The single biggest reason Red Bull dominates Formula 1

Formula 1 fans were treated to a very entertaining race in Korea on Sunday. Did you catch the race? There was plenty of incident,. but once again Sebastian Vettel lined up in pole position and was in front from start to finish. It was another masterful drive from the German.

In fact Vettel's dominance in recent seasons invites the usual questions about whether it's the car or the driver who should take the lion's share of credit. Vettel is certainly a brilliant driver who is that crucial tenth of a second quicker than his Red Bull Racing team mate Mark Webber. And the quality of the car is clearly important.

But there is another crucial factor behind this success: big data. And there is a fascinating story here about how Red Bull has used big data to steal a march on everyone else in Formula 1. It's a story that demonstrates the power of what is now one of the most exciting and disruptive forces in society today – make sure you don't miss out!

It's all down to a few men in a room in Milton Keynes

The Red Bull team is most visible during pit-stops. The mechanics can remove all four wheels, replace them and even adjust the front wing in 2.5 seconds. Occasionally, human or mechanical error conspires to spoil this carefully choreographed display of teamwork and the race can be lost. Wheel nuts won't come off or go on, sometimes a tyre gets left in the garage. It can make for dramatic television.

But there is another aspect to teamwork that we don't see on TV. Without it, Vettel's race would be a lot more difficult, and I'm sure he would have had less success. Red Bull's cars take to the track laden with around a hundred sensors. Everything conceivable is monitored: pressures, loadings, temperatures, parts wear, fuel use. Some of this telemetry analyses driver performance such as braking and acceleration at specific points on the track; information that will help Vettel improve and go even faster.

But a lot of the 100 gigabytes of data that are transmitted by the car each race concern the status of the car itself. Occasionally we hear Vettel's race engineer advising him to try and cool his brakes or 'look after" his right front tyre. Even though top drivers are super-sensitive and can 'feel" minute details about their car's performance, data from the sensors provides objective information to the team. They no longer have to rely entirely on a driver's experience and intuition when the race is underway.

This real time data is so large and complex that it can't be processed by the guys you see sitting in front of screens at the pit wall during the race. That's where Vettel's race engineer relays instructions from; but the heavy lifting is done elsewhere. While the race is underway in Korea , the telemetry is analysed in real time by up to 24 specialists sitting in a data room in Milton Keynes. It might not be as glamorous as hanging out in the paddock at Monaco, but it's very effective.

A good example of their work was the final race last year in Brazil where Vettel narrowly won the championship. It was a wet weather race with plenty of incidents, one of which involved Vettel damaging his car in a crash with Bruno Senna which sent him to the back of the field. The normal response would have been to return to the pits so the mechanics could inspect the damage and replace broken parts. Because of Red Bull's real time data analysis capability, the team were able to keep him out on the track and assess the car's performance and safety while still racing. They decided he could stay out and he went on to finish sixth; which was just enough to clinch the drivers' championship.

A new industrial revolution is underway

I have written a lot recently about the investment opportunities in internet communication and big data. In fact, my latest issue of Red Hot Penny Shares makes two new recommendations in exactly these industries. These are real themes and they are happening today. Red Bull is harnessing them to transform the way in which a top Formula 1 team goes racing. Formula 1 is at the cutting edge of new technology adoption but where it leads, the mainstream soon follows. Just last week we saw Monsanto announce it would invest a billion dollars a year in data generation.

Even at Red Bull Racing though, it's not ultra high-tech everywhere you look. Many say the most important individual in the team isn't Vettel but Adrian Newey. He is the celebrated designer of many top F1 cars over the years including the recent Red Bulls. His main design tool remains a pencil and an A4 notepad on which he sketches his ideas. It's reassuring to think that there is one key element of Formula 1 where human ingenuity and equipment costing less than a pound still have a role to play!

- This article is taken from our free twice-weekly small-cap investment email, The Penny Sleuth. Sign up to The Penny Sleuth here.

