Analysis: F1 Overtaking Statistics & Analysis

so why don't they go for lets say steel or ceramic brakes instead of carbon fibre? as a side effekt costs might be reduced aswell.

Why should they? The choice of carbonfibre reinforced carbon, iron or carbonceramic rotors have no significant effect on the braking performance. Designed correctly they are all able to lock up the wheels of the car leaving braking performance up the the amount of grip availible. Iron rotors have a lower unit cost, but will on the other side demand the use of a larger number of units as the lifetime is shorter. So cheaper doesn't mean they will cost less.

As per the earlier comments, I have now created a new set of tables and charts for dry races only.

Clip The Apex | F1 Overtaking Statistics & Analysis


Regards.

Thanks. Do these count lappings as overtakes? That would explain how the 107% rule coincided with a big drop.

I don't want overtaking.

Watch Basketball on TV. Someone scores every 30 seconds. It's a race to the buzzer. No one gets excited when there is a goal/point - justthe buzzer and who got there with the highest points.

Now watch a soccer or hockey game. Tension builds. Attempts are made and dashed. then all the boring 1-0 games are wiped from memory as the fantastic goal is made and the crowd goes NUTS.

Now, watch a Nascar race. same thing. A pass happens and you say "yep". Another. Another. Who's leading on the last lap? Boring.

I want 2 hours of tension building and outta nowhere stuff going on. Not constant overtaking. If I want to watch CART racing I'll just hop in my time travel machine and watch some B-grade drivers wreck spec cars on crap tracks.

I'll take a boring Valencia or a Silverstone procession for a Spa cliff hanger or an insane Suzuka "on the outside of 130r" pass.

I disagree that shortened braking distances as they are have decreased braking overtaking possibility and i've given my points and will direct you to this video of youtuve of the 15 best overtakings moves in the sole year of 2008 to count how many braking-overtakes you have:



Now that's only for 2008 and only among the 15 best.

If you disagree, bring actual points, not opinions.

Don't be such a stuffed shirt. Opinion is the basis for discussion on boards all over the Internet. You have a very inflated view of your own opinion. Are you making the assertion that "it is on YouTube therefore it must be true"? I can show you YouTube footage that 'proves' all sorts of conspiracy theories, it means nothing and despite your own opinion that you have proved something it means absolutely nothing. Try quoting YouTube footage in an academic paper and you will soon learn its worth without additional reference material to support it. Express any opinion you like, 'prove it' with YouTube footage if you will. But do not presume to take on the role of Internet Policeman, censorship is not yours to administer when you see fit.

PS There are quotes in this thread from drivers that support my opinion. That outweighs any YouTube 'evidence' in my opinion.

[edit]

Just to underline the absurdity of you post: At no time did I say that by reducing braking distances we would see better overtaking manoeuvres. I stated that we would see more overtaking opportunities. The term "best overtaking" was introduced by you and is quite spurious to the point that was being made. Just an opinion Ogami.

Edited by pgj, 30 September 2009 - 07:31.

I don't want overtaking.

Watch Basketball on TV. Someone scores every 30 seconds. It's a race to the buzzer. No one gets excited when there is a goal/point - justthe buzzer and who got there with the highest points.

Now watch a soccer or hockey game. Tension builds. Attempts are made and dashed. then all the boring 1-0 games are wiped from memory as the fantastic goal is made and the crowd goes NUTS.

Now, watch a Nascar race. same thing. A pass happens and you say "yep". Another. Another. Who's leading on the last lap? Boring.

I want 2 hours of tension building and outta nowhere stuff going on. Not constant overtaking. If I want to watch CART racing I'll just hop in my time travel machine and watch some B-grade drivers wreck spec cars on crap tracks.

I'll take a boring Valencia or a Silverstone procession for a Spa cliff hanger or an insane Suzuka "on the outside of 130r" pass.

Oh dear, this is sounding like Max's "I want F1 to be like chess" nonsense.

I respect your opinion, but IMO this is all a matter of balance. And I can't see how the balance right now can possibly be right. There's no need for you to worry, as F1 will never be NASCAR. Passes are never going to be meaningless. What is going on right now, is that there's so little chance for anything to happen out of nowhere, that tension never builds.

