Thread #16947860
Anonymous
1997 European Grand Prix Qualifying triple identical time (to the nearest thousandth of a second) 04/06/26(Mon)10:04:20 No.16947860
1997 European Grand Prix Qualifying triple identical time (to the nearest thousandth of a second) 04/06/26(Mon)10:04:20 No.16947860
1997 European Grand Prix Qualifying triple identical time (to the nearest thousandth of a second) Anonymous 04/06/26(Mon)10:04:20 No.16947860 [Reply]▶
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While Qualifying for the European GP in 1997, Jacques Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen got identical laps to the nearest one thousandth of a second (1:21.072). What are the odds of that happening?
Here is a video:
https://youtu.be/jSiJW0sw9SM
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>>16947860
>>16947931
Here's how I worked it.
Throw out the minutes and seconds and focus on the milliseconds.
There are a thousand milliseconds, or strips, inside of 1 second.
Assuming any strip has a chance of being picked, the first driver
hits the 72nd strip with probability [math] 1\over 10^3 [/math].
The second and third drivers, independently, hits the same strip
and so the probability becomes [math] 1\over 10^9 [/math].
The complement to this (at most 2 drivers hit the same strip)
is [math] 10^9-1\over 10^9 [/math], thus the odds of three
drivers having the same best lap is [math] 1:10^9-1 [/math].
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>>16957207
>>16957724
Yes, of course.
Things to note:
>if the time is down to ten-thousandths of a second, it's more likely the 3 drivers would have different times
>2 drivers with the same best lap times are more common than with 3, but still rare (recently, Verstappen and Russell, 2024 and 2025; both qualifiers)
>if it took 48 years including 1950 to get this record, we expect to see it again in another 48, naturally...?
>nope, this expectation has grown to 76 years (if the record doesn't happen this year) plus one year for each year without this record...so, we'll see in 2102 after lunch
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>>16957207
>>16957724
Yes, of course.
Things to note:
>if the time is down to ten-thousandths of a second, it's more likely the 3 drivers would have different times
>2 drivers with the same best lap times are more common than with 3, but still rare (recently, Verstappen and Russell, 2024 and 2025; both qualifiers)
>if it took 48 years including 1950 to get this record, we expect to see it again in another 48, naturally...?
>nope, this expectation has grown to 76 years (if the record doesn't happen this year) plus one year for each year without this record...so, we'll see in 2102 after lunch
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>>16958443
>>16958444
Trip checked
>we'll see in 2102
I'll be 98 years old lol. Well, Murray Walker nearly made it to that age, maybe I can too. Again, thank you for your response.