It was a pity that so much of the Daytona 24 hours this year was lost through caution and red flag periods, for it means that less data is available for analysis. But still there is enough to draw some conclusions, and I particularly wanted to look at the evidence regarding the performance of Fernando Alonso.
Alonso is news-worthy, no question about it. Whenever a Formula One World Champion shows up in another form of racing, it is going to pull in the crowds and invite microscopic analysis. What’s great with Fernando is that he seems to relish the challenge, much as fellow world champion Jenson Button does.
At Le Mans last year, just as at Indianapolis the year before, Fernando Alonso demonstrated that his talent behind the wheel is matched by his competitiveness and will to win. Don’t forget either that he has raced at Daytona before – in the 2018 Rolex 24 hours he drove a United Autosports LMP2 Ligier alongside Phil Hanson and Lando Norris. And it should be recorded that in 2018 the Spaniard was not (quite) as quick as young Norris, not in terms of best lap, average lap or even best stint.
And if one just looks at the drivers’ best laps from Daytona this year one finds the drivers of the Wayne Taylor Racing-run, Konica Minolta-sponsored Cadillac DPi as follows. (The list is in the order that they drove the car):
Does this suggest some over-hyping of Alonso? Possibly, but readers here should know that I don’t hold a lot of store by outright best lap times: rather I like to look at average lap times.
Again, in none of the columns above is Alonso the quickest driver in the car. However, there is an argument that says that since Jordan Taylor had more laps in the car, then he had more chances to improve his average lap. In order to get a fair comparison, you need to look – goes the argument – at the average of the best 20% of green-flag laps.
Now the numbers look like this.
All of which seems to suggest that Alonso, far from being the ‘star performer’, merely drove pretty much to the same pace (to within a tenth) as his team-mates. (The fact that Van Der Zande is slightly slower on all counts is perhaps a reflection of the accuracy – for once – of the FIA Driver Categorisation, which lists him as a Gold, the others are all Platinum).
Please don’t construe this as my criticising Alonso in any way, the point here is merely to analyse his performance in the car in relation to his team-mates and put some of the media hype into context.
The trouble with all this analysis of ‘fast laps’ is that it sometimes overlooks overall consistency. No good in being quick over 10, 25 or 50 laps and then losing time with spins or hesitancy in the traffic. To look at this, it is worth looking at lap times averaged over a full driving stint – thus taking into account tyre degradation, traffic management, etc. This table shows the best stint for each driver (ignoring in laps, out laps and those laps under caution).
All of a sudden, Alonso looks a bit more impressive, doesn’t he? After all, it is the stint time that is a true measure of the driver’s effectiveness, surely? Except that any advantage over the competition is ruled out every time there is a full course caution.
But talking of the competition, let’s look at where Alonso was compared to the drivers who were in other cars at the same time. Fernando had three runs at the wheel of the Konica-Minolta car. The first was from lap 62 to 155. Here’s a graph showing the gaps to his car during this phase:
The comparison cars are numbers 6 (Cameron, then Pagenaud in the Penske Acura), 31 (Curran, then Derani in the Whelan Cadillac), 55 (Pla, then Tincknell in one Joest Mazda), 77 (Rast, then Nunez in the other Mazda) and 85 (Goikhberg then De Francesco in the JDC-Miller Cadillac).
And a word of explanation, in case the “Gap Graph” is not clear: a line with an upward slope means that the ‘control’ car (the no. 10 Wayne Taylor Cadillac) is increasing its gap, a downward slope means a decreasing gap. Put simply, when Alonso was in the car, he was always quicker than his competition.
Alonso got in the car for the second time, just before 5am, as the rain was beginning to fall. Almost immediately, it was back to full course caution, and the green flag wasn’t given until the beginning of lap 485. At this point, the Konica-Minolta car led from the two Acuras – Dane Cameron in the #6 and Ricky Taylor in the #7 – with Eric Curran in the Whelan Cadillac the only other car on the lead lap. Admittedly, all three are only “Gold” drivers, but by the time the yellow flags came again after just 32 minutes racing (15 laps), Alonso had opened up a gap of nearly 50 seconds to Cameron and over a minute to Taylor(R).
And crucially, having followed the Whelan Cadillac for eight laps in the final green phase of the race, Fernando made the move for the lead of the race on track, just two laps before the caution flag was shown for the final time, having opened up a lead of 12 seconds over Felipe Nasr in two laps.
That’s impressive stuff.
Alonso is news-worthy, no question about it. Whenever a Formula One World Champion shows up in another form of racing, it is going to pull in the crowds and invite microscopic analysis. What’s great with Fernando is that he seems to relish the challenge, much as fellow world champion Jenson Button does.
At Le Mans last year, just as at Indianapolis the year before, Fernando Alonso demonstrated that his talent behind the wheel is matched by his competitiveness and will to win. Don’t forget either that he has raced at Daytona before – in the 2018 Rolex 24 hours he drove a United Autosports LMP2 Ligier alongside Phil Hanson and Lando Norris. And it should be recorded that in 2018 the Spaniard was not (quite) as quick as young Norris, not in terms of best lap, average lap or even best stint.
