planetf1.com

I have rewritten this post a bit, so it could be a bit more decent to look at. This time I have included images with numbers.

So far for the 2012 season, I have

- looked into all official starting grids (so penalties and starts from the pitlane included)
- looked into all official finishing positions (again penalties includes, rankings from retirements not included)
- looked at what position each driver was in, at the first corner after start
- looked at what position each driver was in, at the end of the first lap

- calculated the average race (based on the 1st part of the 2012 season)
- calculated the median race (based on the 1st part of the 2012 season)

Reason for use of median : median results are more representative as they are less subject to extreme results.

Those numbers are not 100% accurate. They can never be. A driver's position could be influenced by other drivers' retirements or penalties. It's just to give you an decent indication.

Note : I have put numbers up with 1 decimal number. For the calculations the exact results are being used to determine the order.

Look down to see the correct and full data

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

You have a lot of time on your hands...

And I appreciate it! Some interesting stats there. Hadn't expected Ricciardo to be such a bad starter, didn't notice it at all through the season except in Bahrain. I suppose the focus is always at the sharp end, so we don't notice a Toro Rosso slipping backwards.

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"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

This is certainly an interesting set of statistics. I think it underlines that Ferrari have a tremendous package for race starts, and that it wasn't just Alonso who was solely responsible for those great getaways. I would expect Felipe to be ahead of Fernie on this stat then as he nearly always qualified further behind and had easier targets in front of him (Williams, Force India as opposed to McLarens, Red Bulls for Alonso).

The difference between Vergne and Ricciardo is also striking - they're almost at the opposite ends of the list! This definitely has something to do with Vergne under-performing in qualifying, but as the median grid suggests, their starting positions were not much different. Surely, the driver is a differentiating factor here.

Kimi's numbers are a bit of a mystery, thanks to Romain's first-lap woes, so it's hard to tell whether it's Kimi or Lotus making those fantastic starts. If you had details for what position Grosjean crashed out from...

Great work. Quite amusing to see (and I expected so) Ricciardo to be at the bottom of those starter lists. The first half of 2012 really didn't do him any favours, hey? After the mid-point he was usually holding his place, if not gaining a few - but the early races (particularly losing 16 positions in a single lap in Bahrain) left their mark.

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I also have one of these.

What I think? Firstly, I would say you really need to get a job. Secondly, its very interesting, these stats. In the 1st lap racers, I would have expected Alonso to feature much higher in there despite the crashes that had. He did gain the most number of places in 1st lap more than any other driver. I think.

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Loading Quote.......
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PF1 Pick 10
Aus13: 2nd
Chi13: 3rd

Just add in the modal average as well and you've got all the makings of an A-level statistical maths project

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There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.

Oh but I have a fulltime job and a life too lol. I'm just that kind of a freak which need to have a dose if F1 each week

As for Grosjean, there is only 1 time he crashed right after the start, and that was in Monaco. As this happened at the first corner, I have included his position he was in at that moment while crashing. So the stats on Kimi are accurate.

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

Lovely stats, nice work indeed, plenty good enough for the, "sometimes a bit like a ghost town", "in depth" part of the forum.

Anyway, certainly backs up the main thing I'd noticed from the starts (and probably something the world and his wife had noticed), that the Ferraris have conspicuously good launches. You could always see, their initial move was on a par with everyone else's, but then in the 2nd phase they always just rocketed away, much faster then any other car, every single time.

Not that I'm suggesting they're using any illegal devices or anything, they'd never do such a thing!

Oh, and I'd almost forgotten the relative pace the Mercedes had in the first half of the season.

Again, good work, very good work.

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"you can never be too paranoid"

I think Schumacher showing up in the worst starters is simply down to the fact that the Merc had very strong qualy pace, but tended to be an absolute donkey in the races - Schumacher often qualified ahead of much faster cars, only to drop down as the race began.

I think he's generally been the strongest starter - even in 2010/11.

Agreed if you look at the opening lap, but the other one is only from departure until first corner entry, and Schumacher is at the bottom of the list too. So during the first half of the season he tends to lose a few positions after the start. Something which wasn't the case last year.

