What the Numbers Say... 2013 Drivers & Teams

Hello Internet! It's Guido here with another Scoring Indy update. Last week, our look back at 2013's races gave us a chance to all become better readers of Race Scores. This week, we'll take a look back at some of the best drivers from 2013, and use that as a springboard going into 2014. Enough talk, though, let's get to some numbers!


Breakdown -- 2013 RSWC Top 10

Below, you can see the Top 10 drivers from last year's Race Score World Championship (where I award F1-style points based on Race Scores). You can see each driver's best, worst, and average scores, along with how many RSWC points that driver scored. Here's the table:

	High : Race	Low : Race	Average	RSWC Points
Dixon	98.19 : Toronto 2	-8.00 : Sao Paulo	52.39	198
Castroneves	91.31 : Texas	-8.34 : Houston 2	50.14	164
Hunter-Reay	85.57 : Barber	-17.16 : Long Beach	36.61	134
Pagenaud	77.37 : Belle Isle 2	2.74 : St. Pete	49.92	128
Andretti	73.15 : Long Beach	-4.66 : Houston 2	47.49	120
Power	95.62 : Houston 2	-0.60 : Long Beach	41.45	114
Wilson	86.11 : Long Beach	-9.41 : Sao Paulo	46.47	108
Franchitti	75.28 : Pocono	-3.33 : Barber	39.57	101
Kanaan	79.74 : Indy 500	-14.96 : Sao Paulo	35.63	97
Hinchcliffe	98.57 : Iowa	-11.25 : Long Beach	37.61	96

So, what can we glean from this? Here are some quick thoughts:

- Lots of lowest scores coming from Old Formula races (Barber, Long Beach, & Sao Paulo). This is pretty easily explainable, since the Old Formula tended to kick out big negative scores.

- Look at Hunter-Reay's line for a second. He finishes third in RSWC Points, despite having the second worst average score. This is a quirk of the points system, in my opinion. Giving out 25 points for the best Race Score means that if a driver has a couple of good performances that driver grabs bunches of RSWC Points, while not actually putting together a strong season. I'm considering a tweak to the scoring system to rectify this, but I'm not sold yet. It feels weird to bail for another points system after just one year.

- Allow me to sing the praises (for a minute) of Simon Pagenaud and Marco Andretti. Those are two young drivers, who were third and fifth in IndyCar Series points and fourth and fifth in the RSWC. That's impressive to begin with. What I find most impressive, however, is that they have outstanding average scores (49.92 for Pagenaud and 47.49 for Andretti) and they do this with high scores mired in the 70s. These two brought it consistently last year. That didn't surprise me about Pagenaud, but it did surprise me about Marco. If they keep it up, they'll be fun to watch for years to come.

- I miss Franchitti already... That's all.

Breakdown -- 2013 Teams

So, looking at some driver numbers is cool and all, but it doesn't really help us to preview the upcoming season, and with St. Pete basically two weeks away, I want to start previewing. So, I thought the best way to do that was to look at how various teams did last year. Below, you'll find a table of how various seats performed. I'll detail each briefly after we look at average scores.

	Average
Coyne 1	46.47
Target CGR	46.42
Penske	43.74
Other CGR	41.99
Andretti 1-3	40.89
Schmidt	36.71
KVSH	35.80
SFHR	34.26
Andretti 4	31.31
Coyne 2	31.20
Dragon	29.27
Panther	28.48
Foyt	27.70
RLL	26.67
BHA	23.81

- Coyne 1: I'm not surprised to see Dale Coyne Racing at the top of the chart, actually. I split Coyne into Car One and Car Two because of the ride-share program that was last year in Dale's second car. Wilson had an amazing year. Wilson is an amazing driver. He can win in that car. But, he hasn't won in that car without Bill Pappas, now at RLL. I don't expect that this number will stay as high next year, but I also don't expect it to dip below 40.

- Target CGR: You can make the argument that Ganassi Racing has become one big happy family. That certainly seemed to be the case from Pocono onwards last year, and I think with the addition of Briscoe in the #8 for 2014 you can definitely say that it's one four-car team this year. Last year, however, I went into the season unconvinced. Anyway, It's not surprising that the Red Cars are up here, but what I'm interested to see is how well Ganassi is served by the change to a Chevy after putting up such gaudy numbers last year in a Honda.

- Penske: This is probably the reason Ganassi went for that Chevy. The Captain's team would likely edge out the Target cars for the Top-Non-Wilson Spot if it hadn't been for a gremlin-infested start to the season for Will Power and a terrible weekend in Detroit for AJ Allmendinger. I expect another big year from this squad. And, I think it might be Will Power's year.

- Other CGR: This conglomeration of Charlie Kimball and Briscoe-at-the-500 come in with a solid performance. I'll use this space to glow about Charlie Kimball. I can't think of another first-time race winner that I was happier for last year. And, one has to assume that adding Ryan Briscoe to the mix only helps.

