Competitiveness of Formula 1 championship from 2012 to 2022 as measured by Kendall corrected evolutive coefficient

TL;DR

This study evaluates the competitiveness of Formula 1 from 2012 to 2022 using a novel Kendall corrected evolutive coefficient, comparing it with European football leagues to understand trends in competitive balance.

Contribution

It introduces the use of the Kendall corrected evolutive coefficient to measure F1's competitive balance over a decade, including comparisons with football leagues.

Findings

F1's competitiveness has varied over the years.

F1's competitive balance is comparable to major European football leagues.

The Kendall corrected evolutive coefficient effectively captures changes in competitiveness.

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the FIA formula one world championships from 2012 to 2022 taking into account the drivers classifications and the constructors teams classifications of each Grand Prix. The needed data consisted of 22 matrices of sizes ranging from $25 \times 20$ to $10 \times 19$ that have been elaborated from the GP classifications extracted from the official FIA site. We have used the Kendall corrected evolutive coefficient, recently introduced, as a measure of Competitive Balance (CB) to study the evolution of the competitiveness along the years in both drivers and teams championships. In addition, we have compared the CB of F1 championships and two major European football leagues from the seasons 2012-2013 to 2022-2023.