So, here we are, the the final two rounds of the Driver of the Weekend and the title race is still wide open, with the top-4 within 20 points of each other. If you wish to conceal your guesses from each other, you can submit them by PM.
Our first driver this weekend is the leader of the WDC, Lewis Hamilton, who has had a fantastic season so far. All he has to do now to secure the title is bring home the car in second place, which should be easy. Or is it?
Questions
- How many laps will Lewis complete in all the practice sessions combined?
- What will be Lewis' qualifying position (before any penalties are applied)?
- What will be Lewis' gap to to the fastest time in the last qualifying session he takes part in (rounded up to the nearest 0.1 second. If you think he will take pole, indicate the gap to second place as a negative value)?
- What will be Lewis' finishing position in the race or, if you think he will retire from the race, how many laps will he complete (choose either finish or retirement, being classified counts as finishing the race)?
- How much slower than the outright fastest lap of the race will Lewis' fastest lap be (rounded up to the nearest 0.1 second. If you think he will set the fastest lap, indicate the gap to second fastest as a negative value)?
- How many times will Lewis visit the pit lane for any reason (tire change, penalty, driving into the pit to retire, etc.) during the race?
Then we have Jean-Eric Vergne, who again has had a pretty good season, but he still hasn't secured a ride for next season. Could this really be the last time we see him in an F1 car?
- How many laps will JEV complete in all the practice sessions combined?
- What will be JEV's qualifying position (before any penalties are applied)?
- What will be JEV's gap to to the fastest time in the last qualifying session he takes part in (rounded up to the nearest 0.1 second. If you think he will take pole, indicate the gap to second place as a negative value)?
- What will be JEV's finishing position in the race or, if you think he will retire from the race, how many laps will he complete (choose either finish or retirement, being classified counts as finishing the race)?
- How much slower than the outright fastest lap of the race will JEV's fastest lap be (rounded up to the nearest 0.1 second. If you think he will set the fastest lap, indicate the gap to second fastest as a negative value)?
- How many times will JEV visit the pit lane for any reason (tire change, penalty, driving into the pit to retire, etc.) during the race?
Scoring
A correct guess is worth 20 points and the minimum is 0 points. Fractional scores are rounded up. For incorrect guesses points are deducted in the following way:
Instead of the old system with predetermined deductions, I now calculate the deductions afterwards based on the standard deviations of our guesses and the difference between our averages and the correct results. I use the following formula:
What this means is that the deductions gets smaller when there is a big spread among the guesses and they are further reduced when the average is far away (more than 3.57 standard deviations) from the correct result. I'll still use the old system for the retirement alternative on question 4 (10 points if the driver actually retires, 10 points for correct lap, -0.5 points/lap, 0 points if the driver finishes the race), since that tends to attract few guesses and calculating the standard deviation for small samples can give undesirable results. This should result in a slightly more even points distribution between the questions.
Needless to say, you don't need to concern yourself about this formula, you can just keep playing as usual.
Deadline
Before the first practice session. Late entries are now accepted but points will only be awarded for questions that are not related to sessions that have already begun when you submit your entry. So, for instance, submitting your entry after FP1 has started means an automatic 0 points on question 1.
Schedule
Australian GP - Daniel Ricciardo
Malaysian GP - Kevin Magnussen
Bahrain GP - Nico Hülkenberg
Chinese GP - Marcus Ericsson
Spanish GP - Fernando Alonso
Monaco GP - Romain Grosjean, Nico Rosberg
Canadian GP - Esteban Gutiérrez
Austrian GP - Max Chilton
British GP - Jenson Button
German GP - Sebastian Vettel
Hungarian GP - Valtteri Bottas
Belgian GP - Adrian Sutil
Italian GP - Kimi Räikkönen
Singapore GP - Jules Bianchi
Japanese GP - Kamui Kobayashi
Russian GP - Daniil Kvyat
United States GP - Sergio Perez
Brazilian GP - Felipe Massa, Pastor Maldonado
Abu Dhabi GP - Lewis Hamilton, Jean-Eric Vergne
Entry Format
Please make your guesses look something like this (this is my entry for this round) and make sure that in question 4 you indicate clearly whether you think he will finish the race or retire. I will interpret any unclear submissions on question 4 as to mean the driver will finish the race whenever such an interpretation is possible.
Hamilton
70
2nd
0.1
1st
-0.1
2
Vergne
73
12th
1.6
10th
1.5
2
