FIM race titles

[Schummy]

After the Assen's race I wanted to see how was the situation of the riders as contenders for the title(s).

I used a (strange?) thing called One Race Gap (ORG), that translate the actual gap between each rider and the leading rider (with 11 races to go) to an equivalent gap if there was just one race to go, it is to say if we were waiting the last race in Valencia.

For example, Dovi currently has a 44 points gap to Marquez and it would be equivalent to have a 13.3 points gap with just one race to go. This way one can see more easily the difficulty of the task that Dovi has to achieve.

According to former seasons data, ORG = 10 approx means 10% of probability to overcome it. Moreover ORG = 25 approx means 1% of probability. I resume it saying that ORG > 10 means rider is "struggling" to contend for the title; if ORG > 25 then basically rider is unlikely to have real possibilities.

It can seem a bit weird but ORG is based in reasonable statistical hypothesis, it is not a random casual calculation :-)

Data for the three categories:

Mo3:
    Gap  ORG Goal 
CAN 107        
DLP   7  2.1   --
ANT  24  7.2   -8
ARB  31  9.3   -1
VIE  39 11.8   +8
MAS  42 12.7  +11

Mo2:
    Gap  ORG Goal 
LUT 117 
MAQ   6  1.8
FER  25  7.5   -7
NAV  28  8.4   -4
BAL  29  8.7   -3
MAR  33  9.9   +2
SCH  36 10.9   +5
BIN  53 15.98 +22  

MGP:
    Gap  ORG Goal 
MAR 160  
DOV  44 13.3  +13   --
PET  52 15.7  +21   --
RIN  59 17.8   --  -22
ROS  88 26.5   --   +8

In short, in MotoGP, nobody is really a contender against Marquez. Only Dovi, Petrucci and Rins are truly with any reasonable likelihood to think in the title (with at least 1% chance), but they are struggling.

Moto2 still has 5 riders contending directly against Luthi: Marquez, Fernandez, Navarro, Balda and Marini. Schroeder is in fact almost there too. Binder and the rest are struggling already (well, some of them are likely out of the title).

In Moto3 there are only three riders as contenders with Canet. Of course, they are DallaPorta, Antonelli and Arbolino. However, Vieti, Masia, ..., are struggling, they have a hard task ahead.

So, even before the middle point of the season, titles are already destined for a relatively short list of riders, with a high probability.

[Dani Filth]

Hello Schummy
welcome back

Can you do a similar analysis for WSBK after 6 and 8 rounds out of 13?
i'm sure between the 6th and 8th rounds we'll see something a bit out of ordinary statistics

[Schummy]

Daniiii!

Sorry for not replying in time! The reason for that is that I see the races, qualifications and practices delayed (because I don't have time enough to watch them in real time). So, I usually finish the races on Wednesday.

It means I cannot enter here in time because the level of "spoilerness" is, naturally, immense.

WSBK '19 is a trully interesting case. The first part was total domination of Bautista (but Rea was achieving an excellent defense, accumulating 2nd places). Then Bautista started to crash, as he has done sometimes in GPs, losing a prodigious amount of points in a few races.

Current score system means that one 25-0 race is equivalent to five 25-20 races. I.e. one race with Bautista crashing and Rea winning is the equal to 5 races with Bautista winning and Rea being 2nd. It is this way in the main races , in the small races the ratio is 4 races instead of 5.

With other score system that rewarded wins more intensely, Bautista could still be leader. However, I think Rea deserves to be in the lead.

I'll do some math with it, Dani, just to see if I can put something interesting here

[Schummy]

Updating the analysis after Austria. The first number is the points' gap, the second one is the ORG (as explained in the first post). The interesting values of ORG are 10 and 25; an ORG l< 10 implies a probability of more than (approximately) 10% of probability of overtaking the leader rider. And ORG > 25 means less than (approximately) 1% of overtaking the leader.

Mo3:
DLP 155           
CAN   1   0.4  contender   
ARB  42  14.8  unlikely
ANT  50  17.7  unlikely
RAM  66  23.3  unlikely
MCP  71  25.1  out  

Mo2: 
MAQ 181                
LUT  43  15.2  unlikley
NAV  55  19.4  unlikely
FER  60  21.2  unlikely
BAL  66  23.3  unlikely
SCH  67  23.7  unlikely
BIN  72  25.5  out
MAR  80  28.3  out

MGP:
MAR 230  
DOV  58 20.5  unlikely
PET  94 33.2  out

Conclusions:



In Moto3, Arbolino and Antonelli could go back to be contender if they have an excellent result in the next race against Dalla Porta and Canet.


