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[Fred_C_Dobbs]

An F1 print magazine I subscribe to had a brief bit about a British doctor of physics who studied statistical patterns in the last 40 years of WDC scoring. From that, he compiled this formula to predict the mathematical likelihood of any particular driver prevailing in WDC. Here's what he came up with:

X = (11*((√p) ÷ r)) +10w + 5s + (5f ÷ 2) - 20a

Where:
p= number of poles
r= number of retirements
w= number of wins
s= number of second or third place finishes
f= number of points scoring finishes lower than 3rd
a= average race finish

The logic is really quite interesting, less for what counts in a driver's favour than what is counted against him. The first clause penalises heavily for more than one DNF (not sure what he expects to happen if a driver has no DNFs as division by 0 is meaningless). The fourth clause provides a healthy penalty for finishing out of the points. And the final clause exacts a heavy toll for not coming first every race.

The way I calculate it, Webber has the best score. Which means he should win (provided Webber will let him ).

LH goes into Abu Dhabi with a negative score. In terms of statistical probability, I reckon that means he stands no chance in hell.

[What's Burning?]

Hmmm.... looks like it's emphasizing consistent podiums and low DNF or outside the points finishes. Who'd have thunk it!

[vaptin]

Hmmm.... looks like it's emphasizing consistent podiums and low DNF or outside the points finishes. Who'd have thunk it!

Alonso could've told him that,

Interesting though, and it probably is kinda fair assuming no drastic changes in car or driver performance.

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

Hmmm.... looks like it's emphasizing consistent podiums and low DNF or outside the points finishes. Who'd have thunk it!

Alonso could've told him that, ...

That much, obviously, was obvious. The clever bit were in determining the numerical value to assign each clause.

[What's Burning?]

Hmmm.... looks like it's emphasizing consistent podiums and low DNF or outside the points finishes. Who'd have thunk it!

Alonso could've told him that, ...

That much, obviously, was obvious. The clever bit were in determining the numerical value to assign each clause.

So what this formula tells me is that at the END of each season, I can put the driver's results in, and find out the predicted WDC champion?

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

Hmmm.... looks like it's emphasizing consistent podiums and low DNF or outside the points finishes. Who'd have thunk it!

Alonso could've told him that, ...

That much, obviously, was obvious. The clever bit were in determining the numerical value to assign each clause.

So what this formula tells me is that at the END of each season, I can put the driver's results in, and find out the predicted WDC champion?

RTFP. I wrote "...[T]o predict the mathematical likelihood...", not "[T]o tabulate results...."

[What's Burning?]

I read it and I'm having fun with it, It may be useful to someone, and maybe even teams would look at it, but in the end, the variables are still subjective to someone's opinion so it's kind of similar to a formula to predict the weather.

[nish2280]

Cant you only use this formula at the end of the season when you can accurately put in all the facts?

[What's Burning?]

The formula can be used at the beginning of the season, it will get more accurate as more data is input as well as gain in accuracy the closer it is to the event it's trying to predict. Like the weatherman does and sometimes they get it wrong.

[Scotch F1]

It looks like the formula was designed with the old 10,6,4,3,2,1 points system: x10 for a win, x5 for other podiums x2.5 for other points finishes. I wonder if changing to x25 for a win, x17 for a podium and x7 for other points finishes would give a better result for this year?