1. Analysis Results and Conclusions
This is the race pace analysis which considers fuel loads, tyre degradations, and other contexts of the race.
Table 1 and Fig.1 shows power relationship of each car’s race pace in dry conditions. This time, only the race pace on soft tyres could be calculated, so this is the overall race pace analysis result.
Table 1. Overall Race Pace Power Relationship
☆Points to note
Alonso, Hulkenberg, Lawson and Bottas had very fast stints on dry tyres at the end, but they were able to push very hard because of the short stints, so I judged Alonso’s performance based on his mid-stint pace, and calculated the other three’s performance by comparing them to Alonso.
Also, I ignored Albon’s dry tyre degradation on wet surfaces. In reality, there may have been some degradation, so his actual pace might have been slightly faster.
Looking back at the race pace
There is no doubt that Red Bull was the quickest, but Alonso was only 0.5 seconds behind and Gasly was only 0.6 seconds behind, showing that Aston Martin and Alpine, who had been losing momentum recently, had recovered. Of course, it was difficult to quantify the performance of Mercedes and McLaren, so I cannot say for sure that Aston Martin returned to second place, but judging from the context of each stint, I think that Alonso was faster than Norris and probably equal or better than Hamilton.
2. About the Analysis Method
I assumed a fuel effect of 0.06 [s/lap] and calculated the degradation value from the slope of the graph. I derived the race pace in equal conditions from the tyre history. I also took into account clear/dirty air and the context of the race.
The tyres used by each driver (from Pirelli Official)
Also, if a driver was in dirty air in the first half of a stint but in clear air from the middle, and even in dirty air in the first half he was able to save his tyres and did not slow down excessively, I treated the whole stint as if it were clear air. I defined this condition as open-end clear air (OEC).
This time, I ignored the difference between soft tyres used in qualifying and new soft tyres, and scrubbed and new medium/hard tyres.
3. Appendix
For reference, I attached the graphs I used for analysis.
Writer: Takumi