Data Analysis Challenge at Racecar Engineering Databytes

Here's a quickie post pulling together a few bits and pieces around motorsport telemetry. To set the scene, here's a video comparing elements of Schumacher's and Barrichello's telemetry from a lap of Silverstone in 2003...




(Here's another video in the same style from Montreal...)

What I actually wanted to post about, though, was this challenge I picked up in this month's Racecar Engineering magazine (something I read each month in the print form, but don't understand at all!) that may be of interest to motor racing data junkies. It involves trying to work out why a car "was struggling with a lack of straight line speed and was notably down on other competitors in the speed traps" based on a series of data traces.

Rather than pinch the graphic and repost it here, I suggest you pop over to the Racecar Engineering Databytes site (beware: the site is appallingly designed!), and see if you can work out an answer to the challenge...: Racecar Engineering Databytes: Top Speed

Once you've dome that, why not check out the ScarbsF1 piece on Telemetry and Data Analysis Introduction and then have a peek at some of the Mclaren telemetry data traces (such as the data from Silverstone in 2010), and post a little commentary about what you think you can see in that data? ;-)