planetf1.com

Here we go, the final results for the 2019 PF1 TMW votes. Let's start with the results from the final vote in Abu Dhabi:



Mercedes
TMW race winner: Hamilton (94%)
Hamilton 16 - 5 Bottas
Hamilton 73% - 27% Bottas

In the end it wasn't even close. Lewis Hamilton claims his 6th WDC and once again comfortably outperforms Bottas, ending the season with a 16-5 lead and nearly three times as many votes. It was Hamilton's relentless form in the middle of the season that really swung it for him. If you took just the first four and last five races of the season, the scores come out at 5-4 in Lewis' favour. Take Spain to Russia and it's 11-1 to Hamilton. And while Valtteri has ended 2019 with an extra TMW win compared to 2018, he also finished the year with an extra 0 vote race. Can he really make a significant step forward in 2020 and truly fight Lewis across the year, or is this as good as it'll ever get for Bottas?

Ferrari
TMW race winner: Leclerc (94%)
Vettel 11 - 10 Leclerc
Vettel 46% - 54% Leclerc

In the end it was very close at Ferrari. Having won the last three TMW votes of 2019, Charles Leclerc finishes the year just a single TMW victory behind his 4x WDC teammate. He also ends the year with a larger percentage share of the vote, securing 54% of the split compared to Vettel. 2020 seems like it'll be a defining season for Vettel; either he fights back and re-establishes himself as a force in F1 or he suffers a second (and probably even more significant) defeat at Charles' hands, something that would surely bring an end to his time as one of F1's top drivers.

Red Bull
TMW race winner: Verstappen (100%)
Verstappen 5 - 4 Albon
Verstappen 54% - 46% Albon

They say the cream always rises to the top and Max Verstappen has underlined exactly that, picking up three successive TMW victories to overhaul Alex Albon's 4-2 lead and take his second Red Bull TMW victory for 2019. He did it in dominant fashion in the end, securing 100% of the vote at Abu Dhabi to deny what would've been a very unexpected outcome. And while Alex did appear to be delivering better results than what his predecessor at the team had achieved, it's hard to argue that his performances were amplified by Max going through a bad run of results. Could he finish an entire season just a single TMW win behind Max? Maybe we'll find out next year (although knowing Red Bull we probably won't!)

Renault
TMW race winner: Ricciardo (81%)
Ricciardo 17 - 4 Hulkenberg
Ricciardo 64% - 36% Hulkenberg

In the end it was downright embarrassing for The Hulk. It finishes 17-4 to Ricciardo, who after falling into an early 0-2 hole very quickly turned things around and - aside from two lonely Hulkenberg TMW wins in Germany and Hungary - completely dominated the rest of the year. In 2020 he'll have his third different teammate in as many seasons in Esteban Ocon. The smart money? Yeah, that's on Ricciardo. While Ocon did outperform Sergio Perez in the 2018 TMW standings (11-9 with a very slender advantage on the percentage side of things) he has spent 2019 on the sidelines. Given Nico Hulkenberg was generally pretty comparable to Sergio Perez (there is a good argument Perez outperformed him over their time as teammates, but I don't have PF1 TMW numbers to post here for a comparison!) it stands to reason that Ocon may represent a slight upgrade on Hulkenberg. But when you look at how far ahead Ricciardo was, you would have to think it would need more than a slight upgrade to bridge that gap.

Haas
TMW race winner: Magnussen (100%)
Magnussen 15 - 5 Grosjean
Magnussen 65% - 35% Grosjean

Our only other TMW vote which we can directly compare to the 2018 results was Magnussen vs Grosjean. And just like in 2018, Kevin Magnussen comes out on top. The weird little quirk here is that while the percentages are almost the same (it was 64-36 in 2018) KMag has claimed a much larger share of the TMW wins this year. It finished 15-5 this year compared to 12-9 in 2018. Given the whole year felt like a bit of a write-off for the Haas team it's difficult to read too much into this, particularly when they both ran completely different aero packages for so much of the season, although I won't let that stop me next year!

