What Does An F1 Strategist Do?

The Challenging Job of a Racing Strategist

Ruth Buscombe, Head of Strategy for Alfa Romeo Racing, discusses the challenging job of a racing strategist and how they facilitate decision-making throughout the race weekend.

Race Strategy Basics

• Race strategy involves making decisions such as calling pit stops, determining when to pit during the race, how many times to pit, and what tires to fit.

• A team of 30 to 40 people back at base in mission control in Woking work with the strategists live through every single session.

Making Decisions

• The team works together to make decisions based on information gathered from competitor team radio and TV feeds.

• They put all this information together to make the best possible decisions.

Planning Ahead

• The strategy planning starts much earlier than expected - over winter looking at races for the following year.

• They select tires that they will run on Friday and Saturday 8 to 14 weeks ahead of time by doing simulations with race engineering and tire simulation departments.

Adapting Strategies

• Plans are flexible because things can change over time such as realizing that they are quicker or slower during intermediate races or having power unit penalties at certain races.

• Sometimes they commit with their tire selection but adapt strategies through the weekend depending on weather forecasts or competitors' choices.

The Importance of Friday Practice

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of Friday practice for strategy and how simulations are used to forecast how the weekend might evolve.

Simulations

• Friday practice is important for strategy because it allows teams to run simulations that give a forecast of their expectations for the weekend.

• Simulations are heavily important to teams and they use 4000 machines in the cloud to run them live.

• For a single race, there are more different permutations or different ways a race could unfold than there are electrons in the universe. Therefore, teams try to be smart about using elements of game theory and machine learning to help them model what their competitors may do.

Race Strategy

In this section, the speaker discusses how simulations are used to determine race strategy and make decisions on Saturday.

Saturday Decisions

• Teams factor in degradation, tyre wear, pace, and other variables when deciding on race strategy.

• On Saturdays, teams make decisions on how many runs they need in qualifying and when is the best time to release the car.

• If both cars don't make it into Q3 on Saturday night, teams have to decide what starting tyre they will use.

Adapting During The Race

In this section, the speaker discusses how teams adapt during races based on changing conditions.

During The Race

• Teams are constantly thinking about what might cause them to pit or change their strategy during the race.

• Teams react to changing information during the race, such as weather conditions or safety cars, while trying to stick as close to their plan as possible.

Strategy and Decision Making in Formula 1

In this section, we learn about the role of strategy in Formula 1 racing. We also learn how decisions are made during a race and how they can impact the outcome.

The Role of Strategy

• Strategy plays a crucial role in Formula 1 racing.

• Teams must decide what risks they are willing to take to gain an advantage.

• The risk balance is constantly evolving throughout the weekend and the championship.

Decision Making During a Race

• Teams pre-decide when drivers will pit based on virtual safety car windows being open.

• After a race, teams debrief using a visual representation of all gaps during the race called a "race trace."

• Debriefing is also used to provide explanations for decisions made during the race that there wasn't enough time to explain at the moment.

Team Effort

• Strategy is never just one person; it's always a team effort.