Sky Sports F1 Podcast: What does a strategist REALLY do? | Q&A with Bernie Collins!

Hello, everyone. I hope you're well. Welcome to this week's episode where we've got a fascinating

Q&A with Bernie Collins. Now, Bernie has joined our team on Sky Sports F1 for this season.

She was previously at Aston Martin as a head of race strategy and a performance engineer

at McLaren. It was a really, really interesting chat. Loads of great questions, so thank you

very much for those. I hope you enjoy it.

Hi, Bernie.

Hello, Vaz.

Hello. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

Good to have you. We have received so many questions for this Q&A, so I am super excited.

We will try and get through as many as possible. They're an awful lot. I tried to separate them

as best I can in different sections, so I want to talk to you about your role as a strategist

and we want to get into all of the nitty-gritty of that. Then we're going to ask you a little

bit about starting out, how you got into the industry, and then also about your new role

with us on Sky Sports, on camera, which I imagine is quite different, but I'm sure there's

some similarity.

It's very different.

It's very different. Well, there we go. I guess first question is, what is a strategist?

I ask that because I think as viewers and fans of F1, we think we know what a strategist does,

but I want to hear it from you. What does a strategist do on a race weekend?

It was a me-in job that a strategist does, and I think what everyone thinks about it

is a Sunday race day, so what you're trying to do is plan how the race might go. So you've

got in your head, maybe at the start of the race, how many stops you think it's going

to be, what tires you're going to use, but then during the race, you react and everything

that happens around you, safety cars, weather conditions, other drivers, etc. Ultimately,

your goal is to get the best possible finished position for your two cars, and generally

the strategists that we see on the pit wall work across both of the cars in that team.

So, yeah, you're trying to get the best possible points for the team, for those drivers.

But it's a lot more than that, and that we do a lot of planning before we get to the event

of what we think it might be. We start to look at how we want Friday to go, what we want to

learn from the tires, what other information we're trying to gain, like pit losses or overtaken

thresholds, and then through qualifying, you're trying to get good track positions, such as

the driver's the best chance of getting a clean lap in, or trying to decide if you need to

run again, or a new set of tires, or all these sorts of things. So, yeah, it's throughout

the whole weekend, then post weekend, a lot of analysis. So, how did your weekend go?

What can we do better? What can we learn? So, everyone thinks about the real split of it,

but there's a lot before and after as well.

It's quite a full-on job, by the sounds of it. I mean, if you look at your week, does

it start somewhat like a Monday or Tuesday of a race week, and goes all the way through

to Wednesday of a post race?

Yeah, exactly. And I think for all of us, it depends on whether it's a double header

or triple header. But, yeah, for like a single header, you're starting the Monday, Tuesday

before you have your pre-event briefings in the factory, where you're discussing with the

team what your plan is. You get into the race weekend, then you do your post race weekend.

So, yeah, it's about a few days before, a few days after physically being on the track.

Yeah, full-on. OK, Matt on Twitter wants to know, on average, how many times or how often

are race strategies recalculated during a race? Are they predominantly done by human

calculation, or do you use software? And what aspects of a race cause a race strategy to

be recalculated? Yeah, so we recalculate really a lot, like every lap, sort of, or every sort

of change of position. Really, that often happens. Yeah, you're doing it quite a lot.

And it's a mix of strategy and human, or the software and human calculation. So, there's

lots of things. If you think of the real simple things that might change, a strategy is built

up of, we just think of the fastest race with no interaction of cars. You've got a tyre

model we're looking at, the tyre degradation, so how quickly the lap time gets slower, as

you'd like, through the run. The pit loss, what the pit stop is going to be, the life

of the tyre, so how many laps you can do on it, and the pace delta between the tyres.

So, what's the difference between a soft and a medium tyre? So, all that makes up your

model. And through the race, you're sort of, the software's maybe giving you some indication

that degradation is higher than you expected. So, the lap time is getting slower more quickly

than you expected it to. Or the life of the tyre is shorter. That might come from the tyre

engineers in the garage. So, there's lots of different impacts to the model. But as humans

across the factory and the pit wall were discussing what changes we want to add to the model at

that stage. So, we might reduce the life by a few laps, and the model will quickly recalculate

what the fastest race is to the end. But we're debating it all the time, whether we think

the driver can manage a bit more and stretch out that life or whatever it might be. So,

there's a lot of discussion going on, and it's a mix of the software and the human element

of it. Interesting. And, Dan on Twitter would like to know, what software do teams use to

calculate strategy? You know, does each team have their own, or is this shared between

all the teams? It's very much a mix. The majority of teams have now moved to some standard

software. And, interestingly, that standard software I've realised, post-leave and F1, is

also used for things like football and rugby. So, there's a lot of different trackers in

terms of, you know, for football, like where people are playing on the pitch, or how many

runs people have made, all those sorts of things. Because a lot of it's the same if you're

tracking like GPS of the car versus GPS of a player, it's sort of similar interactions.

So, I find that interesting. But a lot of the software is there to help us do our job

more easily. So, some of the calculations, like in qualifying, is your lab going to be

fast enough? You're just taking what lab time you're currently doing away from your fastest.

