Worst team-mates

[AndyL]

Inspired by Knock-on's comment about Schumacher being one of the worst performing team-mates over the last 3 years, I decided to look up the championship points tables and work out just who have been the tardiest team-mates in that period. Each line shows the name of the driver, the team-mate they were beaten by, their team and their championship points score as a % of their team-mate's score.
Italics indicate scores that are less statistically valid because both drivers had 2 or fewer points scores, or both scored less than 10 points in total. And the unquantifiable bottom 3 teams are omitted.

2010:

1 Petrov      (Kubica, Renault)       20%
2 De La Rosa  (Kobayashi, Sauber)     29%
3 Liuzzi      (Sutil, Force India)    45%
4 Hulkenberg  (Barrichello, Williams) 47%
5 Schumacher  (Rosberg, Mercedes)     51%

2011:

1 De La Rosa  (Kobayashi, Sauber)         0%
2 Maldonado   (Barrichello, Williams)    25%
3 Senna       (Petrov, Renault)          40%
4 Massa       (Alonso, Ferrari)          46%
5 Buemi       (Alguersuari, Torro Rosso) 58%

2012 (so far):

1 D'Ambrosio  (Raikkonen, Renault)  0%
2 Massa       (Alonso, Ferrari)    36%
3 Schumacher  (Rosberg, Mercedes)  46%
4 Grosjean    (Raikkonen, Renault) 56%
5 Webber      (Vettel, Red Bull)   71%

Schumacher does indeed make the top 5 worst team-mates in 2 years out of 3. Statistically Massa looks like he comes out even worse: if you ignore the "statistically invalid" entries in 2011 he's topping the table. However you might consider Alonso to be a more testing standard to measure against than Rosberg.
In 2012, Grosjean's score is surprisingly decent for a guy who crashes or gets banned every other race.

Finally looking at the top 4 teams, who have all had stable driver pairings, over the 3 years:

1 Massa       (Alonso, Ferrari)   47%
2 Schumacher  (Rosberg, Mercedes) 59%
3 Webber      (Vettel, Red Bull)  76%
4 Button      (Hamilton, McLaren) 99%

[The Black Knight]

I like this thread. I haven't had a chance to look it up yet. It if you exclude all the points that Nico scored at all the races where Schumacher didn't finish due to mechanical retirements how does he fare up this year? Will tell a more accurate story I reckon. Still not a 100% accurate representation I know but definitely a better one.

[Mark]

Usually qualifying pace is a better measure as it has less random happenings than races.

[keysersoze]

My all-time favorite Alex Zanardi lost to Ralf Schumacher, 33-0, in 1999. In qualifying, however, it was a bit closer--something like 12-5 in favor of the German.

[DexDexter]

Usually qualifying pace is a better measure as it has less random happenings than races.

I don't think so, I mean based on quali alone, Kimi Räikkönen would fare quite badly against Grosjean this year and the reality is quite different. Perez is another case, Kobayashi has usually beaten him in qualifying but the races have been a different story.

[Hawkmoon]

I think you need to look at both qualifying and the race. If memory serves, Schumacher has beaten Rosberg in qualifying more often than not this year. If you then take out mechanical retirements for both drivers and compare their points you might find that the Mercedes drivers have been pretty even this year.

[F1boat]

I agree with Hawkmoon

[Knock-on]

1F, 1F, 1F!!! F1, F1, F1!!!

We can use statistics like candy but the only one that really matters is what the points are at the end of the race.

2012: 93 - 43
2011: 89 - 76
2010: 142 - 72

Guess who's in the left and right column?

This is supposed to be THE BEST DRIVER OF ALL TIME according to some of his supporters. He does one good move in a race and they claim "He's still got it"!

When he first came on the scene, he was as exciting as Lewis but the on-track antics and the cheating has tainted his reputation. He has benefitted from the sort of advantage with cars that Vettel has for the last 3 years and should have retired a couple of years before he did the first time because he didn't have the pace and was inflated by Massa and Ferrari supporting him as the number 1.

The first time since the early Bennetton days that he was on a level playing field within a team and he gets humilitated. Nico isn't all that and I'm sure people will bookmark this post to use if I'm wrong but next year, Lewis will comprehensivly beat him. Where does that leave Schumacher than? A driver that is supposed to be the best of all time but couldn't beat a mediocre team mate when the rules and machinery was even?

Pffff!

[AndyL]

Yes I would say the argument against assessing on the basis of qualifying is that qualifying doesn't matter - there are no points awarded on Saturday. The only value of qualifying well is whether it helps you in the race, and obviously the race results reflect that aspect. If driver A qualifies faster at every race, but then keeps spinning off or being passed by his team-mate driver B in the race, then driver B is "better" even though driver A is "faster". Ultimate speed over a single lap is only a means to an end.

Weeding out random accidents and mechanical failures might give more representative results, but it's very difficult to avoid making value judgements - was a particular retirement because of a purely random failure, or did the driver precipitate it by hitting the kerbs too hard for example? How much of the blame did the driver share for a particular accident? Easier just to file that in the "too hard" folder and assume that luck evens out over time

[The Black Knight]

1F, 1F, 1F!!! F1, F1, F1!!!

We can use statistics like candy but the only one that really matters is what the points are at the end of the race.

2012: 93 - 43
2011: 89 - 76
2010: 142 - 72

Guess who's in the left and right column?

This is supposed to be THE BEST DRIVER OF ALL TIME according to some of his supporters. He does one good move in a race and they claim "He's still got it"!

When he first came on the scene, he was as exciting as Lewis but the on-track antics and the cheating has tainted his reputation. He has benefitted from the sort of advantage with cars that Vettel has for the last 3 years and should have retired a couple of years before he did the first time because he didn't have the pace and was inflated by Massa and Ferrari supporting him as the number 1.

The first time since the early Bennetton days that he was on a level playing field within a team and he gets humilitated. Nico isn't all that and I'm sure people will bookmark this post to use if I'm wrong but next year, Lewis will comprehensivly beat him. Where does that leave Schumacher than? A driver that is supposed to be the best of all time but couldn't beat a mediocre team mate when the rules and machinery was even?

Pffff!

YAWN! Silly argument and doesn't even begin to take into account factors such as age and rustiness (two huge factors) nor the clear gradual improvement Schumacher has shown over the past two years. You don't win 7 WDC by being a mediocre driver as you are suggesting. You can continue to deny him this label all you want but the stats that you're so fond of above show Schumacher destroying all his teammates in his first career and just like you conveniently ignore his age, rustiness, car failures/quality, in your argument to prove your point, I'm going to ignore the number one status he had at Ferrari and Benetton in mine Since (in your own words) the "the only one that really matters is what the points are at the end of the race", they clearly show Schumacher's brilliance