(This post has commentaries about some statistical calculations about FA, MS and KR chances to be WDC this season. So it "probably" is not too funny, except for those freakies who likes to lose time doing sudokus
)
Currently (after GP Europe), FA enjoys a 13 points advantage over MS and 21 over KR. A long part of the season is still in the future, 13 GPs are there to be fought. But the question is, is FA's advantage big or it is relatively no significant?
Strangely
, I have done some calculations to try to look into this question.
pnt gap ppr
FA 44 -- ----
MS 31 13 1.00
KM 23 21 1.62
MS has to recover at a ratio of 1 point per race (ppr) and KM needs recover 1.62 points per race. But those ratios are deceiving the difficulty of the task, if is not so easy to recover it *on average*.
In order to a better appreciation of the level of difficulty (or easiness) MS and KM have to deal with, it's better to calculate the equivalent recovery
as if it was in just one race. It is to say, how many points they have to recover if there was only one GP.
It is possible to calculate it supossing drivers don't have significant "trends" or "streaks" along a season. Surprisingly, this is approximately right, because most of perceived "streaks" of good or bad results can be explained by random luck (but *sometimes* there are real trends along a season).
We just need to find the ration between the points gap and the square root of number of resting Gps, and it will be the points to recover as it were only one race resting.
pnt gap por
FA 44 -- ---
MS 31 13 3.6
KR 23 21 5.8
It means MS overscoring FA in the whole season is so difficult (or so easy) as MS getting 3.6 points advantage in one race over FA (por). It is perfectly acheivable, but not too easy. In KM case, he would needs the equivalent of gaining 5.8 points over FA in one race. Not easy.
In order to be a bit more concrete, I have tried to convert those figures in probabilities of it happening. In the past three years (with the new scoring system) champions and sub-champions have scored with a standard deviation of about 3.5 points (per race). With this datum and
supossing FA, MS and KR are going to enjoy a similar form and car in the rest of the season, I have done 10000(!) simulations of the resting 13GPs and I have got they can win the WDC with these probabilities:
FA ---> 71%
MS ---> 22%
KM ---> 7%
So KM is in a nearly critical position. His chance to be WDC is small and, thus, he will need an advantage (better car, for example) or a heavy good luck to get the title. MS is in a slightly better position and he has the tyre factor to gain an advantage, but anyway FA is having a clear advantage by the moment.
Again, it is deduced by supossing those three drivers are going to have a similar form/car along rest of the season. If some team makes a breakthrough os a driver suffers any problem these probailities are, naturally, going to change.