Formula 1 and Freedom Indices

People with more than a casual interest in sports have probably encountered arguments or wondered whether athletes from autocratic governments differ from others in performance across sports disciplines. More recently, I have come to consider whether the Formula 1 franchise has been expanding its races towards in a way that reflects interest in the style of political management or not. In the last decade, Formula 1 has grown in terms of demand for races across the Asian continent and this culminated in bringing in new races in Bahrain, China and India. 

It is noteworthy that the hosting of a Formula 1 race requires investments in top level infrastructure in addition to being able to attract substantial corporate sponsorship. The three new entrants into the Formula 1 races have different political economy indicators even if they share attributes that make then attractive places. To start with, India is a large and growing economy and an unqualified democracy.  China is at this moment in time, the most sought after investment destination and one that would be attractive to the owners of the Formula 1 franchise because of this fact that global corporations are chasing its large market. Bahrain, is a smaller country whose citizens are not politically free at all but is a nation whose rulers have a lot of public money to pour into the construction of a state of the art race track. 

A couple of weeks back, the Grand prix race in Bahrain was held with visible agitation from its population. Whereas all the technical requirements were in place, the demonstrations that occurred during the weekend of the race led to the loss of a life in addition to disturbances that did concern some teams. To my mind, the Formula 1 is a private business and its owner(s) are perfectly entitled to seek partnerships for hosting races wherever they can. That notwithstanding, I think that Formula 1 should begin to carefully survey indices that measure the degree of political and economic freedom as it chases the next set of partners for hosting races. When a business of this stature begins to expand aggressively towards the most repressive regimes in the world, it is time for its owners to take some time and think clearly and ensure that they are sure that this expansion model will remain valid. 

Vettel is Not All Time Best in Formula 1

Journalism is a profession that has immense value for bloggers and it has been the basis upon which a large proportion of this blog has based analysis or commentary. Many people seem to think that it is only in the area of political coverage does partisanship overtake objectivity but I consider that sports journalism too is especially prone to commentary that includes exaggeration or even outright misstatements.

Take as an the example of this piece by David Coulthard, a retired driver on the Formula 1 circuit, writing in the Daily Telegraph. It is true that during the last race, the Red Bull team for which Sebastian Vettel is a driver took the top two positions on the podium as they have dominated racing this season year and the last. The performance of that team has been very good and it has been the most consistent over the last couple of years. That notwithstanding, the article gives the impression that Sebastian Vettel's dominance is so pronounced that he is altogether worthy of the consideration of the crown of the best driver ever.

I disagree with this for the reason that comparisons across time as David Coulthard makes should of necessity come with a caveat that time references are tricky because of change of rules and circumstances. Secondly, it strikes me as odd that he chooses to concentrate criticism of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton as drivers who supposedly rely on the ability to steer very firast and therefore inferior to the more rounded Vettel. That criticism is allowed but is too limited to the supposed faults of two drivers alone that it makes it unworthy of much consideration.  Knowing as swell that the writer raced against Michael and obviously came out second best means that he is unlikely to be as fully objective. 

To my mind, he should be aware or honest to state that the consistent change in regulations makes the sports particularly prone to shifts in dominance that may have nothing to do with the capability of individual drivers. Formula 1 is also peculiar in the sense that drivers are hostage to the reliability and consistency of their teams. As it is today, the Red Bull team has a superior car in stability and fitness for the rules and the rest are catching up. To conclude, while I defer to his opinions ideas because I have been close to but never driven a Formula 1 machine, I am also reasonably certain that the differences in capability between the drivers is much smaller than that between the cars. Formula 1 is at least as much about  engineering as much as it is about the and capability of individual drivers. That explains why drivers in the same team tend to finish in roughly same positions. One would expect David Coulthard to know that or ask for data to prove that.

Rerunning Formula 1 2008 On 2010 Scoring System

While writing the last blog post, I made reference to the continuing tinkering with the points scoring system in Formula 1 races. It argued that the more recent changes does not seem to make a difference to the outcome of the championship. Towards the end, the blog post stated that given the fact that the 2008 Championship also went down to the very last lap of the race, it is possible that the scoring system adopted in 2010 would yield a different winner. Concerned that I may have overstated, I went to the Formula 1 results archive to test that claim. The simple test involved ranking the championship winner and all other drivers who won at least one race in that year by using the 2010 scoring format.

The table on the above shows the finishing position of each of the seven drivers on the columns for each of the 18 races of that season, with the zeroes as code for drivers that did not finish that race. Clearly, I was mistaken to think that the championship results would have favored Felipe Massa due to his having won more races than Lewis Hamilton.  It remains that while the finish was still very close and was determined by that last race, Lewis Hamilton would still have been the championship winner. Truly, the scoring system requires massive tinkering to generate the excitement that Formula 1 bosses seem to think is lacking.