85 replies to this topic

[mark f1]

Last year I was always very interested in studying Gary Anderson's speed comparison in the Autosport magazine preview section before each GP.  This year for some reason it is no longer being included.  So, I thought I would do it myself.

 

His analysis is simply to take each drivers fastest lap of the weekend as a percentage of the overall fastest lap of the weekend.  This percentage is then averaged over all the weekends of the season.

 

The current speed comparison after 2 weekends is:

 

Pos     Driver      Team         Average

1       Rosberg     Mercedes     100.000%

2       Hamilton    Mercedes     100.257%

3       Alonso      Ferrari      100.976%

4       Vettel      Red Bull     101.049%

5       Ricciardo   Red Bull     101.291%

6       Raikkonen   Ferrari      101.325%

7       Button      McLaren      101.453%

8       Massa       Williams     101.533%

9       Hulkenberg  Force India  101.662%

10      Bottas      Williams     101.688%

11      Vergne      Toro Rosso   101.836%

12      Magnussen   McLaren      101.894%

13      Perez       Force India  102.088%

14      Kvyat       Toro Rosso   102.524%

15      Sutil       Sauber       102.803%

16      Guiterrez   Sauber       102.942%

17      Grosjean    Lotus        104.169%

18      Bianchi     Marussia     104.696%

19      Chilton     Marussia     105.090%

20      Maldonado   Lotus        105.297%

21      Ericcson    Caterham     105.986%

22      Kobayashi   Caterham     106.279%

[Cyanide]

Sophisticated calculations and percentages that are as useful as an ash tray on a motorbike. In other words: an analysis by Gary Anderson. (also, Rosberg faster than Hamilton? whut?)

 

Thank you for providing this but I don't see the point. I'd rather have Anderson present race stint analyses or technical debriefs. 

Edited by Cyanide, 03 April 2014 - 11:15.

[slmk]

Rosberg faster than Hamilton? What?

 

Alonso faster than Vettel? 

Edited by slmk, 03 April 2014 - 11:13.

[stanga]

This data conjured up images of an entirely different speed analysis.

[Coops3]

I am so confused by this. Fastest lap of the weekend, as in, the pole lap? Why is Rosberg 100%?

[Maaarsh]

Wet qualifying chaps - this is just a ranking of practice champions.

[Coops3]

Ah, thanks!

[Coops3]

Hang on... I'm still confused... Rosberg was faster in practice than Hamilton was in the race?

 

EDIT: Sorry, ignore me... I am having a brain fade day.

Edited by Coops3, 03 April 2014 - 11:23.

[Maaarsh]

Yes - they practice qualifying runs in practice. 1:39 vs a fastest race lap of 1:43

[mark f1]

Yes, both Melbourne and Malaysia had wet qualifying which skews the data towards practice, but over the course of the season it will average out. It is interesting to see over the course of the season how the raw pace of the cars progresses. In the magazine when you see the analysis where they break the season up into chunks of 4 races to review the development progress of each team, this is the data they use.

 

Generally, it is probably only Rosberg over Hamilton, and Ericcson over Kobayashi that look out of whack between the team mates.

[mark f1]

Updated after Bahrain

 

Pos   Drivers        Team           Average

1     Rosberg        Mercedes       100.000%

2     Hamilton       Mercedes       100.271%

3     Ricciardo      Red Bull       101.170%

4     Alonso         Ferrari        101.201%

5     Raikkonen      Ferrari        101.306%

6     Vettel         Red Bull       101.343%

7     Button         McLaren        101.399%

8     Massa          Williams       101.496%

9     Bottas         Williams       101.505%

10    Hulkenberg     Force India    101.712%

11    Perez          Force India    101.807%

12    Magnussen      McLaren        101.809%

13    Vergne         Toro Rosso     101.976%

14    Kvyat          Toro Rosso     102.384%

15    Guiterrez      Sauber         102.929%

16    Sutil          Sauber         103.176%

17    Grosjean       Lotus          103.753%

18    Bianchi        Marussia       104.606%

19    Maldonado      Lotus          104.776%

20    Chilton        Marussia       105.084%

21    Kobayashi      Caterham       105.581%

22    Ericcson       Caterham       105.669%

 

NOTES

- Rosberg maintains his 100% record for fastest lap of the weekend

- Ricciardo moves up to 3rd

- Vettel drops a couple of spots after his troubles

- Bottas moves past Hulkenberg

- Perez gains a couple of places

- Guiterrez overtakes Sutil

- Kobayashi moves past Ericcson

 

[teejay]

These are silly. Rosberg on softer tyre with low fuel and drs set a faster lap than Lewis on the harder tyre? Well Ill be damned.