And it's very simple, like subtraction calculation. But the software is helping you to do that

really quickly and without any errors. I'd say there's maybe seven, eight teams used to

see them so far now. And two or three that do their own bespoke in-house software. A lot

of it, you might question why a team uses a CM software as someone else, as they're

not a competitive advantage there. But the software we put lots of inputs into, we put

our tire model in, we put what we think the piece of the car is going to be in. So, I

think the intelligence in the software is the parameters that you put into the software,

and that's different for each team. So, that's why it's okay to use a CM software as a direct

competitor. And presumably, if you develop that software as a team, that's a huge cost,

right? I would imagine. Yeah, exactly. And one of the things is, as you have this off-the-shelf

software, as we think of it, you can suggest improvements to them. And their team can go

away and work with that when your software team is working on something that's more fundamental

to the piece of your car. Yeah, very interesting. I'm so fascinated that it's used by other

sports as well. I guess there is a lot of crossover between Formula One and other sports.

There's an Instagram question here from Skinny04. What was it like working for a Formula

One team? Yeah, I want to get into how did you enjoy the travel? How did you enjoy all

the other aspects around being a Formula One team? So, I think it's weird because you've

worked enough for so long that you think it's a normal job. That's the first bit that I

find weird. So, you've been working in Formula One, talking to people in Formula One, all

of your friendship groups, people that work in Formula One. And it's only really when

you step back from that that you realise it's a really special job and the people are really

interested and people really want to go and do it. But it's really easy to become like

that's just normal to you. Doing the travelling bit specifically is very odd because we do

23, 22 races a year. That travelling group becomes like your family. So, you travel out

with them on a Wednesday, you spend all week with them, you travel back with them on a Sunday

night or a Monday. So, you spend loads of times with this group of people that you've

not necessarily chosen to be with. It's a very diplomatic way to say it.

You know, it's people say like you choose your friends. Well, you don't choose your

colleagues. But, you know, it was really nice atmosphere. Everyone really helped each other.

Sometimes it's tough because of the environment or the heat or whatever. So, yeah, it was

really lovely community. And it's weird. I think the thing that people maybe don't realise

is when you travel, a lot of us get on that flight on a Wednesday, go on wherever it might

be in the world. And all the other teams also get on a very similar flight or in the airport

at a similar time. So, you get to know lots of people from the other teams as well that

you chat to. And it becomes like this big like circus travelling community together.

We see lots of people. So, yeah, I really enjoyed that. There's a lot of pressure obviously.

You're trying to do a really important job when it comes to Sunday. You're trying to

get it right for the whole team, especially on the pit wall. You feel like if we make

the wrong call on a pit stop, you know, there are hundreds of people in the factory that

have worked to get this car as quick as it is really affected by that. So, it is like

this sort of pressure environment. But I really enjoyed working in it. I enjoyed the travelling

around the world, seeing the different communities, embracing the different tracks, a lot of

tiredness, a lot of grumpiness at times. But yeah, it was really good.

Yeah. Do you think it's something spoken enough about in the sport that the impact on people's

lives, obviously, you know, 23 races away from families, from loved ones at home, that's

a lot of pressure, isn't it, to put on people. And I guess, you know, perhaps as people get

older, maybe when you're young, you know, just starting out on a Formula One team, it's

the most exciting thing in the world. But as you get older, it must change your perception

of that part of the industry. Yeah, it definitely does. Like I think when I was young, I did

it and you did all the holidays around it. So, you know, you go to Australia and you decided

to stay out for a week and it was great, you know. And there's definitely that sort of

branch of people in the paddock that enjoy all the travelling and the time away. And I

definitely did that for a long time. And then you get to a point where you just sort of think,

you know, maybe it's not. But then I think there's a branch of people as well, then older

guys that their family are a bit more grown at home, so they don't necessarily need to

be at home so much. And that's quite a nice environment. I think teams are starting to do

a much better job at it. You know, when I started, there was 18, 19 races and that felt

like quite a good number. You were never away for really more than two weeks at a time. Now

it's got more and more intense as time has gone on, particularly the triple headers. I

personally felt really difficult. But teams are starting to do a bit more rotation with

engineers or mechanics. There's a lot more help with the track for a start than we used

to. We travelled with a physio that was there all the time that could help us with whatever

it was. There's a load of team doctors. There's a paddock doctor. So there's always people

there to look after you. So I think that side of it has got a lot better than a few years

ago. And it is getting better all the time.

Yeah, especially if we go up more and more races to what 25 is being talked about.

Okay, Tweet from Sarah. Hi, Bernie. Which driver that you've worked with was your favourite

and why? Brackets, go on, say Jensen.

I can't say Jensen. The unfortunate thing with Jensen is I only worked with him for the

one year at McLaren. So I worked with him for 2014. And I really enjoyed that because I

was learning so much. And Jensen at that stage had loads of time to teach me stuff. So it

was really interesting dynamic, but it only was the one year. Obviously I got a chance

to work with him again soon, hopefully through Skype. So really looking forward to that. I

think the drivers have all been really different characters for various reasons. And I really

enjoyed a lot of what they brought. The person probably that I was, you know, the friend is

with maybe Sebastian last year, you know, and again, I guess that's the stage he was

in his career. It was really nice to just have that friendship.

