The team at Into The Chicane has developed a model to attempt to grade the performance of drivers over the course of a season. This model attempts to distance the driver from their car to some degree, and grades how they do relative to both their performance on track and relative to their teammate. Here is how the Into the Chicane Driver Performance Model works.

Highlighting the Into the Chicane Driver Performance Model:

The model breaks down driver performance against six key indexes: qualifying performance, race pace, racecraft, consistency, teammate battle, and points, which combine to provide a score for that driver. Here’s what each index measures:

Qualifying Performance

As the name suggests, it scores how well a driver does in qualifying. Qualifying is the cleanest way to measure a driver’s performance in the car, as it measures pure performance without opposition.

This metric not only tracks how the driver qualifies over the season, but also how many appearances they make in Q3.

Race Pace

Race pace measures the most important thing in Formula 1- how you finish in a race. It doesn’t matter how well you do in qualifying or in any other aspect of the race if you cannot score points. This measures race finishing, accounting for DNFs. Drivers are punished when they cause a DNF, but it doesn’t penalize for mechanical or other failures.

Racecraft

How a driver finishes matters, as does being able to gain pace or hold on to positions. This metric accounts for a driver’s ability to gain positions and punishes drivers for losing positions. This naturally accounts for drivers who start and finish on pole.

Consistency

The F1 season is long, and reliably finishing in the points is important. This metric measures how reliable a driver is at finishing a race, but also how reliable they are to finish the race in the points. It rewards taking reasonable risks to end in points over finishing safely at the bottom of the grid.

Teammate Battle

Two drivers in the same car is the most reasonable estimate for how good a driver is relative to their car. The better driver should finish higher more frequently, even when accounting for team orders. This accounts not only for race finishes but also for qualifying. This metric only compares against the current teammate, so if there is a teammate change mid-season, it resets the comparison.

Points Scoring

This is not the number of points scored, but points scored relative to expected. This derives an expected baseline for that team and car and adjusts based on how the driver performs relative to that. Drivers on strong teams should perform at high levels, so failure to meet that number is punished. Conversely, drivers who outperform their cars are rewarded accordingly.

What does the Into the Chicane Driver Performance Model mean when taken together?

All of these scores are equalized and weighted to provide a score out of 100. Drivers between 80-100 should contend for the championship that season. Those between 65-80 drive well, and should be in the upper echelon of the top-10. Midfield drivers should have a score above 50, and those below are likely towards the bottom of the grid.

This is the system that builds the Into the Chicane Power Rankings and also other things coming soon. Keep your eyes on our site for more.