Abstract
Everybody wants to—absolutely, relatively and/or symbolically—win in sports competitions (as in daily challenges). Formula One drivers are not exempted. However, winning in sports is the result of talent, starting conditions, training, effective budgets, and luck. Therefore, winning in Formula One is discussed here based on the various dimensions analysed in the existing literature. In this chapter, I also extend the discussion to drivers’ standings, independently of podium drivers. Additionally, competitive balance is also analysed because sports whose winners are easily predicted become boring and have serious problems of sustainability. Therefore, discussing the competitive balance of Formula One is a relevant initial step for understanding how Formula One has evolved since the early races of the 1950s.
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Notes
- 1.
Some reviewers of this book suggested the relevance of dividing the average time margin by the average length of each season. The major rationale was that a margin of two seconds in a race lasting two hours has a different interpretation from a margin of two seconds in a race lasting four hours. I followed their advice and the achieved results did not return significant changes regarding the evolution of the margins exhibited in Fig. 4.1.
- 2.
There are always weaknesses in every indicator. For instance, the HHI depends on the number of competitors. Although it is not linear, the fact is that a larger number of competitors tend to generate a lower HHI, associated with a more competitive championship. However, the use of different measures (as alternative independent variables—employed here) minimizes the individual bias of resorting to only one indicator.
- 3.
For the seasons of the early races (1950–1979) a team’s points were not the simple sum of its drivers’ points. In some seasons, only the best-placed car from each manufacturer was eligible to score points, and additionally, for other seasons, for classification, only the best five results from the first half of the season and the best five results from the second half of the season were summed.
- 4.
I also computed these values, taking into consideration only the system of rewards used between 1962 and 1990 (nine points for the winner, six for the runner-up, four for the third, three for the fourth, two for the fifth and one for the sixth), without significant differences. (Full details are available upon request).
- 5.
Just for comparative purposes, observe that the fifty-six races before the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix only had four different winners (a historical record): Rosberg, Vettel, Hamilton, and Ricciardo.
- 6.
Other interesting indicators of Formula One competitive balance are provided by Burn-Murdoch (2016).
- 7.
As observed earlier in this chapter, a decreasing number of expected outsiders at each podium has also been identified for this period.
- 8.
On this topic, check Watkins (2006).
- 9.
As of September 2015, there were only twenty-three drivers securing fifty-five Grand Chelems, meaning there is an expectation of one Grand Chelem for every twenty races.
- 10.
The share of Formula One women drivers is low: six per thousand Formula One drivers. Although there have always been gender controversies (Crash.net 2016; Rowntree 2013), we believe things change and new challenges will open the Formula One world to more competitive women drivers. Therefore, this book has not put particular emphasis on the gender inequality in Formula One. For an enlarged discussion of this issue, I suggest reading the following references: Ross et al. (2009), Burman (2000), and Pflugfelder (2009).
- 11.
For me, there are three admirable examples of winning from low positions in the starting grids: the record of John Watson’s victory from twenty-second in the grid at the 1983 United States Grand Prix West; Ruben Barrichello’s victory from eighteenth in the grid at the 2000 German Grand Prix; and Alain Prost, who won the Mexican Grand Prix of 1990, starting from the thirteenth position.
- 12.
Hausman tests have been run for testing the hypothesis of exogenous regressors. The p-value has been 0.529.
- 13.
An interesting set of data related to this issue is provided on the site Formula One Overtaking Database, available at http://cliptheapex.com/overtaking/.
- 14.
Therefore, the percentage of podiums for each team is calculated as the ratio of the ‘number of the drivers (in that team) at the podium positions’ divided by the ‘number of starts of the drivers (in that team)’.
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Mourão, P. (2017). Determinants of a Victory in Formula One. In: The Economics of Motorsports. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60249-7_4
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