- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
Now see that, right there? That's you falling into the trap of the gambler's fallacy. Say you're playing roulette in a casino and for the past fifty spins of the wheel, the ball has always landed on red. Now, the temptation is there to gamble on the ball landing on a red number for the fifty-first spin, because the pattern has so far always come up red. But each spin of the roulette wheel is a separate spin; the fiftieth spin has no influence on the fifty-first, just as the forty-ninth spin had no influence on the fiftieth.
Now, I know Formula One is far more complex than a simple game of chance - indeed, chance has very little to do with it - but just because Massa has won the past three races does not mean that he will win the next. After all, Kimi Raikkonen won the inaugural event in 2005, so one could make the argument that Massa has, at best, a seventy-five percent chance of winning. But that argument would be based on Massa and Raikkonen being the only cars in the race. There are a whole host of factors that you have to consider: the weather could turn wet, for one; this year the race is being held in the Turkish summer as opposed to spring and autumn in the past. Istanbul is a vastly different circuit to Monaco, so Red Bull's diffuser may come good. The tyre compounds Bridgestone brings could suffer severe unprecedented graining between qualifying and the race the way they did in Monaco. Since the 2009 regulations are so very different to the 2008 rules, Brawn are still the team to beat based on their consistency. After all, for all the advantages that Ferrari's overhaul afforded the F60 in the past two races, they were still unable to catch the Brawns in cars that have remained relatively the same between events (and by 'relatively the same', I mean relatively the same compared to the Ferraris).
My point is that each race has to be taken on its individual merits, rather like an individual spin of the roulette wheel (but unlike roulette, Formula One is dictated by far more variables than chance, and so it is easier to make an informed guess at who is likely to come out on top). Simply because Massa has three wins in Turkey does not guarantee him a forth consecutive title. It helps his odds, yes, but there is no one circuit that has had every Grand Prix won by a single driver regardless of the car he is driving. Of course, the same variables that dictate the performance of one driver dicate the individual performances of all drivers, and thus Massa is by no means assured of victory.
