Welcome Back (St. Petersburg

Hey there Internet! It's been (as they say) a minute. Allow me to introduce myself.

(Re) Introductions

My name is Guido. I would say that I've been an avid INDYCAR (and, yeah, I think I'll write it like that now) fan since reunification in 2008, but I've been intrigued by the sport ever since we had Indy 500 week back in Mrs. Schafer's second grade class at Battle Ground Elementary School in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Back in 2013, I had this crazy idea that there must be some way to quantify race performance in INDYCAR. So, I started this little blog to try and do that. Over the first year of doing this, I kept revising and changing my formulas, and I started to land on one that I thought worked. This formula, however, caused me to do WAY more data entry than I reasonably had time to do. So, I don't think I've completed a full season of blogging since back in '13. This year, I aim to change that, and here's how.

Re-invigoration

I recently moved. I don't mention this often, but I'm an ordained Lutheran pastor. I took a new call back in December (if you're a member of the clergy, take my advice, don't start a new call a week before Christmas...). So, with the new beginning professionally, I started taking stock of the things I'd like to make sure were part of my life. This blog was one of them. So I asked myself, what was stopping me from blogging? The answer was data entry. I was just doing too much.

Enter Brittany Rees. One day, I proposed a challenge to my Facebook friends and Twitter followers: calculate Average Running Position for each car in an INDYCAR race, using only the publicly available lap chart (and using only Excel). Brittany has been my great friend since fourth grade. She's amazing. She plays in an awesome band called Frank Muffin. Check them out. She figured it out, and now the work that used to take hours upon hours to do, I can now do in 15 minutes.

So, let's take a look at that work:

Reengaging

Below, you will see my scorecard for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Let's walk through each column, giving a brief description of what you'll find from a Scoring Indy spreadsheet:

Finish: This is the position in which a driver finishes the race.

Driver: This is who the driver is.

Grid: This is the driver's starting position.

Led: This is the number of laps that the driver led during the race.

Completed: This is the number of laps the driver completed in the race.

ARP: This is the driver's Average Running Position during the laps they completed.

Rees Score: Formerly known as Race Score, changed in honor of Brittany Rees (the savior of this blog). This is my main tool for analyzing race performance. It accounts for all the factors above, and in a later post, we'll take a deep dive into it.

Index: This is a driver's performance relative to a "normal" performance for that finishing position. Anything positive is considered good. Negatives are bad. This is another one of those things we'll do a deep dive on in a later post.

The Scorecard
Firestone Grand Prix -- 2018

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	ARP	Rees Score	Index
1	Bourdais	14	30	110	6.36	86.36	19.70
2	Rahal	24	0	110	8.57	85.32	21.43
3	Rossi	12	5	110	2.98	75.15	14.04
4	Hinchcliffe	7	0	110	5.85	59.92	1.59
5	Hunter-Reay	6	1	110	9.74	50.67	-4.89
6	Dixon	9	0	110	9.91	51.52	-1.26
7	Newgarden	13	0	110	11.64	51.89	1.89
8	Jones	17	0	110	10.25	56.60	9.38
9	Andretti	18	0	110	10.37	55.04	10.59
10	Power	2	0	110	12.31	27.35	-14.32
11	Kanaan	10	0	110	12.53	35.38	-3.51
12	Sato	5	0	110	12.99	25.01	-11.10
13	Pagenaud	11	0	110	13.35	30.08	-3.26
14	Chaves	8	0	110	12.51	24.29	-6.26
15	Pigot	16	0	109	12.47	32.51	4.73
16	Veach	15	0	109	16.13	23.33	-1.67
17	Claman De Melo	22	0	109	13.03	34.47	12.25
18	Wickens	1	69	108	1.54	39.06	19.62
19	Chilton	20	0	108	18.90	18.02	1.35
20	Kimball	21	0	107	21.68	12.78	-1.11
21	King	4	5	107	16.42	-4.35	-15.46
22	Binder	23	0	100	18.98	13.03	4.70
23	Harvey	19	0	38	12.61	6.81	1.25
24	Leist	3	0	16	6.00	0.98	-1.79

Quick Hits

- This is where I post some quick observations about the race itself or the numbers. So, let's do some numbers first.