And if one just looks at the drivers’ best laps from Daytona this year one finds the drivers of the Wayne Taylor Racing-run, Konica Minolta-sponsored Cadillac DPi as follows. (The list is in the order that they drove the car):
| Driver | Laps Completed | Best Lap |
|---|---|---|
| Jordan Taylor | 219 | 1m 34.643s |
| Fernando Alonso | 177 | 1m 35.182s |
| Kamui Kobayashi | 86 | 1m 34.598s |
| Renger Van Der Zande | 111 | 1m 35.135s |
Does this suggest some over-hyping of Alonso? Possibly, but readers here should know that I don’t hold a lot of store by outright best lap times: rather I like to look at average lap times.
| Driver | Average of best 50 laps | Average of best 25 laps | Average of best 10 laps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Taylor | 1m 35.730s | 1m 35.450s | 1m 35.184s |
| Fernando Alonso | 1m 35.853s | 1m 35.547s | 1m 35.394s |
| Kamui Kobayashi | 1m 36.362s | 1m 35.720s | 1m 35.294s |
| Renger Van Der Zande | 1m 36.550s | 1m 36.156s | 1m 35.860s |
Again, in none of the columns above is Alonso the quickest driver in the car. However, there is an argument that says that since Jordan Taylor had more laps in the car, then he had more chances to improve his average lap. In order to get a fair comparison, you need to look – goes the argument – at the average of the best 20% of green-flag laps.
Now the numbers look like this.
| Driver | No. of green flag laps | Average of best 20% |
|---|---|---|
| Jordan Taylor | 180 | 1m 35.438s |
| Fernando Alonso | 126 | 1m 35.557s |
| Kamui Kobayashi | 76 | 1m 35.438s |
| Renger Van Der Zande | 102 | 1m 36.072s |
All of which seems to suggest that Alonso, far from being the ‘star performer’, merely drove pretty much to the same pace (to within a tenth) as his team-mates. (The fact that Van Der Zande is slightly slower on all counts is perhaps a reflection of the accuracy – for once – of the FIA Driver Categorisation, which lists him as a Gold, the others are all Platinum).
Please don’t construe this as my criticising Alonso in any way, the point here is merely to analyse his performance in the car in relation to his team-mates and put some of the media hype into context.
The trouble with all this analysis of ‘fast laps’ is that it sometimes overlooks overall consistency. No good in being quick over 10, 25 or 50 laps and then losing time with spins or hesitancy in the traffic. To look at this, it is worth looking at lap times averaged over a full driving stint – thus taking into account tyre degradation, traffic management, etc. This table shows the best stint for each driver (ignoring in laps, out laps and those laps under caution).
| Driver | Stint Length (green laps) | Stint time (time of day) | Average lap for stint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Taylor | 20 | 02:36 to 03:16 | 1m 36.293s |
| Fernando Alonso | 22 | 18:34 to 19:17 | 1m 35.871s |
| Kamui Kobayashi | 22 | 20:25 to 21:09 | 1m 36.834s |
| Renger Van Der Zande | 19 | 00:35 to 01:22 | 1m 36.728s |
All of a sudden, Alonso looks a bit more impressive, doesn’t he? After all, it is the stint time that is a true measure of the driver’s effectiveness, surely? Except that any advantage over the competition is ruled out every time there is a full course caution.
But talking of the competition, let’s look at where Alonso was compared to the drivers who were in other cars at the same time. Fernando had three runs at the wheel of the Konica-Minolta car. The first was from lap 62 to 155. Here’s a graph showing the gaps to his car during this phase:
The comparison cars are numbers 6 (Cameron, then Pagenaud in the Penske Acura), 31 (Curran, then Derani in the Whelan Cadillac), 55 (Pla, then Tincknell in one Joest Mazda), 77 (Rast, then Nunez in the other Mazda) and 85 (Goikhberg then De Francesco in the JDC-Miller Cadillac).
And a word of explanation, in case the “Gap Graph” is not clear: a line with an upward slope means that the ‘control’ car (the no. 10 Wayne Taylor Cadillac) is increasing its gap, a downward slope means a decreasing gap. Put simply, when Alonso was in the car, he was always quicker than his competition.
Alonso got in the car for the second time, just before 5am, as the rain was beginning to fall. Almost immediately, it was back to full course caution, and the green flag wasn’t given until the beginning of lap 485. At this point, the Konica-Minolta car led from the two Acuras – Dane Cameron in the #6 and Ricky Taylor in the #7 – with Eric Curran in the Whelan Cadillac the only other car on the lead lap. Admittedly, all three are only “Gold” drivers, but by the time the yellow flags came again after just 32 minutes racing (15 laps), Alonso had opened up a gap of nearly 50 seconds to Cameron and over a minute to Taylor(R).
And crucially, having followed the Whelan Cadillac for eight laps in the final green phase of the race, Fernando made the move for the lead of the race on track, just two laps before the caution flag was shown for the final time, having opened up a lead of 12 seconds over Felipe Nasr in two laps.
That’s impressive stuff.
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