ATLAS F1   Volume 6, Issue 44
		2000 Qualifying Differentials

	by Marcel Borsboom, Netherlands

For the entire season, Atlas F1's Marcel Borsboom kept an eye on the battle between teammates with a simple measurement: comparing the qualifying times of each driver against his teammate's result. Now that the season is over it's time to see who was hot and who was not... AND THE WINNER IS...... Averages through Malaysia ------------------------- Slower Diff. Faster Zonta > 0.667 > Villeneuve Mazzacane > 0.494 > Gene Herbert > 0.484 > Irvine Barrichello > 0.483 > M. Schumacher Button > 0.404 > R. Schumacher Wurz > 0.267 > Fisichella Heidfeld > 0.262 > Alesi Diniz > 0.215 > Salo Verstappen > 0.095 > De La Rosa Coulthard > 0.042 > Hakkinen Frentzen > 0.010 > Trulli Well, not surprisingly, our Qualifying Differentials Champion of Year 2000 is Jacques Villeneuve, the man and the hair-do. Villeneuve was on top of the Differentials chart for most of the year and he's outqualified teammate Zonta by the largest margin and the largest number of times. He is a truly deserving champion. Jacques's title is so undisputed, that even when removing the worst/best result for each pair, he remains on top: Averages through Malaysia (best/worst results removed) -------------- Slower Diff. Faster Zonta > 0.678 > Villeneuve Mazzacane > 0.562 > Gene Herbert > 0.448 > Irvine Barrichello > 0.412 > M. Schumacher Button > 0.382 > R. Schumacher Wurz > 0.304 > Fisichella Heidfeld > 0.304 > Alesi Diniz > 0.206 > Salo Verstappen > 0.153 > De La Rosa Coulthard > 0.083 > Hakkinen Frentzen > 0.012 > Trulli Moreover, Villeneuve was among only seven drivers who outqualified their teammates at the start of the season, and remained ahead of them throughout the season. The others were Michael Schumacher, Eddie Irvine, Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo Fisichella, Mika Salo, and Marc Gene. This doesn't mean, however, that they were always ahead of their teammates. In fact, no driver this season managed to outqualify his teammate on all seventeen occasions. Here is what the Qualifying Duel tally looks like: The Qualifying Duel ------------------- Villeneuve 15 - 2 Zonta M. Schumacher 15 - 2 Barrichello Gene 14 - 3 Mazzacane Irvine 13 - 3 Herbert Fisichella 13 - 4 Wurz R. Schumacher 11 - 6 Button Salo 11 - 6 Diniz de la Rosa 11 - 6 Verstappen Hakkinen 10 - 7 Coulthard Alesi 10 - 7 Heidfeld Trulli 9 - 8 Frentzen So what was the grid like in general this year? How close were the drivers? The average gaps reveal a rather close intra-team grid, with the overall average of 2000 standing on 0.514s (compared to last year's average of 0.656s). Here are the averages race-by-race: Average Differences 2000 ------------------------ Germany 1.072 Australia 0.874 Britain 0.725 San Marino 0.654 Hungary 0.584 Belgium 0.561 Europe 0.546 Malaysia 0.526 Monaco 0.486 Spain 0.480 Brazil 0.455 Canada 0.449 France 0.400 Italy 0.341 Japan 0.339 USA 0.290 Austria 0.288 So there you have it folks: the Qualifying Differentials edition of 2000 comes to an end. We will be taking a much needed (well, not really) winter rest, but be sure to find us here again, with the stopwatch and the graphs, when the 2001 season commences. And in the mean time, congratulations to Mika Hakkinen, Michael Schumacher, Jarno Trulli, Eddie Irvine, Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo Fisichella, Mika Salo, Jean Alesi, Marc Gene, Pedro de la Rosa and our Champ Jacques Villeneuve for finishing ahead of their teammates.

Marcel Borsboom	© 2000 Kaizar.Com, Incorporated.
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