- Looking at overall Rees Scores, the top two this week are a closely bunched pair of performances up at the top of the field at P1 & P2. Bourdais earns high marks for (obviously) winning the race, as well as leading 30 laps. Rahal earns most of his 85.32 points by moving up to the second step of the podium from the last spot on the grid.

- Index can be instructive, too, in looking at these two drives. Rahal's Index of 21.43 shows that he should feel better about his drive to P2 than Bourdais should feel about P1 with an Index of 19.70. Now, this is obviously splitting hairs, because these numbers are very close together. Also, Index ratings this high are very good.

- I also want to give a moment of commendation to Robert Wickens and his Index of 19.62. I'm sure he wanted to win. I'm sure that he thought he could win. I'm sure he thought he should win. But, he had a much better drive than most people who finish P18. I was not prepared to be impressed, but I was.

- On the other end of the rookie spectrum, you have Jordan King. King started high in the field. King ran well for a few laps. Then, King went to the back and basically stayed there. Maybe car owner (and seat splitter) Ed Carpenter saw something to be happy about in King's drive. But, the numbers sure don't.

Stay Tuned

So, that's my first post of 2018. I firmly believe that this year will be different. I firmly believe we'll make it through the season. Be sure to follow on Twitter @ScoringIndy for updates. I'm looking forward to being with you all this season. See you out there!!

-- Guido

The St. Petersburg Scorecard -- 2017

Hey there Internet, it's Guido back with another Scoring Indy update. It's a new season, and we've got lots to do! First off, some changes to our metrics for the new season and something special I'm working on for May. After that, we'll get to the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, and a great performance by Sebastien Bourdais and Dale Coyne, the Napoleon of Race Strategy. Let's get to it!

New Year, New Me

Maybe not "New Me" exactly, but new philosophy with our metrics here at Scoring Indy. In the past, I've tried my hardest to give you guys a true Race Score. That is to say, a measure of the true quality of a driver's race, which accounts for on track performance, where they start and finish the race. And, I think I've done that. The only problem with that is in order to do what I feel is the best job of giving that to you, I need to include drivers' Average Running Position. Now, to the best of my knowledge, this statistic is not freely available on the internet, and this has resulted in me doing a whole lot of manual data entry, which led (quite frankly) to a high deal of burnout on my part. If you've followed me for any length of time, you know that I (almost) never manage to finish the season. I just get bogged down.

Now, I'm not the sort of person to focus on the negatives, so instead of getting all frustrated, I've decided to focus on what I can reasonably do. And, what I can reasonably do is provide you with metrics that only require a little bit of data entry on my part. So, I started thinking about what I could do in that regard, and I've come up with a couple things, which I'll talk about below. And, fear not, I haven't abandoned my old stuff. If I ever find Average Running Position available somewhere I'll jump right back into those metrics, since I like them a great deal.

The 2017 Metrics

So, what are we doing on the blog this year, as far as metrics are concerned? Well, as I said, I was looking for what I could do without doing hours and hours of data entry. And, I remembered my original formula for doing (what I then called) Race Scores. It accounts for: finishing position, laps led, laps completed, and positions gained/lost start to finish. I can enter all these things at once and generate a score quickly. So, I'm re-branding this metric as "Performance Score" and I'll be putting it here on the blog this year.

The other metric, which I'm hoping to unveil around the month of May also requires a minimal amount of data entry (at least once the spreadsheet is set up). This year, I'm hoping to publish Elo Ratings for drivers here at Scoring Indy. I'm sure I'll talk more in depth about Elo Ratings in another blog post, but suffice it to say, they're a method of overall driver comparison. It's a pet metric of that statistical city on a hill: FiveThirtyEight, and it's the way that international chess measures player strength. Like I said, more on that later. For now, let's get to St. Pete.

