Telemetry and Data of 2011 Monaco GP - Scarb's blog

[n smikle]

I haven't read the article as yet but this one should be a good one for an F1tech member.

http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2011/08/1 ... roduction/

[raymondu999]

It's rather long; but it's a good read. It's quite astonishing how much better one driver's lap was compared to the other.

Having said that; I wonder if most other teams can plot a similar telemetry waveform of drivers from other teams. Sure they don't have telemetry from them; but how about watching those selectable-driver on boards? Where you can choose who you go onboard with; then open 22 windows of all the different drivers, and doing some fancy frequency-matching etc to get a throttle/brake plot. Steering would be a bit more complicated to get a plot of, but I believe it would be possible too.

[Jersey Tom]

It's rather long; but it's a good read. It's quite astonishing how much better one driver's lap was compared to the other.

Having said that; I wonder if most other teams can plot a similar telemetry waveform of drivers from other teams. Sure they don't have telemetry from them; but how about watching those selectable-driver on boards? Where you can choose who you go onboard with; then open 22 windows of all the different drivers, and doing some fancy frequency-matching etc to get a throttle/brake plot. Steering would be a bit more complicated to get a plot of, but I believe it would be possible too.

What would be the point?

[ESPImperium]

What i want is the FP1 data from Monaco as i recon id be able to get the exact drivers that is in this trace within half an hour or so.

[beelsebob]

What i want is the FP1 data from Monaco as i recon id be able to get the exact drivers that is in this trace within half an hour or so.

Of course, if you'd read even the first paragraph of the article, you'd see that scarabs specifically asks that we don't speculate about the team/drivers.

[raymondu999]

Scarbs said that to not speculate on his website though. What's to stop independent speculation as on this site?

[spacer]

What would be the point? What if it's the RBR drivers? What if it's Virgin? Would not add much imo, and only result in scarbs removing the info.

[timbo]

Looking at telemetry is very interesting, I'd compare that to my laps from rFactor=)
Interesting to see that there's almost no brake/throttle overlap on the cars these days, which were quite common (at least I felt so) during mid-00's. Also, the slight application of brakes before the main braking point is very interesting to see. I never seen anything like that on the telemetry I've seen before. Maybe that's because those were early laps, or brake compound is different.
But driver comparison-vise the data is useless and even scarbs points that out in the end of the article. The drivers did completely different laps, maybe they were on different fuel load as well.

[feynman]

Stripped of all necessary context: the setups, the respective engineering programs, any parts evaluation in progress, any simulation correlation exercises in progress, even when laps were set or track conditions, anyone attempting to describe anything much of any significance or relevance from guessing the driver is deluding themselves and wasting their time.

There is nothing sensible anyone not on the race-engineer console that morning can deduce from these traces. Nothing to be stated categorically, so why bother?

All you are invited to do here is look at the pretty picture and pretty colors and go 'ooh'. I would stick to that.

[marekk]

All you are invited to do here is look at the pretty picture and pretty colors and go 'ooh'. I would stick to that.

Dont't think so. If you watch carefully, plenty of unexpected (at least for me) details emerge.

Car's configurations - is it possible to have 2 cars with different fuel loads and aero setups to accelearate and deccelerate at exactly the same rate on many parts of the track ?

Momentarily drop in diff torque for blue car just after 1000m, when switching to fourth gear at full throttle and no brakes applied - what's the cause ?

In the same region, red car's brief (maybe 20m) period of DRS activation, no brakes, full throttle, but slight decrease in acceleration, followed by expected increase - why ?

[n smikle]

You can only analyze this as is if you know what I mean.

It's just good enough to say the blue driver is has a higher minium speed and brakes with more force etc, at that time whatever time it was, but you cannot categorically sate any inference.

[feynman]

- what's the cause ?

- why ?

Exactly my point.
Without any context or actual knowledge of what program the cars and drivers are being asked to execute, what configuration they were setup to, what was happening on track in front of them when the plots were being recorded ... that is all we can do, look at the colors, notice some differences, ask why, and sensibly go no further.
All we can say, sitting over here, is that one line goes up and another goes down, we haven't learned much else.

And FP1 of all sessions to try to extrapolate from, cars are still glorified street sweepers at that stage, and are mainly circulating to check they have been unpacked and bolted together properly. Maybe stick on a new front wing shape and some flo-viz and go for a cruise mode.
Micro-analyzing differences in brake-plots or throttle angle, and trying to identify drivers, and then perhaps hoping to try and make claims for driving-style is pointless.

They are nice plots, nice to look at, vroom vroom, but without the full story using them as basis to say anything really meaningful is not tenable.


I wonder what sort of data-visualization research the teams have tried, to pre-process and analyze the data, using algorithms to do the kind of TDiff analysis that Scarb's contact did, and then present only areas of genuine interest to the driver. In a higher-order format that maybe aids quicker comprehension - I am not convinced that right now they really get the most out of the data.
... a truck full of engineers, with screens and cursors, and time to poke around and zoom the plots, and switch on and off traces is OK, but as an inkjet printout, there is an awful lot of unprocessed clutter for even an experienced race-driver to try and quickly tease out minor subtleties and useful differences, especially while sitting in a hot, noisy car getting ready for another run.

(Example, the McLaren pitwall track map is cars rotating in a circle, it abstracts away all the track geography and timing data, and is designed to do one thing, efficiently and easily describe the gaps to try to help make correct pit-stop calls)

They have been using that raw data-dump, "computer, spill your guts please" format of driver print-out for decades now, is it just because they haven't yet found anything better?

[wesley123]

It's rather long; but it's a good read. It's quite astonishing how much better one driver's lap was compared to the other.

Having said that; I wonder if most other teams can plot a similar telemetry waveform of drivers from other teams. Sure they don't have telemetry from them; but how about watching those selectable-driver on boards? Where you can choose who you go onboard with; then open 22 windows of all the different drivers, and doing some fancy frequency-matching etc to get a throttle/brake plot. Steering would be a bit more complicated to get a plot of, but I believe it would be possible too.

For the GP of Germany, just before qualifying I saw Hamilton viewing the fastest lap set until that moment. I am sure other drivers do the same thing, looking where they drive differently and where they think they can gain time. But use on braking points etc. I doubt they are even able to view that like we see them sometimes in the race.

[satlan]

I wouldn't read a lot into the lap times. The slower driver on this sheet was quicker in quali so that just shows that you shouldn't compare their speed/skills. But it was nice to finally see a "relatively" fresh telemetry sheet. Thanks a lot for that scarbs.

Next time I'm in the paddock I might do some dumpster diving myself to find a sheet from Q3

[raymondu999]

I take it then; you've worked out who the two are?