Monday, November 09, 2009

The latitude and longitude of F1

It has been observed on more than one occasion over the years that Bernie Ecclestone could save everyone in Formula One a lot of time and money by the simple expedient of holding each Grand Prix in the same location, and merely changing the scenery every couple of weeks.

There has, of course, also been a trend in recent years for the centre of gravity of the championship calendar to become increasing Oriental. Thus, if one were to hold each Grand Prix in the same location, where would be the most appropriate place in which to hold it? Probably not somewhere in Europe. To be scientific about this issue, then, let us propose instead that we take the average latitude and longitude of all the race tracks on the 2010 Formula One calendar.

Assuming that the British Grand Prix will be held at Silverstone, the 2010 calendar consists of the following geographical locations:
























RaceLatitude Longitude
Bahrain 26.032550.510556
Australia-37.849722144.968333
Malaysia2.760556101.7375
China 31.338889121.219722
Spain 41.572.261111
Monaco43.7347227.420556
Turkey 40.95166729.405
Canada 45.505833-73.526667
Europe 39.458889-0.331667
Britain 52.071-1.016
Germany 49.3277788.565833
Hungary 47.57888919.248611
Belgium 50.4372225.971389
Italy45.6205569.289444
Singapore1.291403103.864147
Japan 34.843056136.540556
S. Korea 34.733333126.416667
Abu Dhabi24.46722254.603056
Brazil -23.703611-46.699722


The average latitude and longitude of the 2010 Formula 1 calendar is therefore 28.95632537, 42.12886447. These coordinates transpire to be a desert region in Saudi Arabia called Al Haiyaniya, (pictured in the satellite image above).

The perfect location, then, for the entire championship.

2 comments:

Doug Hudson said...

Hi Gordon, if you already know your data distribution is skewed, why did you use the mean location?
Surely use of the median is more appropriate, statistically speaking?

Gordon McCabe said...

Good point, and a tricky question. I reckon the distribution is actually a bimodal distribution rather than a skewed unimodal distribution. There's one concentration in Europe, and a rather more diffuse concentration in South-East Asia.