The BOTTAS Effect?

Something I thought about earlier on in the day, does Bottas replacing Senna in FP1 have any effect on Senna’s qualifying performance? Could Williams have many more points if Senna was given more FP1 time?

Qualifying Times

Just a few things I should mention now, those times are all the drivers’ best time in qualifying, so if they’re faster in Q2 than they are in Q3 the Q2 time is used. I’m also ignoring the Bahrain and Singapore times as in Bahrain Maldonado didn’t run in Q2 because of a KERS issue and Senna crashed at the start of Q2 in Singapore, trying to avoid using Q1 times where possible. However for the Spanish GP with Maldonado on pole and Senna 17th I HAVE used the Q1 times instead because of the difference between Q1 and Q3 pace. One last thing is I’m ignoring Silverstone, it was wet and getting wetter, times aren’t really comparable.

Without Bottas

With Senna having the car to himself in all sessions he was on average half a second behind Maldonado in qualifying, but how far behind is he when Bottas takes over in FP1?

With Bottas

With Bottas replacing Senna in FP1 he’s almost 7 tenths behind Maldonado, almost 2 tenths down on the average without him, not that much, maybe not even down to Bottas at all as the closest he has been to Maldonado was in China, with Bottas taking part in FP1. Now for the second question, could Williams have more points if Senna was always driving in FP1, to try and find this out I will make a lot of assumptions and assume the 0.168 qualifying difference is due to Bottas and improve all of Senna’s qualifying times by 0.186 seconds.

Senna Qualifying Positions

I have only left in the sessions that would have put Senna up higher on the grid and ignored every retirement for this table, just to make it a bit more simple for myself, no massive improvements but it is only 2 tenths difference. To calculate the points I am making the assumption that each position gained in qualifying also equals a position gained in the race, I know that’s not how it would actually happen but that’s how I’m doing it.

At the moment Senna has 30 points compared to Maldonado’s 43, assuming he made up one position for each qualifying position Senna would have 42 points, just one behind Maldonado. But is it down to Bottas taking part in FP1, would Senna really have 42 points? Probably not, maybe the odd one here or there with the added time and confidence, but not 12 points more.

Sorry for the slightly messed up tables, unfortunately they wouldn’t all fit on one line like I had planned so they ended up on a few lines looking rather poor.