The 6 Hours of Monza saw the return of Toyota to the top step of the podium, after a close contest by #50 Ferrari. A new name on the podium- Peugeot #93- a year after their debut race, and a new team operating Porsche 963 - #99 Proton competition- which retired from the race with technical problems. We take a deep dive into the data from the race, kindly provided by FIA WEC and Al Kamel Systems, to determine what were the factors that determined the finishing order of the Hypercar class. Meanwhile if you have missed the race you can admire it in its full length on WEC TV,  including onboard from all cars, and on WEC’s official youtube channel.

Figure 1 shows the overall development of the race for the Hypercar class. The plot is interactive allowing the reader to toggle the visibility of the individual cars by clicking on their entry in the legend or selecting only one car by double clicking on it. The top left panel shows the position in class. The bottom left panel shows the gap between the cars. Note that the absolute offset is arbitrary but the relative offset between the cars shows the real gap between them in seconds. Both panels share the X axis showing the race time in hours. Safety car (SC) and full-course yellow (FCY) periods (as found by an algorithm described here) are shown in yellow. The right panel shows the distributions of lap times for every car and the medians of the distributions with thin lines of the same color. Those distributions exclude the SC/FCY laps as well as the pit-in and pit-out ones. The lap times are expressed as a percentage of the fastest possible lap in the class over the entire weekend and only show laps within 107% of it. This fastest possible lap is the sum of the three fastest sectors from the entire weekend, which are S1 - 30.410 by #8 Toyota, S2 – 32.535 by #7 Toyota and S3 - 32.139 by #50 Ferrari (all achieved during the qualification), for a combined lap time of 1:35.084. For comparison, the fastest complete lap driven by any car during this event was the pole lap by #7 Toyota – 1:35.358. The 107% limit for the lap times included in the histograms on the right panel of Figure 1 is 1:41.740. This includes well over 98% of all race laps driven by most cars. Exceptions are cars #94 and #99 which were troubleshooting problems on track, thus having some very slow laps, and #4 Floyd Vanwall car for which around 40% of all race laps were slower than 107% of the fastest possible lap.

The median values of the histograms will be discussed in detail in the next section. The reader can compare the width of the histograms as those show how consistently teams are driving near the car’s limits.

Endurance racing is a complex sport with many factors affecting the final results. Here we concentrate on few of the most obvious ones.

Median race pace. This is the median lap time of all the laps done under green flag excluding the pit-in and pit-out laps. Median is the middle of the distribution, i.e. half the laps are slower than it and half are faster. This is preferred to the mean because it is less affected by outliers. It thus represents well the true race pace maintained by a given car. The distributions and their medians are shown in the bottom right panel of Figure 1. The first column of Figure 2 shows all the hypercars ordered according to their median race pace.

Total pit time. The total time spent in the pit is divided by the number of laps completed and added to the median race pace. The second column of Figure 2 shows the order of the cars according to this corrected race pace.

Safety car periods. Considered are any positions lost/gained during the last SC period, as it is more difficult to recover them. This is shown in the third column of Figure 2. The race saw three safety car periods, starting at laps 9, 70 and 139 (for the leader), and one, relatively short FCY period in the middle of the race.

Post-race penalties. The fourth column of Figure 2 shows any positions lost due to post-race penalties.

DISCUSSION

The top three finishers in the hypercar class at Monza (#7, #50, and #93) had trouble-free race executed with the optimal strategy of 6 pit stops. The finishing positions of only the first and the last of the hypercars were determined by their race pace alone- #7 Toyota and #4 Vanwall. The finishing position of #50 Ferrari was determined by their race pace and their pit strategy combined. The same applies to the following three cars: #93 Peugeot, #5 Porsche and #51 Ferrari, which in addition benefited from the #8 Toyota loosing a position during the last SC period and another two positions due to post-race penalty for overusing energy. Note that the first corner accident, which delegated #51 to the back of the pack, while preventing them from fighting with #7 and #50 for victory did not ultimately affect their race pace. Their finishing position was primarily determined by a poor strategy (8 stops) and bad luck with the second SC period when they had to stop twice.

During the last SC period #8 Toyota had to do a quick 35 seconds pit stop from fourth place and then another one, after the SC period, after which they found themselves in eight position, loosing all the ground they gained before the SC period- almost 40 seconds on the #93 Peugeot. Ultimately this determined their position at the finish line. Even with the penalties for their troubled start of the race #8 Toyota had enough pace and would have been on the podium.

The following pair- #6 Porsche and #708 Glickenhaus- ended up close in the order considering their race pace and total pit time combined. Note that #708 would have been second to last on race pace alone but classified at least two positions ahead by staying out of trouble and executing an optimal strategy. The Penske Porsche #6 spent in the pit almost two more minutes then the Glickenhaus. It also lost a position during the second SC period but it re-gained it again, at the expense of #708, during the last SC period.

While this comes close to explaining what determined the finishing positions of most cars, the last four cars are off by one position from where this analysis puts them.

The next pair- #38 Jota Porsche and #2 Cadillac had very similar races in every respect. Their lap time distributions are very similar with their medians only 0.01 seconds apart, in favor of #38. Both cars had problems during the race with #2 making 8 pit stops with a total time of 10:27.043 and #38 making 9 pit stops totaling 10:31.019 (including a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane). After 6 hours of racing #38 finished 13.984s ahead of #2. The Cadillac lost the position during their fifth pit stop which was their longest at 1:56.161. This happened just before the last SC period which could have helped them re-gain it but the slender pace advantage that the Jota car enjoyed ensured it remained ahead. Watch out for that pair in Fuji! They are at the fore front of the very close middle of the hypercar pack together with the Penske Porsches and the Peugeots.

The finishing order of the last two cars that completed the race is more difficult to explain. Because of technical problems #94 Peugeot should have finished behind the #4 Vanwall car. However it managed to overtake it on the last lap after #4 lost a lot of pace during the last five laps. This would not be reflected in their median pace which we show on Figures 1 and 2 but it can be seen in their trace in the bottom left panel of Figure 1.

The Proton Racing Porsche #99 was not classified so it is not considered in this analysis. Its trace is, however, shown on Figure 1. It is worth pointing out that on race pace alone they were behind the Penske Porsches by a margin three times that by which #38 is ahead of the Penske cars.

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