Simulated Racer - Was It Palazzari’s Race for the Taking? - Andorra Analysis 8

Welcome back to Simulated Racer, the series where we take a deep dive into World Cup race data to uncover the hidden stories of what could have been. This week, we're dissecting the Elite Men's data from Pal Arinsal. In this edition, we will test the claim that Andorra was the tightest race of 2025 yet, and unfold Palazzari's incredible Finals run to see whether he could have clinched the win.

Just like before, we've engineered each rider's 'perfect run.' We do this by cherry-picking their quickest time from each of the five timed sections throughout the race weekend. With up to eight recorded runs—from timed training to finals—we had a wealth of data to construct these theoretical best-case scenarios.

To show you how it works, let's look at Evan Medcalf's data. His best recorded run clocked in at 165.32 seconds (2:45:32). But when we assemble his "perfect run" by combining his fastest splits (pulled from Timed Training 2 & 3 and Qualifying Round 1 & 2), he achieves a theoretical 164.43 seconds (2:44:43), a gain of 0.89 seconds. Would that have been enough to secure him a place in the finals? 

The Time Left on the Track

Evan wasn't alone in leaving time out on the hill. 74.7% of Elite Men (68 of 91) had a faster theoretical best run than their actual fastest run of the weekend.

This underscores the inherent variability in performance in this course and downhill racing in general. It's precisely this unpredictability that makes the sport so captivating and makes these simulated analyses fun. You have so many riders brimming with raw talent, capable of unlocking that perfect flow at any given moment to stitch together a winning run. These statistics only further emphasize the critical role of racecraft.

Now, let's dig even deeper into the data and visualize exactly which riders left the most time out on the track:

It's great to see Dakotah back in the top 10, and impressive to see that he still had 0.36 seconds left on the track, which could have bumped him up to 9th place ahead of Jordan Williams in the finals. I can't wait to see what he does for the rest of the season as he builds his strength back up.

The Simulated Showdown

So, who do you think would have risen to the top of the 'perfect run' standings in Pal Arinsal?

A common theme seems to be emerging for each race this year: the fastest person in the Finals is often the fastest person of the race weekend. While this might sound obvious, it is interesting to note that there is much more variability just a few places down the rankings. Often, people showing immense speed can't quite put it together on finals day. However, when Goldstone or Bruni are on one, they are just unstoppable across the entire weekend.

We can break down the top 10 simulated race times by splits to recreate what the simulated race would have looked like:

The Ultimate Run

Let's take this thought experiment a step further. By stitching together the fastest split times from every rider, we can construct the theoretical "ultimate downhill rider" for Pal Arinsal. This isn't just about individual potential; it's about the raw, collective speed hidden within the entire elite field.

For the Elite Men, this hypothetical perfect run clocks in at 154.02 seconds (2:34.02). To put that into perspective, that's only 0.35 seconds faster than Loic Bruni's winning time of 154.37 seconds (2:34.37)!

What this highlights is how fast Bruni was going on that Andorran track. He left hardly anything out there on the hill.

Note that the table below does not count Davide Palazzari's splits from Finals, as he is registered as a DSQ in the results sheet (more on that soon!):

The Actual Story of the Race

To anybody who watched the race or has followed the post-race coverage, this next insight won't come as a surprise: the race was won in the first split.

Compared to second-place finisher Jackson Goldstone, Bruni put 1.28 seconds into him in the first split. You could visibly see the inside lines that Bruni took, finding grip where few others did. The next closest riders to Bruni in that first split were Amaury Pierron (+ 0.105s) and Thibaut Daprela (+ 0.404s). Maybe there is something to be said about a French line, which can be seen as the long left tail of the distribution in section one below:

Was Pal Arinsal the Tightest Race Yet?

A common theme from the commentary box at Pal Arinsal was how tight the racing was and how little room there was for error.

To find out how tight this race was against the other rounds so far this year, we can visualize the gaps in times between the top 5, 10, and 20 riders in Finals (note: the whole field isn’t used as crashes towards the end of the rider list heavily skew the statistics):

From this table, we can see that it was, in fact, Leogang that was the tightest race across the board. Pal Arinsal was the second-tightest race, alongside Bielsko-Biala, depending on the metric you look at. Unsurprisingly, the steep tracks of Val di Sole and La Thuile showed the largest spread in time.

We can also visualize the distributions visually on a plot, to better understand how tight the racing is across all racers:

This data tells a similar story, except that here we can see Pal Arinsal had more outlier results than Leogang. It is also interesting to note that of the riders who didn't crash (and have been omitted from the plot), La Thiule produced a fairly even and consistent spread across the riders, whereas Val di Sole was more spread out.

Palazzari vs. Bruni

Davide Palazzari was on an absolute heater of a run. At split two, the timing on screen showed that he was over two seconds up. He managed to maintain his advantage at splits three and four before it all came to a quick stop with a spectacular crash in the final sector, which he luckily walked away from uninjured.

This begs the question: had Palazzari not crashed in the final sector, was the race his for the taking? In post-race interviews, it was speculated that he still wouldn't have been able to win, but to be sure, I put it to the test.

First, let's see how the splits would have looked between Bruni, the race winner, and Palazzar until the final sector:

We all saw how Bruni dominated the top section, but had Palazzari not crashed, we would have seen red for Bruni at splits 2 and 3 on the live feed, not the constant flash of green lights we witnessed instead. But, by split 4, Bruni would have been up again by 0.685 seconds.

So, what could Palazzari have done in the final split? Compared to Palazzari's best split times outside finals, on average, he was 3.33% faster in each split during his final run. So, if we take Palazzari's fastest recorded split five during the weekend, make it 3.33% faster, and then add it to his first four split times from finals, does this produce a time fast enough to beat Bruni? Sadly not. Using the above method, we estimate that Palazzari might have achieved a final split time of 16.76s (3.33 % faster than his fastest recorded split of 17.34s). This would have landed him an overall time of 155.47s (2:35.47s). This would have still put him 1.10 seconds behind the time of Bruni.

Still, it's incredible to think he might still have placed second, in front of the likes of Jackson Goldstone and Loris Vergier. Clearly, his pace is there, and for two splits of the race, Palazzari should hold his head high knowing he was the fastest man in the world during that time.

Wrap Up

That’s a wrap for Pal Arinsal! We now have a long break until the next race in Les Gets on the 28th August. I’m excited to see which riders come back recharged, and I’m sure Palazzari will come back even hungrier having been so close. As ever, keep the feedback coming! Let us know what you like, what you think could be improved, and any ideas you would like to see explored for future races.