Formula 1 2022 - British Grand Prix

Most importantly, the halo continues to be amazing - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-62037334.

   

But, I hear you say, your team won, why are so distraught? And why are you handing out red cards like confetti? 

Because we may have won but it was possibly the most spectacular example of a sporting pyrrhic victory I have seen. 

They screwed up the one important decision they had to make (team orders or no team orders), managing to confound the driver nearest to winning the championship (although stop sulking Charles, if you were that much faster, just overtake him in the straights). It means the team couldn't take full advantage of Red Bull having an off day. 

All of this overshadows the lovely Carlos Sainz jnr's first F1 race win. I want to enjoy Carlos doing well. He is a lovely young man. He drives for my team. Stop overshadowing his big day.

Tour de France 2022 - Data Doodles "Week" 1

Due to the Tour de France's Danish excursion, it's been a shortened first week, with 3 days of racing followed by a rest travel day, so not the usual 7+ days of the first "week". 

Possibly because of the shortness of "week 1" or the relatively gentle stage profiles, there have been no withdrawals, which is different to previous years (2020 and 2021 for comparison).

Blog Housekeeping

I try to post once a week, real life allowing.  For the next couple of weeks, posts will be more frequent than that because of the Tour de France and the Women's Euros.  After that, it will calm down again until the Rugby League (men's, women's and wheelchair) and Football World Cups.

Do N'Golo Kante's trophies weigh more than him?

First, let me handle the obvious question - why Kante and not the equally tiny Riyad Mahrez, who might be even more successful? 

Mostly because waif-like wingers are more common than tiny-but-mighty in the engine room that is defensive midfield. 

According to Chelsea's official stats, Kante is 1.68 m (5 foot 6 inches) and 72 kg. He has won the Premier League twice, the FA Cup, the Champions League, the Europa League and the World Cup.

 

Trophy Table

Trophy	Weight
Premier League	25.4 kg
FA Cup	6.3 kg
Champions League	7.5 kg
Europa League	15.0 kg
World Cup	6.2 kg

In total, Kante's trophies weigh 85.8 kg so yes, Kante's trophies outweigh him. L asked for an extension to this - when did Kante's trophies outweigh him? The answer will be presented pictographically below.  

It was in 2019, when Chelsea won the Europa League. (I am only including team trophies here, a full list of his individual ones can be found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%27Golo_Kant%C3%A9#Honours. I am not including the Super Cup or the Club World Cup, because I have taste.)

Formula 1 2022 - Two races, three red cards

Despite my love of the Baku chaos bonanza, I didn't actually catch any of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Instead I visited the Vienna 1900 exhibition at the Leopold Museum - https://www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/107/vienna-1900. 

The exhibition was good, the race was not.

 

To have one care retire with a mechanical may be regarded as a misfortune, for both to retire because their cars broke looks like carelessness. 

It is even more unfortunate in a situation where each driver is only allowed a limited number of engines and this latest failure meant that your driver, who is no longer in the lead of the championship due to a variety of problems, has to start the next Grand Prix from the back of the grid. 

Now even at my beloved Canadian Grand Prix*, it is going to be very difficult to win from the back. 

It becomes even harder when the crew drop said driver off the jack during a pitstop.

   

I am not giving them another yellow card for peculiar strategy for Sainz, only because he did get a podium place. 

I do not like the pattern emerging in these pictures. 

* after what they did to Hockenheim, it's my favourite Grand Prix.

Formula 1 2022 - Spanish Grand Prix and Monaco Grand Prix

Late due to work, but my feelings can very easily summed up by the following from @EffinBirds (https://twitter.com/EffinBirds) on Twitter  

Spanish Grand Prix

It's like, "great, the car now actually has an engine, but unfortunately, it now occasionally stops working". An engine failure when the car is in the lead of the race is an automatic red card.  

Monaco Grand Prix

Then somehow Monaco was worse. Or, as one commenter on the Guardian website phrased it "Ah yes, Ferrari's old enemy ... Ferrari themselves." 

This was two years ago bad. 

This was being panicked into making the wrong decision, when there was no need to panic. It's Monaco, track position is king alongside Prince Albert. That is what you had, why were you panicking.  

It was a debacle, and Sainz jnr getting second, somehow, does not make up for it.

   

Ferrari, do not make me bring back the proper bingo board!

For Guts or for Glory: was the 2021 Tour de France attrition influenced by the upcoming Olympics?

When looking at the withdrawals from the 2021 men's Tour de France; there were a lot, but not that many more than in 2020 - (details here - https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2021/07/21/tour-de-france-2021-data-doodles-week-3/). One possible question was "is the increase in withdrawals due to the 2021 course being harder, or because people were more willing to drop out than usual because of the up-coming Olympics?" 

@rorygaron (https://twitter.com/rorygaron) on Twitter suggested a good comparison that might answer the question - look at the withdrawals from the 2021 Giro Rosa. 

In many ways, it's a perfect comparison, the Giro Rosa being the most well known women's race, it being another grand tour that was just before the Olympics. However, it was likely to have fewer "I'll drop out so as not to risk my Olympics" drop outs because it was further away from the Olympics (finishing on the 11th of July vs the 18th of July, with the first of the Olympic road cycling events on the 24th of July). 

