Analysing Lewis Hamilton’s Stunning Qualifying Improvement Versus Nico Rosberg

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: July 12, 2015

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After nine races of the 2014 Formula One season, Nico Rosberg had outqualified his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton 5-4, and each driver had scored four pole positions. At the same point this year, about halfway through the season's 19 races, Hamilton has outqualified Rosberg 8-1 (the two Merc drivers have swept the front row of the grid seven times and taken all nine poles).

But what is behind this swing in qualifying fortunes? Has Hamilton improved that much, or has Rosberg regressed? And what does it mean for the rest of the season?

To find out, let's take a look at some numbers. The table below shows the qualifying gap from Hamilton to Rosberg at each of the first nine races in 2014 and 2015 (negative numbers indicate Hamilton was ahead).



Note that Hamilton's time for the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix is for Q2, as he did not post a time in Q3. As well, the gap between the drivers at the 2014 British Grand Prix does not represent Hamilton's actual pace, as he abandoned his final flying lap on a drying track thinking he could not improve after the first two sectors. Rosberg finished his lap and improved significantly in the final sector.

Last year, in the four races where Rosberg qualified ahead (excluding the British Grand Prix), Hamilton was an average of 0.141 seconds behind. This season, in the eight races where Hamilton has started in front, the average gap to Rosberg has been nearly double: 0.279 seconds (it was 0.609 seconds in 2014, but three of those four qualifying sessions were wet—again, perhaps not a true picture of the drivers' relative paces, but an indication of Hamilton's prowess in the rain).

Clearly, Hamilton is on another level this year. An average qualifying gap of more than a quarter-of-a-second to a team-mate driving the same car is big—but not unheard of. In 2011, for example, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel outqualified Mark Webber 16 ti...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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