Discovering the appropriate #2 driver is as a lot artwork as science. Groups want somebody gifted sufficient to attain podiums, and savvy sufficient to know their function. Make a mistake, and your #1 driver can spend the season dragging lifeless weight, significantly within the combat for the constructor’s title. Which brings us to Sergio Pérez.
Pink Bull Racing introduced Pérez aboard for 2021 to enrich then-wunderkind Max Verstappen. Over that season and the subsequent two, the Mexican driver largely held up his finish of the cut price, delivering podiums and backing a dynastic run for Pink Bull and Verstappen. Particularly in 2022 and 2023, Sergio Pérez represented the perfect No. 2 driver — a constructor’s championship cheat code.
Then 2024 occurred.
The place Pérez scored between 32 and 40 p.c of Pink Bull’s factors every of his first three years with the crew, he was an anchor in 2024, delivering a paltry 26.1 p.c of the crew’s 581 factors. Pink Bull slipped to 3rd within the constructors’ standings regardless of Verstappen hoisting his fourth consecutive driver’s title. As Verstappen clinched his fourth world championship on the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Pérez notched a single level. The person who’d been a bear as a #2 driver had change into an albatross.
All of it made us surprise: The place did Pérez’s woeful season stack up within the annals of dangerous campaigns by a high driver’s team-mate? So we crunched the numbers, taking a look at knowledge from each System 1 season, to determine out which team-mates had been the least useful for the contending groups. Seems, since 1958, 14 groups have completed within the high two of the constructor’s championship with one driver scoring 75 p.c (or extra) of the crew’s factors.
Beneath are probably the most lopsided F1 driver tandems ever. The excellent news — for Checo, a minimum of — is that there have been worse team-mates than his 2024 run. Simply not by a lot.
The Least Useful team-mates Ever: 1972 Lotus
Emerson Fittipaldi
Picture by: Sutton Photographs
Emerson Fittipaldi: 61 factors (100%)David Walker and Reine Wisell: 0 factors (0%)
Meet the gold customary for ineffective team-mates in System 1. Fittipaldi might need identified he was in for a solo present when the FIA disqualified Walker from the yr’s first race, the Argentine Grand Prix, for receiving outdoors help. He single-handedly dragged the crew to the title when his team-mates had extraordinarily hassle staying eligible for races, not to mention ending them with their vehicles intact.
In a season with solely 12 races, Fittipaldi received 5 and claimed the constructors’ championship all by himself. Walker was the first freeloader, by no means ending higher than ninth and retiring in every of his final 4 begins. Wisell changed him within the midst of that run of ignominy and couldn’t rating factors for Lotus, both.
The Rotating Door: 1963 Lotus
Jim Clark in his Lotus 25 Climax
Picture by: Motorsport Photographs
Jim Clark: 54 factors (98.2%)Remainder of crew: 1 level (1.8%)
The 1963 season noticed the primary of Clark’s two driver’s championships, successful seven of 10 grands prix (whereas additionally taking seven poles). And for constructor’s championship functions, he was the one driver that mattered, because the crew became a carousel of #2 pilots: fellow Brits Trevor Taylor, Peter Arundell, and Mike Spence, in addition to Mexican Pedro Rodríguez. Taylor scored precisely one level because of a glowing sixth-place end in Monaco to open the season. After all, the FIA solely counted a crew’s high driver in a grand prix towards the constructor standings in 1963, so even Taylor’s single level wound up being irrelevant.
Schumacher’s Anchor: 1994 Benetton
Ukyo Katayama, Michael Schumacher and Jos Verstappen in a press convention
Picture by: Ercole Colombo
Michael Schumacher: 92 factors (89.3%)Jos Verstappen, JJ Lehto, and Johnny Herbert: 11 factors (10.7%)
In lugging round a subpar team-mate this season at Pink Bull, Max Verstappen is probably paying a debt taken on by his father 30 years in the past. That season, Jos Verstappen spent a lot of the yr because the crew’s No. 2 to a younger Schumacher — although that wasn’t the unique plan. JJ Lehto was meant to be Schumacher’s companion, however a preseason damage resulted in Verstappen taking the seat.
Issues went properly for Michael Schumacher: he received his first world driver’s championship, beating out Damon Hill by a single level after each males retired from the season-ending Australian Grand Prix following a crash with one another. (Schumacher, who had the whole lot to achieve by crashing out with Hill, has usually been accused of orchestrating the collision.)
All of it went much less properly for Verstappen the Elder, and Benetton. The crew completed 15 factors behind Williams for second within the constructor’s title. Jos Verstappen wasn’t round to see it occur; Benetton changed him with Johnny Herbert for the ultimate two races within the hopes of creating a ultimate push. Verstappen misplaced his seat earlier than the subsequent season started.
The Andretti Incident: 1993 McLaren
Michael Andretti and Ayrton Senna
Picture by: Ercole Colombo
Ayrton Senna: 73 factors (86.9%)Michael Andretti and Mika Häkkinen: 11 factors (13.1%)
Ayrton Senna completed second on the earth championship on this season, 26 factors behind Alain Prost. McLaren additionally got here in second to Prost’s Williams crew, however the margin in that race was a lot greater: 168 factors for Williams, 84 for McLaren. Michael Andretti introduced little to the desk, ending eleventh within the championship, with as many retirements (seven) as factors. McLaren swapped him out for Mika Hakkinen for the ultimate three races, with the Finn sandwiching a P3 end on the Japanese Grand Prix between two retirements. Andretti by no means drove once more in System 1, leaving his awful ‘93 efficiency reverse Senna to face because the American’s solely F1 report.