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

I have rewritten my post to make it look a bit better and less chaotic, this time with numbers!

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

The full season will be a lot more telling than the first 10 races, particularly because those 10 were in the "lottery" phase.

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I really hope that comment was tongue in cheek. If not, it seems rather disrespectful for you to personally take aim at someone, only to then make a comment on the thread subject with the use of the very person's stats that you insulted.

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DISCLAIMER #1: You're probably going to ignore the above post.
DISCLAIMER #2: My posts often tend to deter any users from posting again on a thread. I'm a thread-killer.

Massa excels in overtaking! Felipe baby!

Good starter, good overtaker!

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The end is near

I have completed all numbers This should give a nice overview of the 2012 season :









So now you know who's the 2012 qualifying master and best racer, starter,...
Medium results are implemented to make sure the numbers are more correct (avg tends to give a wrong image when
extreme numbers are added)

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

Thanks but please explain the bit in bold!

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

Let's say someone qualifies 18 races on pole and due to whatever circumstances (failures, penalties,...)
he qualifies 2 races as last.

Average scores are very sensitive to extremes.

You would have

avg(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,24,24) = 3,3

So the overall picture we would get is that driver X has an average score of 3,3, so an average qualif position during the year of 3,3. But was he really that bad? No he was a great qualifier and to get an even better picture of his skills, we can calculate a median result. That result is less sensitive to extreme results and thus gives you a more accurate picture.

med(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,24,24) = 1

So that's why I have included median results, because each driver during the season is subject to issues during qualif and incidents during the start / race which could distort a bit his results.

Pretty good example would be Hamilton. He did race to pole in Barcelona but was promoted to last due to him running out of fuel. So his 24th place would lower his 2012 overal grid position, while in fact he did much better (he was 1st), so by looking at the median results, the numbers are much more accurate.

I'm not good at explaining but I hope this will do :p
If anyone could explain it better, please do

Numbers are always discussable. But it does give you a nice overview because all data you see has been calculated based on the official data, except for the start results. There I actually had to study footage and images to see how much they had advanced when entering the first corner

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

Makes sense, good thread OP.

The only thing I have against the median, is that again it doesn't show the full picture.

Take 2 drivers. They qualify as follows:

Driver A - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Driver B - 1, 1, 1, 4, 7, 7, 7

Now, both the average and median for the above drivers would come back as 4. However, indicating both doesn't really give the picture of how they did, as you can clearly see that both drivers have performed differently when it comes to qualifying... B is either brilliant or poor, yet A is all over the place.

That's where I think that when displaying averages, it's always useful to add the "Mode" as this would show the difference.

Again, as per the example of a driver with 18 poles and 2 last places. Their mode would clearly indicate their best qualifying position as 1...

The mode is only a decent measure when you have a large pool of data, working with a data set of just 20 it would be problematic. I expect Hamiltons and Vettels mode would be 1.

But you are quite right, it is another useful piece of information and all three together paints an even better picture.

It is a good analysis and thank you for your efforts. It is interesting how the numbers work out, for example it appears to look like Lewis went backwards in the races but this is mainly due to him retiring from pole position 3 times.

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At a glance mode would look like this I think.
Hamilton - 1
Vettel - 1
Webber - 2
Button - 2
Schumacher - 3
Alonso - 5
Massa - 6 & 13

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http://www.racefan.co.uk

Added Modes :



So a Mode is the number that has the largest frequency. It's not that great applied to only 20 races though.

So Schumacher's qualif results in 2012 are :

an average qualif result of 9,7
a median result of 9
and a modus of 3 (within those 20 grid results, he has qualified as 3th the most times)

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

I still feel the good old average score gives the best representation.

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

You found the flaw in Massa being a great starter. Excellent work.

I agree, if I was doing this seriously I would probably use the mean average discounting each drivers lowest or possibly discounting their lowest 2 to allow for skewed results from things outside of the drivers control.

Notably Vettel and Hamiltons 24th place starts, Alonsos 10th at Monza, Buttons 12th in Texas etc etc.

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http://www.racefan.co.uk