Comparing the 2014 teammates: Force India

After comparing the teammates of Ferrari, Red Bull and Lotus it is time for Force India.
Force India has changed both of their drivers for the 2014 season. Nico Hülkenberg is coming back after one season at Sauber and Sergio Perez is filling the second seat after leaving McLaren.

Hülkenberg has always been a good driver and in my opinion he is one of the best drivers in Formula One. Perez on the other hand is a driver who is a bit off sometimes but is capable of scoring some very good points for him and his team. Perez was good at Sauber but at McLaren he couldn't beat his world champion teammate Jenson Button.

The comparing starts here and I will begin with Sergio Perez. First the year, then the former teammate and how the season went.

2011 - Kamui Kobayashi. Perez started his career with a very good and hungry teammate. Kobayashi was said to be a rising star but for some reason he isn't driving in F1 anymore.
The first season in F1 wasn't that good for Perez. Kobayashi got double the amount of points than Perez. Sauber was also a very weak team that year which didn't really give him a chance to show any skills.

2012 - Kamui Kobayashi. This time the Sauber was working much better than the year before and even Perez was driving better. He won Kobayashi with 6 points (66-60) and even got three podium finishes. The 2012 Malaysian GP was the best race ever for Perez. He almost won the race but got second place in the end fighting with the two time world champion Fernando Alonso. People were talking that Perez was going to replace Massa at Ferrari. In the end Perez got a contract with McLaren after Lewis Hamilton wanted to leave.

2013 - Jenson Button. Now it was time for Perez to show his real potential but he failed. Jenson Button was not an easy man to beat. Perez lost 73-49 in points and lost also his seat at McLaren to the newbie Kevin Magnussen. Not a good year for McLaren and not for Perez either. So Perez has driven in F1 for three years but has had only one really good season. Let's see how he will do with Nico Hülkenberg.

And now we shall take a look at the German superstar Nico Hülkenberg. Some say that if Kimi Räikkönen would have stayed with Lotus Hülkenberg would have joined Ferrari for sure.

2010 - Rubens Barrichello. The only season that Hülkenberg has lost to his teammate. As a rookie he got only half of the points that Barrichello got. But then on the other hand Hülkenberg retired twice more than Barrichello. The young rookie from Germany also shocked everybody by taking pole position in Brazil with a car that wasn't good enough for that.

2011 - This year he lost his seat when Williams needed a pay driver and signed Pastor Maldonado. Hülkenberg would have gotten a seat for sure in another team but Williams notified him so late that all of the seats were already taken.

2012 - Paul di Resta. Hülkenberg was back again and showed his teammate who's boss with the points 63-46. Hülkenberg was now a driver that every team was keeping an eye on. McLaren could have signed him for 2013 but thought that his 2014 teammate (Sergio Perez) was a better choice. An interesting question was in the air: If they would have signed Hülkenberg instead of Perez would they have signed Magnussen for 2014? We will never know and only wonder.

2013 - Esteban Gutierrez. This was a pretty obvious victory for Hülkenberg because he got over 8 times more points than his teammate. The points were 51-6! What a difference! Sauber were happy enough to keep him for one more season though. Hülkenberg was good enough to say that he wasn't happy with the car and returned to Force India who were glad to take him back.

If I would make a guess I would say that Perez will lose this time because "the Hulk" is a very tough teammate to beat.

Next time I will compare the Mercedes teammates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.

Magic numbers - a statistical look at the 2013 season

Formula One racing enjoyed another record-breaking year in 2013, thanks in no small part to the extraordinary exploits of Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull Racing team. As the year draws to a close, we look back over some of the amazing facts and figures that helped make it such a fascinating season…

• If you’re reviewing the 2013 season statistically, there’s no better place to start than with F1 racing’s current king of stats, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. Already a prodigious record breaker, 2013 will be remembered as the year in which the German went into overdrive. Vettel won 13 races to tie Michael Schumacher’s 2004 record, two of which (in Singapore and Korea) were ‘grand slams’ (pole, fastest lap, victory, led every lap). He also eclipsed Schumacher’s mark of seven consecutive Grand Prix victories in a single season by winning all nine races from Belgium in September to Brazil in November. In total, Vettel led 684 laps in 2013. To put that in perspective, the rest of the field combined led a total of 447 laps.