In Moto2, Marquez is the only rider contending for the title, in realistic terms. But Luthi could be again a contender if he gets a very good result against Marquez in Silverstone.


Marc Marquez is the only rider with real chance for the title in MotoGP. Nobody is remotely near to be considered a "contender". Dovizioso is the only rider with some probability to fight Marquez; but, even him could be thrown into the out of the championship category if he has a mediocre day in Silverstone's race.

[Schummy]

According to the gaps in the last post, it is possible to estimate the probabilities of each rider to overtake any other rider at the end of the season.

The next tables show those probabilities. For example, Canet has a 97% of probabilities of beating Antonelli at the end of the season; Navarro has a 72% of probabilities of beating Schroter.

     DLP  CAN  ARB  ANT  RAM  MCP  VIE  MAS
DLP   --   52   87   98   99  100  100  100
CAN   48   --   91   97  100  100  100  100
ARB   13    9   --   51   73   86   86   78
ANT    2    3   49   --   74   83   89   82
RAM    1    0   27   26   --   51   56   59
MCP    0    0   14   17   49   --   52   63
VIE    0    0   14   11   44   48   --   57
MAS    0    0   22   18   41   37   43   --

     MAR  LUT  NAV  FER  BAL  SCH  BIN  MAR
MAR   --   92   96   98   94  100  100  100
LUT    8   --   66   78   72   87   86   96
NAV    4   34   --   55   57   72   76   86
FER    2   22   45   --   61   63   68   80
BAL    6   28   43   39   --   46   55   61
SCH    0   13   28   37   54   --   55   79
BIN    0   14   24   32   45   45   --   55
MAR    0    4   14   20   39   21   45   --

     MAR  DOV  PET  RIN  ROS  VIÑ  QUA  MIL  CRU
MAR   --   98  100  100  100  100  100  100  100
DOV    2   --   95   98  100   99  100  100  100
PET    0    5   --   77   96   93  100  100  100
RIN    0    2   23   --   79   79   94   96  100
ROS    0    0    4   21   --   54   63   78   89
VIÑ    0    1    7   21   46   --   60   68   85
QUA    0    0    0    6   37   40   --   57   69
MIL    0    0    0    4   22   32   43   --   58
CRU    0    0    0    0   11   15   31   42   --

Moto3:
Dalla Porta has a meager 52% against Canet. The only other rider who has small but somewhat reasonable probability of dethrone DLP is Arbolino (13%). Interestingly, Arbolino has less possibilities against Canet (9%). The positions from 3rd onward are pretty undecided. From Arbolino to Masia (atleast) they can permute freely their positions at the end of the championship.

Moto2:
Marquez dominates clearly the situation. Even Luthi has only 8% of probabilities to overcome Alex. It's noteworthy that Balda´s chances are almost equal a Luthi's (even if he is currently 5th in the championship!).

However, from Luthi to the rest of the main riders, they are still mostly undecided about the final positions in the championship, from 2nd onward, although Marini, for example, has a reduced probability of becoming 2nd in the season.

MotoGP:
Marquez, Marquez, Marquez. The probabilities for his title are overwhelming. Only Dovi has a hint of minimal possibility (2%). In turn, Dovi has big chances of becoming the runner-up, with a small window for Petrucci (5%). Petrucci, however, has still to fight with Rins for the 3rd position (77%-23%) and Rins, in turn, has to fight Rossi and Viñales for the 4th. The rest are pretty chaotic still in termo of who will get 5th, 6th, et cetera.

Those are probabilities gotten of actual gaps between riders and thousand of numerical simulations of possible future races, according to past performances during the season. If a maker discover a breakthrough in the rest of the season, those probabilities would be affected in some way. But even in that case, the results in the tables are pretty solid as a guideline.

[Schummy]

Just to complete the info, I am posting here the estimates of the probabilities of getting the title (using a different approach to the gaps in the former post).

Moto 3: DLP 49% CAN 45% ARB 4% ANT 2%    
Moto 2: MAR 85% LUT 7% NAV 3% FER 2% BAL 1% SCH 1% BIN 1%
MotoGP: MAR 97% DOV 3%

Although the "methodology" is different these percentages are in the same line that the percentages in the former post.

In resume, heavy favorites for the titles are the two Marquez, Dalla Porta and Canet. The rest are out of luck, except (perhaps) Luthi. It doesn't seems to be particularly striking news but I think it puts in a right perspective the degree of determination of the titles and the lack of true contenders to them.