F1: Driver Performance Analysis

EDA
Sports
Explored Formula 1 results to compare driver and circuit performance.

Problem

Sought patterns in race results to understand which drivers excel on specific circuits.

Data

Pulled historical results and lap times from the Ergast API.

Approach

  • Aggregated results by driver and track
  • Visualized finishing positions and lap pace
  • Built a simple model to rank drivers by circuit type

Results

Revealed that certain midfield drivers consistently outperform on street circuits.

Visuals

Top 10 Drivers by Podium Finishes

Bar chart of F1 drivers with the most podiums. Lewis Hamilton leads by a wide margin, followed by Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.

Feature Importance (Random Forest)

Permutation importance for predicting race outcomes. Starting grid position dominates as the key predictor, ahead of fastest lap speed and round number.

Correlation Heatmap of Key Features

Heatmap of relationships among grid, finishing position, laps, points, and podium_finish. Strong positive correlation between points and podiums is evident.

Top 10 Constructors by Podium Finishes

Ferrari leads all constructors in podiums, followed by McLaren and Williams—highlighting historical dominance.

Performance of Top 5 Drivers Over Time

Trends in points for Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen, Alonso, and Räikkönen; shows eras of dominance and Verstappen’s rise.

Repo / Live