Stats - 2006 Ferrari Hillclimb Championship - Club Racing Series'

Stats - 2006 Ferrari Hillclimb Championship - Club Racing Series' - Ferrari Owners' Club

FERRARI HILL CLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP

2006 SEASON STATISTICAL REVIEW
by Graham Easter

The 2006 Championship was expanded to 15 rounds at 12 venues, North Weald and Bouley Bay were back in, the previous year's innovations of horrid Hethel, lovely Cadwell Park, a Loton Park double-header and the Curborough two-lapper were retained for a second year. There were the "blue riband" events of Shelsley and Prescott, two meetings at Harewood and the season finale at Longleat. All attracted good entries, there were even nine at Hethel! Indeed, such is the popularity of the Series that a number of rounds were oversubscribed, including the once unpopular Curborough.

Harewood (R4) was yet again the most popular meeting, attracting 21 competitors (plus one guest), with the aforementioned Round 12 (Hethel) the least. The average number of entrants per meeting was up again to 14.1, which is just fantastic! No less than forty drivers (up six from last year) took part in the Series' (plus Gary Culver and Mike Haigh as guests) making it easily the most popular of the Club's competition series'. This make one wonder whether the hillclimbers ought not to have a larger share of the Pirelli competitions sponsorship cake?

The average number of meetings per driver was down slightly to 5.3 this year. No-one competed in all of the meetings - not even Richard Prior! The world wobbled a bit on its axis, but kept going. Champion Nick Taylor and runner-up Geoff Dark tied on 14 apiece but Geoff would probably have had a full-house had it not been for his accident in the last-but-one round at Harewood. This season 11 stalwarts (down from 12 last year), the two already mentioned plus Jon Goodwin, Christian Mineeff, Richard Prior, Chris Butler, Dave Tomlin, Lily Allen's Grandad Richard, Pauline Goodwin, Andrew Holman and David Hathaway competed in eight rounds or more. Not surprisingly, they filled the first 11 places in the Championship.

Our Tony Cotton's Excel spread sheets allow one to play interesting tunes on the PEPs, starting with perhaps the most contentious issue of the year, the change in Lucy the Lusso's PEP from -5.5% to -8%. It made no difference to the first two places in the championship, just proved that the PEPs system works in most cases - except for the old cars. If Lucy had stayed on -5.5%, Gooders would have been sixth rather than third. Mind you, if he had got the -12% he asked for, rather than -8% he got, he'd have won the title by five points, he was robbed! (I trust the case of Albanian Sparkling Riesling and 200 Benski & Hodgas are on the way, Jon).

Geoff Dark needed -1.50% to have taken the title. If Richard Prior had not been carrying the reigning Champ's +1% he would have been up two places in third; but again the change would have made no difference to the first two places. If the 328 had a PEP of -1.25%, Christian Mineeff would have been Champ, five points ahead of Nick Taylor. So what about the 355? Even if it had a PEP of 0.75%, it's leading exponent Chris Butler would still have only been second to Taylor; so minor fiddling with the '07 PEP for the 355 will make no difference whatsoever.

All interesting stuff, but ALL the stats and shenanigans simply confirm that the Championship undoubtedly went to the right man again - congratulations to Nick Taylor.

To give you a taster for next year, if this year's results are re-calculated with Nick Taylor carrying the Champ's +1% and Prior on 0%, then Geoff Dark comes out on top with Prior second and Mineeff third. Taylor comes out fifth.

Anyway here's the stats....

Piloti

Points Mean Prizes
Pilota	Points	Av. Pts. per mtg.
Taylor Dark Goodwin J Mineeff Prior Butler Tomlin RA Goodwin P Holman Hathaway	151 143 129 125 121 113 85 84 64 64 60	18.88 17.88 16.13 15.63 15.13 14.13 10.63 10.50 8.00 8.00 7.50 Best 8 counted

It's interesting that there was a wider gap in average scores last season than before, which shows that the championship was not as close as previously , especially as this measure is based on the best eight scores only. Taylor emerged a comfortable winner from Dark, who in turn was comfortably ahead of Gooders. Things hot up a bit for third place between Gooders, Mineeff and Prior, then there's a decent gap to Butler in sixth. The top six were miles clear of the other five who completed eight events or more, but then it's very close for seventh and eighth, and ninth and tenth places.

