The final part of the 2011 season qualifying analysis looks back at the performance of Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari. In the previous posts I’ve looked exclusively at Q1 performance as, in general, the teams have not consistently been able to set times in Q3 at every race. In this post rather than compare performance over the last two years I’ve taken a closer look at how each of the three top teams have got on both in the initial session and during the pole shoot-out.

I’ve taken a look at the qualifying performance of three of the teams occupying mid-field positions, Williams, Toro Rosso and Force India. Has their development rate kept pace with the front runners as Team Lotus seems to have done, or are they falling further behind?

With two seasons under their belts it’s time to take a look at the three newest teams on the grid and to see if they had made any progress towards catching up with the established teams, both in terms of within season gains and how they have compared year on year. It’s difficult to determine how well a team has performed over the full race distance with different strategies in play…

It’s been a while since I’ve done some statistical analysis so having been fascinated by a comment from Reboot in Viva’s forum I felt the need to investigate further. I couldn’t recollect any specific examples of traffic having held Hamilton up after a pitstop so it was off to the FIA’s timing data to see if there was anything obvious that had happened, however the initial look revealed that the pitstop times of the two drivers were very similar. So what had caused the discrepancy?

The final part of my look at the performance of this years’ new drivers sees Virgin’s Lucas di Grassi take on ex-Toyota driver Timo Glock. Lucas joined Virgin after four seasons in GP2. In 2009 he finished third for the second time in a row having had one win and eight podiums to his credit. His highest place finish over the four seasons had been in 2007 where ironically, he finished second behind his current team-mate Timo Glock.

Qualifying

The young Brazilian has struggled to keep up with his more experienced …

The fifth new driver under the performance spotlight is Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg. Affectionately known to his team as “The Hulk” this driver is just too nice to be compared to the large green comic book hero of the same name. Has Nico the potential to be a super hero or is he too mild mannered to succeed?

Hulkenberg, the 2009 GP2 champion joined Williams after a single season in the premier feeder series; with five wins under his belt he convincingly led the championship ahead of second placed Vitaly Petrov. At …