The first year at Ferrari: Schumacher, Raikkonen, Alonso

Comparisons between drivers, especially from different eras, are never easy.
Many even say that they are impossible, due to a whole series of differences that distinguish the different Formula 1 seasons.

preconditions
After the one between Senna and Schumacher we propose another one, using numbers and updating of the results to make it as plausible as possible.

Leaving aside the various Irvine, Salo, Barrichello, Massa, we will examine the first year in Red of the three great Champions who arrived in Maranello in the last 15 years. Let's talk about Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.

We were talking about actualizations. They serve to 'even' the results and allow a comparison as truthful as possible, to the detriment of the differences between the various seasons. In this case, the years taken into consideration are 1996 (before German), 2007 (before Finnish) and 2010, before Spanish.

'Common' results

The updates that we will use for this parallel are two: one on the number of races, one on the score.

In 1996, 16 matches were played, the score used was 10-6-4-3-2-1.
In 2007, 17 matches were played, the score used was 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.
In 2010, 19 races were held, the score as we know was changed this year to 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1.

First update. Use a single score for all three seasons analyzed. Since the new version was introduced this year, the 1996 and 2007 seasons have been translated with the new score.

Second update. Use an identical number of races. Since 1996 races were held in 16, the last race of 2007 (Brazil) and the last three of 2010 (Korea, Brazil, Abu Dhabi) will not be considered.

COMPARISON
Let's start with a curiosity.
Both Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso arrived at Ferrari with two World Championships under their belt. 1994-1995 for German, 2005-2006 for Spanish. Both with the same team (first Benetton, then Renault) under the leadership of Flavio Briatore.
In the first year, however, of the three it was Kimi Raikkonen (never a world champion before) who won the title.

Let's move on to the scores

Fernando Alonso scored 252 points in 2010. As mentioned previously, however, we must only consider the first 16 races of his World Championship, to make the parallel more truthful. We therefore stop at the Japanese GP and we have to subtract the 25 points from Korea, the 15 from Brazil and the 6 from Abu Dhabi. 252-46 = 206 points.
Kimi Raikkonen won the 2007 World Championship with 110 points. Transforming his results with the new score, we get 272 points. From which we subtract Brazil's 25 (17th match) for a total of 247.
Michael Schumacher, in 1996, scored 59 points. Brought to the current score, these become 173.

We therefore have this first situation, compared to 16 races: 247 points for Kimi, 206 for Fernando, 173 for Schumacher.
If we did a simple average, dividing by the number of races, we would have 15,4 points for Kimi, 12,78 for Fernando, 10,81 for Michael.

Reliability and Shrinkages
Let's now add a variable to the results obtained. The retreats.
In 2010, Alonso suffered an engine failure in Malaysia and a retirement in Spa, due to an error on his part in the wet.
In 2007, Kimi Raikkonen suffered two problems that forced him to retire, in Barcelona and at the Nurburgring.
Schumi, in his first year at Ferrari, had to retire seven times. For an error on his part in Monte Carlo during the first lap, and in the remaining races due to problems with his F310. Many will certainly remember the smoke during the reconnaissance lap of the French GP. In Hungary, despite his retirement, he was classified ninth. With the current score he would therefore have obtained 2 points.

If, therefore, we consider 10 races finished for Schumacher (with 25 points we also keep Budapest good) against 14 for Raikkonen and Alonso, and we recalculate the average points, we obtain: 17,3 points for Schumi, 17,6 for Kimi, 14,7 .XNUMX for Fernando.

Joint races
The 1996, 2007 and 2010 seasons saw nine grand prix races held on the same track. Precisely Melbourne, Interlagos, Montecarlo, Montreal, Barcelona, ​​Silverstone, Budapest, Spa, Monza. Over the years, some of these leads have been modified, but we keep them safe to continue with our analyses.

Always keeping in mind 25 points per victory, Schumi scored 92 points with four retirements. Kimi 147 points with one DNF. Fernando 111, also with a retirement.
The average would be 10,2 points for Schumi, 16,3 for Kimi and 12,3 for Fernando.
However, if, as before, we only take into account the races completed, Schumacher's points become an average of 18,4 against Raikkonen's 18,3 and Alonso's 13,8.

Better results

Also in this case, we take into account the minimum number of GPs completed, i.e. Schumacher's 10 in 1996.

In 10 races Schumi achieved 3 victories, 3 second places, 2 thirds, a fourth and a ninth.
For Raikkonen, in 2007, in the first 16 races, 5 victories, 2 second places, 3 thirds.
Finally and always in the first 16 races, Alonso collected 4 first places, 2 seconds, 2 thirds, 2 fourths.

In this situation, therefore, the Finn did better than Alonso and Schumacher

Different single-seaters
All these calculations were obtained without considering the single-seaters used by the three drivers in their first year with the Red. And, obviously, we cannot know how much these may have affected their performance race by race, not so much in terms of retirements but in terms of pure performance.
Despite the many retirements, however, Schumacher's F310 did not seem to be at the level of Alonso's F10. Just as the latter was probably inferior to Raikkonen's F2007. And here it is up to the individual fan to evaluate the necessary differences.

Concluding
That's all. Of the three phenomena, the one that stands out the most is Kimi Raikkonen, thanks to the World Championship won in a daring way in 2007. We limited ourselves, however, to examining exclusively the numerical data, updated to the same 'meter', to give users the opportunity to carry on an interesting reflection.

The word is up to you.

Alessandro Secchi
F1Grandprix.it