Overtakings, overtakings, overtakings

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, another year, another bunch of graphics. As usual, all credit goes to Brian Lawrence (well, the translation to Excel of Brian's text files and the "awesome" graphs are mine).

Numbe of overtakings per year since 1997


Average overtakings per race since 1997


Average overtakings per GP per track since 1997


Number of overtakings per driver, 2007 only


Number of overtakings minus number of times overtaken, per driver, 2007 only


Any comments? Mine is I love China track.

Also, as usual, Da Rulez:

This tries to count "genuine" passing manoeuvres, excluding:

a) any place changes made during pit stops
b) all lapping or unlapping manoeuvres
c) any place changes made during the first lap

For the purposes of this analysis a "pit stop" encompasses the slowing down lap and the out lap, since any passes during those laps MIGHT be due to the driver slowing down or speeding up.

Passes are not counted in these stats UNLESS the gained position is held until the start/finish line is next crossed and so gets recorded onto the lap chart. Brian "tries" to ignore anything that isn't recorded in the lap chart, even if it was seen on TV.

[Steven]

Well... China is on top quite simply because the last 2 races have been mixed weather situations with different cars having an advantage in a different part of the race.

Also it is remarkable that overtakings have remained stable in the past 10 years. It would be interesting to see these statistics a bit further back (while normalising on a constant number of cars).

[Ciro Pabón]

What you say about China is true, but I like it anyway. Besides, some form of correction should be applied to tracks with less races. Wet races are not differentiated. I may post the info on that... with a little time.

Thanks, Tomba. Following your suggestion I found some statistics for the last 20 years. The picture I get is totally different from the conclusion of uniformity of the last 10 years that my partial graph gives.

I mixed data from Mirco Dalla, at rec.autos.sports.f1 (the unmoderated version of the same forum in the old Usenet) with the one I provided before from Brian. Mirco doesn't provide a source or methodology, but surely gives us a different picture:



Notice the discrepancies between both series

Anyway, if the tendency is true, then I attribute it, in part, to lack of matching between tracks and cars. The cars have advanced a lot, while the tracks haven't, or at least in the same proportion.

Nobody is trying dozens of configurations for improvement each month at Monza, while a lot of people works on that at Woking.

The fact that fans look forward to wet races is pathethic, when you think that way.

Sometimes I wonder if they're running 360 kph machines on courses made for 200 kph cars.

Sorry, I got carried away, no more ranting. Just the graph, for the forum to see "the decline". I imagine that this graph also needs to be corrected by number of cars, etcetera.

[Rob W]

How many of these 'overtakings' include overtaking by virtue of the pits? Or do they factor those out?

R

[Ogami musashi]

Thank Ciro, thoses graphs should be shown to FIA.

In fact i think people want more overtaking at the lead because if we look at the graph there were a lot of overtaking but mostly at the mid and back end of the grid.

Massa's first position is certainly due to the race were he was forced to start for the mid of the grid and with the F2007 overtook a lot of drivers...

This really show how complex is the "overtaking" problem but also shows that the problem is not only in the F1, but in the state of mind of people.

In this way, i see many of the FIA decisions completely out of context..

[Ciro Pabón]

Rob, they are factored out. Same with lapping or unlapping.

[rjsa]

Even if both series don't match, they run close enough to assure something has to be done... back to 1987.

[Ogami musashi]

You have to be cautious with those graphs.

As said before in 1987 the grid was not as matched as today also i doesn't take into account the conditions.

For example look at 2007 stats, massa's is the overtaker, but in fact it is because, of all the top runners, he was the only one to start from 14th IIRC so with the pace of the 2007 he overtook a lot of people.

Imagine this situation in 1987 with 28 cars at the start instead of 22 today, with more than 13 seconds of difference between the first and the last and with frequent mechanical and/or engine failures.

Also with the level of driving that went up it is pretty normal the overtakings are less numerous today.

But i would say the problem is not really in the number of overtakings, but rather where they take place.

Today they take place not on the lead but rather in the mid grid with cars set up to fight (because in the mid grid) while the front runner are all set up to post the fastest lap time..

There's a world to address it is not only a technical problem, going back to a 1987 technical solution is not the solution, you have to adapt.

Of course Aeros and tyres have to be adapted but sporting regulations also and most, communication towards fans.

On the 76% people that found there was not enough overtaking, how much do you think know the specificities of today's F1?
I mean the actual driving skills and techniques used, not used 20 years ago when overtaking was most present?

This is a common problem when i read people saying "get rid of aeros", "more action" etc..!.
This reveals how much they're stuck in the "theoretical" racing.
I was discussing overtaking on autosport forums and we were talking about braking; A lot of people went and said "Get rid of that carbon brakes! they shorten the distance!".
Even people involved in racing were saying this. They were saying because of the short distance you had less distance to overtake in which i answered that any short improvement in braking was because of that now more profitable ...until someone (also involved in racing) came and say "you know..actually you don't need to outbrake someone to overtake him at braking..you only need to be in a good position at a moment to take him his line into the corner"...
This revealed how much , me including, we were into a theoretical thinking that did not apply to the real dynamics.
The same goes for the cursed aeros, in fact if you watch F1, you'll see plenty of overtaking occuring into corners..in fact maybe proportionally you'll see more of that sort of overtaking in F1 than in a lot of "action packed" series.
This is because the "i follow the guy, slipstream then overtake" is not applicable in a real turn.

So a lot of communication has to be done.
People don't see each series is different and that there's not one style of racing and much more, they don't fully appreciate the way F1 as always evolved.

That said, there's a problem indeed. When a pilot has the occasion to overtake but can't because he loses all grip when following to a respectable distance or getting off the line (yes tires do also prevent overtaking as for now) this is not normal.

But that a pilot following a car at half a car length looses downforce then grip, is normal to me for a series that relies also on aero...

So much much much to do, and unfortunately FIA is not really aware of that as it seems they think their rules as stop gap measures which really often results in the opposite effect (the predicted 09 downforce levels are a non sense..if the OWG did not revamp the design of the car, you would see cars in the config you saw at jerez and pilots were not really optimistic about overtaking in this configuration).