Is the RB18 dominant?

[Quantum]

Having won 14 of 18 races this season, or over 77% of events, there is a school of thought that the RB18 is not dominant.

However, with terminology being quite a heated problem for some folk, the definition has come to bear.
But for the purposes of this thread I wanted to remove it seeping into any other threads and get a clearer discussion going regarding the pros and cons of why some think it isn't despite the results we've seen.

Mercedes are universally regarded as being dominant through their era, here are their stats.

2021: 9 of 22 (40%)
2020: 13 of 17 (76%)
2019: 15 of 21 (71%)
2018: 11 of 21 (52%)
2017: 12 of 20 (60%)
2016: 19 of 21 (90%)
2015: 16 of 19 (84%)
2014: 16 of 19 (84%)

Giving a total average of 68% win rate.

Of course statistics are skewed when opposition screw up. But then it should also stand that opposition benefit when you screw up.
Much has been made about Ferrari screwing up, but we hear ever so little about the Verstappen or Perez suffering from the same.
So perhaps a forensic examination of this would help alleviate the problem?

It's also another foible but something that's arisen in discussion. 2022 cars have got a wide discrepancy in single lap to race pace performance.
We see Mercedes going faster in races, and Ferrari slower, relative to their qualifying performances.
It's not a new phenomena but it's certainly very clear in races this season. Whereas the RB18 manages decent single lap performances but comes into it's own in the race being 8 times out of 10 the best car out there.

Another parameter that I have observed is the porpoising effect and the likely effect it would have on driver fatigue, and the relationship it would have in compromising set up and wear/deg.
If a car has it less, it stands to reason to be advantageous to the driver driving it, allied to the wear/deg set up compromises?

The other seemingly contentious issue is, does a car no longer become dominant when it easily wins races by 15 seconds and not 45 seconds? Who decides the parameters if not the results and the consistency of the results themselves?

[JordanMugen]

Is the RB18 dominant?

Yeah sure, why not.

2016: 19 of 21 (90%)

Yikes, that is dominant! To think Mercedes achieved that dominance just by rushing to allocate the ex-Lotus supply to known insolvent Manor Racing instead of Red Bull Racing who would pay on time.

Thankfully those days are gone and Red Bull have a good power unit now.

[Quantum]

Is the RB18 dominant?

Yeah sure, why not.

Thanks

[organic]

It all comes down to how much you weigh the pure winrate, or the laptime advantage the car had over the second best car across the season. For 13/18 of the races so far this season, the RB18 and the F1-75 were mostly within 1-2 tenths of one another (though occasionally more advantage for the f1-75 than that - australia, monaco, spain) and the car advantage changing hands based on the circuit. To me, that doesn't scream dominant car, even if the RB18 had won all 13 of those races. It's where looking at winrates solely falls flat on its face

Unless there's a pre-agreed definition of what makes for a dominant car set in stone, people here will find an ability to argue endlessly

[JordanMugen]

Unless there's a pre-agreed definition of what makes for a dominant car set in stone, people here will find an ability to argue endlessly

Yes the 2016 Mercedes and 1988 McLaren were instances of clear dominance, but there were reasons for that: in both cases they managed to literally eliminate the competition, in McLaren's case by literally taking away Williams supply of Honda engines, and in Mercedes case by refusing a perfectly reasonable proposal to supply Red Bull Racing with customer units on the normal commercial terms as a logical replacement for their former customer Lotus F1 Team!

[DChemTech]

Before the summer break, no. If it was, it would have consistently scored 1-2 finishes (because in a dominant car, a mediocre driver would still come out on top), and would have wins with wider margins. There were a few large-margin wins, but in those cases, typically Ferrari made an error or had technical issues (Imola, Spain, Baku). In the other cases, the results were very close, and the reason RB still won most occassions is due to Max making the difference as a driver - with the exception of Monaco and Austria (where the Max' performance could not make up for the Ferrari being more suited to the conditions).

After the summer break, possibly. We still do not see the hallmark consistent one-two finishes that are associated with absolute dominance, but the gaps between RB and the competition do seem to be larger, with less explicit errors from the competition. However, there are four more races before the second half of the season can be truly judged.

