This week Formula 1 caused a stir by revealing what it claimed were the top-20 fastest drivers through a data-driven algorithm which looked at qualifying data since 1983.
At the top were the usual three suspects as Ayrton Senna came out P1, a tenth clear of Michael Schumacher while the man with the most poles ever, Lewis Hamilton, was third just 0.005s ahead of Max Verstappen.
That part wasn’t exactly controversial, however, some names further down certainly were with Nico Rosberg sixth, while Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli – two drivers with just five poles between them – were ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who was 10th, three places behind Charles Leclerc.
Eight current drivers made the top 20, with Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris just ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in P14-16, while four-time world champion Alain Prost was only 20th.
Full Top 20 list below:
| 1 | Ayrton Senna | 0.000s |
| 2 | Michael Schumacher | 0.114s |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | 0.275s |
| 4 | Max Verstappen | 0.280s |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | 0.309s |
| 6 | Nico Rosberg | 0.374s |
| 7 | Charles Leclerc | 0.376s |
| 8 | Heikki Kovalainen | 0.378s |
| 9 | Jarno Trulli | 0.409s |
| 10 | Sebastian Vettel | 0.435s |
| 11 | Rubens Barrichello | 0.445s |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | 0.456s |
| 13 | Valtteri Bottas | 0.457s |
| 14 | Carlos Sainz | 0.457s |
| 15 | Lando Norris | 0.459s |
| 16 | Daniel Ricciardo | 0.461s |
| 17 | Jenson Button | 0.462s |
| 18 | Robert Kubica | 0.463s |
| 19 | Giancarlo Fisichella | 0.469s |
| 20 | Alain Prost | 0.514s |
Explaining the algorithm, which was done in coordination with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the same company that makes the often questionable data graphics during races, F1 said the process had seen the results from every dry qualifying session since 1983 put into the machine to create a network that saw each driver compared to their teammates, who were then compared to their teammates going back in time.
That branching system was only limited to drivers who had competed in five or more qualifying sessions together, and also included factors like age and if a driver returned to the grid after three or more years out.
If a driver was particularly dominant against their teammate on a Saturday, that also worked in their favour.
It is for this reason then that drivers like Trulli, who may have created his infamous ‘train’ on a Sunday, maybe isn’t such a surprise after all.
“Someone who worked with Jarno who I know very well said that if Grands Prix were five laps long, he’d win every race because his speed was phenomenal over a very short period,” F1 motorsport boss Ross Brawn noted in defence of the findings.
Also, Kovalainen had the privilege of racing alongside the likes of Hamilton at McLaren and Trulli at Lotus, perhaps explaining his inclusion based on the parameters used.
In contrast, it isn’t surprising that someone like Prost, who was much stronger on a race day, would perhaps feature lower down than expected.
Commenting on the algorithm used, F1’s director of data systems, Rob Smedley said: “Qualifying speed is something that we can be really quite clear about. If you think about race pace, there’s a lot of nuances to that race pace, and it’s sometimes difficult to pull it out.
“A qualifying lap is a single lap, you’ve got two guys in the same car and they go out and do a single lap, and the better driver will end up with the better lap. There’s not much ambiguity about that single data point, so that’s the data point that we’re using.
“What we have to do as the mathematical modellers is to look at what data is available and then ensure that we can normalise that data across the years,” he adds.
“The model is then clever enough to reconcile the rest by just understanding what the lap times are. So it would seem that you’d need a load of data and… a load of car data and all the rest of it, but you don’t. It’s simply just using the lap times, and… we’ve got robust data, in terms of lap times, from this period.”
The former man in the ear of Felipe Massa admitted the findings had also made him “unpopular” in some parts of the F1 paddock but insists there is some merit to what they say.
“Within the team environment, this type of modelling is used to make key decisions on driver choices,” he revealed.
“As drivers are more often than not the most expensive asset of the team, it is important that the selection process is as robust as possible. A process such as this therefore would be deployed by the F1 team’s strategists in order to present the most objective and evidence-based selection possible.
“‘Fastest Driver’ enables us to build up a picture of how the drivers compare, by analysing the purest indication of raw speed, the qualifying lap – and it’s important to note this pure speed is the only element of the vast driver armoury we are analysing here, to showcase the quickest drivers ever, which is very exciting.”