Passing Thoughts: F1 Overtaking Analysis

If we look at the autosport.com 2007 Top Ten ranking of the best races, the first four places are taken by the four Grands Prix that counted the highest number of passes this year . No doubt, then, that the overtaking manoeuvre is still one of the parameters to measure the spectacle in Formula one.

Before starting with the analysis, however, we have to state some "rules" to identify a pass. These rules were set by Brian Lawrence, the first person in the internet age to post amateur statistics on the rec.autos.sport.f1 newsgroup.

Since there is no way to have a camera pointed at every car for the entire length of the race, we have to use other means to identify passes, especially if we go back in time, when TV coverage was far from what it is nowadays.

The only way to count passes is to analyse the race lap chart, highlight position changes, and then check if these position changes were affected by factors that are not proper passes - such as cars off track, mechanical problems, pitstops, and so on.

We also have to exclude the first lap, as it is not a flying lap and for a large part positions are gained at the start.

After we have taken out these "external" factors, we have a proper pass count, which can be extended back to 1983. Why 1983? Because it was the second year that Formula One used a computerised timing system. During the first year, 1982, this system was not 100% reliable, and often the problems emerged on the first two-three laps. When a glitch occurred, the laptimes of several laps were summed up, losing significant information for the pass count.

From 1983 onwards, however, the data is considered reliable, and thus we built a database of 9,502 passes recorded on track in Formula One in the last 25 years.

General trends

Formula One at the start of the 1990s traded passes for pitstops, period. The numbers and the chart highlight this dramatically.

Pitstop data is available from 1990, and the value did not vary significantly until pitstops for rubber became a common practice in 1993, when the value started to raise.

The following year, the FIA decided to reintroduce refuelling and the pitstop value rocketed at 467 pitstops, doubling the average value of the period 1990-1992.

In 1995, the situation got even worse, as three-stop strategies became more and more popular and this, coupled with a very wet GP season, boomed the pitstops value to 629 stops.

The number then diminished gradually, mainly because Bridgestone entered Formula One in 1997 with tyres that were designed to last, and single-stop strategies were almost compulsory to fight for the win.

The trend reversed when Michelin entered the show: the French tyre manufacturer had a different approach, compounds became softer and softer, and the regulations that forced drivers to take on the fuel for the first part of the race in qualifying proved a disaster as pitstops proliferated, reaching the absurd value of 864 in 2005.

Luckily the trend has halted, but nevertheless these days we have almost 700 pitstops per year on a 22-car field, whereas in the early 90s we had little more than 200 with a 26-car field.

While all this happened in the area of pitstops, the passes value dropped without hopes of recovering: before 1993 in Formula one there were more than 400 passes per year (more than 550 in the period 1983-1987) with a peak value of 666 in 1984.

In 1993 the value went slightly down, at 392, but dropped for good at 289 in 1994. From that year on, in 13 seasons, only in 2003 there were more than 300 passes (303), while in the other seasons the average is little more than 200 per year.

So, roughly speaking, before the introduction of refuelling, the passes/pitstops ratio was higher than 2:1; after that it dropped to 1:2.5, with 2005 being the worst, when there were 3.6 pitstops per overtake in a race.

Historical performances: 1983-2007

The Most passes per driver per race

Alain Prost, the "professor", often described as a super-calculator, is the driver that in the last 25 years recorded the highest number of passes in a single race, 22, in the 1984 South African GP, the second race of the season.

Prost was fifth on the grid but had to start from the pitlane. The McLaren MP4-2 he raced, however, was a good weapon in 1984 (Prost won the first race in Brazil) and the Frenchman was able to overtake 12 times in the first 12 laps, moving up to 12th (from 26th). He then gained six more places before stopping for fresh tyres.

At that time, the choice of making a pitstop for tyres was a gamble: a smooth driver was inclined to try to do the race distance on only one set, while another more aggressive could make a stop. That was the case for Prost, who came in on lap 33 and then overtook on track Nigel Mansell, Rene Arnoux, Michele Alboreto and Jacques Laffite, all of whom were on a no-stop strategy. The pass on Laffite was the last for Prost in that race, and with a 30-secon gap to teammate Niki Lauda, the Frenchman settled for second place.

