Deadbeat Team Mate 2012

kowalski · Post by **kowalski** » 26 Nov 2012, 11:16

Who Is you DBTM of the year award winner this season?

Massa? Grssssjjjjnnnnnn?

Here are the cold numbers (average position behind team mate in races/quali):

Massa - 3.65
Grosjean - 3.34
Vergne - 1.88
Schumacher - 1.73
Webber - 1.63
Senna - 1.35
Karthikayan - 0.93
Pic - 0.86
Button - 0.67
Perez - 0.52
Petrov - 0.25
di Resta - 0.23

From the numbers the top two really do stand out - but with Massa getting better through the season and Roman, well frankly, not getting better I would give the award to everyone's favorite vowel-less French man...

Special notes:

di Resta being flattered by hulks slow start
Wonder-boy Perez being behind Kobi

Ed24 · Post by **Ed24** » 26 Nov 2012, 12:15

That stat probably isn't the best as, for Karthikeyan for example, it's impossible to be more than one spot behind or so in most cases. Maybe an average margin for qualifying would be a better indication?

Webber's another good candidate, there were so many races - even before his mid-season slump (such as Melbourne, Bahrain and Barcelona) - that he had nowhere near the pace of Vettel.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 26 Nov 2012, 12:44

Ed24 wrote:That stat probably isn't the best as, for Karthikeyan for example, it's impossible to be more than one spot behind or so in most cases. Maybe an average margin for qualifying would be a better indication?

Webber's another good candidate, there were so many races - even before his mid-season slump (such as Melbourne, Bahrain and Barcelona) - that he had nowhere near the pace of Vettel.

Good points there. Personally I am surprised Senna isn't further behind, I wonder if that isn't another bias of the analysis.

kowalski · Post by **kowalski** » 26 Nov 2012, 13:55

Yes,

it's not supposed to be a cast iron statistical analysis!

Just a way of starting a discussion....

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 26 Nov 2012, 14:29

My nominations are:

Grosjean (not based on raw speed, but Grosjeans consistency was terrible)

Senna (Maldonado is clearly the faster driver)

Karthikeyan (17:3 in Qualifying duell says everything, especially as he wasn't faster in the race)

Massa (especially in the first half of the season)

Honorable mention

di Resta

DOSBoot · Post by **DOSBoot** » 26 Nov 2012, 16:40

I went for Bruno Senna because he just hasn't lived up as much as his teammate has. I mean, he had a car that was more than capable of unrejectifying himself, and the best he could do was a 6th all year, while Maldonaldo took a win with that machine. Even when Maldonaldo was crashing, he never took advantage of it. Pure deadbeat teammate status.

LellaLombardi · Post by **LellaLombardi** » 26 Nov 2012, 20:21

Looking at those statistics, in my mind it confirms Webber for my vote. He had the best car on the grid by some way and was no match for his team mate this year, the gap between them is just getting wider and wider.

Post by **Londoner** » 26 Nov 2012, 21:12

It is incredibly close between Di Resta, Senna and Webber for this coverted award IMO. I think it has to go to Senna, mind you. Yes, Maldonado wasted a lot of points, but Senna never did anything of note otherwise apart from picking up a few fortuitous lower placings whenever Pastor screwed up. Competed in Q3 a grand total of once in 20 races, and a best finish of 6th. Maldonado was a regualr fixture in Q3, has some speed, and appears to be really cleaning up his act since Belgium. And of course, the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix...

That Sunday in Barcelona in May just summed it up perfectly. Maldonado fighting towards or at the front, whilst Senna was fighting backmarkers for POSITION. :roll:

Post by **mario** » 26 Nov 2012, 21:21

Ed24 wrote:That stat probably isn't the best as, for Karthikeyan for example, it's impossible to be more than one spot behind or so in most cases. Maybe an average margin for qualifying would be a better indication?

Webber's another good candidate, there were so many races - even before his mid-season slump (such as Melbourne, Bahrain and Barcelona) - that he had nowhere near the pace of Vettel.

