Turns out he could. So I just thought I’d have a look over the season and see if we can figure out if there is more to the headline stats – George P4 in the championship, Lewis P6 – than meets the eye. Because on first acquaintance, it seems like a man with a prior grand total of one grand prix in a front-running car (which he’d never driven before and in which he did not fit) has put one over possibly the greatest driver in the world — not that it appears to have affected their relationship, as Russell explains in the current, January 2023 issue of Motor Sport.
Now, I know you can prove anything with statistics and I don’t claim for a moment to have done a full data analysis – I’ve not even included the sprint races because when I looked my brain started to hurt (for the record, George beat Lewis 3-0) – but I think there are some interesting conclusions to draw nonetheless.
There will of course be any number of reasons why George beat Lewis and Lewis beat George in any given qualifying or race that had nothing to do with either driver: poor strategy, mechanical failure, getting taken out by someone and plain bad luck with safety cars and the like, but over 22 races, things do tend to even out, especially as both drivers started all 22 of them and both finished 21. In the stats that follow, I’ll always put Lewis’s score first, then George’s. Don’t know why, but I think he’s earned it
In qualifying it was close, only once did one driver lead the other in the head-to-head record by more than two races. Eight races in, Lewis was led by George 3-5 but ten races later, Lewis had turned it around and led 10-8. He briefly went further ahead to lead 11-8 after COTA but ended the season 12-10 up. As close a win as you can get, but a win for Lewis nonetheless.