First off, I have added the Singapore data to all graphs and made some corrections including accounting for races were pole was not set by Merc or RBR (doh).
Joseki wrote:I think that graph is a bit wrong, in China for example the McLaren duo didn't set a time in Q2 with new tyres and if you use the Q1 time JB set the result is very different. It may have happened a few other times like in Silverstone (best lape time for Alonso deleted) and in Hungary Fernando spun blocking everyone behind.
Thanks for that, good catch on China, I had missed that, it does make a difference to the graphs (you can refer back to the OP they will all update as I add more data).
While I have sympathy on your Silverstone point, other teams had their time deleted and even if Alonso's had remained he had used more track than anybody else to gain an advantage anyway.
As for Hungary, the spin then also prevented those following from improving on their laptimes as well.
mrluke wrote:... but to finish with another bold prediction based on data, I do not expect Mclaren to do as well at Singapore as they have at Belgium and Italy.
So with Singapore finished what can we conclude from Mclaren's performance?
(sorry this is going to be a long post)
On first glance the above graph shows that RBR and Mclaren follow a similar trend vs the pole lap. However on a more detailed inspection you can see that the size of the gap between the 2 lines is not at all consistent.
The next graph takes the same RBR 16 line but provides a trace for Mclaren that represents the difference between each team. i.e. when the mclaren trace is high they are losing time to RBR and when the trace is low they are very close to RBR.
If Mclaren had a consistent deficit to RBR then their graph would form a straight line, anywhere you get an overlap or movement in opposite directions shows a difference between the two teams.
As has been previously highlighted, from Baku to Italy, there is a general trend of Mclaren making progress against RBR.
Relative to RBR, Mclaren performed worse at Singapore than they did at both Spa and Monza.
Relative to Pole, Mclaren were slightly better at Singapore than Monza but much worse than at Spa. For me I am a little disappointed, I was expecting Mclaren's performance at Monza to be much more similar to their performance at Spa, if the data point had been right around where it was in 2014 that would complete the trend perfectly.
Looking at last season Hungary, Belgium and Italy were all similar performances but this year that was not the case.
In 2014 Mclaren were much better in Monza than Spa, in 2016 the opposite is true but in 2015 they performed equally at both venues.
Composing this post I noticed that the comparison against RBR and against Pole both appeared to be split into two parts, the chart is below:
From Australia to Canada (Austria?) Mclaren maintain a pretty consistent deficit to Mercedes suggesting their car is a fairly balanced package, like Mercedes.
From Canada onwards Mclaren lose the consistency with Mercedes, but now compare very consistently with RBR.
To me this would suggest that the Mclaren Chassis and PU were both pretty even up to Canada but that since this point they appear to have a PU weakness (like RBR). Or to look at it the other way around, RBR could have an improved Renault PU from around Canada. Or for a third option maybe the Mercedes unit has seen a step forward which now puts both teams at a deficit.
I think all that we can conclusively say about Singapore is that it was inconclusive.