The average time gap between the drivers in qualifying would probably be a more accurate reflection of single lap pace, for example, although that is prone to statistical anomalies too.

For example, going by F1Fanatic's statistics on drivers, Grosjean outqualified Kimi nine times this season but was on average the slightly faster driver in qualifying (by 0.07s) - even though Kimi actually beat him slightly more often than Grosjean beat Kimi, the data is slightly skewed because of Kimi's extremely poor performance in the Australian GP at the beginning of the year (where Grosjean was nearly 1.3s faster than him in the same session).

However, taking a look at the broad picture they paint, they suggest that De La Rosa had the largest performance advantage in qualifying over his team mate (about 0.64s on average), followed by Maldonado (0.56s), Glock (0.41s), Alonso (0.33s), Ricciarco (0.32s) and then Hamilton (0.28s).
Surprisingly, on average Webber was not quite as far behind Vettel as you might have expected - they have Webber as being 0.11s behind Vettel per lap in qualifying, which is the closest gap between the drivers in the top three teams this year. As for the most evenly matched drivers (in terms of average time gap between the drivers), that would be the Sauber drivers - Perez was, on average, only 0.02s faster per lap than Kobayashi in qualifying.

As for finishing ahead of their team mates, that throws up some strange initial results too - such as, on average, in the races where both Schumacher and Rosberg managed to both make it to the flag, Schumacher finished most of those races ahead of Rosberg, even though Rosberg finished a fair distance ahead of Schumacher in the WDC (7 races to 3 - Schumacher's qualifying record, having qualified ahead of Rosberg 8 times this season, isn't too bad either, which shows how costly those early season retirements were for him). That said, there are many ways that you can interpret those figures - statistics can sometimes be like accounting, where the figures you get are sometimes the ones that you want rather than the ones you should get...

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 26 Nov 2012, 21:22

Massa gets it by a mile. Alonso fights for the championship, Massa struggles like a pig in the first half of the season and finally finds his usual form of being slower than Alonso. And the two times he beat Alonso, Alonso DNFed. At least Grosjean was able to beat Raikkonen at least once. (Well, twice, IIRC) In short, he never had the pace to beat Alonso this season.

UncreativeUsername37 · Post by **UncreativeUsername37** » 26 Nov 2012, 21:43

Almost did as well as their teammate
Ricciardo

Only lost because their teammate was awesome
Webber
Button
Grosjean
Kobayashi

Definitely outclassed by their teammate, but nothing DBTMOTY-worthy
Rosberg
di Resta
Senna
Petrov
Pic

Sucked
Massa
Karthikeyan

So I'm torn between Massa and Karthikeyan for this.

Pedestrian · Post by **Pedestrian** » 26 Nov 2012, 21:47

DOSBoot wrote:I went for Bruno Senna because he just hasn't lived up as much as his teammate has.

Senna is just 14 points and 1 championship position behind his teammate.
For comparaison, Schumacher is 4 places and 44 points behind Rosberg, Webber is 101 points and 5 places behind Vettel, Grosjean is also 5 places and 111 places behind Kimi while Massa is 5 places and 156 (!) points behind Alonso.

whatisdeletrazdoing · Post by **whatisdeletrazdoing** » 26 Nov 2012, 22:51

Even though The numbers don't exactly yield him the obvious vote, my vote goes to Senna. He was nvery nearly as inconsistent as Maldonado, but not nearly as quick. While they both had moments that were very unimpressive (Senna at Singapore and Valencia, Maldonado in Canada Q2, Australia spring to mind), none of Senna's performances impressed me very much. Sure, his 6th in Sepang was impressive at the time, but after seeing what Maldonado could do at his best, it didn't seem that special. I was never impressed with Senna like I was with Maldonado in Spain, Abu Dhabi, or Q3 of Belgium.

Grosjean was certainly inconsistent, but he had some truly great performances, such as Canada, Bahrain, and Hungary.
Massa was pretty appalling at times, but his late season form saved him. He was also an excellent #2, and never tried to downplay his teammates performances.

