Monday, 3 August 2026

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

At the start of the season, every second race featured a random check of a top 10 finisher. This pattern stopped about 6 races in, and I wondered if that was because of less than 15 drivers finishing. 

The British Grand Prix gave an opportunity to test this. Barcelona had technically provided one as well, but several of the “finishers” there had actually stopped on track and were only classified because they had completed more than 90% of the race distance. 

There was no check at the British Grand Prix even though there were 19 finishers. That suggests that this inspection is not a mandatory check, but something the Technical Committee can choose to carry out occasionally. 

Scrutineering at the British Grand Prix: Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number at the British Grand Prix. The values are displayed as a standardised residual. Car 5 (Bortoleto) was the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.69, followed by cars 41 (Lindblad), 43 (Colapinto) and 87 (Bearman) with a value of 0.17. Car 27 (Hulkenberg) is the most under-scrutinized compared to expected with a value of -0.51, followed by cars 3 (Verstappen) and 23 (Albon) with a value of -0.34. Seven cars were tested exactly as many times as expected. While Car 5 (Bortoleto) looks like he's been checked far more the expected tests on first glance, compared to a statistically significant point of 2 standardised residuals, it really isn't. This is supported by the results having an overall χ² of 1.2216, when it would need to be >32.671 to be significant.

Scrutineering up to the British Grand Prix: Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number for the season up to the British Grand Prix. The values are displayed as a standardised residual. Cars 44 (Hamilton) and 63 (Russell) are the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.65, followed by car 5 (Bortoleto), with value of 0.53. Car 18 (Stroll) is the most under-scrutinized compared to expected with a value of -0.65, followed by car 23 (Albon) with a value of -0.53. They are followed by cars 14 (Alonso), 27 (Hulkenberg) and 77 (Bottas) with a value of -0.47. Four cars have been tested exactly as many times as expected (Gasly, Antonelli, Ocon and Colapinto). 

The χ² over the season so far is 3.1607, which is not significant. The same graph as above, but with the standardised residual of 2 marked on it. This means you can see none of the difference come close to being statistically significant. 

The order is starting to make sense, with Hamilton and Russell who are doing well being the most over-scrutinised, while Stroll, Albon, Alonso, Hulkenberg and Bottas, whose cars keep breaking on them, being the most under-scrutinised. Antonelli has only been tested as many times as expected even though he is doing very well, but the number of events is small enough that that is not implausible.
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