O.R. Inside The Formula1 Pit Lane

On race days in Grands Prix, there’s the team we see – the driver, the engineers – and the team we don’t: the O.R. people who do complex mathematical modelling of pit stop strategy as the race takes place.  The modellers in the O.R. team are constantly updating their calculations of speed, fuel load, tyre wear and the position of all the other cars on the track to calculate the best time for a pit stop to change tyres and load up on fuel.

This O.R. work can make the difference between success and failure – in fact the last race of the 2008 season was largely influenced by O.R. modelling of pit stop strategy.  The McLaren team decided to stop and change to wet weather tyres because their O.R. model helped them calculate that their car, on wet tyres, would make up the time lost in the pit stop and overtake a driver still using dry weather tyres.  The model proved to be an accurate forecast of the real event – and the McLaren, driven by Lewis Hamilton, did overtake on the final corner of the race, as predicted, to take the fifth place he needed to clinch the 2008 championship.