The Race Score World Championship

Hello Internet! Here is the promised Race Score World Championship post. I realize that I haven't talked much about my little experiment, since its inception, other than to update the standings each week. So, this week we're going deep with the RSWC, starting from the beginning. So strap yourselves in. We're going on a ride.


RSWC Genesis

The idea for the RSWC goes all the way back to my pre-blog experimenting with numbers and IndyCar racing and quantifying performance. When I was pondering whether or not I wanted to internet-ify this whole "Race Score" concept of mine, I wondered what good it would be other than the basic stated purpose of looking race by race. So, I determined that I should put together some kind of season-long scoring system. 

The problem was that the bottom half of the grid, after I would calculate the Race Scores, looked like a mess. Take, for example at St. Pete (which used the Old Formula): JR Hildebrand scored 21.09. Will Power scored 2.31. Hildebrand only finished 78 laps, and came home in P19. Power got through 107 of the 110 laps, led 26 of them, and finished ahead of Hildebrand in P16. If I had used a scoring system that scored the whole field, then I would have totally shafted Power. So, I determined that I should use a scoring system that only awarded points to some of the field. I decided that there was no reason to re-invent the wheel, so I imported the scoring system from Formula 1.

Now, I think that a lot of the problems with the Old Formula that led me to use this system are corrected by the use of the New Formula, but I kinda like the idea of the way that the scoring system is set up now...

So, let's take a look at how the RSWC has gone so far:


The RSWC Table (in Technicolor!)

Driver	STP	BAR	LBH	SAO	INDY	DET1	DET2	TXS	MIL	IOWA	POC	TOR1	TOR2	Total
Castroneves	25	18		2	8	10		25	25	2	1	6	18	140
Dixon	18	10	8			12	10		6		25	25	25	139
Hunter-Reay		25			18	18		15	15	18				109
Andretti	8	4	15	15	15		6	10		1	6	12	4	96
Kanaan	10	1			25	1	4	18		15		4		78
Sato			25	25				8	18					76
Franchitti			6			6	15	4	8		18	15	2	74
Pagenaud		12	1	12	10		25			8	4			72
Conway						25	18					10	12	65
Hinchcliffe	12			8				6	4	25		8		63
Wison	2		18		6	15			2		10		6	59
Newgarden		15		18		8		2			12		1	56
Kimball		8		6	2		12				15		8	51
Bourdais	6						2					18	15	41
Viso	15								12	4			10	41
Carpenter	1							12	1	12	2	1		29
Power		6				4		1	10		8			29
Servia			10	10						6				26
Rahal			12			2	1			10				25
Munoz					12									12
de Silvestro			2	4								2		8
Jakes							8							8
Tagliani	4	2		1										7
Allmendinger					4									4
Hildebrand			4											4
Briscoe					1									1

As you can see: P1 is in Blue, P2 in Red, P3 in Purple, and P4-10 in Green.

Observations

- The class of the field right now are: Castroneves, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, and Marco Andretti. It's been that way almost all year. Dixon fell off a bit in the middle, and the Andretti Autosport duo of Hunter-Reay and Andretti could make a push if they could only catch a break.

- There's a big logjam of drivers with between 50 and 80 points just begging to sort itself out over the end stretch of the season.

- I wonder about Alex Tagliani. He seems to have gotten burned by the New Formula. He hasn't run very hot by and large either...

- Each of the following observations are a little bigger. So, each will be the focus of a brief post during IndyCar's run of open weeks between now and Sonoma. (Yes, Mid-Ohio's in there too, and it will get the full preview/recap treatment. I didn't forget.)

1) If a driver had gotten max points up to this point, that driver would have 325 points. Our RSWC leader: Helio Castroneves has received 43.08% of max points. Interestingly, Mike Conway has received exactly 20% of max points. I think there's something to the idea of 20% of max points being a demarcation point for having a very good season. I'm calling it the "Conway Line."

2) I'm interested in looking at performance of teams on the whole. A "Team Race Score World Championship" if you will. I don't know if that will tell us much, but I'm interested in doing it. I will probably do it by tiers. Those tiers will probably be: Ganassi, Penske, Andretti -- Tier 1; Other 2 car teams -- Tier 2; Single car teams -- Tier 3.

3) The last observation for inquiry that I'm going to do between now and Sonoma is going to be devoted to looking a three or four seasons to-this-point; telling the story of how those drivers got to where they are in the RSWC; and putting together some statistical pictures and analysis.

So, here's the upcoming schedule here at Scoring Indy:

- July 26: An exploration of "The Conway Line"

- August 2: Mid-Ohio Preview

- August 5-7: Mid-Ohio Recap and Scores

- August 9: The Team Race Score World Championship

- August 16: 3-4 Season Snapshots

- August 23: Sonoma Preview

Looks like we'll be having a lot of fun! I'm excited, and I hope you are too.

-- Guido

PS I was able to make the spreadsheet look prettier than my normal Race Score Spreadsheets by using a Google sheet instead of making it in Office. I'm not sure how I feel about doing "pretty" sheets full time. I already turn around recaps slowly, but I will probably keep this for the RSWC.