Context: The flame wars one sees on Tumblr and other social media in 2024 are nothing new. Back in the mid-2000s, fora were full of them. In F1, these tended to go down a few clear lines:
Michael Schumacher vs some people's version of how sport should be conducted
Michael Schumacher vs Alonso
Michael Schumacher vs Raikkonen (you may detect a theme here)
Both Schumachers vs Montoya
McLaren vs Ferrari
Williams vs McLaren
Villenueve vs whatever he was arguing about this weekend
One forum-specific flame war that was none of the above.
In one of the general forums I was in at the time, the specific flame war was manufacturer teams vs any independent not named Williams (it was that specific flame war which split the forum in the first place, due to its two admins being on either side of the argument). The Team Silverstone forum flame war was Team Silverstone vs people who thought that specific team shouldn't exist (I eventually ended that one in mid-2007, due to a typo).
The forum where La Canta Magnifico Blog was based had Giancarlo Fisichella vs Juan Pablo Montoya.These days, people generally accept that it is possible to like both Giancarlo and Juan Pablo at the same time (this is often the eventual outcome of flame wars where there is neither a clear winner nor reason for long-term rancour). However, this particular corner of the internet had not yet come to that conclusion.
Even after Juan Pablo Montoya had found his happiness elsewhere in motorsport, people on the forum still argued about whether he was better than Giancarlo Fisichella. I don't have the forum post that clearly prompted this blog entry, but the gist of it is that Juan Pablo Montoya was being defended on the basis that he had some great video clips on YouTube (back before FOM started issuing copyright notices to the platform, which started happening in summer 2007). As the most prominent Fisico fan on the forum (as well as its most long-winded), I felt the need to respond…
The reasons there are few videos of Fisichella doing great stuff (and some do exist, though copyright forbids me from linking to them) are the facts that he does his races quietly and has a tidy driving style. None of JPM's wheel-locking or massive slides are in evidence unless Fisi's having a really bad day, and it's always more difficult for a camera person to convey excitement when there is no feeling that the driver is out of control. While keeping just the right side of
that boundary in a dramatic way is commendable and fan-attracting, the smoother, quieter method usually generates more race speed from the car.
It's no accident that the only top-level drivers using the just-in-control driving styles are Juan Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villenueve and Fernando Alonso. Montoya got it to semi-work in a rather understeery McLaren and messy Williams, Villenueve's not managed to co-operate properly with a car since he went to BAR and Fernando Alonso has created a new variant of just-in-control driving that nobody else has yet managed to emulate.
Picking a single definitive race is tricky because Fisi has had so many really good races. Taking just those races starting from when I paid particular attention to Giancarlo's races, anything from the the start of 2001 through to about two-thirds of the way through 2003 (apart from Malaysia 2003), USA 2003, anything in 2004 after about race three except Monaco, Australia 2005, Canada 2005, the last third of 2005, Malaysia 2006, the American leg of 2006 and the last third of 2006 will show elements of why Giancarlo is in the top 5 drivers and has been for a long time. Simply because he doesn't have ten fifteen-second-long race incidents that summarise the true scope of his ability the way Juan Pablo or any other "just-in-control" driver will have doesn't mean there is nothing to summarise. Though if I had to pick the one that best shows why Fisi is better than JPM, it would be Brazil 2003. Notwithstanding the rain factor, there was also the part where the notoriously unreliable Ford in the back of Fisichella's car had been sounding slightly off since about lap 49. However Giancarlo got the car past the red flag before the engine finally blew up. Not only would Juan Pablo not won the 2003 race, he would have induced a technical retirement. However, the cameras missed most of Giancarlo's race as they were too busy keeping up with spinners at Turn 3 and Raikkonen passing everyone except Fisi.
This also helps to explain the video situation, as having a few widely-recognised key situations forming the videos is the quickest way of building up search ranking. That helps explain why JPM's best-known incidents are always going to be very high on the video search list.
As for the the part about it being only legend that the driver must make the team work, it's a fact. Everyone in a group has to support everyone else in the group to succeed, and teams are no different. Simply because teams are usually predisposed to helping their drivers and Ron Dennis clearly hadn't recruited Juan Pablo to be an "after you, Claude" No. 2, doesn't mean that Juan Pablo didn't need to do any work to maintain that. From the F1 Racing September 2006 article, Juan never took any time to gel with the McLaren team setup, which apparently was causing trouble long before the tennis incident. Juan should have known fitting in would take work and if he wasn't prepared to do it, he should have found another berth for 2005 (there would have been plenty open to him at that point on the open market!)
