For the past several years, through its partnership with Amazon Web Services, F1 has offered more comprehensive data analytics through its TV shows, focusing on areas such as tire wear, vehicle development, and driver performance.
Teams are understandably sensitive to the information they divulge in order to avoid secrets that add extra performance and give them an edge over their competition.
But according to Dom Riefstahl, Mercedes team leader and test engineer for race support, teams can provide more data that could help make transmissions more detailed without sacrificing their performance benefits.
During the United States Grand Prix weekend, Autosport was given rare behind-the-scenes access to the Mercedes Race Support Room in Brackley, where many of the team’s unsung heroes support the team’s battle against Red Bull.
In his role, Riefstahl monitors the operation of the RSR and grants it access to all of the team’s data channels.
But he found while on paternity leave and watching the TV show at home that there was an opportunity to offer more dates to fans.
“I think it shows the chance,” Riefstahl told Autosport.
“There is still a lot of data that we can give to the fans and the public, or the people who are just commenting and talking about the race, to help them get more of the story and understand some of the things Background material that is going on.
“When you have more of that data, and you have someone who understands how to read and explain the data, you can just show a lot better what is actually going on.
Stoffel Vandoorne, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG, and James Allison, Technical Director, Mercedes AMG, in the garage
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
“In FP2 you could overlay your Lewis [lap] against Verstappen and say, ‘Look, you can see he wins there, but he loses there’ or ‘They’re on a different wing, they’re in a different PU mode, oh, he cranked his engine.’
“All of these things can literally only be read off from the speed curve. And you didn’t really give anything away. Everyone knows the speed of the other cars because you can see if you are going faster, your speed will be higher, if you are going slower your speed will be lower.
“You have not disclosed any trade secrets and at the same time you can paint a much broader picture of it.”
Riefstahl said that with all teams using the GPS data provided by the FIA, there was “no hiding behind it” and he was surprised that F1 had not already tapped into that data.
“They’re starting to do it a little,” said Riefstahl.
“There are some things teams don’t want, like you don’t want to reveal some of the modeling you do around your car to understand how it works, because that literally reveals your trade secrets.
“But there is other information that you could easily divulge. For example, I don’t understand why the FIA doesn’t make a deal with Pirelli and say: what is your actual tire wear? Which tire goes out first on most cars? What does it mean in terms of balance?
“If Pirelli would only present this data to everyone who has it because they can collect it from all teams and anonymize it and say it, this is the average in the paddock.
“If you even take the top 5, that happens at the top of the race and you can just make so much more of a story.”
You can find out more about the inner workings of the Mercedes F1 mission control in this week’s edition of Autosport magazine, which is now out.
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