Dr. Diandra: Do some drivers race better during certain parts of the season?

Tony Stewart was famous for being — depending on your point of view — either a ‘slow starter’ or a driver who didn’t get hot on the track until temperatures rose. But is this just a maxim that’s been repeated so many times that everyone believes it?

And if there are drivers who perform better during certain parts of the season, what might that tell us about the race for the championship?

I calculated Stewart’s average finishing position by month to test this theory. In the graph below, I plot the results from his 618-race career. My scale uses red to mean good average finish (‘hot’) and blue meaning not-so-good average finish. The scale runs from 9 (bright red) to 20 (bright blue.)

Stewart’s graph runs from medium blue in the early months of the season to redder in the latter portion.

Stewart’s worst results happened in February, where he had only a 17.5 average finish. Remember, however that Stewart drove during a time when February was mostly Daytona.

March and April were marginally better for Stewart, but his best results really did come in the summer. Stewart’s average finishing position in June was a full 5.1 positions better than in February.

The trend continued throughout the rest of the year, with an average finish that hovered around 13 in every month except November. But Stewart’s average finish in November was still 3.1 positions better than in February.

One might question whether this result is simply a consequence of which tracks the series visits in which months. But Stewart’s success at Daytona in July (four wins) stands in stark contrast to his lack of success in the Daytona 500 in February.

One caveat to analyzing the data this way is that a career-level calculation isn’t as enlightening for drivers in