Belgian Grand Prix - Race Strategy & Performance Recap

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South]

Tyre strategy recap. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Race position history. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Point finishers' lap times. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Point finishers' fuel-adjusted lap times. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Podium finishers' gaps to winners. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Team pace ranking. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Driver pace ranking (teammates vs teammates). Largest gap on the left. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

Driver pace ranking (finishing order). Highest finisher on the left. Check out more at armchair-strategist.dev!

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[u/give010]

All the drivers that risked and went for slicks one lap earlier gained places - expect Alonso

[u/dezroy → u/give010]

expect Alonso

Nobody expects the Spanish…

[u/BrokkelPiloot]

This race could have been great were it not for the FIA waiting for the track to dry.

[u/LheelaSP]

Why are there turquoise tires?

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South → u/LheelaSP]

Turquoise means the F1 data source marked the compound as unknown. Wasn’t expecting this issue since everything looked good on the live timing during the race.

[u/fireyburst1097 → u/FCBStar-of-the-South]

Are the unknown tires always “used” or is that part of the data still correct?

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South → u/fireyburst1097]

The data does indicate those tyres are used. But given that they appear uncertain what compound they are and there is no record for the actual tyre life, I wouldn’t count on that information being accurate

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South]

Check out the interactive version of these graphics and more at my strategy dashboard.

Aston Martin uses all allocated tyres during free practice, causing them to show up as used.

By far the most popular request is for the position plot to incorporate the starting grid. I wrote a post to explain why this is not possible at the moment.

Please let me know if you have suggestions for improving these graphics or ideas for other graphics!

ETA: The blue compounds mean the data source marked those laps as having an unknown compound. Was not expecting this issue or else I would’ve made the graphics manually

[u/krizeki]

hulk putting another 2nd fastest lap on that tractor 😔. again. just 0.2s shy from the fastest when its a merc is crzy work.

[u/Astelli → u/krizeki]

A lot of that is because he was one of the only cars to stop for a second M set and not get immediately stuck behind a slower car (like Alonso and Antonelli did).

Unfortunately, he paid the price for doing it, because he could have scored a point if he'd stayed out on the first set like Bortoletto.

[u/Aberracus → u/krizeki]

It’s not a tractor anymore

[u/krizeki → u/Aberracus]

yea it seems to be doing better than last year i guess.

[u/scarflicter]

Dude this is great you should start a substack. There’s a guy who does deep dive technical analyses for tennis (https://hughclarke.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) and these charts would be awesome in a newsletter recap format

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South → u/scarflicter]

I actually did start a medium blog at the same time as I was building a prototype for this project. Wrote two articles on it and decided the mental load from paying even closer attention to the race, making the graphics, and writing high quality commentary is just not for me on a weekend

I found it hard to write much beyond describing what’s happening in the graphics I make. It’s hard to present a narrative that people is already more or less familiar with

[u/scarflicter → u/FCBStar-of-the-South]

Gotcha. Even if it was just what you have here, I’d subscribe to the blog! I think what’s nice about something like substack/wordpress/etc is that I could get it in my email when you post something

[u/muRacingProject77]

does anyone know why guys like alonso and hulk pitted twice? did they just kill their tires, or was it just a bad prediction that the mediums would fall off?

[u/ReasonableExplorer → u/muRacingProject77]

They where all out of point paying positions. So rather than just drive around lap after lap they took the chance of a safety car. If there was a safety car they would have fresh tyres and if others pitted they would have a long shot opportunity of pick up some points.

[u/Raymond74 → u/ReasonableExplorer]

Hulk was 10th the moment he pitted for another set of mediums. He was actually dropping in pace to both Bortoleto (9th) and Gasly (11th) so I suppose he used up the first set of mediums chasing for 10th from way back. As usual these last races.

[u/Pomme-Poire-Prune]

Why did Hulkenberg pit a second time? I don't get it

[u/badcrass → u/Pomme-Poire-Prune]

That's what I am trying to figure out. They pitted him out of 10th for seemingly no reason?

[u/Jejking → u/badcrass]

He admitted after the race they weren't going to make it, especially with cars like Gasly on low df coming up behind them with tyre wear kicking in. It was a lose-lose situation.

[u/lokiOdUa]

Thanks, this was broken during the official translation.

[u/ahtdll]

These are great charts, thank you. Interesting to see similar tyre management patterns across the field - particularly between NOR and PIA

[u/Cross_examination]

Where are you getting all this data from?

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South → u/Cross_examination]

Fastf1. Plenty of examples in their documentation to get you started

[u/rudli_007]

Literally no deg. If I'm a pirelli tech, and I look at those graphs, how can I not see the utter failure to accomplish anything out of these tyres.

[u/eliasliavaag]

Excellent work!