The 80s F1 had the right balance. There were still some dreadfully boring races if you were masochistic and for some strange reason fancied that. Little actually happened, but you always had the feeling things could happen, any time. A driver who had lost ground could suddenly gain pace and start gaining positions. The leader could blow his engine any second. Right now, you look at a grid at the start of the race, look at the weights and know that 99% of the time there's only 1 or 2 guys who could really win, and things get really clear after the first corner. Back then... there was 5 or 6 guys and you couldn't predict how it'd play out. And that's despite the fact the cars are much closer now!

You're right in a way, it's all about tension and not the passes itself. But it's badly broken right now.

Just to underline the absurdity of you post: At no time did I say that by reducing braking distances we would see better overtaking manoeuvres. I stated that we would see more overtaking opportunities. The term "best overtaking" was introduced by you and is quite spurious to the point that was being made. Just an opinion Ogami.;)

Okay so you say, i said "Pgj says that reducing braking distances would see more overtaking opportunities" right?

So, first "reducing braking distances" is blurry, i don't know if you're talking about reducing the efficiency of brakes or the inverse..

But then i would advise you to re-read my first sentance which was:

"I disagree that the shortened braking distances as they are have decreased overtaking".

and guess why i said that?

Becaus you said:

Shortening braking distances does not improve overtaking opportunities. Improving braking efficiency will reduce overtaking opportunities even more by shortening braking distances through increasing the thickness of brake discs

That's pretty simple actually.



now as of the whole "show, arrogant, high value opinion Ogami", when you say "Shortening braking distances does not improve overtaking opportunities. Improving braking efficiency will reduce overtaking opportunities even more by shortening braking distances through increasing the thickness of brake discs"

That's an opinion

when i say "No they didn't"

That's an opinion

When i say " They didn't because of 1/increased slipstream time 2/greater speed differential" that's arguments...note that there's no such word as "fact" or "reality" no i said, "arguments" .

And to support my "arguments" i show you a youtuve video in which you can see, out of 15 overtakes moves at least 5 which are clear overtakings that's a fact: you have braking overtakings even now and you have them in a quite significant amount.

So you're free to discuss either my arguments either that video..but you're certainly not going to have a point with "youtube video can be fakes"...I guess this is plain obvious here that the video is real and showing quite explicit overtaking on braking maneuvers.


Next you talk about drivers, and i'll bring my arguments, Do you think the TWG (of the FIA) and OWG (which is under the TWG responsability) would have done several studies since 1998 on the subject if drivers had the answer??

No. What NH is talking about is called a "pits myth" by engineers.

My take on it:

1/too downforce dependant: Oh yes if you cut downforce to zero, you don't have any DOWNFORCE related problems. Now the problem is that the cars would be formula Fords. So you don't cut the downforce to Zero, and you still have to have enough of it: Studies (by the TWG, the OWG, BMW) showed that the loss of downforce was not related to the amount of downforce produced relative to the mechanical grip, and if you want Pat symonds (farewell) explained this in a renault F1 podcast this year.

2/Too fast: Oh so by too fast you have less time to overtake? Yes..but like everything with speed, when the other makes a mistake he travels very far....So what does NH want?
3/Braking distances: see my arguments.

Edited by Ogami musashi, 30 September 2009 - 11:12.

Wouldn't a reverse grid make more overtaking per definition ???

But if the teams know it will get reversed on race day, they will act accordingly to it, no? So it should become a REVERSE-OR-NO-REVERSE coin toss AFTER qualification, in the saturday night before the sunday to fix this ....

so there will always be a 50-50% chance for a reverse grid, and no one knows during qualification what will be done on sunday.




Overtaking is an Art, ask Jos the Boss.... he was the overtaking Meister in F1 when he was around...

Seems to me that the really big thing that killed off overtaking was the introduction of the Raised Nose. Since everyone's been running them, overtaking has dropped like a lemming.

Comical. Just plain comical!

Singapore data has now been added.

As expected, with only 2 passes the averages are worse

Seems to me that the really big thing that killed off overtaking was the introduction of the Raised Nose. Since everyone's been running them, overtaking has dropped like a lemming.

There is no single magic bullet solution to the overtaking problem. The one thing that is clear is that there is less of it than there used to be and it is more difficult to achieve. The Raised Nose is something that I had not considered before.

We always get an increase in overtaking when cars are running in drying conditions with varying degrees of tyre wear. I am sure that there are any number of individual elements that can be tuned to improve overtaking. The question is what combination of elements would be necessary. In turn that poses the bigger question as to how they can be incorporated into a solution.

Comical. Just plain comical!

Well i guess you completely got it off...

We'll see next time.

You're right in a way, it's all about tension and not the passes itself. But it's badly broken right now.