Prost also had 16 passes in another event, the 1986 Italian Grand Prix. Once again he started the race from the pitlane, after jumping into the spare car. the Frenchman then stormed through the field, overtaking 16 cars in 20 laps, and moving up to fifth, before being disqualified for the aforementioned car substitution.

Another driver to record 16 passes in one race was Prost's arch-rival, Ayrton Senna. In the 1993 German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring, Senna tried to challenge Prost for the lead at the first chicane during the first lap, and spun off as a result, dropping in 26th place. the Brazilian quickly recovered, recording 12 passes in the first 11 laps, and then gained another four positions on track to score a fourth place.

The third driver to record 16 passes in one race was Eddie Irvine, who did so almost unnoticed in the 1999 French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours.

The race was full of drama: David Coulthard (McLaren) pulled away in the first stages and then retired; Rubens Barrichello lead in the Stewart-Ford; Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) stormed through the field, then spun, and then made up for lost places; Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) was the victim of gearbox problems; and Hein\ Harald Frentzen (Jordan) won with a mad strategy...

All the while, Irvine in a Ferrari had to recover from a lowly 18th position in the first laps and went through the field to finish sixth, behind his struggling teammate, Schumacher.

Highest number of times overtaken per race

* In the 2007 European Grand Prix, Markus Winkelhock found himself in the lead when the race was interrupted for the heavy rain. When the safety car pulled off at the rolling restart, he lost seven places on the first flying lap, another six places on the second, other two on the third, dropping to sixteenth, practically from first to last (behind him there was only Hamilton, lapped) in three laps.

The races with most number of passes

Well, it was easy to imagine what was the race with most passes of the last 25 years: Long Beach 1983, where McLaren duo John Watson and Niki Lauda finished 1-2 after starting 22nd and 23rd respectivelt.

In second place is the 1990 Mexican Grand Prix, a race won by Alain Prost from 13th in grid. The Frenchman overtook ten cars on track in a race without pitstops.

In third place, the first race of the 1983 season - the first one where the constructors had to field cars that didn't use the venturi-tunnel effect, banned at the end of 1982.

If we consider that down the list, in seventh place, there is another 1983 race counting 65 passes, we have three races in that season that totalled 212 passes - almost as many passes as we witnessed this year in total...

Another figure to consider is how the trend has changed during the years: the 2000 US GP is the only race of the 2000s to count more than 50 passes (52).

The cars least overtaken (at least 28 starts)

This is an interesting table, which shows the "invincible" cars of the last 25 years. In first place the McLaren MP4-20, undoubtedly the fastest car of 2005, whose main problem was not to be overtaken, but rather to last the race distance.

Takuma Sato overtakes Pedro de la Rosa during the 2005 Grand Prix of Bahrain © LAT

The only two passes made on the MP4-20 were recorded by BAR-Honda. In the first case it was Jenson Button overtaking Kimi Raikkonen for sixth place on lap 2 of the Malaysian Grand Prix. The second intance saw Takuma Sato overtaking Pedro de la Rosa for ninth place on lap 2 of the Bahrain GP.

In second place are three cars that won world championships: the Williams FW18, which recorded a 1-2 with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve in 1996; the Williams FW15C, untouchable in 1993 with Alain Prost and Damon Hill at the wheel; and the Ferrari F2007, which won the Championship this year.

The 2007 Numbers

2007 was not a bright year for passes, as the season total is 270, ranking 18th in the last 25 years.

The first three races of 2007 are, not surprisingly, the wet ones, sorted by the most wet, Japan, to the less wet, Europe.

The bottom of the table is really alarming, as in 2007 there were six races with less than ten passes per race. In comparison, between 1983 and 1985, the number of passes went below 20 per race in only two out of 46 races - the 1984 Monaco GP and the 1985 South African GP.

Passes per position

The distribution of passes is also disheartening, as in 2007 the passes for the first five positions in the race order were only 32 all year - and only 10 for the first three positions.

Overtaking balance per driver