Yeah, what was it about Sebastian that you enjoyed most about?

I think he was quite relaxed. You know, I think the car wasn't as good as we would have hoped

through that time. So it was more of a learning process across us, what we could improve in

the other aspects of it. So it wasn't necessarily the pressure of, we're going to try and get

a podium every week because we weren't in that position. And yeah, I think he's been there

done that. So it felt like he'd sort of, the pressure was awful a little bit through that

relationship.

Very interesting. Tweet from Carl, which driver was the hardest to get your point over strategy

wise and the one during the race who needed convincing a different strategy was best?

I've been very lucky. It's a very diplomatic answer, but I think I've been very lucky in

that we've had some very heated debates in the office. So we actually spend maybe an hour

on a Saturday night to be in what we think the strategy is going to be for Sunday and

again, maybe another hour on a Sunday morning. So actually a lot of the permutations that

are possible during the race have been like well debated in advance. So although we go

in with a plan A, we've got a lot of this might happen or that might happen already lined

up.

So thankfully, nine times out of 10, maybe more than that, when we've made a call to do

a pit stop, it has been acted upon, maybe an advance has been a bit of, I'm not sure.

The one that sticks out in my mind was a wet rusher a few years ago and both drivers actually

decided that they knew best and would stay out on track when it was wet and then both

got around the first corner and was like, oh, it was quite wet round there. I'm like,

oh, that's what we're trying to say. So I think you've always got those incidents, but you

try and go back afterwards and review what you knew at the time and how you could have

conveyed that more clearly to the driver. And what we did in that instance was actually

they came back to us and said, well, this is what the information I didn't have from

you or what you could have told me better or we looked at the information that they had

as well. And that was a very famous race because lots of, you know, I went through the radio

comms, lots of people didn't listen or...

On the land day.

Exactly. Yeah, there was a lot of discussion. So it's just a learning process, like any

working relationship, how you can best understand what they hear and know, because they actually

hear reasonably little in the car.

Yeah. And I guess trust, right? You build it up and that's why you see strategists but

also engineers' relationships develop and stay what, for five, six, seven years because

you have that trust that you can work through them all.

Exactly. And it's just, it's almost like the, you know, that relationship you get to where

you say something and someone can finish your sentence, like that's the ultimate goal.

You want to be at that point where they understand. So yeah, I've been very lucky, I think, generally.

Yeah. I just want to ask you on Seb, did he, was he someone who had a, or who enjoyed hearing

about the strategy? Was he someone who took an active role in really getting into it and

being a part of that discussion?

Yeah, I think so. And I think when Heath was first joining the team, obviously, we've had

years of listening to Sebastian at Ferrari, questioning the strategy, arguing the strategy,

whatever. So I was a bit apprehensive when he joined of how hard he was going to be to

work with and actually then it was pleasantly surprised. But I think the funny thing with

drivers is generally on a Thursday or Friday, they're not too bothered with the strategist.

And then by Saturday night, Sunday, you become the most important person in the room and

everyone wants to talk to you. Both drivers want to talk to you. Both drivers are interested

in their strategies. So I would say, yeah, Sebastian definitely spent a lot of time in

it himself and he would come up with, oh, there was a race in 2000 and whatever where

this happened, go and have a look at that one. And I go and research that race.

Yeah, exactly. Like he knows a lot more historically than I would know. But I think all of the drivers

are, you know, so involved in their strategy on Sunday morning. I think much more than

people in the outside world maybe see. We go through it with them both individually. We

go through their start, tire a lot. And so they're both, they both need to have bought

into it when they leave that room on Sunday morning or it won't work.

Yeah.

Even if there's a slightly different reason they want to start tire to you, you need to

really take that on board because if they're not fully in the zone when the lights go out,

then you're not going to get the right answer out of them at the end of the race.

You said when you first worked with Seb, you were maybe a little bit nervous, a little

apprehensive about it. How long did that last very long? Was he super warm and super friendly

with you?

I think he was really good straight away. And straight away he was really open to the

ideas that the team had. I sort of expected, you know, racing point and Force India, whatever.

When he came from Ferrari, I thought, here's someone who's, you know, four time world champion

coming to a team lower down the grade, less resource. We have less people on the ground,

less in the strategy department, et cetera, et cetera. You know, is he going to really

think in all these guys are joking about? And actually he was really open to our ideas

and our perception of things. And I guess over the years we had had podiums when we

maybe shouldn't have had or we've had good results when we maybe shouldn't have had.

So I guess he'd taken that on board as these guys know what they're doing. So I'm going

to take some of their ideas and input some of my own. So yeah, it was much more an interaction

between both sides of trying to get the best from both ideas than I thought it was going

to be. So yeah, it was quite quickly, very easy.

Nice, yeah. Never too old to learn.

Never too old to learn, yeah.

Even if you're a Sebastian.

Even if you're a Sebastian Vettel.

OK, a tweet from gullinat. Is it common for teams to have code words to secretly relay

strategy? For example, we often hear of some drivers falsely saying their ties are good

or bad when the inverse seems to be the case.

