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They were driving go carts a few months ago and now the topic came up that friend1 (who was first in race) overtook friend2 (who was second in the race), of course friend1 claims he overtook him and friend2 claims he didnt.

friend1 = { 57.03, 55.50, 55.39, 55.62, 55.26, 55.79, 55.15, 55.69, 58.28, 54.72, 56.02, 54.61, 58.27, 55.19, 54.70, 54.93, 56.31 };
friend2 = { 59.98, 59.07, 58.84, 58.24, 58.24, 58.41, 58.79, 58.02, 59.20, 58.09, 57.60, 57.99, 59.10, 58.29, 58.21, 57.49, 60.04 }

Those are the lap times, friend1 claims he overtook friend2 at around lap 12-13. Is there any way to calculate this? Does the lenght of the track matter? Also friend1 has one more lap clocked at the end but because he said he overtook him earlier and we dont know exactly if other drivers were clocked after that still or not i dont think it matters (correct me if i am wrong).

So did friend1 overtake friend2 at any point in the race?

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    If these are only lap times, then you cannot answer your question. Imagine Friend two beeing as fast as light, but in front of the finishing line, he just waits to get the lap time 59.98. And so forth. – 2017-02-16
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    if you work out the cumulative time taken after each lap, then that can give you a postion at the end of that lap, then you can see which lap it was the positions changed - so friend 1 takes 112.53 to finish lap 2, friend 1 takes 119.05 - at that point friend 1 was winning – 2017-02-16
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    If friend had 1 more lap clocked, then that suggests he had lapped friend 2 at some point, and was therefore the winner by a lap - you might see in formula 1, the lapped cars finish a lap early, they are always ranked behind cars that lapped them, even if the lapped car passes the finish line later than they did. – 2017-02-16
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    so I say yes you can see if there were further lappings - but where is this 'extra lap time'? – 2017-02-16

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