The Development Race: A Look at Progress from 2008-2012

[The Pits]

I think that this is a vein of information which could provide rich pickings, the analysis that you have done so far is excellent, and there is more within.

As in science method, it might be a fun exercise to use this data, and the information on the testing thread regarding sand bagging to predict where the teams will be through the year!

I'll leave that to the intelligencia on here though, my head is starting to hurt!!

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

KABOOM ... what a bang on job sushifiesta ... this is an epic write up... I have read about 50% of it so far... and am devouring the rest...

I like your quarterly analysis ... one quick thought I had ... to overlay which GP's / tracks make up each of the quarters ... I think the mystery around some of the teams performance pick-ups and drop-off's might start to become apparent... the race calendar has been pretty static for the last 5 seasons...

Now back to your entry into the Leon Uris Catch 22 Hall of Analysis Fame...

 

[sushifiesta]

I'm away for New Year until tomorrow but after that I'll try to remember to post a table of the races in each quarter. Shouldn't take long.

 

[racecub]

What an epic piece of work! I've skim read it but look froward to going back over it in more detail.

 

[sushifiesta]

ZakspeedYakspeed Here are the races included in each quarter in each year:

EDIT: Oops, Spain in 2009 should read 25% 1st quarter, 75% 2nd quarter.

EDIT2: The following races had wet qualifying sessions and were not included in the qualifying analysis:
2008: Italy
2009: Germany, Brazil
2010: Malaysia, Belgium, Brazil
2011: Britain, Belgium
2012: Britain, Germany, Brazil

 

[MCLS]

Great post sushifiesta, will you be printing it in book form?

 

[sushifiesta]

If you're willing to pay me for you to do all the work, like a pay driver, I'm sure that could be arranged

 

[sushifiesta]

I just noticed this snippet in Gary Anderson's "How to Make an F1 Car" article on the BBC web-site that seems to match nicely with what I was saying about Ferrari in 2009:

We saw thatin 2009, when the double-diffuserdominated performance. Only three teams designed that into their cars from the beginning. Of the rest, who needed to add it later once it was declared legal, some teams' gearbox packages worked well with a double diffuser and some did not.
Ferrari were one of those teams whose gearbox would never have allowed them to optimise a double diffuser.
They considered building an entirely new gearbox but decided it was not worth building one because by the time it was ready too much of the season would have gone and they would have lost too much ground in the championship to recover. So their season was effectively written off by April or May.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20844843

 

[teabagyokel]

I wonder if that gearbox is still hurting Ferrari; it seems that since then they've been playing a constant game of catch-up compared to the two teams who did develop a n efficient double diffuser in reaction to Brawn and Toyota going so quickly at the start of 2009.