Thursday, November 9, 2023

2023 By the Numbers - BoP

 

Ahh yes those three hated words. The necessary evil to prevent a single manufacturer from spending large sums of money to create the perfect race car that then everyone goes and buys to win. Variety is the spice of life, and BoP keeps the diversity alive.

 

So I don’t hate the words; I appreciate them. That doesn’t mean the Balance of Performance is always fair, but the sheer fact that it exists for a bigger purpose means over the course of a year it does more good than harm.

 

In the 2023 season, we experienced more laps not running at full speed in the last decade. 356 laps of IMSA races were spent behind the Safety Car. That’s up from last year’s record setting 329 by a considerable amount. The least, for comparison, was 190 laps in 2020. But the numbers we examine don’t take this into effect. It’s just something I found interesting.

 

Ok, so, how are we to calculate the season long Balance of Performance for the GT3 spec cars? What is a good indicator? Well, I look at the Fastest Lap from each manufacturer, the best result for each manufacturer, and the fastest lap from each driver in each car in a race. I also assess how far off pace each driver was in each race, and compare that not only to the other people they were up against but to the others driving for the same make. Since all of the cars in GTD Pro and GTD are run to the same specs, sometimes the Fastest Lap came from GTD and sometimes it was GTD Pro. Thus, I compared each driver’s position to the Fastest Lap Overall and in their class. The Time off Pace is only to the Fast Lap time. Again, because all the cars are the same, I then sorted each driver with their respective manufacturers and compared them to their peers. It gave a really clear picture race on race as to who had speed, who lacked it, and who maybe just didn’t have a strong enough driver line up to give a realistic purview. For example, most weeks there were only two drivers representing Corvette and two drivers representing McLaren. Corvette had two Platinum factory drivers who are both multi-time champions and hold the record for most podium finishes. McLaren has two drivers who, as mentioned in a previous article, are very impressive but are both still looking for their first poles and race wins. It’s not exactly fair to compare their pace average. Or Porsche, for example, which had more cars than any week in and week out, yet had only one car with two pro drivers, and more Bronze drivers competing than any else. That dropped their average significantly, yet they had more Fastest Laps Overall than anyone else with 3 across the year.

Enough preamble: let’s dive into the numbers.

 

Acura – 2 Fast Laps (OA Long Beach, GTD PLM), 0 wins, 0 podiums, 1 pole.

Avg FL – 7.45 (Best),  Cumulative Avg. FL – 7.45 (4th)  

Avg. Finish – 9.73 (Worst),   Cumulative Avg. Finish – 9.73 (Worst)

Avg. Time off Pace – 8th, 1.459 sec

Avg. Place in Class – 8th, 21.72.   Avg. Place Overall –  8th, 32.77

Strictly speaking, Acura did the least with the most. They did not have a car run in the Pro class to skew the numbers in a positive manner at all. They were consistently quick, with two Fastest Laps coming at Petit Le Mans courtesy of Marcelli and Long Beach from Legge. They were never in contention for a class win, however. A podium was hopeful at Daytona but a power steering issue in the dying moments removed them from trophy positions. Gradient was the only full season entry for the manufacturer, and while they were out performed speed-wise by Racers Edge in almost every race the latter ran, they finished better in every round except Petit. Looking at the numbers, Acura had raw speed, but they never had the performance to put it all together. Comparing them to the other makes, Acura was never in the top half for Time Off Pace. Their best performances were Daytona and Long Beach, where they were 6th for Time Off Pace, and 8 times they were the slowest or next to slowest. Acura has won Petit Le Mans and the Sahlen’s 6 Hours of the Glen. They’ve won Drivers, Teams, and Manufacturers championships. The car can do one fast lap. But this year, it was outclassed.

 

Aston Martin – 4 Fast Laps (OA Laguna Seca, GTD Pro Lime Rock & Road America, GTD Daytona), 4 wins (OA GTD Daytona, GTD Pro Lime Rock & Road America, GTD Lime Rock), 6 podiums, 5 poles (Sorensen Long Beach, De Angelis CTMP, Gunn Lime Rock, Riberas Road America, James Petit Le Mans).