That is why I hold Juan largely responsible for his having to leave McLaren in the first place. In fact this is the second time it's happened, with Juan Pablo unable to co-operate with Williams enough to extend his original contract there either. The fact that he chose the timing of his leavetaking is great, but surely it's better to do what Fisi did and put some effort into nurturing the team that's giving you the car? That's why the Renault people have bent over backwards to protect Fisi where necessary when McLaren would do no more than it usually did to protect Montoya when he erred.
Team building may not be a major factor in driver ranking, but when the raw speed statistics do not help separate Juan Pablo and Giancarlo very much, and the differences in results almost entirely attributable to cars rather than drivers, then things like the ability to become a No. 1 in a team suddenly play a major role in the decision.
It's worth saying that in the olden days when cars ran close to each other, these skills were still necessary - it was simply that they were taken more for granted because the whole motorsport community was closer-knit back then - in fact the drivers had to do more back then to get into their teams' good books. Do you think it was an accident that a lot of the drivers back then had some background as a mechanic before reaching F1?
If Renault was not confident of Fisi, they'd've given Nelson Piquet Jr. his place. As it happens, Fisi is not only considerably more experience of Renault and F1, but also a very fast, consistent
driver who is capable of leading a team - and of being a better driver than Juan Pablo Montoya was.
Context: Following the McLaren/Ferrari spying controversy of 2007, where McLaren eventually lost its 2nd place in the World Constructor's Championship and got a $100 m fine, Max Mosley in his capacity as FIA President did two interviews. The first was for BBC Hardtalk. His performance there was very poor, making it look suspiciously like the FIA's case was weak.
More telling was the second interview, with Paddock Magazine. Given that Paddock Magazine was a FIA publication, it was not exactly going to be the height of intentional journalism. However, it provided an excellent demonstration of the FIA's beliefs about the case. When combined with what had been learned in 2007 (from the Hardtalk interview and earlier proceedings of the case), it was incredibly destructive to the FIA's case against McLaren. In combination, it went to the degree of indicating the FIA had a case to answer itself…
My understanding of legal issues has evolved since then but I do not believe the FIA's position has correspondingly improved.
(The first parts of quotes are bolded, to help put structure to this essay. I've also had to delete the artificial double-spacing that ended up in there for some reason. For the record, if I wanted to double-space an entry, I'd use the double-space function).
Warning! Long entry alert!
An annotated guide to the Paddock Magazine interview with Max Mosley. It is the December 2007 edition, and the FIA has given us a handy link.
It is, as the FIA probably hoped, a good guide to the state of Max Mosley's thinking. Let's probe into this resource to find out exactly what the implications are of the interaction between Max's thought processes and what can be ascertained from other sources.
"I think, in the end, the championship went to the right person"
Max has a good point here. Kimi did in fact do the best performance out of the challengers, so it was perfectly sensible for him to have won the prize. It's refreshing to see some sensible opinions from Max.
"Well, I don't think it [the off-track drama] has done any damage - in fact, it has raised public awareness".
Yes, Max - raised it and turned them right off again. Unfortunately, the good initial note didn't last long.
"The only harm would come if people started to believe it [the spying] was endemic and we couldn't stamp it out."
Most people that weren't deeply knowledgeable about F1 before the Ferrari/McLaren mess were not aware that F1 even had spying. Their impression would not have been that stopping spying was good, it would have been "What do you mean, F1 has spying?!?" The people who've been following F1 for a time know that spying at some level is both endemic and, to a certain extent, inevitable. Admittedly, it is not inevitable to the point alleged against either McLaren or Renault, but information transfer between teams is inherant in any industry whose primary value is in the contents of talented people's heads. Formula 1 is demonstrably such an industry.
"I found myself defending McLaren, rather than trying to explain why we'd done what we had to do!"
If the HardTalk interview constituted a defence of McLaren's behaviour, I'm glad the interviewer did not ask Max to attack McLaren, because it looked to me and a number of other people as if Mosley was launching a McLaren attack at the time.
"The whole thing [the Ferrari/McLaren mess] should have been stopped before it started".
Correct. One would have thought that Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan would have known their information-swapping behaviour was slightly dodgy before engaging in it. Apparently not (at least in Coughlan's case).
"Ron [Dennis] could have gone to Jean [Todt] immediately after Australia and said: "Look, we asked the FIA about your floor because there's somebody at Ferrari giving us information".
