Teammate Head to Heads – Mercedes

Mercedes, the first team that have had the same two drivers for three years running, perfect for some statistical comparisons! I will start off with the 2012 comparisons, then some short previous year stats and finally a full 3 year comparison.

Michael Schumacher v Nico Rosberg – Mercedes

The 7 time champion had 7 retirements in 2012, not the best, though many were through no fault of his own. Rosberg’s two best finishes were ahead of Schumacher’s best, both have topped one Q3 session, but Schumacher had a penalty so did not start there.

Incredibly even in qualifying, quite surprised at the 10/10 split and the slightly higher average qualifying for Schumacher. Decided to look at the average starting positions for them as a comparison and Schumacher’s is 9.65 compared to Rosberg’s 9.4.

These stats have really surprised me to be honest, Mercedes have only had 10 races with both drivers finishing the race but Rosberg, who was 44 points ahead of Schumacher, only finished ahead of Schumacher 3 times in the race. Rosberg has been faster in slightly more races, but if you remove all retirements then, much like qualifying, it’s split completely even 5/5. In fact throughout the season Schumacher has been, on average, just 0.083 seconds slower than Rosberg in qualifying, second closest of all teammates, but you’ll find out which two were closest another day.

Some basic 2011 stats next.

Incredibly dominant qualifying performances by Rosberg last year, very different to how it was this year. Fairly even in the races but Rosberg had the better average and more races in the points. Now for the 2010 stats.

Not really very surprising here, more Rosberg dominance but it was 2010, Schumacher’s first year back in the sport.

Rosberg has beaten Schumacher in all three years, so unsurprisingly he’s had more of everything except retirements compared to him over the three years. But as Schumacher was improving each year you’d have to wonder just how well he would do in 2013 if he didn’t retire for the second time, could have beaten Rosberg, or he could have been beaten again. We will never know.

Next up in the teammate head to heads will be Lotus!