McLaren, Red Bull, or Ferrari!

It can be a fair example. Thing is... we're basing things on IF, assuming a front runner driver would be able to put a HRT or whatever into Q2. We have not seen it happen; and frankly i doubt any of the absolute best drivers in F1 would be able to put an HRT/virgin into Q2 unless its one of those Force India-Spa scenario, or something like when Mclaren and Ferrari both couldnt get a clear run to get into Q2.

That's for Q. For the races or the championship... not a chance. Again, the odd situation might happen like a Monaco podium (look at Piquet jr in Germany or Sutil when he got rammed by Kimi) or a wet race/SC deal (like when Jenson won hungary); but the final WDC position: VERY near where the car belongs.

What can happen is that in a couple yrs time, with some rule stability, those back runners may be able to close the gap allowing a better chance for those great drives.

Dont want to sound like a "wall of stubborness"
But man, its mostly all about the car.

[myownalias]

Dont want to sound like a "wall of stubborness"
But man, its mostly all about the car.

That's your opinion and I salute you for sticking to your guns!!!

[What's Burning?]

Thinking about this some more... It's a race weekend, what can I do?

Ok, so 2009 you had Brawn, with an unarguable superior car, BOTH cars out performed every other car on the grid for the fist part of the season, so clearly a car matters more than a driver because neither Jenson or Rubens were unquestionably the best drivers on the grid, their success was because of the car.

Fast forward to 2010 and you have Jenson now with a new car, not a dominant car but competitive, so you get to see what difference a driver can make. I'm talking only qualifying here, since there are too many variables in a race situation. You have one driver out performing the other in every instance, albeit not by much but enough to be a noticeable gap between the times.

Math isn't my strong suit but if there are any mathematicians here that want to throw this into a formula, all you have to do is find out how much faster Brawn were than other cars in the field. (keep it in the early parts of the season while their dominance was at it's peak) and then do the same thing from a percentage standpoint between Lewis and Jenson this year and we should have our numeric value.

[What's Burning?]

Dug out an old poll since we've got fresh meat on the forum, with the RB7's dominance it would be interesting to see if the numbers move much. I'm in the 70/30 car/driver slot.

[andrew]

The driver still counts for a fair bit but I think with all the advanced aero and wotnot (good technical term there for the newbies) the driver makes less of a difference these days than they could do 20 years ago.

I'll go for car 80/20% .

[scotty]

80-90% car.

Dunno who voted 80% driver, that is quite insane.

[acosmichippo]

Really depends on which cars and which drivers we're talking about.

I assumed that we are considering ALL current F1 drivers and ALL current F1 cars (and not just McLaren vs Red Bull, for example), so I voted car 90/10. Yesterday, the fastest Q time was 1:22.3 (Vettel/RB7), and the slowest was 1:28.3 (Liuzzi/HRT). Difference of ~6 seconds. So the real question here is how much is due to the driver? I'm inclined to think 1 second or less. So by that logic, the car would have been responsible for at least 5 of those 6 seconds, which is 83%.

But if you want to compare a couple somewhat evenly-matched teams (like McLaren vs Red Bull), I'd guess it's more like 50/50 driver/car.

[FRAFPDD]

In all honesty i think anyone voting less then 90 percent car is a lunatic.

[andrew]

In all honesty i think anyone voting less then 90 percent car is a lunatic.

Fair enough but the guy in the mirror says I'm sane.

[Big Azza]

I went for 70/30. But in hindsight should have gone 50/50

However, does a car drive itself? No. Okay, so we used the Fisichella in Spa scenario, what happened to Fisischella in Ferrari? Theoretically it was a good car - but it takes a lot for the driver to be "at one with the car."

Regarding the earlier questions about Alonso in a HRT. He did very well in a Minardi. Vettel did quite a bit for Toro Rosso. Early on his team mate was at the back-end of the field (and so was Vettel for his first 4 races) but then come Fuji and he could have - should have - finished on the podium. The car does not pick the line when overtaking. The car does not pick the strategy. The car does not make the call when variable conditions arise.

If it was around 80% car, we probably wouldn't need three practice sessions for a driver to set up his race craft. Yet we see Vettel sets up his car to finish ahead of Ferrari and McLaren, yet Webber consistently finishes behind them. We saw Alonso obliterate his team mate and all in his path in 2005, yet I think Fisi finished 4th in the standings. We saw Schumacher do something similar with Herbert.

I think that the drivers have a lot of say in how the weekend turns out. And it usually is all about their lines that they take. Yeah the RB7 is a great car, but the differences between Vettel and Webber, Alonso and Massa, Rosberg and Schumacher, Kobayashi and Perez.... all translate into the driver has a lot to do with the race results and that is why they are paid so much. That is why Ferrari were looking for Alonso's signature.

But the ability to read race conditions and extract the maximum - e.g. Vettel in Monaco - is what makes a car do well. And then you have those lucky bar stewards - for example, and I'm sorry - Heikki Kovaleinen - who really honestly doesn't deserve a race win to his name, however, that is racing I guess. That is the advantage about being second in the race. If P1 has a failure, P2 inherits the win.

[bud]

50/50 huh ummm are you in delirium?

[Big Azza]

50/50 huh ummm are you in delirium?

Yeah, well like I said, the car doesn't drive itself now, does it?

[f1ea]

No way its 50-50.

Regarding the earlier questions about Alonso in a HRT. He did very well in a Minardi. Vettel did quite a bit for Toro Rosso. Early on his team mate was at the back-end of the field (and so was Vettel for his first 4 races) but then come Fuji and he could have - should have - finished on the podium. The car does not pick the line when overtaking. The car does not pick the strategy. The car does not make the call when variable conditions arise.

You're talking about specific races. Not "sustainable" performance. If it were anywhere near 50-50, those uber drivers would have gotten the same crappy cars into the good pts on at least 50% of the races.

"The car does not pick the strategy... make the call when variable conditions"
Neither does the driver. There's a ton of guys plus some computers working on that.

Some drivers are faster than others.
Some drivers' mothers are faster than other drivers' mothers.

[What's Burning?]

To see the difference a driver makes, look at teams with a clear number one and number two driver. That gap is probably two tenths. To see the difference a car makes, look at teams near the top of the grid, and teams near the bottom of the grid and then subtract from that time gap, the driver's time gap.

I say near the top and near the bottom, because obviously the Red Bull cars and HRT cars, will skew the number, but I believe barring an apples to apples comparison, that formula is as close as we're going to get.