DOSBoot · Post by **DOSBoot** » 26 Nov 2012, 23:26

whatisdeletrazdoing wrote:Even though The numbers don't exactly yield him the obvious vote, my vote goes to Senna. He was nvery nearly as inconsistent as Maldonado, but not nearly as quick. While they both had moments that were very unimpressive (Senna at Singapore and Valencia, Maldonado in Canada Q2, Australia spring to mind), none of Senna's performances impressed me very much. Sure, his 6th in Sepang was impressive at the time, but after seeing what Maldonado could do at his best, it didn't seem that special. I was never impressed with Senna like I was with Maldonado in Spain, Abu Dhabi, or Q3 of Belgium.

Grosjean was certainly inconsistent, but he had some truly great performances, such as Canada, Bahrain, and Hungary.
Massa was pretty appalling at times, but his late season form saved him. He was also an excellent #2, and never tried to downplay his teammates performances.

Exactly why I went for Senna in the first place. I was originally going to give it to Massa, but his late perfomance saved him from getting it. I can't give it to Grojean for the same reason as well. He's a crasher, but he's done well enough to keep me from giving him them. I mean, how many poeple expected him to be a contender for a race win before this season started? I sure didn't. Webber although still hasn't gotten his starts right, is still scoring consitently, and was still qualifying well enough. Plus I feel that a lot of his troubles came more from his car letting him down, rather than his own doing.

Senna however, has not impressed me much at his stay with Williams. (Neither did he with Lotus for that matter.) True, Maldonaldo was crashing more than Senna was, but Senna wasn't scoring points like Maldonaldo was. Especially after how long it took Maldonaldo to finish in the points again. That I feel made him the most likely candidate as a deadbeat teammate. So my desision stands.

Backmarker · Post by **Backmarker** » 27 Nov 2012, 10:22

In the championships, points are all that counts. Looking at it as a percentage of a team's points:

Button - 49.7% of McLaren's points
Kobayashi - 47.6% of Sauber's points
di Resta - 42.2% of Force India's points
Senna - 40.8% of Williams' points
Webber - 38.9% of Red Bull's points
Ricciardo - 38.5% of Toro Rosso's points
Schumacher - 34.5% of Mercedes' points
Grosjean - 31.7% of Enstone's points
Massa - 30.5% of Ferrari's points

So Massa is the driver who contributed least to his team, though I suppose he can be forgiven somewhat, given that his teammate was fighting for the championship.

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 27 Nov 2012, 10:26

Then it has to be Grosjean. Schumacher had a lot of bad luck when the Mercedes was still competetive, while Grosjean threw his races away in the first corners.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 27 Nov 2012, 11:09

Backmarker wrote:In the championships, points are all that counts. Looking at it as a percentage of a team's points:

Button - 49.7% of McLaren's points
Kobayashi - 47.6% of Sauber's points
di Resta - 42.2% of Force India's points
Senna - 40.8% of Williams' points
Webber - 38.9% of Red Bull's points
Ricciardo - 38.5% of Toro Rosso's points
Schumacher - 34.5% of Mercedes' points
Grosjean - 31.7% of Enstone's points
Massa - 30.5% of Ferrari's points

So Massa is the driver who contributed least to his team, though I suppose he can be forgiven somewhat, given that his teammate was fighting for the championship.

I like this. It's not the last word, but nothing else it reflects on how Kobayashi and Senna are being a bit unfairly treated. But then again Lewis didn't have any luck if he didn't have bad luck this year, Maldonado was a lot faster than Senna, and the three bottom teams' drivers can't be in the picture.

AdrianSutil · Post by **AdrianSutil** » 27 Nov 2012, 11:39

It's harsh to give it to Senna as everyone is comparing him to the Spanish race really. Finishing 14 points behind Maldonado isn't a bad achievement considering its 25 for the win. He's not been fast but has been consistent, especially in the middle part of the year with regular small points, which is what a midfield team want.

Karthikeyen too, doesn't deserve it. We all know he's only there because of his money and De La Rosa is an exceptional driver. But he's qualified ahead of DLR a few times and finished quite a few races.

