The Brazilian Grand Prix promised much for AT&T Williams, but ultimately it delivered nothing. We registered our first double-DNF of the season, which was very disappointing and meant that we weren’t able to execute the strategies that we’d planned for our drivers.
For the fourth time this year, Nico and Kazuki both started inside the top 10 and Nico was looking good for a podium finish until he was stopped by a suspected gearbox problem. However, I’d like to think that both drivers were on competitive strategies because I’m one of the team’s two strategy engineers!
I do a lot of preparatory work before each race because information is key in my job. I need to know things like the amount of time lost in the pitlane, the expected fuel consumption per lap and tyre performance. We’d never previously used these slick tyres at Interlagos, so a lot of my preparation before Brazil was predictive, using data that we’d gathered at other tracks.
I then fed this data into my simulation programmes back at the factory, which gave me the optimum strategy for the 71-lap race. It also gave me an idea of how to run the cars in Q3, should they make it into the final segment of qualifying.
I travelled to Sao Paulo on the Tuesday before the race, arriving early on Wednesday morning. After a brief pitstop at the hotel to change clothes, the rest of the day was spent at the racetrack, getting everything ready for the weekend ahead. I prepared things like my analysis spread sheets and software tools so that I could begin my analysis of events as soon as the track action began on Friday morning.
On Thursday I did a track walk with the drivers and the engineers. I do this at every race and it’s incredibly useful because it gives me a look at any changes to the track layout or kerbs that might affect strategy or tyre wear, and I get to hear the drivers’ thoughts on the car and the track. After completing the track walk at Interlagos, we had an engineering meeting with the drivers present to discuss the plan for the weekend.
A large part of Friday morning’s practice session was spent monitoring the performance of the other teams, before focusing on our performance in the afternoon session. I analysed tyre performance and used this information – alongside data from Bridgestone about the other teams’ tyre sequences – to calculate tyre degradation. I then came up with a qualifying plan in which I worked out the number of runs for each of our drivers, the timings of those runs and the tyre sequence.
The weather forecast was for heavy rain on Saturday and then a dry race. That meant we’d have to keep a dry set-up on the car for qualifying, which would make life quite tricky for the drivers, and I also adjusted the timing of their first pitstops in the race in case of more rain. At Interlagos, you never know!
The AT&T Williams driver who’s quickest in Q2 gets the choice of stop laps in the race and last weekend it was Nico (although they were both very quick in the rain, ending Q2 in P1 and P2). There’s no favouritism in this decision; it’s a simple matter of who’s quicker and what’s best for the team.
After qualifying I came up with a list of default strategies. That helped me to work out what to do in the race if there was a Safety Car, or if one of both of our cars were involved in a first-corner accident and needed to pit for a new nose. Such decisions would have to be made very quickly, so preparation was essential.
During the race I sat next to chief operations engineer Rod Nelson and we constantly fed off each other and bounced ideas around. Unfortunately, both of the cars were out of the race before half distance (Nico: gearbox, Kazuki: accident), so we weren’t able to capitalise on our top 10 starting positions.
We now move to Abu Dhabi, where we’ll try to end the season on a high note.
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