The INCREDIBLE Evolution of Formula 1 Lap Times

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Formula 1 has come a long way in the past 70 years of racing, with massive breakthroughs in technology and safety. Over this time, the performance of the cars has improved at a rate that is honestly astonishing.
So today I'm going to show just how the speed of Formula 1 has evolved, show you the key breakthroughs and the constant battle between the FIA and the teams over the performance of the cars.
Raw data here - bit.ly/3tN1u4f
Thanks so much to User gg2443 for collating the data!
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This is it, the Driver61 F1 Lap Time Evolution-o-meter, but let me first explain how we got to this point.
We've broken down the data of every fastest lap, of every race in Formula 1 history. All to understand the relative pace difference between each year - and I'm then going to show you when the key rule changes came in and how they affected things.
So, how have we done this? Well, a lot of the raw data was collected by a member of the F1 community on Reddit, we've linked this below. And then I've analysed the data for us and come out with some real insights.
It's as simple as researching every fastest lap, from every race ever. Then comparing these to each other, to get a percentage difference compared to the previous car at the same circuit a year ago. So if the fastest lap at Spa in 1950 was 4:34.1 and then the next year was 4:22.0. This comes to a difference of 4.51%.
Now, on it's own this isn't that valuable. But when you do this for every track on the calendar and average it out, you can begin to see the relative difference between one years car and the next. Sometimes the progression in engineering and technology means the cars get quicker, and sometimes the rule changes mean the cars get slower. Then all you have to do is do this for every year - and we're done.
Except, it's not that simple. For example, Spa is very different now to how it was back then. The same goes for Silverstone, Monza, and well, every other track on the calendar.
So to solve that issue, each time the track is changed - it's treated as an entirely different track and then isn't counted unless there is a time from the previous year to compare it to. But what's handy, is that the tracks change quite infrequently - so you can use ones that haven't changed to work out the rough time difference. So on the year Spa changed, both Monaco and Monza didn't - so we can use these as a baseline to compare to.
Now, this is by no means perfect. Despite there being a decent sample of data, and lots of track types and conditions to average out. There are some things that will effect times - like the tyres being used. Can they change them in the race? Are the cars using a brand new engine every race, and so can burn it out? Is there a tyre war pushing tyre performance on? Are the cars allowed to refuel? Are drivers stopping deliberately to fit new tyres and get the fastest lap?
Yes, all of these things matter. But it gives us the best picture possible, let me explain.
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#Formula1 #F1 #TrackEvolution

[@ArianrhodTalon]

This was brilliant. 1. Starting by communicating the assumptions made 2. Defining the contexts for each period 3. An efficient visual in communicating the overall story

[@aymenSeb3i]

@@sweeeenie168 I was about to say the same thing except for the phd part.

[@JLchevz]

agreed

[@MountainDewbies]

Could you make that into a print? I think that would be a super super cool piece of wall art.

[@Driver61]

Drop your email here and we'll let you know when it's available! forms.gle/SaTLv13sKmyf4wRY9

[@jaganize]

THIS!

[@bbazuin]

Would be even better on a log y scale

[@chrismorris1304]

I work in engineering and this is the nerdiest/best thing I've seen all year🙌🏼

[@BallisticEVA01]

@@Driver61 Thank you sir, already sent the form, cant wait to put that chart nexto to my F1 1/18 collection models!! :)

[@MakeSomething]

Insane! The effort put into this is phenomenal. I'd pay for a 2 hour expanded documentary. Excellent work!

[@sniperlover88]

Dave!!

[@PierreEmmanuelDOCQUIN]

+1

[@darrinkinney2268]

No joke, the details of specific rule changes and how they altered times (specifically the past 20 years) is fascinating stuff. I felt the tyre specs were not highlighted enough. Seems every year they are altering the tyres in some way or another. Races were way more interesting when the tyres were not as refined as they are now. Seeing lap times drop by a second when they finally went off was a show in and of itself.

[@flikq1]

@@darrinkinney2268 I agree on the tyre front, however I think given the volume of changes and complexity of comparisons as you move from tyre brand to tyre brand it would likely be a video in it's own right, one I'd certainly enjoy!

[@yurian10]

Same!

