KartCMP1: Bahrain Grand Prix data crunch

Monday, 29 March 2021 at 12:41

Formula 1 hit the ground running in 2021 with a fulfilling Bahrain Grand Prix igniting a long awaited rivalry between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

Let's crunch the numbers and see what really went on.

Easily the most difficult assessment to make in F1 is the illusive oddity otherwise known as 'race pace'. Nobody really knows what it is, it is liquid in nature comprising of a vast array of convoluted variables and various items on the cars themselves requiring some form of management throughout the race, it is impossible to conclusively put an exact number to ‘race pace’. Over time I’ve come to believe that if you extract each drivers fastest lap every five laps, ignoring safety cars and virtual safety cars, and average that time, you’ll have a data set that best represents the true performance of each car. I call it “best case race pace”.

Below I have assembled “best case race pace” for the Bahrain GP. Ignoring laps 1-5 due to the safety car and virtual safety car I have extracted the best lap of each driver for laps between 6-10, 11-15…….51-56 and then averaged the time into 1 single time. While the one single time really has no meaning, it’s the delta from time to time that best represents each drivers race pace lap time relationship.

RANK	DRIVER	DELTA
1	Bottas
2	Hamilton	+0.014
3	Verstappen	+0.107
4	Perez	+0.671
5	Norris	+0.797
6	Leclerc	+1.067
7	Sainz	+1.148
8	Ricciardo	+1.154
9	Tsunoda	+1.269
10	Gasly	+1.428
11	Stroll	+1.499
12	Raikkonen	+1.542
13	Giovinazzi	+1.659
14	Ocon	+1.721
15	Russell	+1.855
16	Alonso	+2.384
17	Vettel	+2.414
18	Schumacher	+2.634
19	Latifi	+2.967

While it wasn't obvious, Bottas set more faster laps than Hamilton did. He then set a very fast last lap on fresh rubber, helping artificially improve his race pace compared to that of teammate Lewis Hamilton.

It looks odd that Lewis Hamilton is shown as faster than Max Verstappen as Verstappen seemingly had a faster car than Hamilton, but Hamilton did start behind him and finish ahead of him. Red Bull also decided it would run Verstappen longer than Hamilton on their first stint. It resulted in Verstappen dipping into 1:36's which are extremely slow lap times, significantly worse to Hamilton as he was in the 1:34 lap time territory immediately after his stop. The result is Verstappen's race pace is better than shown above.

In terms of how the best pace race pace translates into team battles, that can be seen in the chart below.

RANK	TEAM	DELTA
1	Mercedes
2	Red Bull	+0.107
3	McLaren	+0.797
4	Ferrari	+1.067
5	AlphaTauri	+1.269
6	Aston Martin	+1.499
7	Alfa Romeo	+1.542
8	Alpine F1	+1.721
9	Williams	+1.855
10	Haas	+2.634

In terms of driver battles, I've provided data on 3 parameters: 1. comparison of fastest lap, 2. average delta averaging lap by lap data [Charts below], 3. best case race pace data.

Mercedes

Hamilton Vs. Bottas