Two problems. One, this was not the FIA's line at the time. For example, Spyker submitted a protest at that very race concerning Super Aguri and Squadra Toro Rosso using a Toro Rosso drawing, which arrived at Spyker by an unknown route (or at least, unknown to people outside the paddock such as me). Nobody from the FIA openly asked Spyker to tell Franz Tost about the drawing (this may have happened quietly, or Colin Kolles may have done the courtesy call on his own initiative, but we don't know either way).
The impression that this sort of thing gives is that if the FIA is contacted in such a way that it receives the offending document(s), the opposing team manager need not be (perhaps because the FIA contacts the opposing team manager as a matter of routine in these cases). So what Max is effectively saying is that the FIA's policy was wrong at the time, for if McLaren had known that the FIA policy wouldn't hold six months down the line, it is highly unlikely he would have taken the path of relying on the known FIA procedures to do the appeal. Instead, he would have either informed Jean Todt (if he had known about the Stepney/Coughlan flow and intended to get it stopped) or he would have simply said nothing, and probably not appealed the Ferrari car in Australia at all (if he thought there was only the one document and/or he wanted to attempt to evade notice).
Secondly, there is no particular reason to believe that Jean would have stopped the information flow on Dennis' say-so, especially as it has yet to be proved whether Dennis knew who in the team had received the drawings, let alone whether this person had received the drawing in a legal fashion. For that matter, it isn't even clear that Dennis knew there was a drawing involved - it is entirely conceivable that Coughlan would only have told people verbally about what he knew about the Ferrari floor, and not given away sources. Certainly if I was in Coughlan's position and intended to use this Ferrari information illegally, this is what I would have done. Simply because the drawing was eventually discovered due to Trudy Coughlan stupidly taking some Ferrari CDs to a photocopy shop does not mean that her husband was stupid in his dealings with the material. With hindsight, the truly smart thing to have done would be to take the moral high ground and denounce Stepney as openly and as immediately as possible, but none of us have foresight as good as our hindsight.
"You get the odd person saying that this has always gone on in F1, but that's nonsense".
Er... ...Shadow/Arrows in 1977, anyone? That was the entire (successful) theft of a team's entire intellectual property (IP), back before the term was even invented. Then there's the whole Ferrari/Toyota mess, involving a copious amount of data theft by more than one ex-Ferrari (and now ex-Toyota and presumably ex-F1) employee.
Admittedly, the general backdrop of espionage is on nowhere near as large a scale (the McLaren/Renault mess is probably a run-of-the-mill example among instances of dishonest information transfer). However, the alleged extent of the Ferrari/McLaren mess has precedents.
"There was a constant stream of information for months"
Interestingly enough, this wasn't proven at the WMSC court, though Max would like to pretend it was proven. Having reviewed the relevant portion of the Ferrari/McLaren September case transcript, I have spotted in the preliminaries that the documents that supposedly prove this statement were considered by the McLaren lawyer to be illegally obtained and illegally revealed to the WMSC court. The response from the WMSC was that it was not concerned about whether the documents were legal. Since it was illegal to use them in court, it was also illegal to base any part of the judgement on these documents. As a result, these documents cannot constitute evidence, let alone proof, of the exchange between Stepney and Coughlan - unless the Italian courts deem that the documents do in fact constitute such evidence.
This hasn't happened yet. Therefore, there is no actual proof that the "live" part occurred, since the WMSC Court appeared to have no other sources for this in its transcript. It thought the illegally-used and unproven documents were "impressive" enough.
"The second major mistake that McLaren made was when they held an inquiry... ...they didn't do it thoroughly enough"
Well, all it would have taken is for two people to have lied in a way that was undetected and McLaren wouldn't have been able to detect that connection. Even if Coughlan and de la Rosa had been somewhat truthful (by admitting that they talked to each other), how much would have been considered normal for two employees, and would it be possible to prove in the relatively short timeframe (the inquiry occurred in the run-up to the July meeting, giving McLaren about three weeks to get the inquiry completed) to go through 1000 people's e-mails to find a handful of dodgy e-mails?
Even if only e-mails sent by Coughlan were considered (it is known that McLaren suspected him of something, as he got suspended pretty sharpish when the exchange was initially discovered), that would still have been dozens, and likely hundreds, of e-mails to check. In a company that size, it is fairly easy for a dodgy e-mail connection to go undetected.
