May 20, 2024 • 38 mins
The Brits love to talk about it but the weather in F1 is so much more than a conversation starter. It's a core component of every race strategy.For this episode, we talked with Bernie Collins who's been trackside at F1 for nearly nine years - Former F1 strategist, now F1 analyst. We also talk with two meteorologists who provide motor racing predictions - Dr. Aaron Studwell and Elizabeth Ohlemacher. We also bring back Scott Mansell to help us understand how the weather - heat and rain - affects the drivers, the cars and thus their driving. As the saying goes - the rain is the great equaliser in F1. The unpredictability of the weather is one of the most exciting parts of a race weekend!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Michael, Tony, Chris Brother outside today. You know what I
miss about New York and big cities, of being able
to walk from one place to the other and feel
the weather forecast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You always do this, what the Brits always do this?
Every British person always has to somehow talk about the weather.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, that's what we do.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I noticed even the F one commentators, many of them
are from the UK, and even during a broadcast, during
an actual race, they'll divert to talking about the weather.
There's a race happening right now. Talk about the race.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, but you know the way the clouds move and
the sun peaks through, and you know impending doom of rain.
How can you not be fascinated by it?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
From My Heart Podcast one on one Studios and Sports
Illustrated Studios, this is choosing sides, Yes one, Wow, Tony,
will you tell me the truth for fucking once in
this thing? Okay, this episode has nothing to do with
(01:03):
F one. It's just a British thing, isn't it. Regardless
of the subject matter. You always will sneak in the weather.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, that is true. We will always find an excuse
to sneak in the weather. You will hopefully find off
to this episode that the weather has absolutely everything to
do with Formula One.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Actually, how so it has.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It has a pretty massive effect. Actually so, I'm Bernie Collins.
I am an ex head of race strategy for the
Aston Martin Formula one team. Before that, I was a
performance engineer with Jensen Button in twenty fourteen, so I've
been trackside in F one for around eight and a
half years.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
I always been a fan of Whether my whole life,
so I'm just ecstatic to be on here.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
This is Elizabeth Olmacha. She is a meteorologist specializing in
race and motor racing predictions, cool and in her free time. Michael,
she actually chases storms storm chaser. It has bed time.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I would say it would be more like a freelance
storm chaser. I do it on my free time, but
I highly don't recommend people doing it if they don't
understand what they're getting themselves into, because it can be
a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Just like driving a Formula one car. Leave it to
the experts. This is doctor Aaron Studwell.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
President founder of race Weather.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
A meteorologist specializing in motor sports, and a huge petrol
head himself.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Love the sport, love the racing, love racing in general,
and happy to provide a service to fans, teams media.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Are you also a storm chaser like Elizabeth?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
When I lived in Oklahoma?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I did.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
I've seen tornadoes in person, but yeah, I live on
the East coast of the US now, so it's not real.
If I'm here, I'm generally tropical storm chasing or hurricane chasing.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
I didn't realize there were like different categories of storm chasers.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
If there is one thing that fans love and hopeful
and drivers are terrified of is the unpredictable last minute
weather change. The effects of the weather on a circuit,
on the driver, on their performance, on the performance of
the car cannot be understated. It basically changes the whole game.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
You're asking a driver to drive as close to the limit,
and we talk about the limit being the limit of grip.
So if you think of taking a corner really slowly,
that's easy. Anyone can do that. And then if you
go up in like ten kilometers an hour, you know
every time you do the corner, there will be a
point where the car no longer makes the corner. The
drivers are working out where that point is, Like how
(03:33):
fast can you go around that corner before the car
starts to slide? And if you get a gust of
wind one lap to the next, the car will be
theoretically able to do that corner at a slightly different speed.