Statistical Jiggery Pokery
Pilota	Mean Score	Std. Deviation
Holman Goodwin P Taylor RA Hathaway Prior Mineeff Butler Tomlin Goodwin J Dark	7.60 6.54 17.14 9.89 6.08 13.38 15.63 13.30 9.89 14.64 15.07	1.85 2.34 2.47 2.77 2.81 2.98 3.08 3.32 3.57 3.77 4.65

Last year we introduced a new measure in an attempt to look at driver consistency. This table shows the mean score for all of the rounds in which a driver competed and the standard deviation from that score, which Tony C tells me is a measure of how widely values are dispersed from the average value (the mean) and which provides a measure of consistency The magnificent 11 again are shown with Andrew Holman the most consistent, which is a bit surprising if you've seen him drive! I guess it means he's consistently wild. PG is second and she's another where, ahem, bravery is bigger than technique. I'm not too sure how valuable this metric is, but look at the consistency levels between second-place Dark and winner Taylor.

Winners
Pilota	Wins
	Outright	PEPS
Taylor Butler Frost Goodwin Prior Dark Mineeff	7 4 2 1 1 - -	5 1 - 3 1 3 2

No surprises here with Taylor comfortably ahead in outright and PEPs wins. Butler again showed his speed but only managed to beat the PEPs once. Frost showed that he has only lost a little of his speed, despite competing very rarely. Gooders' outright win was in his 430. If Lucy'd stayed on -5.5% he'd have had no PEPs wins, but if it'd been changed to -12% the breakdancing oldies would have had six! Prior stunned everyone (including himself) by taking the double at the first round, despite the Champions +1%, though without it he'd only have had one more PEPs win, R8 (Loton). Dark was down one PEPs win from last year with three, but Mineeff stayed the same with two, though at different venues, giving the lie to him being a one venue specialist.

Tipos

Tipo	No.	Wins
		OA	PEP
355 328 308* Mondial t GT4 348GTC 348 F512M 246 430 250 GT Lusso Mondial QV *all wins by modified car	13 10 6 4 3 2 3 1 1 1 1 1	4 - - - - 9 1 - - 1 - -	1 2 3 - - 5 1 - - - 3 -

The 355 was once again the most popular tipo, which undoubtedly reflects their cost and availability. Their speed is shown by four outright wins, all courtesy of Chris Butler but even he only beat the PEP once last year. The trusty ol' 328 is hanging on in second and took two PEPs wins, both by Mineeff. All of the 308 were Geoff Dark's modificato example. The GT4 made a comeback this year. With 14 wins the 348 GTC seems to be the tipo to have. It's a quick car, nearly on a par with a 355 and has a better PEP; mind you it can't hurt that both examples are driven by highly accomplished drivers - champions both. Jon Goodwin and Mark Buckland both drove three tipos, but Gooders stole the tipo show, winning in both the newest and the oldest in the series. It's a shock when contemplating the 430's pace that you realise it's got the same horsepower as the F40! Lucy the Lusso was definitely the crowds' favourite.

And Finally...

Pilota

Tipo

Posn. (Actual)

Taylor
Butler
Prior
Dark
Mineeff
Tomlin
RA
Goodwin J
Goodwin P
Hathaway

348 GTC
355
348
308m
328
355
328/355
250 GT Lusso/328/430
328m/328
348

1 (1)
2 (6)
3 (5)
4 (2)
5 (4)
6 (7)
7 (8)
8 (3)
9 (9)
10 (11)

Best 8 counted

This is the top ten based on outright speed - no PEPs. Shows again that the right bloke won.

Click here to go to the 2006 Pirelli Ferrari Hillclimb Championship page.

Click here to go to the 2007 Pirelli Ferrari Hillclimb Championship page.