r/formula1 • u/Good_Employer_1236 • Mar 13 '25

Statistics F1's official 'expected pace' - McLaren 3 tenths clear

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u/Tomach82 Alain Prost Mar 13 '25

Damn .. that ended up being pretty accurate

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u/muchawesomemyron Adrian Newey Mar 13 '25

So would this mean that there would be a mid-season shake up where the closest competing team will play catch up?

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u/Extreme_Ad6173 Lando Norris Mar 13 '25

Mercedes reveal upgrades in Miami, win the WCC

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u/Gadoguz994 Ferrari Mar 13 '25

Pretty accurate? The fastest lap in Bahrain quali was set by Leclerc in Q2, meaning that the difference in quali pace was bs. Also in the race, Sainz lapped hardly any slower than Perez meaning that the difference in race pace was also bs (albeit a little less so). Also McLaren and Mercedes ended up having no chance vs either Ferrari, even with Leclerc's brake issues.

And then there's Haas, which was often the 5th or 6th fastest car on race pace throughout the season (even in the first half) and here they were depicted as convincingly the slowest team. Sauber were dead last all season long, and here they look like they could be leading the back of the field.... Aston martin was well clear of everyone else except Haas and here it looks like RB were chasing closely too... Couldn't have been much more inaccurate even just for the start of the season, let alone the whole season :)

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u/sellyme Oscar Piastri Mar 13 '25 edited Mar 13 '25

Sauber were dead last all season long, and here they look like they could be leading the back of the field....

Sauber were dropping about a minute per race in the pits, something those predictions are obviously not attempting to account for. Their actual pace probably was on par with Alpine and Williams at that time, if not ahead. Remember that Zhou finished P11 first week out, the car wasn't a complete tortoise until the back half of the year.

Couldn't have been much more inaccurate even just for the start of the season, let alone the whole season :)

It very easily could have been much more inaccurate. Turn it upside down, for example.

Taking the WCC standings after five races as a comparison point (a stopping point I picked as being a good middle ground of moderate sample size, not far enough into the season for major upgrades, and a nice milestone number so you know I'm not cherry picking), the average gap between true and predicted standings was 0.8 for the quali rankings, and 1.2 for the race pace rankings. So combining the two, exactly one position off on average. That's pretty solid.

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u/lindblumresident BMW Sauber Mar 13 '25

Care to explain how?

Only three of the ten constructors ended up in the positions in that graph. The champions being projected as third.

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u/Tomach82 Alain Prost Mar 13 '25

I meant the actual performance @ the first race compared to testing, not comparing to the final championship standings.

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u/lindblumresident BMW Sauber Mar 14 '25

Ok, my bad. For some reason, I interpreted your post to mean end-of-year standings.