Max easily won the race, but what happened to Charles?

Sep 01, 2022

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Did Charles lose time due to traffic?

How to read this chart:

On Y-axis we have lap times in seconds and on x-axis we have Average Distance to Driver Ahead(AD) in seconds

AD is calculated by taking the average of ‘Distance to Driver Ahead’ from telemety data over each the lap. After we have average distance, we calculate the average speed(AS).
We know Spa-Francorchamps is 7,002 m long and this year’s pole lap time is 103.665s, using these we arrive at 67.545 m/s
Now, we convert AD into seconds by dividing it by AS. This is done to make it easier to compare across circuits.
Mercedes Strategy Director James Vowles, pointed out when the gap is within 2 seconds, cars experience a loss of downforce due to ‘dirty air’ and it also degrades the tyres faster
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Sainz starting from the front spent only ~14% of his laps in traffic.
Meanwhile, Charles and Max starting from the back half of the grid, spent relatively same number of laps in traffic, but this was not the reason for slow race pace from Charles.

During the opening laps, Charles had front right brake duct issue, which forced him to make an early pit stop for mediums.
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In his first stint of mediums Charles, conserved his tyres and ran them for 22 laps, the most of any other driver on track for any stint, which meant a slow average lap time.

Read the math behind calculating Tyre Degradation here:

If we take a look at the tyre performance, unlike Hungary the hards are comparable to mediums in terms of lap times. Similar to Hungary, the softs have a quick fall-off after pushing for a few laps. It is possible, due to this nature of soft compound driver tend to nurse them in the beginning part of the stint to maximize tyre life.