The Scorecard

Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	Perf. Score
1	Bourdais	21	69	110	128.98
2	Pagenaud	14	13	110	82.10
3	Dixon	2	0	110	42.86
4	Hunter-Reay	12	0	110	61.90
5	Sato	5	2	110	41.39
6	Castroneves	16	0	110	61.90
7	Andretti	15	0	110	54.76
8	Newagarden	4	0	110	23.81
9	Hinchcliffe	3	21	110	26.21
10	Jones	18	0	110	47.62
11	Rossi	8	0	109	19.11
12	Kanaan	6	0	109	9.65
13	Hildebrand	19	0	109	35.58
14	Aleshin	17	0	109	26.13
15	Daly	20	0	109	28.46
16	Chilton	7	0	109	-6.95
17	Rahal	10	0	108	-4.46
18	Kimball	9	0	105	-10.93
19	Ppower	1	5	99	-29.38
20	Pigot	13	0	71	-6.00
21	Munoz	11	0	32	-4.55

Quick Hits

- A word about Performance Scores as a metric. These numbers basically measure how a driver "should" feel about their performance. (This differentiates it from the Race Score metric, which aims to be a true measurement of drive quality.) Also, this is a relative metric. With this measurement, for instance, we see that Ed Jones should feel better about his P10 drive than Josef Newgarden should about his P8 trip. Now, does this mean Jones had a "better" day than Newgarden? Not necessarily, we'd need a Race Score to tell us that. Rather this tells us that Jones had a "more satisfying" drive than Newgarden did.

- Just look at that Performance Score for Sebastien Bourdais. 128.98 is an incredible number, and Bourdais should rightly be thrilled about winning in St. Pete after causing a red flag in qualifying. I've called Dale Coyne the Napoleon of Race Strategy on this blog before, and he certainly put his driver in a position to win this race, both with car setup and pit calls.

- I wish I had more numbers on a couple drivers. Here's this race's list: I want Spencer Piggot's Average Running Position. Same goes for Takuma Sato. I'd like to know how many on-track passes Ed Jones made. (I know that his teammate, Bourdais, made a great deal of such passes, I'd like to see Jones' number). Finally, I'd like to see James Hinchcliffe's lap times when leading versus when he was "in traffic."

Stay Tuned

OK, that's all I have for this race. It feels good to be back. I'm sure I'll post at least a little between now and Long Beach. Follow me on Twitter @ScoringIndy for updates! Enjoy the races, I'll see you out there!!

-- Guido

The Iowa Scorecard -- 2016

Hey there Internet, it's Guido here again with another Scoring Indy update. If you were waiting a long time for numbers from Road America (I told you why here), then your antidote has arrived! The Verizon IndyCar Series ran the Iowa Corn Indy 300 LAST NIGHT, and I've got the scorecard in under 24 hours. That's really good for me, and it's good for you too. Here it is:


The Scorecard

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	R.R.P.	Race Score	Index
1	Newgarden	2	282	300	1.78	98.34	31.67
2	Power	8	0	300	5.58	67.31	3.67
3	Dixon	10	1	300	4.80	68.60	7.99
4	Pagenaud	1	11	300	2.25	56.90	-0.67
5	Aleshin	9	0	300	6.88	57.77	3.22
6	Rossi	17	4	299	10.80	61.23	9.72
7	Kanaan	6	0	299	5.75	48.78	0.30
8	Bourdais	16	0	299	9.88	54.63	9.17
9	Hinchcliffe	22	0	299	13.20	55.64	13.22
10	Kimball	5	0	299	12.93	27.36	-12.03
11	Sato	13	0	298	14.38	34.17	-2.19
12	Munoz	15	0	298	15.68	32.21	-1.13
13	Castroneves	3	0	298	7.63	23.24	-7.06
14	Andretti	19	0	298	16.18	31.43	4.16
15	Hawksworth	14	0	298	14.73	23.07	-1.17
16	Rahal	12	0	297	12.38	20.54	-0.67
17	Chaves	18	0	293	19.38	15.93	-2.25
18	Carpenter	7	0	284	14.79	3.57	-11.58
19	Chilton	4	2	274	10.05	3.42	-8.70
20	Montoya	11	0	179	6.83	11.02	1.93
21	Daly	21	0	141	20.76	4.62	-1.44
22	Hunter-Reay	20	0	105	17.88	3.17	0.14