The Senna Tragedy: 1994 Williams
Damon Hill and Ayrton Senna
Picture by: Motorsport Photographs
Damon Hill: 91 factors (77.1%)Remainder of crew: 27 factors (22.9%)
This season, after all, wears an asterisk of tragic proportions.
Williams began the season with dynamite duo: three-time champion Ayrton Senna and an ascendant Damon Hill (who would win his first title two years later in 1996). Senna’s demise within the season’s third race, on the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, threw the world into mourning, and Williams into chaos.
Amidst the pall of Senna’s loss, Damon Hill discovered himself in a historic title battle with Michael Schumacher, dropping out by just one level. Possibly extra impressively, Williams secured an astonishing constructors’ title thanks nearly totally to Hill. David Coulthard and Nigel Mansell took their turns filling Senna’s seat, and the 2 drivers cobbled collectively a mixed 27 factors, ending eighth and ninth respectively within the championship. A bar-bet truth: Mansell, sitting on pole on the finale in Australia, received the race by which Hill and Schumacher crashed out. He known as his victory that day “an excellent reduction,” as he continued a stretch of successful a minimum of one race in every year since 1985.
The Worst team-mate of the Millennium: 2004 BAR-Honda
Jenson Button and Takuma Sato pose with BAR-Honda crew members
Picture by: Motorsport Photographs
Jenson Button: 85 factors (71.4%)Takuma Sato: 34 factors (28.6%)
This duo has the respect of being probably the most lopsided on a top-two constructor within the twenty first century. Button didn’t win a grand prix, however stood on 9 podiums; Sato landed only one, a P3 in the USA Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That was apparently a formative expertise for the Japanese star, who later modified racing sequence and received the Indianapolis 500 in each 2017 and 2020.
The Checo Catastrophe: 2024 Pink Bull
Picture by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Photographs
Max Verstappen: 429 factors (73.8%)Sergio Pérez: 152 factors (26.2%)
Technically, Pérez’s 2024 season would not rely for our worst-team-mate rankings as a result of Pink Bull completed third (not second) within the constructor’s championship, behind McLaren and Ferrari. However let’s not let guidelines get in the way in which of recognizing his futility. Regardless of a torrid begin to the season — 4 podiums within the first 5 races — Perez collapsed quickly therafter, logging 5 DNFs (and no podiums) within the ultimate 17 grand prix, together with the final two races. The Mexican driver’s eighth-place end within the drivers’ standings this yr was the widest hole between a No. 2 driver and his title-winning team-mate since Jos Verstappen took tenth behind Schumacher in 1994.
But when Pérez’s brutal season, by which he managed solely 26.2% of his crew’s level, is technically inadmissible, his 2021 season with Pink Bull might be entered into proof. As Verstappen received the drivers’ title in Abu Dhabi and Mercedes retained the crew crown, Pérez managed simply 32.5 p.c of Pink Bull’s factors. Oh, what Christian Horner would’ve given to get that a lot out of Pérez this yr.
Probably the most even factors break up in F1 historical past: 1984 McLaren
McLaren team-mates Alain Prost and Niki Lauda
Picture by: Sutton Photographs
Niki Lauda: 72 factors (50.2%)Alain Prost: 71.5 factors (49.8%)
Let’s finish this record on a considerably optimistic notice.
In 1984, the world witnessed what will be the most even-handed effort by two System 1 team-mates ever, as Niki Lauda and Alain Prost received the constructor’s title with solely a half-point separating their totals.
That half-point, after all, made a distinction in Prost’s season. Lauda took the motive force’s title over Prost largely due to the Frenchman’s personal actions. Throughout the Monaco Grand Prix, as rain poured down and a charging Ayrton Senna threatened to overhaul the race-leading Prost, the Frenchman pressed for the race to be shortened. He acquired his want, however solely half factors (4.5 for Prost, as an alternative of 9) had been awarded to the highest six finishers. Had he completed the complete race in second, Prost would have obtained six factors.
Since 1984, a pair groups have come near splitting constructor’s factors whereas taking the title. In 1986, Williams tallied 70 factors from Nigel Mansell and 69 from Nelson Piquet for the championship. And in 2016, Mercedes received with 385 from Nico Rosberg and 380 from Lewis Hamilton.
No crew has ever completed within the high two of the constructor standings with an ideal 50/50 driver level break up. It might not even be a worthwhile purpose to have two viable #1 drivers (as McLaren could quickly uncover). However Pink Bull will definitely be hoping for a extra balanced duo than it may muster in 2024.
On this article
Alex Kirshner
System 1
Takuma Sato
Jenson Button
Jos Verstappen
Michael Schumacher
Mika Hakkinen
Michael Andretti
Jim Clark
Niki Lauda
Alain Prost
Ayrton Senna
Emerson Fittipaldi
Sergio Perez
Max Verstappen
Pink Bull Racing
McLaren
Lotus F1 Group
Benetton
British American Racing
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