[@neraLcM13]

What a tremendous video! I can't fully comprehend the effort that went into not only researching but producing the video. I really appreciate the addition of the lower racing categories and having the HAND DRAWN chart frequently reappear with the important annotations, perfectly augmented with subtle animations; and not cheapened with the need to include memes. Great job!

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@TheSLAPTrain1]

Loved this!!!!

[@KelvinMercer]

ok

[@britishbastard6561]

Never thought I’d see you here!

[@asharlodi8987]

Yo

[@DeanoDrives]

I hope you slapped that like button for our boy Driver61

[@issacdaniels942]

Nice meeting you here slaptrain the king of slap

[@Driver61]

🚨WE'RE MAKING THIS INTO A POSTER! 🚨 Drop your email here and we'll let you know when it's available! forms.gle/SaTLv13sKmyf4wRY9

[@georgeradulescu7175]

Wouldn't qualifying pole times be more representative of the cars' outright performance and exclude the factors of refueling and pit stop strategies during the race?

[@NikolaiPCulp]

I’ve never thought about it tbh. Very interesting video. Didn’t know a lot of these details

[@EpicGamer-kj1tj]

I pooed

[@AndZzo101]

How did you handled wet races? If something increases lap times, it is rain by a lot. I think this factor makes it really difficult to compare. Especially at Spa where you have even different conditions throughout a race weekend or a single lap every year.

[@cbt711]

This is my favorite F1 youtube content of all time. And the details of each changes have been discussed in your previous videos at some point. You should go back and throw the links to the specific detailed video of each event along this video. Great stuff. Sharing all over the place.

[@CupraRoemu]

If you need that graph digitalized I'm sure George Russel will help you. I mean he's the PowerPoint master after all😂

[@agussinaga2122]

Fact

[@thespuditron9387]

Well now, this was an absolutely brilliant video. I love a good graph like that. 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

[@___________9017]

AISURU.TOKYO/machiko?[Swaying-Body] 🤗 (◍•ᴗ•◍)✧*。18 years and over, a collection of videos and photos of trending and naked beautiful girls🍑🍒🥰 #垃圾

[@matthew-jy5jp]

Liam get a life 😂 seriously mate. I get new F1 fans have some type of serious brain damage that make you love this boring-ass board as much as you do. But I highly doubt anyone needs a list of lap time throughout formula one's years of evolution

[@ringoferrer2343]

@@matthew-jy5jp mate what did he do to you lmao

[@thespuditron9387]

@@matthew-jy5jp Lad, I’ve been an F1 fan since the 90s, so I’m absolutely not a new fan. I like graphs and comparisons such as this video. You must do too, since you checked out the video. Have a gorgeous day.👋🏻

[@AdamTheMan1993]

Having a tyre war also has a big effect on the F1 lap times, when F1 moved to single spec control tyre in 2007, lap times were about 2 to 3 seconds slower than in 2006's tyre war between Bridgestone and Michelin

[@paulrickman7044]

Utterly, utterly fascinating - I've been waiting for something like this for years! Will be very interesting to update the stats again in 5 years once the 2022 regs have bedded-in

[@That_guy_moha]

This is the type of nerdiness I’m looking for in F1 content….appreciate the effort this took to complete🙌🏾🙌🏾

[@siomaiethan]

As a new F1 fan, I feel left out when my dad talks about the classics. Thanks you, this is very well summarized and mapped out. I have a short attention span and tend to keep skipping through the videos, but I sat through this one and enjoyed it.

[@M1GHTYM4VS]

This is something that I've trying to find online or comprehend with my limited understanding for the last 15 years. Thanks for this major effort!

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@king_zapp]

Great video, and great controls for the analysis. It's almost impossible to compare eras, but you qualified that very well, and pointed it out along the way what set the eras apart from each other.

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@Freemancos]

Hearing the word "efficiency" in the era of the SUV cars everywhere makes me smile.

[@nightcrawleroriginal]

One of the best racing history break-downs I have seen 61, very well done thank you. :) NC

[@ivanbertoni7622]

AMAZING VIDEO. I could imagine how many effort are behind the data. AWESOME

[@Ben-sc7gf]

This is absolutely superb. I'm not even an F1 race fan but I love the cars themselves, especiallythe classics and always wondered how the lap times compared! Thanks for doing the legwork!

[@bc-guy852]

Absolutely brilliant! An incredible amount of data logically massaged and explained with the technical improvements and rule changes - this one video makes all of F1 make sense. Thank you!

