2014 F1 Deconstructors Championship

[Mark]

It's that time of year when we look at who was the World Champion for drivers and constructors in failing to finish, failing to start, breaking down or otherwise just not crossing the finishing line.

The scoring is simple, the first to retire gets 25 points, the second to retire gets 18 etc according to the F1 points system. If you finish the race or aren't amongst the first 10 to retire you get no points. (Interestingly unlike previous years there was never more than 10 non-finishers this year. Canada and Monaco were joint top with 8 DNFs each. China, Spain, Italy, Russia and Brazil all came out best with 2 non-finishers )

Here's the results


A Sutil 137
K Kobayashi 121
P Maldonado 99
R Grosjean 97
D Kvyat 83
J E Vergne 78
S Perez 73
M Chilton 68
M Ericsson 65
E Guiterrez 62
F Massa 61
J Bianchi 55
S Vettel 45
F Alonso 43
L Hamilton 35
D Ricciardo 31
N Rosberg 30
N Hulkenburg 30
K Raikkonen 25
A Lotterer 25
K Magnussen 10
J Button 10
V Bottas 6

Adrian Sutil becomes World Deconstructors Champion 2014.

What about the teams


Caterham 211
Sauber 199
Lotus 196
Torro Rosso 151
Marussia 123
Force India 103
Red Bull 76
Ferrari 68
Williams 67
Mercedes 65
McLaren 20

No real surprise to see Caterham on top, but McLaren managed to score way less points than anyone else, a third of their closest rivals Mercedes.

[AndyL]

Nice work Mark :)

Congratulations to Adrian Sutil on this impressive achievement. But you've got to say Kobayashi did remarkably well in this championship considering he didn't even turn up to 3 of the races. Breaking down on the formation lap in Singapore was a particular highlight.

Worrying for McLaren. Imagine where they'd have ended up in the real championship if they'd matched their rivals' unreliability.

[Doc Austin]

Didn't Maldanodo get any bonus points for donkey of the race? Surely that would have put him on top.

[Tazio]

Cograt's to Slash I've always known he is a winner!

[jens]

Cograt's to Slash I've always known he is a winner!

Winner at least in something!
Actually I thought Lotus could have had a good chance to win this thing, because I remember they retired a lot early in the year, and Maldonado crashed as well. So surprised to see Sutil taking the cake! Oh well, and he is well ahead of Gutiérrez there. I got the impression the Sauber drivers were pretty evenly matched this year, but seems there is at least one statistic in which they are not!

Surprised McLaren has retired so little this year. I do remember Button suffering a few car problems, but they happened to late in the race it didn't really drop him "down the order" I guess.

[The Black Knight]

It's that time of year when we look at who was the World Champion for drivers and constructors in failing to finish, failing to start, breaking down or otherwise just not crossing the finishing line.

The scoring is simple, the first to retire gets 25 points, the second to retire gets 18 etc according to the F1 points system. If you finish the race or aren't amongst the first 10 to retire you get no points. (Interestingly unlike previous years there was never more than 10 non-finishers this year. Canada and Monaco were joint top with 8 DNFs each. China, Spain, Italy, Russia and Brazil all came out best with 2 non-finishers )

Here's the results


A Sutil 137
K Kobayashi 121
P Maldonado 99
R Grosjean 97
D Kvyat 83
J E Vergne 78
S Perez 73
M Chilton 68
M Ericsson 65
E Guiterrez 62
F Massa 61
J Bianchi 55
S Vettel 45
F Alonso 43
L Hamilton 35
D Ricciardo 31
N Rosberg 30
N Hulkenburg 30
K Raikkonen 25
A Lotterer 25
K Magnussen 10
J Button 10
V Bottas 6

Adrian Sutil becomes World Deconstructors Champion 2014.

What about the teams


Caterham 211
Sauber 199
Lotus 196
Torro Rosso 151
Marussia 123
Force India 103
Red Bull 76
Ferrari 68
Williams 67
Mercedes 65
McLaren 20

No real surprise to see Caterham on top, but McLaren managed to score way less points than anyone else, a third of their closest rivals Mercedes.

