Has the Formula 1 world moved on completely to 2012, or is there still any interest in looking back at 2011? Regardless, I’m still fascinated by Williams, and how spectacularly badly they did: a meagre 5 points, compared to the 41 of Toro Rosso and 44 of Sauber in front of them, and 0 of Team Lotus behind them.

A graphical look

The graph to the right compares the classified finishing positions of those four teams.

It’s clear that Williams (light blue) were consistently better than Team Lotus (green), and a 5 point differential – less than a 7th place finish – feels too little.

Conversely, both Toro Rosso (dark blue) and Sauber (red) were consistently better, but to the tune of those teams scoring more than 8 times as many points as Williams? Probably not.

A quirk of the points system

The question is: was this a fair reflection of the 2011 season for Williams, or an unfortunate quirk of the points system? With points only for the top ten finishers, there are always going to be drivers just missing out on the points.

So how different would it have looked if instead of the current points to 10th, we used the old points to 8th, the even older points to 6th, or MotoGP’s points to 15th? The table to the right shows just that.

Had points gone to 15th, Williams would have had around half the points of Toro Rosso and Sauber, and a few times more points than Team Lotus. Which, in an unhelpfully vague sense, feels about right.

Had points only gone to 8th, then Williams would have scored no points, but Toro Rosso and Sauber would have only had a handful. With points to 6th, Williams would have been joined on zero points by Toro Rosso.

Conclusion

Williams unarguably had a bloody awful season in 2011. By any measure, they were 9th out of 12 teams.

But the current Formula 1 points system happens to have conspired against them to make their performance relative to the teams around them look worse than it actually was. Using other points systems – respectable, genuine points systems – it’s clear that they were closer to the midfield teams than they appeared from the actual final points standings.