Right from the beginning of testing there have been noises about topsy-turvy grids, surprise race results due to the closeness of performance of the cars. I have read a number of times about the midfield having closed up and Sam Michael’s quote about “nine teams within one second”. Further to this I have read about the Toro Rosso looking good, Sauber being in a position to build on the performances of 2012 and Williams being confident that they could win a race. So, is there any evidence for this from the laptimes done in testing?
My last post looked at the relative performance of the teams generally considered to be the front five and this post considers the next four teams; Sauber, Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso. Given that it seems well accepted that Caterham and Marussia will bring up the rear, these are the teams we are looking to for the big surprises.
As discussed before, the test times are extremely difficult to sort out as the teams have quite simply not done race simulations which look like real races, when they did last year. The longer run stints which do exist are harder to assess, because there is no (close to) definitive fuel load data to say when the cars are full – which is the only fixed point that really exists if they have managed to complete a race distance. So I have tried again to sort the long runs out by their approximate fuel load using the same assumptions as in the previous post; that things are relatively close, and that the runs can be categorised according to a race stint which they represent, and that the pace of interest comes after the initial large degradation of the first few laps. There is clearly some noise here as not all teams would follow the same strategy, but at least it provides a reasonable indication of which stints are comparable.
The pace is given relative to Maldonado’s first stint pace from 2012:
Stint 1: (top five cars in region +1.0s to +1.5s)
Sauber: 3 stints; +1.9s, +1.8s, +2.5s; generally poor tyre behaviour, slower stint good
Force India: 5 stints; +2.3s, +2.7s, +2.4s, +1.9s, +1.7s; OK tyre behaviour
Williams: 6 stints; +3.0s, +3.5s, +1.9s, +1.5s, +1.4s, +1.6s; OK to good tyre behaviour (first two stints in Barcelona 1 appear not to be representative)
Toro Rosso: 2 stints; +2.1s, +2.6s; OK to good tyre behaviour
Stint 2: (top five cars in region -0.1s to 0.3s)
Sauber: +1.0s, +0.8s; OK to good tyre behaviour
Force India: 1 stint; +1.2s; good tyre behaviour
Williams: 2 stints; +0.4s, +0.6s; good tyre behaviour
Toro Rosso: 3 stints; +1.3s, +1.3s, +0.9s; generally poor tyre behaviour
Stint 3: (top five cars in region -1.0s to -2.0s)
Sauber: 1 stint; -0.5s; good tyre behaviour
Force India: 3 stints; -0.7s, -0.5s, -0.3s; OK to good tyre behaviour
Williams: no stints
Toro Rosso: 1 stint; -0.9s; OK tyre behaviour
Stint 4: No data for any of these teams.
From this data, nothing is particularly clear, but I would put Force India and Sauber as very closely matched, Sauber being faster in the opening few laps of the stint which makes them likely to qualify better. Toro Rosso seem to be slightly behind, although there is one stronger stint on lower fuel. The pace of these teams is about one second slower that of the leading five teams – so I would guess that they are a little more than a second off the ultimate pace, and there does appear to be a gap between the front five and these teams.
Which leaves us with Williams. If we discount their two very slow stints as experimental (although they could be real, in which case the other data can all be shifted across by a stint and they will find themselves behind Toro Rosso), then they are pretty close to the front five – indeed the opening stint data would be as strong as McLaren. So if there is to be a surprise, it is most likely to come from Williams, and I would expect them to be the only interlopers within the top ten (under normal circumstances) from this midfield pack. There does appear to be a visible (but not big) gap between the top six teams (as we should now call them) and the remaining three midfield teams.
So the best guess I have is that a rough order of merit on race pace would look like:
Red Bull, a few tenths, Ferrari, Lotus/Mercedes, McLaren (but likely to qualify better), a few tenths, Williams, 0.5s, Sauber (may qualify better)/Force India, a few tenths, Toro Rosso.
But I wouldn’t say I was confident. There just isn’t the data for that.
flutterf1
March 11, 2013
This is interesting as I’ve been following Williams closely through testing and I think they are very close to the top teams, who are now all very close themselves. There is an argument Williams under performed last year and if they have made the gaines they think they have this year then can’t see why they wouldn’t be able to challenge with a much matured Maldonado and potential very quick Bottas.
J-Dubya
March 12, 2013
Is there any data on how much particular teams tend to habitually sandbag from testing as compared to the first race. Or put another way, historically, which teams tend to find the most relative pace between testing and day one? To extend the question, historically, how much relative pace do particular teams tend to find and develop during the season?
intelligentf1
March 14, 2013
For testing, I have a sample of last year – which probably doesn’t say much. The race runs were reasonably representative (give or take 0.3-0.5s), but Williams were better than expected. So, in real terms, I don’t think there’s big jumps – the difficulty is in interpreting the data. Low fuel runs is a different matter – I guess we could look at this to try to get an idea for qualifying, but it only takes one lap with an unexpected fuel load and the whole thing is thrown out. Engine mode, tyre prep make big differences too – DRS for 2012 as well. Dangerous ground… so I’ve avoided it.
I have race data for 2011 and 2012 on which I have assessed race pace. I could chart the relative race pace (perhaps a running mean to remove track specific stuff) over the year as a ‘development battle’.
Shimky
March 12, 2013
Found you through link on http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk.
Great article!