The Formula 1 circus has officially ended its vacation and returned to action today at Spa-Francorchamps for the 13th round of the 2016 championship. Right before the red lights go out tomorrow and with eight races remaining ’till the end, it’s time we took a quick look at the drivers.
Anyone who has doubled in any kind of motorsport will tell you their fiercest opponent is their teammate. He’s the one he’s measured up against at all times and they share the same equipment, which is an equalizer. Teamwork is all nice and well for press releases and photo ops – out on the track, it’s dog-eat-dog and, no matter what you’re driving, you want to make sure you outperform your teammate. If you want to impress, annihilation is preferable.
All the great ones, such as Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, have done it. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are onto each others’ throats for a long time, in spite Mercedes being the dominant force the past four years, or rather because the team is ruling the sport and whoever comes up on top will be the champion.
If they were fighting for 10th place, perhaps they could have enjoyed a more amicable relationship. Not friends, but at least they wouldn’t be bumping each other off the track quite so often. McLaren had a similar situation in the 1990s, with the late Senna and Alain Prost. No one will ever forget the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix and the infamous incident, caused by the Brazilian who felt he had been cheated by the French. If you have, just watch the video that follows…
Still, other than the two Mercedes guys, there are still plenty of other interesting duels that we’ll be looking at here, where we’ll find certain drivers that have frequently out-qualified and/or out-raced their teammates, only to not have as comfortable of a lead over them in terms of points as they’d like.
Mercedes – 415 points
Hamilton (217 pts) has currently out-qualified Rosberg (198 pts) six times, with Rosberg doing the same six other times – which earns them a tie in terms of who’s quicker on Saturdays. In terms of race results, Lewis has won six times in 2016, with Nico winning 5 times, which is why there’s a 19 point difference between the two.
With 9 races still to go, the title is up for grabs and either one of these guys could end up coming away with it.
Red Bull – 256 points
Despite Daniel Ricciardo (133 pts) and Max Verstappen (115 pts) only getting paired up mid-season, the two are obviously extremely competitive with each other. Ricciardo has out-qualified Max 7-1 thus far, yet during races their records are tied at 4-4. Max’s best result came in form a a win in his very first race with Red Bull, while Ricciardo’s best has been securing second place twice this season.
Ferrari – 242 points
This is a strange one indeed. Vettel (120 pts) has out-qualified Kimi Raikkonen (122 pts) 8 times to 4, and also claimed better results during races 5 times to 2. The German driver also finished 2nd a total of three times, while Raikkonen managed the same thing just twice.
Even so, it’s Kimi who holds a slight lead in the Driver’s standings over his “more decorated” teammate – making this a fascinating battle moving forward.
Williams – 96 points
The fight between the two Williams drivers is a bit more lopsided than we were expecting. Bottas (58 pts) has out-qualified Massa (38 pts) 10-2 and has even sat on the podium once this year; while his teammate only managed to come in 5th a couple of times.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder Williams are looking at Jenson Button as a replacement for Massa in 2017.
Force India – 81 points
Sergio Perez (48 pts) is on track to top his teammate Nico Hulkenberg (33 pts) for the second year in a row if things don’t change between the two of them. In fact, the last time Hulkenberg scored more points than Perez was in 2014 when the Mexican joined Force India following his unsuccessful stint at McLaren.
This year, Hulkenberg has thus far won the qualifying battle 7-5, while their race battle is tied at 5 apiece. Perez’s best result this year was 3rd place (twice), while Hulkenberg only managed to come in 6th.
Toro Rosso – 45 points
While there aren’t too many points separating Carlos Sainz (30 pts) and Daniil Kvyat (23 pts), the Spanish driver has out-qualified the Russian 6-2 and a whooping 5-0 in terms of race results – and this is in spite of Kvyat earning a 3rd place finish this year while he was still with Red Bull, and Sainz only managing a 6th place finish as his best result.
McLaren – 42 points
There isn’t much between Fernando Alonso (24 pts) and Jenson Button (17 pts), with the pair separated by just 7 pts this year in the Driver’s standings. However, Alonso did out-qualify Button 8-3 in 2016 which kind of points to the former as being the quicker driver.
Haas – 28 points
This one is a bit redundant in a way, since Romain Grosjean has scored all of Haas’s points this year and has out-qualified Esteban Gutierez (0 pts) 8-4. Safe to say the French driver is winning this battle hands down, despite the Mexican finishing ahead of Grosjean in each of the last two races.
Renault – 6 points
The French outfit will most likely look to break up the Magnussen-Palmer pairing in 2017 as they’ll be looking to strengthen their driver lineup. Currently, Magnussen has been the only one who has scored points, out-qualifying Palmer 8-4.
Manor – 1 point
Pascal Wehrlein came away with a point in Austria, while winning his 2016 qualifying battle against the Indonesian Rio Haryanto 7-5. The German also out-raced his teammate 8-0 through the first half of the year. Haryanto has recently been replaced with Esteban Ocon.
Sauber – 0 points
It’s tough to say which of these two is having a better season because neither of them is having a particularly good one. Both Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr have come in 12th (as their best finishes), though Ericsson has out-qualified his teammate 7-5 and out-raced him 5 times to 3. It’s a start, right?