Legendary Formula One Circuits at A Glance
Which of Them Are The Fairest of All? And Who Are The Kings That Conquered Them?
If you have ever watched Formula One races, or even become a great fan of this sport, not only that you become interested or favour certain the drivers. The circuits are also fundamental and iconic to the races. Some fans may have been ready to mention the name of a circuit that grabbed their attention the most. But here, let’s discuss some circuits that have been popular, or even legendary, amongst the fans and the drivers who recorded their achievements here.
The data is taken from the dataset in Kaggle. This dataset contains complete data about all races spanning from 1950 until 2022. It contains the records and results of races and also includes quick information about the drivers and circuits, which enables us to combine the information for analysis.
Which Circuits Do We Consider as Legendary?
Defining something, or here a circuit, as legendary will vary on the people we ask. For this article, let’s define the circuits as legendary based on two factors:
- By the earliest year picked as a chosen circuit in an F1 season
- By number of times as selected circuits in F1 seasons
The reason why the earliest year is used as one definition of legendary is just typical. If you think about legendary, it must have been something that has existed for a long time. For the number of times as selected circuits, the more often it was picked, the more we can get more information/characteristics of the circuits.
Based on the dataset, Formula 1 Races have started in 1950. Let’s see which circuits were picked in 1950 too.
There were seven Formula 1 circuits in 1950. These circuits then become our initial candidates. How about the number of times being selected in Formula 1 seasons? For this, let’s select the 5 most picked circuits.
From these results, we can see four circuits belong to both lists. Here are the four circuits selected for further analysis:
- Silverstone Circuit, UK
- Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
- Circuit de Monaco, Monaco
- Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Italy
How Challenging Are These Circuits?
Race to the end of the race signaled by the checkerboard flag as early as possible is the aim of every driver. Nevertheless, it is no easy task to achieve that. Each circuit of course has different challenging parts inside it that every driver has to overcome. Now, one measurement to describe how challenging the circuit is by using the number of DNF drivers. DNF itself stands for do-not-finish, which means those who have to quit or stop in the middle of the races.
According to the chart above, we can see that the range of rate of DNF drivers was broader and higher before the 90s. For the first 40 years of the races, it was possible that at least 30% and up to 80% of the drivers did not finish the races in these four circuits. It is quite high!
After 1990, the trend of DNF drivers rate is decreasing, which means that more drivers were possible to gain scores because they could finish the races. The rate itself was in the range of 30%-70% in the 1990s and got much lower in the 2000s. In the 2000s, only 10%-35% of drivers couldn’t finish the races. Assuming there were twenty drivers for each race, it means that 2–7 drivers did not finish.
Then, for all these drivers, what caused them to quit in the middle of the races?
On the chart above, these are what caused the most unfinished races. The troubles in the engine are the main cause of most unfinished races in these four circuits, except in Monaco, where the most cause is accidents. The other car parts that also caused most unfinished races are the suspensions and the gearboxes. Monacan races have different characteristics of DNF causes, where besides the engine, collisions are the highest causes of DNFs.
Who Conquered These Circuits?
Are there any drivers who accomplished better than the others on these circuits? To answer this question, there are two ways to figure out these drivers: by most wins and most fastest laps.
For these four circuits, it is so fast to see that Michael Schumacher is in all of The Top Five Most Wins here. Lewis Hamilton followed behind, where he is in three of four Top Fives, except in Monaco. Hamilton himself scored an excellent record in his home country. In Silverstone, he has won eight times, while other drivers had won five times at most. Not only becoming the driver with the most wins, but Hamilton also is the driver with the most frequent fastest lap records in the same circuit.
In terms of the most fastest lap records, Hamilton is in three of four Top 3s. Nevertheless, the driver with the most excellent record here is Kimi Raikkonen, who is in all of the four Top 3s here.
