Effect of current points scheme on 1999 season

  • Thread starter Thread starter vat_man
  • 18 comments
  • 773 views
V

vat_man

Staff Emeritus
Messages
9,428
Giles, you'll love this.


I was fooling around in Excel tonight, and applied the current point scoring system to the 1999 season. I got this interesting result...

Total
96 Irvine
88 Hakkinen
74 Frentzen
62 Coulthard
57 Schumacher R
55 Schumacher M
38 Barrichello
23 Fisichella
21 Herbert
18 Hill
18 Trulli
16 Salo
14 Wurz
9 Alesi
9 Diniz
7 Panis
4 Zanardi
4 Gene
3 de la Rosa
3 Takagi
3 Zonta
1 Badoer
1 Villeneuve

Curiously, under both the old and new systems, Montoya would still be trailing M Schumacher by 6 points for this season...
 
Ha Ha Ha, the loudmouth wins the championship!

I prefer Mika myself

Strange about the current season, just as amatter of intrest, what are the points for this year using the old system?
 
Michael woulda won that year if not for silverstone. How irvine managed to screw up that season, know one will ever know.

Ps you gotta lotta free time on your hands - but it is well used ;) ;)
 
Originally posted by Mike Rotch
Michael woulda won that year if not for silverstone. How irvine managed to screw up that season, know one will ever know.

Ps you gotta lotta free time on your hands - but it is well used ;) ;)
Click to expand...

Actually, I was fooling around with the Index and Match functions in Excel trying out some ideas for something I'm putting together for work - and I wasn't going to do actual work on a Sunday night, so I thought this would be interesting content.

I agree on Michael winning it had he not broken his leg - but there you go.
 
Originally posted by Mike Rotch
Michael woulda won that year if not for silverstone. How irvine managed to screw up that season, know one will ever know.

Ps you gotta lotta free time on your hands - but it is well used ;) ;)
Click to expand...

Well, the fact that Irvine didn't win the championship is due to two factors:
1. He's rubbish.
2. Ferrari didn't want him to win it.

The 1999 season really killed Eddie Irvine. It was his one chance, and he blew it. In the team withthe best shot at winning the title, he couldn't manage it. And (other items aside), his failure wasn't in the strategy, or in the car build, but was in his own inability to live with Hakkinen in a straight fight. It was the year when what we'd all suspected (that he was gobby so-and-so, all mouth and no trousers) was irreconcilably proven.

So, why do I say that Ferrari didn't want him to win the championship?

Let's face it, Ferrari only run two cars because they have to. They would much rather just run Michael Schumacher, because the second driver is, frankly, a distraction. Now, if you pay someone $25m per year to do a job, and then someone else $3m a year to be unobtrusive (nice work if you can get it), it's going to be a bit embarrassing when your $3m lackey goes and achieves what you've spent 21 years trying to do. It makes the $75m you've given to Mr Schumacher over the previous three years look like rather poor value for money.

I think Ferrari deliberately threw the 1999 championship, and if you doubt me, just watch a re-run of the Nurburgring race. It was only right that Jordan came so close to pulling off the unthinkable. McLaren had relaxed after the leg-breaking incident, and had started to develop the next year's car, believing that Ferrari without Schumacher couldn't win. They were right, but only just. Them taking their eye off the ball would have given Ferrari the championship, had Ferrari not been in the process of throwing it.

This is why I call 1999 the "No, after YOU" year.

I would have been most upset had Irvine won it.
 
Originally posted by Bollocks#999
Strange about the current season, just as amatter of intrest, what are the points for this year using the old system?
Click to expand...
It would be:
Total
57 Schumacher M
51 Montoya
46 Raikkonen
38 Schumacher R
34 Barrichello
27 Coulthard
26 Alonso
10 Trulli
10 Fisichella
3 Frentzen
3 Button
2 Da Matta
2 Webber
2 Panis
1 Villeneuve

compared to the actuality:

71 Schumacher M
65 Montoya
62 Raikkonen
53 Schumacher R
49 Barrichello
44 Alonso
41 Coulthard
22 Trulli
12 Button
12 Webber
10 Fisichella
8 Da Matta
7 Frentzen
6 Panis
3 Villeneuve
2 Heidfeld
1 Firman

Giles - you've got two reasons to hate the new system - Irvine, 99 champ, and Firman has a point!
 
