FIM MotoGP 2011 season in (some) numbers

[Schummy]

I like to see how is going in each GP looking at several performances from riders, not only the "dry" race result.

So, me being a number freaky, I use a sort of "automatic" score system that tends to agree with my view about who is doing best and who is not; in fact I agree most of times, but not always, clearly the system is (too) simple and it is not perfect, but it helps.

It gives 25 points per race (in dry conditions) considering performances in race result (15 points), fastest race laps (7 points) and qualifying (3 points). Most of time race winner is also the highest scorer in this system (but not necessarily), but the spread of points behind him usually is very different from the official scoring.

Well, it's enough of nonsense, let's see (nonsensical) numbers:

          QUA JER POR FRA    TOT
STO  Hon  14*  2   4  12* =  32** Favorite
PED  Hon   5   3+ 12*  4  =  24*+ Contender
LOR  Yam   5   4*  7+  1  =  17*+ Contender
DOV  Hon   1   0   1   4  =   6   Something
ROS  Duc   0   2   0   2  =   4   Something
SIM (Hon)  0   1   1   2  =   4   Something
HAY  Duc   0   1   0   0  =   1   Something

Honda  66***+ 
Yamaha 17*+
Ducati  5

Asterisk signals race "winner" (in this system's view) and plus signals a notorious performance. "Contender" is a rider apparently able to fight for the title. "Notorious" is a rider with good perfromances but not exactly a title contender (in this case nobody falls in this category). "Something" means rider who did "something" worthy to speak of, but nothing particularly brilliant.

Every adjective formerly given refers strictly to the level of achievement of the pair rider-bike, so a stunning relative performance of, let's say, Barbera getting fifth with his satellite Ducati is not necessarily rewarded here.

Seeing those numbers, it looks clear that the season are dominated by three riders (aliens), particularly by the two leading Honda riders (although poor Dani is going to suffer from now on). My "Captain Obvious" forecast is Stoner is probably going to win this title except in two not so likely scenarios: (a) Pedrosa recovers well from his injuries, (b) Yamaha makes a quantum leap (forward!). Even in those scenarios, Stoner still could win the title.

The rest are simply non-existent in terms of title chances. They will fight for the 4th position in the championship (or third if Pedrosa is not there), with "they" I mean Dovi, Rossi and Simoncelli. Subjectively I think Simoncelli is the most able to do it (even allowing for more crashes), except if Ducati does a half decent bike. Dovi is very regular but I'm afraid that regular riders tends to lose against brilliant irregular ones.

I think Hayden appearance is a sort of fluke, I don't believe he will score regularly (except in particular races). The very obvious missing rider is Ben Spies. Literally he has not done anything yet. It is a comb between he not riding well and Yamaha bad form (Yamaha's current form is flattered by Lorenzo's talent). So he has to get closer to Lorenzo and, of course, he needs a better bike to fight against Dovi and Sim.

The domination of Honda is very apparent, with four drivers performing against just Lorenzo for Yamaha. It's right that Honda driver's talent are collectively a bit ahead of Yamaha's but the scoring difference is striking. By the way, as we know, Suzuki doesn't exist

The official scoring table tells a more kind story about all this because FIM scoring system is very generous with suboptimal (i.e. bad) performances. Even if you stop to take a mid race cup of coffee you still get points. Or if you inherits a faraway 4th position because of race incidents you get half a win in terms of points. It is exciting to get a close fight for the championship but it is not very indicative of form.

[Dani Filth]

why did lorenzo only got 4 points for Jerez?

[Schummy]

In wet races/sessions I weight it as 50% of a dry one. The reason is wet wins (no pun intended) are less useful as predictor of future wins; wet track brings more "unexpected" crashes, random setup in the particular conditions, etc. In short, wet racing is more exciting but more random.

In particular, in Jerez, with wet race and dry qualifyings, just 13 points were awarded instead of the normal amount of 25. Moreover, nobody was particularly dominant there, so Lorenzo (and the others) got relatively few credit for his win.