Usually, discovery occurs when one of the parties accidentally copies their e-mail to someone who has the power to stop or inform on the perpetrators, or else someone in power sees such an e-mail on the screen. For all the advances in e-mail monitoring software, breaches outside a limited range (porn, unnecessary attachments, swearing and personal e-mailing) remain very difficult to detect, especially if the intention is to do so without unduly impeding the free flow of legitimate information. It would take a very time-consuming and thorough, or a very lucky inquiry, to have found out that a rogue employee was transferring illegally-obtained information to another employee unless one of them confessed. That didn't happen until early September (and then it was not to McLaren but to the FIA) - rather late for the initial July trial!
"I think everyone felt that there was more to this than we'd heard [in the July case]".
No, most of us didn't; at least, not in the English-speaking sources I've seen. The Europeans generally write in languages other than English, which makes assessing the rest of Max's answer difficult (the only other language I know is Spanish, and the Spaniards would presumably be pro-Alonso...) The time of which Max speaks was before the time that the FIA started chucking out transcripts to the general public at the slightest opportunity. We, the general public, were not expecting anything else to come out of the case. If the WMSC was, why didn't they take the trouble to advise us in the decision? Oh, wait a minute, that would have made their decision to try the case so early look premature...
In case you're wondering, not every Spanish source was pro-FIA about the second trial. El Pais was concerned that the FIA decision was pro-Ferrari - but maybe its being in Spanish precluded Max from reading it. So the generalisation that the continentals were all pro-FIA in the end is false.
"I'd already been told that some e-mails existed, by Bernie [Ecclestone] [when Ron Dennis informed Max of the e-mails]"
Clive at F1 Insight has already tackled this matter; suffice to say that Max's pretence that he was hearing about the e-mails from Ron for the first time is unimpressive at best. More transparency is expected from people enforcing rules.
"I wasn't sure enough to write to the drivers, until the Italian police came up with the list of all the contacts"
Excuse me, but isn't this the same inadmissible list that has already supposedly proven a "live" link between Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan despite its inadmissibility? If this is so, then Max was not entitled to use it as a tool to compel anyone to comply with its wishes, particularly with the threat implied with it being an FIA instruction. Such behaviour demeans the validity of FIA instructions.
That said, the FIA could and perhaps should have asked every employee in McLaren to turn over all relevant evidence as soon as it opened the investigation of the case on a reasonably-scaled amnesty scheme. It had the power to analyse the e-mails (including Spanish translation!) that McLaren could not reasonably be capable of doing in such a short time-frame, and it would also have led to a considerably swifter route to the conclusion of this matter.
"they [the e-mails] either came from Alonso or de la Rosa. But presumably the Alonso camp"
That's a mighty big leap, given that Max does not give evidence that differentiates the two. This sort of thinking can be seen elsewhere in this interview, to sometimes dangerous effect to his own case.
By the way, reading personal e-mails is normally illegal under the Computer Misuse Act. However, the sense of Max's elaboration of this question indicates that Fernando chose to reveal these e-mails to Bernie (why remains a mystery, when it would have been simpler to forward the lot to Max), on this occasion the initial Alonso e-mail can be said to have been acquired legally. There is no question over whether the subsequent driver e-mails were obtained legally, only whether Max's justification for requesting them was based on legally-obtained documentation.
"I still think, from a legal point of view, we should have excluded everybody [relating to McLaren over the Ferrari/McLaren mess]."
I'll give him that - he has never deviated once from this point of view. He is consistent in at least some of his opinions. If you assume the conclusion that the WMSC wanted us to believe, then this also follows. The conclusion is therefore valid.
The trouble is that the conclusion is not sound, for the evidence has turned out to be some illegally-obtained Italian documents and a bunch of e-mails that only prove that three employees knew rather than one (and also suggesting that only those three knew - otherwise the e-mails would have been in English and had a wider circulation). This means that there were three rogue employees. The two discovered by the September trial had been granted full amnesty, so technically the FIA was not empowered to issue any punishment to the rest of the team following the evidence, due to its inadequete nature.
"In the end, arguably justice was done [in the McLaren/Ferrari mess]."
Try making that quote compatible with the previous quote. Note that they are spoken by the same person, in the same paragraph in relation, to the same question. Can you get "justice was done" to fit with "we should have excluded everyone"? Me neither.
"For a lot of it [the evidence], you had to draw the inference."
This is the most self-destructive sentence I have ever seen in a court case. Only a fool admits to having little hard evidence for a guilty judgement, let alone one involving such a large penalty and with a larger one threatened. If this were a real court under discussion, the police would be immediately pressing for a re-trial without the interested parties even having to ask first. It pretty much invalidates Max Mosley as a judge of fact in these sorts of cases.