• Red Bull won their fourth consecutive constructors’ championship in 2013, tying McLaren’s run from 1988 to 1991. Only Ferrari have won more constructors’ crowns consecutively (six from 1999 to 2004). Additionally, Red Bull’s total of 596 points is second only to their total of 650 from 2011.

• 13 drivers led at least one lap in 2013 - Vettel (684), Rosberg (104), Alonso (89), Webber (69), Lewis Hamilton (66), Kimi Raikkonen (41), Romain Grosjean (36), Adrian Sutil (11), Felipe Massa (10), Jenson Button (8), Nico Hulkenberg (8), Paul di Resta (2) and Esteban Gutierrez (2). 

• In Japan, Fernando Alonso surpassed Michael Schumacher as the leading points scorer in Formula One history. He finished the season on 1,606 career points. The Spaniard also made his 200th Grand Prix start in 2013, ending the year on 215 starts (tied with Mark Webber for the eighth most in history).

• The 2013 season saw Kimi Raikkonen set a new record for scoring points in consecutive races. The Finn’s record run began in Bahrain in 2012 and ended an astonishing 27 races later with a DNF in Belgium. He surpassed Michael Schumacher’s previous record of 24 consecutive points-scoring races by finishing fifth in Britain in July.

• Speaking of long runs, old rivals McLaren and Ferrari fought over the longest points-scoring streak for a manufacturer in 2013. McLaren’s record-setting 64-race run ended in Canada in June, at which point Ferrari were on 55 races in the points. The Scuderia continued their run until the very last race of the season meaning they’ve gone 67 consecutive races with at least one car in the top ten. Will the streak continue in Australia in March?

• Not only did McLaren lose the consecutive points record to Ferrari, they also finished the 2013 season without a podium. You have to go back 33 years to 1980 for the last time they failed to register a rostrum finish. On the plus side, the Woking team did celebrate their 50th season by becoming the first team in Formula One history to have both its cars classified in every Grand Prix during the season. McLaren also completed 99.17% of the season’s total possible race distance - 11,488km out of a possible 11,584km. That was not only better than any other team managed during the season, it was also a new record, beating the previous mark of 98.30% set by BMW-Sauber in 2008.

• As well as contributing to McLaren’s records, Jenson Button set one of his own in 2013 as he surpassed David Coulthard to become Great Britain’s most experienced racer in Formula One history. The Brazilian Grand Prix marked Button’s 247th Grand Prix - one more than Coulthard managed.

• Button’s countryman Max Chilton set a record of his own in 2013. The Marussia driver became the first rookie to complete every Grand Prix in his maiden F1 season.

• Mark Webber bowed out of Formula one having amassed 1,047.5 career points (the sixth highest of all-time), 215 starts (tied for eighth of all-time), nine wins (33rd of all-time) and 42 podiums (tied for 18th of all-time).

• India became the 20th country in Formula One history to have seen a world champion crowned. The others (in order) are: Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Morocco, USA, Portugal, South African, Mexico, Austria, Japan, Canada, Australia, Hungary, France, Belgium, Brazil, and Abu Dhabi.

• With Vettel’s victory in Brazil, Renault ensured they won the final race of the 2.4-litre V8 era. The French engine manufacturer also won the final race of the 3.0-litre V10 era in 2005 and the 3.5-litre era in 1994.

• Valtteri Bottas became the seventh Finn to score points in F1 racing; Esteban Gutierrez became the fifth Mexican.

• A number of race milestones were reached in 2013: Force India clocked up 100 races under that moniker in Canada, Williams participated in their 600th race in Germany, whilst Adrian Sutil notched up his 100th start in Hungary.

• In 2013 there were 951 pit stops. That’s an average of 50.05 per race and 2.3 per driver.

• And finally, the total number of Pirelli slick tyres used in 2013 was 23,300 and the total number of rain tyres used was 2,400. All of them will be recycled.

(source: f1.com)