The plan was to map out the Giro Rosa withdrawals, and see if their pattern matches the 2020 or 2021 men's TDF more, the idea being that: 

If the curve for the 2021 Giro Rosa resembles the 2020 men's TDF pattern, the increased withdrawals in the TDF could have been due to increased "Olympic" withdrawals.  

If the curve for the 2021 Giro Rosa resembles the 2021 men's TDF pattern, no, the increased number of withdrawals are probably due to the race conditions. 

There are, of course, certain caveats, the Giro Rosa is over a smaller distance, there are smaller teams and due to funding (or lack thereof) there is less technical support e.g. soigneurs etc so it can be harder for the racers to overcome wear and tear damage. There is also one more team in the Giro Rosa than in the men's TDF.

Riders remaining at the end of the 2021 Giro Rosa

   

3 of the teams were completely wiped out with no riders reaching the finish while 3 teams had no drop outs at all.

Withdrawals by stage 

   

Looking at this chart, my first reaction is WTF happened in stages 4 and 10. I looked it up, stage 4 appears to have been an unfortunate mix of difficult time trial with a very fast winner, but from the stage profile, what happened with stage 10 is inexplicable, I mean yes it was the stage after the queen stage but still. One possible cause for the late attrition is that the Giro Rosa, unlike the TDF, was not split into weeks and there were no rest days.

Kaplan Meier chart of all withdrawals

   

You can see the effect of stage 4 in the overall Kaplan Meier.

Team Kaplan Meier

   

Looking at the team version, my first question is what happened to Team TIBCO-SVB? It turns out that both they and Bizkaia Durango had to withdraw their teams due to COVID - Article on Tibco and the article on Bizkaia Durango.

Reasons for Withdrawals

   

The Giro Rosa had more morning Did Not Starts than the men's TDF (36% vs 21%), ~ the same percentage of mid-stage abandonments/DNFs (40% vs 42%) and fewer Over Time Limit withdrawals (24 vs 37% - and all of those were in the same stage, stage 4). 

If we compare the rate of withdrawals, the Giro looks much worse.

   

 However, if we the spread the points out so that they cover the same time span (cheating I know, that's why I've not joined the points up on the "roughly relative curve"), the curves don't look all that different until right towards the end of the Giro Rosa, when we know there were at least a couple of Olympic dropouts. 

 

So, what can I say from this? Mostly that the jury is still out. 

One obvious further check would be to do the same thing for the 2020 Giro Rosa and see if there's a difference. 

For the data on withdrawals, what type they were and which stage they happened on, I relied on Pro Cycling Stats - https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia-femminile/2021/gc/startlist/roster-with-dropouts 

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia-femminile/2021/gc/stages/all-stage-profiles https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia-femminile/2021/gc/stages/winners 

 For the explanations as to what happened on each stage, I found Cycling News invaluable.

Formula 1 2022 - Miami Grand Prix

I was not surprised that the Miami Grand Prix was not a success. 

I don't actually mind the ridiculous bombast (unlike most F1 fans; for some reason, high tech sports attract people who do not like change), but it was always going to be a boring race because it's a street circuit. I summed up my views two years ago in Just Say No To Street Circuits and I haven't changed my mind. 

Streets are too narrow to allow racing. 

I am aware that Ferrari got a 2-3 and objecting to that is just a sign of Ferrari fans's excessive everything, but I am giving Sainz jnr's right front wheeljack man a yellow card after that stop. Mistakes cannot be allowed to creep in. 

I understand the urge to shout at the strategy team, like the BBC commentators did, but Andrew Benson also on the BBC made a very good point that there's little strategists can do when you're in a car with less straight-line speed on a circuit that doesn't allow overtaking*. 

It does mean the engineering and aero teams are on a yellow card. Go faster than the Red Bulls!  

* I became a lot fonder of Benson after Grosjean's crash when he was so clearly the adult in the commentary box.

Book Review - The Puffin Book of Funny Stories

The LibraryThing entry says by Helen Cresswell, but it's more collected by her and with introductions by her (and one of the bits is excerpted from one of her books).

I strongly suspect I got this when I was still in primary school.

The book is a bunch of funny excerpts from funny books some of which were aimed at children.

Reading it back now, I am fonder of some of the stories than I was and the collection will always have a special place in my heart for introducing me to Three Men In A Boat.  The book used The Cheeses, which makes sense because it's one of the funnier free-standing bits and of the other options both The Packing of the Luggage and Uncle Podger are probably funnier with more life experience.

The book may also have been my introduction to Adrian Mole and one day I will get round to reading Witch Week.

No LibraryThing recommendations, because I don't think enough people have reviewed it.

Formula 1 2022 - Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

It's not late *just* because I'm sulking. 

I didn't like sprint races, even before Ferrari decided to screw up tyre strategy in this one. Now I really don't like them. 

The race went no better, in between Ricciardo happening to Sainz jnr, and Leclerc happening to himself. 

I am giving one yellow card each to the strategy team and Leclerc.  

Of course, the first truly bad race of the year for Ferrari happened at Imola. I think I am just going to have to declared it cursed and move on.