Alright, let’s talk about how I messed around with Nico Rosberg’s stats. I was just killing time one weekend, got curious about F1 data, and figured, “Why not dig into Rosberg’s career?” Here’s the lowdown on what I did.
First things first: Grabbing the Data
- I started by hitting up some F1 stats websites. You know, the usual suspects. Looked for sites with decent tables of race results, standings, and all that jazz.
- Tried to copy-paste some tables into a spreadsheet, but that got messy real quick. So, I ended up looking for CSV files or anything downloadable. Found some okay-ish data, but it needed a lot of cleaning.
Cleaning the Mess
- Okay, this was the boring part. I loaded the data into a spreadsheet program. Then I went through and deleted columns I didn’t care about. Things like specific lap times, weather conditions (sometimes), and stuff like that.
- Next, I fixed inconsistencies. Different websites used different abbreviations for teams or tracks. Had to make it all uniform.
- Had to deal with missing data. Some results were incomplete. I decided to just leave those races out of certain analyses rather than guess.
Crunching the Numbers (The Fun Begins)
- Once the data was relatively clean, I started calculating stuff. Simple stuff first: total wins, podiums, pole positions.
- Then I got into some more interesting stuff. Like win percentages per season, average finishing position, and how he performed against his teammates (mostly Hamilton, obviously).
- I even tried to see if there was any correlation between starting grid position and finishing position. Surprise, surprise, starting near the front helps!
Visualizing the Results
- Numbers are cool, but charts are cooler. So, I made some bar graphs showing his win distribution over the years.
- Did a line graph to track his championship points progress each season. You could really see the momentum shift in certain years.
- Tried a scatter plot to see if there was any pattern in his performance at different tracks. Some tracks he consistently did well at, others not so much.
What Did I Learn?
- Rosberg was a solid driver, no doubt. But going through the stats, it really hit home how consistent he had to be to beat Hamilton in 2016.
- The data showed how crucial qualifying is in F1. A good starting position makes a huge difference.
- Data cleaning is a pain in the butt, but absolutely necessary. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.
End Result?
I ended up with a bunch of spreadsheets and charts that basically confirmed what most F1 fans already knew about Rosberg. But hey, I had fun doing it. It was a good way to spend a rainy afternoon and brush up on my data manipulation skills. Plus, now I can bore my friends with obscure F1 trivia! Maybe I’ll tackle another driver’s stats next time. Schumacher, perhaps?