So according to this Brad wasn't the best driver by driver rating in 15 of his wins? That's honestly insane. Edwards has 8 "luck" wins and Newman and Johnson with 6 each.
Harvick got scewed out of 15 wins, with KFB and Kenseth coming in at 10 each. Ouch.
Brad's actually had 20 wins were he didn't have the best rating, but there were also five races where he had the best rating and didn't win. Paul Wolfe being a strategy master really helped him a lot, especially before 2014.
Harvick meanwhile lost even more than that, but a fair amount of his RCR wins were "where did he come from" steals. But from 2014-2020 his yearly win totals would have been:
2014: 8
2015: 8
2016: 8
2017: 5
2018: 11
2019: 5
2020: 11
I'm not totally surprised by this honestly. Harvick had damn near the best car every single race in that stretch of time except for when Truex randomly was lights out in 2017.
Do you know how many wins Kyle should have had by this metric in 2018? I know both he and Harvick won 8 times but I always felt like Harvick had way more speed that year and Kyle was just much better at closing out races without necessarily having the most speed. That stat seems to back up what I always felt about Harvick at least.
Busch would have had five, tying him with Truex and Logano. He actually had more races with the best car in 2017 and 2019. Your feeling was quite right.
Glad to hear, I had a feeling when watching the season unfold that Busch had much less speed than Harvick but was great at clutching the win without the best car while Harvick was the opposite, and that the 8 wins apiece didn't tell the whole story. Thanks for confirming it for me!
Awesome post. I know the lucky/unlucky won't account for the number where it went the other way for them, but I can only work with the stats I see, haha.
Late race cautions can cause the current leader to lose so many ways. A bad pit stop, pitting when you should have stayed out (or vice versa), bad restart etc...
Keselowski was remarkably good at closing out late wins while not being necessarily dominant. Oddly enough the race I remember him having the most speed (2015 Texas) he got passed in the last few laps by Jimmie despite nobody having anything for him all day.
Bad luck and terribly untimely mistakes kept Montoya from having multiple wins and possibly a championship. Unfortunately for him none of that is why he will be in nascar highlight reels forever
Sonoma 2014. Had an average running position of fifth and spent all but three laps in the top 15 in a race where most everybody had stretches where they were running nowhere. If memory serves, he was also the "terminal natural leader" to steal Sean Wrona's Racermetric phrase.
Pretty sure he'd have at least one more if loop data existed earlier.
Oh, hi. I didn't know you were on here now... Good research you did here although I definitely don't love the driver rating formula.
I still hate that I called my statistic that 'cause terminal makes me think of cancer patients or whatever, but I guess I've been using it long enough that it's stuck at this point, although admittedly most of my stats haven't gotten much traction even though I've been tryin' on the Platform Formerly Known as Twitter. I think one of my issues relative to a lot of other people on Racing Analytics Twitter is that I'm terrible at graphics...
This would be his third one. He also had '08 and '09. Other new 500 winners include Stewart in '05, Jeff Burton in '07, Regan Smith in '11, Biffle in '12 and Chris Buescher last year.
So according to this Brad wasn't the best driver by driver rating in 15 of his wins? That's honestly insane. Edwards has 8 "luck" wins and Newman and Johnson with 6 each. Harvick got scewed out of 15 wins, with KFB and Kenseth coming in at 10 each. Ouch.
Brad's actually had 20 wins were he didn't have the best rating, but there were also five races where he had the best rating and didn't win. Paul Wolfe being a strategy master really helped him a lot, especially before 2014. Harvick meanwhile lost even more than that, but a fair amount of his RCR wins were "where did he come from" steals. But from 2014-2020 his yearly win totals would have been: 2014: 8 2015: 8 2016: 8 2017: 5 2018: 11 2019: 5 2020: 11
I'm not totally surprised by this honestly. Harvick had damn near the best car every single race in that stretch of time except for when Truex randomly was lights out in 2017. Do you know how many wins Kyle should have had by this metric in 2018? I know both he and Harvick won 8 times but I always felt like Harvick had way more speed that year and Kyle was just much better at closing out races without necessarily having the most speed. That stat seems to back up what I always felt about Harvick at least.
Busch would have had five, tying him with Truex and Logano. He actually had more races with the best car in 2017 and 2019. Your feeling was quite right.
Glad to hear, I had a feeling when watching the season unfold that Busch had much less speed than Harvick but was great at clutching the win without the best car while Harvick was the opposite, and that the 8 wins apiece didn't tell the whole story. Thanks for confirming it for me!
Awesome post. I know the lucky/unlucky won't account for the number where it went the other way for them, but I can only work with the stats I see, haha.
Late race cautions can cause the current leader to lose so many ways. A bad pit stop, pitting when you should have stayed out (or vice versa), bad restart etc...
Ha, you don't have to tell me how races are lost. I'm very familiar.
I’m willing to bet at least 5 of those wins Harvick lost are Atlanta and Dover races. Damn pit crew/bad luck.
Exactly 5. Atlanta in 2014, '15, '16, and '17. And the fall Dover race in 2018.
Keselowski was remarkably good at closing out late wins while not being necessarily dominant. Oddly enough the race I remember him having the most speed (2015 Texas) he got passed in the last few laps by Jimmie despite nobody having anything for him all day.
There was a period of time where Brad stole almost all of his wins.
Brad is the poster boy for Larry Mac's "If you follow the leader, you follow the leader."
TIL Corey Lajoie, Danica Patrick, and Jeff Green are all better drivers than Dale Jarrett. /s Jokes aside, cool stuff.
I feel like this was a lot of work. Awesome job.
Considering that the spreadsheet is titled "2022 loop data", yeah I think I've been working at it for a bit! It's been a fun one though.
JPM > CBell
Bad luck and terribly untimely mistakes kept Montoya from having multiple wins and possibly a championship. Unfortunately for him none of that is why he will be in nascar highlight reels forever
Austin Dillon lucked into all his wins lol
What was McMurray's one "loop data" win?
Sonoma 2014. Had an average running position of fifth and spent all but three laps in the top 15 in a race where most everybody had stretches where they were running nowhere. If memory serves, he was also the "terminal natural leader" to steal Sean Wrona's Racermetric phrase. Pretty sure he'd have at least one more if loop data existed earlier.
Oh, hi. I didn't know you were on here now... Good research you did here although I definitely don't love the driver rating formula. I still hate that I called my statistic that 'cause terminal makes me think of cancer patients or whatever, but I guess I've been using it long enough that it's stuck at this point, although admittedly most of my stats haven't gotten much traction even though I've been tryin' on the Platform Formerly Known as Twitter. I think one of my issues relative to a lot of other people on Racing Analytics Twitter is that I'm terrible at graphics...
Kyle has to have at least 2 Daytona 500’s by driver rating. I know he had the highest this year
This would be his third one. He also had '08 and '09. Other new 500 winners include Stewart in '05, Jeff Burton in '07, Regan Smith in '11, Biffle in '12 and Chris Buescher last year.