15 replies to this topic

[MrAerodynamicist]

In the latest issue of F1 Magazine, there is an article about Senna's pole record and detailing all his 65 poles. His pole in the Japenese GP of '89 is quoted as the fifth biggest ever [at 1.73s] What are the top four? Well I know two of them, Mansell @ Spa '92 [2.198 ] and Villeneuve in Australia '97 [1.754s]

[FEV]

Hi Mr Aero,

Whatever F1 Magazine said, Senna '89 Japanese GP pole is far
from being in the top 5 of the biggest pole margin in F1WC.
When F1 raced on tracks of more then 10kms (Spa, Ring,
Pescara...) margins were often greater then that.
I've only checked the 50sand 60s races and I found 26 races
where the polesitter had an advantage of more than 2 seconds.
Here are those with a margin of 5 or more seconds:

GP, Year Margin Poleman Second

CH 1951 5''9 Fangio Farina
BEL 56 4''9 Fangio Moss
Pescara 57 10''1 Fangio Moss
GER 61 6''2 Phil Hill Brabham
GER 67 9''4 Clark G.Hill
GER 68 10''9 Ickx Amon

I guess that in the turbo era and in the all-electronic years of 91-
93 you could also find quite big margins. Even if I haven't
checked, the 10''9 margin of Ickx over Amon at the Ring in 68
must be a record that has never and will never be broken.

See you,
FEV

[MrAerodynamicist]

Maybe they were referring to the % gap? Or if we were to limit it to the 4.5[?]km limit that there is now.

[d.c.a. mulcahy]

Originally posted by MrAerodynamicist
Maybe they were referring to the % gap? Or if we were to limit it to the 4.5[?]km limit that there is now.

What Formula 1 Magazine said was as follows:

'Senna's gap of 1.730 seconds remains the fifth largest gap of three decimal places'.

Timing in World Championship races has been recorded to three decimal paces since the 1982 season. While Formula 1 Magazine has not been specific I assume they are saying that Senna's pole in the 1989 Japanese GP was the fifth biggest gap since 1982.

You have already identified two of the others.

Another one is the 1983 French GP when Alain Prost on pole was 2.308 seconds ahead of Eddie Cheever in second place.

regards

d.c.a. (declan) mulcahy

[Don Capps]

So, are there to be categories for pole margins recorded to the following?

a) 0.000sec

b) 0.00sec

c) 0.0sec

As well as:

d) the above in WDC rounds

e) the above in non-WDC rounds

Or will there simply be separate "records" for WDC events prior to The Concord Agreement and after The Concord Agreement? Or will anything over say, a dozen years old, be disregarded as being too ancient to be relevant?

[Croaky]

I think there are grounds for arguing that some records are just too new to be relevant! I mean, is a big qualifying gap on a track with 10 corners as special as on a track with 50 corners? It's a different world altogether, so maybe they should be kept separate. Maybe Monaco is the only track we should compare old and new qualifying gaps for, since it has changed so little.

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Don Capps
So, are there to be categories for pole margins recorded to the following?

a) 0.000sec

b) 0.00sec

c) 0.0sec

As well as:

d) the above in WDC rounds

e) the above in non-WDC rounds

Or will there simply be separate "records" for WDC events prior to The Concord Agreement and after The Concord Agreement? Or will anything over say, a dozen years old, be disregarded as being too ancient to be relevant?

What about Aintree where they published times to the nearest fifth?

[Don Capps]

Yep, and the sand in the hourglasses used by the timers was wet at that....

[Carlos Jalife]

Only PPs count? I remember Gilles Villeneuve being more than 11 seconds faster than anyone else (there goes Ickx record) one Friday under the rain in North America, maybe Canada 1980. That session must have been something.

[bobbo]

Tech_Nut:

That ws BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!

Do something like that again, sometime!

Bobbo




"Life is too short to take seriously."

William H. Abel (My Dad & best racing buddy)

[Leif Snellman]

Considering Tech_Nut's avatar I thought he would have said "The South Pole"

I noticed that at the Indy 500 this year they took the times with 4 decimals. Is that something new or has it gone on for a long time?

[Carlos Jalife]

New, stated in the INDY RACING LEAGUE race at Phoenix 2001.

[oldtimer]

The BRDC at Silverstone used to time to the nearest fifth of a second in the 1950's also. The 1956 International Trophy race produced 7 drivers with an identical new lap record, IIRC.

Our host was having fun with different classifications according to the precision of the timing. IMO, some of those gaps fall into a 'chew on that' category, rather than being assigned to some time classification.

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by oldtimer
The BRDC at Silverstone used to time to the nearest fifth of a second in the 1950's also. The 1956 International Trophy race produced 7 drivers with an identical new lap record, IIRC.

In fairness to the BRDC, I should say that they used ti time much more accurately than that, but would only publish times to the nearest fifth. Their timekeeprs were scientists from a government research establishment, possibly the RRE at Malvern They believed that even the sophisticated equipment they used could not be relied upon to distinguish between cars travelling in close proximity. Rather than publish times of great apparant accuracy which might be wrong, they chose to publish times to an accuracy that they knew was justified in all circumstances. The same applied to the BARC at aintree.

[Barry Boor]

IIRC didn't the timers at Silverstone in the early fifties give times to the nearest SECOND. And didn't that cause about 39 drivers to share fastest lap at one British Grand Prix.

Getting back to the early points in this thread, although I understand the bit about three decimal places, it looks to me more like the often-seen situation where Grand Prix Racing B.C. (before Ecclestone) is not considered as a serious part of racing history.

[Vitesse2]

Barry:
I know Bernie's pretty powerful but I didn't think he could walk on water!!