The temptation for me to skip the assumptions that follow this sentence are therefore too strong to resist.
"If we'd done nothing, there would be the temptation to set out to acquire information from another team in any number of ways."
This probably seemed like a logical thing to say at the time (this interview appears to have taken place in late October or early November). However, since the McLaren/Renault mess has shown that only the impression of co-operation is necessary in order to evade a spying charge, then this statement suddenly looks a bit strange. If anything, events will encourage employees to spy, not discourage them. Just not necessarily as individuals.
"I think, and hope, they're paranoid about not doing anything"
How's that for a "Go back to being blobs. Blobs are easy" (Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett) mentality?
"If there are things of that kind... ...they've been quietly got rid of"
Proof that this interview was done before mid-November, when the McLaren/Renault case re-appeared (after a brief mention in the September court case).
"Just suppose the 2008 McLaren incorporates everything from the 2007 Ferrari... ...we've got to make sure... ...the 2008 McLaren doesn't incorporate and Ferrari intellectual property"
If (and after everything above, it's a big if) you still believe that McLaren's guilty judgement was legitimate, then this is a perfectly sensible inference. Max is completely right about the need to check that cars are not contaminated with other teams' IP. In fact, why don't they do this with every team at the appropriate moment in the season, to proactively check that this sort of stuff doesn't happen?
Context: While waiting for the 2007 season to start, there was a forum thread about the first race everyone had attended live. This was before I could travel to races independently, but I did have a story to tell (even if the flies get more of a starring role than Michael Schumacher did), and it was long enough to need to go on my blog…
Warning! Long post alert!
I'm still waiting for my first GP race, but Dad did take me to the 2002 British GP qualifying. Boy was it a memorable day!
Having done my last GCSE exam the previous morning, I got home to discover that Dad had got qualifying tickets at the last minute (two friends had tickets, but couldn't go for reasons I never established). We promptly spent the next few hours getting necessary supplies - stuff for making sandwiches for lunch, earplugs for my rather sensitive ears, wellington boots that didn't have holes in them (in case of mud) and a little bag that folded out into a seat.
Waking up at 4:30am the next day, Dad and I were in our hitherto reliable red Volvo on the road to Silverstone by 6:00am. Everything was going fine and I was just remarking about how little traffic we'd seen when the fan belt went on the Volvo. It was 8:05am and we were just about to leave the M1. After a long wait and an even longer journey in a breakdown vehicle, we eventually found ourselves in Lutterworth at about 8:40am. Fortunately the local garage fixed the problem very quickly, an event Dad attributed to us telling the garage that we were heading for Silverstone…
We finally got to the track just in time to see Eddie Irvine's Jaguar go down the back straight for the last time in the morning practise. After that, we walked halfway round the track to see the paddock, with armful of Jordan advertising. The merchandising area looked really interesting, particularly for me whose previous experience of F1 merchandise stretched to a battered McLaren hat one my brother's friends gave me the previous year. Speaking of hats, Dad and I both bought a hat - Dad got a Ferrari cap and I got a Jordan one.
After this, we continued around the outside of the track, looking at all the corners. It was about when we got to Stowe that Dad noticed a problem. There was a swarm of flies and a few wasps hanging around my head! I had foolishly picked a yellow Jordan hat instead of a black one, and the poor insect life around Silverstone must have thought I was a giant flower…
The next thing we did was eat lunch while listening to the circuit radio. Dad and I had chosen the exit of Club corner for our area, and it was a very good choice. Not only could we see everything from the Stowe exit to the start of the Luffield complex, but there was also a giant TV in the vicinity. Halfway through our sandwiches, the action began.
Seeing an F1 car in its full glory was really exciting, but seeing several together was about the most thrilling thing I'd seen in my life! Hearing the V10s and seeing the different lines everyone took was exciting, especially in the rare moments I could hear the commentary over the sweet song of metal on edge. The intellectual interest was high too; not only was there the pole chase, the Jordans and the home drivers to watch out for, there was also the question of whether Alex Yoong would qualify (he didn't) and whether Arrows would even bother to participate (they did; it was the last time Arrows put its whole heart into a race weekend, too).
As a Jordan fan, I'd've been happier if that song had not been punctuated with the awful scrape of Sato's nosecone dragging on the tarmac (it fell off its connectors on its own accord, apparently) and if Fisichella's original engine had stayed operational for more than one-and-a-half laps. This was probably why I couldn't find anything suitable to say to the Jordan staffer I saw a few hours later in the petrol station on the way out…
You may have noticed that at no point during any of this did I need the new wellies. In fact, Dad and I got back with sunburn. We'd packed the bag with stuff for every weather, including a complete change of clothes - except for sunscreen. For once, summer was in Britain - and I forgot to plan for it!
