Packages Used

Package Summary
tidyverse The tidyverse collection of packages
skimr Quick data check tool
XML Working with XML table objects on HTML webpages
httr Useful for web authentication
rvest Useful tools for working with HTML and XML
lubridate Useful for working with ddates
kableExtra Formatting Data Tables

Mercedes Dominance

As someone who has just recently gotten into Formula 1 Racing, all I have known is Mercedes dominance. Formula 1 teams are made up of two drivers who compete and receive points based on their finish in each Grand Prix throughout the season. A total of their individual points is used to determine the World Drivers Championship, while each driver on the team’s points are combined to determine the World COnstructors Championship. Mercedes has won the last 6 WCCs and Lewis Hamilton, their top driver, has won 5 of the last 6 WDCs while his former teammate Nico Rosberg won the 6th. Just last Sunday on 10/11/2020, Hamilton tied the all time career wins record as he is on track to win another WDC. With the help of his teammate Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes appears to be a lock to win their 7th straight WCS.

I wanted to dig into the data to see just how dominant Mercedes has been in their current streak of WCCs. To do this, I scraped the race results for every race since 2014 from formula1.com. The data collected includes the every driver’s finish, points, and the team they drive for for all 132 Grand Prix. There are currently 10 teams who compete on the circuit, meaning there are 20 active drivers. In Formula 1, team names change quite frequenlty so I standardized the team names to reflect how they currently compete in 2020. Typically there are between 20 and 21 races in a season but the 2020 season has been altered so 11 of the 17 scheduled Grand Prix are complete.

How Points Are Awarded

Points are awarded each race to drivers finishing 1-10. The driver who copleted the fastest single lap in the race receives a bonus point if they finish in the top ten, meaning one driver can earn a maximum of 26 points and a team can earn up to 44 points. If a driver who does not finish in the top ten completes the fastest lap, no bonust points are awarded for that Grand Prix.
Position Points
1st 25
2nd 18
3rd 15
4th 12
5th 10
6th 8
7th 6
8th 4
9th 2
10th 1
11-20 0
Fastest Lap 1

Below is a chart of all the WCS points earned by teams from 2014 through 2020. Mercedes had 4,622 points in that span while Ferrari was a distant second with just 2,719 points. Red Bull is not far behind at 2,475 points but no other team has eclipsed 1,000 points since 2014. This chart shows that there are tiers in Formula 1 with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull at the top, even if Mercedes is the best by far. Then there is the midfield of Racing Point, Williams, McLaren, Renault, AlphaTauri, Haas, and Alfa Romeo. MRT and Caterham no longer compete in F1.

After seeing the separation between the top three teams and the midfield, I wanted to see how the Constructors Championship would change if there were only 4 teams - Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and Everyone Else. To my surprise, Everyone Else would have pushed Mercedes for the WCC but would have lost 701 to 698. After that, it has not been particularly close, until 2020. WIth Ferrari struggling, the midfield has collected more points and would be leading a 4 team Constructors Championship. This still shows how large the gap is between Mercedes and all other teams on a yearly basis.

Lewis Hamilton - Best of the Best

Next I wanted to see how the Mercedes Drivers compared individually over this time. The graph is slightly misleading as Nico Rosberg drove for Mercedes from 2014 - 2016, winning the WDC in 2016 and Valtteri Bottas has been driving for Mercedes from 2017 - 2020. However, if you combine the points won by Bottas and Rosberg to compare them to Hamilton’s total over the same timeframe, Hamilton has still scored almost 600 more points. It is easy to see why he has won 5 championships in 6 years and will most likely win his 6th with Mercedes this year.

Below is a graph showing the average amount of points earned per Grand Prix for drivers who have started at least 130 of the 132 races that have occurred since 2014. Hamilton averaged 19.4 points, while Sebastian Vettel who currently drives for Ferrari averages 11.75 points per start and Bottas is just behind him at 11 points per start. This means in the past 6.5 years, Hamilton has averaged more points than a driver receives for a 2nd place finish with the bonus point for Fastest Lap.

Will Things Change in 2021

Like all sports, drivers switch teams all the time. Unlike most sports, some of the changes for the 2021 season have already been announced. Mercedes has not announced any changes but Racing Point, McLaren, Renault and Ferrari will have new drivers. There are also two drivers who are currently driving in 2020 who do not have a seat on a team for 2021 yet. I wanted to see how things would change in the standings if the race results for 2020 were the same but they were driving for their 2021 team. To do this, I created graphs showing the current 2020 standings through 11 races as well as assigning the drivers to their 2021 seats. Also, Racing Point will change their name to Aston Martin Racing and Renault will be Alpine Racing next year.

The only major difference is Mclaren would move up to third place and the drivers who do not currently have a seat for 2021 would be in 4th. While there may be no catching Mercedes anytime soon, teams like Haas, Williams and Alfa Romeo would be much better off by signing those two drivers for 2021 compared to their current driver combination.

To further this analyis, I would find data on money spent by they teams each year. Formula 1 announced that they will impliment a spending cap starting in 2022 to try to make all teams more competitive. I would run analysis on how team spending correlates to points scored and see if the other teams will actually be able to compete with the top three teams once they are limited on the amount of money they can spend.