McLaren
TMW race winner: Norris (87%)
Sainz 13 - 8 Norris
Sainz 54% - 46% Norris

Unlike the woeful, forgettable year at Haas, 2019 was the best year McLaren have had for a while. Comfortably outperforming their engine supplier, positive moves behind the scenes, and a very likeable, youthful driving pairing. It all cumulated in Carlos Sainz returning them to the podium. On the TMW side of things it was Sainz who came out on top for the year, but the margins between the two were among the smallest across the grid. And yet both have come out of 2019 with the reputations enhanced - Sainz for his 'best of the rest' performances and Norris for keeping him honest and not being outclassed in his rookie year. 2020 should be fun to watch between the pair.

Racing Point
TMW race winner: Perez (100%)
Perez 18 - 3 Stroll
Perez 71% - 29% Stroll

We're now into the '2019 was not a good year for...' territory of this write-up. It's difficult to remember too many weekends where Sergio Perez was particularly bothered by Lance Stroll, something that is borne out in the dominant 18-3 scoreline. Considering Racing Point finished just 13 points shy of jumping Toro Rosso, and only 19 short of actually finishing ahead of Renault, it's not unfair to suggest that Lance Stroll has directly cost his father a fair few million in prize money. Would a repeat of the same in 2020 potentially lead to his position at the team coming under threat? Erm, probably not, no. But 2019 has certainly not done much to support the argument that Stroll has a justifiable place on the grid.

Alfa Romeo
TMW race winner: Raikkonen (100%)
Raikkonen 18 - 3 Giovinazzi
Raikkonen 84% - 16% Giovinazzi

Another driver who will need to make a significant improvement in 2020 is Antonio Giovinazzi. While his performances may have, on the surface at least, seemed to have improved as the season wore on, the fact remains that he finished with the second worst TMW score of any driver, and the worst of any driver continuing into 2020. That he's returning next year could be taken as a sign of faith. However, bear this in mind: Ferrari will have five members of their young driver programme in F2 in 2020, of which four (Marcus Armstrong, Robert Shwartzman, Mick Schumacher and Callum Ilott) could potentially be in the title fight. If Kimi Raikkonen continues to outperform Giovinazzi then the aforementioned youngsters might not just be fighting for the title, but instead for Giovinazzi's Ferrari-backed seat at Alfa Romeo.

Toro Rosso
TMW race winner: Kvyat (54%)
Gasly 5 - 4 Kvyat
Gasly 58% - 42% Kvyat

After a horrific first half of the season alongside Max Verstappen, Pierre Gasly has rebounded nicely at Toro Rosso, ultimately taking the TMW honours in his truncated battle against fellow Toro Rosso podium getter, Daniil Kvyat. Kvyat himself actually bested (albeit very, very narrowly) Alex Albon in the first Toro Rosso TMW vote of the year. So that should mean that Kvyat > Albon, except that Gasly > Kvyat, and Albon was much closer to Verstappen than Gasly. Which kind of confuses things a little! Basically, Max > all the other Red Bull contracted drivers.

Williams
TMW race winner: Russell (79%)
Russell 19 - 2 Kubica
Russell 85% - 15% Kubica

Mercifully, it's finally over for Robert Kubica. It ends 19-2, with Russell taking a gargantuan 85% of the vote. While the Brit falls just shy of bettering Fernando Alonso's 2018 result (Alonso took 87% of the vote against Vandoorne) it was still nothing short of an annihilation. Kubica's return in itself was a phenomenal achievement and that shouldn't be forgotten, but the gulf in class was monumental.

TMW winners for 2019

Max Verstappen over Pierre Gasly (12-0, 97%)
94% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Verstappen would triumph

Daniil Kvyat over Alex Albon (6-6, 57%)
60% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Kvyat would triumph

Kimi Raikkonen over Antonio Giovinazzi (18-3, 84%)
88% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Raikkonen would triumph

George Russell over Robert Kubica (19-2, 85%)
75% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Russell would triumph

Lewis Hamilton over Valtteri Bottas (16-5, 73%)
96% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Hamilton would triumph

Sergio Perez over Lance Stroll (18-3, 71%)
87% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Perez would triumph

Daniel Ricciardo over Nico Hulkenberg (17-4, 64%)
87% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Ricciardo would triumph

Kevin Magnussen over Romain Grosjean (15-5, 65%)
17% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Magnussen would triumph (this is the only one we got wrong!)