Yeah, so there's a few points in that. So it used to be, and the rules have changed in

this, that people had like switches on their dash so you would have like a tyre switch

where you could mark how good or bad your tyre was. So actually you could say to the pit wall

without ever saying anything on the radio how good or bad it was. But the radio information

is shared amongst all the teams. So all the teams hear the radio that all the other drivers

are doing. So there is a little aspect of times of that. I think my experience has been

in the past that potentially that leads to more errors than it does to the good. So if

the driver incorrectly remembers what your code word is, then it can be done actually

wrong.

As they're driving a car at, you know, quite extraordinary speeds.

Yeah, well I'm always really impressed with how well they do. Like to all of the switches

in the steering wheel, everything that you're asking with them as well as getting the fast

lap done. And then sometimes the driver will come in and go, oh I seen on the TV, it's

like how do you have the margin or the overhead to watch any of the TVs as you're going around

the track. But you will get drivers that ask questions they've picked up from whatever's

going on on the big screens. But yeah, the communication stuff, but then you also get,

you've had so many incidents over the years of a team telling a driver a box in code words

and they might not say box a slap, they might say a code word. And then the driver just

responds with yeah, box a slap or the person on the pit wall says it in such a voice that

it's obvious just from the tone of the voice what they mean. So they might say like yellow

four, but they'll say like yellow four, yellow four, yellow four. And it's just like the

excitement is so much that it's obvious what they're trying to do regardless of what the

words are. And so yeah, it's real, I find the code words saying really interesting

dynamic, but I think majority of teens I tend not to use them.

Yeah, to speak from Rob, how fine is the art of inputting potential safety cars, etc,

in to cut down fuel weight and is the risk worth it?

So yeah, that's a really interesting question. There's a few things. So on the fuel it generally

is worth it because if you think that for most circuits, like an average circuit 10 kg

is around three tenths of fuel a lap or three tenths of lap time and over 50 laps that's

massive, you know, that's a lot to carry. You're not talking 10 kg generally for a fuel for

a safety car, you're talking about two or three. But every lap for 50 laps to carry that extra

weight is massive. And your launch off the line is dramatically affected because you're

carrying that extra weight at that point. So you'll tend to find that even ignoring

safety cars just for straightforward race, people will under fuel the car. So starting

off, there's not enough fuel to make it to the end of a race. And then you add an allowance

for safety cars. And the reason for that is you try and race to get to your first or

second pit stop if it's a two stop race. And then in the last, generally, you can start

to save a little bit more fuel. So you've spent your fuel at the start and you're saving

a little bit towards the end. Because you've nailed down your truck position or you can

just manage enough for the overtaking. It's always difficult. We tend to look a lot at

the percentage chance of safety cars, you know, the backers of this world, higher chance of

Silverstone. So it is generally worth the risk. Teams look as well as if we're taking out

two or three laps of safety car teams look at how hard that will be to win back. Should

there not be a safety car? And how detrimental that would be in lap time to win back. So there

is a lot of analysis goes into that possibility. The other thing is that if your safety car

comes very late in the race. So in the closing laps, you can't guarantee it's coming. So

you've started to win back the fuel already anyway. And then often the safety car comes

and you end up with too much fuel in the car and you've had 20 laps of saving. So they

tend to look at the lift and coast required. And we just mean time off, throttle off breaks

going into the corner required to save the fuel for whatever you take out at that point.

So there's a lot of analysis goes into that. Such a fine balance, isn't it? Yeah. Does

it often go wrong? I think quite regularly you see, I think a few years ago Alpine were

always really aggressive on it. So their second stint was always a much slower and they were

always pushing the drivers really hard to save fuel. I'd say more often or not teams

are more on the cautious side. So you often find that teams will end up with a bit extra

fuel in the car. But yet it's not gone, let's say, dramatically wrong recently. I think

teams are really nailed down the art of it and you know which races you can sort of get

away with it. All on that very clever software. Formula Cracked on Twitter wants to know,

what was the most exciting race you've seen from a strategic opportunity viewpoint and

what race do you reckon your strategic input had the most influence on the outcome?

The race where my input had the most influence, there's two that spring to mind that's easy.

I'll answer that bit first because that's an easier question. There's a Barri and Wynne

with Chaco in 2020 where he actually crashed on lap one and through that lap it's Barri

and that circuit layout is a very quick lap. So you've got a lot of decisions to make very

quickly. But we'd started on the soft tyre and we knew the medium would be a quicker

tyre for the first stint. So even though Chaco didn't need to change tyres as tyres were

actually fine after the shunt, which is very unusual. Normally you definitely need to change

tyres when you've had a spin. We knew that the other tyres were quicker so we made the

call to stop under the safety car and change to the other tyres because we knew it was

a fast history strategy. So that's actually one of the easiest decisions I've made but

also one of the ones that had the biggest effect on the race I think.

Because he won.