               Avg. FL – 7.55 (2nd GTD), 3.82 (1st GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. – 5.69 (2nd)

               Avg. Finish – 5 (2nd GTD), 4.3 (5th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. – 4.65 (3rd)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 4th, 1.082 sec

               Avg. Place in Class – 4th, 14.16.   Avg. Place Overall – 4th, 23.90

In all of the Aston Martin race victories, they were the fastest car. But they didn’t win every race in which they were the fastest, due to an error from the pit stand at Laguna Seca. If the Paul Miller BMW hadn’t been so dominant in GTD, Roman De Angelis would’ve had a second consecutive Driver’s Championship with a gap in points back to the 96 Turner BMW almost equally as dominant as Sellers and Snow had over him. Only once all year (at Watkins Glen) was the 27 not the fastest Aston Martin in the GTD class. They were beaten by Magnus twice to the checkered flag, however. In Pro, the 23 was by far the fastest car all year. 7 out of the 11 races saw either Ross Gunn or Alex Riberas set a lap amongst the top 3 fastest drivers of the class. But their average finish of 4.3 was the worst of the full season runners. On paper, Aston Martin had one of the most favorable BoPs of the season. VIR and Indianapolis were their low points, so we will need to watch closely as to what changes are made to the BoP for next year to help them competitively at those two tracks.

 

BMW – 1 Fast Lap (GTD VIR), 5 wins (GTD Sebring, Long Beach, CTMP, Road America, VIR), 10 podiums, 3 poles (Snow Road America & VIR GTD, Indy OA).

               Avg. FL – 9.18 (3rd GTD), 17 (Last GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. -  13.09 (8th)

               Avg. Finish – 2.36 (Best GTD), 7.7 (Worst GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. – 5.03 (4th)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 6th, 1.234 sec

               Avg. Place in Class – 5th, 18.08.   Avg. Place Overall – 6th, 30.68

BMW did the most with the least. In the 5 victories for Paul Miller Racing, not once were they the fastest car. Their best race win pace wise was VIR, where the manufacturer was 3rd in terms of Time off Pace, Place in Class, and Place Overall. Yes, Foley set the fastest lap of the class, but he wasn’t in the winning car! BMW was the ONLY manufacturer this year to not register a Fast Lap Overall. If the average finishes from the GTD Pro car were removed, BMW would’ve had the best cumulative finish in the class over Corvette, remarkable considering the 2.36 average finish was in a class frequently with more than triple the number of cars that ran in GTD Pro, allowing Corvette to finish with an average of 3.4. It was only at Watkins Glen, VIR, and Petit Le Mans where BMW featured in the top half of manufacturers for Time Off Pace, and even then they didn’t break into the top 2. All year they were consistently mid-pack in terms of pace. And yet BMW walked away with the manufacturer’s championship for GTD a race early. Next year they’ll have competitive cars in both versions of GTD for the full season. For 2023, the results outperform the BoP for BMW, and ultimately that’s what every manufacturer strives to achieve.

 

Chevrolet – 1 Fast Lap (CTMP OA), 2 wins (CTMP & VIR OA), 6 podiums, 1 pole (Garcia Sebring).

               Avg. FL – 5.09 (Best)

Avg. Finish – 3.4 (Best)

Avg. Time off Pace – 0.707, Best

Avg. Place in Class – 1st, 7.17.   Avg. Place Overall –  1st, 15.61

First off, we need to remember that Corvette only had one car this year, and in that car were always factory Platinum rated drivers. Drivers who have won championships, every major sports car race, the elite. So their numbers weren’t skewed by any weak links. Only once all year was Corvette not in the top 3 for Time off Pace, and that was at Petit Le Mans when they had a relatively early DNF. 8 out of 11 races they were the pace setter in terms of Time off Pace from their cumulative drivers. Yet they only set the Fast Lap at CTMP and had the third best average of the GTD Pro class, outperformed by Aston Martin and Mercedes. By the numbers, Corvette should’ve done better.

