Driver Ratings(Part 1) - Pit Stop Skill

Each driver is given a rating based on their pit stop performance on a scale of 0-10

In Formula1, the pit stop is a crucial part of the race. The pit crew needs to be quick and efficient in changing the tires, while the driver needs to be accurate in stopping the car at the right position. An experienced driver can gain significant time by being accurate and stopping the car at the right position aligning the wheels to the pit crew wheel gun.

While good strategy during a race is important, having an experienced driver who can make precise stops during a pit stop can give any team a competitive edge over their opponents

If we want to evaluate the driver, we need to evaluate what happens in the rest of their time in the pit lane, which is the difference between the total pit lane time and the pit stop: How quick is the driver able to “park” the car for the pit? How quickly are they able to move back to the pitlane post release? - AWS

Methodology:

FIA publishes pit stop summary statistics after each race on their website, these are also available on Formula1.com. The pit stop duration time is the time taken by the car from pit entry to pit exit, which can be divided into 4 phases.

1. Phase 1 - From start of the pit entry, the driver has to carefully navigate the narrower track while also braking accurately to adhere to the pit lane speed limits.

2. Phase 2 - Now the driver has to stop the car within the limits of the pit crew, with degraded tyres and based on weather conditions this is not an easy task to perfect. Usually overshooting by even 20 centimeters results in loss of a few tenths, as the pit crew have to adjust to the car.

3. Phase 3 - After the tyres are changed, the driver has to work his way out of the pit lane while also minimizing excess wheel spin and respecting the speed limits.

4. Phase 4 -The driver has to disable the speed limiter and accelerate out of the pit exit while also caressing his tyres for maximum performance.

Between Phase 2 and Phase 3 is the stationary part where tyres are changed, front wing adjustments are made, sometimes rear wings are taped.

To get the time, each driver spends during pit stop we subtract the pit stop duration and stationary time.

Now we have to normalize this data, to make it easy to comprehend and compare across circuits and seasons. We do this by using a min-max scaler and then multiplying with 10, which awards each pit stop a rating between 0 and 10(both included). In some races, drivers take more than 1 pit stops based on tyre degradation, race strategy, etc, so for each driver we take the average of their pit stop ratings to get an overall score for the race.

Here’s how the drivers compare for the Canadian GP.

There are a few caveats to this rating system,

1. The one that immediately stands out is the poor performance of Lando, which is the result of double stacking. During a double stack, the driver behind would lose a few seconds remaining stationary while the pit crew change the tires on the team mate’s car.

2. Under changing weather conditions, for pit stops taken in the dry conditions drivers usually have better grip and hence a better rating than if a driver pits under wet conditions.

3. We are ignoring the pit stop where no tyre changes occur, this might occur for various reasons such as a 10 second stop and go penalty or when only front wing is changed.

4. Official stationary pit stop data is sometimes inaccurate, for instance Lando had two pit stops during the Canadian GP with 19.68s on Lap 19, and 3.39 on Lap 42. These times were interchanged on the official data, whenever possible corrections will be made.

5. For each race, the fastest driver will receive a perfect score of 10 and slowest driver will receive a worst score of 0 for his pit stop.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of the driver’s rating - Reaction times and Start Awareness.

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