Carlos Sainz over Lando Norris (13-8, 54%)
73% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Sainz would triumph

Sebastian Vettel over Charles Leclerc (11-10, 46%)
78% of votes pre-season votes correctly predicted Vettel would triumph

Pierre Gasly over Daniil Kvyat (5-4, 58%)

Max Verstappen over Alex Albon (5-4, 54%)

And now, some statistics.

Most Individual Votes

1. Verstappen - 461
2. Raikkonen - 452
3. Russell - 439
4. Hamilton - 400
5. Perez - 368

Least Individual Votes

5. Stroll - 152
4. Bottas - 149
3. Gasly - 113 (10 at Red Bull, 103 at Toro Rosso)
2. Giovinazzi - 84
1. Kubica - 75

Most TMW Wins In A Row

Verstappen - 12 (Australia to Hungary)
Perez - 10 (Hungary to Abu Dhabi)
Russell - 10 (Australia to Britain)
Ricciardo - 9 (Belgium to Abu Dhabi)
Ricciardo - 8 (China to Britain)
Hamilton - 7 (Britain to Russia)

Also a shoutout to Kimi Raikkonen who had three streaks of 6 across the season.

Total Races Receiving 0 Votes

Bottas - 11 (5 of these came in 2019)
Giovinazzi - 9
Gasly - 8 (all 8 in 2019)
Kubica - 7
Stroll - 6 (all 6 in 2019)
Ericsson - 4
Grosjean - 4 (1 of these came in 2019)
Albon - 3 (all 3 in 2019)
Hartley - 3
Ricciardo - 3 (none in 2019)
Vandoorne - 3
Vettel - 3 (2 of these came in 2019)
Norris - 2
Hulkenberg - 2 (1 of these came in 2019)
Sainz - 2 (1 of these came in 2019)
Perez - 1 (none in 2019)
Raikkonen - 1 (none in 2019)
Hamilton - 1 (this came in 2019)
Kvyat - 1
Verstappen - 1 (none in 2019)

Overall Total TMW Wins

Hamilton - 33
Verstappen - 31
Perez - 27
Magnussen - 27
Raikkonen - 26
Leclerc - 25
Vettel - 24
Ricciardo - 24
Sainz - 23
Gasly - 20
Russell - 19*
Alonso - 17*
Stroll - 16
Grosjean - 14
Hulkenberg - 13
Ocon - 11*
Albon - 10*
Kvyat - 10*
Bottas - 9
Norris - 8*
Sirotkin - 7*
Ericsson - 6*
Hartley - 6*
Vandoorne - 4*
Giovinazzi - 3*
Kubica - 2*

* = only competed in one of the two seasons I've been doing the PF1 TMW polls.

As I did before the start of this season, I'll put up a series of pre-season prediction threads for each team prior to Australia. I think I left each poll open for about five days last year so the first of these will probably go up a few days into 2020. We actually forecasted the outcomes of nine of the ten original TMW for 2019 with only Kevin Magnussen's triumph over Grosjean escaping our crystal balls, an ironic thing considering it was one of only two pairings to continue from 2018! Thank you to everyone who has participated over the course of the season and taken the time to share their opinions, or simply just voted in the polls.

Wow, turns out we're pretty good at this predicting thing! In retrospect, it looks like a pretty shocking miss for us to go so strongly for Grosjean, but the feeling was (and still is, to an extent) that RoGro has the better underlying pace if he can ever get his act together.

As always, thanks for running this poll; I know how much work it takes.

And thanks to everyone for generally voting in a pretty impartial way and not polluting the data more than ~5% on average!

