Who’s faster, Alonso or Hamilton?

It all started in Australia, where Lewis Hamilton, after miles and miles of testing faced his biggest challenge yet, to compete on a race day with the 21 other drivers. Lewis finished his first ever Friday practice session a very respectable 4^th position, while his vastly more experienced team mate finished ahead of him.

 

So, lets look at the practice times from the Australian Grand Prix that were set by Fernando And Lewis, if the time difference it means that Fernando was the faster of the two, if it is a plus in front of the time difference, then Lewis was faster.

 

Round 1, Australia, Albert Park

 

Driver	Practice 1	Practice 2	Practice 3
Fernando Alonso	1:29.214	1:28.040	1:26.786
Lewis Hamilton	1:30.878	1:27.829	1:26.467
Lap Time Difference	-1.664	+0.211	+0.319

 

 

As this table shows, Lewis was the faster of the two once he found his feet and was happy with the handling of his car.

 

The next table will compare their Qualifying times for the Australian Grand Prix, note that qualifying 3 times are not fuel corrected.

 

Driver	Qualifying 1	Qualifying 2	Qualifying
Fernando Alonso	1:26.697	1:25.326	1:26.493
Lewis Hamilton	1:26.674	1:25.577	1:26.755
Lap Time Difference	+0.023	-0.251	-0.262

 

It is evident that Fernando had the upper hand in the qualifying, however things changed for the race, as you will see in the next table.

 

 

Driver	Fastest Race Time
Fernando Alonso	1:26.314
Lewis Hamilton	1:26.351
Lap Time Difference	-0.037

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, in Australia, It was world champion Fernando Alonso that was the quicker driver, however it wasn’t by much, only a couple of tenths separated Lewis from Fernando. In the race there was hardely any difference between the two drivers, Fernando just edging out Lewis by 0.037. Why didn’t we notice Fernando’s extreme advantage?  Well, we expected Fernando to be quick, and all the media ‘hype’ was on Lewis, clearly Fernando’s performance was put into shade by his team mate. .The total difference over the whole weekend was a mere 0.080, Fernando 1, Lewis 0.

 

Round 2, Malaysia, Sepang.

 

As we arrived at Malaysia, Lewis Hamilton was still smiling from his podium in Australia, and after having a very strong test at the Sepang circuit the week before, Lewis must have been very optimistic. Fernando meanwhile had been doing some work at the factory back at Woking, as it would have been best for the team, as the simulator they have there is very accurate, both drivers were undoubtedly confident going into the race, however beating the Ferrari’s would have been hard.

 

 

Driver	Practice 1	Practice 2	Practice 3
Fernando Alonso	1:35.220	1:37.041	1:35.311
Lewis Hamilton	1:35.712	1:36.797	1:34.811
Lap Time Difference	-0.492	+0.244	+0.500

 

 

From that table Lewis easily had the upper hand, but again it was only by fractions of a second, Fernando possibly struggling due to him not testing before.

 

Driver	Qualifying 1	Qualifying 2	Qualifying 3
Fernando Alonso	1:34.942	1:34.057	1:35.310
Lewis Hamilton	1:35.028	1:34.650	1:36.045
Lap Time Difffernce	-0.104	-0.593	-0.735

 

 

The world champion Fernando Alonso clearly demolished his younger team mate in qualifying, showing that he’s boss, like a world champion should do. Fernando averages to be just under half a second faster than Lewis, could this be McLaren playing driver tactics, to make the press think that both drivers are even? Unlikely.

 

Driver	Fastest Race Lap
Fernando Alonso	1:36.861
Lewis Hamilton	1:36.701
Lap Time Difference	+0.160

 

 

As you can see, Lewis was marginally faster in the race, but nothing to stop Fernando from taking a clear lead. In the end, Fernando was on average -0.145 seconds a lap faster around the Malaysian Circuit. So the score stands at Fernando 2, Lewis 0

 

Round 3, Kingdom of Bahrain, Bahrain

 

Bahrain came just a week after Sepang leaving the team and its drivers virtually no time to recover from the extreme stress that they faced in Malaysia. Nevertheless the drivers went out to compete against each other.

 

Driver	Practice 1	Practice 2	Practice 3
Fernando Alonso	1:34.161	1:33.784	1:33.235
Lewis Hamilton	1:34.110	1:33.540	1:32.543
Lap Time Difference	+0.051	+0.244	+0.692

 

You don’t need a professional eye to see that Fernando clearly struggled in all the practice sessions, note that the Pod fell on Fernando’s car on Friday night, which explains why he was suddenly 0.6 seconds off Hamilton’s pace. Despite this, Lewis did a great job in beating his team mate, this trend continued into qualifying.

 

Driver	Qualifying 1	Qualifying 2	Qualifying 3
Fernando Alonso	1:33.049	1:32.214	1:33.192
Lewis Hamilton	1:32.580	1:31.732	1:32.935
Lap Time Difference	+0.469	+0.482	+0.257

 

In qualifying Fernando managed to gain back some time on Lewis, you can see why the team believes that they have a very good chance of winning the world drivers championship. This extreme pace from Hamilton carried through to the race.

 

Driver	Fastest Race Lap
Fernando Alonso	1:34.420
Lewis Hamilton	1:34.270
Lap Time Difference	+0.150

 

Fernando once more gained time on Lewis but it wasn’t enough to stop everyone realising that Lewis had destroyed Fernando through the whole grand prix weekend. Lewis was on average 0.335 faster than Fernando through the weekend. Fernando 2, Lewis 1.

 

To sum up, Fernando is still the faster of the two drivers, but honestly on the track, there is no difference between them, which either means that I’ve wasted my time doing this, or we’ve proved something, that they are the same speed, and are direct rivals to each other. When you add up the times over the past grand prix, you will find that there is a tenth in Lewis pocket, but that can be down to the problem that Fernando had, nevertheless, their even. We will do another comparison in a few months time.