If the temperature is a bit different, then the tires
will have a slightly different level of grip. So what
you're asking the driver do is predict that maximum limit
(03:57):
lap one lap, one lap. And I heard a really
interesting thing recent from Alonzo who said that every lap
of the reis the track is improven, and every lap
of the riis the car is getting lighter. So every
lap of the rest, the grip in that corner is
different than the weather plays a part in that. So
if you get a driver, you know, and that's where
we see drivers having a little off because there's been
(04:17):
a gust or whatever the case may be. And that's
why we hear so much of the READLYO where the
teams are telling them the winds picked up, or we
hear the driver asking the question because they can feel
the effect on the car and we're trying to keep
them ahead of the gear.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
If we can any examples of.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That, Yeah, there's a very well known historical example of this,
which is the story of Nikki Lauda's accident. The late
Nikki Lauder's accident during the nineteen seventy six German compree.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
All the top drivers are here at Novo Gring for
the European Grand Prix.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
The Nuva rings what my girlfriend used to wear in
college so she wouldn't get pregnant.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
I'm sorry, what what to quote?
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Tony moving swiftly on the most dangerous of Grand Prix courses,
notorious among drivers.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
It's a giant, giant circuit and Niki Lauda, one of
the greats. Before the race, he basically raised the flag
and he said, listen, I'm looking at this circuit and
safety measures are not in place. There's a crash on
the other side of the ring. It's gonna take you
too much time to get to those people like, this
is just not safe. And people people basically like laughed
(05:25):
him off, and the other drivers, yeah, we're like, uh,
we're good to race. Stop stopp being a scaredy cat.
There's even a vote among the drivers, and the drivers
voted him down. They voted to keep going in the race.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I know where this is going.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Then race day comes and it's raining.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Right. Do they ever stop for any type of weather? Yeah,
they do.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
If it's too heavy in the downpour, then it will
affect their visibility, and that's usually when they away.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Even I think now they're like a little bit too
safe about it sometimes.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, some would argue, why do we have rain tires
and wet tires if we don't go racing when.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
It's wet, right, They hardly, They hardly use the wet
tires because usually when it's when it's raining hard enough
to them use wet tires, they they don't let the
drivers race.
Speaker 8 (06:14):
Which I will argue that I think now that we've
got the helmet coms and the driver's view, we might
understand what the drivers see and absolutely don't see, and
we might have more empathy of like, oh, yeah, you
actually can't go racing.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
We see videos from the seventies and eighties and these
rooster tails and they're still out there racing in this
torrential rain. But we've lost so many drivers in these
kind of incidents. Were bad accidents that really just didn't
need to happen. So I think now there's an abundance
of caution where we're going to say and that's not
a negative or we're gonna say if you can't see
(06:47):
the car ahead of you, even when they're the red
the red light's blinking and they're regenerating the energy that
you know, it's not good for the driver, it's not
good for the sport.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
So the terrible irony here, of course, is that on
race that Nicko Lauda didn't want.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
A tempted to arrange a boycott of the race.
Speaker 7 (07:03):
Exactly right, Niki Lauder lost control of his Ferrari on
a one hundred and fifty mile an hour curve.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
He crashed horribly and was chopped in a burning car.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
The race was restarted, but for Louder it was a
race for life. Almost died while his fellow drivers jockeyed
for position. He was being rushed to an intensive care
unit with severe burns, fractures and lung damage. Surgeons pronounced
he was near to death and last rites were administered.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
Six weeks later, with bandages all over his body.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Crowds of sightseers and hosts of newsmen gathered at the
Ferrari factory in Marnllo, Italy to welcome Nicki Lauder back
from the dead.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
He's back in a racing car.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
What the fuck?
Speaker 7 (07:46):
Just forty days after doctors had given up hope and
a priest had knelted his bedside, the Austrian Ace climbed
back into the cockpit of his glaring red Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I'm looking at images of the accident right here. And
it's tricky because he might have put in his head
that this was a dangerous place to ride. But also
that could have nothing to do with this is a
professional race car driver who's very good. That's too bad.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
It does also bring us back a little bit too
manifesting destiny.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, and I don't want to buy into that, because
therefore you would never speak up out of a safety
concern because you'd be afraid.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And it's yeah, oh, it was just like he knew
what he was talking about.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, or it's just absolutely I like that. That's
very pragmatic. And I like that that he said, this
is a big circuit. People go fast here, You're not
gonnably to help me out.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
There's a sentence that you might hear, which is rain
is the great equalizer Formula one. It shows the priss
of a lot of these drivers.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
They're going to call it a great equalizer, but I
think some are more equal than others. There are drivers
who are better in the rain than others. I'm not
going to specifically name drivers, but I know there are
drivers who kind of dread driving in the rain, and
they're drivers who grew up driving in the rain.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Drivers who grew up and were born in countries like Belgium,
Austria and the UK where it rains a lot definitely
have an advantage. Some of the best in the rain
are the likes of Maxwistappan UIs, Hamilton, Lando Norris. What
do they all have in common? They all lived for
a long time, so there's pictures and videos of them
in go karts in the absolute right like aqua planning
(09:19):
to your heart's content. And I think we see this
on road cars as well. You can see when people
are used to driving in the rain. California rains for
a minute and it's a standstill in the city.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
People know how to drive, Yeah, no idea. Go down
to the south and there's a little bit of a
frost and everyone's cars crashing all over the place.