In my eyes, I'm torn between Massa and Webber. Both teammates to the title contenders and were nowhere near the title fight themselves. But because of only scoring two, slightly lucky podiums, it has to go to Massa.

solarcold · Post by **solarcold** » 27 Nov 2012, 12:01

Backmarker wrote:Button - 49.7% of McLaren's points
Kobayashi - 47.6% of Sauber's points
di Resta - 42.2% of Force India's points
Senna - 40.8% of Williams' points
Webber - 38.9% of Red Bull's points
Ricciardo - 38.5% of Toro Rosso's points
Schumacher - 34.5% of Mercedes' points
Grosjean - 31.7% of Enstone's points
Massa - 30.5% of Ferrari's points

At first I wanted to protest: hey, why no mention of Karthikeyan?..
...then I understood and sobbed.

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » 27 Nov 2012, 12:08

As much as it's tempting to give it to Felipe Massa for being so comprehensively destroyed by Fernando Alonso, particularly during the first half of the season, I think someone who was not a number 2 driver by status deserves it more. And I'm thinking about Bruno Senna.

Bruno had a couple of good races (Malaysia and Hungary), but he was weekend in, weekend out, quite more slow than Pastor Maldonado. While Maldonado advanced to Q3 often, Senna couldn't. Maldonado won a race; Senna's best was a 6th. Senna was more consistent scoring, but still his results were often in the 8th-10th range, while Maldonado could comfortably take the car higher than that.

Another nomination would be Narain Karthikeyan, but we were already expecting this from him, didn't we?

Romain Grosjean doesn't look that fair a nominee. He finished well behind Kimi Räikkönen in points, but he was usually quite fast. His downfall was his inconsistency, but he was on his first full F1 season anyway. He fared much better than people believed.

James1978 · Post by **James1978** » 27 Nov 2012, 12:09

I think it's easiest to split the season into two halves and say Massa for the first half and Webber for the second. Simples (squeak)!

Backmarker · Post by **Backmarker** » 27 Nov 2012, 12:53

solarcold wrote:
Backmarker wrote:Button - 49.7% of McLaren's points
Kobayashi - 47.6% of Sauber's points
di Resta - 42.2% of Force India's points
Senna - 40.8% of Williams' points
Webber - 38.9% of Red Bull's points
Ricciardo - 38.5% of Toro Rosso's points
Schumacher - 34.5% of Mercedes' points
Grosjean - 31.7% of Enstone's points
Massa - 30.5% of Ferrari's points

At first I wanted to protest: hey, why no mention of Karthikeyan?..
...then I understood and sobbed.

Well, for the teams that scored no points, all that counts is the highest result. Then it's easy:

Heikki Kovalainen - 0% of Caterham's 11th place finishes
Charles Pic - 50% of Marussia's 12th place finishes
Pedro de la Rosa - 0% of HRT's 15th place finishes

So Heikki and PdlR were the deadest of dead weight, while Charles Pic contributed as much as Timo Glock, but as Glock acheived his result first it places him higher.

Which means that Narain Karthikeyan and Vitaly Petrov is the best lineup on the grid - better even than Alonso and Raikkonen!

Post by **mario** » 27 Nov 2012, 13:28

Phoenix wrote:As much as it's tempting to give it to Felipe Massa for being so comprehensively destroyed by Fernando Alonso, particularly during the first half of the season, I think someone who was not a number 2 driver by status deserves it more. And I'm thinking about Bruno Senna.

Bruno had a couple of good races (Malaysia and Hungary), but he was weekend in, weekend out, quite more slow than Pastor Maldonado. While Maldonado advanced to Q3 often, Senna couldn't. Maldonado won a race; Senna's best was a 6th. Senna was more consistent scoring, but still his results were often in the 8th-10th range, while Maldonado could comfortably take the car higher than that.

I would agree that comparing Massa and Alonso is somewhat unfair - although Massa's form in the earlier part of the season was poor, by the latter half of the season it meant he was having to sacrifice positions in order to preserve what slim chance of the WDC Alonso had this year (such as in Austin, where he was consistently faster than Alonso but took the hit for the team to boost Alonso's chances). At least it could be argued that Massa was in a situation where he had to finish behind Alonso, particularly in the latter half of this year, whereas on paper most of the other drivers in the field were not constrained by the WDC battle and were fairly free to race their team mates.

