MotorSport Ratings

[D-Type]

The whole approach seems to be based on the situation in 2013 but not necessarily relating to the way things were previously.
Taking Formula 1/GP racing first. You do seem to have found a good way of treating the number of races - if I understand correctly each championship race in a 10-race season is worth twice those in a 20-race season. But what about non-championship races? For example in 1950 Fangio drove an Alfa Romeo in the 6 championship races. But he also drove an Alfa in 5 non-championship F1 races and a Maserati in 3 other F1 races. He also drove a supercharged Ferrari 166 in the 3 Formule Libre races of the Argentine Temporada and 3 other Formule Libre races., a F2 Ferrari in 3 races and a F2 Maserati in one race. Have these been included in his total for that year? And the period when top line drivers also drove sports cars , eg in 1955 in addition to coming second in the World Championship, Stirling Moss also drove the 300SLR to the 3 victories that gave Mercedes the Sports car Championship. And he drove his private maserati in some non-championship races. Does your scoring take these into account. And prewar where not all Grandes Epreuves counted for the European Championship, how do you score them?

I think there is a lot of scope for discussing these type of issues before you finalise your scoring system.

[msratings]

ah the trick is here that "non-championship" races are considered a different championship.. thus the racer would earn more points for a 2nd/3rd/4th etc... championship but the rating is an average rather than total points for the year.

e.g. racer 1 only enters world championship races earns 600 points and has a weighting of 1 thus a rating of 600... racer 2 enters multiple championships and earns 1500 points and has a weighting of 3 so a rating of 500... racer 3 enters just the world championship and 1 extra race may earn 610 point and a weighting of 1.02 thus a rating of 598

I have generalised all non championship races as a separate championship... e.g. in 1950 there is F1 and non-champ F1 as well as Sports cars etc...

i have tended only to have non championship races for F1 and sports cars so far (due to difficultly findings results of other races) but i will add much more as I go along if I can find them

[Don Capps]

While I do have some level of understanding for what you are trying to do, I also have real problems seeing the point of the exercise given that you are taking such an omnium-gatherum approach to this. It will be simply yet another highly subjective answer to a question some could really care less about, especially given its highly subjective nature. On the other hand, it could lead to an appreciation of the very futility of the quest and then the realization that the destination might actually be not at all relevant, while the journey itself might be what counts. There are as many fans, Enthusiasts, statisticians, wannabees, and whatever else one wishes to use to refer to them as there are grains of sand on the beaches of Florida and California combined. However, the number of automotive historians who specialize in automobile racing could just about hold a convention in a phone booth and have lots of space left over.

Just saying...

[D-Type]

ah the trick is here that "non-championship" races are considered a different championship.. thus the racer would earn more points for a 2nd/3rd/4th etc... championship but the rating is an average rather than total points for the year.

e.g. racer 1 only enters world championship races earns 600 points and has a weighting of 1 thus a rating of 600... racer 2 enters multiple championships and earns 1500 points and has a weighting of 3 so a rating of 500... racer 3 enters just the world championship and 1 extra race may earn 610 point and a weighting of 1.02 thus a rating of 598

I have generalised all non championship races as a separate championship... e.g. in 1950 there is F1 and non-champ F1 as well as Sports cars etc...

i have tended only to have non championship races for F1 and sports cars so far (due to difficultly findings results of other races) but i will add much more as I go along if I can find them

I half get the picture but I think we need a few actual worked examples. At first reading it appears that you are penalising racer 3 for entering an extra race and scoring 10 points there (or is it for entering and not scoring points?).

[msratings]

i think your second analogy was more accurate... i.e. he didn't perform as well as he usually does in the extra race... thus his overall rating is lower...

but for a real example to explain the rating method would be better to look at it for a complete career rather than a single season.

e.g.

Jacky Ickx has 11035.506 points and a weighting of 14.499 giving him a rating of 761.1
Ayrton Senna has 5182.148 points and a weighting of 6.582 giving him a rating of 787.3

if just using points you can see Ickx would be far ahead of Senna but using the rating after the weighting it shows Senna was the "better" racer.

To break it down better if we compare the 2 racers in 2 of the championships they raced in (f1 and world sports car)

F1
Ickx -> 2718/4.339 = 534.7
Senna -> 5151/6.500 = 792.6

Sports Cars
Ickx -> 5814/6.993 = 831.5
Senna -> 30/0.082 = 6.1

this shows that senna only entered 1 sports car race and didn't perform well and it has hardly effected his overall rating where as Ickx has entered roughly similar number of sports car and f1 races but had more luck in sports car thus a higher rating there but after combing them his rating is lower than that of Senna.

and just to show how his complete rating was calculated Ickx also has 2505 points and a weighting of 3.166 and rating of 500.5 for "other races" not sports car or f1 (Senna has no other entries)

[msratings]

the calculation of how many points and weighting you score for each race is based on the number of races in the championship and the seeding of the championship

e.g.

1000 points is allocated for a win (my base figure) this is then scaled down to 280 points for 10th (will explain another time)

For a 20 race F1 season which has a 100% seeding in championships (highest level)

a win would earn 50 points and a 0.05 weighting for that race.

for a WRC season of 13 races (90% seeding)

a win would earn 69 points and a weighting of 0.07

but for an F3 race of 30 races (15% seeding)

a win would only earn 5 points with a weighting of 0.005

[Bruce D]

I personally think this whole business of ranking F1 as the highest series just because it's F1 is total rubbish. I know that there is more talent in the current Indycar field than the F1 field, just witness the Sao Paulo street race two weekends ago, versus most of the F1 grid who are only there because of some rich backing.

[D-Type]

You have to rank the World championship ahead of any national championship.

[Don Capps]

You have to rang [sic] the World championship ahead of any national championship.

Why? What makes that series intrinsically any "better" or more difficult or challenging than many of the nominally national -- or regional -- events or series?

Of course, balanced against the above, I also think that other than the possible gains for the individual while digging around for information, that this sort of thing tends to be a waste of time given the essential subjectivity involved as well as the "So What?" factor.

Back in the Sixties, someone -- off the top of my I believe it was something like Ralph Money -- used to do a similar effort in ranking drivers by using a weighted formula, which resulted in a somewhat forgettable result each year.

[D-Type]

Typo corrected