2012 Formula One Season

[tubeguru]

Your source for this?

[moley]

It's all over twitter and the beeb confirmed during the highlights package.

[Root]

Yep, I got that now. The Bahrain scores are up now.

Uefacup81 takes the round victory with 139 points, 15 ahead of the nearest challenger. The people who submitted picks at the start of the season, when Vettel was expected to dominate, did well in this round, while most of the people who made fresh picks lost out. This season is proving difficult to predict. Garion stays in the lead, though his lead is cut slightly.

Next round is Spain in three weeks' time.

[hopeful traveller]

Your results link isn't working.

[Root]

I notice is.gd have removed direct access to Google Docs. The link does still work though, you just have to click through. Bookmark the actual spreadsheet URL if that's too much trouble for you.

[The Raven]

I can't believe I forgot to enter picks the Bahrain Grand Prix. I feel such an idiot!

[Root]

I apologise for absence of a reminder for the Spanish Grand Prix. After three weeks without F1, it completely slipped my mind. You can enter up until the start of FP2, rather than the usual FP1, because I forgot. It's at the usual location.

[Root]

We've now had five different winners from five different teams in the first five races, which is just remarkable. The difficulty in predicting this season shows itself in our predictions game, as between us we only managed to get one driver/position combination correct from 130 chances (13 players, 10 drivers each).

The Raven was top scorer this round with just 83 points. The mean score was a measly 68. Garion retains the overall lead, but his lead has shrunk to 15 points.

The next round is Monaco in a fortnight's time. I'll try to post a more timely reminder this time around, but in case I forget, remember that the first two practice sessions take place on a Thursday, not a Friday, so the deadline is correspondingly earlier.

[tubeguru]

The last season with five different winners from five different races was 1983, when the winners were:

Brazil - Nelson Piquet (Brabham)
US West - John Watson (McLaren)
France - Alain Prost (Renault)
San Marino - Patrick Tambay (Ferrari)
Monaco - Keke Rosberg (Williams)

Prost then ruined the run with victory in the sixth round at Spa.

[The Raven]

The last season with five different winners from five different races was 1983, when the winners were:

Brazil - Nelson Piquet (Brabham)
US West - John Watson (McLaren)
France - Alain Prost (Renault)
San Marino - Patrick Tambay (Ferrari)
Monaco - Keke Rosberg (Williams)

Prost then ruined the run with victory in the sixth round at Spa.

Has there ever been six different winners in the first six races?

[palkanetoijala31]

Perhaps the previous season 1982? im not sure but no driver won more than 2 that year whether 6 differant in the first 6 races im not sure.?

[tubeguru]

OK, here is the complete list of how many different winners there have been at the start of each season, until someone won a second race. In seasons where the Indianapolis 500 counted towards the championship I have ignored this race. Note, that this list is only for different DRIVERS. Some of the different winners drove for the same team.

1950: 2
1951: 2
1952: 2
1953: 1
1954: 1
1955: 2
1956: 3
1957: 1
1958: 2
1959: 3
1960: 3
1961: 4
1962: 4
1963: 2
1964: 2
1965: 2
1966: 3
1967: 5 (Pedro Rodriguez, Denny Hulme, Jim Clark, Dan Gurney, Jack Brabham)
1968: 2
1969: 1
1970: 4
1971: 2
1972: 4
1973: 1
1974: 4
1975: 5 (Emerson Fittipaldi, Carlos Pace, Jody Scheckter, Jochen Mass, Niki Lauda)
1976: 1
1977: 4
1978: 3
1979: 1
1980: 2
1981: 3
1982: 1 (would have been two if Nelson Piquet had not been disqualified from the opening race in Brazil)
1983: 5 (Nelson Piquet, John Watson, Alain Prost, Patrick Tambay, Keke Rosberg)
1984: 3
1985: 3
1986: 3
1987: 2
1988: 2
1989: 2
1990: 3
1991: 1
1992: 1
1993: 2
1994: 1
1995: 2
1996: 1
1997: 2
1998: 1
1999: 3
2000: 1
2001: 1
2002: 2
2003: 4
2004: 1
2005: 2
2006: 2
2007: 3
2008: 3
2009: 1
2010: 3
2011: 1
2012: 5 (Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Pastor Maldonaldo, ??????

Seasons where five different drivers have won the first five races are highlighted in bold above.

So the record is five, and will remain so if one of the 2012 winners comes first in Monaco. If Hamilton can sort himself out, he may well be the man to break the record for drivers, but not for drivers AND teams as Button has already won for McLaren this season.

With regard to the 1982 season Andi, that was the year when no single driver won more than two races, and eventual champion Rosberg won only once, winning the title with a measly 44 points. Imagine someone doing that now. John Watson should have been champion that year - he suffered a big setback when he retired in Germany while leading. Had he won that race, he would have gone on to win the title easily.

[dudey]

Hello!

I thought I'd point out to the people who play Ollie's prediction competition that FP1 in Monaco starts at 9am on this THURSDAY.

[tubeguru]

And thanks for the power of my random number program, my top ten are:

1. Schumacher
2. Karthikeyan
3. Kovalainen
4. Kobayashi
5. Button
6. Pic
7. Rosberg
8. Senna
9. de la Rosa
10. Perez

I don't fancy my chances ...

[Root]

Hello!

I thought I'd point out to the people who play Ollie's prediction competition that FP1 in Monaco starts at 9am on this THURSDAY.

Thanks Matt. I was going to post a reminder myself tomorrow, but now I don't have to