Do F1 teams have too much data at hand?
As we look back at a disappointing race in Spain, we hear more complaints on the huge amounts of data teams have to their disposal.
Let’s be honest: the Spanish grand prix wasn’t the most exciting race we’ve seen in the last few years. Then again, it’s Barcelona. Not only one of the tracks with the least amount of opportunities to overtake, it’s also the track that teams (and drivers) know like the back of their hand from pre-season winter testing. Oh and it’s infamous Mercedes-territory…
Since the start of the current hybrid era in 2014, the Silver Arrows have won all the races that took place on the circuit, bar one. And we all know why they didn’t win that one - and who did run off with a victory. With his victory this sunday, Lewis Hamilton has now won the race 5 of the seven times it took place since 2014. So perhaps we shouldn’t have got our expectations that high?
Management
But we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves. The spectaculair events at Silverstone did not come as a surprise for Mercedes only, so to speak. Of course we were all curious to find out if the perfect veneer of Mercedes would crack (or melt) under the heat of the Spanish sun.
But a week is quite some time in Formula 1 terms and from FP1 and onwards it quickly became clear that Mercedes had come up with something to keep the car competitive in the hotter circumstances, even if the Red Bull of Max Verstappen seemed to just edge them in the long runs.
On top of that, they could keep a grip on the tyre deg, although we must not forget Pirelli also went back to the harder compounds of Silverstone 1, the tyre that may have packed a surprise ending, but was performing far better on the Mercedes then it’s softer version a week later. And as for stress on the tyres: Barcelona is no Silverstone.
So a large chunk of the conversation in the reviews this week is about tyre management, with drivers openly admitting that they can’t push their car to the limit without burning through the rubber way too fast. We all heard Vettel crunching the numbers with his engineer mid-race or Verstappen letting his engineer know that Hamilton ‘was just driving super slow’ in the first stint of the race.
Too much data
He wasn’t wrong: Hamilton was driving an average of 9 seconds slower than his qualifying time in the first few laps of the race. His average laptime over the full 66 laps was a whopping 7 seconds slower than his qualifying lap.
Toto Wolff explained afterwards that it was all part of tyre management, something all of the drivers have to deal with. He estimated that the top 3 could probably have gone around 3 seconds quicker per lap if they didn’t have to focus on the rubber that much. A point proven by Valtteri Bottas, who put down the pedal just before the end of his second stint and improved his laptime on used tyres with more than 2 seconds.
It sparked some debate if the sport maybe is a little bit too much data driven at the moment.
It’s easy to agree with that, based on the track of this weekend. The teams have spent the last six years in Barcelona for their pre-season test and have gathered enormous amounts of data of the track and the behaviour of their cars. A quick fix for that specific issue would be simple: don’t race where you test. Something we could see happening very soon, since Barcelona only has a contract for hosting a race this year.
And then there’s the possibility to tweak the calendar and weekend format. We’ve already welcomed some new tracks to the calendar this year, old acquaintances actually. Mugello, Imola, Portimao, Nurburgring and now also Turkey is rumoured to return. Tracks where we haven’t raced in quite some time and most of the current grid has never driven in an F1 car at all.
This week, the teams already agreed that there will be no testing at four of the newly introduced circuits. And the FIA has introduced a shorter weekend for Imola, with only one 90 minute free practice session ahead of qualifying.
So it seems those weekends promise to get a whole lot more interesting.
Perhaps the teams are making too much calls based on data and the sport is becoming less about race craft, nuts and bolts - the best capable driver in the fastest car - and more about the quickest algorithm.
Then again, didn’t that list of fastest drivers since 1983 that surfaced this week prove that you can have all the data at hand but still interpret it completely wrong?
Very much looking forward to Spa for now.
Cheers,
Johan
📑The Debrief
Seven immediate ways to improve F1 racing
Gary Anderson, tech expert over at The Race, wrote this excellent piece in which he explains which seven ways could improve F1 racing in the short term.
Striping the teams of (most of their) data is one of them, but also tyre pressure, DRS usage and pit lights are mentioned.
Williams Racing acquired by US investement firm Dorilton
Great news coming from Williams Racing this week. The popular British team has been in stormy weather for the last couple of years, both on the sportive and the financial side of F1. After a strategic review this May, team principal Claire Williams announced that the family-owned team would be looking for an external investor.
This friday, it announced it’s acquirement by US investement firm Dorilton. The team was founded by Frank Williams in 1977 and was family-owned for the past 43 years.
All ten teams sign new Concorde Agreement
It may come as no surprise that after the usuals rumblings all teams have signed the new Concorde Agreement for F1. The new agreement will be in effect until the end of 2025.
The agreement itself is not public, but throughout the years, we’ve learned alot about the special terms that are in there for teams like Ferrari amongst others. But who are the winners for this new agreement?
FIA postpones Party Mode ban, but it could only make Mercedes stronger in race pace, says Toto Wolff
The FIA has announced it is postponing it’s ‘Party Mode’-ban until the Italian GP. This way, the manufactures have a little more time to test before they head into a race with the restrictions in place.
When the first signs came out that the FIA was looking to limit the usage of engine mappings in F1, effectively killing of ‘Party Mode’ in qualifying, the response from the Mercedes garage was anything but panic. Although the Silver Arrows arguably have the most advantage of the multitude of engine modes to their disposal, both drivers and team principal Toto Wolff responded in all calmness. It could even make them stronger, they suggested.
After the race in Barcelona, Wolff elaborated on this take: “So five laps of quali mode not being done gives us 25 laps of more performance in the race, and that is something we believe will give us more performance.”
As Scott Mitchell on The Race podcast put it: “The last thing F1 needs right now is a Mercedes that is a tenth or two slower in qualifying and a tenth or two quicker in the race.”
Turkey returns in new calendar update, 17 races planned for this year
About a week or so the rumours of Turkey returning the calendar have been making the rounds. It is now suggested that Formula 1 and the FIA are to confirm a 17 races-calendar soon, with Turkey and Bahrain in the works.
The Turkish GP would take place after the race at Imola, which makes a lot more sense logistically, since the circus is moving on to Bahrain from there. Their would be a double header at Bahrain (in alternate track layouts) before the season is wrapped-up in Abu Dhabi, two weeks earlier than planned.
Hamilton puts the pressure on Pirelli, says the drivers need ‘more grip and better safety’
In the aftermath of the Spanish GP, Lewis Hamilton once again called upon Pirelli to create better tyres: “Right now, we’re doing a serious amount of management. And I don’t think that’s what the fans want. That’s not what a racing driver wants, to have to manage behind a car, multiple seconds behind, because the tyres are not good enough. So we want to help Pirelli, to help them make a better tyre if they can.”
But Pirelli doesn’t seem to feel that pressure and postpones prototype testing again
After already postponing the testing of the 2021 tyres in Silverstone and Barcelona, Pirelli has now moved the schedule back to October.
Although we will be running with pretty much the same tyres in 2021, Pirelli wants to refine them. After the events of Silverstone 1, Pirelli decided to postpone the tests during Silverstone’s 2 practice sessions, giving the teams more time to get used to the softer compound for that weekend.
And then there was that list, of course.
If you haven’t been online this week, didn’t read any newspapers and had no contact with F1-friends, you might have missed the list of ‘fastest drivers’ that F1 and AWS put out earlier this week.
Crunching data from qualifying sessions since 1983, applying smart algorithmes and machine learing, this would be the definitive answer to that age old question. Is it? Jump over to the Top 20 and you tell us. Or watch the respons by the editors of The Race with some excellent remarks (and banter).