I did a quick analysis spurred by this quote: 'Australia also has the 2nd fastest top 10 behind Japan, Super competitive just to get in.'
-
ALL STATISTICS ARE AS OF 6:30pm 11/6/15 AEST
Japan is more competitive cut-off than Australia, even when Japan is taking 60% more drivers to Nats.
Note that GT Academy Europe has guaranteed Race Camp placement and no Nationals at all:
The quickest cut-off time for any country is Hungary (Europe), where only a 3:24 will get you in you in (they take only one driver to race camp). The quickest cut-off time of non-Europe is Japan - surprise, surprise.
I tried to form a relationship between the fastest times in each region, and the cut-off times in each region, but non-exists.
The largest spread of eligible times going to Nationals is seen in Thailand - 3.8 seconds between fastest and cut-off. The smallest spread is seen in USA - 1.1 seconds. This is impressive, as USA is taking the largest number to Nats (20), and though causation is untested, it can be assumed this spread is small because of being double the population of Japan. Australia has a brilliant showing holding second smallest spread, but with less than 20% of the population of Japan, and less than 10% of population of USA. It's beyond my enthusiasm to plot population a variable against anything, though keep in mind:
Nationals spots:
USA (20)
Japan (16)
Australia (10)
Spread:
USA (1.1)
Australia (1.3)
Japan (1.5)
Population (relative):
USA
Japan
Australia (though refer to percentages previously)
ie. Australia is punching ahead of its weight (for it's population) against Japan, EVEN when National places are meant to be proportional.
There's a HUGE gap in quality drivers to any other country (excluding Europe; I didn't test those countries), with times dropping off dramatically even when matching Australia's national spots (which I posited is proportional to population), which is why India is an INCREDIBLE disappoint all round, with a population more than three times the United States, but the lowest time of all countries, the lowest cut-off of all countries, and a spread nearly double Japan (which I just said was the highest spread of the three top countries above) at 2.9 seconds. To put this into further context- Mexico has 14 Nat spots, (with the largest qualifiers in total 28) and still retains a lower spread than India, and Mexico is a disappointment in times referenced against the number of spots.
Finally - and the reason I started collating - I made a crude 'relative competitive time' for countries by getting the spread and dividing that by the number of people who go to Race Camp in each country.
'Relative competitive time'
Japan- 3:24.95 (+/- 0.1)
Hungary- 3:25.00
Spain- 3:25.26
Italy-3:25.29
Australia- 3:25.29 (+/- 0.1)
United Kingdom- 3:25.79
Poland- 3:25.82
France-3:25.93
USA- 3:25.93 (+/- 0.1)
Germany- 3:26.02
Netherlands- 3:26.07
Portugal- 3:26.13
Turkey- 3:26.23 (+/- 0.1)
Belgium/Luxembourg- 3:26.48
Czech Republic- 3:26.48
Thailand- 3:26.74 (+/- 0.1)
Indonesia- 3:26.79 (+/- 0.1)
Mexico- 3:26.99 (+/- 0.1)
India- 3:27.47 (+/- 0.1)
Keen eyes would notice that the margin of error on Australia is within Spain and Italy's times, so it's quite possible we are more competitive than them as well. So all in all, yes, Australia is definitely one of the most competitive countries worldwide. On absolute cut-offs 'just to get in' (referring back to the quote I was testing), more than half of the other countries participating have a quicker absolute cut-off time than Australia, which means that it shouldn't be so and the quote wouldn't hold true. But the cut-offs are skewed when Europe has guaranteed Race Camp placement.
There is a comparatively large gap between the top 5 relative competitive countries, and the rest.
In synopsis: Australia's not that bad if you want to progress to Nationals, but very, very competitive to get to Race Camp. The only two proven countries harder are Japan, and Hungary. We know the reasons why these two countries are hard, and on a crude comparative scale, we're very close to them.
Click to expand...