As for the grid, I considered it a fairly minor matter until I got back home to watch the video Mum did of the coverage, but it went:
1st…Montoya (a fast lap that seemed to come out of nowhere, but Montoya then went nowhere fast on race day)
2nd…Barrichello (unusually, he beat his team-mate, and would go on to have an eventful race and still come 2nd)
3rd…Michael Schumacher (took it a bit steady, but won the race next day)
Everything You Never Needed To Know About The Two Race Engine Rule (24-10-2007)
Context: Once upon a time, a driver could use three engines in the same day and simply risk a DNQ for not meeting the 107% rule. (Damon Hill, France 1999 qualifying day. Turns out that if one wishes to set a good time, one's has to do sufficient speedy laps on the track and not on stands in the garage). Then it was decided that was too wasteful and teams were banned from swapping engines between qualifying and the race. This was followed in 2005 with a requirement to use engines for two consecutive races before replacement, unless a race was not finished.
In 2008, the requirement increased to 3 consecutive races on a single engine. I received a request to provide some statistics about the two-race engine era.
Nowadays, each engine must last an average of 6 races, but teams can arrange that running how they want. A driver who wanted to do the first 3 and last 3 races on the same engine, but not any of the ones in between, is nowadays permitted to do so.
Thanks to neil for coming up with the idea for this entry, and especially to concentrate on the successes. To celebrate the fact that the two-race engine rule is now consigned to history, I will be doing some analysis of how the engine rules have influenced the grid.
Three seasons of careful management, impressive calculation and inopportune explosions will be celebrated in what I think is the most fitting way possible… …a ream of annotated statistics.
Victories Against The Odds
It has been mentioned in Autosport (March 23 2006 edition) that a new engine is worth 10-15hp over a used engine. Therefore, to win with a used engine suggests that the driver didn't have everything in their favour. And we all love drivers who win against the odds, don't we?
The following wins were achieved with a used engine:
2005
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Malaysia 2005 (the first time used engines appeared in a Grand Prix weekend was also the first time they won!)
Fernando Alonso, Renault, San Marino 2005
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Monaco 2005
Fernando Alonso, Renault, France 2005
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Germany 2005
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Turkey 2005 (the start of a three-race chain)
Juan Pablo Montoya, McLaren, Italy 2005 (the first time both drivers in the same team win at least one race with used engines - and consecutive ones to boot!)
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Belgium 2005 (this chain of three events, ending with this race, is the first time used engines win more than one race consecutively)
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Brazil 2005
2005 used engine win total - 9
2005 new engine win total - 10
2006
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, Europe 2006
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Spain 2006
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Britain 2006
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, USA 2006
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, Germany 2006
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Turkey 2006 (first race to be won by someone with a used engine in two consecutive years)
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, Italy 2006
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Japan 2006
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Brazil 2006
2006 used engine win total - 9
2006 new engine win total - 9
2007
Fernando Alonso, McLaren, Malaysia 2007 (first driver to have won the same event with used engines twice)
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Spain 2007
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Canada 2007
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, France 2007
Fernando Alonso, McLaren, Germany 2007 (second driver to have won the same event with used engines twice)
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Hungary 2007
Fernando Alonso, McLaren, Belgium 2007
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, Japan 2007
2007 used engine win total - 8
2007 new engine win total - 9
Grand total
Used engines 25 v 29 New engines
Masters of Used Engines - Drivers
Fernando Alonso (11)
Kimi Raikkonen (5)
Felipe Massa (4)
Michael Schumacher (3)
Juan Pablo Montoya (1)
Lewis Hamilton (1)
Fernando clearly takes the crown of Master of Used Engines. Admittedly, being in a championship-challenging car for three years in a row does help a little. That said, he is Master or Joint Master of Used Engines in each individual year as well (he shares with Michael Schumacher in 2006, and is the outright winner in both 2005 and 2007). This is quite a statement of skill.
Kimi Raikkonen would probably have done better had his engine been reasonably reliable in 2005 or 2006. Or indeed if he'd ever been on the top step of the podium in 2006. However, he plainly does not require a fresh engine to demonstrate his talent.