 

Ferrari – 1 Fast Lap (WG OA), 2 podiums, 1 pole (Serra Watkins Glen).

               Avg. FL – 22.25 (Worst GTD), 7.25 (5th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 14.75 (Worst)

               Avg. Finish – 9.25 (8th GTD), 5.3 (6th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 7.28 (8th)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 1.781, Worst

               Avg. Place in Class – Worst, 31.95.  Avg. Place Overall – Worst, 53.18

If you look only at the last two lines, you’d think Ferrari were massive failures. But it’s actually the opposite; they were the best manufacturer performance and results wise of the endurance only runners in GTD Pro. Ferrari beat Lamborghini and BMW soundly in finishes and fast laps, earning podium finishes as well at Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans. No other interloper to the full season runners left with a trophy. It is undeniable that with the new car, the pace wasn’t there for Ferrari. Daniel Serra was always the fastest driver for the make in Pro, including the Fast Lap at Watkins Glen, but the growing pains of the car at Daytona (its debut, let’s not forget) and Sebring hurt it’s season average badly. In GTD, there was speed in the car at Watkins for Alessio Rovera, but not even Antonio Fuoco could break into the top 10 at Petit. The Ferraris, with the sole exception of Risi, always had a weak link driver, so that did skew the numbers down. However, the car ran in it’s best scheme at Watkins Glen, so let’s see how close to that BoP it is when we get to January.

 

Lamborghini – 2 Fast Laps (PLM OA, WG GTD), 1 win (PLM), 2 podiums, 1 pole (Spinelli WG).

               Avg. FL – 11.09 (6th GTD), 8.5 (7th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 9.8 (7th)

               Avg. Finish – 7.27 (5th GTD), 6.5 (7th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 6.89 (7th)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 1.211, 5th

               Avg. Place in Class – 6th, 19.57. Avg. Place Overall – 5th, 30.67

To me, Lamborghini feels a bit like Acura. It’s a manufacturer that’s won the GTD championship before. They’ve won major races (Daytona, Sebring, Petit), and yet there’s just something missing. This year, Petit was their race to win. They, and Mercedes but we’ll get to them later, had the best BoP. They were also super strong at Indy, Road America, Lime Rock, and Watkins. Let’s look at Petit for example. There were 9 drivers for Lamborghini, and 5 of them were faster than the best driver from the championship winning Lexus. This year it was largely Forte Racing representing Lamborghini alone, and they got a win in their first season of GTD. But looking strictly at the numbers, they should’ve had stronger races at Watkins, Lime Rock, and Road America. That they didn’t make a podium appearance until the penultimate race of the season tells the tale of how Lamborghini was a bit disappointing in 2023. Coming off a major win, they should have no excuses for lack of results in 2024.

 

Lexus – 1 Fast Lap (VIR OA), 3 wins (Long Beach and Watkins Glen Overall, Watkins Glen GTD), 11 podiums, 4 poles (Hawksworth Long Beach, CTMP, VIR, PLM).

               Avg. FL – 12.36 (7th GTD), 6.27 (4th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 9.32 (6th)

               Avg. Finish – 7.82 (6th GTD), 2.7 (Best GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 5.26 (6th)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 0.944, 2nd

