Every weekend (aside from superspeedway races, where practice is useless), I'll post my practice FLAGS metrics from the weekend's practice session.
This year, I've added several metrics to it, including:
- FLAGS – The classic practice FLAGS ranking you know and love
- GAP – Measures the equal-tire gap per lap to the fastest driver in practice
- PEAK – Peak speed ranking
- LONG – Long-run speed ranking
- DEG – Tire degradation ranking
- CON – Consistency ranking
In all cases except GAP (which is just a raw differential in seconds), 100% (1.0) is best, and 0% (0.0) is worst. Every metric is adjusted for group strength and track conditions (since some groups have more favorable track conditions than others).
The 's' designation means speed-based (or scaled based on the range of the data), while the 'q' designation is the quantile, so it's based on the ordinal ranking of the drivers.
Here's this week's NASCAR practice speeds and FLAGS for the Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