Felipe Massa is consistent, having two used-engine victories in both 2006 and 2007 (being in a non-victorious Sauber didn't help his 2005 rating much). Don't be surprised if he shows well in 2008's three-race engine environment.
Juan Pablo Montoya and Lewis Hamilton, in a sense, represent past and future. Juan Pablo used to be an exciting F1 driver. He's still exciting, but he's doing NASCAR now, where they don't mess about with multi-race engines as far as I'm aware. Since he's also refused to return to F1, don't expect him to add to this tally in any series.
If Lewis Hamilton doesn't add any used engine victories in the three-race engine era, then I'm an apple tree. The main reason why he's only had one win in this era is because he didn't compete in 2005 or 2006.
Two drivers have won a race with a new engine in this era without winning one with a used engine: Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button. Jenson is not in the used engine winner list largely because his engine blew in free practise on the Saturday of Hungary 2006. Had it held on, he would a) have had an easier time of winning that race and b) be on the list.
Masters of Used Engines - Teams
Renault (8)
McLaren (7)
Ferrari (7)
The Masters of Used Engines team award has been hotly contested between three great teams - so hotly that no other team has a single used-engine victory to its credit.
Renault's position in the list is particularly remarkable, since only one driver contributed every single used-engine win to its effort. McLaren and Ferrari required three drivers to achieve their results.
All three of these teams won in two out of the three years the rule was in place.
Poles for Used Engines
Wins with an engine that is minus 10-15bhp are challenging, but what about carving perfect laps with imperfect engines? Surely that's got to be pretty tough.
2005
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Malaysia 2005 (again, first pole at first attempt for used engines)
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, San Marino 2005 (first time a pole-sitting used-engine user didn't win the race pole was obtained in - that comes later for Kimi)
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Monaco 2005 (start of a three-race chain)
Nick Heidfeld, Williams, Europe 2005 (first time a used engine is taken to pole by a driver who doesn't win a race with a used engine during the two-engined era)
Jarno Trulli, Toyota, Canada 2005 (this three-race chain, ending this race, is the first time a used engine is on pole on consecutive occasions)
Fernando Alonso, Renault, France 2005
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Turkey 2005
Juan Pablo Montoya, McLaren, Belgium 2005
2005 used engine poles: 8
2005 new engine poles: 11
2006
Fernando Alonso, Renault, Monaco 2006 (first race where pole was obtained by someone with a used engine in two consecutive years)
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, USA 2006
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Germany 2006
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Turkey 2006
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Brazil 2006
2006 used engine poles: 5
2006 new engine poles: 13
2007
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Malaysia 2007
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Spain 2007
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Canada 2007
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, France 2007
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Germany 2007 (first driver to take pole with a used engine at the same race twice)
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Turkey 2007 (second driver to take pole with a used engine at the same race twice)
Fernando Alonso, McLaren, Belgium 2007
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, China 2007
2007 used engine poles: 8
2007 new engine poles: 9
Grand total
Used engines 21 v 33 new engines
Clearly new engines are a more significant factor in qualifying than in the race. This was especially the case in 2006, where developments were being completed quickly in anticipation of the 2007 engine homologation rules. Notice that in 2007, new and used engines are more evenly matched in qualifying.
Kings of Used Engine Speed - Drivers
Felipe Massa (6)
Kimi Raikonnen (5)
Fernando Alonso (4)
Lewis Hamilton (2)
Nick Heidfeld (1)
Jarno Trulli (1)
Juan Pablo Montoya (1)
Michael Schumacher (1)
There is a lot more competition for this contest than the Master of Used Engines award. The winner of the award is Felipe Massa. He appears to be an expert at teasing speed out of a used engine when qualifying comes around. He was better at it than Michael Schumacher in 2006, and he has held his own in 2007. Very impressive, especially in this era when the pole-sitter often goes on to win.
Kimi Raikkonen's moments of brilliance are more spread out, but you can count on there being at least one in each season. Unfortunately, the poles rarely led to victories (his used-engine victories tended to be born in the adversity of second-row starts - or worse).
Fernando Alonso is a much better racer than he is a qualifier. That said, he won the world championship in 2006 without getting one pole with a used engine, so maybe there's a lesson in that for his rivals…
Lewis Hamilton is, in theory, a better qualifier than racer on used engines. That said, with such a small sample it's difficult to tell.
Michael Schumacher seemed to need a new engine in order to get pole. That didn't stop him from being at the sharp end of the grid a lot of the time, though.