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

However, as you surmised my post was a bit tongue in cheek as I don't want an overcorrection. Some more overtaking would be grand, but please, do not dilute the tension.

I already miss the "blown engine" tension. Remember how many races were lost by a blown engine? Not fair to drivers, unless they were engine killers. Nonetheless, engines rules have thankfully removed that variable. Engine relibility makes for more reliable racing.

If I were FIA prez, I'd kill the carbon brakes, kill refueling (thanks Max), remove rev limits, keep engine replacement penalties, make that front wing smaller so it didn't get busted off as much and mandate one tire compound.

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

However, as you surmised my post was a bit tongue in cheek as I don't want an overcorrection. Some more overtaking would be grand, but please, do not dilute the tension.

I already miss the "blown engine" tension. Remember how many races were lost by a blown engine? Not fair to drivers, unless they were engine killers. Nonetheless, engines rules have thankfully removed that variable. Engine relibility makes for more reliable racing.

If I were FIA prez, I'd kill the carbon brakes, kill refueling (thanks Max), remove rev limits, keep engine replacement penalties, make that front wing smaller so it didn't get busted off as much and mandate one tire compound.

+1

Let teams choose their single compound well before each race. Also allow teams to use one set of tyres if they can make them last the whole race.

Someone noted Melbourne and Sepang's quality in another thread - there were 22 overtakes in Melbourne; 16 in Malaysia.

Thanks to Clip The Apex for the below... Japan Overtakes

Lap 2
Rosberg passed Sutil for 7th
Kovalainen passed Sutil for 8th
Alguersuari passed Nakajima for 13th
Alonso passed Liuzzi for 15th

Lap 3
Button passed Kubica for 10th
Buemi passed Grosjean for 17th

Lap 26
Fisichella passed Grosjean for 13th

Lap 32
Liuzzi passed Nakajima for 15th

Lap 39
Kubica passed Heidfeld for 8th

Lap 40
Kovalainen passed Fisichella for 13th
* note: not sure if this classifies as an overtake seeing as it happened out of the pits

Lap 50
Liuzzi passed Nakajima for 14th

What has not been included...
Lap 13
Button passed Sutil for 9th
Button passed Kovalainen for 8th
Kubica passed Sutil for 10th
Fisichella passed Sutil for 11th
- botched overtaking move on Kovalainen by Sutil resulted in both cars going off-track and unable to defend

Lap 28
Sutil passed Grosjean for 13th
- Grosjean ran off-track at Spoon Curve

Some of these overtakes weren't caught on camera - maybe if they were it make it seem like the race was a tad better than what it actually was.

Edited by D.M.N., 05 October 2009 - 17:56.

Some of these overtakes weren't caught on camera - maybe if they were it make it seem like the race was a tad better than what it actually was.

Agreed.

I personally thought there were a lot less than 11 simply because most of them were missed.

It still has a lot to do with the driver.. Compare Lewis's overtaking stats with the rest of the drivers.. You will see that his numbers are comparable to the best overtakers of past years. The vast majority of the drivers today don't have those skills.

Agreed check this out

From an Autosport article in 2007 by Michele Merlino.

The Most passes per driver per race

Passer Race Year Passes
Alain Prost South Africa 1984 22
Alain Prost Italy 1986 16
Ayrton Senna Germany 1993 16
Eddie Irvine France 1999 16
Michele Alboreto Japan 1987 15
Rubens Barrichello Australia 1999 15
Ayrton Senna Brazil 1988 15

Full article

All of them were made in cars that at the moment were a lot better.

Nick Heidfeld answers in an interview why there are few overtakings in F1 and what the main issues are:

Brakes are too good causing a very short braking distance

Cars beeing too aero-grip dependent

Cars are too fast



AT 4 min 55 sec.

Translation:

There are several reasons for the lack of overtakings. The first reason is that the cars are too aero-grip dependent and its hard to stay close to the car infront threw corners because you lose so much grip the closer you get.

The second most important reason for the lack of overtakings is that we are just generally very fast, like you said in the DTM there are more overtaking maneuvres, they arent slow either but they are slower then F1, and if you look at the motorsport ladders, the lower the Series is and the slower the cars are, the more overtakings you see.

If we arrive to a corner at 300 km/h, the brakes are so incredible good, that we maybe will stay only 50 meters on the brakes, then the other car that is behind you would have to brake atleast 7 or 10 meters later to overtake you, that means he has to brake 20% later to overtake, that is what makes it so hard - the braking distances are extremely short.

