Bernie Collins is an analyst for Sky’s F1 coverage.  She had previously worked as a strategist for a number of F1 teams and she is the author of How to Win a Grand Prix (written with Maurice Hamilton).  I was reminded of the book when listening to her and the Sky coverage of the qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix last Saturday.
 
The first reminder came when she explained to viewers the difficult with using GPS data in Monaco because of the buildings.  The second reminder came when Martin Brundel said of Q3, “this is the most important 15 minutes of the weekend”.  Q3 determines the Top-10 grid positions for the grand prix and a good grid position is more important in Monaco than anywhere else.  The reason grid position is so important in Monaco is because of the difficulty in overtaking.
 
The Monaco Grand Prix features repeatedly in How to Win a Grand Prix because it is an outlier.  Collins tells us that it is the race where track position is all important.  At the other end of the spectrum is Bahrain where overtaking is relatively easy.
 
But it is her explanation of a different spectrum that rang a bell with the educator in me.  She starts Chapter 15 with the sentence “The tyre model is the foundation for all strategy.”  The first thing they do is to work out the lap time if there was only one car on the track.  Their car.  I remember my delight in reading it.  Here in the “real-world”, with millions of euro/dollars in play, is somebody considering an unrealistic hypothetical situation.  The ends of a spectrum can be useful for helping us think about things.  It is a reason for studying market structure models like monopoly and perfect competition.  Everyone knows that there is no competition in what is called perfect competition and that it probably doesn't exist in the “real world”.  But if it can help our thinking then it is useful.  Why would anyone want to know the fastest lap time for only one car?  If there was only one car then one would drive slowly to win the race and reduce the possibility of a crash.  They do it to establish a limiting case.  It helps their thinking.

What did Collins do as a strategist after establishing the fastest lap time with only one car?  She examined what would be the time with all the cars on the track.  Having all the cars on the track during a Grand Prix is rare enough.  One car was gone on the first lap in Monaco last Sunday.  Yet, the second step was to establish the lap times with all the cars on the track.  They do this to help them think about what might normally happen.

Then there were estimates of the lap times needed to ensure survival in Q1 and Q2 when a quarter of the cars are eliminated at each stage.
 
Then the weather conditions, particularly rain and temperature, need to be included.
 
The layers of complication are added and added.  Including guessing as to what the other teams might be doing.  One needs to read the book to appreciate the complexity.  Yet, they started by establishing the lap times with one car on the track and followed it with establishing a time when all the cars were on the track.  It is not a textbook but it might help some to appreciate why market structure with many competitors or one “competitor” are studied.

This week the LA Rams traded for Myles Garrett.  In return for his services they gave the Cleveland Browns a bunch of draft picks plus Jared Verse.  This seems to be a deliberate strategy on the part of the Rams (as suggested previously here on this site).  The Rams seem happy to trade away "potential" for "proven" - although Verse was defensive rookie of the year.  The Rams previously did something similar for Matthew Stafford with glittering success.  Stafford is the reigning MVP and there was some questioning of the Rams when they selected a quarterback with their first round draft pick this year.  The move for Garrett seems to be more consistent with their approach to draft picks over the last decade.  It makes me wonder if the Rams are taking lessons, directly or indirectly, from the Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler.

Thaler devotes a chapter in Misbehaving: The Making of Behavior Economics to, what he sees as, systematic errors in decision making in the NFL.  His main focus is on the way early draft picks are overvalued. This is primarily based on a statistical analysis of the large number of decisions in his sample.  However, he does provide a case study of the Washington franchise and their inability to follow they advice that he was directly providing.  The LA Rams seem to be following an alternative approach.

Arsenal have managed more victories this year which ended 1 nil (or nil 1) than they have in previous seasons where they finished second.

Furthermore, this year they managed as many 1 nil wins in the first half of the season as they did in the second half of the season (4) - with 3 of these coming in the final 4 games which led to the title. This is in stark contrast to the last two seasons where they managed just one 1 nil victory in their final 5 games and the 2023 season where they managed no 1 nil wins in their last five games.
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As an Arsenal fan, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. The presence of more 1 nil wins has certainly meant that I have had to endure a lot of matches that I didn’t enjoy watching. However, in previous seasons the absence of those 1 nil victories was associated with capitulation and key losses which ultimately resulted in no league title. Perhaps 1 nil wins late on in the season can be considered some kind of a proxy for grit or bottle. For my own sake I hope next year the Gunners can try to increase their number of 2 nil wins.

