sDRS Focus: Hulkenberg Continues to Fall

Nico Hulkenberg didn’t finish Sunday’s United States Grand Prix, completing just 35 laps before crashing out. Five of the last seven races have resulted in DNF’s for the German, with just one of the those being ‘excused’ (a did not start in Belgium). The rest were all crashes that one could argue could have been avoided. Meanwhile his teammate Sergio Perez has placed in the top ten in five of the last six races — including a third place podium in Russia.

Because of Formula One’s top heavy scoring system (drivers only score points if they place in the top ten), Hulkenberg sits a respectable 12th place in the championship. But his recent performances have dropped him down to 17th in our sDRS rankings with a score of 1414. The sDRS rankings punish drivers for not finishing races and being consistent. In the eyes of the rankings, Hulkenberg’s six top tens are not that impressive when it sees his six DNF’s and other poor performances.

Ignoring Alexander Rossi (who has not completed enough races to have an accurate sDRS score), Hulkenberg is the driver with the biggest gap between his championship position and sDRS position. He’s lost over 70 sDRS points in the last five races and only scored twice in the Formula One points since Silverstone.

Although he has out-qualified Perez more often than not, his R+/- score is also being effected by his poor race performance. It’s currently at -2.2 and is the second lowest score, ahead of only Pastor Maldonado (-2.4). For comparison, his teammate has an R+/- score of 1.5 and an sDRS score of 1531. Based on their ratings, sDRS says Perez should beat Hulkenberg 66 percent of the time: through 16 races of the season, he has beaten him 63 percent of the time.
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Hulkenberg has just three races left to regain some traction and show Force India he’s worth it. So far this season, there has been very little to be happy about if you’re team principal Vijay Mallaya.

by: Drew B., Founder