What Could Have Been For Dunne and Bruni - Simulated Racer - MSA 2

Just like last year, Jackson Goldstone dominated again at MSA, showing impressive composure under pressure, securing himself the overall World Cup title. But what could have been for Bruni or Dunne if not for injuries and mechanicals? Let’s jump into the data and find out.

We can engineer each rider's "perfect run" by cherry-picking their quickest time from each of the five timed sections throughout the MSA race weekend. With up to eight recorded runs, from timed training to finals, we had ample data to construct these theoretical best-case scenarios.

To demonstrate this concept, let's look at Lucas Cruz’s data. His best recorded run was 225.28s (3:45.28). But when we build his "perfect run" by combining his fastest splits (pulled from Timed Training 2, and Qualifying Round 1 & 2), he hits a theoretical 224.91s (3:44.91). So a bit quicker, but unfortunately still not enough to qualify. 

Lucas wasn’t alone in leaving time on the track. 70.4% of Elite men and 72% of Elite Women also had a faster theoretical best run than their actual fastest run of the weekend.

Diving deeper into the data, we can also visualize which riders left the most time on the track compared to Finals:

The Simulated Showdown

So, if everyone had laid down their absolute fastest possible run, how might the MSA race have unfolded?

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

It’s interesting to note that even in the simulated heat map, Dakotah starts slower than his competitors but builds speed over the course of the run. It seems like longer tracks really are suited to his strengths.

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 run" for MSA. This shifts the focus away from the individual and toward the collective speed hidden within the entire elite field.

For the Elite Men, this hypothetical perfect run clocks in at 208.18 seconds (3:28.18). To put that into perspective, that's 1.92 seconds faster than Jackson Goldstone's winning time of 210.10 seconds (3:30.10). This is smaller than the gap to second place finisher Luca Shaw (2.24 seconds). All told, Jackson's run was close to the tracks limit.

For the Elite Women, the ultimate run clocked in at 238.75 seconds (3:58.74), 2.87 seconds faster than Marine Cabirou’s winning time of  241.62 seconds (4:01.62).

The Story of the Race

Let's examine the actual race by evaluating the time lost to the leader in each section. This will allow us to identify sectors that helped shape the race outcome, offering a concrete counterpoint to simulated runs.

For both the Elite Men, section 4 was the most pivotal of the race. Here, Jackson gapped 1.25 seconds on Troy Brosnan, the next fastest rider in this section. Section 4 also showed the largest variance in times across the Elite males, as demonstrated by the wider, flatter, distribution shape. The next biggest gap was in section 1, where Dunne knocked only 0.13 seconds off Kolb.

For the Elite Women, sector 4 was also the most important for the racer winner Marine Caibrou, as here she gapped 0.32 seconds on second place finisher Nina Hoffmann. Both sectors 2 and 4 also showed the highest amount of variance of all the sectors, again demonstrated by the flat and wide distributions.

What Could Have Been?

It goes without saying that to finish first, you first must finish. But it's fun to ask what could have been for Ronan Dunne had he not exploded his wheel in the rock garden? Or what could have been for Bruni, had he not injured his leg in practice on race day morning? In the spirit of pure speculation, let’s try and answer these questions.

Ronan Dunne

Ronan Dunne was laying down a heater of a run in finals. He was fast and aggressive straight out of the gate, with green lights all the way into sector 4 when suddenly his run came to an abrupt halt as he smashed his back wheel off a rock, blowing the tire off of the rim. If we draw a heat map of Goldstone versus Dunne until that point, we would have seen Goldstone back by 1.23 seconds on Dunne coming into sector 4:

So, what could Dunne have done in the final two splits? Compared to Dunne’s best split times outside finals, on average, he was 5.3% faster in splits 1-3 during his final run. So, if we take Dunne’s fastest recorded splits four and five during the weekend, make them 5.3% faster, and then add it to his first three split times from finals, does this produce a time fast enough to beat Goldstone? 

Yes! Using the above method we estimate that Dunne might have achieved split times of 47.78 seconds (split 4) and 23.56 seconds (split 5). This would have landed him an overall time of 208.35 s (3:28.35). This would have put him 1.75 seconds ahead of the time of Jackson.

Bruni

And what about Bruni? Had he been able to race if it were not for injury, might he have been able to secure enough points to beat Jackson and take the overall? This one is a little harder to predict, as we have no final split times to use as a reference point for Bruni’s speed on finals day.

But one approach we can take is to calculate the speed increase Bruni took into his finals run in Andorra compared to his fastest non-finals run and use this as the benchmark for the speed increase we might have expected to see from him in finals at MSA. Andorra is chosen here, as like MSA, it was a high pressure race for Bruni. Not only was it his home track, but he also declared how important the win was for him to prevent the overall slipping out of his hands and into Jacksons.

In Andorra, Bruni secured a 160.57 seconds (2:40.57) qualifying time, and a 154.38 seconds (2:34.38) finals time, a 3.86% speed increase. Applying this speed increase to his MSA qualifying time of 213.52 seconds (3:33.52), we can predict that Bruni may have achieved a time of  205.28 (3:25.28) seconds. This would have knocked Jackson out of P1 and secured the overall for Bruni. But whether he would have been able to put this time down in reality, well that’s up for your imagination to decide.

That's a Wrap on 2025!

That’s a wrap on Simulated Racer for the 2025 season. We look forward to bringing you more race coverage and speculation next year in what will undoubtedly be an exciting season. Will Luca Shaw get his first win after a strong finish to the season? Will Ronan Dunne dominate showing he has great track speed and can break the single win curse which plagues so many riders? Or will Bruni come back stronger than ever seeking redemption for what must have been a very difficult end to his season?

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