The 2019 Season - Your Verdict

[Nitrodaze]

Without a doubt Merc and the drivers have made a lot of impressive records. Overall I think statistics shows them as the most dominant team of Formula 1 when adjusted for time in the sport. And in many cases they have already surpassed the overall totals of teams that have been around a lot longer.

No sense in us debating the semantics of the use of a word on this one. It has been without a doubt an incredible team.


Rosberg and Alonso have been the toughest team competition for Lewis, but this brings up another prime example of statistics not always telling the entire story. Bottas is probably the weakest team mate Lewis has had in Formula 1. He beat (on count back) Alonso at Mclaren and missed that WDC by a couple of points. Points that he would have easily had if someone the caliber of Bottas (or at least not as strong as Alonso!) we driving in the team with him. In comparison Schumacher didn't have those really fast team mates, and when he did they were still demoted to a #2 status and often team orders were employed to assist him with his dominance. Most likely if he had not been paired with such high caliber drivers Lewis would already have matched or exceeded Schumacher in WDC titles.

All across the grid this happens, and at times it can diminish the record of one driver while assisting the record of another. The balance of driver skill within teams is a big factor in that, along with any team orders a team might make.

You touch on one of the contentions of Schumacher's acheivemnents which is an unfortunate way that Ferrari operates. Yes, Eddie Irvine came close to stealing one of Schumacher's titles. In true Schumacher fashion, he did as little as possible to assist Irvine to win the title that year.

But a team that fosters a number one and two status for their driver lineup would styme the chances of the number two driver in the interest of the team and the number one driver. But initially, they are given the chance to prove themselves worthy of the number one status at the early stages of the season in most teams. If they are not able to muster up enough points to get ahead, they naturally get relegated to the number two status. And that is because the better driver gets the requisite number of points to claim the number one status.

Even in the case of Schumacher, the number two driver was given all the tools and support to get pole positions and win races. But Schumacher always did something special to ensure he was well ahead of his teammates. The relative numbers of pole positions tells the true story of how Schumacher always keeps ahead of his teammates, as there are no team orders during qualification.

I really don't like team orders, but they become unquestionably necessary when used in a situation that could make a significant impact or difference to the championship prospect of the team or the driver with the highest points in the fight for the driver's championship.