               Avg. Place in Class – 2nd, 12.35. Avg. Place Overall – 2nd, 22.18

After 8 years of running in the GT3 spec class, Lexus finally won their manufacturer’s championship! They also got the win at the Sahlen’s 6 Hours of the Glen, meaning they’ve now won 2 of the 4 major endurance races. Lexus is a two car team, a two car effort, with only one true am driver, so these numbers are very interesting to me. Laguna Seca and Road America were the only two races where Lexus wasn’t in the top half of manufactures for BoP. In both the Pro and the Am car, all 3 drivers (endurance included) took turns being the fastest driver of the car. Both cars struggled at Road America, Daytona, and Sebring with mechanical issues and crashes taking both cars out at Petit. But did they capitalize when they had the stars align? Oh yes, yes they did. Telitz was untouchable in the final stint at the Glen, running away from his sister car even. They swept the classes that race. Their other victory, Long Beach, was a pole to flag win for the 14, with Telitz, Barnicoat and Hawksworth all within .26 of the Fastest lap set by Legge. Those three made up half of the top 6 fastest drivers in the race. So should they have won more races? By the numbers, no. They should’ve been more competitive at VIR, where they were faster than the GTD winning BMW but not faster than the race winning Corvette. We don’t have accurate reads on Petit, due to reasons mentioned above, and also Laguna Seca, where Telitz was out early in his stint. Per the numbers, Lexus won the GTD Pro championship through consistency and a lack thereof shown by the competition.

 

McLaren – 2 Fast Laps (Road America OA, CTMP GTD), 0 wins, 3 podiums, 0 poles.

Avg FL – 14.27 (8th),  Cumulative Avg. FL – 14.27 (9th)  

Avg. Finish – 8.36 (7th),   Cumulative Avg. Finish – 8.36 (9th)

Avg. Time off Pace – 7th, 1.307

Avg. Place in Class – 7th, 21.22.   Avg. Place Overall –  7th, 32.46

McLaren, as noted above, is the anti-Corvette. With only one pro driver in the car, this manufacturer has the most skewed numbers. The DNF at Petit, when only the Bronze had driven the car, massively threw off the numbers for the year as well. That said, Iribe was the strongest Bronze of the season, and McLaren did impress speed-wise in many, many races in 2023. The averages are thrown off terribly by Sebring (FL only 26th), Watkins (damage in Iribe’s stint early on led to only 28th), Lime Rock (Schandorff started on used tires and Iribe crashed early, best 20th), Indy (damage early in Schandorff’s stint after contact with the 12 Lexus, best only 12th) and of course the DNF at Petit (best Iribe 44th). Take those performances out and all of a sudden their average Fast Lap goes to 4.5, which would be third best of the year and ahead of the Corvette! Misfortune was the name of the game for McLaren. Schandorff was either fastest or second fastest at Long Beach, CTMP, and Road America, and he was the third quickest driver at VIR. All those races, by the way, were won by the Paul Miller BMW, where Schandorff was quicker than either of the winning drivers. The BoP, therefore, was in the McLaren’s favor. It’s just luck that wasn’t.

 

Mercedes-AMG – 4 Fast Laps (Daytona & Sebring OA, Sebring GTD Pro, Indy GTD), 5 wins (Daytona & Laguna Seca GTD Pro, Indy & Petit OA, Indy GTD), 10 podiums, 3 poles (Engel Daytona, Ellis Daytona, Skeen Lime Rock).

Avg. FL – 9.55 (4th GTD), 4.45 (2nd GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 7.00 (3rd)

               Avg. Finish – 7.09 (4th GTD), 3.1 (2nd GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 5.10 (5th)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 1.059, 3rd

               Avg. Place in Class – 3rd, 13.74. Avg. Place Overall – 3rd, 22.89

Mercedes capitalized in GTD Pro. They won when fastest at Daytona and Petit when they were 2nd fastest, just barely off the Lambo but still miles ahead of everyone else. They also capitalized on other’s misfortunes. They were the second slowest at Indy, when they got the double victory (but Ellis was the fastest in GTD so we can’t read too much into the lack of speed from the pro car). As a matter of fact, if you remove the weakest driver from the entire race who happened to be in a Mercedes, the performance from the make goes to the second strongest. They very much felt like they benefited from all others’ misfortune at Laguna Seca when that victory appeared. By the numbers, they should’ve won Sebring too, but the cautions at the end of that race opened it up to strategy playing a wonderful and surprising role. They were fast enough at CTMP but had the contact with the Aston Martin. Ultimately, the GTD Pro Mercedes did all it could with all it was given! Their worst races were Long Beach, Watkins Glen and Lime Rock performance wise, yet they also finished last at Road America and VIR. Could they have beaten the 14 Lexus? Possibly. But could they have done more with what they had? Unlikely.

