Average grid differences: Canada

[Schummy]

Time laps are normalized to 1:20 and "anomalous" times are dropped or weakly considered.

M.Schumacher  0.000 F
Button        0.543 ·····B
Montoya       0.735 ·······W
Barrichello   0.749 ·······F
R.Schumacher  0.839 ········W
Sato          0.927 ·········B
Trulli        1.012 ··········R
Alonso        1.113 ··········|R
Raikkonen     1.372 ··········|··M
Coulthard     1.418 ··········|···M
Webber        1.716 ··········|······J
Panis         1.825 ··········|·······T
daMata        1.894 ··········|·······T
Fisichella    2.252 ··········|·········|·S
Klien         2.317 ··········|·········|··J
Massa         2.417 ··········|·········|···S
Heidfeld      2.998 ··········|·········|········j
Pantano       4.213 ··········|·········|·········|·········|·j
Bruni         5.505 ··········|·········|·········|·········|·········|····m
Baumgartner   5.700 ··········|·········|·········|·········|·········|······m

Ferrari   0.000 o
BAR       0.277 ··o
Williams  0.319 ···o
Renault   0.616 ······o
McLaren   0.969 ·········o
Toyota    1.410 ··········|···o
Jaguar    1.638 ··········|·····o
Sauber    1.891 ··········|·······o
Jordan    2.954 ··········|·········|········o
Minardi   5.158 ··········|·········|·········|·········|·········|o

NH-GP  1.215 7 1 |·········|··
MS-RB  0.749 8 0 |·······
MW-Kl  0.601 6 2 |······
JB-TS  0.383 5 3 |···
Br-Ba  0.195 5 3 |·
GF-FM  0.164 4 4 |·
JPM-RS 0.104 6 2 |·
JT-FA  0.101 6 2 |·
OP-CM  0.069 4 4 |
KR-DC  0.046 5 3 |

• (I have put Glock as Pantano in Canada)
• BAR and Williams are close to Ferrari in terms of raw pace. MS is who makes the dominance.
• McLaren is slowly recovering, they are now above the archetypical midfields Toyota, Jaguar, Sauber.
• Team mates are very close in most of teams. Exceptions are Jordan, Ferrari and Jaguar. Jordan and Jaguar cases are due to a number one driver greatly faster than his teammate, but Ferrari's case surprise me a bit: Rubens has not been slow in qualifying in former years.
• Kimi and Alonso have recovered distance from their teammates after a not so good beginning of the season in Saturdays.

[Peter Mallett]

Interesting as ever. Its been some years since we could look at stats and see a non Williams/Macaroon just behind Ferrari.

[Dani Filth]

interesting to see Sauber so well back(running heavy and mistakes) . cause in the race they are much higher .. ..

and
Br-Ba 0.195 5 3 |·
GF-FM 0.164 4 4 |·
JPM-RS 0.104 6 2 |·
JT-FA 0.101 6 2 |·
OP-CM 0.069 4 4 |
KR-DC 0.046 5 3 |


so close ..

[RWC]

Good analysis!

Most of rubenz lack of relative pace could be from the more difficult to drive car this year(something the team has mentioned)
MS could drive a wheelbarrow full of wahlrusses fast

[1 Lotus]

Forgive my ignorance, but what the heck is all of that above and what purpose does it serve? I guess I am missing something here.

[Dani Filth]

qualifying performance ..

[1 Lotus]

I meant at the opener. All of the dots and vertical lines. Is it for the whole year? How does one do all of the math? Where does one find the time?

[Dani Filth]

thats the difference . shown in bars .the vertical bars splits 1 second .. and the letter is the team ..
i hope Schummy confirms

[Schummy]

Yes, it is as Dani Filth said.

First table shows average time diff between drivers. Points are just a graphical representation of it, to get a more intuitive look to gaps.

Second table is average diffs between teams.

Third table shows average diff between teammates and how is the score between them.

Calculating average diffs in grid times is not straghtforward mainly because there are "no times" due to accidents, voluntary retirements, mechanical troubles, in this one-lap format.

Another complication arises because lap length (time wise) is diferent in each curcuit, so one second gap is very different in Indy that in Spa. This factor is commonly overlooked in average grid differences. I "noramlize" every grid time as if pole time is 1:20.00 in every circuit.

Another point is how one must do the calculations to extract the maximum info from data. If one driver makes a mistake and ends, say, 7 seconds slower than normal, if we just do the arithmetic mean, his average will be greatly afeccted during all the season, no matter how good is him.

So it is better to count each time with more or less importance according to if it is "anomalous" or not. This is tricky but can be done automaticaly in a reasonable way.

Obviously in the current "strategic" one-lap format, grid times are nor so informative about raw perfomance of drivers/cars as it used to be. Fuel load plays an important role, and we have to guess what exactly we are seeing here

Sorry if this has been a bit long but I think 1 Lotus was interested in some of these details