Predictions for the Brazilian GP with stats

The championships have been decided, and it seems very likely that Sebastian Vettel will win his ninth GP in a row. Despite this I look forward to the Brazilian GP, mainly due to the fact that it very rarely fails to deliver an exciting GP. Last year, Alonso and Vettel had a fantastic battle for the championship, 2010 had Hulkenberg's outstanding pole position lap and kept 4 drivers in contention for the title, Button sealed the title in 2009 following a great fight up the field, Hamilton won the title on the final corner in 2008, and lost it by a point in 2007 thanks to the Brazilian Grand Prix. It's a fantastic track and a worthy season finale.

Now, while bored one afternoon, I decided to try and predict the results of this GP using maths (and excel).  I combined the average team an driver form over the last 5 GPs, with the average team and driver performance at this track over the last 3 years. For example, let's take Sebastian Vettel.


Average finishing position over the last 5 GPs (Korea, Japan, India, Abu Dhabi and USA) - 1
Average finishing position over the last 3 Brazilian GPs - 3
Average finishing position of the Red Bull over the last 5 GPs - 1.66667
Average finishing position of the Red Bull over the last 3 Brazilian GPs - 2.666667

After I've added various weightings to these averages, Vettel comes out as being predicted to finish 1.83333th, which is clearly nonsense. So I did it for all the drivers and put them in order, and, unsurprisingly, Vettel is predicted to finish 1st.

However, to create these ratings, I didn't include failing to finish, as it would massively skew the ratings, instead I made a % chance to retire. To do this I used retirements by the driver and team over the last 5 GPs, retirements by the team and driver over the last 3 Brazilian GPs, and the average rate of retirement over the last 3 Brazilian GPs. Again let's take Vettel.

Percentage of races where Vettel retired in the last 5 GPs - 0%
Percentage of races where Vettel retired in the last 3 Brazilian GPs - 0%
Percentage of races where a Red Bull retired in the last 5 GPs - 20%
Percentage of races where a Red Bull retired in the last 3 Brazilian GPs - 0%
Average retirement rate* at the last 3 GPs - 13%

*Retirement rate means what percentage of drivers retire, on average, from this GP.

Overall, again with different weightings assigned, Vettel has a retirement chance of 8%.

Combining this altogether created this prediction. This is primarily for a dry race, as wet races are notoriously more unpredictable.

Position	Driver	Chance of retirement
1st	Sebastian Vettel	8%
2nd	Mark Webber	19%
3rd	Romain Grosjean	21%
4th	Fernando Alonso	2%
5th	Lewis Hamilton	20%
6th	Nico Rosberg	5%
7th	Felipe Massa	2%
8th	Jenson Button	7%
9th	Nico Hulkenberg	4%
10th	Sergio Perez	14%
11th	Paul di Resta	25%
12th	Adrian Sutil	18%
13th	Esteban Gutierrez	5%
14th	Heikki Kovalainen	7%
15th	Jean-Eric Vergne	2%
16th	Daniel Ricciardo	2%
17th	Valtteri Bottas	13%
18th	Pastor Maldonado	26%
19th	Charles Pic	16%
20th	Giedo van der Garde	25%
21st	Jules Bianchi	18%
22nd	Max Chilton	11%

Let's see how it does!

For a reference this is how I think they'll finish, stats or no stats!

Position	Driver
1st	Sebastian Vettel
2nd	Romain Grosjean
3rd	Mark Webber
4th	Nico Hulkenberg
5th	Fernando Alonso
6th	Felipe Massa
7th	Lewis Hamilton
8th	Jenson Button
9th	Heikki Kovalainen
10th	Nico Rosberg
11th	Sergio Perez
12th	Paul di Resta
13th	Daniel Ricciardo
14th	Esteban Gutierrez
15th	Adrian Sutil
16th	Valtteri Bottas
17th	Jean-Eric Vergne
18th	Pastor Maldonado
19th	Jules Bianchi
20th	Giedo van der Garde
21st	Charles Pic
22nd	Max Chilton