Statistical anomalies in motorsports.

Nominate and discuss your favorite anomalies and other oddities in the wide world of motorsports. I usually have great fun exploring these.

Some of the examples I came up with when I last had nothing else to do:

- Alex Zanardi's 1998 CART season was perhaps one of the most dominant in series history, winning the title by 116 points over 2nd place en route to a failed F1 career. Something was missing though - in that entire year he never once qualified on the pole. Made even odder by the fact he certainly had qualifying prowess the previous two years, but somehow never made it to the front spot over a single lap this time.
- Two years later, Gil de Ferran won the title with 168 points in 20 races - that's an average of 8.4 points per race, just above 6th place. A fairly typical average finish for a NASCAR champion, but definitely strangely weak in an open wheel series.
- Another weak title-winning year: Richard Burns in WRC, in 2001. 44 points in 14 races gives him an average of 3.14 (not pi, though) points per race, just barely above the value of 4th place and at 31% of the highest possible score of 140. Imagine that happening nowadays.
- Robby Gordon's first NASCAR win came one race after failing to qualify for the Atlanta fall race in 2001. (In the same car, to be clear)
- Jamie McMurray, who didn't make the Chase in 2004, had more top 10 finishes that season than champion Kurt Busch.
- Not necessarily an anomaly, but it was odd that the Daytona 500, Southern 500 and Brickyard 400 were all won by first-time winners in 2011. Not exactly what you'd call standard practice, and those weren't the beginnings of new big name drivers either as none of those have won another race since.

 

- Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher were on the podium in 15 out of 16 races in 1997 but never were they on the podium at the same time.

- Dorino Serafini holds the unique record of having a 100% podium record in Formula One; in his only race, Italy 1950, he finished 2nd in a shared drive with Alberto Ascari.

- The next best record is 85.71%; Luigi Fagioli finished on the podium 6 times in his 7 races. Fagioli also has the distinction of winning his final Grand Prix; a shared drive with Juan Manuel Fangio at the 1951 French Grand Prix which also makes him the oldest winner at 53 years old.

- Giancarlo Baghetti is famed for winning his debut Grand Prix but he actually won his first two non-championship races before that meaning he won three in a row from his first start but only the final one counts in the history books.

- Phil Hill is the only Formula One world champion whose career points is fewer than 100; he scored 98 points.

- Due to the Indianapolis 500 counting as part of the championship in the 1950s, there are several anomolies;

- Johnnie Parsons also won his debut Grand Prix.
- Bill Vukovich holds the record for career percentage fastest laps; 3 fastest laps in 5 Indy 500s gives him 60%
- 1 fastest lap in 2 Indy 500s makes Lee Wallard second in this regard for 50%
- When Fernando Alonso broke the record for youngest winner in 2003, he actually broke Troy Ruttman's record (22y 80d) set in 1952 as opposed to Bruce McLaren's record (22y 104d) set in 1959.

 

A BTCC odd one.

The series has points not just overall drivers, independents, and teams, but independent teams as well. Due to the BTCC system of penalty points for exceeding a certain amount of engine changes per season (5 I believe, created in the early 00's to stop big budget factory teams creating Quali-spec super-engines), Welch Motorsport and drivers Ollie Jackson and Dan Welch achieved this rather bizarre set of statistics:

Overall (Out of 32)
28th Jackson 0 points.
32nd Welch -40 points.
Combined -40 points.

Overall Teams Championship (Out of 21)
21st with 0 points.

Independents Trophy (Out of 28)
26th Jackson 2 points
28th Welch -38 points
Combined -36 points.

Independent Teams Trophy (Out of 19)
19th 6 points


Incidentally Mark Howard finished 2016 36th/36th overall with -3 points!

 

When I read this, I wiki'd it figuring it had to be a very close battle in points.

It was: 81-78. What I found interesting though is that Villenueve retired 5 times & Schumacher 4 times out of those 16 races; Villenueve was DSQ in 1. Neither racer though, ever placed worse than 6th when they both finished & Michael apparently lost the battle for the entire season for causing a collision with Villenueve that got him DSQ from placing 2nd in standings.

