a) new charts and a brief explanation
b) discussion on the concepts for different graphs.
If you want to discuss the deeper meaning of a particular graph, please repost it to a relevant thread and debate its meaning there.
On Friday, pondering the progress (or lack of) made by Marussia and Caterham, I started to put together a spreadsheet to compare the teams' qualify pace since the first appearance of Virgin, Lotus and HRT. Then rain went and scuppered any meaningful analysis! So behold a useless chart in which I had to use Friday FP1/2 for 2013 (2010-2012 is the fastest time in Qual by either driver for each team).
For some non-fudged graphs, I thought I'd present a comparison of two sets of team mates who's races initially diverged but ended just seconds apart by lap 57; Button vs Perez and Sutil vs Di Resta.
Button - Perez
The early pitstop to ditch the softer option tyres left Button twenty seconds behind. However over that first stint on prime tyres, he halfed the deficit and found himself 15s ahead once Perez has also pitted. The short option stint for Perez saw Button's lead reach it's peak of 20 seconds. However from this point, the lead slowly disappeared to a couple of seconds at the flag.
Sutil - Di Resta.
There are effectively five phases in this comparison:
1) Di Resta on the options has a stead one second lead over Sutil on the primes.
2) Di Resta pits for primes. Over the next 12 laps Di Resta drops 4.25s (0.325s per lap) off Sutil.
3) Sutil pits for some new primes, and then averages 1.25s a lap faster than Di Resta.
4) Di Resta pits for his second set of primes, and is then 0.4s per lap faster than Sutil.
5) Sutil finally pits for the options. He managed two laps faster than di Resta, but then loses 15 of his 18 second lead.
It's a bit pointless at the moment, but I intend to plot a champion points deficit graph to show the evolution of the WDC chase. Any graphs you care to share, or suggestions for potentially interesting ones?
Who can fail to love graphs?
