He said he hated excel, so I suggested the best program for the job which wasn’t named “excel.”
A book, whiteboard, phone notes, etc, etc would all work. It’s just that spreadsheets are so much more powerful for filtering data. if you’re going to the trouble, you’ll get a lot more useful information if you use excel... or a (very) similar program with a different name.
Depends on the purpose a bit though. Are you comparing laps in the same car, different cars or different drivers?