My first forecast will be for the F1 2020 World Constructor’s Championship (WCC). This is a pre-test forecast with the aim of forecasting the likelihood of who will win the WCC come the end of the season. Therefore, this forecast will be presented with a percentage allocated to each team based on the likelihood of that team winning the WCC.

HOW THE MODEL WORKS

The model this forecast is based off accounts for several things. I should make it clear that, like any model, it is not perfect and simplifications have to be made. I do not claim it to be infallible and there are sure to be mistakes made. This has been done for my own satisfaction and to try and to improve the art of predicting F1 outcomes.

Due to the 2020 regulations being an evolution of the 2019 regulations, this model uses the relative pace of the 2019 cars from the end of last season as a “base” for the model. I have then analysed the recent history of how much time each team gains relative to another over the period of a season. For my sample, I have only used seasons where regulations have been evolutionary and not revolutionary. Additionally, I have restricted the sample to the last decade. Partially for relevance reasons and partially for time-saving! Once this analysis has been conducted, I have factored in elements of uncertainty, how likely they are, and if they are likely to affect the overall outcome. Historic reliability has also been factored in – although this is included as a separate variable in the model. Finally, I have observed betting markets and derived implied probabilities from there. This has a very small impact on the model but nonetheless it is worth mentioning. With all the boring explanation out of the way, let’s get down to the numbers.

(Sidenote: The numbers not appearing to add up to 100% is a rounding thing – it does add up to 100%.)

MERCEDES – 74%

My model shows that Mercedes are the heavy favourites to retain the WCC title and win it for a record 7th time in a row. The strong position they finished last season and the fact that competitors rarely make up the pace deficit that Mercedes currently has over its rivals means that in roughly 3/4 of situations, the Northamptonshire outfit keeps its WCC title. The strong reliability of Brackley package also contributes to this high figure.

RED BULL – 13%

According to my model, Red Bull are the 2nd favourites to take the WCC title. On race pace they finished the 2019 season as the 2nd fastest car and were the fastest in Brazil and possibly the fastest in Mexico too. They have made strong gains in recent evolutionary regulations before but there is still a sizable gap to overcome. This coupled with the fact that Max Verstappen is consistently a few tenths faster than his teammate means it is unlikely for both cars of the Milton Keynes outfit to overturn the current deficit and be crowned WCC victors.

FERRARI – 11%

Ferrari were more difficult to analyse due to their significant difference in performance on Saturday and Sunday. They did end up last season with the 3rd fastest race car some distance off the front runners Mercedes. However, Ferrari do have precedent for achieving large gains season on season (2014-2015 and 2017-2018 for example) hence their probability of winning the WCC is not dissimilar to Red Bull’s. They still have a long way to go however and these consistent gains replicated over a season aren’t usual.

ALL OTHER TEAMS – LESS THAN 1%

Unfortunately for fans of any other team, the relative gains required to win the WCC are simply unprecedented. Not only that but some teams last year fell back in relative pace to the front runners and so it is extremely difficult to foresee any team other than Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull winning the WCC and even out of those three one is a heavy favourite!

SUMMARY

To summarise, using the data from previous seasons it would appear Mercedes are the heavy favourites with only Red Bull and Ferrari being teams that have a realistic shot at the WCC. Should anyone have any feedback about the model feel free to leave suggestions as I am sure that I have omitted plenty of important factors. I am not an expert, I just had some time on my hands and was curious about the insight historical data could provide into the F1 2020 season.