Saturday Strategy All-Nighter Proved Vital for Qatar Race

Reaction to an almost unparalleled situation and race day rules change

Mandatory stint lengths. Redrawn track limits. Limited tyre allocation. Extreme conditions for the drivers. Oh, and a sprint format to boot. The 2023 Qatar Grand Prix threw a lot at us across the weekend!

"Sprint weekends are difficult because you don't learn very much that's relevant for the race on Friday. It's only an hour and a lot of focus is on the two qualifying sessions," says Rosie Wait, our Head of Race Strategy. "It's only after the sprint race that you've got anything concrete to analyse for the race. All your analysis and planning has to happen in one evening."

Andrew Shovlin, our Trackside Engineering Director, adds: "The drivers and engineers did a really good job with the start set-up, using the simulator to try and get a strong starting car balance. That worked really well."

A strong qualifying session on Friday left the team P2 and P3 for Sunday's race. The weekend was about to head off in an unforeseen direction, however. Saturday morning brought news of changes to the schedule owing to safety concerns surrounding the tyres: new track limits, possible tyre life restrictions imposed for Sunday and a new schedule.

The possible rule changes only amplified the challenges of the sprint weekend even further.

Rosie Wait

"The possible rule changes only amplified the challenges of the sprint weekend even further," explains Rosie. "We could have done lots to prepare on Friday, but no one knew there was anything to prepare for. On Saturday night we knew that it might happen, but we didn't know for sure. You've already got a lot of work to fit into the time, so we had to decide how much to let the potential rule change distract from our normal work."

Race day would bring confirmation of the changes. Before that though, the strategy group had to come up with a plan.

"The core strategy team focused on doing the core strategy jobs and normal analysis heading into the race. We had to be very strict to make sure we kept focused. That core work included planning for what we thought the tyres would do, what the pit loss would be and how our pace and overtaking chances may look.

"I picked up some extra tasks to focus on the high risk, high reward work to try and better prepare for the new rules. Questions included 'Can we make some developments to our simulations and release new software by Sunday?' We did manage to create something, so we were able to run live simulations to the likely new rules.

"We also looked at the low hanging fruit like having basic tools to keep track of everyone's tyre use and know when people might have to stop, as they got more and more constrained. We knew in the race that we would have to be very dynamic in terms of priorities - such as keeping track of tyre allocation and pit stop timings in more detail than we normally would."

That overnight worked would ultimately need to be called upon. An 18-lap maximum stint length left us on the back foot in terms of tyre availability.

"We'd put more laps on our tyres than most. We were at the worse end of that deal and Lewis in particular was affected. He was going to be strategically constrained and that really pushed us to start on the soft tyre. It was the least bad option we had rather than the optimal strategy," Rosie continues.

Sadly, those strategic considerations would be rendered moot at the start. The incident between Lewis and George unfortunately left us one car down. The strategy group didn't have time to dwell on this though. They had the other car trundling back around with a puncture and had to act fast.

We did a lot of pit stops and we made the most of what we could with the strategy.

Rosie Wait

"By regulation, it forced us on to a four-stop race. It seriously compromised him in terms of the fastest way of getting to the end. George put in some brilliant moves though and it was a really strong effort. We did a lot of pit stops and we made the most of what we could with the strategy, mostly geared around trying to be in a position to capitalise on safety cars," Rosie says.

The initial predictions once George re-joined the race indicated he'd be battling Leclerc, Alonso and the Alpines towards the lower end of the top 10, with a potential best finish of P5. But once those cars had moved out of the way and he was in free air, he was able to show the pace of the car.

The expectations for his finishing position around the lap 28 mark had therefore shifted to P4, which he was able to deliver. It certainly wasn't the maximum that could have been possible, but a great recovery after the first lap, nonetheless. So how does Rosie and the strategy group reflect after a remarkable weekend?

"Sunday was really all hands-on deck to make sure we were in a good place for the race. We drafted as much resource as we could to do so. We pulled together and tried to keep things as simple as possible. It was hard work and we've all come out of the weekend very tired. Everyone enjoys being able to challenge themselves though and work under high pressure. It was something different and that energised the group."

Whilst the unique tests of the weekend in Qatar excited, we suspect Rosie and the strategy group will be happy to see a more normal sprint event next time out in Austin.