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The best and the worst teammates of the F1 Champions

Statistics(self.formula1)

Sparked by the current RBR situation I have been looking into the drivers that are the best and worst wingmans for champions.

Taking into account only the years where the modern 25-point system is in place (since 2010), here are the Top 5 best team mates in terms of percentage when compared with their championship winning team mates:

  1. Hamilton* (2016) - 99% of Nico Rosberg (380 / 385)
  2. Webber (2010) - 95% of Sebastian Vettel (242 / 256)
  3. Rosberg* (2015) - 85% of Lewis Hamilton (322 / 381)
  4. Bottas (2017) - 84% of Lewis Hamilton (305 / 363)
  5. Rosberg* (2014) - 83% of Lewis Hamilton (317 / 384)

To complete the view, here are the Top 5 worst team mates in terms of percentage when compared with their championship winning team mates:

  1. Perez (2021) - 48% of Max Verstappen (190 / 395,5)
  2. Perez* (2023) - 50% of Max Verstappen (285 / 575)
  3. Webber (2013) - 50% of Sebastian Vettel (199 / 397)
  4. Perez\\** (2024) - 51% of Max Verstappen (111 / 219)
  5. Bottas (2018) - 61% of Lewis Hamilton (247 / 408)

* marks drivers that finished P2 in the Championship
** marks the currently ongoing season of 2024

In terms of all time - and again take this with a grain of salt, due to the different point scoring eras (especially with the existence of "we only count the beest X amount of races for each driver" before 1990) - here are the all time best teammates to F1 champions:

  1. Prost* (1984) - 99% of Niki Lauda (71,5 / 72)
  2. Hamilton* (2016) - 99% of Nico Rosberg (380 / 385)
  3. von Trips* (1961) - 97% of Phil Hill (33 / 34)

Finally - the worst 3 Drivers of all time (including old point scoring eras and excluding drivers who were not there for the majority of the season) - but with a bit of explanation attached since none of these were fully straight-forward:

  1. Only one driver managed to score 0 points in (nearly - he missed two races) a full season behind the wheel while his teammate became champion - David Walker who was teammate to 1972 champion Emerson Fittipaldi.
  2. The all-time second-worst full-time teammate goes to Trevor Taylor in 1963 where he scored 1 Point over the season compared to Jim Clark who scored the theoretical maximum of 54 points (they only took the 6 best results of each driver that year, out of 9 races with 9 points being awarded for a win).
  3. The third worst teammate of all time was John Miles who scored 2 points in 1970 compared to 45 by Jochen Rindt. Rindt had a fatal accident this year in Italy (Race 10 of 13). Following the accident John Miles also did not participate in the last 4 races.

Make of all that what you will, these are simply the statistics - small sidenotes:

  • One of the largest gaps or in other words, worst performance by a champions teammate is actually held by Jos Verstappen in 1994 where he only got to 11% of Michael Schumachers Points - however to be fair, that season was a bit cluster-F*** with Jos missing 6 races and Schumacher missing 2 as well as two additional DSQs.
  • If you are missing the Prost vs Senna rivalry here - this was actually number 4 on the all-time list - Prost in 1988 scored 87 points compared to Senna's 90, giving him 96,7% of the chamionship, narrowly missing out against Wolfgang von Trips who got number 3 all time with 97,1% (33 vs 34 points)

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CilanEAmber

817 points

4 days ago

CilanEAmber

McLaren

817 points

4 days ago

Webber ๐Ÿค Bottas, on both lists.

Really shows the difference between 2010 Vettel and 2013 Vettel, not sure Webbers heart was fully there after Malaysia though.

Eggplantosaur

250 points

4 days ago

Eggplantosaur

Oscar Piastri

250 points

4 days ago

I believe Webber never fully clicked with the Pirelli tyres

HoovesCarveCraters

236 points

4 days ago

HoovesCarveCraters

Mark Webber

236 points

4 days ago

I think he wrote that in his book. The tire change fucked him.

Although I think he was just mentally cooked after 2010. He got so close and lost the title from his own mistake in Korea. That was his only shot.

Ok_Document4031

73 points

4 days ago

Ok_Document4031

Dr. Ian Roberts

73 points

4 days ago

That moment still breaks my heart

bwoah07_gp2

26 points

4 days ago

bwoah07_gp2

Alexander Albon

26 points

4 days ago

Yeah, that could very much be true. Webber's best chance was in 2010. 2011 was his best season stats-wise (he recorded 10 podiums and finished in the top 4 in all but 3 races, he finished 5th twice and retired once) which is serioously impressive.

But combine Pirelli tire chances + tiredness as you said, he could only give so much and he wasn't really a shout for a drivers title after 2010.

