Formula 1 Season Statistics

The only time Chandhok beats Vettel

The best qualifying driver this year is undoubtedly Sebastien Vettel, with seven pole positions (including Hungary). The worst is Sakon Yamamoto, followed by Karun Chandhok. (Incidentally, have Hispania deliberately chosen drivers with five-letter first names?) However, if you compare the drivers' performances over the race – starting position to finishing position – only one name comes out top, and only one name comes out bottom. Admittedly, it's easier to lose positions if you qualify high, but other good qualifiers didn't end up quite so badly as the guys at the bottom of this table.

Position	Driver	Average difference
1	Karun Chandhok	6
2	Bruno Senna	3.3
3=	Lucas DiGrassi	3.18
3=	Jaime Alguersuari	3.18
5	Sakon Yamamoto	2.5
6	Jenson Button	1.82
7	Lewis Hamilton	1.73
8	Fernando Alonso	1.55
9	Vitantonio Liuzzi	1.09
10	Heikki Kovalainen	0.91
11	Adrian Sutil	0.82
12=	Nico Rosberg	0.45
12=	Timo Glock	0.45
14	Jarno Trulli	-0.09
15=	Felipe Massa	-0.27
15=	Rubens Barrichello	-0.27
17	Robert Kubica	-0.55
18	Michael Schumacher	-0.64
19	Vitali Petrov	-0.91
20	Sebastien Buemi	-1.36
21	Kamui Kobayashi	-2.36
22	Nico Hulkenberg	-3.91
23	Mark Webber	-4
24	Pedro de la Rosa	-4.18
25	Sebastian Vettel	-4.55

Conclusions: Hispania are rubbish qualifiers but do better than the other new teams in the race, while Red Bull are good qualifiers but can't keep it up in a race. In contrast to the Red Bull drivers, the Ferrari and MacLaren drivers tend to keep up their performance overall. There's been early retirements and bad drops for more than just Vettel and Webber, but Red Bull seem to be very bad at holding onto their pole positions.