During this Formula 1 season, it has often been said that practice tells us virtually nothing about who’s going to do well in the race.

Well, that’s easy to say. But how true is it? I decided to grid up the top three from the two Friday practice sessions, Saturday practice, qualifying and the race, for every race so far this year. Then I coloured it in. Pretty, huh?

What’s it supposed to show, then?

Well, apart from the British Grand Prix, practice sessions haven’t been very predictive of race results. Turkey was particularly special, because none of the race top three featured in a session top three until qualifying.

This is largely down to that pesky Brawn GP team. As Rubens Barichello put it on Twitter today, they “always run heavy” on a Friday. And since they have mainly been winning the races this season, they have pretty much created the trend of practice not revealing much about overall pace.

But it’s also because of teams like Williams, and Nico Rosberg in particular, who has become nothing short of a practice specialist. If only there were points for being top in practice, eh?

In the last couple of races, though, when Red Bull Racing have been strong, their drivers have featured more consistently over the course of the weekend.

So it might be the case that, given the race result, you can tell whether practice will have been predictive. That is to say, if it’s a Brawn GP weekend, then practice won’t tell you much; but if it’s a Red Bull Racing weekend, then practice will.

That might not sound helpful, but it hasn’t been the case that Red Bull Racing have been strong during practice on a Brawn GP weekend. Therefore, if Red Bull Racing are strong in practice, they will be strong in the race. If they aren’t, then it’s anyone’s guess.

So let’s put the theory to the test.

In Hungary today, the first practice session was topped by Kovalainen, Rosberg and Hamilton; in second practice it was Hamilton, Kovalainen and Rosberg.

The fact that Rosberg is up there makes me doubt the helpfulness of the results. So I’m not sure what to make of McLaren, but I reckon we can be confident that we won’t see Red Bull Racing dominate the race. As for Brawn GP? Nobody know what those buggers are up to.