[@5thgearouttahere]

Yet to watch but thank you for making a beautiful graph by hand. 🏎

[@___________9017]

AISURU.TOKYO/machiko?[Making-love] 🤗 (◍•ᴗ•◍)✧*。18 years and over, a collection of videos and photos of trending and naked beautiful girls🍑🍒🥰

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@DaRemy]

This is one of the best vids of F1 I have ever seen on YT or TV.

[@Billygoes25]

Thank you for putting so much work into these videos. You always manage to maintain the perfect balance between being informational and engaging at the same time.

[@artysanmobile]

For the teams, the bottom line is “just try and slow us down!”

[@casey2732]

What an incredible work!!! I really appreciate it!!!! Thank you

[@michaellavery4899]

That was an incredibly interesting and insightful video crammed into those short minutes. Thanks to all involved for collating and interpreting the data for what was clearly an extremely complicated and time consuming task.

[@Bierlogistiker]

Great work! I especially love the comparison to modern junior formulas.

[@davideloi9176]

Man, this is some huge work you did!!! congrats and thanks!

[@felipeborelli]

Great job! Not only the data is incredible but the footage selected was perfect!

[@wellwellwelljew271]

Nice video as always!!

[@AlistairMcKinley]

Thank you very much! You did an outstanding job by putting all the data together and presenting it very comprehensible.

[@Ehralur]

Amazing work! Would be interesting to see a relative instead of absolute graph, as naturally the improvements in seconds will diminish as a laptime is reduced, while it may still be a comparable improvement in terms of percentages. For example going from 120s laptime to 110 is the same relative improvement as going from 60s to 55, even though on your graph it looks like it's only half as good.

[@wtftastic]

Fantastic video; love the visualizations and work you've done to validate the information.

[@siddharthshrivas1723]

needed this THANK YOU

[@athulkshibu_aks]

This is a brilliant video! Kudos to the effort put in and clarity in communication!

[@forza218]

Awesome job, Callum. I always enjoy talking with you, but this is awesome to see you at work.

[@ColinBache]

Loved this - amazing work thank you 🙏 that filled me in on loads of brilliant info 👍❤️

[@alv2617]

New Drive to Survive F1 fan here. Thanks so much for this video I've wondered about this for so long!

[@bbb12345]

This is gold. Thanks for the video. Great study.

[@heitorcabral5072]

Very interesting! Thank you for putting so much time and effort into this

[@riyadhosein94]

This level of research and presentation deserves a reward; excellent work and delivery of said work.

[@bozzy-101]

What a great video. Thank you for producing that, it was brilliant.

[@3storiesUp]

An absolutely awesome video Scott. Thanks for the effort put in.

[@Mainswitch55]

I love numbers and stats, I of course appreciate your awesome work, well done, thank you for this! Kind regards from Austria, Chris

[@agustinmengarelli3899]

Awesome video with a lot of information throughout F1 history. Great work.

[@flyingscottsman2608]

This was very well done. Great Job!

[@christianhofmann7182]

Incredibly well researched and presented. Thank you!

[@keithnarramore6694]

Great job on the analysis! Makes a lot of sense. Interesting results and great commentary.

[@imamsandrabbis]

Awesome video mate, remarkable work! As a fan of Formula 1 for more than 25 years I enjoyed this one a lot!

[@sonicboove4865]

Absolutely amazing video, thanks for the effort.

[@mikeb3870]

Amazing data! ♥ I love it! Always want it

[@franskamstra2728]

this clips are just awesome. the amount of date needed. but the result is great to see.

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@Fifty8day]

Thanks for making that reasonably easy to understand. I loved it.

[@josebabeloki]

What a video. Mindblowing, really. Quite a lecture. Many thanks for putting in so much effort to produce that. And kudos for the clarity.

[@leskouts2]

Questions I've been wondering about for years. The amount of work and thought put into this is first class. As another viewer commented about the hand drawn graph being available I'd hang it on my wall 100% Amazing work thank you

[@Driver61]

Link in the pinned comment!

[@bikemonkey3835]

Well done man to get all the data into one graph!

[@kbroadway4305]

Thank you for this! Very cool! I've thought about this fairly recently but didn't have the patience to even consider starting such a research project.

