2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres

13 comments on “2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres”

1. 

   Sumedh
   19th April 2021, 4:12

   The tyre strategies seem to be incomplete, Keith. For e.g. Lewis’s 3 stints total up to only 32 laps.

   Also, quite impressive pace from Mick in 2nd half of the race.
   At end of lap 34, these were the gaps to leader for Kimi, Mick and Nikita.
   Kimi = 3.152
   Mick = 95.989
   Nikita = 99.633

   At end of lap 61, these same gaps were as below:
   Kimi = 61.322
   Mick = 157.536
   Nikita = 225.764

   So Mick over the course of last 27 laps lost just 3.38 seconds to Kimi and gained almost 65 seconds over his own team mate with no pitstops for anyone.

   Good speed by the youngster, matching Kimi in an arguably inferior car.
   1. 

      someone or something
      19th April 2021, 14:40

      Interesting find!
      However, I’d argue that the comparison is a bit flawed, since lap 34 was still under Safety Car conditions, which explains how Räikkönen was only 3 seconds behind Verstappen despite being in 8th place. This gap was inevitably going to grow by several seconds immediately after the restart due to the concertina effect, without representing Räikkönen’s real pace.
      Additionally, Schumacher (feels strange to write his name) was a full lap behind, which in this graph means that the restart seemingly happened a lap earlier. This explains why he appeared to lap quicker than Verstappen (!) on lap 35.
      Long story short: To factor these distortions out, the comparison needs to begin on lap 36 at the earliest.
      – Räikkönen: 10.77 – 61.332 = 50.562
      – Schumacher: 99.222 – 157.536 = 58.314
      => Schumacher lost 7.752 seconds in 25 laps = just over 3 tenths per lap.
      So, your conclusion is valid: His pace was pretty solid and much closer to the Alfas than it was in qualifying. Additionally, there is no hint of inconsistency during his final stint, despite the tricky conditions, he just appears to drop back at a steady rate, while Mazepin was at least 1.5 seconds per lap slower, and ended up losing much more time once he started getting lapped again (which Schumacher was able to avoid).

      All in all, very interesting analysis, thanks for highlighting it!
      1. 

         sumedh
         19th April 2021, 15:27

         Thanks for highlighting the point about Schumacher being a lap behind :)

         If I have to be extremely pedantic, Kimi got out of the concertina effect from lap 36 as Lap 35 was the first racing lap. Which means we can do comparison from end of the first racing lap (lap 35) onwards.
         So that is lap 35 to lap 62 for Kimi vs lap 34 to lap 61. By that logic, it would be:
         – Räikkönen: 8.372 – 64.773 = 56.401
         – Schumacher: 95.989 – 157.536 = 61.547
         That would imply 5.146 seconds in 27 laps. Less than 2-tenths per lap.

         Even if you see the fastest lap comparison, he was ahead of both Alpines, both Alfa Romeos and Danny Ric!! That is mighty impressive 2nd half. Hope it is not just a one-off.
         1. 

            someone or something
            20th April 2021, 17:32

            Are you really sure, you want to out-pedantic me? You have no idea what you’re getting into … :D

            If I have to be extremely pedantic, Kimi got out of the concertina effect from lap 36 as Lap 35 was the first racing lap. Which means we can do comparison from end of the first racing lap (lap 35) onwards.

            You know what, I was going to argue against that at first, but now I realise my logic was faulty. Schumacher being a lap down does NOT mean we need to wait for another lap before a meaningful comparison is possible, but on the contrary, in terms of lap count, the Safety Car ended earlier for Schumacher, so, in a way, he was waiting for the same to happen for Räikkönen (a bit like living in a different time zone).

            However, I have to disagree with the next step:

            So that is lap 35 to lap 62 for Kimi vs lap 34 to lap 61.

            That’s not possible, even though it covers roughly the same time frame. The issue her is the fact that we’re using Verstappen as reference for a comparison between Räikkönen and Schumacher. As counterintuitive as it may sound, Räikkönen and Schumacher crossing the line one lap after the Safety Car ended and the concertina effect stopped playing a role (lap 35 or 34) cannot be compared directly, at least not like this. Why? Because those were different laps for Verstappen. And, seeing as the track was evolving rapidly at that stage, crossing the line at more or less the same time meant very different things for Schumacher’s and Räikkönen’s gaps to Verstappen (whose lap times after the restart were: 1:23.7 – 1:21.0 – 1:19.7 – 1:19.5 – 1:18.9 …).
            The same (more or less) applies to the respective final laps of the comparison. When using a different driver (Verstappen) as the reference, the final lap has to be the same for both drivers. In this case, Verstappen’s final laps weren’t as inconsistent as the first ones after the restart, but the same principle applies: Comparing gaps between drivers in different laps is like comparing apples and oranges.
            => The final lap of the comparison (with that method) needs to be identical for both drivers, i.e. either lap 61 (the last lap completed by both drivers) or lap 60 (because final laps are often much slower for drivers who aren’t fighting for positions – which was exactly the case here, with Schumacher going from 1:20.0 to 1:22.1).