[Kingshark]

These are silly. Rosberg on softer tyre with low fuel and drs set a faster lap than Lewis on the harder tyre? Well Ill be damned.

 

1. Rosberg's advantage of DRS was cancelled out by him having to drive in Hamilton's turbulent air.

2. Rosberg was also faster than Hamilton on equal soft tyres in the 1st stint of the race.

 

IMO it's fair to say that Rosberg was the fastest driver around Bahrain by a slight margin, despite Lewis's incredible victory.

[hollowstar]

1. Rosberg's advantage of DRS was cancelled out by him having to drive in Hamilton's turbulent air.
2. Rosberg was also faster than Hamilton on equal soft tyres in the 1st stint of the race.

IMO it's fair to say that Rosberg was the fastest driver around Bahrain by a slight margin, despite Lewis's incredible victory.

1. Since when does turbulent air cancel DRS gains? First time I read that...

2. If Rosberg was faster this weekend, how did Lewis get a 10 - 12 sec gap on him before the safety car? If it's only due to tyre difference, how did Nico not manage to overtake Lewis after the SC?

[teejay]

1. Rosberg's advantage of DRS was cancelled out by him having to drive in Hamilton's turbulent air.

2. Rosberg was also faster than Hamilton on equal soft tyres in the 1st stint of the race.

 

IMO it's fair to say that Rosberg was the fastest driver around Bahrain by a slight margin, despite Lewis's incredible victory.

 

Yes but this is only taking into account fastest lap. When both cars went nuts after the s/c the fresh soft tyre and drs added to an awesome lap time.

 

I am in no way discounting the driving of both over the weekend - both were outstanding really.

[Kingshark]

1. Since when does turbulent air cancel DRS gains? First time I read that...

2. If Rosberg was faster this weekend, how did Lewis get a 10 - 12 sec gap on him before the safety car? If it's only due to tyre difference, how did Nico not manage to overtake Lewis after the SC?

 

1. Turbulent air costs a lot of lap time, if you're close enough to the car ahead it can cost you over 1 second/lap. Watch Imola 2005/06 for the best possible example of this.

 

2. Different tyres, and because Lewis defended like a beast. Nonetheless, qualifying and the 1st stint of the race proved that all things being equal, NR was a bit faster this weekend.

[hollowstar]

2. He may have been faster overall with the help of the safety car. Not in normal conditions...

[HoldenRT]

Fastest laps meant something in the sprint refueling and tyre war era.  It means little these days.. ever since 2009.  Especially since Pirelli entered the sport.  You have to look at stints, and also the gap to the car behind and if the driver has reason to push or not.

[Zoetrope]

 

IMO it's fair to say that Rosberg was the fastest driver around Bahrain by a slight margin, despite Lewis's incredible victory.

As much as I could agree that Rosberg was fastest in "idealistic free-air scenario" I see very very little chances for him to overtake Lewis had there been no SC and normal strategies would apply. Track position was crucial here.

And fastest lap analysis is interesting comparison, but can only be treated as supplementary data. It's only a small fraction of overall speed in the race.

[SirT]

- Rosberg maintains his 100% record for fastest lap of the weekend

 

Didn't Lewis get fastest lap in Malaysia by almost a second over Nico?

Edited by SirT, 07 April 2014 - 09:09.

[mark f1]

Folks, you are focusing only on the race. As I said in the intro, this looks at the driver's fastest lap over the WHOLE weekend.  Most, if not all, had their fastest lap of the weekend in Qualifying, not the race. 

[LoudHoward]

Thanks for doing this, it's kind of interesting just to see the general position, roughly, of the cars. I don't think it's intended to champion any individual driver fanboy position.

[mark f1]

Updated positions after China.

 

As qualifying and practice 3 was wet, most driver's fastest laps were set in practice 2 with a few of the tailenders setting fastest laps in the race.

