By John Considine
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.
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.
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