About driver comparisons
What even is Formula 1? Whoa dude
Formula 1 is a motor sport racing series, in which teams compete for a constructors championship. Secondarily, the drivers of said teams compete for a drivers championship. Emphasis on secondarily. I suppose I should justify that. There is no official statement from the FIA or F1 as to the spirit of competition in Formula 1. That is to say whether or not it’s meant primarily as a drivers or constructors competition. Though we can look at two things to determine it for ourselves. One, what the sport is famous for. And two, it’s history. Let’s start with it’s history.
A very brief history of F1 and GP racing
Formula 1 evolved from a racing tradition started in the 19th century known as Grand Prix (GP) racing. The first of these races was organized by a french newspaper and was explicitly promoted as a competition of “horseless carriages” that were “not dangerous, easy to drive, and cheap during the journey”. The main prize of this race was for “the competitor whose car comes closest to the ideal”. Manufacturers of all sorts of primitive automobiles participated, no doubt eager to demonstrate the quality and convenience of their machines to potential customers. With this event a trend of motor racing was started in Europe. In 1900, the next organized GP racing style series of events began. These were the Gordon Bennett Cups, and its races took place all over Europe. These racing cups were intended as a competition between national automobile clubs, or nations, and not individuals. The participating cars were required to have been built entirely in the country of the nation they were representing. Various auto racing events utilizing the title “Grand Prix” continued to be organized primarily in Europe and occasionally in the United States of America as competitions between nations until, in 1923, the AIACR (Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus), precursor to the FIA, organized what might be considered the first officially FIA-sanctioned motor racing event: the European Grand Prix at Monza. The organization of this race came about due to the increased interest in racing by manufacturers. After this, in 1925, the first AIACR World Manufacturers’ Championship (WMC) took place. AIACR WMC continued to be organized annually until 1930 after which, due to some botched seasons it was replaced by the AIACR European Championship (AEC). The AEC was only a drivers championship although it still featured teams, of which, some where factory teams such as Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Maserati, and Daimler-Benz. Other then-independent teams, such as Ferrari, would later become factory teams. For some nations, most famously Nazi Germany, Grand Prix racing was still a point of national pride and they would sponsor their nations teams (car manufacturers) with government funds. The AEC lasted from 1931 to 1939 when World War 2 broke out. Grand Prix racing was suspended for the duration of the war. In 1947 the AIACR reformed itself into the FIA which survives to this day and it announced the set of rules that would regulate Grand Prix racing. This set of rules came to be known as the Formula. The set of rules for the highest level of racing was Formula A or Formula 1 and each consequent set of rules would be known as Formula 2, Formula 3 and so on. The FIAs F1 Grand Prix series continued in the format of the former AEC. It was exclusively a drivers championship despite the sport having constructor and independent teams. The FIAs F1 World Constructor Championship did not come into existence until 1958 and it has remained ever since.
So, it’s apparent that car manufacturers and car development have been integral to Grand Prix motor racing and Formula 1 since their inception. The first GP competitions were explicitly competitions between constructors meant to demonstrate which company made the superior product or indeed between countries. Also, since the beginning of the sport there have been independent teams, often times funded by a wealthy individual (royalty, in the early days, who would also be the drivers of their teams) as their vanity project. But in later years the spiritual successor to teams like these were the so called garagistas. Teams which would purchase some parts of their vehicles from various companies, invest exorbitant amounts of money researching and developing some themselves and acquire others from sponsorships. Perhaps the most successful example of one such team is Williams. Teams like these would consider the driver just another part that needed to be sourced and made to fit into the project they were building.
What is F1 famous for?
