Temperature Windows

[zyphro]

=D> +1.

[beelsebob]

Some updates – I've added results for hockenheim, due to the large temperature range (anywhere between 28 early on, to 38 for the vast majority of the end of the race) I've used 35°C as the temperature here. I've also corrected the track temp for bahrain, and added polynomial trend lines to each graph.

[bhall]

So, apparently Vettel's been given a 20-second penalty, which drops him to 5th. How does track temperature account for that?

As I've said before, I love this novel idea. But, I don't think it's really telling us anything.

[beelsebob]

So, apparently Vettel's been given a 20-second penalty, which drops him to 5th. How does track temperature account for that?

As I've said before, I love this novel idea. But, I don't think it's really telling us anything.

I left Red Bull where they finished the race as it more accurately reflects their actual pace. I had been wondering about adjusting, or removing some of the other results as they don't reflect pace, but oddities, for example various McLaren results are so low because of pit stop drama, not becasue of poor pace.

[raymondu999]

Yes it's a dicey thing. Taking fastest laps are very much affected by your strategy (the guy on a 3-stop will definitely put better laps out than the one on a 2-stop) but finishing position isn't right either. Hmmph.

Beelsebob, for the races which span a big temp range, perhaps using error bars? ie have the last race at 33, +/- 5?

[beelsebob]

Yes it's a dicey thing. Taking fastest laps are very much affected by your strategy (the guy on a 3-stop will definitely put better laps out than the one on a 2-stop) but finishing position isn't right either. Hmmph.

Beelsebob, for the races which span a big temp range, perhaps using error bars? ie have the last race at 33, +/- 5?

Yeh, I was looking to do that, but could not find a way to get this tool to display error bars, I'll start using a different one. Also, as others have suggested, I was going to start looking at lap times as a percentage of the fastest at that time in the race. This will allow me to at least approximate changing temps in a race, however, it's gonna be a lot more work, so it'll be a while before I post up something useful.

[raymondu999]

Excel can do it I believe. Much easier in Numbers (if you're on a Mac - which I believe you are?)

Also while I was one of the ones to suggest looking at laptimes instead of finishing position - it's not quite correct. A Red Bull on 40-lap-old mediums might not be as quick as a Caterham that has just bolted on supersofts. Not to mention inlaps/outlaps - oh boy.

[beelsebob]

Excel can do it I believe. Much easier in Numbers (if you're on a Mac - which I believe you are?)

Also while I was one of the ones to suggest looking at laptimes instead of finishing position - it's not quite correct. A Red Bull on 40-lap-old mediums might not be as quick as a Caterham that has just bolted on supersofts. Not to mention inlaps/outlaps - oh boy.

Agreed, my hope is that this will all average out... That said, perhaps it would be better for me to take times from qualifying... That way I know fuel loads and tyres are all fairly similar (or if they're not I know it), and I know it's the pure, unadulterated pace of the cars.

[hollus]

Position can also be a quite dicey thing, given some car trains. first and fifth at Monaco were essentially equally fast. What about seconds behind the winner at the end of the race divided by the percentage of the race after the last safety car event if there was one?
That's not an enormous amount of work to implement.

[raymondu999]

Yeah qualifying should work. We'd still see trends IMO - the Lotuses despite their lack of real qualifying speed would most likely still feature closer to pole in hotter temps.

Actually - you know what else would be interesting viewing? Drivers' fastest laps in a race, compared to their qualifying laptime. To see which cars have better race pace than qualifying pace, and vice versa. Assuming you could shave out the outliers in terms of, for example - shaving out 3 stop vs 2 stop comparisons, or traffic etc. Or maybe stint-average laptimes would be interesting too :p

[thearmofbarlow]

How does one then account for mechanical failures? Qualifying troubles? Pit stop troubles? Development/updates? Penalties? Driver error/lack of talent?

I don't see how race position correlates to track temperature given the many variables that eventually determine race position.

It doesn't. Unless, of course, someone graphs out the information and you start to see trends appearing.

[gato azul]

nice & interesting attempt beelsebob

but as you (&others) have already mentioned, not a straight forward project, if you are looking at temperature effects in isolation/alone.
I think, it will be a lot of work, before you can start drawing some conclusions/trends about how air/track temperature is going to affect the individual cars.
May need to look at deviations around the mean laptime for the different cars, and draw some trends on this.

I do agree, with the premise to use Qualifying times, in an attempt to reduce "uncertainties" (fuel load, state of the tyres etc.), but on the hand, a car which is "aggressive" to his tyres and suffers at higher air/track temperatures, may still be "o.k." for a lap or two (see MSC in Hockenheim for example).
So it's quite a challenge, but a nice one !!

Maybe you want to have a look at this site, for some ideas & food for thought.

http://intelligentf1.wordpress.com/about/