            One tell-tale sign that something was off is the fact that, even though we compared almost exactly the same time frame, and both drivers clearly had almost identical pace (i.e. just 2 or 3 tenths delta per lap), our calculations differred by 2.6 seconds. 2.6 seconds for just one lap – that can’t be right.

            All things considered, this is my new calculation (laps 35 to 60):
            MSC: 96.509 -> 153.695 = 57.186
            RAI: 8.372 -> 60.068 = 51.696
            => 5.49 seconds in 26 laps or 0.211 seconds per lap.

            Isn’t it funny how I keep contradicting you, but you were actually much closer to this “final” result? ;-)
            That’s the effect of the final lap, Schumacher slowing down by 2 seconds for no real reason carried a lot of weight in this comparison …

            Finally, there’s an even better way to compare the two drivers’ final stints. Never mind the gaps to Verstappen, we could simply look at their lap times, shifted by one lap. The advantage of this method is the fact that track evolution is factored out. Schumacher’s lap 35 took place 90 seconds after Räikkönen’s, which can change a lot on a drying track. Also, Schumacher’s tyres must’ve been warmer, seeing as the Safety Car ended a lap earlier for him.
            This comparison begins with Räikkönen’s lap 36 (first time he completed a lap without the concertina effect) and Schumacher’s lap 35 (same reason, this is just 4 seconds after Räikkönen crossed the line). It ends with Räikkönen’s lap 61 and Schumacher’s lap 60 (the next lap by Schumacher was much slower, as I mentioned above, and I now realised that was because he was lapped by Verstappen).
            You can find these lap times here, under (Race) Lap Analysis.
            According to these lap times:
            – Räikkönen completed the representative part of the final stint in 34 minutes, 53 seconds and 979 milliseconds, averaging 1:20.538 per lap.
            – Schumacher completed the same distance in 35 minutes, 4 seconds and 217 milliseconds, averaging 1:20.931 per lap.
            – In other words: Schumacher lost 10.2 seconds in the final stint, lapping on average 0.394 seconds slower.

            Huh? That sounds a bit much, right? But as it turns, no. Our method(s) of simply comparing gaps were much more flawed than we thought, and the continuous track evolution seemingly gave Schumacher a significant advantage that kept adding up lap after lap after lap …
            By comparing their lap times like I did, I essentially interpreted the on-track action as a race between Räikkönen and Schumacher, which started when Räikkönen crossed the line on lap 36, about 4 seconds ahead of Schumacher (who was lapped, but that doesn’t matter here). And according to these numbers, the gap between Räikkönen and Schumacher increased by over 10 seconds in the next 26 laps. Which is twice as much as we calculated with the other method(s).
            But here’s the proof that we were both mistaken:
            1. Räikkönen begins lap 37 at the 1:35:47 timestamp (just before it flips to 1:35:48, btw.)
            2. Schumacher follows him over the line at 1:35:51
            => Their on-track gap was around 4 seconds.

            3. Räikkönen finishes his 61st lap at 2:09:18
            4. Schumacher finishes his 60th lap at 2:09:32
            => The gap had grown to 14 seconds, i.e. 10 seconds more than at the start of the comparison. QED.
            (Note: The tracker at the bottom of the screen appears to begin with Safety Car line 1 instead of the start-finish line, which is why the sector 3 and lap times aren’t updated yet. However, this shouldn’t make any difference, so I used the tracker as a visual reference).

            Phew. I promised to be be pedantic, have I kept my promise? ;-)
            1. 

               sumedh
               21st April 2021, 9:23

               Phew. I promised to be be pedantic, have I kept my promise? ;-)

               Very much so! :)

               Thanks for sharing the link to the data. Studied it all and realized the flaw of using time to leader as a metric to judge relative speed of 2 drivers. While we did correct for the most obvious error in Mick’s calculation by offsetting the whole calculation by 1 lap, this is still not fair as now the relative points of measurement are different for both Kimi and Mick and Mick is given the advantage of doing 1 extra lap on a drying circuit.

               I used that data (in the link) and calculated the ‘time to leader’ but based on the leaders’ next lap (This data is obviously not present in the charts above) and I could immediately see the 4 and 14 second differences between Kimi and Mick as you mentioned

               On the sad side, it does makes Mick’s last stint look less impressive than previously thought. I thought I was really on to something. His laps 46 to 60 are still impressive and he is only 6 tenths slower (over 15 laps) compared to Kimi. But doing well over a quarter of race is not the same message as doing it over a full 28 lap stint. He lost the 10 seconds entirely in the first 10 laps of the restart. At least 3.5-4 of them while letting Tsunoda and Checo lap him. Which BTW, I noticed he let them through exactly before the DRS detection point allowing him the benefit of DRS next lap. Not a bad thing to do.

               Really hope the kid does well. He seems likable. No pretense. And seems honest.

