HAM-BOT-VER: In That Order?
One of the themes of the 2020 Formula 1 season was the dominance of the sport’s top three drivers. A reddit user even claimed the top 3 of Hamilton, Bottas, and Verstappen was so common that their positions in the leaderboard 1 HAM, 2 BOT, 3 VER had burnt into their TV screen. Using data of drivers’ positions at the end of every lap of the 2020 season, I’ve set out to explore the prevalence of these drivers, and whether the combination of HAM-BOT-VER really was a constant at the top of the standings.
Yes, HAM-BOT-VER Was the Most Common Top 3
The answer is, in short, yes. Hamilton Bottas and Verstappen’s control of the top 3 is clear. HAM, BOT and VER (in any order) made up the top 3 of 49% of all laps of the 2020 season.
In fact, of the top 10 most common top 3s of the season, those including only HAM, BOT and VER made up 5 of them, which are bolded in the graph below. Hamilton appears in 9 out of 10 of these combinations, and the one in which he doesn’t, the man who was driving his car while he was out with Coronavirus - George Russell - was first.
10 most common top 3 positions of the 2020 season.
Consistent to that Reddit user’s TV, HAM BOT VER (in that order) was the most common combination of the top 3 positions last season (17%). Looking at the data, it really seemed that these top 3 positions belonged to these drivers. Hamilton was the most common leader and held 1st position at the end of 59.11% of all laps in the 2020 season. Bottas was the most common 2nd place with 38.28%, and Verstappen the most common 3rd place with 24.01%. Interestingly, the top 3 drivers in each of the top 3 positions are, you guessed it, HAM, BOT, and VER.
Most common drivers in each of the top 3 positions.
Mercedes’ Dominance
When I set out to do this analysis, I wanted to find out if HAM BOT VER really was the most common combination of the top 3 in 2020, and clearly, it was. But, what I really found was just how prolific Mercedes were last season. Hamilton and Bottas’s dominance throughout the season was incredible. The 1st place position belonged to the two Mercedes drivers a staggering 77.24% of the time (82.93% if you include Russell’s one race for Mercedes - a lot of laps at Sakhir and Russell lead a lot of them). A more striking indicator of the unrivalled dominance of Mercedes is that 91.03% of all laps of the 2020 season had Hamilton and Bottas in the top 2. A pretty ridiculous statistic. I hope the next graph really puts this into perspective. Each box represents one lap of the 2020 season, and all 1037 laps are represented.
Mercedes’ dominance.
Although interesting, these findings about Mercedes are understandable. Anyone who watched almost any race of the 2020 season will have noticed the superiority that Mercedes enjoyed at the top of the standings, and these figures only back that up.
After Hamilton and Bottas, Verstappen was clearly the next best driver. When Hamilton was first, and Bottas was Second, Verstappen was third an impressive 72% of the time. When the other two are up there, Verstappen is right behind them. The other Red Bull driven by Albon was the 5th most common in this measure, even behind Leclerc’s severely limited Ferrari, and Ricciardo in the Renault - who is surprisingly the second most common 3rd place when Hamilton is 1st and Bottas is 2nd. This doesn’t look great for Albon and highlights a pretty poor season.
When HAM is 1st and BOT is 2nd, who’s 3rd?
What Have We Learnt?
Look, you don’t need me to tell you that Mercedes were dominant last season, but Mercedes were very dominant last season. More than 7 of 10 laps of the whole season saw Hamilton or Bottas in first position, and more than 9 of 10 had either of them in the top 2. I’m relatively new to Formula 1, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a team in history that has enjoyed this level of dominance, with really very little competition from the other teams. But, I’d love to be corrected. In fact, if there is anything you want to comment on in this article please get in touch.
It is worth mentioning that the lap-by-lap history of every race is a good metric but it is not perfect. Of course, positions can change multiple times within a lap and so positions at the end of each lap may not be completely representative. Also, some laps are shorter than others, for example in the Sakhir GP, the race where Lewis Hamilton was replaced by George Russell, the laps were very short, and therefore there were far more of them. This means that according to this measure, races with more laps are valued higher than races with fewer laps. A better measure would be time spent in each position, but this is a more complicated statistic to keep track of and potentially to understand. However, I think there is real value for Formula 1 statistics that take into account lap by lap performance rather than simply race by race performance. Wins or podium’s alone is not a measure that can tell us the full story of a driver’s dominance. Mercedes won 13 of 17 races of the 2020 season (2 for Bottas, 11 for Hamilton), giving them a win percentage of 76%. This figure clearly shows that Mercedes were dominant, but doesn’t give us the depth and the real understanding of their dominance.