Speaker 9 (09:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And the absolute king of this skill is the legendary
Late Art and Center, also known as the rainmaster.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Cool, absolutely marvelous. Vella went round the outside of Louder
into the rough.
Speaker 10 (09:48):
Ga and that was brave and skillful.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Just just to put that into numbers for you, because
that name is actually backed by by statistics. His overall
win rate in Formula one at Donsenna is twenty five
point three percent. That means he won about a quarter
of the races he started. But of those races, the
ones that were in the rain, he won more than
half of them fifty five percent.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Wow. Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Wet conditions are often used as an example of when
actually the car is less important than the driver. So
actually the driver coming can make quite a big difference
because of his ability, let's say, to work in this
very changeable condition. But there are still some teams that
are better at management of those situations. So people always
(10:35):
think there's more risk and reward in those situations as well.
So some people really delight in the chaos of it all.
I always thought it was a bit panicked. So I
wasn't that sure that Reian was good for.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Us, because you were you were the one in the
chaos having to make the decisions. Yeah, exactly, give you
some order.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
It's like, oh, Yeah, exactly, it's it's you know, but
for a for a lower team, a team lower down
the order, it is more likely to bring this avharc
result that doesn't otherwise happen. So that's why I think
it's a bit more of an equalizer.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So tell me about driving in the rain, what is okay?
How is that different?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Hey, it's going to affect the grip of the car
and how it goes round the track. To complicate things,
these f one circuits and tracks, as we've spoken about,
are massive, which means that there are massive areas where
puddles of water can start compiling together, which means you
can start ending up with aqua planning as well. It
(11:29):
also means that certain aspects of the track are going
to drive faster or slower. So when they start switching
out to the tires, you will hear them saying I
can see the sun on the second part of the track,
but it's still raining on the first part of the
track where you use the wet tires the dry tires.
That adds a layer of strategy, but also just complicated
to drive on the right tires, wrong tires, right track.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Even just where you have more peaks and valleys, not
a flat track, but say more in Europe where you're
going up a hill and you may have worked us
your winds at the top of the hill. It can
be across wind, it could be provide more downforce, it
could be a tailwind. Going down the street. You're gonna
the driver's gonna need to know that, both from a
handling condition, in from a speed condition.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And it also just affects visibility. Again when you think
about it, they're lying down in these cars. They're very
close to the ground. If you are in front, you
are in a great position. If you are in the back,
you're getting everyone's rain and water and backspash in your face. Yeah, yeah,
whitch go.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
This is the start of the nineteen ninety eight Belgian GP.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
Oh, this is kind of pulling.
Speaker 10 (12:32):
This is the worst start for aprol rate.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
But I have ever seen in the whole of my life.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I'm looking at this video and if you mean every
place crashed, I mean, first of all, there's one car
in the front who has good visibility, and then every
other car is just toe you can't see anything.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And we're laughing.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I know, it's not funny.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
The danger on like, yeah, none of these cars have
wheels left. It's just it's a wheel race.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's not funny. It's you know, in between my laughing,
I want to say, it's not funny, it's very entertaining.
I'm gonna look at the second one spree coming off
the front axle. The any visibility you have is just canceled.