[@Hnke90]

Incredible job Mansell! Awesome content as always

[@AndySeventy3]

Kudos 👏👏👏 This is an awesome production and explanation! Amazing work fella

[@2taMMat]

Great video + fantastic graph 🤩 I could literally put it as a poster in my garage 👍

[@diogoplacer8388]

This is one of the best contents about f1 I've seen on KZbin. Amazing job!

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@joebranston6330]

superb video - thanks!

[@n0body550]

Very well thought out, every variable to think of, you mentioned 👍🏼

[@jamesholmes8748]

Bro, your videos are so good. Thank you for all of the content you are creating.

[@Shivam-tz6uj]

Superb video mate!!

[@bilaltariq7819]

I was thinking about exactly this just over a week ago, glad you made a video about it

[@petervanvloten5473]

Awesome analysis! And remarkable trend! Thanks. Next question - perhaps impossible to separate out for a meaningful answer. Are drivers, collectively or individually, getting faster? Younger, stronger, better trained and with the benefits of simulator practice one would think - yes!

[@Deano185]

pronunciation on point! no more sloppy Gs, very enjoyable to listen to the voice-over in this one. great improvement !

[@dominiquecordone9531]

Great work, really enjoyed it

[@eaglestrikes1]

Wonderful piece of work. Thank you very much

[@Ferrari_Stradali]

Great video!!! Thank you very very much)))

[@mancebosk8]

Incredible video, congratulations!

[@aidancollins3073]

Stand out video I’ve my daily KZbin binge😂👍great stuff!!

[@shashankmarri1056]

Great job. It is not so easy to compile such large amount of data and explain in such a simple manner.

[@sk8kar89]

The sheer amount of data that would have been needed to make this!! Kudos to you guys!!

[@s3m-43]

This was incredible fun and interesting to watch, thank you

[@derekspradling1558]

Quality videos every single time. As an F1 fan this page is essential viewing as far as I'm concerned

[@jessekleidon9503]

Dude. Instant subscriber right here. Just fantastic buddy.

[@geoffreyneish7999]

Very cool insight, thank you for sharing this with us! 👍😎

[@sarinet5651]

THE SEXY GIRLS ARE BIGTITITS.UNO THREE IN ONE KZbin: THIS IS FINE. SOMEONE: SAYS ''HECK''. KZbin: BE GONE Life's story is a short journey so have fun before sleeping forever #Чо #эт #делает #на #2 #месте #в #тренде #однако #я #люблю #таких #рыбаков .#垃圾.

[@tilenmoder]

Very well done graph, video and presentation. Just awesome

[@augure2589]

Brillant analysis mate. Well done!

[@gentiio3296]

Thank you for this video, I really enjoyed it

[@smoothacceleration437]

Fantastic video. Great job.

[@disuser-lp3qv1tm8f]

Nice work. We needed some background and context, you delivered it.

[@scottmeredith3359]

Fantastic! You guys have some of the best F1 content anywhere

[@robthomas3968]

Love this video one of the best videos I’ve seen on KZbin 👌

[@srathish2735]

This video deserves an A+ for research alone.. appreciate your hardwork.

[@tom33430]

Just awesome work!

[@Esclapius]

Insane!!.Much appreciated

[@beast667]

Great content as always!

[@TeddyOn]

Thank You very much for such interesting content!

[@yiannismanos6274]

Impressive work and analysis. Congrats!

[@Ricky911_]

I've watched some videos from this channel but I wasn't subbed. Now I am. This video is incredibly well done. I hope it gets millions of views honestly

[@rodrigomendes3327]

Wow! Incredible data here! Amazing video

[@___________9017]

AISURU.TOKYO/machiko?[Making-love] 🤗 (◍•ᴗ•◍)✧*。18 years and over, a collection of videos and photos of trending and naked beautiful girls🍑🍒🥰 #垃圾

[@boulderdash2000]

wow! This is an INCREDIBLE good comprehension of the lap times evolution. I enjoyed it very much

[@strayminogaming2189]

This research is super interesting, congratulations! 👍

[@simjani.]

I always wanted to see a video about this thank you for that

[@GraveUypo]

this is a video i've always wanted. thanks

[@LukeVesty]

Awesome! Some serious homework in this one. Well done.

[@michaelhenry4405]

Fantastic video!

[@chrishopkins3316]

If Driver61 had made revision videos for my A-levels I might have done something with my life…