               Gonna keep an eye out on this data in the future races :)
            2. 

               someone or something
               22nd April 2021, 15:37

               @ sumedh

               I used that data (in the link) and calculated the ‘time to leader’ but based on the leaders’ next lap (This data is obviously not present in the charts above) and I could immediately see the 4 and 14 second differences between Kimi and Mick as you mentioned

               I initially thought there was an even better document, the Race History Chart (from the same source), which keeps track of the order in which the field crossed the line behind the leader, including gaps (plus the current lap time). Unfortunately, the gaps for lapped cars are replaced with the number of laps they’ve lost …

               Regardless, it was a pleasure taking a deep dive into the data with you. I’ve learned a lot!
2. 

   Mike
   19th April 2021, 10:05

   I’m not sure whether Merc had the faster car:
   – Max driving in front, he could take less risk and may have turned engine down at some point (is that even possible with the regs?)
   – towards end of 1st stint, Max had heavy traffic which allowed HAM to close the gap. Also, HAM switched tyres on later so they may have been “fresher”…i’m aware this may be a BS argument ;-)
   – Fastest lap HAM had a tow and DRS
   – After crash, HAM changed nose and new tyres (so he essentially had approx. 5 laps fresher tyres than VER)…but he no longer carried end plate damage.
   – Lap 35 onwards, Max has 25 v. 4 faster laps than HAM and the margins are significant.

   The true picture is really hard to tell.
   1. 

      someone or something
      19th April 2021, 14:48

      It does bear pointing out, however, that Verstappen did not set the fastest lap of the race, even though he didn’t need to push during his final stint (unlike Hamilton, who couldn’t afford to save tyres in his bid to take 2nd from Norris), and despite the implications for the world championship. Verstappen had quite a few fast laps, but Hamilton never had a clear track ahead of him. As soon as he got rid of Norris, he was immediately 8 tenths quicker than Verstappen.
      Now, you could argue that Verstappen didn’t want to take any risks. But that doesn’t sound very Verstappenesque, does it? Especially when he could’ve been leading the world championship …
      So yeah, it looks as though the Hamilton-Mercedes combination was simply quicker in these conditions, despite having to fight during the entirety of the stint.
      1. 

         Mike
         19th April 2021, 17:19

         But in HAM’s quickest lap he had tow + DRS + clear track. All of that could easily have equaled +7 tenths. It was 1.2 secs faster than HAM’s 2nd fastest lap. So clearly an outlier.
         Anyway, we can all be happy that there is so much suspense this season and that we can still not say which car is faster. Maybe the answer is simply in comparing Bottas to Perez.
         1. 

            someone or something
            20th April 2021, 18:13

            But in HAM’s quickest lap he had tow + DRS + clear track. All of that could easily have equaled +7 tenths.

            You’re right about the tow + DRS. He did start the lap just under 7 tenths behind Norris and was able to take the racing line before the corner, so all in all definitely a nice boost without any drawbacks.
            However, he was also quicker than Verstappen in the following sectors (-0.114 in S2, -0.168 in S3), for which there is no such explanation. That’s almost 3 tenths in just 52 seconds, without any beneficial external factors except a clear track, which Verstappen also had.

            It was 1.2 secs faster than HAM’s 2nd fastest lap.

            That’s correct, but you have to consider that this was Hamilton’s first lap without traffic. He spent almost the entire stint stuck behind slower cars, so all those lap times were meaningless.
            Why didn’t he set another comparable lap time? No idea, but it had nothing to do with DRS or the lack of a tow. He simply backed off. On the following lap, he went 7 tenths slower in the middle sector alone. Therefore, he clearly wasn’t interested in chasing fast lap times.

            So clearly an outlier.

            True, but you cannot accidentally go a second quicker. Slower, yes, but not quicker. ;-)
            I’d agree that Sector 1 was an outlier because of the slipstream situation. But considering that he had been trying to overtake Norris the entire time, his energy settings must’ve favoured maximum deployment on the start/finish straight over optimal deployment for good lap times, thus potentially leaving him a bit low on battery on the rest of the lap. That may not have been a huge factor, but it would be unreasonable to assume that he had any kind of advantage for the rest of the lap.
            In other words: Even though Hamilton had been stuck in traffic for most of the stint, which must’ve caused significant wear on his tyres, this lap offered a brief glimpse at the true pace of the Mercedes (in his hands and in this situation).

            Anyway, we can all be happy that there is so much suspense this season and that we can still not say which car is faster.

            Completely agree. Not knowing how this season is going to turn out really is a breath of fresh air. :-)
3. 

   Mark
   19th April 2021, 10:27

   I think it is very hard to tell. Who has the faster car. They look to be pretty even.
4. 

   Ciprian
   19th April 2021, 14:26

   Who had the fastest pit stop in Imola?
   1. 

      Mike
      19th April 2021, 17:23

      Merci 2.24 (Bottas) secs. RB was 2.27

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