Say, what happened at nurburg in 99. I cant remember. Was it the trademark "whats going on? the fuel hose wont fit!" story?
 
No, no. It was more "Eek. No tyres!". So an 8 second stop became a 30 second stop and a race loss.
 
Yes I agree with Giles 100% I'm really glad Ferrari didn't win the championship that year with Irvine, even being a Ferrari fan. Like you said, if Schumacher hadn't broken his leg at Silverstone, he probably would have won the championship. That was my first real year of watching Formula One, when I actually became interested in the sport, so Giles, can you please tell me what the standings were like before Michael broke his leg? I'd like to see what the championship fight was like prior to it :)
 
I'm a Ferrari fan (Barrichello!) but I'm also glad they didn't win. Otherwise, people might get a little biased to the fact that Ferrari is just...Ferrari, no compeitition. No words for it, y'know?
 
Ok, 1999 Championship prior to British Grand Prix:

Pts Driver
-------------
40 Hakkinen
32 Schumacher M.
26 Irvine
23 Frentzen
15 Schumacher R.
13 Fisichella
12 Coulthard
10 Barichello
3 Hill
2 Herbert
1 De La Rosa
1 Panis
1 Alesi
1 Gene
1 Wurz
1 Trulli
1 Diniz
 
Originally posted by Majarvis
Oh, so Mika was in the lead anyway, well that foils my theory that Michael was in the lead, lol.
Click to expand...

Well, that part of it, anyway - it was going to be a pretty big struggle, but the Ferraris were starting to get the upper hand, and had better reliability. If Irvine got that close, you can speculate how Schumacher would have gone
 
just think of it this way... If Michael Schumacher would have had the exact same results as Irvine did for the rest of the year, those 6 points he had over Irvine would have been enough to win the championship while finishing third at Suzuka like Irvine finished.

Edit: And chances are he would have done even better than Irvine.
 
Yeah you're both right, damn... that sucks... oh well.

Can anyone please tell me the circumstances that surrounded Schumi's off at Stowe? Was it failing brakes? If so, what would have caused that?
 
The way it used to go in those days was that McLaren would build a quick car that was a bit fragile. Nonetheless, they would pull out a championship lead in the first few rounds.

Ferrari would build a car that was slower but more reliable. They then went and developed the car at a frantic pace (I'm talking new front and rear wings at pretty well every race), and would (with Schumacher) be quicker by the end of the season.

From what I can remember, the accident at Stowe wass put down to incorrectly-bled rear brakes. Certainly the car appeared to be trying to stop with the front wheels only. That said, the race had already been red-flagged for an incident at Copse, and Schuey was well too late on the brakes. It was mechanical failure and driver error, in my opinion.
 
Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
The way it used to go in those days was that McLaren would build a quick car that was a bit fragile. Nonetheless, they would pull out a championship lead in the first few rounds.

Ferrari would build a car that was slower but more reliable. They then went and developed the car at a frantic pace (I'm talking new front and rear wings at pretty well every race), and would (with Schumacher) be quicker by the end of the season.

From what I can remember, the accident at Stowe wass put down to incorrectly-bled rear brakes. Certainly the car appeared to be trying to stop with the front wheels only. That said, the race had already been red-flagged for an incident at Copse, and Schuey was well too late on the brakes. It was mechanical failure and driver error, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

*chuckle*, i personally dont hink it was human error, rather brake failure. Just think, if shumie had won that year, which was likely, and not had Coulthard lift off the gas (read "essentially brake") at a monsoonish Spa the previous year (was it then, or the year after??), Schumie would be gunning for his 8th title now :eek: :eek:


PS that non finish at Spa cost shumie the title, cos i think he went into Suzuka needing a victory when he otherwise wouldnt have needed one....
 
I was sitting in the grandstand on the entry to Stowe that day I remember the crowd cheering when Schuey went off it went quite when he didnt jump straight out of the car though.

By the way I really wanted Irv to win that year.:p
 

Latest Posts

Back