The inspiration from Driver Ratings came from two things - the 1996 CART race at Road America, and the movie Moneyball.
I love to re-watch old races and learn as much as I can about the history of IndyCar. While watching the 1996 Road America race, I suddenly got this idea to evaluate drivers differently than just analyzing average start, average finish, change in position, etc.
Al Unser Jr. was leading the race on the final lap, having led half of the race up until that point. On the last lap, Unser Jr. blew an engine with three turns to go, giving the win to Michael Andretti. On paper, Unser Jr. finished 10th and earned 4 championship points. His average finished was hampered with a P10 finish instead of P1. He was on his way to earning 21 championship points.
To me, there had to be a better way to evaluate drivers than to simply judge where a driver finishes because there is so much more that goes into a race finish than what it seems. Mechanical failures, accidents, unlucky cautions, brilliant overtakes, etc. should all factor into evaluating a driver.
Moneyball, for those who don't know, is a movie about the 2002 Oakland Athetlics and how their general manager, Billy Beane, bought into this idea that deeper statistical analysis of players would allow them to find players who they could afford, rather than some of the flashier players who were very expensive. The Athletics managed to beat the system despite being one of the poorest teams in the league, and managed to have a very successful season.
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| Photo: AutoRacing1 |
How It Works
After each, a driver is assigned a rating based on their finishing position. Then, analysis goes into the race to see what happened to the driver in that race and well he/she did. The driver who finishes P1 starts at an 8.0, while the driver who finishes last starts with a 3.0. Adjustments are then made to the rating based on -
- Average running position in the race
- Good/bad strategy calls
- Incidents involved in
- Mechanical issues
- Bad pit stops
- Laps led
- Running at finish
- If a DNF resulted in something that was at no-fault to the driver
After the adjustments are a made, a driver will end up at their final rating for that race. Comparing drivers to their teammates, finding their progress over their years, and other analysis will help evaluate drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series.
This was created by Matthew Hickey. You can find me on Twitter @Hickey93. Thanks for visiting!
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