Hey Data Gurus,

Sorry for the delays... I was away at TwitchCon Paris this weekend to meet some amazing friends and speak on a panel with a group of other amazing motorsport creators! So this analysis is a little late!

If you’re interested in the panel from TwitchCon, the video is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1866397915?t=0h22m12s

BUT, I’m going to go ahead and share this qualifying analysis with everyone, so if you’re on the fence about the price of one coffee per month, I think you’ll see that you won’t get this level of detail or insight from anyone else. The race analysis will be out later this afternoon for our members as usual. If you’d like to support this project and gain insight into ALL of the qualifying sessions and races this season, be sure to head over to www.buymeacoffee.com/brrrake/members

For me, the most important part of this is the telemetry comparison from the top teams, so make sure you check that out at least!

[The image below is just for the thumbnail on buymeacoffee... we'll get back to it in a minute]

Also, I think we’re going to hit 100k Subscribers on www.youtube.com/brrrakef1 this week! This is absolutely mad. So if you’re following over there, you definitely should. I even do break downs of these reports over there from time to time!

If you want a bit better experience with this newsletter. I recommend going to www.buymeacoffee.com/brrrake/posts , logging in, and reading it there. It’s a bit easier to zoom into images etc.

Cheers,
Blake

Summary

A very tricky session that started damp without DRS enabled - this puts an emphasis on getting a lap in, calculating the risks, and keeping it on track!
Warmup and tyre preparation were another critical aspect of this session - when the track was damp in Q1 a lot of drivers would do multiple push laps in a row, because you don’t know the conditions
Later in Q3 it was back to the one push lap in a shootout for pole
McLaren on a 3rd qualifying in a row of impressive performances - I think I’m going to have to do a deep dive to see exactly what characteristics are improved with these upgrades. We’ll look at NOR and VER fastest laps below to add some context for now
NOR one of the few drivers in Q3 who matched VER in T15 - which was a huge differentiator in this session
Aston Martin with a 4th weekend in a row if not so impressive performances in qualifying as well

Season Qualifying Performance

Red Bull pole again - VER pole, PER knocked out in Q1 again
McLaren with their best qualifying performances of the season two weekends in a row - since the Spanish GP they have been on a roll
Ferrari under-performed in qualifying this weekend
Mercedes back on a Reasonable qualifying performance 0.5% off of pole, but they get dropped by McLaren for the 4th weekend in a roll
Reasonable performance for Williams - Albon in Q3 again!
Alpine is kind of in a holding pattern toward the back of the midfield after looking very strong from Miami to Spain
Aston Martin on another underwhelming qualifying performance
Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri, and Haas getting knocked out in poor conditions in Q1/Q2, not necessarily indicative of their car’s performance, but rather under-performing in qualifying

Session Pace Progression

This is the fastest lap for each team in each session

Qualifying started in damp conditions and without DRS, so teams that got knocked out in Q1 and Q2 will have very large offsets.
Red Bull a bit off the pace in P3, but returned to the top of the sheets in qualifying
McLaren didn’t look noteworthy until qualifying really - we’ll have a look at what changed from FP3 to Qualifying for the RB and the McLaren

Overview

Qualifying Results

Source: www.fia.com

Qualifying Pace Evolution

Q1 to Q3 evolution over 2 seconds, part of that is DRS and the rest is improving track conditions
You can see the results of the Q1 session were quite shuffled, as people struggled to come to grips with the track conditions.

Performance

Team Ranking

McLaren’s closest gap to pole this season
McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes in a group about 0.3-0.5% off pole
Williams, Aston, Alpine in ahother group around 1% off pole
Haas, Alfa, and Alpha far off due to not getting into Q3 with the much better track conditions

Driver Ranking

Most teams in pace order, except PER, STR, OCO, and MAG massively underperforming relative to their teammate (mostly getting caught out in a slower session with worse track conditions)

Driver Ranking - Perfect Sectors

The green bar indicates how much time the driver could have gained, if all of their best sectors were put together on the same lap

No one leaving too much on the table from their best sectors

Speeds and Lap Times

Not a representative lap times vs. speeds charts
Cars on the left side of the chart knocked out in Q1/Q2 when DRS was disabled
Cars on the right in Q3 once DRS was enabled.

Telemetry

Top Teams

VER vs NOR

RB still have stronger DRS (see the speed and time gain down to T6 and T15) worth about 0.1 per DRS deployment over the McLaren
NOR matching VER in the LS corners
NOR faster through T9 despite both flat - scrubbing slightly less speed here?
VER faster through T11/12 and T15
NOR one of the few drivers that was close to VER in terms of T15 performance and confidence in these conditions
NOR gets a slightly better compromise in T16/17 - but similar lap time through the section to VER

VER vs LEC

Ferrari slightly faster on the straights and flat high speed corners (T1/2, T9)
LEC more rolling speed through T3, but loses out slightly on the exit of T4 into T5
VER stronger into T6 and T12/13
LEC looks like he has an issue into T15 - you can see the speed traces are similar on the way into T5, but LEC drops a lot of speed late on the apex

VER vs RUS

Mercedes look to be deploying less energy (red car speed trace flattens off into prior to braking for T6 and T15) and the RB DRS looks slightly stronger - this is not a first order lap time differentiator in qualifying conditions at this level - maybe 0.05s into each of these braking zones
RUS faster into T9 and scrubbing less speed through T9
VER makes most of the lap time through T11-13
VER substantially faster through T15 and into T16
RUS better compromise in T16/17 (able to carry more speed on the exit of T17)

VER vs ALB

ALB faster with DRS on and OFF - running less downforce (and drag) as usual
ALB loses about 0.1s through T3/4 and a further 0.15s through T6/7
VER again much stronger through T11-13 as well as T15
VER also stronger on the brakes into T16
It looks like the conditions were very tricky in T15, and this might have put ALB off attacking T16 as much - because he’s relatively strong into T3 and T6 on the brakes

VER vs ALO

The “Big ol’ Draggy” Aston Martin isn’t really a thing anymore, it doesn’t seem.
VER was just faster through all of the corner sequences
Arguably, ALO was faster out of T7 down to T9 (could have been a tow)
We need to have a deeper look in the last few events to see if Aston have been improving their efficiency to gain top speed… or maybe they are just running less downforce and not getting as much out of the car.

Teammate Comparisons

Many of the comparisons below are not representative, as they are taken from different qualifying sessions, and some do not have DRS.

I have added the VER vs PER Q1 fastest laps below to try and build a picture of what’s going on with perez.

VER vs PER - Fastest Q1 Laps

Above is VER vs PER fastest Q1 laps, so roughly similar track conditions (both Lap 10 for each driver, VER started his lap 10 approx. 50s later)
PER losing most of the time T9 - when T9 isn’t “flat” the further away from flat you are, the greater the penalty, as you carry that loss down to T10 and likely carry some of that loss through T10-13
PER was slightly slower in other places on the track, but the bigger lift into T9 just says he didn’t have as much confidence in the car
The performance differences in the LS and MS corners are fine, and arguably, PER is very strong through T15, which was a big performance differentiator for many drivers even in Q3 in better conditions.

Below this point are just teammate comparison of fastest driver’s laps in the entire qualifying session

VER vs PER