 

 

Pos  Driver        Team           Average

1    Rosberg       Mercedes       100.105%

2    Hamilton      Mercedes       100.203%

3    Alonso        Ferrari        100.937%

4    Ricciardo     Red Bull       101.004%

5    Vettel        Red Bull       101.185%

6    Raikkonen     Ferrari        101.226%

7    Massa         Williams       101.327%

8    Button        McLaren        101.348%

9    Bottas        Williams       101.514%

10   Hulkenberg    Force India    101.645%

11   Magnussen     McLaren        101.720%

12   Perez         Force India    101.815%

13   Vergne        Toro Rosso     101.849%

14   Kvyat         Toro Rosso     102.127%

15   Guiterrez     Sauber         102.717%

16   Sutil         Sauber         102.911%

17   Grosjean      Lotus          103.126%

18   Maldonado     Lotus          104.126%

19   Bianchi       Marussia       104.475%

20   Chilton       Marussia       104.973%

21   Kobayashi     Caterham       105.459%

22   Ericcson      Caterham       105.600%

 

Changes in Position:

- Alonso past Ricciardo

- Vettel past Raikkonen

- Massa past Button

- Magnussen past Perez

- Maldonado past Bianchi

[hollowstar]

How can #1 time be more than 100%? I'm not sure I understand this ranking...

[mark f1]

This is a position based on the whole season, not just one race. It is an average comparison to the fastest lap of the weekend. 

[vas04614]

This is a position based on the whole season, not just one race. It is an average comparison to the fastest lap of the weekend.

OK......wonder if someone can do the same based on avg pace of race laps???

[mark f1]

I'm following the process that Gary Anderson has been doing the past few years. The reason for choosing the fastest lap of the weekend, rather than just the race, is that it helps remove anomalies where someone only completes one lap in the race, and also where the leader, under no pressure like Lewis in China, is much slower than someone else behind, which you would get if you just look at their race fastest lap in isolation.

[hollowstar]

This is a position based on the whole season, not just one race. It is an average comparison to the fastest lap of the weekend. 

 

Alright, took me a while but I got it!  Thanks!     However,  there's not much doubt (at least for me) that Hamilton has been on average faster than Rosberg by a fair margin since the season started...  Obviously, Lewis didn't have to push at the end of at least 2 races when he had created a big gap already.  But I would have guessed qualy times would usually be faster than anything else, which is why I'm slightly puzzled... 

[hollowstar]

I'm following the process that Gary Anderson has been doing the past few years. The reason for choosing the fastest lap of the weekend, rather than just the race, is that it helps remove anomalies where someone only completes one lap in the race, and also where the leader, under no pressure like Lewis in China, is much slower than someone else behind, which you would get if you just look at their race fastest lap in isolation.

 

Then how can Lewis, who got 3 poles, be behind Rosberg who got only one?  Does it mean Rosberg went faster than pole position during free practices? 

[mark f1]

Funnily enough, China was the first weekend of the year that Lewis' fastest lap of the weeknd was faster than Nico's.  The reason is that with wet qualifying, the fastest laps have been set in practice 2 or 3 and not qualifying when lewis has taken pole. It is rare for the leading drivers to set a faster lap in the race than what they do in practice 2 or 3 let alone qualifying.

 

For example, in China - Fastest race lap by Nico was 1:40.402.  Fastest lap in Practice Two on the Friday was Lewis with a 1:38.315. Hence why practice 2 gave most driver's their fastest lap of the weekend.

 

Overall the comparison between drivers from the same team looks pretty good to me with the exception of Nico over Lewis, and maybe Vergne over Kyvat.

[mark f1]

We have had 3 out of 4 wet qualifying session, so you wouldn't expect the driver's fastest laps to be set in qualifying.

[hollowstar]

We have had 3 out of 4 wet qualifying session, so you wouldn't expect the driver's fastest laps to be set in qualifying.

 

 

Aah, how could I miss that?    it all makes sense now!  Thanks!    And I agree the rest of the field seems more accurate.  As you said Kyvat behind Vergne seems strange though. And I was wondering about Magnussen / Button, but it might be about right. 

[Fatgadget]

How can #1 time be more than 100%? I'm not sure I understand this ranking...

Me neither mate

[Cesc]

Maybe it is a problem I have but, what is this table telling us?

[Coops3]

Maybe it is a problem I have but, what is this table telling us?

To be fair it does clearly say in the OP if you read it carefully. How meaningful the figures are is another question...

[Imateria]

Mostly it's telling us the relative pace of the teams and drivers.

 

Mark F1, I hope you're saving the percentages for each weekend as well as the rolling averages, would be very useful to show us how the teams and drivers are doing at any given time as well as on average over the season. Would be very interesting to see how the results from Melbourne compare against those from Abu Dhabi at the end of the year.

