It’s been a month now since I started tracking the Twitter followers for each driver and team. What I plan to do is to do a bigger post at the end of every month, with every driver and teams statistics in the post so I can compare month to month. So without further ado, below are the drivers statistics for May.

Drivers
01 – 956,107 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 821,739 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
03 – 576,183 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
04 – 415,593 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 343,435 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 198,594 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
07 – 197,260 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
08 – 157,292 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 148,541 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 132,681 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
11 – 120,937 – Paul di Resta (Force India)
12 – 105,100 – Narain Karthikeyan (HRT)
13 – 92,183 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
14 – 73,121 – Vitaly Petrov (Caterham)
15 – 69,797 – Timo Glock (Marussia)
16 – 68,346 – Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)
17 – 54,698 – Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber)
18 – 43,272 – Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
19 – 28,319 – Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
20 – 20,699 – Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
21 – 12,108 – Charles Pic (Marussia)

As I mentioned in my first post, the three drivers to be absent from Twitter are Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher. None of the three joined in May. The only jump in this chart comes from Pastor Maldonaldo, who jumps up from ninth to sixth, overtaking Perez, Rosberg and Kovalainen. Everyone else has stayed static in terms of position, but let’s see who has recorded the biggest and smallest increases.

Drivers – Increases
01 – 137,614 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 58,023 – Pastor Maldonaldo
03 – 43,324 – Lewis Hamilton
04 – 37,760 – Jenson Button
05 – 26,953 – Mark Webber
06 – 25,595 – Bruno Senna
Average driver = 21,324
07 – 20,842 – Felipe Massa
08 – 15,337 – Sergio Perez
09 – 11,966 – Nico Rosberg
10 – 10,942 – Paul di Resta
11 – 10,694 – Pedro de la Rosa
12 – 7,018 – Heikki Kovalainen
13 – 6,945 – Kamui Kobayashi
14 – 6,334 – Romain Grosjean
15 – 5,773 – Vitaly Petrov
16 – 5,508 – Narain Karthikeyan
17 – 4,609 – Daniel Ricciardo
18 – 4,130 – Nico Hulkenberg
19 – 3,651 – Jean-Eric Vergne
20 – 2,993 – Timo Glock
21 – 1,798 – Charles Pic

I’ve placed the ‘average driver’ in the respective position in the table, which is all of the increases bundled together to get an average driver increase. Only six drivers are above increase, which is partially down to the mammoth gains made by Fernando Alonso due to him joining Twitter only two months ago. Maldonaldo is the unsurprising large riser, again, due to his Spain win. The chart also helps to indicate popularity I feel, take for instance Heikki Kovalainen. He may be in a Caterham, but is definitely one of the more popular Formula 1 drivers on the grid this year, which is indicated by his increases compared to other drivers.

I’m not quite sure why Pedro de la Rosa is in tenth in both lists, I can only assume because of the Spanish Grand Prix that his increase has been fairly significant. He’s also a veteran in Formula 1, which may help. At the other end, it’s the two Toro Rosso and Marussia drivers that draw the short straw, Charles Pic only increasing his followers by 1,798 over the course of the month. Moving onto the teams:

Teams
01 – 275,323 – Ferrari
02 – 192,507 – McLaren
03 – 128,917 – Mercedes
04 – 115,597 – Red Bull
05 – 108,395 – Lotus
06 – 74,684 – Caterham
07 – 65,254 – Marussia
08 – 65,088 – Williams
09 – 64,177 – Force India
10 – 55,024 – Sauber
11 – 48,512 – HRT
12 – 40,665 – Toro Rosso

Due to their win in Spain, Williams jump ahead of Force India compared to this time last month. Apart from that, everything is fairly stable.

Teams – Increases
01 – 18,989 – Ferrari
02 – 11,240 – McLaren
03 – 10,229 – Williams
04 – 9,565 – Red Bull
Average team = 7,197
05 – 7,164 – Lotus
06 – 6,709 – Sauber
07 – 5,468 – Mercedes
08 – 4,344 – HRT
09 – 3,800 – Caterham
10 – 3,590 – Force India
11 – 2,812 – Marussia
12 – 2,455 – Toro Rosso

There is the saying the Formula 1 is a ‘team sport’, yet the average team increase is a third of that of the average driver increase. The increase for Ferrari is less than that of both of their drivers, which is the situation for the majority of the teams, apart from Lotus with Romain Grosjean and Marussia with Charles Pic. Fans are definitely more driver driven than team driven in terms of their loyalty, which appears to be supported by the Twitter statistics.

Removing the raw increases, the surprise above is Mercedes, I would have thought that they would have had a bigger increase than Lotus and Sauber, so for them to be in seventh is a fairly big surprise to me.

I will continue to track and post The Twitter Outlook on a weekly basis, with a larger post like this one at the end of every month. As always, comments, thoughts, agreements and disagreements are welcome.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 28th May 2012.