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FLETCHER said:

Pzero , just asked the man himself and got a answer , its not very technical , no big numbers just.
"less than a second prob"

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pzero said:

How much difference would 28lbs less of body weight make to lap times? :?:

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Webber wants higher minimum car weight
By Javier Parra on 27 Mar 2009, 06:02

Feeling at a disadvantage, Mark Webber is calling out for a higher minimum car weight limit. While being one of the larger drivers in the Formula One grid, he shares among a few others the disadvantage of weighing a lot more than drivers such as Nick Heidfeld and Felipe Massa. And with KERS adding roughly 30kg's to the overall weight of the car, there is less free ballast to be moved around.

In an interview with the official Formula One website, Webber responded to whether increasing the weight limit would be a good idea: "Of course it would. And it would not be unfair to do that. The smaller drivers don't get a disadvantage but at the moment the bigger guys do, so it would only be fair."

"And it would save a lot of money, too. At the moment the teams are spending money to make the cars lighter and by increasing the minimum weight to a sensible number, the teams would not have to spend money on saving weight. The weight limit is incredibly aggressive! I am not Pavarotti and still it's not easy."

"What a lot of rubbish," he says about the presumable strenght advantage bigger drivers have, "It's not a strength advantage as all the guys on the grid are strong."

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FLETCHER said:

Pzero , just asked the man himself and got a answer , its not very technical , no big numbers just.
"less than a second prob"

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Jenson Button has suggested that the minimum weight of next year's Formula 1 cars should be increased so as not to handicap taller, heavier drivers.

As things stand, the minimum weight will be increased from 642kg to 690kg in 2014 in line with the new V6 turbo engine formula that also mandates enhanced energy recovery systems. However, that increase will not make things easier for bigger drivers.

If anything, the opposite will be the case. An explanation lies in the fact that F1 cars are built underweight, with driver weight and ballast used to bring them up to the legal minimum. Yet because the ancillaries associated with the new power units are expected to be heavier than had earlier been thought, the anticipation is that six footers such as Button and Nico Hulkenberg will have even less flexibility setting up their cars.

Moving ballast can help improve a car's balance and the more of it there is, the bigger the potential gain.

Little wonder, then, that Button thinks next year's minimum weight should be increased by ten kilos. "I'm 74, 74.5 kilos with my kit and I struggle to meet the weight limit - I have done for the last three years," the McLaren driver said on Thursday. "There's certain fitness training that I have to do and parts that I can't do: I can't build muscle; I can't eat carbohydrates because I have to be a set weight.

"It's going to get worse next year as well. Next year, I don't think any team will have any ballast really on the car. It is very tricky for a taller driver.

"It's not that it hurts you over a lap because you set the car up around yourself. But you lose a lot of tools to adjust the car - you can't move the weight distribution because you're so limited."

A weight of 60-65kg is seen as ideal by designers but not all drivers have the requisite build. Hulkenberg (78kg) is certainly not in possession of a pint-sized frame, with Button reckoning it can cost between two and three tenths of a second per lap.

"Every year, we start the season with ballast. Throughout the year, because you add parts to the car, the car puts more weight on," he said.

"Whereas at the start of next year, I think every team is not going to have ballast on the car - and it's only going to get worse during the season.

"It does hurt the heavier drivers and it's very unfair to say we'll lose weight, because some of us can't lose any more weight; you need to have skin on your bones and a little bit of muscle to drive a Formula 1 car."

Button added: "People don't realise the difference a kilo of weight can make, even if it is to change the balance of the car. It's 30 milliseconds per kilo and around most circuits ten kilos is about three tenths per lap.

"If you're four kilos overweight, it's a lot. It's almost two tenths."

Button said the matter would be discussed at a GPDA meeting ahead of Sunday's race at the Korean International Circuit.

"It should be easy for us to stick another ten kilos of weight on the car; I don't understand why we can't talk about that. But maybe it's because we haven't talked about it - we haven't asked for the cars to be heavier," he added.

"It's one of the easiest things to put right. It could save a driver's career."

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