Season 3 Analysis

Some more analysis from KaYoS, potential position gains of the top 8 with potential point wedges: anywhere from all wins with fastest laps, and no points at all.

Caveat: I'm making this under the understanding that Kenny and ESD won't be able to make it for the remaining races, so their points are fixed.

Rawro, Rapha, Luke, Kenny, Cam and Flex are all mathematically in contention.

Rawro's best 4 races of the season right now would give him 57 points, while his worst 4 would give him 5 points, which I could define as his 'plausible results cone. 145-197 points are highly likely.

By comparison, xmax is on an outrageous charge, his best 4 results would give him 87 points, his worst 4 results would give him 50 points. 150-187 points are highly likely for him.

Rapha has a very wide cone, his worst 4 results are 0 points while his best 4 results are 87 points. 144-229 points are a plausible range.

Luke's best 4 races are 86 points, his worst 4 are 34 points. Luke is very good at scoring points, however, he has a fairly good chance of missing one of the final races, so that low estimate of 34 could be potentially lower. 181-243 points are a plausible range, lower range dependent on his ability to make it to the remaining races.

cambourne's peak 4 races scored 76 points low 4 races have 7 points. 206-275 plausible range.

Finally, Flex. Flex's best 4 results are a perfect 104 points, while his worst 4 are 3 points. Flex has the widest cone of anyone under discussion, but he also has the biggest amount of leeway, with a 19 point lead in the championship over cambourne, who has a lower peak 4-race performance stat. 225-322 plausible range.

Fun to flick between those two views, to get the 'what is possible' ranges of final points, vs the 'what is a plausible spread of results, given only the information from this past season?

Kayos' Season 3 Predictions

Flex has a good chance of taking the Season 3 Championship if he is able to make it to the races, but he has had a few barren parts of the season, interspersed with streaks of overwhelming results. When he gets representative results, only Rapha, xmax and El Sucio Dan have been able to best him, and none of those three are in viable contention for the championship.

Cam's extremely consistent point scoring has kept him in plausible contention for the championship. He's got only one win to Flex's six, but cam's on a streak of three consecutive podiums for 48 points, while Flex has scored only 14 points in the last 5 races. If you are placing bets on someone to beat Flex, cam's the man to cheer for.

At the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, I would have placed Kenny LaFlare as my favorite to bring the fight to Flex in the championship table, but his absence means that the big interest is in where he'll end up finishing in the championship. He holds third right now, but Luke and Rapha both look more likely than not to usurp his position, and Rawro and xmax are both in conceivable catching distance.

Luke Bracks is either the third contender for the championship, or the first of the distant longshots. Luke was my championship favorite going into the season, after a very strong showing in the pre-season, but missing 7 out of 18 races has been costly for his chances. Luke has a very high points floor, though, so a combination of victories from Luke and missed races or retirements for Flex and cam could be the thing that propels Luke from being dark horseback into real contention.

Rapha has had a hero-or-zero season. When he is on, he'll grab podiums very reliably and show excellent peak performance, but he has more retirements than any other driver at the top of the grid. Rapha put on a very strong charge through the middle of the season, winning Canada and Britain while taking second in Portugal, Hungary, and the Netherlands and a third in Italy. However, right now he's on a four-race streak with only two points to show for it, which has been a kneecapping for his late championship charge. If Rapha can return to his mid-season results, he has the slimmest of slim chances to take the championship in the midst of disasters befalling his opposition, but it is just as possible that he could be fending off the steady progress of Rawro and the fiery charge of xmax, in defense of his position in the championship.

Rawro's season has almost been the opposite of Rapha's. Rawro has a pair of podiums to his name, and has only failed to score points on two starts and missed a single race. Rawro can be counted on to bring in regular points, with his reliability being topped only by cambourne. While he's all but mathematically eliminated from contention for the championship, there remains much uncertainty over his finishing position in the season. He could plausibly finish ahead of both Luke and Rapha, and even Kenny isn't out of reach with a quartet of 5th places. Coming 4th or even 3rd in the championship is not out of the question. However, xmax is also on a wild charge, and is looking to be right around Rawro's projected points total by the end of the season. How the points will shake out between these two is anyone's guess!

El Sucio Dan is the defending champion, but he's missed just as many races as Luke Bracks. He's got top-tier pace but with three more races confirmed to be missed, El Sucio Dan's extremely narrow window for defending his title has closed. The key question is how many points will he score in Mexico? A strong result could put him out of reach of ballzech in 9th, and secure 8th place in the championship.

xmax has been the breakout star of the second half of this season. After starting with a solid 4th place in Zandvoort, xmax has been on a tear, with two victories and two second places in a handful of races. Had he begun a few races earlier in the season, he'd have certainly been threatening for the championship, but now instead he's threatening every driver in his path by overtaking them in the championship standings. It's a race against time, for his rivals to shore up their standings in the final few races, and for him to lock in as many points as he can possibly get. 1st is mathematically unreachable, 2nd is just 6 points shy of impossible, but 3rd remains ever-so-distantly within reach.

Fun Stats

Scoring Streak

Cam's 19 race scoring streak came to an end with his retirement in Russia, right now xmax holds the longest active streak at 6 races. Rawro has the all-time record, at 24 races. He scored points at every race between Season 2 in Bahrain (14th place, prior to his victory in Season 2 China) and his 11th place finish in Season 3 Netherlands.

Attendance Streak

The attendance streaks are held by REDBARON and Cambourne. Both have perfect attendance records this season. Cambourne's streak starts after he missed the Division 1 Season 2 Baku Grand Prix 27 races ago (28 if you count the glitched Canada race from Division 1 Season 2, where the entire race got hurled into the nega-verse). REDBARON's streak starts...

scrolls through the entirety of season 2's race results.

continues scrolling through the entirety of season 1's race results.

REDBARON has been present at every single race in FRL Div 2 Season 1, FRL Div 2 Season 2, and FRL Season 3. Holy crap!

Red started his first race with FRL alongside Alpha__23, Krith, Dieggoh, ballzech, Skullsum, Rawro, L'Acadien, PatLessard, SuperPhilQC (we don't speak of him), Raw_Bar, GetDunked and SpoopyRacer. And he has attended every single race held in his divisions since then, for an insane streak of 46 races, which will reach 50 if he is able to make every remaining race this season.

Top results in this streak are a 3rd place in Abu Dhabi Season 1 and a sextet of 4ths (Belgium S1, USA S1, Australia S2, Belgium S2, France S3, Russia S3). And oh man, that Belgium was led for such a long time too!