Because he won, yeah. There was lots of other things, the car was fast, Mercedes had a bad

begin. There was lots of other things that made the win but that made us be in that position

to take it up. And that was just all planning in advance. I knew which tyre was quicker at

that point. I knew that we were last anyway so it was easy money. And I do remember his

race engineer beside me going, are you sure? And I was like, yeah, I'm so sure on this

one. So that was the one. The other one that was a Brazil, I can't remember the year but

it was a wet race in Brazil again with Chaco. We actually made no pit stops but it got

wetter and a little bit drier throughout the race and there was a few red flags where we

changed tyres. But that was really difficult because every lap you're looking at the red

are, you're trying to decide what the weather is going to be, deciding not to stop as equally

difficult as deciding to stop. And we were in the very closing laps in a podium position

when I think it was Verstappen overtook us. But actually Verstappen should have never

been where he was. We made some better decisions I believe than those guys on that day. So

those are ones where even though we made no pit stops I feel like all the decisions we

did make were for the right reasons. The strategic races that I think are interesting are like

Barri and this year I really enjoyed watching because it's one of those races where it's

about trying to hit the optimum strategy. It's a multiple stop race, easy to overtake. So

those are the ones that I think are really interesting from a strategic point of view.

Yeah, Joshua on Twitter, how often does a race pan out just like you thought it would

strategy wise? I'm going to guess probably very few times. And how much do you think less

practice sessions and testing would have an effect on this number?

I would say that a race never, I don't think it's ever planned out. We've never done the

plan A stop lap exactly right. And there's loads of reasons why it doesn't pan out. It

could be a safety car, it could be traffic, it could be your tyre models wrong, whatever

it is. Like the Monaco for example, the tyre model very rarely changes because it's not

that important to the race. But the traffic in the safety cars mean your race plan changes.

So yeah, it always changes quite a lot. What was the second one of the questions?

Because obviously in Baku we're talking about potentially reducing the amount of practice

time. We might only get one practice session in FP1. Do you think that would have an effect

on how you guys work as strategists?

Yeah, I would really like to say not a one practice session straight into qualifying.

But now that you're on this side of the fence?

So on this side of the fence. Well on the other side I always thought it was more interesting

from a strategy point of view because actually it's the team that does the best analysis,

the best setup, the drivers that are more on it when they get to the first session. That's

going to be interesting. But from an engineer point of view you always want more data. The

more that you have a tyre model the better nail down your race is going to be. So I find

it really good when we have like a wet Friday, nobody gets good amount of data. Then you

go into Saturday and it's really like everyone's reacting live to what's going on, reacting

live to the tyre model. Those I think are much more interesting races. So I would quite

like to see less of the practice session but all of my engineering colleagues will say

please don't take quite the practice session.

I mean I guess we love data.

Yeah you drawed as many hours as you could on that track wouldn't you.

Andrea on Instagram, hi Bernie, if you could make one rule change in FP1 what would it

be and why?

I am just going to say I would get rid of the practice, I would get rid of in the standard

weekend I get rid of Friday and I just have the FP3 quali race over two day weekend. I

think that would just make it much more, I know why we do the Friday and I get that it's

like more running for everything and I think the Friday is probably good at the minute

because we give the young drivers an opportunity throughout the year to drive in that session.

But I would quite like to see less and more reaction on the ball during the race to what's

going on.

Yeah I think everyone would like to see that, fans as well. Con on Instagram, which is your

favourite circuit to go to?

Ah right, I think there's favourite circuits for a load of different reasons. I think for

the fans, probably Japan but not for the jet lag. I struggle with the jet lag. From a circuit

itself I think Brazil, Sambalos and me as a circuit, it's really nice to see.

Great elevation as well for fans and you can get to points on the track on you and see

the entire circuit.

You always do the track walk and you think wow I've forgotten how steep or bad this is.

So yeah there's a few different reasons why certain circuits, there's certain countries

that I love, you know I love going to Canada for example. So yeah there's a few interesting

ones.

One who you might know is engine mode 11 on Twitter says it's probably a bit niche but

with the rise of AI has that affected the strategic decisions made by the teams or is

it not mature enough yet to be considered?

I would imagine that AI is mature enough yet to be considered but F1 or maybe a little bit,

they've not embraced it as a mode yet or not that I've experienced. I think AI, the power

is going to come in AI predicting what you think your competitors are likely to do.

So the more sophisticated we can build our model of another team, the better I think for

our own strategy decisions and that's loads of things. So are they likely to be aggressive

trying to undercut us? Are they likely to extend their tire further? What their radio

comes mean in terms of what they're thinking or when they talk to a driver about front

finger, like how many laps is that to stop? There's loads of things that we could start

to train a model on. Simple things like what likelihood they are of doing a certain start

tire so if they stop and start at the back is he likely to go for the harder start tire.

So the more that we can build those models around other teams I think is going to be

really interesting. Selfishly probably as a strategist wouldn't like to see them replace

a strategist on the pit wall because I think there's always going to be that human interaction

but I think we'd really love to model a strategist in another team and the question that I've

not quite got to the answer of yet is for example when I left the pit wall did fundamentally

some aspect of Aston Martin's strategy change and actually does your AI need to be modelling