I'm eager to see if someone on YouTube now has any of that year's races uploaded. They had to have some good battles.

 

Nascar's Chase For The Cup Points format is definitely polarizing, but it lead to some interesting debates and statistics though. If the Chase had never been implemented we would have a very different list of champions since 2004 when it was introduced. Most notably Jeff Gordon would have won 2004, 2007, and 2014 becoming a 7 time champion. Tony Stewart would have won 2005 just as he did but not a third title. 2006, 2009, and 2013 would be years Johnson would win, instead of the 5 in row and 7 total. Carl Edwards would bave taken home 2008 and 2011, and Brad Keselowski would have taken 2012. The driver who would have gained the most though is Kevin Harvick, who would have taken home 3 titles in 2010, 2015, and 2016.

On the other side things are just as interesting. If the chase had been started in 1975 things would be very different, although not at first as between 75 and 79 the champions would remain the same(Petty, Yarborough 3 times, then Petty again). Dale Earnhardt would have only been a 5 time champion, winning in 86, 87, 90, 94, and 95. Cale Yarborough would win a 4th championship in 1980. Darrell Waltrip would also become a 4 time champion, winning in 81, 82, 83, and 85. Losing titles would be Matt Kenseth, Bobby Allison, Alan Kulwicki, and Terry Labonte losing both of his championships. Jeff Gordon would also lose 2 titles(95 and 01) he won with the points systems in place. Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace would keep their championship years in 88 and 89 respectively, Rusty would gain a title in 93 as well. Dale Jarrett would become a champion 2 years ealier, in 1997 but would not repeat in 1999 as Bobby Labonte would pick up that year and add to his 2000 championship which he keeps under both systems. Kurt Busch lost a championship if the chase didn't exist in 2004, but gains one if it did in 2002, Johnson also would be an 8 time champion if the chase existed in 2003. New champions under chase rules would be Kyle Petty in 1992, Sterling Marlin in 2001, and Harry Gant in 1984 and 1991.

 

My favourite Chase-related NASCAR anomaly is that if the knockout stages, designed to prevent drivers winning the championship through consistency by making them win races to progress, had been introduced a year earlier, Dale Jr would have won the title without winning a single race. Ryan Newman almost managed that a year later.

Wikipedia has a bunch of unusual F1 records, and Stats F1 has all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

 

Just for that reason I wanted Newman to win so much that year

 

Things I remember from the final race of 1997 in Jerez.

- Schumacher, Villeneuve & Frentzen all qualified with an identical time to the hundredth of a second.

- It was the first win for Hakkinen & a McLaren-Mercedes.

 

The first McLaren-Mercedes win was in 1997 but that honour goes to Coulthard, who won twice that year.

 

Oops

 

No podiums for him either in the rest of his points-paying career starts.

The bolded part is kind of a standard for top-ranking F1 teams regardless of era, though. Also, while I'm no expert, I also have a feeling they didn't battle that often on track, both instead having their own dominant runs throughout the season.

Not under the 2004 system because he wouldn't even make it in, being 12th in points after Richmond. That would leave probably Stewart or Newman as the 2002 champion by my estimate.

 

Due to the class system used in Group A British Touring Car Championship, the champion in 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989 did not win a single race.

1983: Andy Rouse (Class B Alfa Romero GTV6)
1986: Chris Hodgetts (Class D Toyota Corolla)
1987: Chris Hodgetts (Class D Toyota Corolla)
1988: Frank Sytner (Class B BMW M3)
1989: John Cleland (Class C Vauxhall Astra)

In fact, a few more of the champions of the 1960s and 1970s didn't win a race due to the class system. It's only since 1990 that the BTCC has had a single championship structure for all cars where the outright race winner will take maximum championship points.

1997 is a great season but the battle between Schumacher and Villeneuve most often was not on the track, that's why they were never on the podium together. Because of that though, the top 6 points finishers was different almost every race; Williams, Ferrari, Prost, McLaren, Jordan and Benetton all traded podiums and points on a regular basis and made for good racing.

