2016 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, 07-09 October

[nevill3]

I believe Hamilton's poor start was due to the dampness on his side of the starting grid, I remember hearing that Mercedes had the starting box dried by the race marshalls because Lewis complained that it was too wet. I think Ferrari and Red Bull complained about this. So Lewis was sat in his starting position with the "damp" track in the back of his mind and overcompensated by letting his revs drop too low in an effort to prevent too much wheel spin at the moment of launch.

Just my take on things, but everyone on that side of the starting grid had poorer starts compared to the drier side of the grid.

[ChrisDanger]

Funny you say, this because I don't think the start is in much control of the driver anymore... It's like rolling dice. Match revs, release the pedal, modulate the gas... and pray that you don't stall or get wheel-spin.

Well, some drivers are good at consistently throwing high-scoring dice, which must just be good luck then.

[strad]

better to do a burnout than to bog the thing.

[RedNEO]

I'm pretty sure they changed the rules regarding clutch operation because they wanted to make it less automatic, thereby putting it more in control of the drivers and hence increase the variability. And this was probably done because people complained about the drivers not controlling things anymore, but rather having computers do all the work. Now that we have exactly that, people are complaining because some drivers or teams are most affected. Never mind that it's the team that otherwise starts and finishes first. But anyway, next year they will incorporate a currently-underutilised sensor into the ECU to control the torque during the start, so we'll go back to the initial "problem" again.

I hope that's overruled because apart from a few Lewis fans who don't want to admit he has been crap at starts it's really seperated the men from the boys.

[PlatinumZealot]

Some data... take it as you may.

How many places a driver gained (positive) or lost (negative) on the first lap of every race, on average.
Driver Average Total
Fernando Alonso +2.5 +40
Pascal Wehrlein +2.13 +34
Carlos Sainz Jnr +1.71 +29
Jolyon Palmer +1.69 +27
Marcus Ericsson +1.53 +26
Kevin Magnussen +1.18 +20
Romain Grosjean +1.19 +19
Esteban Ocon +3.8 +19
Felipe Nasr +0.65 +11
Felipe Massa +0.47 +8
Sergio Perez +0.29 +5
Nico Hulkenberg +0.27 +4
Jenson Button 0 0
Stoffel Vandoorne -1 -1
Rio Haryanto -0.18 -2
Daniel Ricciardo -0.18 -3
Valtteri Bottas -0.24 -4
Lewis Hamilton -0.56 -9
Sebastian Vettel -0.43 -6
Daniil Kvyat -0.56 -9
Max Verstappen -0.59 -10
Esteban Gutierrez -1.18 -20
Nico Rosberg -1.63 -26
Kimi Raikkonen -1.53 -26

[LionKing]

Some data... take it as you may.
How many places a driver gained (positive) or lost (negative) on the first lap of every race, on average.

Which does not tell how many places each driver gained/lost only by his start as this list would be quite effected by first lap incidents.

[Fulcrum]

Some data... take it as you may.
How many places a driver gained (positive) or lost (negative) on the first lap of every race, on average.

Which does not tell how many places each driver gained/lost only by his start as this list would be quite effected by first lap incidents.

There is no contextual information asociated with that list - it's just raw data, reasonably accurate from my estimation, having validated a few of the values myself.

What it doesn't do is factor in the distribution of outcomes; for example, Rosberg and Raikkonen registering as the worst performing starters given they've been punted to the back of the field once and twice respectively.

Nor does it assign a 'cost' to the poor starts. Starting 1st on the grid and entering the 1st corner 3rd is a loss of only two positions, but its a theoretical loss of 10 points.

Using the regular points distribution, and assessing starting position relative to 1st lap position, I calculate that Hamilton's start performance differential is -66, compared to Rosberg's -44.

To my mind, this is a more accurate representation of their relative starting outcomes.

[PlatinumZealot]

I know the data does not tell the whole story. However it does look at the bigger picture of lap one. Perhaps a poor start can be compensated for by clever passing combined with awareness of accident prone drivers?

[Andres125sx]

Funny you say, this because I don't think the start is in much control of the driver anymore... It's like rolling dice. Match revs, release the pedal, modulate the gas... and pray that you don't stall or get wheel-spin.

maybe, but if you don´t match the revs like Hamilton then you can be sure you´ll stall, so maybe the driver is still playing a role

Not a problem for Lewis tough, his fans will say it was the clutch

[basti313]

...
Just my take on things, but everyone on that side of the starting grid had poorer starts compared to the drier side of the grid.

That is not true. Ric and Vet had a really good start, but were compromised by the moving chicane. The first not compromised driver Rai won a position compared to Gro starting ahead of him on the "good" side.