Great post! Totally throws DJ's theories about Vettel's super mechanically unreliable season out the window as well. Now he is left with is his ridiculous conspiracy theory.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Great post! Totally throws DJ's theories about Vettel's super mechanically unreliable season out the window as well. Now he is left with is his ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Except that you talk out of a nether orifice again. Mark only considered the race, but when a driver loses the whole friday, basically the whole weekend is in the gutter, and that doesn't reflect in that model. It's random and arbitrary. it has RIC and VET separated by 14 'points' - how does that model explain then that RIC drove 1.500km more than Vettel this season? (Thats 5 bloody GP distances) If you lose one or even two FP's your race weekend is compromised. It's completely random, but you would of course jump at it like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat to spew your hatred. You are a worthy successor to Gary Walker.

[Doc Austin]

I'm a Vettel fan and even I can clearly see that Ricciardo handed him his ass.

[steveaki13]

I'm a Vettel fan and even I can clearly see that Ricciardo handed him his ass.

Then you are a weak Vettel fan :vader:, he is all powerful.........................

[jens]

I remember Vettel also sometimes losing free practices during the past few years, but he still raced strongly, because he was so at one with the car it seemed the issues went unaffected. I don't want to look for excuses, this year was never the same as it used to be.

[Storm]

No real surprise to see Caterham on top, but McLaren managed to score way less points than anyone else, a third of their closest rivals Mercedes.

That just means McLaren were very reliable AND slow :(

[Mark]

It's easy to be reliable and slow. To be unreliable and slow takes special talent.

[airshifter]

I'm a Vettel fan and even I can clearly see that Ricciardo handed him his ass.

Similar to Kimi and Fernando, most of the spanking was done on track.


And looking at these "reliability and stay out of trouble" points, the McLaren cars no doubt helped their standings quite a lot by not grenading on a regular basis.

[The Black Knight]

Except that you talk out of a nether orifice again. Mark only considered the race, but when a driver loses the whole friday, basically the whole weekend is in the gutter, and that doesn't reflect in that model. It's random and arbitrary. it has RIC and VET separated by 14 'points' - how does that model explain then that RIC drove 1.500km more than Vettel this season? (Thats 5 bloody GP distances) If you lose one or even two FP's your race weekend is compromised. It's completely random, but you would of course jump at it like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat to spew your hatred. You are a worthy successor to Gary Walker.

I'd suspect it is explained by Vettel being so slow that he fell behind Ricciardo by about 1,500km over the course of the season :D

Oh don't worry, I am not a Vettel hater, I just recognise him as the overrated champion he is, that is all really.

[Warriwa]

Great post! Totally throws DJ's theories about Vettel's super mechanically unreliable season out the window as well. Now he is left with is his ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Also if you consider Ricco's second place in Australia as a DNF, then both drivers had three DNF's each for the season through no fault of their own. Some people, incapable of viewing things objectively, just can't accept that Vettel was beaten soundly over the course of an entire season and will always look for excuses to defend him. To Vettel's credit, I didn't ever hear him make any excuses, nor do I think he needs any defending from 'frothing at the mouth' fans.

[Doc Austin]

Oh don't worry, I am not a Vettel hater, I just recognise him as the overrated champion he is, that is all really.

Vettel utterly dominated in two of his championships, and in the other two he had to deliver when it counted. The guy has what you call "championship fortitude." He won all of his championships cleanly too. No dirty driving from Vettel that I ever saw.

Vettel is still a great champion, and Ricciardo still handed him his ass this year.

[Warriwa]

Vettel utterly dominated in two of his championships, and in the other two he had to deliver when it counted. The guy has what you call "championship fortitude." He won all of his championships cleanly too. No dirty driving from Vettel that I ever saw.

Vettel is still a great champion, and Ricciardo still handed him his ass this year.

Agreed, well said.