Cars were faster in 04 and there where more overtaking back then.
Speedcar showcased that F1 drivers that are well prepared make even those NASCAR 1950 tech cars near impossible to pass each as they all brake in the very last moment.
Herbert, Alesi and Frentzen did 30 minutes of synchronized late braking where nobody passed nobody.

Oh dear, this is sounding like Max's "I want F1 to be like chess" nonsense.

I respect your opinion, but IMO this is all a matter of balance. And I can't see how the balance right now can possibly be right. There's no need for you to worry, as F1 will never be NASCAR. Passes are never going to be meaningless. What is going on right now, is that there's so little chance for anything to happen out of nowhere, that tension never builds.

The 80s F1 had the right balance. There were still some dreadfully boring races if you were masochistic and for some strange reason fancied that. Little actually happened, but you always had the feeling things could happen, any time. A driver who had lost ground could suddenly gain pace and start gaining positions. The leader could blow his engine any second. Right now, you look at a grid at the start of the race, look at the weights and know that 99% of the time there's only 1 or 2 guys who could really win, and things get really clear after the first corner. Back then... there was 5 or 6 guys and you couldn't predict how it'd play out. And that's despite the fact the cars are much closer now!

You're right in a way, it's all about tension and not the passes itself. But it's badly broken right now.

F1 will never be NASCAR ?!

Monza till 71 and other tracks (old Silverstone, old Rheims) showed otherwise.
Monza 64 had 41 on track lead changes.

At the latest Kansas race NASCAR had good racing, with lots of slipstreaming and even 4 cars going wide; and guess what it never seemed meaningless, it felt as if a driver with a faster car and a good crew chief/pit crew could really make a difference.

Someone noted Melbourne and Sepang's quality in another thread - there were 22 overtakes in Melbourne; 16 in Malaysia.

Thanks to Clip The Apex for the below... Japan Overtakes

Lap 2
Rosberg passed Sutil for 7th
Kovalainen passed Sutil for 8th
Alguersuari passed Nakajima for 13th
Alonso passed Liuzzi for 15th

Lap 3
Button passed Kubica for 10th
Buemi passed Grosjean for 17th

Lap 26
Fisichella passed Grosjean for 13th

Lap 32
Liuzzi passed Nakajima for 15th

Lap 39
Kubica passed Heidfeld for 8th

Lap 40
Kovalainen passed Fisichella for 13th
* note: not sure if this classifies as an overtake seeing as it happened out of the pits

Lap 50
Liuzzi passed Nakajima for 14th

What has not been included...
Lap 13
Button passed Sutil for 9th
Button passed Kovalainen for 8th
Kubica passed Sutil for 10th
Fisichella passed Sutil for 11th
- botched overtaking move on Kovalainen by Sutil resulted in both cars going off-track and unable to defend

Lap 28
Sutil passed Grosjean for 13th
- Grosjean ran off-track at Spoon Curve

Some of these overtakes weren't caught on camera - maybe if they were it make it seem like the race was a tad better than what it actually was.

Wtf, that many? I was yesterday trying to remember how many I saw and I only remembered 3 passes, Liuzzi at T1, Kova out of the pits alongside Fisi, and Sutil tangling with Kova. I do remember Button over Kubica at the chicane now so that's 4 - I don't think we saw any replay of the other 7?! Fuji TV's directing is usually terrible, no wonder the race seems even poorer this way.

Btw in the second list there you're counting passes that aren't really passes. The only real lap 13 pass was the collision between Sutil and Kova. If you're counting this stuff you might as well count 20 passes everytime a car has mechanical issues and drops from 1st to last.

F1 will never be NASCAR ?!

Monza till 71 and other tracks (old Silverstone, old Rheims) showed otherwise.
Monza 64 had 41 on track lead changes.

That was so long ago I forgot. For that to happen again the sport would need a huge, huge revolution and it's simply not going to happen.

latest Kansas race NASCAR had good racing, with lots of slipstreaming and even 4 cars going wide; and guess what it never seemed meaningless, it felt as if a driver with a faster car and a good crew chief/pit crew could really make a difference.

The passes become meaningless to me not because of themselves but because of the certainty in oval racing that there will be so many safety cars. Basically every race becomes a fuel lottery. Might as well only watch the final 5 laps.

Some people fancy that, and that's alright. It's just isn't my thing.

