Q1 Top15 = Q2 Top15, Q2 Top10 = Q3 Top10. Ever happened?

[zac510]

I was just wondering whether it has ever happened that the order of drivers is completely unchanged through Q1 to Q3.

For example the top10 would be identical in order for all qualifyings.

Thank you to the data scientists who may be able to work this out

[rscsr]

I was just wondering whether it has ever happened that the order of drivers is completely unchanged through Q1 to Q3.

For example the top10 would be identical in order for all qualifyings.

Thank you to the data scientists who may be able to work this out

The ergast API would be very helpful.
You can use the GUI, or you can just change the url http://ergast.com/api/f1/2019/8/qualifying to get the results. Then you would just compare if the Q1 or Q2 results are in order because the results are in Q3 order.

[zac510]

Thanks - I will have to use the API because the Qualifying results are not broken down into sub-results. No way I'm clicking through 14 seasons of knockout quailfying results

[zac510]

Wrote up a quick and nasty python script to check this.
Looking at 2006-2019, skipping 2015 USA and 2016 AUS, accounting for seasons when there were 22 and 24 entries, etc.

In these 266 races, as far as I can tell, it has never happened that the order of the top 15 and top10 stays the same throughout all qualifying.

The closest I have found is the 2015 Hungarian qualifying, the top10 order of Q2 was exactly the same as that of Q3.

It does, however, happen very often that the drivers are the same but their final order in each part of qualifying is different. That happened 15 times in 2019 alone.

[raymondu999]

It does, however, happen very often that the drivers are the same but their final order in each part of qualifying is different. That happened 15 times in 2019 alone.

I don’t understand this. Doesn’t being top 10 in q2 by definition mean you are the top (only) 10 in q3 already anyway?

[zac510]

It does, however, happen very often that the drivers are the same but their final order in each part of qualifying is different. That happened 15 times in 2019 alone.

I don’t understand this. Doesn’t being top 10 in q2 by definition mean you are the top (only) 10 in q3 already anyway?

Yes you're right, but a driver can be in P12 in Q1 and in P9 in Q2 and then P3 in Q3.
But 15 times in 2019, the exact same cars in Q1 top 10 were the same top 10 cars in Q2. This suggests that general form from Q1 trends through to Q3, most of the time. Eliminations probably come from other reasons like mechanical and strategical error.

[raymondu999]

But 15 times in 2019, the exact same cars in Q1 top 10 were the same top 10 cars in Q2. This suggests that general form from Q1 trends through to Q3, most of the time. Eliminations probably come from other reasons like mechanical and strategical error.

So to understand you better...

Q2 top 10 = Q3 top 10 (obviously a given)
but you're saying the "15 times" thing is that...
Q1 top 10 = Q3?

[zac510]

but you're saying the "15 times" thing is that...
Q1 top 10 = Q3?

Yes, the same drivers, but not in the same order.

I must add that it was definitely not an exhaustive statistical analysis of Qualifying

[Mandrake]

I think track improvements are too strong on most tracks. Often we see midfield teams improve their times massively by going out late in Q1 and sometimes being ahead of top teams.

Top teams only ever go for it when it matters. The difference between teams is still way too big to make Q1 matter for a Merc, Ferrari or RedBull