[Race] Traffic in China (in race!)

[Schummy]

Surely Shanghai has a lot of busy traffic every day but obviously I am posting about "traffic" in the race.

I have done a little calculation about the level of traffic the main drivers suffered during the race, i.e. the number of laps they had a close car ahead possibly hindering his pace. Even if nowadays overtaking is easier than yesterday, it can still be a nuisance for a good final classification.

In the following table I have put the number of laps main contenders have passed Very Close to the car ahead, Close to the car ahead or Not Close to it (less than 1 seg, between 1 and 2 segs and more than 2 segs respectively)

     VC   C  NC
HAM  21  19  16
VET  14   3  39
WEB  24   9  23
BUT  11  14  31
ROS  11   9  36
MAS  20   5  31
ALO  22   6  28

Poor Lewis passed 40 laps close or very close to another car and only 16 laps "free". However Vettel had a better horizon, with just 17 "blocked" laps and 39 free ones. Those two were the extremes among the main drivers.

Webber was very jammed as well (his grid position was "not optimal"), and Rosberg got a pretty "free" race. A lot of factor play in this stat: grid position, strategy... and lady luck, of course.

Putting it in a graphic way, the gap with the car ahead along the race for Hamilton (black line) and Vettel (blue line) was as in the image (zeroes mean the driver was leading the race).

LH was every non-leading lap near a car ahead, SV, however had many laps with a clear track in his eyes. That's the way it resulted, strategy or luck. Anyway, we know LH won the race and Seb sank in the last laps, possibly avoiding an embarrassing "Webber episode" by two or three laps.