This Week In 2016: Rosberg’s Triumph In An Odd Season

Throughout motorsport history, we have seen time and time again a situation of a team favouring one driver over another. Over the past few seasons, it seems fairly obvious that Max Verstappen is the golden boy of the Red Bull Racing family, and rightly so. Time and time again we have heard team bosses and managers say that their drivers are treated equally, but are they? 

Well, in 2016 I think that we can say that this was the case through Toto Wolff’s management of the Mercedes F1 team in 2016. The straight-shooting Austrian was just getting started with his championship domination, as Lewis Hamilton was fresh off two consecutive championship wins. Such was Mercedes’ domination that they could let their drivers race freely without fear of losing valuable championship points through their drivers crashing into each other. This style of management gave us a thrilling battle through the season that was filled with highs, lows, and some very interesting stats.

While this season was purely a battle between teammates it delivered one of our closest and most thrilling championship battles since the 2010 F1 season. Also with Daniel Ricciardo nipping at their heels in third place, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Nico Rosberg could let up during the year. This week in motorsport history we take a look at the 2016 Formula 1 World Championship’s interesting quirks and facts as to why this is a season to remember. 

The last 14 F1 championships have been won by just four different drivers and two different teams. Mercedes’ championship-winning drivers include Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, while Red Bull’s champions are Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen. During these 14 seasons, it was a fairly rare circumstance to see a team allow two drivers to fight each other when they are in a championship-winning contention. This only happened in 2010 with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull, as well as in 2014-2016 with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes.

2016 was a different season as the championship fight was only amongst teammates. We have seen teammates fight before such as in 2010, but here there were also other drivers involved from other teams. You have to go back to the McLaren and Williams teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s to find another example of this kind of championship fight. So this was a unique feature of this season that we haven’t seen since, and one I and F1 fans are glad the Mercedes team allowed to happen. While the domination of a single team can become monotonous, this season is a perfect example that it need not be boring.

To many people, it would make sense that the driver that wins the most races would win the championship, but that is not quite how it works. As points are handed out down to 10th place, any finishing position above 10th will count towards your championship. This system rewards both race wins and consistency, which happen to be common denominators with all champions. In some seasons it has been mathematically possible to secure a championship without a race win, although this has never happened.

This season was one of those times where the driver who won the most races did not win the championship, as Lewis Hamilton scored 10 wins to Nico Rosberg’s 9. Winning a championship with fewer wins than others was a fairly common occurrence up until the 1990s, due to highly unreliable cars. Since 1990 there have only been two seasons where this has happened, making it an extremely rare circumstance. The other time this happened was Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 championship win when he won 5 races to Felipe Massa’s 6.

I have also found another stat that makes this championship stand out, the average points per race finished. I find this to be the fairest way to measure the success of a driver, particularly when comparing them to a teammate. Simply averaging performance over every race is not fair as some drivers may have more instances of not completing a race than others. In 2016 Nico Rosberg scored an average of 19.25 points per race finished, while Lewis Hamilton scored 20. This is an extremely rare stat as usually those who have not won as many races as those below them will have a higher average position, making them the champion.

After pouring over the results of the 2016 championship I have found a pretty obvious place where Rosberg managed to clinch the title. Over the course of the season Hamilton and Rosberg were so evenly matched that it came down to one crucial race that swung the championship in Rosberg’s favour. As it was still early on in the season the full cost of this to Hamilton was not fully clear. This season saw Hamilton fail to finish (DNF) two races, whereas Rosberg only had one DNF. Because of the average points per race finished Hamilton would have only needed to eliminate one of those DNF’s to be champion.

The crucial race that I believe decided this championship was the Spanish Grand Prix, round five of that years championship. It funnily enough was also Max Verstappen’s first race with Red Bull, after they promoted him mid-season from the Red Bull Junior team Toro Rosso. Over the remainder of the season the drivers were neck and neck, but a late season engine failure at the Malaysian Grand Prix all but sealed Rosberg’s title. Hamilton did everything possible after this by winning all four remaining races, but the engine failure combined with the crash was enough to swing the championship in Rosberg’s favour.

The 2016 was a thrilling and whacky season despite the dominance of Mercedes, as both their drivers raced for the championship. The only other drivers to win a race in that season were the Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen with one win each. Even though they had one of Formula 1’s most dominant cars I cannot take anything away from Rosberg in this season as 2016 is one of only three seasons in which a teammate has beaten Hamilton. It is also very fitting that Rosberg tops this off by becoming only the second son of a former Formula 1 champion to also become a champion. Nico Rosberg’s father is Finnish driver Keke Rosberg, who won the championship in 1982.