113 replies to this topic

[Michael Ferner]

I think you will find that in the olden days, drivers fought over an 8th place finish as much as over a sixth. Case in point, Carlos Reutemann in the last two races of 1981, when circumstances conspired against him and he had nothing to gain, but stayed the course for an eight and a tenth, if memory serves. I can't speak for the current generation, but driving for points was extremely rare back in the days. Nelson Piquet at South Africa in 1983 is an example, when he could have won but chose to drive for points. Still, it was his decision - other drivers surely would have gone for the chance to crown the championship with a win, like Damon Hill at Japan in 1996 for example. And then, of course there was also a time before championship points...

 

Bottom line, every driver choses to go for it or not, and will live with the consequences. Some are more aggressive and will make an effort to finish 11th, others not. What in your above example, if the driver in 9th tries for 8th and crashes? Results are results, period.

[Henk Vasmel]

Bottom line, every driver choses to go for it or not, and will live with the consequences. Some are more aggressive and will make an effort to finish 11th, others not. What in your above example, if the driver in 9th tries for 8th and crashes? Results are results, period.

 

And team orders, to get the requested results? No, I don't agree with you. Even while racing drivers are single minded and selfish, they still look at the bigger picture, and the outcome MAY depend on that. 

And crowning the WC with a win, sure, that is nice, but no driver worth his salt will throw away a title just because a win feels nicer.

[DCapps]

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. L.P. Hartley

[D-Type]

Is it time to add  "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."  ?  (Anorak fact: it wasn't coined by Benjamin Disraeli, Mark Twain or Winston Churchill).

Or  "A well-known lawyer, now a judge, once grouped witnesses into three classes: simple liars, damned liars, and experts". 

[Henk Vasmel]

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. L.P. Hartley

My favorite quote

[Michael Ferner]

Henk, we may not agree (and that is all right!), but I don't buy your arguments. If a driver can't find the motivation to fight for an 8th place finish because it doesn't pay points, then well, it's his decision and I can't blame him, but he'll be a 9th place finisher for me the same as any other 9th place finisher. And if a driver decides that a third place is enough because he is "looking at the bigger picture", then that's okay, too, and I bet it has happened many times, but it doesn't change my view of his performance on that given day: a third place finisher, not a winner. I don't see a problem with rating driver performances entirely on results, it's the only objective measure. Sure, it's fun to speculate about the cement dust at Gazometer, the last drops of fuel left in Ron's can and the thousands of stories that surround racing, but in the end one driver gets the garlands, the champagne amd the cheque, and that's what all others aspire to. I'm all for deep analysis why a particular car failed after leading for 200 miles, and why a driver got involved in an accident not of his own, but for an overview of who's hot and who's not, the only fair way to do it is to look at the results, pure and simple, especially when we are looking at big time intervals. Good luck and bad luck often have a way to cancel out each other, and if not, well that's life.

 

As for team orders, they are as old as the sport - Bugatti and Alfa Romeo were famous for deciding who was to win on a given day, and even Mercedes was tayloring races to suit their lead driver, be it Lautenschlager or Caracciola. Do we know whether de Knyff held back to let Charron win? No, we don't, and we don't need to. I have long dithered over whether to include hippodromed IMCA races in my rankings, but to hell with it, it doesn't really matter. Neither Sig Haugdahl nor Gus Schrader or Emory Collins make it into leading positions in my rankings, hippodroming or not. Reality has a way of sorting things out, I discovered: big races can't be hippodromed because drivers are too competitive by nature, and small fry doesn't matter much. And Barrichello wouldn't have won more races without Ferrari team orders, because he wouldn't have driven a competitive car in so many races - you sign your contract, and you take the good with the bad. It has always been thus, and will always be...

[Michael Ferner]

Is it time to add  "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."  ?

 

My least favoured quote - statistics cannot lie by nature - they can be wrong, in which case they are no longer statistics but manipulation (or a botched job, at best); and they can be irrelevant because of poor methodology or data, in which case you should be able to argue about them, which is only possible if you treat them with the respect they deserve. The only thing this stupid old saying does is to feed the math phobia of the masses, and to further manipulative efforts to ignore helpful data. Can we make a test? What about the statistic that Lewis Hamilton is a seven time F1 world champion, is that also a lie? Or, that Jimmy Clark won 25 world championship Grands Prix?

[D-Type]

The full quotes do make the point that it is the manipualtion of statistics that is dishonest.  In this case. the assumptions and the arrogance of the authors of this paper are what appear to be at fault.

Edited by D-Type, 21 April 2021 - 12:51.

[DCapps]

And, now these...https://fivethirtyei...ar-matter-more/ & https://fivethirtyei...ula-one-racing/

[Doug Nye]

Many years ago DSJ evaluated some of the sweeping judgements and statistical conclusions about Grand Prix cars and their drivers reached by the often engaging but sometimes fractionally too self-satisfied technocrat Laurence Pomeroy.

 

One down-to-earth remark I particularly recall is "Yeah but - he forgets it was pissing with rain that day...". 

 

Hmmm.

 

DCN

[DCapps]

The obsession with the GOAT concept within the sports world in general tends to both amuse me as well as causing more than a bit of bemusement/bafflement.

 

Interestingly, among academic sport historians this focus seems to be almost completely absent, at least judging from the various academic sport journals that I read.

 

I came across the 538 material and while I certainly understood the methodology involved, my basic reaction was, well, okay, so what?

 

I have the same reaction with the other uses of their elo modeling -- meh. Not to mention the corrosive effect SABRmetrics has had on so many aspects of baseball.

 

HDC

[DCapps]

And, then this, which should bring back a few memories from the Atlas F1 Journal days...http://atlasf1.autos.../goodchild.html

[Ross Stonefeld]

What blows apart that theory, the Atlas F1 one, are two recent cases.

 

In 2012 there were 8 winners from 6 teams in 20 races. But it wasn't a notable year. It had to do with various Pirelli adaptions. Who had a competitive car could swing wildly weekend to weekend. 

 

In MotoGP Marc Marquez has been the dominant force for most of the last decade. Sometimes with mind boggling points leads. But the racing has been fantastic. Even when Marquez wins the Grand Prix it's often exciting and closely fought. 

 

Data and analysis is nice and I can see the value in trying to apply models to these things as a learning experience but context is the biggest variable. Otherwise you can't square the circle of Damon Hill besting Jacques Villeneuve when they were teammates, Villeneuve putting Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the shade when they were teammates, but Frentzen basically drove Hill into retirement when they were paired. 

 

It assumes everyone is operating at their potential at every lap of every race. No one has an off day. No one is at a different point in their learning or career curve. No one is thrown off by a rule or tire or design change.

 

What it tells me is people who do these things have never competed in anything. Or seemingly met a human being.

[Michael Ferner]

ÎÎ That, and the methodology: "competitveness of racing" is defined by (inter aliae) average of race lead changes and closeness of race finishes. But, pit stops can also provide lead changes, and safety cars can lead to close finishes, yet both are the epitome of the absence of competitive racing. Besides, I don't underwrite the theory that motor racing has to be close and unpredictable to be exciting. A close race once in a while can be thrilling, but if every race is decided on the last lap, it becomes about as exciting as rolling a dice. Ho hum.