The 100-race statistics that should alarm F1

Although Mercedes ended up winning the 2018 world championship at a canter, for much of the season the title battle was finely poised - which seemed like a breakthrough. But things were bleak further down the grid and the numbers prove F1 cannot ignore that issue

Jonathan Noble Dec 20, 2018, 10:47 AM

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There is the famous saying that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. But in Formula 1's case, brutal truths actually come to light if you pore over the numbers that have been produced in the past few years.

At the 2018 season finale in Abu Dhabi last month, there was a nice symmetry to the fact that the championship had completed a century of races since the turbo hybrid era began at the start of '14.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.