Why rising star Russell was outshone by Williams team-mate Latifi

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Why rising star Russell was outshone by Williams team-mate Latifi

The incredible stats behind the duo's first campaign together

Ewan Gale

Sunday 27 December 2020 09:00

Nicholas Latifi has completed a fine rookie season in Formula 1 with Williams although it was largely overshadowed by team-mate George Russell's incredible campaign.

The British driver's astronomic rise has been one of the stories of the season, with his qualifying endeavours, in particular, raising eyebrows with nine Q2 appearances in a back-of-the-pack car.

But the question is, how did Latifi's inaugural season actually go? Upon further reflection, the Canadian has himself been very strong and - perhaps - the best Williams driver.

Stay with me on this one because here's why...

Let's give some points out!

Russell may have been stellar in qualifying but you don't get points on a Saturday, it is Sunday that counts.

Unfortunately, Williams were pointless this year, so that all becomes a moot point - so to speak - unless we give out championship points for 11th to 20th.

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For the sake of argument, we are pretending 11th is first through to 20th being 10th, with the usual 25 points-per-win system to help us. We are also discounting the Sakhir Grand Prix as Russell was in a Mercedes.

Despite his Saturday exploits, Russell only finished in 11th on a single occasion at Mugello, compared to Latifi's three in Austria, Monza and Imola. Seven-five points straight away for the rookie.

In fact, once all of the scores are added up across their 16 grands prix as a pairing, Latifi nets 149 points and actually out-scores Russell by 20.

Why use that system when Indycar already hands out 'sympathy' points?

Well in Indycar, if you finish a race, you will score points. It is a hugely divisive scoring system that was discussed by the F1 strategy group a few years ago.

So what if this system was already in use? Would Russell restore parity? In this instance, 11th is awarded 19 points and with only a one-point increment between each position.

Both driver's scores increase drastically, with Russell's total jumping by 44 points to 173. However, Latifi breaks the 200 mark and actually widens his gap to 31 points by claiming 204.

But do the points actually display the whole picture? Has Latifi indeed been the strongest of the pair on race day.

Bad luck hits Russell points tally

The fact of the matter is, despite the fact he scored more 'points' than Russell, Latifi actually finished behind his team-mate in eight of the 10 races the pair were both classified for Williams.

That is a bleak statistic, although the difference in position was only greater than two positions on two occasions, which means they were actually pretty equal.

It has to be said that Latifi seldom made a mistake on race day whereas Russell made a critical error in Imola that potentially cost him bonafide championship points.

The other skew in the data is the four DNF's suffered by Russell to Latifi's two. Of the four, only one was of Russell's own doing, with a fuel system issue his downfall in the season opener before being caught up in Alfa Romeo accidents in Belgium and Germany.

Clearly, Russell is the lead Williams driver, but make no bones about it, Latifi had a very good start to his F1 career.