2018 Pre-Season Thread

[Vaud]

Kraken said:

Thing is Renault have made no bones about starting the season with the engines compromised for reliability though. I wonder if they were testing with that engine configuration? They've said that they aim to race in Melbourne with the same power level they finished last season with and not increase power until the 1st engine has done it's life.

Small excerpt from an Autosport Plus article:

"Red Bull's pace is also compromised by the fact the Renault power unit package is running in a conservative trim for reliability reasons. Reckoned to be 40-50bhp down already, there are planned upgrades to the ERS that Renault hopes to deploy later in the season, but it seems unlikely to be before June at the earliest - and possibly a lot later."

[Car-Matt]

Some Gump said:

ajprice said:

Say 4 speed trap. Renault engine cars can do the lap fast lap times and have the lowest speeds (with Honda).

Now that is a s graph.
Baseline so daft it implies speed differentials that are not there.

Care to expand on that? What do you mean about the baseline?

[tertius]

Car-Matt said:

Some Gump said:

ajprice said:

Say 4 speed trap. Renault engine cars can do the lap fast lap times and have the lowest speeds (with Honda).

Now that is a s graph.
Baseline so daft it implies speed differentials that are not there.

Care to expand on that? What do you mean about the baseline?

It starts from about 300kph - so the difference looks vast, if the graph started at 0kph you would see that the difference is actually only a few percent.

[anonymous-user]

tertius said:

It starts from about 300kph - so the difference looks vast, if the graph started at 0kph you would see that the difference is actually only a few percent.

The graph would look absurd with a larger scale. I am sure most people can extrapolate what they are seeing.

[Allyc85]

tertius said:

It starts from about 300kph - so the difference looks vast, if the graph started at 0kph you would see that the difference is actually only a few percent.

10mph is vast!

[ajprice]

Allyc85 said:

10mph is vast!

The 10mph/16kmh between the Mercedes car and the Renault engined cars? Yep that is a big difference.

[tertius]

jsf said:

tertius said:

It starts from about 300kph - so the difference looks vast, if the graph started at 0kph you would see that the difference is actually only a few percent.

The graph would look absurd with a larger scale. I am sure most people can extrapolate what they are seeing.

Well, yes I was just explaining why I thought the earlier poster was objecting to the graph.

I’m pretty well indifferent to it really ...

[Car-Matt]

ajprice said:

Allyc85 said:

10mph is vast!

The 10mph/16kmh between the Mercedes car and the Renault engined cars? Yep that is a big difference.

The point I was making was that you sayvthe chart implies huge differences that aren’t there........it doesn’t ‘imply’ anything because the numbers are on it, so it provides absolute reference, the speed differentials ARE huge.

[tertius]

Car-Matt said:

ajprice said:

Allyc85 said:

10mph is vast!

The 10mph/16kmh between the Mercedes car and the Renault engined cars? Yep that is a big difference.

The point I was making was that you sayvthe chart implies huge differences that aren’t there........it doesn’t ‘imply’ anything because the numbers are on it, so it provides absolute reference, the speed differentials ARE huge.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that - the bar for the Merc at the top is more than three times the length of the bar for the McLaren at the bottom - is the top speed of the Merc more than three times that of the McLaren? No it isn’t, it’s 16.7 kph or 5.3% faster. In that respect the graph is visually misleading.

Plus it doesn’t even show where it starts.

The numbers are absolutely fine, the bars are nearly meaningless.

Edited to correct my error in transcribing the numbers!

Edited by tertius on Saturday 10th March 13:57

[Vaud]

tertius said:

Hmm, not sure I agree with that - the bar for the Merc at the top is more than three times the length of the bar for the McLaren at the bottom - is the top speed of the Merc more than three times that of the McLaren? No it isn’t, it’s 20.7 kph or 6.5% faster. In that respect the graph is visually misleading.

Plus it doesn’t even show where it starts.

The numbers are absolutely fine, the bars are nearly meaningless.

It's a very, very common method to show differences and cull the majority of the x axis.

[tertius]

Vaud said:

It's a very, very common method to show differences and cull the majority of the x axis.

Oh absolutely I can remember my maths teacher in about 1982 pointing it out in an advert and starting a discussion about why it was misleading.

[8V085]

Vaud said:

It's a very, very common method to show differences and cull the majority of the x axis.

Agreed, sloppy journalism is common nowadays. Doesn't mean it's right. Try presenting something as misleading to a board of directors of the company you work at.

[Vaud]

8V085 said:

Agreed, sloppy journalism is common nowadays. Doesn't mean it's right. Try presenting something as misleading to a board of directors of the company you work at.

We do, all of the time. Providing the annotation and voice over is correct and highlights the salient points it is fine. Board members are smart people. It does, of course, depend on what you are trying to show.

[8V085]

Vaud said:

8V085 said:

Agreed, sloppy journalism is common nowadays. Doesn't mean it's right. Try presenting something as misleading to a board of directors of the company you work at.

We do, all of the time. Providing the annotation and voice over is correct and highlights the salient points it is fine. Board members are smart people. It does, of course, depend on what you are trying to show.

So you do but you don't. What you do is you take a graph like the one above and you provide additional context, which wasn't the case here. Which means it's a stty misleading graph.

[Car-Matt]

tertius said:

Car-Matt said:

ajprice said:

Allyc85 said:

10mph is vast!

The 10mph/16kmh between the Mercedes car and the Renault engined cars? Yep that is a big difference.

The point I was making was that you sayvthe chart implies huge differences that aren’t there........it doesn’t ‘imply’ anything because the numbers are on it, so it provides absolute reference, the speed differentials ARE huge.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that - the bar for the Merc at the top is more than three times the length of the bar for the McLaren at the bottom - is the top speed of the Merc more than three times that of the McLaren? No it isn’t, it’s 20.7 kph or 6.5% faster. In that respect the graph is visually misleading.