As for Bruno Senna, I would agree that his performance in qualifying was poor compared to Maldonado - he was consistently slower than Maldonado in qualifying apart from a couple of races, and spent much of the season being beaten by the Force India drivers when it could be argued that, at least in the earlier part of the season, Williams had the faster car over a single lap (judging by what Maldonado was capable of).
That said, I suppose there is the caveat that Williams were consistently hindering him by kicking him out of the car so Bottas could drive in the free practise sessions (Bottas ended up replacing Bruno in FP1 15 times this season) - if you're struggling for pace and concerned about your set up work, the last thing you need is to miss a third of your running time.

Shizuka · Post by **Shizuka** » 27 Nov 2012, 15:44

CarlosFerreira wrote:But then again Lewis didn't have any luck if he didn't have bad luck this year, Maldonado was a lot faster than Senna, and the three bottom teams' drivers can't be in the picture.

Exactly. Lewis retired from the lead in Singapore and Abu Dhabi. He had dominated in the latter one, and let's say he was on route to finish at least second in Singapore, so this means 43 points lost, and then we haven't taken his Spa retirement into account yet.
Of course, if we start to consider the other teams' situation into account, there would be differences there as well, but still, I believe Lewis has lost the most.

This is actually hard to nominate the DBTMOTY this season.
We have drivers that started out badly, but then turned around (Massa, Hülkenberg), or the other way around (Webber, Di Resta).

I was thinking about Schumacher, actually. Yes, he had decent moments (Monaco quali lap, definitely one of the most beautiful laps this season!), but some of this retirements were not his fault. But then again, he had some silly accidents too... Barcelona and Singapore, to be exact. However, he has had the better of Rosberg when the car turned into... let's face it, a crapbox...

Ferrim · Post by **Ferrim** » 27 Nov 2012, 16:33

Senna!

whatisf1 · Post by **whatisf1** » 27 Nov 2012, 18:23

whatisdeletrazdoing wrote:Even though The numbers don't exactly yield him the obvious vote, my vote goes to Senna. He was nvery nearly as inconsistent as Maldonado, but not nearly as quick. While they both had moments that were very unimpressive (Senna at Singapore and Valencia, Maldonado in Canada Q2, Australia spring to mind), none of Senna's performances impressed me very much. Sure, his 6th in Sepang was impressive at the time, but after seeing what Maldonado could do at his best, it didn't seem that special. I was never impressed with Senna like I was with Maldonado in Spain, Abu Dhabi, or Q3 of Belgium.

Grosjean was certainly inconsistent, but he had some truly great performances, such as Canada, Bahrain, and Hungary.
Massa was pretty appalling at times, but his late season form saved him. He was also an excellent #2, and never tried to downplay his teammates performances.

I agree completely - potatoes are more impressive than the majority of Senna's performances.

Pedestrian · Post by **Pedestrian** » 28 Nov 2012, 22:14

mario wrote:As for Bruno Senna, I would agree that his performance in qualifying was poor compared to Maldonado - he was consistently slower than Maldonado in qualifying apart from a couple of races, and spent much of the season being beaten by the Force India drivers when it could be argued that, at least in the earlier part of the season, Williams had the faster car over a single lap (judging by what Maldonado was capable of).
That said, I suppose there is the caveat that Williams were consistently hindering him by kicking him out of the car so Bottas could drive in the free practise sessions (Bottas ended up replacing Bruno in FP1 15 times this season) - if you're struggling for pace and concerned about your set up work, the last thing you need is to miss a third of your running time.

That is right. Senna started with a big disadvantage in qualifying which translated into a big disadvantage in the race. He was never going to match Maldonado in these conditions.
Also, we have to remember that Senna was new in the team, so we can assume that the car for 2012 was at least partially built around Maldonado, creating another imbalance.

