Formula 1 - Chinese Grand Prix 2024

I continue to disapprove of sprint races.  I also disapprove of Alonso thwacking into poor little Carlos!

On the other hand, the race could have gone worse (even if I think this is the race when it started to become clear that McLaren's development team were better than Ferrari's, and that the upgrades weren't) so you know.

Of course, the most important part of the Chinese Grand Prix was that Zhou Guanyu finally got a home grand prix.

https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-chinese-grand-prix-zhou-savours-his-moment-in-front-of-the-fans-after-first-home-race.1796936345385336983 

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/zhou-proud-and-honoured-to-race-in-china-but-bottas-day-ends-in.4ullkGVXiW2EWSUsHBumMm 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/19/zhou-guanyu-chinese-grand-prix-f1

I'm not crying, you're crying etc.

Saints Ahoy - Visualisations from game 10 and the season to date

This is why Saints are so frustrating, they can lose to Warrington (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/08/13/saints-ahoy-visualisations-from-game-9-challenge-cup-quarterfinal/) then a week later they nil Hull FC. Now, admittedly, Hull FC have been wretched this year (that noise you can hear is L bemoaning that Danny Houghton is too good for them), but still. 

Match report here - https://www.saintsrlfc.com/matches/2024/first-team/saints-v-hull-fc-2024-04-19/?swcfpc=1

There were enough point-scoring moments that there are game-specific diagrams that are worth sharing.  

10 out of the 17 man squad scored points, with Percival and Bennison on kicking duties and Waqa Blake scoring two tries. Because this only covers one game, it's a very clear picture of who plays together. It's even clearer on the network graph. The players who stick out are the ones who were subbed at any point. That Saints are still wrapping Percival up in cotton wool at minute 50, a pattern they've maintained through out.  

I'm presuming they're trying to make sure he stays in one piece as he's signed up till 2026 - https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/st-helens-stalwart-mark-percival-opens-up-on-why-hes-committed-his-long-term-future-to-club 

There is starting to be a shape to when Saints score. While it's nice to see consistent storing at minutes 51, 52, 60 and 70, I am also very happy with the cluster between minutes 34-40 where Saints have already had two point-scoring moments.

Same graph but coloured in by scorer -     That's Purple for Percival, dominating the graph even if he does only play 50 out of 80 minutes. 

Things have happened to the season-long matrix graph, I think because there were many point-scoring moments but several of the more fringe players were playing. Welsby, Lomax and Whitley are still the darkest purple because they're still together most often. 

Hurrell, Percival, Clark and Knowles play together less often than you'd expect. 

Same for Blake, Mata'utia and Knowles. 

Makinson and Knowles 

and Whitley and Knowles 

I think the Knowles thing is because he's been injured but when he's fit he plays lots of minutes. 

Sironen plays more often than you'd expect with Welsby and Lomax 

Clark plays more often than you'd expect with Sironen and Dodd. 

Mbye plays more often than you'd expect with Welsby, Lomax, Whitley, Hurrell and Bennison, but I think that's all from this game because he played all of it instead of Daryl Clark and there were so many point-scoring moments (19 out of a total of 71 for the season). 

As the season developed, I was a little disappointed in how the matrix didn't seem to develop into an interesting pattern, but it really has developed after this. The network graph has also developed with the lines in the centre becoming really thick. The network diagram has become a large central blob with players hanging off if they play less often. 

I know Wingfield, Knowles and Walmsley have been injured, I think Davies was too, and Mbye is the spare hooker after Darryl Clark.

Saints Ahoy - Visualisations from game 9 (Challenge Cup Quarterfinal)

Because I ended up a bit behind making these, I knew that adding the Challenge Cup to the visualisations wouldn't make a huge difference, because Saints only played two games, and lost to Warrington in the quarterfinal. 

Losing to Warrington in the Challenge Cup is less humiliating than losing to them in the league, but that doesn't make it okay. (Match reports here (https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2024/04/14/saints-beaten-in-challenge-cup-quarter-finals/) or here (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/14/warringtons-second-half-onslaught-knocks-st-helens-out-of-challenge-cup). Possibly L needs to be nicer about George Williams.) 

Saints conceded enough that there was actually a network graph for players present when they concede. Which suggests only bad things about the number of times Warrington scored.

Who scores for Saints? (up to game 9) Percival has still scored the most, followed by Lomax and Makinson.

Who is present when Saints score? Whitley has now missed one point-scoring moment but he's still in the deepest purple section of the who plays together when Saints score matrix. After the Whitley, Lomax and Welsby group, the next most commonly together are Dodd, Makinson and Clark in red. 

The ones that are less frequently together than you might expect are:

Sironen and Whitley 

Bennison, Delaney and Walmsley (Bennison is together with Welsby and Lomax more often than expected) 

Clark is together less often than expected with Bell 

Wingfield and Percival 

Whitley, Delaney and Batchelor Hurrell and Clark (although Hurrell's together with Delaney more than you might expect) 

Blake and Mata'utia (Blake is together more than you'd expect with Bell) 

Mata'utia is where the figure really splits between the frequently play together and less so. I think Percival is in that group because of his suspension. 

The "who is present when Saints score" network graph now looks spectacularly weird.  Those perpendicular lines really stand out against the other diagonal lines.   Lomax, Welsby and Makinson are the central core. The surrounding players are Clark, Dodd, Mata'utia, Hurrell, Blake, Bennison, Whitley and Sironen. Percival forms the link between that central group and the outer group (again I think that's because of his suspension) who are, clockwise from Percival, Walmsley, Lees, Batchelor, Mbye, Wingfield, Bell, Delaney and Knowles. 

In the Challenge Cup quarterfinal, Warrington had the most point-scoring moments of any team who have played against Saints so far.  

As to when Saints concede there is starting to be a pattern of conceding the last 20 minutes of the game.  

I'm presuming this is as the team gets tired out. 

Who is present when Saints concede? Combining the info from the last graph and this, I think Percival is so low down because when he plays, Saints tend to take him off around minute 50, so before the high concession time begins. 

The matrix diagram shows that Whitley is present for fewer point-conceding moments than you'd expect. There are now 17 players in the network graph for when Saints concede.  

I think Wingfield is sticking out up there because he's been out injured so long.

Formula 1 2024 - Japanese Grand Prix

It's probably not a good sign that I can't remember anything about the Japanese Grand Prix, even though it is admittedly four months on.  My race notes suggest it was bitty and not exciting as well.

Have read up on it using other people's sources, it was one of the ones where McLaren's race strategy was worse than Ferrari's and Leclerc had to rescue a less than good qualifying performance.  It may even have been the start of when this year's car started to show it had no go in comparison to the others.  Or Ferrari's upgrades weren't as good as the other teams's.  Either way, not good!