Driving stints in Texas

During the 6 hours of Circuit of the Americas, a message came up on the timing screens to tell teams that the driving time regulations would still apply, despite the fact that the race had been suspended for 49 minutes, and drivers had been allowed out of their cars during the stoppage.

It got me thinking a little bit, so I have worked out the number of laps driven and the time in the car, for each driver in the LMP1 category. For the purposes of this table I have included the time spent by drivers in the pits, so that the sum of the times for each car adds up to six hours, and the sum of the laps completed adds up to the number of laps completed by each car in the race (unless I have made a mistake).

No.	Driver	No. of laps	Percent	Time	Percent
1	Loïc Duval	48	31%	1h 32m 16s	26%
	Tom Kristensen	52	33%	2h 40m 38s	44%
	Lucas di Grassi	57	36%	1h 49m 51s	30%
2	André Lotterer	49	31%	1h 34m 38s	26%
	Benoît Tréluyer	42	27%	2h 19m 41s	39%
	Marcel Fässler	66	42%	2h 07m 33s	35%
7	Alex Wurz	78	50%	2h 29m 40s	41%
	Mike Conway	47	30%	2h 32m 14s	42%
	Stéphane Sarrazin	30	20%	1h 00m 17s	17%
8	Sébastien Buemi	69	44%	2h 10m 58s	36%
	Nicolas Lapierre	58	37%	2h 53m 50s	48%
	Anthony Davidson	30	19%	0h 58m 08s	16%
9	Christophe Bouchut	53	37%	2h 50m 14s	47%
	Lucas Auer	33	24%	1h 16m 21s	21%
	James Rossiter	54	39%	1h 56m 06s	32%
12	Mathias Beche	67	45%	2h 16m 59s	38%
	Nicolas Prost	24	16%	0h 49m 36s	14%
	Nick Heidfeld	58	39%	2h 55m 33s	48%
13	Fabio Leimer	37	42%	1h 21m 39s	33%
	Dominik Kraihamer	22	25%	0h 44m 24s	18%
	Andrea Belicchi	29	33%	1h 58m 53s	49%
14	Romain Dumas	28	18%	0h 53m 01s	14%
	Neel Jani	75	48%	3h 24m 47s	57%
	Marc Lieb	53	34%	1h 44m 09s	29%
20	Mark Webber	46	30%	1h 28m 18s	24%
	Timo Bernhard	59	38%	2h 56m 18s	49%
	Brendon Hartley	50	32%	1h 37m 25s	27%

I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions from all this, but feel that one or two of my own conclusions might also be appropriate. Firstly, it is noticeable that Toyota seems to favour one driver in each car over the others. Both Buemi and Wurz drove the TS040 twice during the race; at the start and again at the finish. Audi cycled their drivers through one driving shift each and Porsche split their strategy, giving Dumas, Jani and Lieb one stint each in the no. 14 but allowing Webber two stints (at the start and at the end) in the no. 20.

Surely minimising the number of driver changes must be the best strategy? Although tyre usage plays a role in when to change drivers.

It is also interesting - or perhaps fun would be a better word, for it is hardly an illuminating statistic - to see who actually achieved the fastest average speed for his stint. Probably by virtue of it being the shortest, that honour goes to Romain Dumas at 174.7km/h. Benoît Tréluyer, in the winning Audi, actually set the second slowest stint of all, completing his 42 laps at an average speed of just under 100km/h, but at least he kept it on the track.

And even though Neel Jani was at the wheel for longer than anyone else, it was Alexander Wurz who actually drove more laps than anyone else in the class, with a total of 78.

If anyone wants the same information for the P2 class or GT cars, then you'll have to bribe me: send whisky or leave a begging message below!