Friday, 17 July 2026

Are the scrutineers picking on my driver? - Update after the Austrian Grand Prix

Some interesting points from the underlying data: The Austrian GP featured the first test where the check said "all classified cars" rather than all cars, or giving the number of the car tested. It was the steering wheel test. I have been assuming that "all cars" meant all cars entered. I think the wording of this check supports that but I want to give that caveat on all this data. 

The Austrian GP race scrutineering itself: Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number at the Austrian Grand Prix.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Car 30 (Lawson) is the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 1.06.  He is followed by car 16 (Leclerc) and car 63 (Russell) with a value of 0.53.  Car 18 (Stroll) is the most under-scrutinized compared to expected with a value of -0.71.  He is followed by car 77 (Bottas) with a value of -0.53.  Cars 87 (Piastri), 41 (Lindblad), 31 (Ocon), 27 (Hulkenberg), 23 (Albon), 11 (Perez) and 10 (Gasly) are next at -0.18.  6 cars were tested exactly as much as expected (Bortoleto, Hadjar, Alonso, Colapinto, Hamilton and Sainz jnr. 

No, I don't know what Liam Lawson did to the scrutineers. 

Obviously, it's not that extreme, because his standard residual of 1.06 doesn't hit the value of 2 that suggests significance but that's a lot of tests on one car. 

The difference from expected is not statistically significant with an χ² of 2.88. 

Season to date: Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number for the season to date, up to the Austrian Grand Prix.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Cars 63 (Russell) and 44 (Hamilton) are the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.69.  Then comes car 1 (Norris) at 0.5.  Cars 18 (Stroll) is the least tested at -0.63, then 14 (Alonso) at -0.5 then 6 (Hadjar), 23 (Albon) and 77 (Bottas) at -0.44.  Cars 16 (Leclerc) and 31 (Ocon) have been tested the expected number of times. 

The difference from expected is not statistically significant with an χ² of 3.06. 

The top 3 most over-scrutinized (Russell, Hamilton and Norris) make some sort of fits with their performance, because they are 3 of the top 5 at this point of the season. 

Similarly, two of the bottom 3 make sense, because the Aston Martins of Stroll and Alonso have not been going long distances so might miss some of the post-race tests, ditto for Bottas and Albon who have retired from half the races and a quarter of the races respectively. Hadjar being so low down still makes no sense, he's only not completed 2 races but all but one of the rest of the races he's been in the top 10. It's getting to the point where I want to triple check all my numbers, he's that low. 

For the British Grand Prix results, I'm going to be looking for that random top 10 finisher check, providing there are at least 15 finishers (which *spoiler* there were). If it doesn't happen, I may have to conclude there is no pattern.

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