[Mandrake]

It all comes down to how much you weigh the pure winrate, or the laptime advantage the car had over the second best car across the season. For 13/18 of the races so far this season, the RB18 and the F1-75 were mostly within 1-2 tenths of one another (though occasionally more advantage for the f1-75 than that - australia, monaco, spain) and the car advantage changing hands based on the circuit. To me, that doesn't scream dominant car, even if the RB18 had won all 13 of those races. It's where looking at winrates solely falls flat on its face

Unless there's a pre-agreed definition of what makes for a dominant car set in stone, people here will find an ability to argue endlessly

Im completely with organic on this one. There are a lot of races that Ferrari should have won on pace, but either car or strategy or both let them down.

Finding a measure will be hard tho, even looking at average gap to competition in the races is skewed due to fuel saving, tire saving etc.

I will agree on that Red Bull is dominant in 2022. The Pitwall is super fast and consistently good, Max does only a few mistakes and some of them he's even able to directly make up again.

[Quantum]

For 13/18 of the races so far this season, the RB18 and the F1-75 were mostly within 1-2 tenths of one another (though occasionally more advantage for the f1-75 than that - australia, monaco, spain) and the car advantage changing hands based on the circuit.

Where are you basing these numbers though? Qualifying?
I think that's fundamentally flawed. And I can provide evidence based on the number of occasions Ferrari have bagged pole and are then left floundering due to tyre degradation.
Which then puts pressure on the team to formulate fantastical strategies, which not only camouflages the problem, but distracts from it altogether.

And to what extent are you framing dominance? To my understanding it's the ability to achieve the result.
And the RB18 does not exhibit anything but dominance in the majority of races.

[Incognito]

"Dominant" depends on your definition and it's so hard to judge absolute vs relative performance.

But if we remove Verstappen from the results of every race and move everyone up one (where relevant, including Sprints but excluding reassigning Fastest Lap points (I'm lazy)) I think Perez would currently be leading the Championship by more than ten points. And that's with a team that's focusing on Verstappen rather than him. Given that I don't think anyone has ever said "Likely World Driver's Champion" and "Sergio Perez" in the same breath it suggests the car is pretty good.*

It would be interesting to see a discussion of how "Dominant" might be defined but it would have to take place in a bubble of people who didn't already have vested interests.

* I wonder how many years that would be true over the last thirty or so? Remove the WDC winner and does his team mate win? It wouldn't be a hard and fast objective measure (e.g. Senna and Prost were in the same car and either being WDC in those years wouldn't be a surprise) but it might be indicative?

[GrizzleBoy]

How is this even a discussion at this point?

[mendis]

Is the RB18 dominant?

Yeah sure, why not.

2016: 19 of 21 (90%)

Yikes, that is dominant! To think Mercedes achieved that dominance just by rushing to allocate the ex-Lotus supply to known insolvent Manor Racing instead of Red Bull Racing who would pay on time.

Thankfully those days are gone and Red Bull have a good power unit now.

4 more races to go and it might come closer to 2016. The car is definitely in it's own league now with absolutely no chance for Ferrari on Sundays.

[Quantum]

But if we remove Verstappen from the results of every race and move everyone up one (where relevant, including Sprints but excluding reassigning Fastest Lap points (I'm lazy)) I think Perez would currently be leading the Championship by more than ten points. And that's with a team that's focusing on Verstappen rather than him. Given that I don't think anyone has ever said "Likely World Driver's Champion" and "Sergio Perez" in the same breath it suggests the car is pretty good.

A good observation, and one that follows a pattern. I like patterns, consistent and predictable.
Number 2's dont do very well at Red Bull, even with the best car. And Perez is as you say, sitting in 2nd place.
Finished no lower than 2nd on 9 separate occasions this season.

It would be interesting to see a discussion of how "Dominant" might be defined but it would have to take place in a bubble of people who didn't already have vested interests.

I found the initial reaction to my opinion saying it was dominant to be surprising, to say the least. So yes good point.

How is this even a discussion at this point?

Some will contest it

[organic]

For 13/18 of the races so far this season, the RB18 and the F1-75 were mostly within 1-2 tenths of one another (though occasionally more advantage for the f1-75 than that - australia, monaco, spain) and the car advantage changing hands based on the circuit.

