Where did a driver's race actually go?

The per-lap decomposition summed across an entire race, turning average-per-lap components into total seconds gained or lost to each cause.

A driver finishes ten seconds behind but to what? “How the Race Was Lost” cumulates the per-lap decomposition identity across the whole race for one driver, turning average-per-lap components into total race contributions. The result reads as a budget: across the full race, how many seconds did dirty air cost, how many did the tyres take, and how many were down to the driver?

What it shows

For each component the chart sums the per-lap value across all classified laps:

• Components: fuel, tyres, ambient, constructor, dirty air, and driver skill each summed across the race versus the per-lap field median.
• Negative total: the driver/car gained time from that factor versus the field median.
• Positive total: the driver/car lost time from that factor.
• Driver skill: the residual after removing all physics components the pure driving contribution.
• Track noise: unexplained lap-to-lap variation, shown as informational; it is not additive to the seven-term identity and should not be added into the total.

Laps under safety car, virtual safety car and red flag never reach this sum: fct_lap_residuals is built from green racing laps only, so the exclusion happens upstream in the warehouse rather than in this query. Major-outlier laps are excluded in the query itself. The totals reflect representative racing laps only.

How to use it

1. Select a race and driver from the filter bar; the cumulative budget loads.
2. Read the largest bars first they are where the race was won or lost.
3. Separate car from driver a large constructor bar is the machinery; the driver-skill bar is the part the driver owns.
4. Treat track noise as a diagnostic, not a cause it sits outside the additive identity.

Reading the signal correctly

These are totals relative to the per-lap field median, so a positive dirty-air bar means this driver spent more of the race in traffic than the median car it is a comparison, not an absolute physical loss. The six physics components plus driver skill close the identity; track noise is shown separately on purpose.

Do not add track noise into the seven-term total it is non-additive and would double-count. See the seven-term identity for why the identity closes on six environmental terms plus driver skill.

Data source

The chart queries fct_lap_residuals via DuckDB-Wasm in the browser, summing across a single race.

Column	Meaning
fuel_component_s, compound_component_s, …	The six environmental components, summed across the race
driver_skill_residual_s	The driver contribution after physics is removed
track_unexplained_s	Lap-to-lap noise, shown as informational (non-additive)

This is a single-race view across 2018–2024 data.

For the full model definition, see the fct_lap_residuals reference.