Exediron wrote:Wow, turns out we're pretty good at this predicting thing! In retrospect, it looks like a pretty shocking miss for us to go so strongly for Grosjean, but the feeling was (and still is, to an extent) that RoGro has the better underlying pace if he can ever get his act together.

As always, thanks for running this poll; I know how much work it takes.

And thanks to everyone for generally voting in a pretty impartial way and not polluting the data more than ~5% on average!

In before Hogweed.

I actually do believe despite how voting has turned out Grosjean has been better than Magnussen this season. He's just been beset by so many issues that aren't his fault that nobody has really noticed.

mikeyg123 wrote:

Exediron wrote:Wow, turns out we're pretty good at this predicting thing! In retrospect, it looks like a pretty shocking miss for us to go so strongly for Grosjean, but the feeling was (and still is, to an extent) that RoGro has the better underlying pace if he can ever get his act together.

As always, thanks for running this poll; I know how much work it takes.

And thanks to everyone for generally voting in a pretty impartial way and not polluting the data more than ~5% on average!

In before Hogweed.

I actually do believe despite how voting has turned out Grosjean has been better than Magnussen this season. He's just been beset by so many issues that aren't his fault that nobody has really noticed.

You predicted what I may say! As I was reading through it I was about to say that the forum was right to predict Grosjean would win, but averaged out, I think most of us didn't really judge the races well enough when voting for one or other of them. Even if you judge only the races both finished, Grosjean still beat him more often than not. And including all the laps with statistics from Racefans.net, Grosjean actually spent more laps ahead of Magnussen than the other way round, despite technical problems resulting in him falling behind Magnussen for quite a few laps of the year.

Basically, I think the forum was right with all the predictions, but Magnussen vs Grosjean were not judged very fairly. I think an awful lot of the votes against Grosjean could be based on his reputation and performance last year when it isn't as clear who came out on top many weekends. Grosjean in fact has made no big mistakes this year when the results actually count. The only one you can say was big was Britain, but that was Magnussen's fault too. Bottas, Vettel, Leclerc and many other better drivers have made one or several much bigger mistakes than Grosjean, but with more outstanding performances admittedly.

The only area I think Magnussen has started to beat Grosjean quite often is qualifying. And sometimes is better at pulling off better results when he circumstances in the race change. Spain was an example of this. Magnussen was poor for the majority of it and was well behind Grosjean. The safety car brought him up the grid and he had a very good restart. The opposite for Grosjean. Sort of lucky, but he made the points count. But if not for the safety car here and had he retired as well as Grosjean in the first race this season where he got 40% of his points. That would leave him with just 6 points which is less than Grosjean. And that isn't even taking into account the amount Grosjean could have got in Brazil without his MGU-K failure. That was quite possibly the best race from either of these two drivers this year which I feel didn't really get recognised.


I would still rate Grosjean right near the bottom of the grid, but he's been far better than last year and not as bad as the forum votes made him look. I certainly think he's had a better season than Magnussen anyway.

I actually think the votes regarding the Haas drivers are quite accurate. Magnussen has been the better one of the pair in the second consecutive season. This also reflects in the qualifying head-to-head and in the points standing.

True, both have been driving different cars during the summer part of the season. However, let's add some context: during this time, Grosjean drove the old spec that turned out to be the better one, so that later on Haas switched to develop that one. So, essentially Grosjean drove the better car during the middle part of the season.

Factor in that the major flaw of the newer spec that Magnussen had to drive was its complete mismatch with the 2019 tyres generation. Now look at the races again: often, Grosjean was outright slower in qualifying and races but Magnussen's tyres (spec related!) were giving up so much that he dropped from a points scoring position (or close by) to the very back of field. That he, at times, recovered to still beat Grosjean was quite an achievement. Many excellent races of Magnussen, who looked significantly more matured this season, went by unnoticed due to these issues.

I often read how much underrated Perez is but I think actually Magnussen is the most underrated driver on the grid mostly because many don't like him as a person (understandably, IMO). Both Haas drivers are actually better than their reputation and nowhere close to the weakest drivers on the grid.