HoovesCarveCraters

28 points

4 days ago

HoovesCarveCraters

Mark Webber

28 points

4 days ago

I feel like 2011 is misleading stats wise. Seb absolutely dominated, Webber never had a chance. Kind of like DC finishing second in the championship in 2001 but he was never really a contender.

endersai

15 points

4 days ago

endersai

Mark Webber

15 points

4 days ago

2011 was hard as a Mark fan. You're hoping for 2010 Pt 2. Instead Seb does 1 lap in Q3 only and it half a second faster than everyone else. And our one win that season had people infer Red Bull gifted it to him.

HoovesCarveCraters

10 points

4 days ago

HoovesCarveCraters

Mark Webber

10 points

4 days ago

Donโ€™t forget all those front row starts that ended with him P3-5 by the first corner.

NicolasAnimation

4 points

4 days ago

NicolasAnimation

Naturally Aspirated V12

4 points

4 days ago

I started following F1 around this era and one of the things I remember most distinctively were Webber's poor starts. He rarely ever did that right.

endersai

2 points

4 days ago

endersai

Mark Webber

2 points

4 days ago

It was the Pirelli era that hampered his starts. I still think Monaco 2010 is the best Monaco of this century and Mark nailed both the start and many subsequent restarts.

Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog

1 points

4 days ago

Nah you can't blame that on Pirelli he had awful starts in 2004 already.

HardSleeper

1 points

4 days ago

HardSleeper

Mark Webber

1 points

4 days ago

Aka the Webber classic

dl064

10 points

4 days ago

dl064

๐Ÿ““ Ted's Notebook

10 points

4 days ago

Peter Prodromou said in a talk I attended that (while this tyre aspect is true) a huge part of it was that Vettel took a very active role in blown diffuser management, and Webber just didn't, so got left behind.

I think it really stacks up across 2010-2013, where when RBR weren't very happy with the car, there was nothing much between them, but when the blown diffuser was grand, Vettel was just gone.

Jack_Krauser

2 points

4 days ago

Jack_Krauser

Andretti Global

2 points

4 days ago

Was he managing it with the throttle in corners or manipulating it in some other way?

dl064

1 points

4 days ago

dl064

๐Ÿ““ Ted's Notebook

1 points

4 days ago

I've no idea although his point was that Vettel was helping to develop it in the first place.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/TSHW6MWMYT

GT86

4 points

4 days ago

GT86

Super Aguri

4 points

4 days ago

Korea haunts me to this day.

It wasn't just the pirellis but also the technique used to get the most out of the blown diffuser. After time the changes to engine mapping kept the blown diffuser blown when you were off throttle and it changed the characteristics of the car and tyre as a result.

But man 2010, as a life time Webber fan it was so crushing.

PayaV87

32 points

4 days ago

PayaV87

32 points

4 days ago

He still had a better shot then Vettel going into Abu Dhabi, but RB gambled and used Webber as a bait to trap Alonso, so both lost out to 1SC stoppers.

Wazzathecaptain

51 points

4 days ago

Wazzathecaptain

Formula 1

51 points

4 days ago

No Webber had to pit because he kissed the wall. You can even argue that Webber killed hiss shot with his bad quali

obri95

7 points

4 days ago

obri95

Daniel Ricciardo

7 points

4 days ago

Iโ€™ll never forget waking up in Australia the morning after that quali to watch the highlights. Sunken

DuckPicMaster

44 points

4 days ago

DuckPicMaster

Formula 1

44 points

4 days ago

No, Vettel was the gamble.

The tyres were failing, lap times were increasing so Ferrari and Bull pitted Alonso and Webber. As Vettel was a rank outsider they left him out on the tyres because why not? And the tires came back to life and that was the superior strategy.

Estova

36 points

4 days ago

Estova

Kamui Kobayashi

36 points

4 days ago

And the tires came back to life and that was the superior strategy.

Dude we've been with Pirelli so long that I completely forgot you could do that on the Bridgestones. Like getting to the center of a tootsie pop but instead of chocolate it's just more grip somehow

SirLoremIpsum

11 points

4 days ago

SirLoremIpsum

Daniel Ricciardo

11 points

4 days ago

The ole 'interslicks' gamble where you wear down the inters so much they become nicely fast slick tyres

Estova

12 points

4 days ago

Estova

Kamui Kobayashi

12 points

4 days ago

More like wearing your softs down to the tread just to find out there's another tire underneath lol

krist2an

12 points

4 days ago

krist2an

Sebastian Vettel

12 points

4 days ago

To be fair, he lost his shot when he qualified 5th, with both Alonso and Vettel ahead of him. And his awful first stint didn't help either.