Aston Martin's strategy or the individual strategists? So it's an interesting question of

because some teams switch strategists week on week so do you need to model which strategist

it is on the pit wall or do both of them react in a very similar way? So it's a really interesting

problem. I think as well it's something that everyone's going to have to grapple with is

because it's live sport, the whole point of us tuning in on a Sunday afternoon is because

we don't know the outcome, that's what makes it so exciting. We definitely don't want to

get to a stage with the sport where you turn it on a Sunday afternoon and you've got the

little bars along the bottom saying there's a 99% chance for Stappens going to win this

weekend, that's not what you want to see is it? Yeah, no exactly and I think, I don't

think it will get there because I think we all love the human interaction but it's going

to be interesting to see how they can use it. Maybe limiting technology, maybe limiting

that development. Okay, I think that's everything on being a strategist, not everything but

there's a lot of being a strategist. So I want to ask you a little bit about your own career

and how you started out in Formula One. Just try and if you can give us the abridged version

of being a youngster to getting where you are now. Yeah, so I didn't know what I wanted

to do at school so I decided to do mechanical engineering because I like mathematics and

physics so I thought that's quite a sea of fruit and there's lots of different jobs you

can do at the end and then even through that I didn't know what I wanted to do as a mechanical

engineer but I enjoyed it so it was fine and then an opportunity came up to join the McLaren

Graduate Scheme and I thought well yeah that's really cool and it was really interesting because

I went there thinking oh even if I just get to see Ryan McLaren that's fine, I'll go home

happy, that's a free tour. Yeah exactly, it's a free tour. So I joined them as a graduate

which I did a lot of work in design and then I joined the design office, I spent my first

five or six years in design office and then I moved to performance engineer with Jensen

and then moved from McLaren to Aston Martin or towards India as it was then and that was

really interesting to move because I moved as half performance, half strategy but as I

moved, I'd never done strategy before, as I moved the strategist left it was like oh

can you just do a bit more strategy and then since I've been there I've only ever done

strategy so it's been like evolving but yeah I was an engineer which is just why I've

got into it. Yeah that's really interesting, what I find fascinating is you've done a lot

of the different roles that I guess as a strategist you're calling on right, you're calling on

your performance engineer, you're calling on the design team at all the points throughout

a weekend and is it a case of you kind of have to do everything below you to go in above

would you say? I think well I think that's not common, I think lots of people like join

the engineering team or the strategy team as juniors and then work up through that team

so I think my route's been a bit uncommon, like a lot of strategists on the pit wall

are mathematicians actually or I've done a degree in math and not in engineering but I feel

like I've really benefited from understanding a bit of what's going on around, a bit more

of what's going on around me in terms of those engineering roles so yeah it's a bit of a mix

I would say. What were the main differences between, so you obviously left McLaren, went

to India, quite different teams, what were the main differences between them? I think

at that time Forest India was a very very small team obviously lots changed since then

and McLaren were this massive powerhouse of F1 so there were some like really obvious

definitely left this really shiny you know lovely factory for this much older not so

shiny and lovely factory and the size difference was massive at that time you know I left

and I remember thinking the suspension group in McLaren there was like 10 people there

was like a front and rear group and then I moved to Forest India and there was an office

the whole office seemed tiny and I was like well for example where's the suspension design

group and they were like it's that guy I was like that guy that one guy you know okay so

just the whole sizing of it was different I think actually as a young engineer starting

out in the tracks I rode that was brilliant because there just wasn't enough people to

do all the work so you instantly got involved in loads of things that you would have never

been given before because there was no one else to do it and it was really good for prioritising

what was important like you only worked on the stuff that was really going to make a difference

and you just ignored everything else so yeah there was huge differences and it's over the

years I'm sure they've got much closer together and the resource restriction the budget capital

had across all of the teams now and so I imagine now the Aston Martin I left is much closer

to the McLaren that I left and definitely with their new factory and stuff but yeah that's

been an evolution. Yeah I bet. Gemma wants to know what do you think from your experience

as a very successful woman in F1 is needed to encourage more girls to take part and support

them once they've got their foot in the door? Well when I was watching F1 when I was younger

there was a lot of like drivers on TV and you only ever seen a driver and I knew I was

never going to be a driver and they were all guys which they're still all guys but I think

we've got a lot better now promoting all the other roles within the engineering department

all the other roles on the pet wall all the other roles in the team and there's a lot more

understanding that females can do any of those roles so I think that has got a lot better

I think so there's a lot more understanding of what you can do there's a lot better image

of engineering it used to be like dirty overalls and stuff so people really didn't think of

designers or creative I think that's got better and I find that the opportunities have been

there like very equally there so it's just been restriction that maybe people have placed

upon themselves thinking they can't do it or it's a male role or whatever but everything

that I've applied for went for the opportunities have been there and it's just about shown

representation I guess so being fit to do things like this and say you know females

are there doing it so there's no reason why you can't so we're getting there I think.

A tweet from Nerida as a female and aspiring aerospace engineer how can I work trackside

in Formula One what opportunities will get me there?

So I get asked this type of question loads but the first thing is it's good that you're doing

your degree that's really good try and get some experience that either leads you to teamwork

or trackside environment so I did things like Formula Student which is like an I am a key

run program where you build a single-seater race car and that showed sort of some teamwork

elements and some trackside elements there's loads and loads of race teams out there doing

your teams GT3 teams, karting teams, race tracks.

Desperate to have some help.

