Once more the Formula 1 season is upon us!
Anyone who was following us last year, saw our previous blog about how it is one of the most data driven sports in the world! One of our Dufrainians has decided to share his love of data and motorsport in this write up. You can find out about the coming season, additional pieces of data following last years post, the technical changes and expectations too!
Did you know?
- Since 2010 the average points needed to win a championship is 373. With the highest total coming last season, Max Verstappen won with 454 points (146 ahead of second place)
- Max also broke the record last year for the highest number of wins in a season with 15 from the 22 races (this may change in future seasons as the number of races grows)
- Ferrari are the winningest constructor of all time with 16 championships, but haven’t won the constructor championship since 2008.
Women in Formula 1
How many women have raced in Formula 1? Five women racing drivers have entered at least one Grand Prix, although only two of them ever qualified and started a race. The woman who competed in the most Grands Prix is Lella Lombardi, with 17 entries and 12 starts (wikipedia).
To prepare and encourage women to progress, the new F1 academy has been set up. Starting in 2023, Formula 1 is set to launch an all-female driver category, the F1 Academy, to develop and prepare young female drivers to progress to higher levels of competition – including W Series, Formula 1, Formula 2, and Formula 3.
AWS partnership continues
Formula 1 have extended their partnership with AWS, promising to bring better experiences to fans and powerful insights for teams and drivers through advanced machine learning. This year a few new regulations have come into play for the data fans to get their teeth into. Some of the more interesting changes are below:
Qualifying Format Changes
The current qualifying format allows teams to run whichever tyres they want through the three parts of qualifying. Meaning that the faster soft compound will usually be used to ensure progression higher up the starting grid order.
However, this season, two events will see a new format trialled where in the first qualifying sessions teams will HAVE to use the hardest available compound. The top 15 moving to the second session will all have to use the medium compound and finally for the third session the top ten teams will fight for pole position using the softest compound.
This will make tyre decisions for the teams somewhat easier, but will mean some management may need to be done by the drivers if the track produces more or less degradation on certain tyres.
Car Safety Changes
The wing mirrors on this year’s cars have increased in size from 150mm to 200mm to give the drivers more visibility. As well as this, after last season’s horror crash involving Zhou Guanyu at Silverstone, a stronger “HALO” roll hoop has been implemented to protect drivers in the event of an accident.
Porpoising Reduction
Last season, one of the biggest issues faced by teams after a string of new regulations came in to deliver closer racing and easier overtaking. An unfortunate side effect was that the cars were creating waves of downforce which when on straights would leave a car and driver bouncing along at very high speeds (Also known as ‘porpoising’). This year adjustments have been made to the minimum ride height, diffuser size and position and a new sensor has been added to monitor porpoising more closely. This is hopefully going to mean drivers stay as stable as possible at high speed.
Just a few minor changes but you can see how many of them brought in at once means teams need to be able to analyse and react in real time with the feedback taken from the cars sensors and the driver to ensure peak performance. Below shows the fastest race lap time from this year’s opening race circuit in Bahrain. It shows how last year’s regulation changes increased the fastest lap by 1.5s:
So who will do best this year? Current World Champion Max Verstappen is still favourite as his Red Bull car has yet again been looking strong in pre-season. But there is a handful of rookies making their debut this weekend in Bahrain who should create some exciting races in the midfield, if the lead is already a foregone conclusion!
Who do you think will win this weekend? The championship? And what is your favourite race on the F1 calendar? Let us know! And check out last years blog to discover more data driven formula 1 facts.
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