Formula 1 2022 - So it begins

I found last year's format worked really well for summarising my feelings, so I've stuck with it for this year. 

This year started well in pre-season.  

I ask for very little from Ferrari (and expect even less) but one of the things I ask for is for the car to look good. Even if it drives like a lemon, the Ferrari should be the prettiest car on the grid. 

 And oh, the F1-75 is a stunner. Look at it!  

I mean, that car I could forgive being a lemon. But it's not.

   

Very much not a lemon. 

Not just glorious Ferrari victory, but glorious Ferrari 1-2. 

After the race, people were discussing the fact that this broke Ferrari's second longest win-drought. As someone who remembers the great 1990-1994 failures (although at least that Ferrari was the prettiest car on the grid and sounded amazing - when the engine didn't explode), this feels different, because even as an under 10, I knew the 1994 Hockenheim was a one-off, relying on things happening to other cars. This was not that. 

There is hope! And smiley faces.

Formula 1 - Did the fastest lap points make any difference in 2021?

When I last looked at whether the fastest lap bonus points made any difference to anything from 2009 to 2020, the answer was a resounding no. 

Then we come to 2021 – the closest F1 season in years, decided by the forces of chaos made manifest. Surely, if having fastest lap bonus points was going to have an effect, this would be the year. 

The fastest lap points winners for each race can be found below:  

Seven different drivers, driving for four different teams, won points. 

How did this affect the Constructor's Championship?  

It had no effect. 

How about the Driver's Championship?  

*Although removing the fastest lap points results in Norris and Leclerc having the same number of points, Norris stays in 6th because of better highest place finished (3rd). 

So basically, it changes nothing in the Driver's Championship either. 

If the fastest lap points don’t make a difference in a year like this, which came down to the last race, they’re not going to make a difference most years. 

But, I thought, let’s go further. Formula 1 introduced the sprint race points this year, maybe the effect of those masked anything from fastest laps. 

The sprint race points were as follows:  

If we remove those too, does it have any effect on the Constructor's Championship?

   

No. 

How about the Driver's Championship?  

Also no. 

Neither of Formula 1’s most recent attempts at shaking things up have done a thing, either individually or together, to change the result. 

Maybe, just maybe, the problem is in the design of the cars that are too wide to allow any overtaking. 

I am hopefully, if not expectant, that this year’s aerodynamic regulation changes might lead to something of a shake-up. I don’t necessarily mind Mercedes (or Red Bull) winning everything, it’s the fact that I know no other teams stand a chance of even a race win unless those two teams crash that I mind.

6 Nations 2021 Data Visualisation Project - Summary

In total, there were 213 point-scoring moments. Wales had the most with 46, Italy had the least with 16. The ranking by point-scoring momements doesn't quite match the final ranking of the teams. Wales and Italy are top and bottom yes, but Ireland "underperformed" the points they scored and France overperformed theirs. 

178 players were present for at least one point scoring moment. Wales used the most players with 34, England used the least with 27 players (you can't say Eddie Jones doesn't know his team). I was expecting France to be the team that used the most players since France were the team with a COVID outbreak.

The point-scoring moments were reasonably well spread out in time, with interesting peaks at 18 and 65 minutes.

   

No minute had a point scored by all team, but several had points scored by 4/6 teams - including the 18th but not the 56th minute.

   

(Sorry about the slight colour clash) 

The percentage version of the previous:  

Comparing who scored the points for the 6 teams is interesting:  

All the teams are dependent on kickers, as expected. It's possible that Scotland's is less skewed towards Finn Russell than it might be otherwise because of the game time Stuart Hogg got, due to injury or Russell being sent off. 

Ireland are that badly skewed towards Sexton even though Sexton missed a match. This does not bode well for when he retires. 

Players who were on the pitch at the same time:  

This is the players who were on the pitch for more than 28 point scoring moments each. Yes, Rees-Zammit and Tipuric stand out even in this field.

   

Showing which players are on the pitch for point-scoring moments just highlights that the ones on for most are those who don't get swapped off. 

I tried to make a dendrogram of all the teams. To make the labels readable, you need to reduce it to only those players on the pitch for at least 25 point-scoring moments.  

Unfortunately this removes all the Italian players. 

To include any Italian players, you have to drop the cut-off to at least 13 point-scoring moments. 

The same is true for the heat maps. Below is one where the labels are legible (all players were present for at least 25 point-scoring moments)  

Below is the one that includes any Italian players.  

Comparing the heatmaps for the different teams is interesting:  

They're such different patterns. I mean, there's some similarity between all of them but, for instance, the Scottish one is much less dense, while the colouring for "on the pitch at the same time" is tightly packed in one corner for Wales. For Ireland it's packed, but less tightly. England is packed, but more in the middle-ish. I'm reasonably sure I've seen a carpet with the same pattern as France's and Italy's would make a good start for an artwork. 

Conclusion: This has definitely been worth doing, not just from a "learning how bits of R and json work" point of view. Visualising the data has revealed some interesting patterns, which I think reflects things about the teams. It would be interesting to see how things like this look in sports with rolling subs (odd that there's a Rugby League World Cup this year that might fill that gap ;) ) 

Other possible future work could include doing the same thing but looking at which players are on the pitch when points are conceded (although that could be unfair to Italy), or looking at attacking play again, but in the 2022 Six Nations, because there's only been one coaching change in the interim (Italy) and it'll be interesting to see how many of the patterns repeat - Ireland's reliance on Sexton, the very centralised England core, France not scoring (many) late tries. This analysis may be affected by England's enforced change of kicker due to Owen Farrell's injury.