PWP: The Mid-Season Report

Formula 1’s summer shutdown has offered Pit Wall Predictions players the perfect opportunity to take stock of the season so far.

The opening 12 races of 2023 have proved to be pretty tough to call, but many clever Williams Racing fans have successfully negotiated the twists and turns to boast high scores at the halfway stage.

Last year's winning score of 355 looks set to be broken - our current leading trio boasts 245 points each with 10 rounds left to go.

Keep reading to find out more about each round before discovering where you rank on our leaderboard.

If you’re new to Pit Wall Predictions, presented by Gulf, where have you been? It’s our free-to-play game that gives you the chance to definitively prove you know what you’re talking about.

There are still 400 points up for grabs in 2023, so you could make a serious charge up the rankings even if you start playing at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Round 1 saw plenty of players get off to a strong start, much like we did on track.

A fraction over 43% of PWP players secured 20 points or higher, while one switched-on fan managed to score full marks, securing the exclusive ‘Pit Wall Perfection’ badge in the process.

Our secretive Grove guru ‘The Strategist’ also scored highly, wracking up 35 of 40 available points.

When one of our drivers retires midway through a race, it typically makes it harder to score highly on PWP.

This is reflected in the results from Round 2 - the most common score was 3/8, whilst The Strategist only went one better.

This was the lowest scoring round since PWP began at the beginning of 2022, with a whopping 79% of players scoring less than 10 points. A tough afternoon for both our drivers was echoed in the scores, with the highest score of 25/40 being shared by seven players.

It wasn’t any better for The Strategist who had to ponder a measly 1/8 on the long flight back from Melbourne.

An uncharacteristically quiet Azerbaijan Grand Prix caught our top-secret guru - along with plenty of other players - off guard in Round 4.

The most common score in Baku was 2/8, with only 24% of players scoring 20 points or more.

You thought the scores in Melbourne were low? Well, they were nothing compared to what was recorded after the second Miami Grand Prix.

It proved an ideal race for all simulations, with no retirements, safety cars, virtual safety cars, or even yellow flags to interrupt the Grand Prix.

The most common points tally was 5/40, so don't feel too bad if this wasn't your best weekend — in fact, just 8% of all players scored 20 points or more. Even The Strategist only managed to net 10 points.

A rain-affected Monaco Grand Prix meant there were no perfect scores, but four players did manage 35 points from a possible 40!

15/40 was the most common score, with nearly 29% of players getting three selections correct from the eight questions we asked you.

The Strategist did better than most in Monaco, but not by much, picking up a total of 20 points.

PWP has seen it all so far in 2023, from the lows of Melbourne and Monaco to one of the highest-scoring rounds ever in Barcelona.

Over half of all players picked up at least 20 points, whilst massive congratulations went to the 13 players who scored full marks, earning themselves the prestigious Pit Wall Perfection badge in the process.

The Strategist didn’t earn the badge, but they weren’t too far away from it, scoring 6/8.

There was some flawless strategy executed by the Williams Racing team on track in Montreal, with Alex battling to a P7 finish.

But the topsy-turvy race - which included Logan’s unfortunate early DNF - made it impossible to call for most PWP players, with just 12% picking up half marks or higher.

The Strategist’s 15 points in a tough-to-call Canadian Grand Prix were not to be scoffed at.

The Austrian GP saw more players secure the rare Pit Wall Perfection badge, 12 to be precise.

Just shy of 60% of our fans scored at least half marks but The Strategist took a bit of a beating, falling from P22 to P66 on our leaderboard.

Silverstone produced our highest score on track so far in 2023, but that wasn’t replicated on PWP.

If you took 15 points or more this round, you did better than most. 2/8 was the most common score, but three players did top score with 35.

One of those certainly wasn’t The Strategist, only picking up five points from our home race.

Year after year, the races at the Hungaroring are always tough to call and that was true in our results.

72% of players scored 15 points or less, whilst just 0.3% top scored with 35 points.

There was a minor resurgence for our Grove guru, who had been humbled in recent weeks but walked away from Budapest with 20 more points added to their tally.

Four players managed to pick up 35 points from the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, an almighty effort given the lack of dry running going into Sunday’s race.

If you scored at least 20 points, you would have made a good leap up our leaderboard as only 15% of players managed this.

P123 - 195 points

Three players share P1 - 245 points