Last year I attempted to predict the qually positions in Melbourne based on testing results and respective qualifying result from the years 2010-2012. The difference in testing result position and qualifying result position created what I call the 'Sand Bagging Factor' or how much each team either under performed or over performed in testing when compared to their qually result in Melbourne.
All in all it was a reasonable success, the predictions were on average out by just 3 positions, and I think it could of been even more accurate if it had been a dry qualifying session.
So with another years worth of sand bagging data and everything crossed for a dry qually in Melbourne I thought it would be a bit of fun to have another shot at making some sort of sense out of the chaos that is winter testing.
First is the form card. The sand bagging factor for the last 4 years for the current teams. Note a positive number means the team does better at Melbourne than they appear to do in testing, i.e. they are sand bagging. And minus numbers mean the team does worse in Melbourne qually than they appeared to be doing in testing because everyone else was sand bagging
You will see from the above it is the top teams Redbull, Mercedes, Mclaren and Ferrari that really sand bag with Redbull in particular consistently looking shit in testing and then blowing everyone away in Qually. Where as Sauber seem to run around every year on petrol fumes trying to look good in testing whilst forgetting they should maybe set the car up at some point for the first race.
So with the first test over we can apply the sand bagging factor to the Jerez testing results giving us the SBF adjusted test result.
And to put that into a grid position format, the initial predictions after the first test are as follows.
I will update the SBF predictor after the Bahrain tests.
But initially you have to say that if you have a Mercedes engine your looking good, even with a 3 place error margin.
All in all it was a reasonable success, the predictions were on average out by just 3 positions, and I think it could of been even more accurate if it had been a dry qualifying session.
So with another years worth of sand bagging data and everything crossed for a dry qually in Melbourne I thought it would be a bit of fun to have another shot at making some sort of sense out of the chaos that is winter testing.
First is the form card. The sand bagging factor for the last 4 years for the current teams. Note a positive number means the team does better at Melbourne than they appear to do in testing, i.e. they are sand bagging. And minus numbers mean the team does worse in Melbourne qually than they appeared to be doing in testing because everyone else was sand bagging
You will see from the above it is the top teams Redbull, Mercedes, Mclaren and Ferrari that really sand bag with Redbull in particular consistently looking shit in testing and then blowing everyone away in Qually. Where as Sauber seem to run around every year on petrol fumes trying to look good in testing whilst forgetting they should maybe set the car up at some point for the first race.
So with the first test over we can apply the sand bagging factor to the Jerez testing results giving us the SBF adjusted test result.
And to put that into a grid position format, the initial predictions after the first test are as follows.
I will update the SBF predictor after the Bahrain tests.
But initially you have to say that if you have a Mercedes engine your looking good, even with a 3 place error margin.
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