Most championship lead changes in a season?

[Ranger]

Just a random trivia fact, but I would be interested to know!

The year 2010 has seen 3 lead changes in the first 4 races, got me thinking about that question.

Anyone?

[GJD]

And now another one (or is that two?)

[steveaki13]

No one got any ideas yet.

[UltimateDanGTR]

what a fantastic question. 2008 had 3 or 4 I believe, and off the top of my head I would expect 1981 to have a fair few championship lead changes.

[GJD]

what a fantastic question. 2008 had 3 or 4 I believe, and off the top of my head I would expect 1981 to have a fair few championship lead changes.

I thought that, too and I checked. There were fewer actually. Two by my reckoning. And I looked at 1982 (Keke's WDC with one victory) and there were only three that year.

Gave up then didn't I! Too labour intensive when the lawn was crying out to be mowed and she who must be obeyed was winding up for a glaring campaign.

Malllen, get clicking on one of the F1 statistics sites! ;)

[ShiftingGears]

That would be a very hard question to answer pre-1990 considering not every single result counted towards a drivers championship.

[AndyL]

That would be a very hard question to answer pre-1990 considering not every single result counted towards a drivers championship.

Indeed, and do you start dropping scores as drivers accrued more results, or were they only dropped at the end of the season? I'm not sure what the rules were.
Even more recently, it's still a bit tricky when you get drivers on equal scores and you start having to look at who had more 1st, 2nd, 3rd place finishes etc. up to that point of the season.
I had a look at this problem too and I think the logic required is too complicated to do in a spreadsheet.
Another problem is finding somewhere with a complete table of results for each season... Wikipedia's presentation is perfect but I can't seem to copy that into a spreadsheet.
I'll have to be very bored before I make another attempt to answer this question, even though it is an interesting one :)

[D28]

I thought that, too and I checked. There were fewer actually. Two by my reckoning. And I looked at 1982 (Keke's WDC with one victory) and there were only three that year.

Gave up then didn't I! Too labour intensive when the lawn was crying out to be mowed and she who must be obeyed was winding up for a glaring campaign.

Malllen, get clicking on one of the F1 statistics sites! ;)

I thought 1982 was a pobable year with a lot of changes. I actually count 4. Prost, Watson and Pironi as well as Rosberg. Is this possible? I admit it is time consuming.

[Bruce D]

Are we counting the amount of different drivers that led the championship, or how many times the championship lead changed hands?

And as far as I remember the years where they dropped scores, they were only dropped at the end of the year.

[D-Type]

Are we counting the amount of different drivers that led the championship, or how many times the championship lead changed hands?

And as far as I remember the years where they dropped scores, they were only dropped at the end of the year.
I think we're counting how many times the lead changed hands rather than how many different drivers.

Although we always talk of "dropping" scores, the FIA regulations actually said the "best results" so it would have been progressive. For example, in a year when the "best 7" counted, when a driver made an 8th score, only his 7 best would count so effectively his lowest score would be "dropped" at that point and not at the end of the season.

[Bruce D]

2003 must have had a few as well. Will try to see how many, but from memory it was DC, then Raikkonen, then MS, maybe Ralf somewhere along the line.

[Ranger]

2003 must have had a few as well. Will try to see how many, but from memory it was DC, then Raikkonen, then MS, maybe Ralf somewhere along the line.

Surprisingly In 2003 there was only two championship lead changes:

DC: Round 1
KR: Rounds 2-7
MS: Rounds 8-16

In 2007 there was 5:

KR: Round 1
FA: Rounds 2-3
LH: Rounds 4
FA: Round 5
LH: Round 6-16
KR: Round 17

In 2008 there was 5:

LH: Rounds 1-2
KR: Rounds 3-5
LH: Rounds 6
RK: Round 7
FM: Round 8
LH: Rounds 9-18

2007 and 2008 both the most lead changes in a season in the last decade. I haven't checked anything before the year 2000.

[Bruce D]

How many times did it change in 86? That might be an interesting one.

[D-Type]

Here's 1986 (assuming I can add and count correctly ;) )

R1 Piquet
R2 Senna
R3 Piquet & Senna
R4 Prost
R5 Senna
R6 Prost
R7 Senna
R8 Prost
R9 Mansell
R16 Prost

I make that 9