2009 season in pie charts

This article contains eight pie chart graphs of 2009 season, wins, poles, laps led, fastest laps...

Wins:

Fastest laps:

Pole positions:

Laps led:

Podiums:

Team wins:

Team laps led:

Engine wins:

What other alternatives are there to the safety car?

When for some reason it's too dangerous for the drivers to be racing at full speed, the safety car joins the track. It slows down the pace of the cars, which makes the race much safer. The drivers must follow the safety car until it goes back in the pits and the race continues.

But the safety car means one more thing that can go wrong in a race, as you can see in the video:

WTCC 2009 – Safety car crashes with Franz Engstler

There are some alternatives to the safety car. In case of the danger being on the pit straight, like in the German GP in 2008 when Timo Glock put it in the wall in the last corner, there are better things to do then to bring out the safety car – but unfortunately, the rules don't allow that. In Timo Glock's case they could just tell the drivers to drive through pits every lap, but continue racing normally on the other parts of the circuit. There would be a problem with pit stops, as drivers could do them without losing much time, but that can be fixed. At every pit stop a driver would have to stop for additional 15 seconds, and at that time noone would be allowed to touch the car.

Video of Glock's crash in low-quality:

The race leader instead of the safety car is the second alternative. That actually happens in the formation lap, where the driver on pole position leads the grid around the circuit to warm their tyres. The driver would simply drive around slowly, other drivers would follow him.

But at both alternatives, and the rules f1 is currently using, all the gaps between the drivers are lowered to around half a second, which can get a bit unfair sometimes. That's where my third idea comes in.

When the safety car period would be announced, the cars would automatically start using a system that would limit their speed. The speed would be lower around the circuit, and very low around the danger zone. In case of caution due to too much rain on the circuit, the speed would lower a lot around the whole circuit. The drivers would still be able to brake, and even accelerate in case when it's neccessery (a driver with much higher speed closing up).

The gaps would stay almost completely the same and there would be no need for safety car appearing on the track whatsoever.


Photo by GrandPrix.com

Laps per position

Let’s take a look at some statistics - which driver drove most laps in which position this year.

1. Jenson Button - 280 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel - 126 laps
3. Mark Webber - 95 laps
4. Felipe Massa - 91 laps
5. Nico Rosberg - 76 laps
6. Nico Rosberg - 102 laps
7. Fernando Alonso - 82 laps
8. Fernando Alonso - 59 laps
9. Nico Rosberg - 61 laps
10. Timo Glock - 81 laps
11. Timo Glock - 64 laps
12. Nick Heidfeld - 86 laps
13. Nelson Piquet - 68 laps
14. Giancarlo Fisichella - 88 laps
15. Adrian Sutil - 68 laps
16. Adrian Sutil - 82 laps
17. Adrian Sutil - 73 laps
18. Sebastien Buemi - 67 laps
19. Kazuki Nakajima - 29 laps
20. Nick Heidfeld - 39 laps

Home races

Sebastian Vettel : “I am always happy when I have won a race but, listening to the German anthem in Germany when you are a German, then it is definitely something very special.”

In 2007, not one driver won his home race. One year later, in 2008, Hamilton won at the rain race in Silverstone. Felipe Massa won in Interlagos as well, and it was rainy too. This year, so far nobody has won his home race yet - Button, Vettel and Webber are the only three race winners this year, and they all raced home already. Button won Webber’s home race, Webber won Vettel’s home race, and Vettel won Button’s home race.

The best result at home race this season was achieved by Sebastian Vettel, who was 2nd, behind his teammate Mark Webber.

(Fernando Alonso has two home races - Spanish GP in Barcelona and European GP in Valencia)

Results at home races so far this season:

2nd - Sebastian Vettel at the German GP in Nurburgring.
4th - Nico Rosberg at the German GP in Nurburgring.
5th - Fernando Alonso at the Spanish GP in Barcelona.
6th - Jenson Button at the British GP in Silverstone.
9th - Timo Glock at the German GP in Nurburgring.
10th - Nick Heidfeld at the German GP in Nurburgring.
12th - Mark Webber at the Australian GP in Melbourne.
15th - Adrian Sutil at the German GP in Nurburgring.
16th - Lewis Hamilton at the British GP in Silverstone.

Drivers that are going to race at home this year:

Fernando Alonso and Jaime Alguersuari at the European GP in Valencia (23th August 2009)
Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella at the Italian GP in Monza (13th September 2009)
Kazuki Nakajima at the Japanese GP in Suzuka (4th October 2009)
Felipe Massa, Nelson Piquet and Rubens Barrichello at the Brazilian GP in Interlagos (18th October 2009)

Drivers with no home races:

Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen - Finland
Sebastien Buemi - Switzerland
Robert Kubica - Poland
Sebastien Bourdais - France