In eight days from now Arsenal will play in the UEFA Champions League final.  Twenty years ago Arsenal played their last final against Barcelona.  The final did not go to a penalty shootout.  If it had then one team would have an economist's analysis in their back pocket.  In 2006 Ignacio Palacios-Huerta was making a name for himself by examining data on penalty kicks.  As a scientist he was using data to test game theory.  As a potential advisor to a football team he was advocating a course of action for individual players.  Unfortunately for economists his ideas were not tested in the heat of the 2006 competition.

That changed two years later.  In 2008 he prepared a report for Chelsea.  That UEFA final between Chelsea and Manchester United did go to a penalty shootout.  As he explains in his TEDx talk, his advice nearly helped Chelsea win that title.

He later went on to write Beautiful Game Theory: How soccer can help economics.  Every sportsperson studying economics should read it.  Palacios-Huerta see economics as an approach rather than a subject matter.  Penalty kicks are the subject matter.  They provide the data for the questions this economist is seeking to answer, e.g. do humans behave as if they understand the complexity of strategy?  An understated feature of the book is the way it takes the reader through the 21st century economics approach to such matters.

The book starts with explaining the data collection and analysis process.  Palacios-Huerta explains how he uses data from the natural experiments that occurred in various soccer leagues.  He then explains how he replicated these natural experiments in a labratory setting with footballers.  Very few pieces of economic research are as robust.  The book format allows him to explain the difficulties of going from statistical averages to the analysis of the specific individual.  It is wonderfully illustrated by stories about Lionel Messi and Eric Cantona.

This thouroughness is continued in the book.  There is a chapter dedicated to the biological machinery and the neuroscience that is influencing economics.  A number of chapters dedicated to the psychological influences in behavioural economics.  Provided the student of economics likes soccer, and is prepared to work through some mathematics, it is one of the best introduction to economics they will find.

Arsenal are on the verge of their first title since 2004.  The achievement is not exactly a Leicester City but it is surely a good news story for the game. However, there are some grumblings that they rely too much on set-pieces for their goals.  On Sunday, two hurling teams shared 53 scores totalling to 61 points.  At halftime the analysts waxed lyrical about the fact that so many of the scores came from play.  It speaks to a frequent complaint that hurling is turning into a free-taking competition.  Approximately 20% of the scores between Limerick and Waterford on Sunday came from free-shots.  Thirty percent (30%) is the current average for such games.

Last year, Tipperary won the All-Ireland title after playing seven games.  Over those seven games they averaged 30% from frees.  Thirty-five years earlier I was on a team that took five games to win the 1990 title.  We got 8% of our scores from frees.  While most would prefer a smaller proportion of scores to come from frees, most would also agree that the game in 2026 is in a better place.

As sports fans we often resemble the Jim Carrey character in Dumb and Dumber.  We can translate the smallest of probabilities into exaggerated hope.  Broadcasters play on it by producing some statistic that shows how the competitor that is ahead is prone to giving up a lead (or that the competitor that is behind is one of the better competitors at turning things around).  There's a chance.  An education in economics can innoculate a person but at a cost.  It can make hope seem dim and dimmer.

I was reminded of this at the weekend by two economists.  On Saturday, Ipswich were two goals up on QPR at halftime.  A victory would ensure automatic promotion to the Premier League.  At that point in time, I reminded an Ipswich fan, and economist, that Cork were 2 goals (or 6 points) ahead at halftime during the 2025 All-Ireland hurling final.  Cork would end up losing that game.  I suggested Ipswich might also lose.  His reply read, "No chance".  Ipswich won.

At halftime in the 2025 All-Ireland hurling final, one might have been inclined to think that Cork would win.  No team during the 2025 hurling championship had come from 6 points behind to win a game - until Tipperary did it to beat Cork in the final.  This is illustrated below where the thick red line is the All-Ireland final.  Tipperary had a chance (and a good chance given that they unlucky to be 2 goals behind).  The size of the turnaround was unusual.

Hurling-commentators frequently suggest that a large lead is easily overturned in hurling.  An economist I know can be "triggered" by such suggestions.  The data supports the economist.  But it can happen.  And, with better odds than made Jim Carrey happy.

Analyzing the findings in the context of that initial question, the developments in Formula 1 car aerodynamic and overall make since 2006 has generally not contributed to a function nor an experiential disconnect between modern cars and historic circuits, with moderate exceptions. This dynamic has influenced track calendars and track interest notably through the displayed moderate exceptions seen in Spa and Monaco.

​In recent years, Spa is now an “alternating” track, where it alternates yearly with another circuit, showing the “disuse,” while Monaco is often dreaded due to low overtakes and slow lap-times. It can also be noted that, while not shown in the findings, track calendars and track interest have been influenced by tracks of the likes Nurburgring and Imola, as they have been removed from season calendars as a result of perceived danger or loss of spectacle, despite fan engagement at these track formats.

Chloe Lee is a a senior student in high school, Arizona, USA.