 

The problem with chase stats is that for those who actually win a race, they're locked in and it's very easy to argue the efforts given, in part that some weekends before the final ten races teams don't put too much effort or worry about winning. Considering that you have to just maintain a points scenario above a threshold which isn't too difficult even if you just try to round out the top 25 or 30.

To me it's hard to see how if you revert back to standard points in those chase years, those drivers mentioned would actually be the winner opposed to some of those who actually won. Stewart and Kyle wouldn't have won their chases years in regular format, because of the situation in how they won to begin with. There seems to be a perceived attitude between the different formats, and that is a variable you can't place into stats.

 

f1fullraces.com is the place to be.

 

The lowest points paying finish in F1 World Chamionship History goes to Bill Vukovich, who scored one point in the 1952 Indianapolis 500. How did this happen? He scored Fastest Lap, which gave 1 World Championship Point in those days.

 

Nico Rosberg scored 0.5 points at the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix, since the race was stopped before 75% race distance was completed. I hope Rosberg doesn't suffer from OCD because that would seriously mess with him every time he checks out his Wikipedia page.

 

Also, Niki Lauda won the 1984 WDC by 0.5 points over Alain Prost.

 

Can you imagine what would happen if you had to share points for fastest lap... (1954 British Grand Prix)

Spoiler: period article

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/a...i-vanquishes-mercedes-benz-british-grand-prix

a Retired Alberto Ascari nabbed the fastest lap award after his Maserati let him down early at Silvastun, but had to share the fastest lap prize with 6 other drivers (Behra, Fangio, Gonzalez, Hawthorn, Marimon and Moss)- a mighty 1/7th of a championship point.

 

The big "what if" here is that Prost called for the Monaco GP to be ended early with Senna chasing him and Bellof catching the pair of them, giving Prost half points for a win (4.5). Senna had hit the wall and had the race gone the distance was unlikely to finish, but if Prost had finished 2nd to either Senna or Bellof (who was later DSQ'd for an underweight car) at full race distance he would have scored 6 points - enough to make him the 1984 WDC, everything else being equal.

 

As true as that is, hindsight is a beautiful thing. I believe Prost was correct in wanting the race stopped.

We could have a separate thread just on What Ifs.

 

Doesn't matter what Prost wanted. It was up to the Steward to stop it. That was Jacky Ickx.

 

@RazorSharkz

At the British GP of 1954, fastest lap was shared by 7 drivers. Each was awarded 1/7 of a point.

 

I have a feeling you guys aren't getting the point (no pun intended) and @RazorSharkz may have worded it not so well - I understand it in such a way that Vukovich had the lowest finishing position ever that gave points, he finished 17th in that race yet still received one point.

 

Ya this, sorry for the confusion.

 

Except in the 1955 Indy 500, where he also had the fastest lap point but also crashed fatally, his finishing position was even lower (25th).

 

Ayrton Senna is known for his brilliance in qualifying, sitting on pole in 40% of the races he started and earning 65 pole positions, 3rd all-time.

But he's just tied for 15th all time in race fast laps with 19 total, alongside Mark Webber, Stirling Moss, and Damon Hill

 

In which case you might look at it as Senna outperforming Webber by some margin if you go on race starts (Webber 19/215, Senna 19/162). Damon Hill's slightly better than Senna or Webber (19/122) while Moss blows them all into the weeds (19/66, probably while smoking a pipe).

 

The disparity between wins and poles always intrigued me

In NASCAR you have drivers like Jeff Gordon, who is pretty equal in the two categories

Jeff Gordon
93 wins
81 poles

Other NASCAR drivers like Dale Earnhardt have far more wins then poles

Dale Earnhardt
76 wins
22 poles

Still others have far more poles then wins

Ryan Newman
18 wins
51 poles

 

That would go downhill so fast Super G skiers would get upset at the rate of speed it does so. It's so easy to tweak things in a way that pleases you and creates absolute havoc with reality. I can think of at least 3 plausible alternate timelines where Michael Schumacher is never a world champion and where Jean Alesi becomes F1's winningest driver... but that's just drivel, really.

 

That's just examples of the fact some guys are better qualifiers than racers & vice versa.