Yeah exactly need good volunteers need good people to help out so I did a load of time

when I was at McLaren working for the GT3 teams getting some trackside experience and just

really like one I wanted to learn that I enjoyed being at the track but it was good for me

to prove that I wanted to be at the track and was prepared to put in the hours and stuff

apply for everything that's going all of the teams have summer internships, year placements

whatever it might be apply for all of that sort of stuff and if you don't get it which

you know there's more people and jobs available just get some feedback like why didn't you

get it what could you do differently next year just keep trying.

Sound advice.

Okay want to move on to your new life and your new role as an analyst with us here at Sky Sports

what was the main reason why you left Aston Martin and why you're sort of moving into

this different role in your life?

I think maybe like a lot of my decisions it's not necessarily been well planned out but

I the 23 races become really difficult and I wanted to achieve more of a home life balance

and that's actually and particularly I think post the COVID years you sort of had a bit

of a reset and I think about things and I just thought I really enjoyed what I did before

I really enjoyed working for Aston Martin I loved working for the team it was just an

opportunity to have a bit of a reset and try and do something a little bit different

so I decided at the end of 21 that I was going to start back and then I worked my sex months

notice to bring me the middle of 22 and yeah it was just I just sort of thought I can't

continue to live life like I'm 21 when I'm not 21 so let's you know try and do something

different.

Yeah well all power to us we've got you here at Sky Sports.

Tweet from Rob I'm loving your input on Sky this season it's great to get a different

more technical perspective on what's going on but what would you rather be doing behind

the camera or behind the pit wall?

What gives you the most satisfaction?

First of all thank you for the positive feedback the feedback's been really lovely which is

really good.

It's really hard to say what I'd rather be doing currently because I've only done sort

of the one event and getting another run out in Baku I'm enjoying like I'm learning so

much about an industry that I've worked in for so long like how the guys put the production

together like how it makes it's stupid like before I didn't think about what happened

to make the stuff on screen it just came to me and I listened whatever and now I'm learning

so much about the technicalities of how they build a program together how it goes so I

feel like I'm learning loads I feel like I'm really enjoying this aspect of learning

which I'm loving I'm enjoying watching the race again because before when you're on the

pit wall you're very focused on your own race and now I'm really enjoying seeing what everyone's

doing and trying to guess what they're doing I'm missing having all my data so I'm missing

having all the interaction or knowing what's happening from a race inside so yeah there's

definitely aspects that I miss and I miss the team element like you know they see and

trying to pull together and really make the best of the car so I'm sort of missing that

so undecided at the minute yeah let's come back to me at the end of the year that's fine

we'll come back to the end of the season in Abu Dhabi Rob would like to know now you've

seen F1 through the lens of Sky F1 what stands out as an observation that you didn't maybe

think about when you when you were on the pit walls or anything that you've seen perhaps

in the way that we do things in TV that has kind of changed your perspective on the sport

yeah I think well like I say just how much goes into the TV because the teams have sort

of 50 people limited at the track a few more with the marketing guys and the TV crew is

massive you know all the cameras all around the track everyone back in London around the

studios listened everything goes on so that aspect of the just a huge volume of people

involved in making a TV production has been very new to me and the you know the dynamic

you have where we're all walking up and down the petlion line you're trying to get a little

piece of information from someone trying to be everyone's best yeah so I find that or

that you you weren't doing before and I guess before I was on the other side of it of trying

to give a little piece of information but not so much information so that's a really

interesting dynamic now yeah ideas and knowledge is your currency exactly yeah yeah Sean would

like to know if you could have done any other role in F1 team aside from the ones you've had

what would you choose and why and I would really love to have a go at being a race engineer so

on the pit wall speaking of the driver that aspect of it I think that would be well it's tough

it's a tough gig and because we all know the abuse that they get but I think that would be

really interesting role to try for a little bit and part of me I've only done it in practice but

part of me loves the idea of giving like a proper pit stop a go but I know that I'd be really

terrible at it so it would be really bad why would you be terrible well because I think when you

watch those guys do it like their reaction and their calmness is like another level and even to

the point where I can stand in the petlion and listen to a pit stop or watch a pit stop and go

that's not very good just because something's been slightly out of sync and then you turn around

it's like three seconds and you think oh there's no way I'd be able to do that so I'd like I've only

done it unlike the the practice ones but I'd love I think the competitiveness of me would really

have me over there I'm intrigued that you haven't said driver oh yeah well so I have previous of

trying to be a driver and I'll be very good yeah so in McLaren I got an opportunity to run in the

simulator when I was Jensen's performance engineer and just so Jensen knows this I tried to get in

his seat and I couldn't because his seat was too narrow so first of all they had to take the seat

out because I couldn't fit in which is embarrassing but then as it was in the years where you needed

to press the button for curves and you needed to use your battery yourself so I was pressing the

button and the guys like yeah it's not working because you've not actually achieved full throttle

yet okay so I need to try harder so I don't think I'll be very good at that yeah interesting I mean

is there any part of the I guess I'm curious to know as a strategist obviously you're asking an

awful lot from the drivers and it is kind of a really interesting dynamic in the fact that you

you know none of the strategist as far as I'm aware no one else really on the pit wall has driven a

formula one car yeah apart from the drivers so that is quite an interesting dynamic isn't it

because ultimately I guess a driver if they're really annoyed with you could be like oh just you