Quick Hits

- First Quick Hit: Newgarden dominates! This is (by any of our metrics here at SI (I think I'll keep using those initials, there's no other major sports information outlet with that acronym, right? No? SIndy? I like SIndy)) the most dominant drive we've seen all season. Best Race Score -- Check. Best Happiness Index -- Check. And, here's the thing. I know for a fact that we shot low! Newgarden's R.R.P. was 1.78. That's his average running position in a sample of 40 laps. Newgarden led 36 of those laps, which is 90%. However, Newgarden actually led 94% of the race. Mathematically, his R.R.P. is worse than his A.R.P. I know it is, and if his Average Running Position ever gets released, I'll try and generate his "true" Race Score. UPDATE: Newgarden's ARP was released. It was 1.37, making his "true" Race Score 98.95 and "true" Happiness Index 32.29.

- Cross-Promotion: When I want to read excellent blogsmanship in the area of IndyCar racing, I go read Oil Pressure. I've read that blog since before I started my own. George Phillips expresses his opinions eloquently, and is much more timely with his posts than Yours Truly. Anyway, one thing I really like about Oil Pressure is the poll at the end of each post. (I'm trying out a poll at the bottom of this post myself.) This week in his reactions to Iowa post, George asked whether James Hinchcliffe, Alex Rossi, Simon Pagenaud, Mikhail Alesin, or Will Power had the best non-Newgarden weekend. Well, Happiness Index is here to help. The answer is Hinchcliffe, not close. Now, you can add in non-race factors like Pagenaud's points lead, but I think it is safe to say that Hinch should be second-happiest with his drive, after Newgarden.

- Controversial Opinion Time / Index MVPs: The Index MVPs (drivers whose Happiness Indices tell us the most) are Will Power and Scott Dixon. Power and Dixon had similar races, starting outside rows 4 and 5, respectively. Each had an R.R.P. between 4.6 and 5.6 (ie within one position). And, finally they both led an inconsequential number of laps. (Dixon is scored as leading lap 250, which occurred during a yellow-flag stop. Josef Newgarden both entered and exited the pits first, but because Dixon's pit was AFTER the start/finish monitor and Newgarden's was BEFORE, car #9 is considered to have "completed" the lap first, even though an observer would say that Newgarden never lost the lead.) Anyway, Power and Dixon received similar Race Scores: 67.31 and 68.60, but the metrics put Dixon much further ahead with an Index of 7.99 to Power's 3.67. So, numbers-wise, Dixon had the better day. I say controversial opinion, because eye-test wise, Power's run to the second step of the podium in the closing laps was impressive. If I hadn't already devised my poll-testing poll for this week down at the bottom of the post, I'd put up a poll about this question: who really had the better race. Expect future polls to be more like that.


Stay Tuned

So, that's all for this week. With Toronto coming up on Sunday, there will be plenty more numbers to get to soon! In the meantime, follow me on Twitter @ScoringIndy, and vote in my fun poll! It's right down there!

I'll see you out there!

-- Guido

The weekly Scoring Indy poll question will...

be a cool form of audience interaction.

be a lot of extra work for Guido.

get like 4 votes per week.

all of the above.

 

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