Nick Heidfeld and Jarno Trulli never won a race in the two-engine era despite both getting poles with used engines - surely indicating that both qualify better than they race. While this probably isn't news to Trulli observers, those who observe Heidfeld tend not to mention this when writing about him.
Juan Pablo Montoya's single pole with a used engine is probably because he got most of his poles before the rule was introduced. Qualifying used to be a speciality of his.
Kings of Used Engine Speed - Teams
Ferrari (10)
McLaren (7)
Renault (3)
Williams (1)
Toyota (1)
The titans in the 2007 championship fight are the ones that are at the head of this list. That said, the clear Masters of Used Engine Speed are Ferrari, largely because Felipe Massa has driven so many pole laps for them. It's almost as if he needs a used engine before he fully lets himself go. That said, Kimi Raikkonen has also found the Ferrari environment conducive to his natural abilities. Even Michael managed to get pole with a used engine once…
McLaren despite having had four drivers help them get their total, are definitely behind Ferrari. This is largely because none of their drivers got consistent poles in the first place (they kept getting let down by their machinery, then polemeisters Massa and Raikkonen got together at the red team).
Renault can credit their entire presence on this list to Fernando Alonso. Williams and Toyota likewise only had one driver contribute to their totals.
The "It'll Be All Right On The Night" Award for Reliability - Engine Suppliers
BMW (1.67/car/year, 5 total) <1 in Williams; 3 + 1 in BMW Sauber>
Renault (1.75/car/year, 7 total) <2 + 2 + 2 in Renault; 1 in Red Bull>
Ferrari (3.43/car/year, 24 total) <4 + 8 + 1 in Ferrari; 3 in Sauber; 3 in Red Bull; 0 in Toro Rosso; 5 in Spyker>
Toyota (3.5/car/year, 21 total) <1 + 8 + 0 in Toyota; 5 + 3 in Jordan/Midland/Spyker; 4 in Williams>
Mercedes (3.67/car/year, 11 total) <8 + 2 + 1 in McLaren>
Cosworth (3.75/car/year, 15 total) <1 in Red Bull; 2 + 4 in Minardi/Toro Rosso; 8 in Williams>
Honda (4,25/car/year, 21 total) <5 + 8 + 3 in BAR/Honda; 2 + 3 in Super Aguri>
The BMW engines are most likely to be "all right on the night", with Renault closely following. This is a significant factor into both team's successes during the two-engine era - BMW's improvement was helped because it could chase up pesky gearboxes and speed instead of engines. Renault's tendency to stay in one piece helped Fernando Alonso's championship campaigns considerably. Renault is statistically the best engine on offer to customers - lucky Red Bull for having that supply!
There is a large gap to the next engine supplier, then you reach Ferrari. In its own cars the engines have worked quite unreliably until the homologation rules kicked in. That said, three of the eight failures in the works team happened to Felipe Massa during the Malaysian GP weekend, which reduced the pain somewhat. For that matter, apart from Spyker, all its customers got more reliable units than the works team. Maybe the customer engines were slower, but at least the teams could depend on Ferrari to clear out some of the bugs that appear to be inherent in Ferrari engine design.
Toyota is slightly worse than Ferrari, much of which can be attributed to an atrocious run of unreliability in 2006. In general, the customer units do not appear to have had many of the reliability flaws removed - not a good sign, since this means progress is relatively slow.
For all Mercedes developed a lousy reputation for reliability, this would appear to only be justified for 2005. However, eight failures in a year when no other works team had half that many said a lot. Since then, it is clear that lots of effort has been made to send out working units to the drivers, which has been particularly helpful in 2007.
Cosworth was the customer of last resort, which may go some way towards explaining its poor record. Integration into teams was not very high, simply because teams expected to be using another engine as soon as possible and therefore didn't work so well with the engine supplier. Though it is true that lack of money didn't help.
Honda should be embarrassed. Clearly it can send a reasonably reliable unit to customers (as Super Aguri can happily testify), so why can't it send something functional to its own works drivers? No wonder Button and Barrichello look like pulling their hair out at times…
The "It'll Be All Right On The Night" Award for Reliability - Teams
Red Bull (5)
Super Aguri (5, across two seasons only)
Renault (6)
Minardi/Toro Rosso (6)
(BMW) Sauber (7)
Toyota (9)
McLaren (11)
Williams (13)
Jordan/Midland/Spyker (13)
Ferrari (13)
BAR/Honda (16)
For the most part, customer teams had more reliable engines than their works providers. The exceptions are Williams and Spyker, who have chopped and changed a lot. Integration, or lack of same, explains their woes quite eloquently.
