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According to my pure speed measurements after race 5 of 2014, the Hamilton/Mercedes has about a 0.8% advantage over its next-fastest rival, the Vettel-Ricciardo/Red Bull-Renault.

Despite the Vettel/Red Bull-Renault domination of 2013 and 2011, this package's advantage then was only about 0.2% season average.

How does the Hamilton/Mercedes's speed advantage of 0.8% compare historically?
1.0%:
Moss/Cooper-Climax over Brooks/Ferrari
0.9%:
1994 the two fastest packages were equal, the Senna/Williams-Renault and Schumacher/Benetton-Cosworth; they had a speed advantage of 0.9% over the next-fastest rival, the Berger/Ferrari.
1961 Von Trips/Ferrari over Brabham/Cooper-Climax
1958 Moss/Vanwall over Hawthorn /Ferrari

0.7%:
1984 Prost/McLaren-Porsche over equal second-fastest rivals Alboreto/Ferrari, Mansell/Lotus-Renault, Piquet/Brabham-BMW
2007 McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari F2007 equal, over Heidfeld/BMW-Sauber.

The 2014 Hamilton/Mercedes package does have a huge advantage, but is is no record.

The F1 record package advantage was in 1950, when the Fangio/Alfa Romeo was a huge 2.7% faster than its nearest rival package, the Ascari/Ferrari 125C2 (1.5-litre supercharged engine). This was for the first five races. At the sixth and last race, Ascari had a new 375 Ferrari (4.5-litre unsupercharged engine) which proved to be just 0.4% slower than the Fangio/Alfa Romeo package.

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Interesting post, POB. As it happens, I was just wondering yesterday whether the 1988 McLaren was very dominant or if it was the perfect storm of Senna and Prost, both close or at their peak, driving a car that was by no means bad but perhaps not as dominant pace wise as the 15/16 strike rate suggests. Do you mind sharing with us how that car compares with the ones in your original post please?

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"Jean Alesi is using the Maginot Line policy-You shall not pass!"-Murray Walker

I also sometimes think it was largely the 1988 McLaren-Honda drivers' excellence that was responsible for the team's dominance. But as usual in F1 there are few one-liner answers. The Senna package had a 0.6% advantage, just less than those mentioned above. But still a huge, comfortable advantage.

It is interesting to compare this with, say, the Schumacher/ Ferrari advantages, and those of the Clark/Lotus-Climax and-Cosworth packages. Comparative dominances are more clearly explained by the numbers.

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Interesting, so the 1988 McLaren was less dominant perhaps, than the 1984 McLaren...but the superior reliability secured a higher strike rate for wins.

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"Jean Alesi is using the Maginot Line policy-You shall not pass!"-Murray Walker

The 1988 McLaren was dominant because they were the only team that bothered to build a car specifically to tackle the challenges of that year and not to just concentrate on trying to build a car for the following season's regulation changes. The car was totally dominant and the only reason it didn't win every race was because of an incident with a backmarker at the Italian Grand Prix, which I believe was fixed so as to give Ferrari a victory in the year that Il Commendatore died. The car was dominant. Nothing else could catch it. You can't qualify domination/dominance. It couldn't have been "more dominant". It beat everything else except when it got punted off.

Flyboy10, I agree with your reasoning on why the 1988 McLaren-Honda's were dominant and could/should have got a full-house.

However I disagree that dominance cannot be quantified. My System has produced the following (as brief examples):

The 1998 McLarens were only 0.5-0.6% faster than the next-fastest rival package, they won 94% of their races.
The 1950 Alfa Romeos enjoyed a higher speed advantage, as did the 1952 Ferraris, and both won 100.0%.
The 1961 Ferraris were about the same margin ahead of their next-fastest rival as the 1952 Ferraris, and yet only won 68%.
In 2011 the Vettel/Red Bull-Renault was not much faster than its nearest rival, but won the same 63% as the 1961 Ferrari.
In 2004 the Schumacher/Ferrari was not much faster than its nearest rival, but won 83%.

There are reasons for these comparative discrepancies between package speed advantages and win rates. They have largely to do with the separate driver and car ratings, and are explained in my blog publications. F1 racing is very complex and each race and season requires its own detailed analysis.

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http://grandprixratings.blogspot.com

1994
1984
2007

I don't think those should be on the list to compare with Mercedes, as the fastest cars were joint fastest and so had at least competition to face unlike the rest were one car/driver combo was very superior to everyone else.

In f1 a 0.3% advantage would translate to a lot over a race distance or even a longer lap such a gap is plenty. so 0.8 is immense (although i suspect a number even higher than that and the tyres are evening things out!), what is the Mercedes advantage pre race in your system? just looking at qualifyings?

from looking at your findings it has been such a long time that such a gap ever existed, the cars nowadays are very close in performance, and have been so for the last decade that it wasn't evident that a single team had such an advantage.


I hope things improve next season

In your OP, it also draws my mind on how good Heidfeld was!

I did rate Kubica and Nick outraced him in most of their time together, he was no journeyman.

Agreed 1994 and 2007 had shared fastest packages and cannot be compared to 2014. But 1984 was more comparable, because no other package was close to the Prost/Lauda/McLaren-Porsches.

Single-make package-wise you are right, it has not been since 1961 that such a gap existed as the Mercedes have now in 2014. Carwise it was late-fifties and mid-sixties.

I have stated bare stats here for brevity; each season really needs an explanation, each different and too long for the Forum.

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Heidfeld was under-rated, a really good driver. I too rated Kubica very highly, and think he could have got to the top, or close to it.

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