Speed Reader

When I was at high school, there was a serious divide between the kids who were good at maths, and the kids who were good at English.

The two weren't mutually exclusive. There was one guy in particular, Geoff, who was exceptional at both. Not only that, but he could also play the drums, drew excellent caricatures of his classmates, and he hardly had any pimples. He also had a girlfriend, which for most kids in our class was on a par with aspiring to owning a Lamborghini Countach. Pretty much all of us hated him. (Looking back, I can't fathom what we saw in the Countach, either).

Those of us who were stronger in English used to spend our free time hanging around odd corners of the school ground wearing black, talking about The Smiths, and feeling pleased with ourselves for getting an A-minus on some essay about Educating Rita.

The maths kids, meanwhile, saw lunchtimes as an opportunity to spend an entire hour in the computer study hall - doing what, I don't know - without fear of harassment from some philistine who couldn't find any use for an Apple IIe beyond playing 'Where in the world is Carmen Santiago'.

We - the English aces - were fairly certain that we had the upper hand because, you know, we liked The Smiths and stuff. The maths nerds would never understand morbid English pop, probably didn't watch The Young Ones, would certainly never have girlfriends, and by pretty much any conceivable measure would be left in out dust upon graduation.

Of course, we all know what happened. The maths guys went and got proper degrees, were infinitely more employable, and had taken delivery of brand-new BMW M3s at the age of 24 while the rest of us were writing half-baked honours thesis on post-modernism in Xena: Warrior Princess. (Don't laugh - someone in my tutorial group actually did that. I'm not saying what mine was about).

I don't know what sort of car Roger Smith drives, but as a high-level statistical analyst (he is Managing Director, Europe, at Nielsen TV Ratings) with a "life-long interest in F1", I am guessing that it is probably a fast one. And I am also guessing that he was a 'maths guy'.

What he has done in his new book 'Analysing F1' is exactly what it says on the box. He has taken his vast experience in - and obvious passion for - statistical analysis, and looked for every conceivable way that he can apply it to F1, partly, but not exclusively, in an effort to answer the question of 'who was the greatest driver ever?'

Straight away, there are thousands of F1 fans who will be getting all tingly at the very idea. Most sports lend themselves easily to statistical analysis, F1 included, and it's an approach that has a legion of devotees. The popularity of the statistical section of the F1 previews here in the Journal is a testament to that.

Just to be clear, this is a book of statistical analysis, as distinct from a book of statistics. So rather than page after page of rankings of most wins by drivers with blond hair, it is an attempt to put quantifiable information into graphs and charts to determine trends both among contemporaries and across eras. In this way, Smith believes that he can crack the old chestnut of how to compare drivers from different periods.

How well it works depends upon how much you like your motorsport to be distilled into graphs and pie charts. It's not my thing, I have to admit. Any chapter that begins along the lines of:

"These considerable variations between the commencement or cessation of winning during a drivers' career make it worth exploring a revised definition of strike rate, one which calculates wins as a percentage of those races between the first and the last win, eliminating lengthy winless periods at the beginning or end of a career." (p. 32) is going to struggle to hold my attention.

There were a couple of other things that I found tough to get my head around, although the fact that I am mathematically deficient could go some way towards offering an explanation.

For one thing, I didn't understand why one chart depicting wins across different constructors lumped Ligier and Prost together while other 'takeover teams' - Benetton and Renault, for example - were left as separate entities.

Also, the writing itself could have used some tightening up prior to the manuscript hitting the presses, if only to clear out the infestation of exclamation marks, ellipses and repetitions that stalk the pages.

But even for an avowed anti-stat person such as myself, there are the occasional flashes of interest throughout the book. The chart comparing the pole lap times at Monza over 58 years was kind of cool, of only as a neat graphic representation of how both the circuit and the cars have changed over that time.

On the whole though, that wasn't enough to keep my interest sparking, and I have to admit that I found this book a bit of a struggle to finish. That said, there is nothing wrong with the premise of 'Analysing F1', it's generally well-executed, and Smith should be commended for trying something different.

There is no shortage of stat junkies out there who are going to love this. If that's you, then your prayers have been answered.