Yeah. Not prepared to write such a long post right now though.

Quote Originally Posted by rjbetty View Post
As for the others, I love trying to figure out the form, something I'm fascinated by. It seems to me that though there are fluctuations in form, there seems to be a 'general' level the drivers perform at.
I think this claim has a point. There is a saying - "form is temporary, class is permanent." It can be seen in any sports. In a football league in an odd match a top squad (Chelsea, ManC, ManU, and the likes) can lose to a backmarker. But over a full season they still come out on top regardless of individual results.

In F1 in an odd race even Maldonado can win and Hamilton come last, but over a full season we have a different story based on average performance.

And then... "career performance". How many good seasons has a driver had? % wise how many good weekends in there? I think it becomes more accurate with experienced drivers, who have driven 10+ seasons. Then we can analyze pretty adequately. With those, who have had a short career, it is more unclear. Magnussen drove just 1 season. He was nowhere in the last 1/3 of the season, which basically cost him the seat in favour of Button. So what was it? Did he just have a bad patch of form, and fundamentally he is more talented than that?