If you’ve followed F1B for a while, you’ll know that I am a big fan of the toughest bicycle race in the world—the Tour de France. I’m not a cyclist. I do not own a Conalgo road bike nor do I wear spandex. I simply love the spectacle of the race and all the nuances within.
A dear friend named Tim exposed me to the Tour and he is a biker and does have carbon fiber road bikes. He taught me the nuance of the Peloton, team tactics, what Peloton shapes mean, how the team loads its arsenal with GC’s, Domestiques and Climbers. He peeled back the curtain of the Tour and that’s when I found the sheer thrill of watching the race—the aerial shots of France make a terrific travelogue as well.
I’ve watched the last 10 years or so and this year was no exception. I was elated to see the UK finally achieve success in the Tour last year and then again this year with Chris Froome heading to Paris in the Yellow Jersey. I am continually reminded, especially in the last two years, how important teammates are to a Tour win and it stirred a few thoughts regarding Formula One’s notion of team and teammates.
Last year’s Tour saw Chris Froome humbly leading the way and setting the pace for Bradley Wiggins. There were many times that Froome looked stronger than Wiggins but he was reigned in and did his job by protecting Wiggins and leading him through the Alps to victory.
This year, that role fell upon Richie Porte from Tasmania. While I was amazed at Froome’s abilities, my man-of-the-race was Porte—the man is a machine! Froome can place a lot of his success in the 2013 Tour de France at the feet of this amazing bike rider from down under. He said as much speaking to the press:
“He’s the second-best GC rider in this race, just that he had to set aside his ambitions and that cost him in the overall,” Froome said in a press conference at Alpe d’Huez. “With his [overall] win in Paris-Nice and several other times this year, he showed that he’s one of the best riders. If he had a chance to ride [the Tour for himself], he would be on the podium.”
I was thinking of the role that Froome played in 2012 and how he had to dutifully support Bradley Wiggins. That was the team’s goal—get Wiggo to the top step in Paris and Froome had to eat that sandwich even when he clearly looked as if he had the legs to leave his team behind. There were similar moments in this year’s Tour with Porte but he maintained his role and led Froome to the win.
Bicycle racing isn’t the only sport in which teams matter. Many sports are team-based but the Tour does have interesting politics and nuances to the team dynamic. So does Formula One and that made me think about the supporting role of a teammate in the series.
As Felipe Massa heads into the waning 2013 Formula 1 season, he’s making noise in the press that he knows what he needs to do to secure his seat at Ferrari in 2014. He told the press:
“I know what I have to do. I’m just concentrating on good results,” he said.
“The pace is there so I’m not worried because I showed in most of the races to be honest [on] the pace. Things have happened not to finish the race and we just need to concentrate and try to keep the pace and just finish the race. I know if nothing strange happens I will finish in a good position.”
In short, Massa lacks consistency and that’s been the chief enemy to his career at Ferrari. When you juxtapose the career stats of Massa to his teammate, Fernando Alonso, you get a clearer picture of why teammates matter to a team’s overall goal of winning championships.
Fernando Alonso Felipe Massa
GP started
205
181
Wins
32
15.6%
11
6.1%
Podium places
91
44.4%
36
19.9%
Pole positions
22
10.7%
15
8.3%
Front row
37
18.0%
26
14.4%
Fastest laps
20
9.8%
14
7.7%
Points
1487
7.25
761
4.20
Laps raced
11423
55.7
10060
55.6
km raced
56542
275.8
49878
275.6
G.Prix led
81
39.5%
37
20.4%
Laps led
1731
8.4
881
4.9
km led
8477
41.4
4245
23.5
By pure numbers, a team would place a premium on Alonso and a supporting role for Massa but the lack of consistency from Felipe is hurting both he and Alonso as well as Ferrari overall. Alonso’s strike rate for points is an average of 7 points per race while Massa is at 4 points per race.
What about other teammates?
Sebastian Vettel Mark Webber
GP started
110
205
Wins
30
27.3%
9
4.4%
Podium places
52
47.3%
37
18.0%
Pole positions
39
35.5%
11
5.4%
Front row
54
49.1%
33
16.1%
Fastest laps
18
16.4%
16
7.8%
Points
1211
11.01
941.5
4.59
Laps raced
5901
53.6
10439
50.9
km raced
29848
271.3
51639
251.9
G.Prix led
55
50.0%
26
12.7%
Laps led
1983
18.0
576
2.8
Now Mark Webber has been racing a lot longer than Sebastian Vettel with twice as many grands prix completed but most of Webber’s points and wins have come while paired with Vettel at Red Bull. Comparing career numbers, is Massa far off the target if you consider Webber a good teammate for Vettel?
Vettel is averaging 11 points per race while Alonso averages 7 with Massa and Webber averaging 4 points per race. Now this is a bit of a non sequitur as these are averages over their career and that’s when they were in some dodgy rides so it isn’t completely fair to use that simple math but it does show that over an entire career, consistency is the key.
Nico Roseberg is scoring nearly 4 points per race over his career and he hasn’t had the best car since entering Formula 1…still doesn’t. His teammate, Lewis Hamilton, is averaging 8 points per race over his entire career.
Career stats are one thing but consistency is the key to being a teammate that can support when needed and win when the opportunity presents itself. A cursory look shows Webber’s career not radically different than Massa’s but many would place Webber as a better, more consistent teammate to Vettel and performing when Red Bull needs him to perform. Is that a fair comparison? What about Rosberg? Is he a better teammate than Massa? What if you went further down the grid? Would Nico Hulkenberg be a better teammate to Alonso or Jules Bianchi? Or is Massa the perfect fit for Ferrari?
If Massa understands that his consistency is the very heart of the issue as to whether he stays or goes at Ferrari, then it may be something he can turn around in the second half of the season. It was a close championship in 2012 with Vettel taking the title at 281 points but Fernando Alonso was nearly there with 278 and I believe that had Massa been on song for the entire season, Alonso may have won the title with a strong, more consistent teammate. Alonso needed a world-class Domestique like Richie Porte in 2012.
Then again, Webber had 179 to Massa’s 122 points in 2012 so are the two that far off from being effective teammates? Massa had six races out of the points and that is the consistency issue that most likely plays a bigger role than any other metric.
While I am offering simple numbers and stats, the real issue for me is just who the Richie Porte of F1 is. If you go back a few years, Lewis Hamilton was to be the real Richie Porte with Alonso as his teammate and Lewis on pace right out of the box but that ended in tears, as Hamilton wasn’t going to play wet-nurse to anyone.
One of the better teammate pairings in recent memory would be those of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello at Ferrari or Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard for McLaren. But I may be dreaming in rivers of stink at this point because Formula 1 may not have a place for a Domestique. No Richie Porte’s needed in a series where every driver believes they can win the title. My what a difference in thinking between F1 and the Tour de France…good thing no one gets bent out of shape due to team orders in cycling huh?
As we move forward and if Kimi Raikkonen makes the move to Red Bull, I would consider the Fin and possibly Nico Rosberg as the Richie Porte of Formula 1 in 2014. In the penumbra of my sheer admiration and respect for the Tasmanian, that’s a very high compliment to both Rosberg and Raikkonen. Porte for President!