Explained: How Does F1 Race Strategy Work?

Strategy is one of the most important factors in sports, including motorsports. It might not look like a sport that needs a lot of brains, but in reality, a lot of research, analysis, and calculations happen before and even during a race. Every F1 team spends hours before a race, gathering data. The data collected could involve many things. For instance, what tire to use with respect to the weather conditions.

Each team has many strategists who look into various aspects, and then they combine their individual knowledge to make the best optimal strategy to win a race. But the teams don’t only have one optimal strategy, but there is always a backup. Further, the F1 strategists even keep strategizing during a race because of the unpredictability of the sport and guide their drivers through team radio.

Why the pit-stop is an important F1 race strategy?

There are many kinds of strategies out there for an F1 team to choose from. However, it all depends on the optimal conditions which suit a team for the best result and it’s different for every team and driver. Nowadays, the most common strategy involves how many stops a team makes.

But according to the F1 rules, the team has to make one pit stop, at least for a tyre change. It might not seem like a big deal, but the tyres’ quality can change the outcome of a race. Usually, a driver makes one to three pit-stop during a race. But it all depends on the strategy. Furthermore, the teams are sometimes allowed to make more than their required stop in cases like a sudden raid.

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There are three kinds of tyres available: soft, medium, and hard. The fact about tyres is that the softer tyres give more speed but they wear down faster too. Therefore, every F1 teams run countless simulations to choose how many stops they want for changing tyres.

How fuel capacity is also part of the race strategy?

F1 teams had the option to refuel the cars during a race in the past. Therefore, many teams used to start racing with less fuel. Because more fuel means more weight to the car, which slows it down. Furthermore, they can make pit stops to refill the tank when the fuel was low. But FIA banned refueling during a race after many devastating accidents.

Even though refueling is no more a viable option in F1, fuel still plays a very important role. Because F1 teams don’t always send their car with a full tank. Instead, the F1 teams run several simulations and then fill the tank with only the required amount of fuel. Because the amount of fuel in the car still affects the weight of the car.

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