2015 St Petersburg Strategy Review

I made some predictions in last week's St Petersburg Pre Race Strategy Guide.  It's time to see which ones were right and which were wrong.  Spoiler alert: most were wrong.

I compared caution laps from the last 6 races (2009 to 2014) and identified several laps that had been run under caution in at least 3 of the last 6 races.  I thought these laps potentially had a higher chance of being run under yellow in the 2015 race.  Those results are below, and they aren't especially good.

Predicted Caution Lap	2015 Caution?
1 and 2	Yes
25	No
47	Yes
74 to 77	No
81	No
83	No

The laps I identified as possibly likely to be run under yellow were actually run under yellow 33% of the time.  If you exclude the lap 1 and 2 caution, my accuracy drops to 20%.  Neither of those figures are high enough for me to feel comfortable planning a race strategy around these predictions.  I'm curious to see if they continue to be this inaccurate over the season.

Caution Breakdown for St. Petersburg

Lap	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
1	Yellow 1	Yellow 1	Yellow 1
2	Yellow 1	Yellow 1	Yellow 1				Yellow 1
3	Yellow 1		Yellow 1				Yellow 1
4							Yellow 1
5
6
7			Yellow 2
8			Yellow 2
9			Yellow 2
10
11
12			Yellow 3
13				Yellow 1
14			Yellow 4	Yellow 1
15			Yellow 4	Yellow 1
16				Yellow 1
17
18
19
20				Yellow 2	Yellow 1
21				Yellow 2	Yellow 1
22				Yellow 2	Yellow 1
23				Yellow 2	Yellow 1
24				Yellow 2	Yellow 1
25		Yellow 2		Yellow 2	Yellow 1
26		Yellow 2		Yellow 2			Yellow 2
27		Yellow 2		Yellow 2			Yellow 2
28		Yellow 2			Yellow 2		Yellow 2
29		Yellow 2			Yellow 2		Yellow 2
30		Yellow 2			Yellow 2		Yellow 2
31					Yellow 2		Yellow 2
32
33	Yellow 2
34	Yellow 2						Yellow 3
35	Yellow 2						Yellow 3
36	Yellow 2						Yellow 3
37	Yellow 2
38	Yellow 2
39	Yellow 2		Yellow 5
40			Yellow 5
41			Yellow 5
42			Yellow 5
43
44
45					Yellow 3
46				Yellow 3	Yellow 3
47		Yellow 3		Yellow 3	Yellow 3		Yellow 4
48		Yellow 3		Yellow 3	Yellow 3		Yellow 4
49		Yellow 3			Yellow 3		Yellow 4
50		Yellow 3			Yellow 3		Yellow 4
51		Yellow 3			Yellow 3		Yellow 4
52		Yellow 3			Yellow 3		Yellow 4
53					Yellow 3
54							Yellow 5
55	Yellow 3						Yellow 5
56							Yellow 5
57							Yellow 5
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65		Yellow 4
66		Yellow 4
67		Yellow 4
68		Yellow 4
69		Yellow 4
70
71
72	Yellow 4
73	Yellow 4
74	Yellow 4	Yellow 5			Yellow 4
75	Yellow 4	Yellow 5			Yellow 4
76	Yellow 4	Yellow 5			Yellow 4	Yellow 1
77	Yellow 4	Yellow 5			Yellow 4	Yellow 1
78					Yellow 4	Yellow 1
79					Yellow 4	Yellow 1
80					Yellow 4	Yellow 1
81	Yellow 5				Yellow 4	Yellow 1
82	Yellow 5				Yellow 4
83	Yellow 5				Yellow 4	Yellow 2
84	Yellow 5					Yellow 2
85	Yellow 5					Yellow 2
86						Yellow 2
87	Yellow 6
88	Yellow 6
89	Yellow 6
90	Yellow 6
91	Yellow 6
92
93
94
95
96
97	Yellow 7
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110

Cautions per Year

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Total Cautions	7	5	5	3	4	2	5
Total Caution Laps	28	23	13	15	29	10	22
Average Caution Length (Laps)	4.0	4.6	2.6	5.0	7.3	5.0	4.4
First Caution Lap	1	1	1	13	20	76	2
Last Restart (Laps Remaining)	3	23	58	52	27	24	53

The other prediction I made regarding the race in St. Petersburg was that the race would end on a long green flag run.  The 53 consecutive green flag laps at the end of the race certainly proved that prediction to be accurate.  At least I got one right...

It's also worth noting that there were more cautions in 2015 than there were in races from 2012 to 2014.  I believe the fragile aero kits were to blame for the increase.  I suspect that the number of yellows per race will return to levels with the original DW12.  Drivers have been spoiled the last few years with sturdy cars and may need a few races to adjust to the more delicate aero kits.

At the same time, it seems unfair to categorize the race as a disaster because of the high number of cautions (although if debris from the aero kits continues to fly away from the track and endanger fans, changes should be made).  Between 2009 and 2011, St. Pete averaged over 5 yellows per race.  Fans have collectively forgotten that IndyCars don't normally allow for any contact without consequences. 

Lap Number of the Winner's Pit Stops


Each cell contains the lap number and track condition (green or yellow) for each of the winner's pit stops.

Montoya continued the trend of winners needing 3 pit stops to finish the race. 

Year	2012	2013	2014	2015
Winner	Castroneves	Hinchcliffe	Power	Montoya
Stop 1	37	20	22	22
Stop 2	70	45	52	48
Stop 3	N/A	74	77	81