GTD is a different story.  Luca Stolz was the second fastest driver in GTD at Daytona. Grenier had the Fast Lap at Sebring while Ellis had it at Indy. Yet the manufacturer had as many podiums in GTD as it had wins in GTD Pro. They should have won Daytona, Sebring, and been a more serious threat to the Lamborghini at Petit.

Looking at the picture overall, Mercedes was in the top 3 of Time off Pace 3 times all year, but it in the bottom 3 five times. In almost every race, all Mercedes drivers were separated by at most a second and a half. That’s excellent, considering the strength of the pros. Mercedes overdelivered in GTD Pro but left a lot on the table in GTD. I’m expecting more trophies in 2024.

 

Porsche – 4 Fast Laps (Lime Rock and Indy OA, Long Beach GTD Pro, Laguna Seca GTD), 2 wins (Sebring & Laguna Seca OA), 14 podiums, 3 poles (Bachler Laguna Seca OA, Indy GTD Pro, Udell Laguna Seca).

Avg. FL – 10.73 (5th GTD), 7.73 (6th GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 9.23 (5th)

               Avg. Finish – 5.36 (3rd GTD), 3.2 (3rd GTD Pro), Cumulative Avg. 4.28 (2nd)

               Avg. Time off Pace – 1.664, 9th

               Avg. Place in Class – 9th, 23.49. Avg. Place Overall –9th, 36.91

Oh Porsche. Bottom of the chart for Time off Pace at Daytona, Long Beach, Watkins Glen, CTMP, Road America, and VIR. They got the help they wanted for Laguna Seca and seriously capitalized, getting both pole positions, winning the race in GTD while claiming the Fast Lap with the car that finished in 3rd. More podiums earned than any other manufacturer, but it also needs to be said more cars entered week in and week out. Every car took a turn as the fastest of the race and best finishing. That’s the good, but we also need to look at the not so good. Taking the Pro car, they finished 6th in terms of Fast Lap average in a class with 5 cars. Their average finish was good enough for 3rd, yet they finished 4th in the championship. They were the only full season manufacturer in GTD Pro to win just once. That win came in a race where they were 5th on Time off Pace, so you can’t credit the strength of the car for the victory. That honor goes to strategy and the team. The win at Laguna for the KellyMoss Porsche does go to pace. They were the 2nd fastest car in average Time off Pace, and 1st for Overall. At Lime Rock the Porsches were fast, but suffered a strange mechanical issue with the right front bodywork that reared its head on most of the cars. Indy also saw a lot of speed from Porsche, at least the Pfaff car, but a penalty for improper start procedure effectively took them out of the running off the bat. At Long Beach, Pilet was flying, but it wasn’t enough to catch either the Lexus or Corvette ahead. Ultimately, Porsche had more bullets in the gun this year than anyone, so they should’ve gotten the most podiums. But they also had more weak drivers, with each of the GTD cars running a Bronze for the majority of the races. Of their podiums, 9 of them were earned when there wasn’t a Bronze as part of the driving line up. Could Porsche have done better? Well, their worst finishes in GTD were Daytona (no), Long Beach (no), CTMP (arguably, Hindman was the 7th quickest driver), and Road America (yes, Priaulx was P2). They were 1st or 2nd speed-wise in GTD at Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen, CTMP, and Indy, yet only had the Laguna win. Porsche is always well represented in IMSA, and if they have as many teams wearing the Stuttgart crest in 2024 they should get a lot more than just the one victory.

