Over Before It's Begun?

With just one week standing between us and the lights going out to signify the start of the long-awaited 2012 season, allow us to examine an interesting trend that has been surprisingly common in the recent history of Formula One – the correlation between a particular driver winning the first race and going on to win that year’s championship.

It might seem tempting to dismiss this phenomenon as pure co-incidence, but when one considers just how regularly it has occurred in the last twenty or so years, it demands a degree of investigation. Twelve months ago, it was Sebastian Vettel who kicked off his title defence in style with a race win in Australia; he subsequently romped to honours over the course of the remainder of the year. Granted, Fernando Alonso narrowly failed to convert his Bahrain success the year before into a third title victory, but eventual champion Vettel did have the race firmly in his grasp until a spark plug issue demoted him to fourth position come the chequered flag.

Delving further back into history, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen all won the opening races of their respective title-winning seasons; Fernando Alonso took the first victory in 2006 en route to successfully defending his title (teammate Giancarlo Fisichella’s win at Melbourne the year before proved to be a false dawn); and all of Michael Schumacher’s seven championship years involved winning the inaugural Grand Prix of the season with the exception of 2003, when David Coulthard emerged victorious in a highly eventful Australian event.

In fact, since 1990, just on five of a possible twenty-two occasions did the winner of the first race fail to take home the title, Coulthard in 1997 and Eddie Irvine in 1999 being the two instances I have so far neglected to mention (though it should be noted that Mika Hakkinen would’ve almost certainly won in the latter scenario had his McLaren’s throttle not given up the ghost). Another intriguing figure is the average championship position of the winner of the first race since 1990, which currently stands at 1.64, implying that that driver is more than likely to at least be in the thick of the title battle.

Does this trend therefore imply that the winner of the first race has some sort of advantage for the balance of the season beyond that of an increased points tally? The statistics thus far seem to suggest that may well be the case, but then again the figures for the seventies and eighties appear to undermine such a theory. During these two decades, only a mere four out of twenty first race winners went on to be crowned champion at the end of the season: Mario Andretti (1978), Alan Jones (1980), Nelson Piquet (1983) and Alain Prost (1985). What’s more, the average championship ranking for first race winners is a comparatively lowly 2.79, far from a cast-iron guarantee that driver would be in title contention months later.

The most significant factor that distinguishes the seventies and eighties from following decades is the difference in the points systems used during different periods. The decision on the part of the FIA to increase the point value of a win from nine to ten points in time for the 1991 season would in all likelihood have been inconsequential, especially given that second place finishes were increased from being worth six to eight points after the 2002 season. More telling is the abolition of ‘dropped’ scores, this particular quirk of the points system seeking to ensure that poor reliability, far more prevalent in the past than it is today, did not determine the outcome of championships.

The practice was scrapped as the Concorde Agreement took hold during the 1980-81 off-season, but was re-introduced for the 1985 season as the less reliable turbocharged engine came to be universally adopted. However, having to drop scores yielded some anomalous, some may say unfair results, 1988 serving as a case in point as Prost conceded the championship to Senna in spite of having outscored his Brazilian teammate by nine points. The following year, turbocharged engines were outlawed, though dropped scores persisted for another two seasons before being axed. Naturally, being able to drop scores would prove a major help for those continuing to entertain hopes of title success after a poor first race outing, partially explaining why relatively few drivers have been able to do so since. But, as five drivers have proved after the rule change, it’s far from an impossible feat.

Also worth looking at are the tracks that have played host to the first race of the season. With the exceptions of 2006 and 2010, when the season got underway at Bahrain, the Albert Park track in Melbourne has fulfilled that role since 1996. The Australian venue has amassed a fairly respectable 70% record of identifying that year’s champion, making it a significantly better indicator than other season-opening tracks of the past, including the Argentine Buenos Aires circuit, which has a 40% record, the South African course Kyalami, which has a paltry 30% record, and the Jacarepagua track in Rio de Janeiro, which is worse still at 20%.  While these data can be in part attributed to improved reliability in the modern age, Melbourne’s penchant for serving up action-packed races means that its usefulness as an indicator of relative performance is not to be dismissed quite so lightly.

While the recent evidence suggests that whoever walks away with spoils after 58 laps of intense action at Melbourne in a week’s time has a very strong chance of being crowned champion come November, the destiny of the title will not simply be decided in one race. That said, in all but the most bizarre of circumstances, you can’t win a race without a competitive car – for all its unpredictability, the Australian Grand Prix will undoubtedly provide us with our most reliable form guide for the upcoming season yet. It’s a stretch to say Melbourne is half the battle as for securing the title, but in all likelihood those dicing for victory next weekend will be the same men vying to become this year’s F1 champion, whilst those out of contention do not have the history books on their side when it comes to the business of playing catch-up.