Where are you basing these numbers though? Qualifying?
I think that's fundamentally flawed. And I can provide evidence based on the number of occasions Ferrari have bagged pole and are then left floundering due to tyre degradation.
Which then puts pressure on the team to formulate fantastical strategies, which not only camouflages the problem, but distracts from it altogether.

And to what extent are you framing dominance? To my understanding it's the ability to achieve the result.
And the RB18 does not exhibit anything but dominance in the majority of races.

I was basing it on race pace since that seems to be the most useful metric with the new cars that can pass one another. Before the summer break, the RB18 didn't have a single race where it had more than 2 tenth advantage in race pace, and had only achieved 4 poles. Ferrari had multiple races with greater than 2 tenths advantage (Australia, Austria at the very least) and many poles. Since summer break we've seen the RB18 have 5 tenths or greater race pace advantage over Ferrari at Zandvoort, Spa, Monza, Suzuka and been in contention for pole every weekend. There are two halves to this season. One that's closely competed in terms of pure performance but not represented in the scoring due to various factors, and the second half of the season that's been completely dominant. Overall yes it'll be seen as a dominant car, and a dominant season. But I think we can look at each result more closely to see the RB18 was not far and away class of the field until Belgium

[DChemTech]

"Dominant" depends on your definition and it's so hard to judge absolute vs relative performance.

But if we remove Verstappen from the results of every race and move everyone up one (where relevant, including Sprints but excluding reassigning Fastest Lap points (I'm lazy)) I think Perez would currently be leading the Championship by more than ten points. And that's with a team that's focusing on Verstappen rather than him. Given that I don't think anyone has ever said "Likely World Driver's Champion" and "Sergio Perez" in the same breath it suggests the car is pretty good.*

It would be interesting to see a discussion of how "Dominant" might be defined but it would have to take place in a bubble of people who didn't already have vested interests.

* I wonder how many years that would be true over the last thirty or so? Remove the WDC winner and does his team mate win? It wouldn't be a hard and fast objective measure (e.g. Senna and Prost were in the same car and either being WDC in those years wouldn't be a surprise) but it might be indicative?

I agree that taking the WDC away (or alternatively, considering point gap between leader and 3th place) can be more instructive than looking at distance between 1st and 2nd in the standings in some cases.

In short, my take is this, there are four main factors that determine if a certain 'box' (being driver-team paring) is dominant: car performance, driver performance, strategic performance, competitor performance.

Hallmarks would be:

- If the car is the/a dominant factor, the team should end most races with a 1-2 finish, typically by a good margin (~30 s or so). Example: McLaren 1988, Mercedes 2015.

- If the driver is the/a dominant factor, one would expect driver 1 of a team to consistently beat their teammate. For example, the lead driver may consistenly fight for the win, while the second driver is not consistently on the podium. With equal cars between teams, the team dominant driver wins more often than not, or even consistently, but not by huge margins unless there are special circumstances (e.g. rain).

- If strategic excellence is the/a dominant factor, teams with equal cars win more or less equally frequent under regular conditions, but if there are special circumstances (safety cars, rain), the excellent team stands out.

- If competitor performance is the/a dominant factor, the most distinct factor will be erratic performance by the main competitor: with equal cars otherwise, either the main competitor will be in it for the win if they finish, but they have a large number of DNFs or poor scores that upon scrutiny can be attributed to crashes, pit mistakes, or something likewise.

Of course, one does not rule out the other: in 2015, Mercedes had the dominant car, but Hamilton as a driver was also a dominant factor (hence, he beat his teammate by a large margin).
This season, the data of the first half of the season points in a combination of driver excellence (max outperforming checo), strategic excellence by RB, and competitor performance (Ferrari as main competitor missing the mark several times - in all the races where RB did win by a large margin, Ferrari made errors). The second half of the season, car performance seems to be a larger factor, but it does not seem to be overtly dominant - we see a larger margin for the lead driver, but do not yet see consistent 1-2 finishes from the team yet. More akin to MB with Bottas. Let's see how the last 4 races play out.

[PlatinumZealot]

Are we really asking this question? Duh the RedBull is dominant! Since what? French GP? Ferrari had no chance of winning a race on pure pace alone, worse there is no other car that had any peculiar strengths above the RedBulls.