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PDF EDITION 2020 The Best Japanese Formula 1 Driver Of All Time Who is the greatest Japanese driver to have raced in Formula 1? Now Available on Amazon Click the images above to learn more Chris Morris This book is copyright protected, and it is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote or paraphrase any part of the content within the book without the written consent of the author or copyright owner. Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and accurate as possible. Although the author and publisher have prepared this publication with the greatest of care, and every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, we assume no responsibility or liability for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. The purpose of this book is to entertain. The author and publisher do not warrant that the information contained in the book is fully accurate or complete and shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions. The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Xania XB9 ISBN: 9798582903680 © Copyright 2020 Xania Books. All Rights Reserved CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE STARTING GRID AN UNFAIR COMPARISON A COMPARISON ACROSS DIFFERENT ERAS THE BEST OF THE BEST CONCLUSION PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INDEX A Comparison Across Different Eras Points alone do not indicate a driver’s skill. Many other factors come into play which can help or hinder a driver’s points haul. Would Ayrton Senna have won three World Driver’s Championships and 65 pole positions behind the wheel of a Lola-Lamborghini or a Footwork-Mugen Honda, for example? We have witnessed quite recently the struggles of two World Champions, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, in a McLaren-Honda. Would Lewis Hamilton have fared any better and still won those multiple World Championships in that car? The answer, clearly, is ‘no’. The Logic of the Algorithm So, to establish the best driver - by results at least - it is necessary to level the playing field, making use of a new, unique, algorithm which I have developed to take account of many variables which can affect a driver’s results. Among these are, of course, the car itself. To take this into account a statistically calculated weighting is applied to each car according to its ability to take a driver to the front of the field. This weighting is then deducted from a driver’s overall points total. Other variables include each car’s season-long reliability. A Mercedes in the current era appears to have greater reliability than most other cars, and far more than cars from previous eras. Also, each driver’s team-mate is an important factor, which can be used for adding to, or reducing, a driver’s revised point score within each season. After all, to win a race, first you have to beat your team-mate in the same car. The algorithm calculates how many times a driver overcame their team-mate. Of course, this can be quite meaningless if one doesn’t also take into account the ability, the quality of that team-mate. You would expect Michael Schumacher, for example, to be more difficult to match as a team-mate (particularly if designated as the ‘number one’ in the team, officially or not) than, for example, a driver in their first season in Formula One. Another variable which is used to adjust a driver’s points total is the quality of the field in a particular year. A driver’s contemporaries are not always equal in ability when compared with other seasons, as referred to earlier in relation to the 1994 season, which lacked competition from two all-time greats, Alain Prost and (for the most part) Ayrton Senna. Surely that season was easier to compete in than the previous one. Many other factors similar to these are taken into account by the algorithm, not least of which is the amount of races actually finished by each driver throughout their career, rather than the amount of races started. Naturally, a proportion of non-finishes are due to driver error, but most often they are non-fault failures. If this factor was not taken into account then it goes without saying that drivers of the present day would always appear to be better, statistically at least, than those of bygone eras, simply because of car reliability, as referred to earlier. Lewis Hamilton, for example, had retired from just 9.2% of race starts (as of the start of the 2020 season), failing to finish a mere 23 races out of 250. Contrast this with Ayrton Senna’s racing career, now around 30 years ago, and it is easy to see the great improvements in car reliability. Senna retired from 50 of 161 race starts, representing 30.67%. His win ratio for each completed race would then be 36.28%. Going further back into history, the great Jim Clark failed to finish in 23 of his 72 race starts (31.9%), which makes his win ratio even higher (25 from 49 completed races, which is 51%). Prior to this period the statistics become a little more murky, as it was common for a lead driver in a failed car to take over a team-mate’s car to complete the race as a ‘shared drive’. Apart from these multiple World Champions, some highly skilful and greatly admired drivers fail to achieve the results that their driving merits, often through bad luck. You would tend to assume that luck will even itself out, and yet over the years there do seem to be some drivers who should have won a World Championship, or even just one race, but circumstances conspire to prevent it, repeatedly. Sometimes this could be an accident or premature death. Many drivers in history have been highly-rated for their talent, but not as successful by results as one would have expected. Chris Amon, Jules Bianchi, Stirling Moss, Tom Pryce, and Gilles Villeneuve come to mind. One could even include World Champions Fernando Alonso and Ayrton Senna in the list, as well as many others. So it is important to note that wins and points gained owe a certain element to luck. Being in the right place, or car, at the right time, another driver’s misfortune, your own car’s reliability, the good fortune of not being driven into by another driver, team decisions during a race, all of these and more can influence a driver’s career results. After all, Felipe Massa was ‘World Champion’ for 15 seconds or so in 2008, and if Timo Glock had not lost grip and run wide just in front of Lewis Hamilton at the end of the last lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix then history would have been different. However, extrapolating results from as much of a level-playing field as possible will indicate which driver has had the most successful career, at least, bearing in mind the provisos referred to above. The next Chapter is: ‘The Results – The Best of The Best’, but first you need to go back to ‘The Starting Grid’. ********************************************************** This Book is Now Available on Amazon Click the images above to learn more SNEAK PREVIEW OF MY NEXT BOOK: "What If...Senna Had Lived" If Senna had lived, we can be sure of one thing. A titanic battle would have ensued with Michael Schumacher over the next few seasons, and it is highly likely that both drivers' eventual World Championship tally would have been significantly different. In the Senna camp, it is perfectly possible that he would have gone on to win three - even four or five - additional World Championships before retiring at the end 1998, aged 38 (the same age that Prost retired). As for Michael Schumacher, is it so likely that he would have won those two World Championships during that period; or that Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve or Mika Hakkinen would all have picked up their Championships if both Ayrton Senna AND Michael Schumacher were racing with them in competitive cars? Beating just one of them was surely difficult enough, but beating both in the same season...? Later on in this book I will introduce Fredric, the unique purpose-built algorithm, which calculates race results using different scenarios and levels the playing field to discover the best driver, regardless of the car they are driving. First, however, I will explore the scenario that might have unfolded, had Senna lived. The Starting Point Let's take as our starting point that Imola 1994 never happened. It was cancelled, and the Grand Prix never took place. In this strange time of the COVID-19 pandemic it is easy to imagine that the racing calendar can change at quite short notice, so let's imagine that the San Marino Grand Prix 1994 was postponed until the following year and that no dark clouds gathered over Imola that weekend. That leaves us in an interesting position. Michael Schumacher still leads the 1994 Drivers' Championship by 13 points - and by 20 points over Ayrton Senna - who had failed to score in the first two Grand Prix of the year. The next race is scheduled for a circuit at which, only the previous year, Senna had surpassed Graham Hill's record 5 wins and had now taken over the mantle of Mr Monaco. What would have happened? To read more and register your interest for the launch of this book (early in 2021) please go here: https://xaniabooks.com/contact and simply leave the message 'Senna book' PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS for The Best Japanese Formula 1 Driver Of All Time Hiroshi Fushida – thanks to Fushida-san for his kind donation of photographs from his all-too-brief Formula 1 career.