From: wolfe@bmerh707.bnr.ca (Ian Woollard)
Subject: Re: Senna x Mansell
Summary: Scientific analysis
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 16:20:07 GMT


Ok. Enough of this vagueness. Definitive analysis of who is better driver
follows... 8-) 8-) 8-)

First define better driver. Everybody in the world has their own
definition, for my purposes here I am trying to establish, given on
average, the same car and on average the same set of conditions who
will win most points?

Note that this is different to favourite driver. A favourite driver is
the one a fan supports, even though they may not necessarily be the
fastest, or have the best chance of winning.

Lets look at some characteristics:

1. Speed on circuit when unblocked.
2. Speed through traffic.
3. Grid placement (including starting ability).
4. Unforced errors (in terms of standings)
5. Resistance to forced errors.
6. Tactics (when/how often change tires)
7. Speed in rain
8. Ability to overtake
9. Ability to hold position when defending
10. Minimising Tire wear.
11. Getting team behind him
12. Getting popular with the fans
13. Not pissing off the other drivers
14. Getting financial backing
15. Ability to get place on fast team

But not all characteristics are created equal. Ideally, to determine
which ones are the most important in F1 you should score each driver
on the various chategories, look back through the history books find
out what fraction of the points they scored, (don't forget to take
into account the quality of their competition...) But this gets rather
complex, and I don't have the data to hand.

If anyone wants to do the even more definitive analysis, go ahead!

Without apology I offer the following weights:

1:1 2:.7 3:.8 4:-0.4 5:.6 6:.9 7:.3 8:1 9:.3 10:.4 11:.4 12:.1 13:.05
14:1 15:1

Weights are based on an estimate of what influence on points in races
it can make if one is bad compared to the other drivers at it. It is
therefore a measure of how often this position crops up and how many
points they lose if they can't do it that well.

So here are my scores for both drivers:

NM:
.8  .8 .8  .15 .3  .6 .75 .85 .5  .4 .8  .4  .1  .9  .8 = 0.36 avg

AS:
.85 1  .95 .1  .9  .9 .75 .85 .8  .8 .75 .3  .7  .9  .9 = 0.42 avg.

n.b. weights are historical/my opinion. They are all -+0.1.

Therefore Ayrton Senna is the better driver, by 15% or so.

In real life the drivers skill is probably swamped by the noise of the
different cars performance... motivation can also vary fantastically
race to race, (look how well Mansell is doing at the moment, compared
to his teammate.  Is Nigel truely that good now, how much is it
Patrese being dispirited/not trying very hard?)

The model fails around extremes: e.g. if someone was *very* slow on
circuit when far away from back markers, then they aren't going to get
any points ever. (Doesn't matter how good they are at overtaking!)

But that isn't the job of this model. It is good, I believe, when the
people to be compared are pretty closely matched.

Flames to /dev/null, enhancements/suggestions (provided they are
anatomically possible ;-) welcome.

BTW my favourite racer is NM inspite of the above. Part of the reason
AS succeeds is because he relies on self preservation of the other
drivers. Somewhat unpleasant idea, but there are no enforceable rules
against it.  NM is more fun any day of the week (when he is behind,
catching up, none of these parade laps we've been seeing).
--
-Ian.
     "Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature."
		-- Rich Kulawiec
     "Home is where the .x11start is ..."
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