Saturday, 7 November 2026

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

The major update, in terms of this project, was Hadjar coming back after his wrist injury. The actual race scrutineering chart is very straightforward with all the drivers being very near the expected value of 38 tests. Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Cars 3 (Verstappen), 12 (Antonelli) and 63 (Russell) were the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.32.  Cars 1 (Norris), 14 (Alonso), 18 (Stroll), 43 (Colapinto) and 77 (Bottas) were the least scrutinised compared to expected with a value of -0.32.  7 cars were tested exactly as much as expected. This can be seen by how far away those values are from the dotted lines that indicate significance. 

It makes sense that Norris, Alonso, Stroll, Colapinto and Bottas were tested fewer times than expected because they were amongst the drivers whose cars didn't finish the race (race report here). 

Interesting things are happening in the season-long charts. 

For the season to date, the χ² has gone up to 4.9509, still not significant but increasing. Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number up to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Car 63 (Russell) was the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.63, he was followed by car 44 (Hamilton) on 0.58 and car 3 (Verstappen).  Car 18 (Stroll) is the least scrutinised compared to expected with a value of -1.03, followed by 77 (Bottas) on -0.85 and 11 (Perez) on -0.71.  No cars were tested exactly as much as expected. Russell is still the most over-scrutinized, followed by Hamilton and Verstappen. Antonelli is the 5th most scrutinized (although I know that's just luck of the draw). 

The bottom section is all the unreliable cars (Aston Martin and Cadillac) but Hadjar is remarkably low, coming just above those four. And that's not a mistake in the coding, I've checked. The code has considered the three races where Hadjar was replaced by Tsunoda. 

I'll see if this pattern continues in the next few races.

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