Formula 1 is famous for having the fastest regulated road-course racing cars in the world, and it has achieved this because it is a development series. That means that the teams competing for the constructors championship each design and build their own machine within the bounds of some regulations (the formula), with which to compete. Being a development series, F1 is inherently unfair for the driver’s competition. Different drivers will drive different cars and some cars will be better designed than others. It is, however, completely fair towards the constructors, in theory anyway. In practice some teams have massive advantages over others due to the imbalance in funding between them. Some teams are backed by gigantic automotive corporations, big-name oligarchs from all around the world, and sometimes even by scam enterprises of some kind or another (Rich Energy, NFT’s). The amount of money these sponsorships bring varies greatly, consequently, some teams have more money than others. The presumption, correct or not, is that all teams have equal opportunity to secure funds through sponsorship. It should not go without mention as well that the concentration of wealth in F1 is also a huge cause for it’s popularity. Given the constructor focus of F1 it is not uncommon to see, with the introduction of new regulations, some team or another gain a significant advantage on track over the rest of the pack thanks to one or more brilliant engineering breakthroughs. In 2009, Brawn GP dominated the first half of the season thanks to their head start in development of the double diffuser. Starting in 2005 Renault implemented the tuned mass dampers, granting them an edge in that years season and the beginning of the next (until it was banned), thanks to which they won two world constructors championships and two world drivers championships with Fernando Alonso. In 2014 Mercedes began their domination of the turbo hybrid era thanks to their split turbo power unit arrangement in addition to several other innovations. The list goes on (active suspension, launch control, ground effect, F-ducts etc.), for most eras of F1 the success of drivers and teams can be attributed in part to engineering innovations. So long as the dominant car’s design falls within the bounds of the stated regulations for the season, there is nothing wrong with this, and if Formula 1 is to maintain it’s fame as the biggest spectacle in motorsport it must continue to feature the fastest road going machines on earth.
Ok, so what?
There is no shortage online of articles listing the top F1 drivers of all time or even that list drivers who only ever participated in F1 as the greatest in all motorsport. But given that F1 is primarily a constructors competition and given that as such it is inherently unfair for the competition between drivers, claims like these mean very little. Drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher might be statistically the most accomplished F1 drivers of all time, but in F1 a drivers success is inextricably linked to their teams success and vice versa. This is the case because F1 is a development series, in contrast to what are known as spec series, such as Formula 2, Formula 3, IndyCar etc. In these racing series, teams are much more restricted in the ways they can build their cars, or are forced to use an entirely pre-built car. In the case of F2 all teams use the Dallara F2 2018 car, F3 cars are held to strict regulations and Indycar teams must choose between one of two engine manufacturers while having no choice on other parts (turbo charger etc.). The mechanics and engineers of these teams are left with fewer technical ways of gaining an advantage (such as tuning suspension, brake bias and other parameters) for any given competitive event. So technically in these racing series, although not completely, drivers race with more comparable equipment allowing for a better comparison of their skills as drivers (or at the very least the drivers skills most required to driver the specific cars of the series optimally). In F1 differences between teams cars as well as differences in regulations across eras of the sport will require different skills from drivers in order to realize the potential of the car they are provided. So in a given season we cannot make any accurate comparison of drivers skill, much less comparisons between drivers across seasons. On the other hand, from the results of a spec series competition we can determine with a higher degree of certainty whether one or another driver is more skillful. Given that the different spec series out there enforce different specifications for the cars they allow to race, we would expect that the skills needed to excel in any given one would vary from series to series. If we wanted to determine who in the world is the best rounded racing driver it would make more sense to analyze which drivers have been successful across spec racing series. In this realm we would find drivers like Jim Clarke, Mario Andretti, and Nigel Mansell.
Or perhaps, given what we have laid out in the previous paragraphs we can come to some broader definition of what a good driver of Formula 1 is. What would a good F1 driver be good at exactly? Well, outside of a baseline level of general driving competence (which is very high), adaptability and fast learning seem like the only skills that remain a constant necessity across Formula 1 eras in order to have a successful career. Although even with this it could be the case that some unfortunate F1 driver out there with excellent driver skills and lightning fast learning capacity moved from mediocre F1 team to mediocre F1 team each time maximizing the potential of the cars he was given. In recorded results, that driver would still appear lackluster. Perhaps the dubious, abstract, and inexact skill of navigating the politics of F1 and scrutinizing the rumors I presume drivers must hear around the F1 paddock as to which teams have a hidden technological ace in their pocket.
It’s only human nature. We find it easier to root for a single F1 driver and want to feel justified in our enthusiasm for said driver through some apparently objective measure of their to-us undoubtedly superior skill. F1 teams today are international corporations with constantly changing staff at all levels, it’s difficult to identify solely with any one of them. Many of them retain historically iconic names for the purposes of recognizability but when analyzing the shifting ownership, team composition, and headquarters of said teams we run into a real ship of Theseus style problem in identifying them.
Anyway, is there any conclusion or point to all this? Uhh… just to provided perspective I suppose. Be mindful of these things when watching Formula 1 and rooting for drivers or teams. Or when comparing the achievements of drivers. Stay tuned for the Australian GP reports. Ok bye.