- Andretti 1-3: This is (perhaps) an artificial distinction, but I drew the line at Marco, Hinch, and RHR. It just seemed last season like Viso wasn't really part of the team. So, there's these three. In Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe you have a couple of boom-or-bust seasons, with high highs, but also low lows. Marco, as I discussed earlier was a model of consistency in 2013. These drivers know how to race. They'll be fine as long as the shift to Honda goes smoothly.

- Schmidt: I'm lumping both of Sam Schmidt's cars together, but I'm not sure that I should. The final number of 36.71 comes from Pagenaud being "weighed down" by Vautier. Now, I put "weighed down" in quotes, because I think Vautier knows how to drive, and (especially early in the year) I really saw some flashes of brilliance out of him. If Mikhail Aleshin is up to speed relatively quickly, this team can (and I stress CAN) be a powerhouse.

- KVSH: Not entirely sure what to make of these guys. They won the Indy 500. They didn't have a lot of superb showings other than that. Simona seemed to develop really well throughout the year in one of their cars. They hired the team of Sebastien and Sebastian that had been at Dragon racing. Just keep KV in mind when I get to Dragon.

- SFHR: I thought that 2013 was, by and large, a good season for Sara Fisher Hartman Racing and driver Josef Newgarden. I thought Newgarden (despite me stubbornly referring to him as Newgarten for like half the season) really started to come along, and he could have won a race or two (Sao Paulo and Baltimore come to mind immediately). The team has lost some key engineering folks, though. So, 2014 might be more of the same: reasonable with elements of brilliance, but possibly no more.

- Andretti 4: Not much to say here. I think all four Andretti Autosport cars will be lumped together a little more clearly with Munoz in the fourth car this year.

- Coyne 2: The little ride share that could comes in at 31.20, thanks in large part to all the worlds that Mike Conway destroyed last year. I'm not sure what I expect from this car next year. It mostly depends on the driver, I guess. We, of course, won't find out who is in this car until Spring Testing next week. I reserve judgment until then.

- Dragon: I said I'd get back to Sebastien and Sebastian. I'm not sure what to make of these two. Halfway through the season, I'd have told you that they were going nowhere in particular and getting there fast. But, Bourdais really started to put up results from Sonoma onwards. Saavedra, however, has never put up results at the highest level. I'd expect these two to finish with a better average next year (based on better equipment, and Bourdais' continued return to form), but I'm not sure they do much better in their new digs than said digs' previous occupants.

- Panther: Sad season. Sadder silly season. Everything that can be said has been said somewhere else.

- Foyt: Last year, Takuma Sato explored his ceiling, by winning at Long Beach, almost winning at Sao Paulo, and leading an astronomical number of laps at Milwaukee. He also explored his floor, by running over Ryan Hunter-Reay at Pocono, running four laps at Baltimore, and dropping like a stone after winning the pole at the first Houston race. If Sato can keep away from the floor, and spend more time near the ceiling, and if Larry Foyt and company can put a respectable car underneath him, this can be a good team.

- RLL: Tough year last year for the Rahal organization. They just didn't have the pace. Some engineering additions ought to help rectify that situation. But, I'm reserving judgment on the one and a half car team of Graham Rahal and Oriol Servia until we see some officially timed laps.

- BHA: Finally we come to Bryan Hera Autosport. This has the dubious distinction of being last on our list. This is mostly due to driver Alex Tagliani's rough middle of the season slump. This season might be another one in Rebuilding Mode for the organization, as they bring on Indy Lights grad, Jack Hawksworth for 2014.


One Last Thing

Now, you'll notice that one full-season team hasn't been mentioned yet. That's Ed Carpenter Racing. This is because I want to show you something. Before we look at it, even though you can see the highlighting from here, you should know two things.

1) As a full season entrant, Ed Carpenter Racing's average score last year was in the 30-31 range.

2) Ed Carpenter will only drive ovals in 2014, and Mike Conway will drive twisties.

	Average
Carpenter (Ovals)	54.03
Conway	49.80
Coyne 1	46.47
Target CGR	46.42
Penske	43.74
Other CGR	41.99
Andretti 1-3	40.89
Schmidt	36.71
KVSH	35.80
SFHR	34.26
Andretti 4	31.31
Coyne 2	31.20
Dragon	29.27
Panther	28.48
Foyt	27.70
RLL	26.67
BHA	23.81
Carpenter (Twisties)	21.22

Basically, you've taken a superlative oval driver and a superlative road/street driver (neither of whom cares for the other discipline) and given them a car to share. I think it's brilliant. Now, I'm not saying everyone should adopt this model, IndyCar racing is great because of how versatile the drivers are. But, some drivers aren't versatile. Some drivers are specialists, and I'm glad to see these two specialists in it together.

Stay Tuned

This concludes our two-part look back at the 2013 numbers. Hopefully, our collective appetite is now whetted for some IndyCar action in 2014. Next week, we'll have a grab bag with some stuff I'm working on for the upcoming season and probably something about the start of Formula 1 happening in Australia.

Spring testing commences soon! St. Pete will be upon us in the blink of an eye!

Remember to follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter for blog updates, race predictions, and terrible opinions.

See you next week!

-- Guido