F1bythenumbers’ Shiny App

Hello everyone 

After what feels like forever, I am proud to have some news for you. No, I am not dead (yet), and yes, I have decided to continue with this blog. I’m not giving up yet.

I have taken quite a bit of time during this off-season to work on some exciting projects that should be up and running before the start of the new season. Working with data is not simple, and things usually take longer than expected, but I believe that the results are worth the time that was invested to get them.

Right now I am proud to present the beta version of the F1bythenumbers’ shiny app. This project consists of an interactive web app that will allow you to get charts and other types of data from the drivers that you care about. After realizing that it is impossible to cover every single driver on the grid, I came up with this idea, which will allow you to get info about teams that I rarely cover, such as Haas, Williams, or Alpha Tauri.

The web application is still very young. So young that I have been calling it the “baby app”. But as with all the projects, it will keep getting better with time, as I will be adding more and more features during the next months. This is a work in progress, but one that doesn’t stop.

Features

You can think of the app as an interactive chart creator. My charts with race pace received praise last year, so I decided to build this app on top of them.

At the moment, the application allows you to explore the race pace for two drivers at a time, only for three races from the 2019 season (Australia, México, and Abu Dhabi).

You can select which laps to compare for both drivers, as well as remove individual laps that you may not want in the final results. You can as well remove laps when drivers stopped for new tires, since they may perhaps not be as significant for the final race pace analysis.

As with my previous charts, the app will display the mean race pace time for each driver, and the tires that were used in each lap.

Future work

I have a ton of ideas of things that can be done with this new tool. To start, I will be adding the remaining races for the 2019 season. This will allow you to explore the full dataset from last years’ season, and hopefully will make you keep thinking about Formula 1 on these off-season months.

The next step will be to expand the app to show not only race pace, but free practice and quali results as well. This will make it easier for you to get concise and accurate information of your favourite driver(s) before each race.

I have many more ideas in mind, but I will keep quiet for now and will release them as a surprise for you in the near future.

Limitations

I do not have a ton of money. Let me rephrase that. I have very little money. This is a bit(much) of a problem since to create this app I needed to get a new server that has the infrastructure required to make this app scalable.

Since servers cost money, right now I am working with an affordable server that doesn’t have a lot of raw power. This, in turn, limits the performance of the application and the number of users that can use it at the same time.

Your help?

I do not like asking for support. Never have, and I don’t know if I ever will. I am very independent and enjoy working alone. Having said that, sometimes asking for support is the only way to move forward.

To remove the current server limitations, I can increase the capacity of the server quite easily, but only if I can obtain your support. Because of this, I have created a Patreon account which will allow you to support me and this project.

Currently, there is a single tier that you can subscribe to. Suscribing to this tier will give you access to the race pace data of the entirety of the 2019 season, and will give you early access to new functionality. To access this new upcoming funcionality, all you need to do is sign up to my Patreon and log in to the application using your Patreon account.

As I’ve said, I am working very hard to make this app better. My main goal is to have an app that will give you valuable information that you are unable to get from any other source at the moment.

Final remarks

You have no idea how happy I am of finally being able to release this first new version of the F1bythenumber’s shiny app. I have had to learn things that I didn’t know anything about in very little time, but I feel like the time invested was worth it.

With your patience, and hopefully with your help as well, I will be able to continue making this project bigger and better.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and just go ahead, try the new application and let me know what do you think about it.