Even semi-official nr.2 drivers like Massa and Webber did not have to deal with such disadvantages.

Wallio · Post by **Wallio** » 29 Nov 2012, 13:50

Put me down as another vote for Senna, yes the points gap isn't big, but thats more Pastors doin than Bruno's. Look at it ajother way, (which is also a great argument for Senna for Anonymous Driver of the Year) Each race, you knew the reverend would do three things: Make Q3, be much quicker than Bruno, Win/Crash. Each race you knew Bruno would make Q2 and sort of trundle around, maybe picking up a 9th or 10th if he had help, in a car capable of winning. Just like last year with Lotus, when Bruno did something good, like finish 6th, or make Q3, you were often more shocked than impressed.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 29 Nov 2012, 16:11

I really don't see anyone else matching Senna this year; maybe Massa if he hadn't improved in the second half of the year, but that's about it. Maldonado thrashed him on pace, and he's not exactly Fernando Alonso.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 01 Dec 2012, 17:37

I still don't get how a guy who managed to get the car to the finish of a race in a points-paying finish twice as often as his teammate did is considered DBTMOTY. I know he ended up up with fewer points overall, but much of that is due to the Spanish GP anomaly. If Pastor had managed to drag the car home into the points as often as Bruno did, I would accept the argument, but prize money and championship positions depend on finishing and scoring points, not qualifying performance.

TheBigJ · Post by **TheBigJ** » 01 Dec 2012, 17:53

If Maldonado had no DNFs, then Senna would've received a trouncing.

Wallio · Post by **Wallio** » 01 Dec 2012, 19:56

TheBigJ wrote:If Maldonado had no DNFs, then Senna would've received a trouncing.

This. Over here, during handegg games, we often say "The game wasn't nearly as close as the score indicates". Bruno wasn't anywhere near the reverand all year, dispite the score.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 01 Dec 2012, 22:02

dr-baker wrote:I still don't get how a guy who managed to get the car to the finish of a race in a points-paying finish twice as often as his teammate did is considered DBTMOTY. I know he ended up up with fewer points overall, but much of that is due to the Spanish GP anomaly. If Pastor had managed to drag the car home into the points as often as Bruno did, I would accept the argument, but prize money and championship positions depend on finishing and scoring points, not qualifying performance.

If you just look at the finishing record, then yeah, you'd be forgiven for thinking that. But that alone does not tell you how much slower Senna was that Maldonado. It was like how Massa and Alonso were at Ferrari for most of the last 3 years; Senna was so much slower than Maldonado that Maldonado by default became the team's number 1 and best hope for points; this even though 80% of the time he buried the car in a wall somewhere. That's how slow Senna was. He was so slow he was beaten by guy who was the crash king for most of the year. And it's not like he was anywhere near consistent enough to offset his sheer slowness - remember, he was eliminated in Q1 because of a driver error the same day Maldonado qualified on the front row (which later became pole). The only two times Senna outqualified Maldonado was when Maldonado had a KERS failure in Bahrain, and crashed in Canada whilst on a lap that would've put him in Q3 and comfortably ahead of Senna. In terms of qualifying errors, Senna's actually worse- worse I tell you - than Maldonado; in addition to his Barcelona fail, he crashed in Singapore, when Maldonado got on to the front row. He was generally about 6 tenths off of Maldonado; doesn't seem much, but as I recall, that was the difference between Alonso and Massa earlier this season, which also happened to be the difference between being the runaway championship leader (until Red Bull remembered there was a championship on) and bloody nowhere. And Maldonado is no Alonso.

tl;dr: Bruno Senna is shite and has no place in Formula 1. The only thing he brings to the sport is his name and his sponsorship.

Minardi Man · Post by **Minardi Man** » 01 Dec 2012, 23:00

Isn't this the DBTMOTY thread?
Then why the hell are people justifying voting for Senna because his teammate is "no Alonso" and so on, it doesn't matter who his teammate is it's just about how he performed relative to his teammate.

whatisdeletrazdoing · Post by **whatisdeletrazdoing** » 01 Dec 2012, 23:12

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:
dr-baker wrote:I still don't get how a guy who managed to get the car to the finish of a race in a points-paying finish twice as often as his teammate did is considered DBTMOTY. I know he ended up up with fewer points overall, but much of that is due to the Spanish GP anomaly. If Pastor had managed to drag the car home into the points as often as Bruno did, I would accept the argument, but prize money and championship positions depend on finishing and scoring points, not qualifying performance.

