Teammate Head to Heads – Ferrari

Almost at the end of the teammate head to heads, only Red Bull to go after this one. They are the oldest team on the grid and the only team to have competed in each F1 season, but the teammate head to heads at Ferrari haven’t exactly been particularly close recently, but hopefully still worth a read.

Fernando Alonso v Felipe Massa – Ferrari

Big difference between the two in the basic stats, the only way Massa is ahead is in retirements, his came at Australia after contact with Bruno Senna, Alonso’s two retirements both came in first corner incidents, one in Belgium and the other in Japan.

Domination in qualifying, but neither Ferrari driver has dropped out of Q1 in 2012, Button and Webber both have. Interestingly Alonso and Button have the exact same average qualifying position of 6.55. On average when behind in qualifying Massa has been almost half a second off of Alonso’s pace, 0.493 seconds off to be exact.

At first I was quite surprised that Massa hasn’t finished ahead of Alonso all season, then I remembered about team orders, the difference in qualifying was pretty big, but the gap is even bigger in races with Massa being on average almost FIVE places behind Alonso in the races.

Nothing to compare really, Alonso has been the most dominant teammate of 2012, by some way. No fastest laps set by either of the two Ferrari drivers though, despite solid performances by Alonso and occasionally Massa. Were they any closer the last two years, time to find out, 2011 first and 2010 after.

Slightly closer this time, especially in qualifying, but Alonso is still some way ahead of Massa.

See above. Saves me writing pretty much the same thing all over again.

Over three years as teammates it’s pretty clear that Alonso has been superior to Massa. The combined points from any two of Alonso’s three years as a Ferrari driver is higher than Massa’s from the last three.

Next teammate head to head will be the last, and of course it is Red Bull, Webber and Vettel.