Edited by Imateria, 22 April 2014 - 12:01.

[CHIUNDA]

We have had 3 out of 4 wet qualifying session, so you wouldn't expect the driver's fastest laps to be set in qualifying.

 

 

Okay Mark what are these statistics supposed to achieve? What attribute of the car or the driver do they evidence?

[mark f1]

You guys are a tough lot. 

 

It was an exercise that Gary Anderson always provided in the Autosport magazine race previews (albeit with nice pictures of the cars showing the relative ditsance between them on the page) and which I enjoyed following.

 

To me, this information provides a relative position on the speed differential between each of the cars and it does also give a general position on the relative position between the team drivers. Using 100% as the baseline, equates to a 1min 40sec lap, so over that lap length (slightly longer than the avg), a 1% variation equates to a 1 sec per lap variation.

 

It also as Imateria says, provides a good basis to show the development improvement, or lack of, for each team over the season.  Later on I will look to show it in graph form which will help show whether the teams are getting closer or further away from the ultimate pace. 

[rooksby]

They say the past is a foreign country, well the 90s must have been a different galaxy. If that eejit Eddie Jordan could be an F1 boss, and this kind of speciously facile arithmetic nonsense actually passed for considered analysis by his former technical director Gary Anderson.

 

Percentages are calculated to three decimal places nonetheless, so it definitely wants to give the impression that it means something useful.

[RubalSher]

Good effort Mark.

 

There needs to be a tweak though as averaging out percentages would lead to the wrong maths. That is why nobody is at 100% anymore and we have lost the benchmark (in a manner of speaking).

 

What would be closer to this exercise would be to sum up all the fastest laps of each driver at every race and then make the order and relative percentages as you are doing. This will always give you a driver with a 100% benchmark. I ran this exercise for this year and this is how my results look after China.

 

[karlth]

What on earth is this supposed to show us?  Who was the last driver to put on fresh tires?  What driver didn't need to push?

 

What is qualifying not supposed to tell us?

[aray]

Gary Anderson is a moron...don't believe in his craps...

[karlth]

Mark F1 may will explain it in different ways &/or has a different idea behind it, but IMHO it's an outright car performance metric.

If a car can do a xxx.xxx s around a given circuit at any time during a weekend, it indicates that this is the maximum performance the car is able to achieve.

 

No it shows what that car, with that driver, in those track conditions in that weather, with that fuel weight, in that traffic, with that tow using that engine setting, pushing that much, and on those type of tires in their specific condition was able to do.

 

Count the variables.

 

(Edit: variables added!)

 

Qualifying has only half those variables.

Edited by karlth, 22 April 2014 - 16:47.

[RubalSher]

@TC3000

 

Very well explained and yes it can give some idea on which team found how much pace or went backwards as the season goes on. Of course, that information is completely missing right now, so it seems to be a driver vs driver comparison, which it actually is not.

 

But you can notice a pattern already. The Mercs being the fastest to the Caterham being the slowest. RBR and Ferrari are closely matched and then come McLaren, FI and Williams together.

Edited by RubalSher, 22 April 2014 - 16:43.

[RubalSher]

No it shows what that car, with that driver, in those conditions, with that fuel, in that traffic, with that drag and on those type of tires in their specific condition was able to do.

 

Count the variables.

 

You are missing the point. The basis of this data is the fastest lap of each driver at any point of time over the entire weekend, typically qualy or free practice. There is no traffic, the car is on fumes (likely) and the tyres are likely options for all drivers.

[karlth]

You are missing the point. The basis of this data is the fastest lap of each driver at any point of time over the entire weekend, typically qualy or free practice. There is no traffic, the car is on fumes (likely) and the tyres are likely options for all drivers.

 

Then why not simply use qualifying?  Adding fastest laps from race and practice simply adds all the variables I mentioned above. 

[Arska]

I don't think the data is very useful for judging how quick a driver is in comparison to his team mate. However, it seems to indicate pretty well how much single lap pace each car has.

[oetzi]

Then why not simply use qualifying?

Because it's too small a sample.

[karlth]

Because it's too small a sample.

 

It is by far the best sample.  You don't increase the quality of a sample be inflating it with poor data.  Fuel level, configurations and track conditions vary drastically in practice and the race. 

[oetzi]

If the question you want answered is 'how quickly can this car get round this track this weekend' then I don't see why you would want to exclude any lap from the sample.