If you just look at the finishing record, then yeah, you'd be forgiven for thinking that. But that alone does not tell you how much slower Senna was that Maldonado. It was like how Massa and Alonso were at Ferrari for most of the last 3 years; Senna was so much slower than Maldonado that Maldonado by default became the team's number 1 and best hope for points; this even though 80% of the time he buried the car in a wall somewhere. That's how slow Senna was. He was so slow he was beaten by guy who was the crash king for most of the year. And it's not like he was anywhere near consistent enough to offset his sheer slowness - remember, he was eliminated in Q1 because of a driver error the same day Maldonado qualified on the front row (which later became pole). The only two times Senna outqualified Maldonado was when Maldonado had a KERS failure in Bahrain, and crashed in Canada whilst on a lap that would've put him in Q3 and comfortably ahead of Senna. In terms of qualifying errors, Senna's actually worse-worse I tell you - than Maldonado; in addition to his Barcelona fail, he crashed in Singapore, when Maldonado got on to the front row. He was generally about 6 tenths off of Maldonado; doesn't seem much, but as I recall, that was the difference between Alonso and Massa earlier this season, which also happened to be the difference between being the runaway championship leader (until Red Bull remembered there was a championship on) and bloody nowhere. And Maldonado is no Alonso.

tl;dr: Bruno Senna is shite and has no place in Formula 1. The only thing he brings to the sport is his name and his sponsorship.

THIIIIIIIIISSSSSS.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 02 Dec 2012, 09:07

dr-baker wrote:I still don't get how a guy who managed to get the car to the finish of a race in a points-paying finish twice as often as his teammate did is considered DBTMOTY. I know he ended up up with fewer points overall, but much of that is due to the Spanish GP anomaly. If Pastor had managed to drag the car home into the points as often as Bruno did, I would accept the argument, but prize money and championship positions depend on finishing and scoring points, not qualifying performance.

I'm on this boat. For 60% of the season Maldonado was my prime candidate to the ROTY award.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 02 Dec 2012, 10:03

Minardi Man wrote:Isn't this the DBTMOTY thread?
Then why the hell are people justifying voting for Senna because his teammate is "no Alonso" and so on, it doesn't matter who his teammate is it's just about how he performed relative to his teammate.

That's my point exactly. Pastor Maldonado is not the best driver out there, but he compared with Senna he looked brilliant. That's why Senna is the only choice for this award. He was so slow he made Maldonado - even at the height of his crashing - look preferable.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 02 Dec 2012, 10:08

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:
Minardi Man wrote:Isn't this the DBTMOTY thread?
Then why the hell are people justifying voting for Senna because his teammate is "no Alonso" and so on, it doesn't matter who his teammate is it's just about how he performed relative to his teammate.

That's my point exactly. Pastor Maldonado is not the best driver out there, but he compared with Senna he looked brilliant. That's why Senna is the only choice for this award. He was so slow he made Maldonado - even at the height of his crashing - look preferable.

BINGO! Someone give this man a beer.

The fact the guy was a persona-non-grata at Williams by about mid-August speaks volumes of just how poor he was compared to Maldonado in the eyes of Sir Frank and co.

TheBigJ · Post by **TheBigJ** » 02 Dec 2012, 15:30

I think Karthikeyan is a close second to Senna though. Consistently out qualified by De La Rosa by about a second at the start of the season. Not much improvement after

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 02 Dec 2012, 19:03

TheBigJ wrote:I think Karthikeyan is a close second to Senna though. Consistently out qualified by De La Rosa by about a second at the start of the season. Not much improvement after

Not much improvement? He outqualified de la Rosa twice! And on merit, which is more than you can say for Senna.