Plus it doesn’t even show where it starts.

The numbers are absolutely fine, the bars are nearly meaningless.

Its not remotely misleading......because the gaps are that significant, if the axis started at 0 you'd hardly notice the difference whereas the differences are significant.

Also the chart doesn't 'infer' anything, it actually 'tells' you, because it has the numbers on, which are absolute. The conclusions the user of the chart draws from it are down to their own intelligence to a large extent......

[8V085]

Car-Matt said:

tertius said:

Car-Matt said:

ajprice said:

Allyc85 said:

10mph is vast!

The 10mph/16kmh between the Mercedes car and the Renault engined cars? Yep that is a big difference.

The point I was making was that you sayvthe chart implies huge differences that aren’t there........it doesn’t ‘imply’ anything because the numbers are on it, so it provides absolute reference, the speed differentials ARE huge.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that - the bar for the Merc at the top is more than three times the length of the bar for the McLaren at the bottom - is the top speed of the Merc more than three times that of the McLaren? No it isn’t, it’s 20.7 kph or 6.5% faster. In that respect the graph is visually misleading.

Plus it doesn’t even show where it starts.

The numbers are absolutely fine, the bars are nearly meaningless.

Its not remotely misleading......because the gaps are that significant, if the axis started at 0 you'd hardly notice the difference whereas the differences are significant.

Also the chart doesn't 'infer' anything, it actually 'tells' you, because it has the numbers on, which are absolute. The conclusions the user of the chart draws from it are down to their own intelligence to a large extent......

If these absolute numbers were supported by the % of the fastest car (being the baseline) supporting the missing part on the X axis, then it'd be a different story then we could agree that they were trying to do a decent job. The way the graph is designed it literally tells the story of how st the bottom cars are vs the top 2. Most people don't care about numbers, they see a graph and they reach a conclusion, hence why the visual presentation of data is so popular.

[Car-Matt]

8V085 said:

Car-Matt said:

tertius said:

Car-Matt said:

ajprice said:

Allyc85 said:

10mph is vast!

The 10mph/16kmh between the Mercedes car and the Renault engined cars? Yep that is a big difference.

The point I was making was that you sayvthe chart implies huge differences that aren’t there........it doesn’t ‘imply’ anything because the numbers are on it, so it provides absolute reference, the speed differentials ARE huge.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that - the bar for the Merc at the top is more than three times the length of the bar for the McLaren at the bottom - is the top speed of the Merc more than three times that of the McLaren? No it isn’t, it’s 20.7 kph or 6.5% faster. In that respect the graph is visually misleading.

Plus it doesn’t even show where it starts.

The numbers are absolutely fine, the bars are nearly meaningless.

Its not remotely misleading......because the gaps are that significant, if the axis started at 0 you'd hardly notice the difference whereas the differences are significant.

Also the chart doesn't 'infer' anything, it actually 'tells' you, because it has the numbers on, which are absolute. The conclusions the user of the chart draws from it are down to their own intelligence to a large extent......

If these absolute numbers were supported by the % of the fastest car (being the baseline) supporting the missing part on the X axis, then it'd be a different story then we could agree that they were trying to do a decent job. The way the graph is designed it literally tells the story of how st the bottom cars are vs the top 2. Most people don't care about numbers, they see a graph and they reach a conclusion, hence why the visual presentation of data is so popular.

The chart doesnt need any extra data........its nice and clean and simple and tells the story...the bottom car is way slower than the top car in a straight line and it shows the others relative with absolute numbers.

Given my job is Head of Data and data viz is a large part of my departments output i'd be happy reporting those numbers that way, it tells the story and contextualises the significance of the gaps.

[NRS]

8V085 said:

If these absolute numbers were supported by the % of the fastest car (being the baseline) supporting the missing part on the X axis, then it'd be a different story then we could agree that they were trying to do a decent job. The way the graph is designed it literally tells the story of how st the bottom cars are vs the top 2. Most people don't care about numbers, they see a graph and they reach a conclusion, hence why the visual presentation of data is so popular.

You'd probably never improve anything in a company if you showed the absolute improvements. However they all add up, and so it can be effective to show something like this. It's only misleading if you're stupid IMO.

[tertius]

Car-Matt said:

The chart doesnt need any extra data........its nice and clean and simple and tells the story...the bottom car is way slower than the top car in a straight line and it shows the others relative with absolute numbers.

Given my job is Head of Data and data viz is a large part of my departments output i'd be happy reporting those numbers that way, it tells the story and contextualises the significance of the gaps.

So, and this is a serious question, where would you choose to start the graph (i.e. what would be the left most value of the X axis) and why?

[Car-Matt]

tertius said:

Car-Matt said:

The chart doesnt need any extra data........its nice and clean and simple and tells the story...the bottom car is way slower than the top car in a straight line and it shows the others relative with absolute numbers.

Given my job is Head of Data and data viz is a large part of my departments output i'd be happy reporting those numbers that way, it tells the story and contextualises the significance of the gaps.

So, and this is a serious question, where would you choose to start the graph (i.e. what would be the left most value of the X axis) and why?

I'd have it just as it is....it looks to be just under 300kph to me.

It highlights a big performance differential between top and bottom and has the right scale to demonstrate the relative positions of the other teams.

Starting the axis at anything less than that is madness as you just have all the teams filling the space, which is not helpful or meaningful.

The fact that the performance differential is a tiny percentage is irrelevant as a tiny percenatge can be huge in F1......the chart is sound in my opinion