F1 history settled with data
The old arguments share one problem: they get settled with memories. Who was better, which car was further ahead, how much a transfer that never happened would have changed. All of them depend on comparing things that never shared a track, and there affection decides more than evidence does. These articles do something else: they put the candidates in the same car, or the same driver in every car, and re-run the championship hundreds or thousands of times until the machinery stops being an excuse. The conclusions are not always the comfortable ones. The order of an eleven-legend league turned out to match almost exactly the rating each one walks in with, four of seven dream transfers would have changed nothing because those cars won with anybody inside, and there are limits to the model that are worth saying out loud rather than hiding.
7 articles
The 1996 F1 season is the closest we have measured in 30 years
Hill takes the title in 46 of every 100 simulations and Schumacher in 44. Two points, the narrowest margin across 30 measured seasons. And they were not team-mates: one had the tenth most dominant car ever measured and the other did not.
26 August 2026 · 7 min read
Eleven legends, one car, 8,250 seasons: the greatest-of-all-time league
We put eleven GOAT candidates in the exact same car and ran them against each other: 55 duels, 150 championships apiece. Verstappen and Schumacher pull clear; Senna, Prost and Hamilton finish in a dead heat no amount of simulation can break. And the rain did something that sent us looking inside the engine.
22 August 2026 · 9 min read
Senna versus Schumacher, same car, 2,400 championships: length decides everything
We made them team-mates in the same car and ran the championship at six different lengths. Over one race it is a coin toss (48.5%); over twenty-four, Schumacher takes two in three. He does not win more races: he loses fewer. And in the rain the simulator falls short, for a reason we spell out.
22 August 2026 · 7 min read
Seven transfers that never happened, actually run: four would have changed nothing
We genuinely placed each driver in the car he never drove, against that year’s real grid. Alonso in Vettel’s Red Bull wins exactly what Vettel won: that car won with anybody in it. The one that does swing is Hamilton in the 2017 Ferrari, where Vettel takes no titles at all and Hamilton takes 87%.
22 August 2026 · 8 min read
What age is a Formula 1 driver at their best? The curve and its trap
Fifteen hundred careers measured by age. The chart says drivers keep improving until 36, and it lies: between 28 and 30, 74% of the grid disappears. What is left once you correct for survivorship bias.
6 August 2026 · 7 min read
Twelve teammate duels, in exactly the same car
Senna against Prost, Alonso against Hamilton, Hamilton against Rosberg: twelve real pairings, five seasons each, machinery exactly equalised. The most famous duel in history ends in a technical draw; four others finish 5-0.
6 August 2026 · 9 min read
What is the most dominant car in F1 history? 37 seasons measured with the same driver
The 2023 Red Bull RB19, and not narrowly: with an average driver it still wins nine races in ten. We sat the same driver in the best car of every season since 1988 to compare them on one scale. And the seasons that come out closest turn out to be, one by one, the most fondly remembered championships in F1.
5 August 2026 · 9 min read