know you haven't driven enough one car you said what you're talking about yeah there is like

don't get me wrong if someone said you you gotta go go for it I would definitely give I would

definitely yeah and I just don't think I would be any good at it and there is a lot I think a lot

of the the guys and guards are on the pit wall have experience in other series or you know junior

formulas whatever and not to anywhere near the same level of course or anywhere but I think what

they do is impressive how they work it out they're computing power you know we've all heard you

know typically it's the Alonzo's of the world or the bells where they say something that sounds so

intelligent from the car given everything that they're taken in and it's really impressive what

they can do and all of you know what they need to remember and but then I think they respect for

us in a different way in terms of the challenges that we face so I think there is a mutual understanding

there and yeah yeah I'm sure I'm sure there is at Jacob would like to know if you've got any

bold predictions for the future of F1 and could that could be either driver-based or on the sport

itself and I think I'd love to see we're getting that direction but we're really pushing the

sustainable fuels and I think that F1 in the past has been really good at leading the way in

technology and you know this is my mechanical engineering background I want to see the technology

develop so I think we need to be careful between the resource restriction and the budget cap and

actually still developing cotton-edge technologies so if we can push the sustainable fuel the biofuels

to a point where we're not using fossil fuels anymore you know overnight you can imagine it

solves a whole crisis that we have in the world of not needing to change our cars because we can

run them on green fuel and so that's what I'd love I'd love to see us move in that direction

rather than the electrical direction love to see us say like how do we make this engine green

and that's one thing I'd like to see and yeah and just those continuous the technology is

the bit that really interests me you know the engineer inside of it so what we can do in those

developments is really interesting yeah F1 has always been a leader hasn't it yeah in technology

Yvonne would like to know are you proud of what happened to Aston Martin and do you regret

not being part of this year's success I guess it's quite interesting because obviously you know

last year wasn't as successful as I'm sure the team would have hoped but this year we're seeing

Alonso and Lance absolutely killing it aren't we yeah it feels like from my left the team has just

been off and off like the end of last year was really good as well and so it's really obviously

you would love to be there as a strategist when you're getting you know they've had three podiums

from three so far so yes of course it would be lovely to be there it would be lovely to do that

but wow I'm so happy for those guys you know that team has gone through so much you know a lot of

people have been there for 20 plus years their whole lives working through the not having enough

money not having the resources not having the upgrades not having the factory and I was you know

I help and design the new mission controller the new factory and you think wow this is going to be

so fantastic compared to what they currently have I'm still always say we but what they currently had

and so I'm just so happy that it's coming together you know so many people have put in

so much work the whole race team there worked tirelessly over the last few years and there's

loads of examples of people in the factory that have never really had a car that's going to see

this success that they're going to see this year and so I'm really happy for them and it was really

lovely being there in Canada with Sky because you could speak to everyone it was like first day

back at school you caught up with everyone in the pit lane and so yeah those guys are going to have a

really good year and I'm really excited to see where it goes I'm really happy you know for Lance

and Lawrence the work they've put in to get that team where it is and and you know Lance is really

driving it with Alonzo so I think it's going to be a really good year for their excited to see

where they can they can bring it could you could you feel that last year you know as you were leaving

the team could you feel that big things and good things were coming I think that you've had so many

years of hoping the next year is going to be the next big thing and we don't get me wrong we've had

years of the cars been pretty good it's been the fourth fastest car or whatever I didn't really when

I left in the short time get the sense that it was going to be the massive step that it was

and you know maybe others didn't tell you there's been a lot of talk of you know I felt would have

done the same thing as well but I didn't I don't think the team even were really sure that it was

going to be the massive step and that's the problem with F1 you do all of this development but you

don't know what the others are bringing to the fore as well so I wasn't obviously the new factory

the new wind tunnel I could see it was clear that in a few years time the team would be very good

I just didn't think it would be this year but I don't think that would have changed my decisions

because my reasons for leaving weren't because the car was doing wasn't doing good and weren't

because they didn't love the team I did truly love working with the team so it's still you know the

calendar the work-life balance that wasn't going to change and yes for sure it's easier to stick it

out when you're on the podium every weekend so yeah I'm really happy for those guys yeah yeah

we move on to Bakke next where you're going to be with us with with SkyF1 was that a race you

look forward to as an engineer well yeah for several reasons um Force India always did reasonably well

in Bakke so we had a number of podiums ours it was always a very happy hunting ground um I enjoy

really enjoy the city I enjoy the street circuit it's really interesting dynamic of like the old

time at the castle and then the big long streets at the end so narrow at points around the castle

exactly it was one that was a new event um you know in recent years so there was always

somewhere interesting to go in the city or somewhere you know a very interesting culture

there as well um I love races it's very selfish engineer and point of view but I love races

where you can walk in and out to the track because you can have this sort of moment of calmness walking

in and out on your own time at your own speed you get a feel for the wind conditions the ambient

all these things around you so I did really enjoy it often as an event so I thought I thought it was

really lovely say well Benny thank you very much for your time really appreciate it we've

got Gunter Steiner joining us on next week's podcast so if you haven't seen the post on

twitter get your questions in for him he'll be joining us but until then bye for now

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.