 

 

After writing all this, I got a bit curious. What would everything look like if you take the numbers from simply the fastest driver from each car from each race? This does change the results!

Aston Martin is strongest across the board. Average FL Overall is 6, Place in Class 3.36, and Time off Pace 4.08. Mercedes is second across the board, but Corvette drops to third. Lexus is fourth, and Porsche vaults all the way up to 5th! BMW, GTD champions let’s not forget, are the third slowest car on pace, and next to last for Overall and Place in Class. McLaren still registers last due to Watkins, Lime Rock and Petit. Remove them, and you all of a sudden get a Time off Pace good enough for 2nd!

There’s no way to avoid the impact of drivers on car performance, but as shown above, having multiple drivers ringing the neck of similar cars does lead to better data! Do we have a good baseline going in to 2024? Yes. With no new cars, we should have a much better understanding of where people need help and when, and how to give it to them. Ultimately, the Balance of Performance for the GTD classes in 2023 led to some of the best racing globally. Like it or loath it, you have to appreciate that 7 out of the 10 manufacturers found victory this season. Let’s see if we can beat that number in 2024!

 

 

Charts:

Fast Laps

OA

Class

Daytona

Gounon

Sorensen

Sebring

Grenier

Engel

LB

Legge

Pilet

LS

Gunn

Andlauer

WG6

Serra

Spinelli

CTMP

Garcia

Schandorff

LR

Andlauer

Riberas

RAm

Schandorff

Gunn

VIR

Barnicoat

Foley

Indy

Pilet

Ellis

PLM

Bortolotti

Marcelli

 

Finishes & Fast Laps

Manu

Finish

Manu

FL

Fast Laps

BMW

2.36

Acura

7.45

LB

PLM

Aston

5

Aston

7.55

D24

Porsche

5.36

BMW

9.18

VIR

Merc

7.09

Merc

9.55

S12

Indy

Lambo

7.27

Porsche

10.73

LS

LR

Lexus

7.82

Lambo

11.09

WG

McLaren

8.36

Lexus

12.36

Ferrari

9.25

McLaren

14.27

CTMP

RAm

Acura

9.73

Ferrari

22.25

Pro

Finish

Pro

FL

Fast Laps

Lexus

2.7

Aston

3.82

LS

LR

RAm

Merc

3.1

Merc

4.45

D24

S12

Porsche

3.2

Corvette

5.09

CTMP

Corvette

3.4

Lexus

6.27

VIR

Aston

4.3

Ferrari

7.25

WG

Ferrari

5.3

Porsche

7.73

LB

Indy

Lambo

6.5

Lambo

8.5

PLM

BMW

7.7

BMW

17

Cumulative Average Finish

Cumulative Average FL

Corvette

3.40

Corvette

5.09

Porsche

4.28

Aston

5.69

Aston

4.65

Merc

7.00

BMW

5.03

Acura

7.45

Merc

5.10

Porsche

9.23

Lexus

5.26

Lexus

9.32

Lambo

6.89

Lambo

9.80

Ferrari

7.28

BMW

13.09

McLaren

8.36

McLaren

14.27

Acura

9.73

Ferrari

14.75

 

 

Race Winner Performances


 

 

 

Best Driver Performances

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manu

ToP

Manu

OA

Manu

PIC

 

Aston

0.408

Aston

6.00

Aston

3.36

 

Merc

0.495

Merc

8.27

Merc

4.64

 

Corvette

0.522

Corvette

10.27

Corvette

5.09

 

Lexus

0.551

Lexus

12.36

Lexus

6.09

 

Porsche

0.624

Porsche

14.00

Porsche

6.64

 

Ferrari

0.657


Acura

14.73

Ferrari

7.25

 

Lambo

0.687

Lambo

14.82

Lambo

7.82

 

BMW

0.702

Ferrari

15.75

Acura

8.27

 

Acura

0.749

BMW

16.82

BMW

9.18

 

McLaren

0.828

McLaren

23.09

McLaren

14.27