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EPQ title on F1

My EPQ title is "Should Formula One competition be reliant on the skills of the driver or team development?". Is Formula One reliant on the teams to compete on technology or the skills and excellence of the drivers?
85% car, 15% driver.

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Reply 2
Excellent topic! ^ What he said.
Reply 3
Original post by mikeyd85
85% car, 15% driver.

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I would say it's higher than that nowadays, being 95% car and 5% driver.
Reply 4
Original post by mikeyd85
85% car, 15% driver.

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What do you think it should be?
Original post by PGtips
I would say it's higher than that nowadays, being 95% car and 5% driver.


If that were the case, Vettel wouldn't have almost double the points of Webber. Same with Alonso and Massa, Hulkenberg and Gutierrez & Kimi and Romain.
Reply 6
Original post by Namige
Excellent topic! ^ What he said.

Cheers man, whats your opinion on the 'dominance' from red bull in the last 4 championship seasons?
Reply 7
Original post by carper95
My EPQ title is "Should Formula One competition be reliant on the skills of the driver or team development?". Is Formula One reliant on the teams to compete on technology or the skills and excellence of the drivers?

The fact Vettel thrashed Webber shows that driver is more important than the car. Probably 70% -30%.

Sounds like a good topic - wish I'd done something like that:tongue:
Original post by carper95
What do you think it should be?


Sorry for double post.

Formula 1 has always been a mixture of the greatest drivers and the greatest engineers. It has a long history of dominant manufacturers in different eras. The regulations have of course changed massively over it's history, giving both engineers and drivers significant new challenges. We have seen some teams rise to those challenges (Brawn & Red Bull recently) and other teams fall (McLaren, Ferrari recently), whereas drivers always seem to end up roughly where they should (Alonso dragging a dog Ferrari around for example).

The balance between car technology and driver ability in terms of a % of race results will always vary season to season. Of the last 4 years, we've had two very close title races and two utterly dominated by Vettel. This season has been a very interesting example due to the disparity in results between the 1st and 2nd half of the season. 1st half was fairly open, with Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes all battling it out for race wins. 2nd was Vettel and only Vettel. At this point of the season, I'd have happily said 80 - 85% car, 15 - 20% driver.

Now, as we know there was a change in regulation with regard to the construction of the tyre, we can see how much that benefited the Red Bull car of Vettel. At this point, it became painfully obvious that the Red Bull was massively dominant in almost all conditions, and thus I'd have to say it was 95% the car. Only Webber's failure to win a race in the 2nd half of the season really lends credence to the argument that the driver makes the slightest bit of difference.

Of course, looking back to the first 7 races of last year, you could be forgiven thinking that F1 was almost a spec series and that it was massively about driver skill, but we all know what happened when things settled a bit.

I would never say take the engineering side out of F1. It is part of F1's history and is massively beneficial to the automotive industry as a whole. Without that, we may as well just watch Indy Car (which isn't completely spec, but near as you like). Of course, I'd also never want to see a completely technologically open F1 where the team with the most money always wins. To that end, I'm happy that there are technical limitations in F1 which limit the impact the technological advancements of a car can have on the championship. Finding the correct balance between technical ability of the design team and driving ability of the pilot will always be a massive challenge and will always be well open to debate.

In my mind, I'd love to see a Formula 1 series where every car would have the potential to qualify within 1.5 seconds of the pole car. Thus leaving enough wiggle room for development, but also not punishing those drivers in a less well financed team. As a percentage, I'd guess that to be around 60 / 40 in favour of the car.
Reply 9
Original post by carper95
My EPQ title is "Should Formula One competition be reliant on the skills of the driver or team development?". Is Formula One reliant on the teams to compete on technology or the skills and excellence of the drivers?




Would there be any chance if you could you send your presentation to my email? would like to see it. :smile:
Original post by carper95
My EPQ title is

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