Btw in the second list there you're counting passes that aren't really passes. The only real lap 13 pass was the collision between Sutil and Kova. If you're counting this stuff you might as well count 20 passes everytime a car has mechanical issues and drops from 1st to last.

Do you mean the list which is headed "What has not been included..." ?

I would just like to confirm how the passes are counted.

The overtaking figures for each race do not include:

* Position changes on the first lap of the race
* Position changes due to drivers lapping backmarkers
* Positions gained in the pits
* Positions gained when a car has a serious technical problem; e.g. puncture, accident damage, etc.

Edited by Brogan, 06 October 2009 - 10:43.

1994 - 6% drop reintroducing refueling and pit stop strategies prevail over on-track overtaking. Additionally more restrictions on grounds of safety.

6% drop???
I'm not a mathematician, and I haven't calculated it, but for me that seems to be rather a 25% drop.

Then again, it's only one of many drops. Between '89 and 92' it dropped quite a bit as well.

- I don't believe the prohibition of electronic driving aids makes any difference in terms of passing. They became increasingly popular in the period of 1989-1993 and the passes were going down big big time. To be fair, it kept going down big time even after they were banned. Can't see any relevant difference in the 2007 to 2008 numbers neither (when TC was banned again).

Not sure about the electronics. Of course, officially TC is banned, but I don't quite believe that, I'd rather believe my eyes. With all these engine mappings and don't-know-what, I think today's cars are still heavily electronically assisted. Look at 26 cars starting from the grid in the 80s, and take a look at a start now. I don't know *how* they do it, but it's certainly not the drivers' feet only.

EDIT: Just found qualy times from that Long Beach race in '83. First and last car on the grid were seperated by 5.6 seconds. Even the 8th car on the grid was 2.5 seconds slower! Imagine this today, where sometimes we have 15 cars in 1.5 seconds! Of course, nobody can overtake, but I don't think it's this or that rule, but rather the relative speed.

We need to find a way to put speed difference into the formula, because my suspicion is that we will have closer values.

Why not divide the overtaking value by the speed difference in seconds? Say in '83 we had 40 overtakings per race, but a speed difference of an average 5 seconds (not actual numbers, only checked out the Long Beach race). That gives us a number of 8. 2009 could have something like 12/1.5... which is: 8!

Okay, this is not scientific at all, and statisticians will probably jump out of the window, but if we can clean up the numbers by applying a formula that takes into account the speed differences, we might find that this is the single biggest impact on overtaking. And I don't mean the theoretical difference (which in a spec series should be 0), but actual difference (which even in GP2 can be 2 seconds with the same cars).

Okay, probably I'm just talking nonsense here

Edited by anbeck, 06 October 2009 - 13:04.

Fuji TV's directing is usually terrible, no wonder the race seems even poorer this way.

Isn't it all done by Bernie's boys (& girls) now?

What I'd like to see: Count only overtakings done by drivers that started inside the Top 10: One reason for the early to late 90s drop could be the lack of lousy cars in the back of the field. As somebody already mentioned, today's cars are really close. In the 80s you had some races where McLaren started at the back of the grid and ploughed through the whole field - you had Osella, ATS, RAM, Toleman, Alfa Romeo, Theodore.... You would have to assume that these cars were rather slow and relatively easy to pass. Nowadays even a Force India or a Toro Rosso is too fast for the fastest car to pass.
Of course, not all the overtakings are done by faster cars ploughing to the back of the field. But I could imagine huge variations in pace during a week-end by the backmarker teams of the 80s than by the top teams nowadays (if you apply standards of the 70s or 80s, all of today's cars are top cars).

Still, I admit that there are spec series where overtaking works well.

Isn't it all done by Bernie's boys (& girls) now?

There's one or two exceptions and one of them is Japan. It'd be about time to FOM to take care of every race, they're actually very good at it...

Do you mean the list which is headed "What has not been included..." ?

I would just like to confirm how the passes are counted.

The overtaking figures for each race do not include:

* Position changes on the first lap of the race
* Position changes due to drivers lapping backmarkers
* Positions gained in the pits
* Positions gained when a car has a serious technical problem; e.g. puncture, accident damage, etc.

You may also want to exclude team order passes.
Passes by teamates with different strategies or other team objectives.
This may be too difficult or controversial for this otherwise great effort...

Just to further clarify, the methodology and raw data was the work of 3 other people; Brian W. Lawrence, Michele Merlino and GordonMurray.
All I did was format it into tables and charts.

Regards.