The rise of digitalization has seen the volume of data increase substantially. While this is openly embraced at the highest tiers of motorsport, the applications and potential for competitive advantage are far broader across motorsport. PACETEQ takes a look at how data can drive race strategies, regardless of series.

Race strategy revolves around three main parameters: tire strategy, fuel strategy, and driver strategy. The latter only applies to endurance racing that includes driver swaps, but it could also be argued that any multi-car team series, such as Formula 1, could also add team strategy to that list.

All three (or four) of these areas can draw from a myriad of data resources to develop accurate models, useful predictions, and inform race strategy. In large teams, strategists and performance engineers have dedicated roles to understand and manage this volume of data, communicating relevant information to the race engineer.

But what about smaller teams? Often it will just be a single race engineer using a combination of intuition, experience, and perhaps some very basic data oversight.

It turns out that even small operations can benefit from some very basic statistical techniques. While they require a fundamental level of data quality and volume to be implemented, this should be easily achievable for most teams. For example, simple regression models can be used to estimate and predict tyre degradation in the form of ‘lap time drop off’ over a stint. Fuel burn effects can then be added to predict the curve of performance with reasonable accuracy.

Stripping it all back, collecting quality data with different tires, degradation levels, fuel loads, wear patterns, weather conditions, and track conditions is enough to establish a simple baseline strategy – the ‘free air’ strategy.

This ‘free air’ strategy provides the optimal blueprint for the perfect race with the lowest possible total lap time, or drive the greatest distance, depending on the race format. This ‘deterministic’ modelling is very useful for teams as a starting point. As you can imagine, this becomes significantly more complicated in actual race conditions and ‘the fray’ of wheel-to-wheel competition.

This leads to an explosion in the number of variables, very few of which the team can actually control or influence. This variation is what makes racing exciting and unpredictable, but it is also what makes race strategy challenging and rewarding.

Making sense of these external considerations once again comes back to data. However, now, grows beyond the team and its cars to encapsulate the entire grid. The primary means through which this is achieved is timing data, another step up in terms of data volume.

Timing data provides a real-time stream of information as the on-track action unfolds. While overwhelming for any one individual to process manually, it is interpreted through bespoke software. The data includes competitor track position, sector times, and speeds. The role of the software is to present it in a way that is easy to understand and quick to interpret. When done well, it provides race engineers with powerful insight into how the race is unfolding.

As one of the world’s leading timing software packages, PACETEQ’s ONE TIMING platform has played a pivotal role in race-critical decisions across Formula 1, Formula E, the World Endurance Championship, NASCAR, and many more.

Utilizing ONE TIMING, the number of strategy tools available to teams increases dramatically. Integrating probabilistic outcomes, it can be used to predict and optimize things like pit stop timing amidst a field of competitors all seeking to do the same. With innovative plug-ins, teams have a suite of powerful tools to leverage their accumulated data from timing, telemetry, historical trends, and known competitor behavior.

This enables race engineers to evolve beyond the predictive, generating a matrix of probabilities and tactical options based upon a combination of data, probability, and game theory. Thanks to ONE TIMING and ONE RACEHUB alongside the tools and plug-ins that PACETEQ offers, all race teams can develop this level of strategic insight, regardless of size.

Sharpen your team’s competitive edge, discuss PACETEQ’s performance software solutions with an expert.

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