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Is Sebastian Vettel's driver performance connected to his car performance?
A thread upon the request of @F1_Visionary
A thread upon the request of @F1_Visionary
To look into this question, I took the best qualifying lap of Vettel, his teammate and the best other time in qualifying from each of Vettel's full-time seasons in F1. I only used a sample of the races because I'm not made of time, but it should be representative of the season.
I converted the combined times into a % of Vettel's time, and the results are the following:
As you can see, the answer is that it appears a quicker car results in better performances from Vettel. The 3 years that Vettel had the quickest car (2010, 2011 and 2013) he beats his teammate by at least 0.3%.
You can also see that when he was at least 1% off the quickest car (2014, 2015, 2016, 2020), he loses to his teammate 3/4 times. The only exception being 2016.
This can be explained by a lack of form by Raikkonen from 2016-2018. Vettel performs comparatively better against his teammate related to his car performance in these years.
The other anamoly is 2008, which can be explained by his teammate being Sebastien Bourdais, his only teammate who's failed to win a race (his best result in F1 is, in fact, 2x 7th places)
So, to conclude, the stronger Vettel's car is, the better he performs. This bodes well heading into 2021, when Vettel looks set to be making a step up the performance field from Ferrari to Aston Martin.
It also suggests, looking longer term, that this could/should be a final project for Vettel. Vettel doesn't appear to be a driver suited to building up a midfield team, so he wouldn't be an advisable signing for a team 6th/7th in the pecking order.
