1999 SuperStats
Post-German & Austrian GP Edition. Compilation by Rory Gordon, Australia

The Superstats is an on-going project that attempts to classify various performances throughout an F1 season by, generally, averaging each race's performance, in several categories, over the entire season. Conceived as the SuperGrid by the late John Taylor for Autocourse, I started my own compilations when Taylor died. Originally, the SuperStats - as the project was to become - was developed purely for my own interest. This has not changed, and the day I get bored with the SuperStats, they will stop. All figures used in the SuperStats are based on the official FIA timing sheets and, where necessary, those sheets are deemed to be the final authority. The SuperStats always tries every year to present new and interesting figures about F1... and each year it gets harder to find something new and interesting to present figures about. Already this year, there have been some figures on the comparative performances of the various nationalities driving in F1 - something which provoked some debate. In this edition, another new - and VERY interesting - set of figures: pit stops. Given two roughly equal cars and drivers, today's F1 races often seem to be resolved by the pit stops, to which there are two main contributing factors: the strategy and the speed. The strategy can not be quantified. Intuition, guile, and planning - among others - all play their role, sometimes on the spur of the moment. However, the speed of the stop can be quantified. The official pit times are not the same as those shown on TV. The official times are, it is believed, taken from the time the car enters the 80 kmph zone to when it leaves that zone (in\out times). So, the driver and the pit crew play their parts. It seems to be a commonly held belief that the current "masters" of stops are Michael Schumacher and the Ferrari crew. However, the figures that follow dispel that belief - to the compiler's initial disbelief. There is a rather large proviso attached to these figures: that is that they are taken over the season as a whole so far. There have been races when a driver has not made a stop for one reason or another. Indeed, there are now only two drivers (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and Eddie Irvine) who have made at least one stop at every race. SuperStoppers(?!) The figures in the table show for each driver, up to the German GP, the total number of pit stops he has made, the average stops he has made in each race, the total time he has been in the pits, and the average time taken for each of his pit stops (on which the table is sorted). Note that Mika Salo appears three times in this table: once each for his stints with BAR and Ferrari, and once for his overall times (denoted by "TOT" in the "Team" column). The second table shows the total number of stops by each team, the team's total pit time, and the average time for each of their stops (on which the table is sorted). Up to and including the German GP, there had been a total of 263 stops for a total of 2 hours, 20 minutes and 2.431 seconds (an average of 31.823 seconds for each stop). Driver Team Total Avg. Stops Total Pit Average Stops Per Race Time Time ------------- ---- ----- ---------- --------- -------- Frentzen JOR 11 1.100 4:59.410 0:27.219 Trulli PRO 12 1.714 5:31.467 0:27.622 Schumacher, R WIL 12 1.333 5:31.739 0:27.645 Salo BAR 3 1.500 1:23.104 0:27.701 Coulthard MCL 13 1.857 6:08.032 0:28.310 Fisichella BEN 13 1.444 6:14.825 0:28.833 Schumacher, M FER 11 1.833 5:17.962 0:28.906 Salo TOT 6 1.500 2:55.587 0:29.265 Zanardi WIL 10 1.429 4:55.947 0:29.595 Panis PRO 15 1.875 7:25.448 0:29.697 Irvine FER 15 1.500 7:26.435 0:29.762 De La Rosa ARR 10 1.667 4:58.250 0:29.825 Wurz BEN 11 1.375 5:31.259 0:30.114 Alesi SAU 15 1.875 7:32.273 0:30.152 Badoer MIN 15 1.875 7:40.856 0:30.724 Villeneuve BAR 5 1.250 2:34.099 0:30.820 Salo FER 3 1.500 1:32.483 0:30.828 Zonta BAR 10 2.000 5:12.356 0:31.236 Gene MIN 11 1.375 5:43.957 0:31.269 Hill JOR 8 1.600 4:15.405 0:31.926 Takagi ARR 11 1.571 6:10.806 0:33.710 Hakkinen MCL 13 1.444 7:21.155 0:33.935 Barrichello STE 16 1.778 9:51.537 0:36.971 Diniz SAU 10 1.667 7:13.255 0:43.326 Herbert STE 10 1.667 9:30.371 0:57.037 TEAMS Total Total Pit Average Stops Time Stop ------- ----- --------- -------- Williams 22 10:27.686 0:28.531 Prost 27 12:56.915 0:28.775 Jordan 19 9:14.815 0:29.201 Benetton 24 11:46.084 0:29.420 Ferrari 29 14:16.880 0:29.548 BAR 18 9:09.559 0:30.531 Minardi 26 13:24.813 0:30.954 McLaren 26 13:29.187 0:31.123 Arrows 21 11:09.056 0:31.860 Sauber 25 14:45.528 0:35.421 Stewart 26 19:21.908 0:44.689 The raw data are copyright © 1999 F?d?ration de l'Automobile (2 Chemin Blandonnet, 1215 Geneva 15, Switzerland). These compilations are copyright © 1999 Rory Gordon. Reproduction in any form of these compilations is forbidden without the express permission of the compiler. The data are subject to revision. The compiler will not be held responsible for any errors or omissions. For any comments, please contact the compiler. Rory Gordon Send comments to: gordon@atlasf1.com