This just doesn't look feasible. It doesn't look feasible, it
doesn't look possible.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
This is where the gut instinct and driving right.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I would encourage anybody who's listening right now to just
go watch a helmet cam of any one of these
F one drivers on a dry situation. It seems chaotic
and unreasonable. And now in the rain, it's uh it certainly.
I mean, are they going slower in the rain? Absolutely
not me. When it rains in New York, I'm going faster.
Speaker 10 (13:42):
Today, on the exit ramp from the Queensboro Bridge, comedian
Michael Costa, recklessly driving his Volvo station Wagon causes a
multi car pile up. Thankfully no one was injured, but
drivers stuck in the ensuing traffic We're not happy.
Speaker 9 (13:55):
Do I like it?
Speaker 5 (13:56):
No?
Speaker 6 (13:56):
It's a lack of respective rules.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 10 (13:59):
Is. I'm Danielle Waxman for Fake NYC News quick Break
for ads and we'll be back before you can say aquaplaning.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So when you're talking about whether you're really just talking
about if it's raining or not wet or dry.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
A lot of people think it's just rain and that
will affect the tracks, but it's not just rain.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
For most of us. Minimal changes in temperature and small
shifts will mostly go unnoticed, like we don't know if
it's dropping temperatures, But in Formula one, even these smaller
increases or decreases, even if we're talking one or two
degree changes, actually has a pretty big impact on how
the different teams are going to approach a race or
a different session. When we're talking weather forecasting, we're not
(14:45):
talking what we see on the TV or even my
little British chit chat about the weather. It's actually we're
talking about all the different layers. So air temperature, track temperature,
even sometimes like the driver's temperature, how are you doing
inside of the cockpit? Are you okay?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
It can be twenty to thirty degrees hotter inside the
cockpit than it is outside on a track. So if
it's stay it's ninety degrees. It can be like one
hundred and twenty inside and there is no air ventilation
or like ac you know that you can just crank up.
These drivers, they have to adapt to these different conditions.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
The temperature inside of Formula one car during an actual
race will average to about one hundred and twenty two
degrees fanheight.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Wow, that's an average, and that's just inside the car.
That's yeah, inside the car. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
For as much as weight as they lose any normal race,
they'd probably lose even more if it's you know you
talk about widely erase Jetta at night, Well, it's going
to be ninety five degrees during the day. Jet is
actually a humid environment because it's right next to the water.
So that's going to be both of the crew and
the driver. It's going to be just depleting and you're
(15:57):
going to have We've seen races where drivers have just
got got out of the car and just kind of
flopped against the car, their helmet at their side, just
drinking water or having water poured down their neck. They're
so busy it's dark here, fading with.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Flow blood pressure and just passing out in the car.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So for example, during this year is Qatar Grand Prix.
We had a combination of heat and humidity, which meant
that it was absolutely unbearable for the drivers.
Speaker 9 (16:23):
Honestly, yeah, I fell ill by fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
One driver is the band Okon who said that he
felt like he was vomiting in his helmet.
Speaker 9 (16:32):
You know, I was throwing up in the car. And
I've managed to come down afterwards, tried to really focus
on what I had to do, and I've managed to
get down the control.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
But got so bad that many fans but also people
within the industry and the ecosystem were saying, this is
probably a bad time to be racing in such a rouson.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Once again, Michael Karsta brings it back to tennis. I mean,
humidity affects a tennis ball tremendously. I can only imagine
a fire burning machine with four wheels on it.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
And fire burning machine in really incredible temperatures like we
had this year. I think it was like the Katar GP.
When we're talking about safety. The drivers were cracking open
their helmet visors so they could get air coming in.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
That air that we get into the cockpit is just horrible,
you know, it's like I don't know a fire, you know,
going through the through the helmet.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
One of the drivers describe cracking open their helmets so
they could get air. By the way, really dangerous. The
last thing you want to do with a helmet is
crack it open, because that's where something can go fly
right into your eye. But that was my only solution
to try and call down, which, by the way, it
did bring up a whole conversation which if we go
back to the logistics of Formula one, it did bring
back a conversation about the racing calendar and why are
(17:47):
we racing in Qatar at the time of the year
where it's actually really hot, which goes back to actually
the logistics of pulling off that F one race calendar
is really really really tricky.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
Yeah, let's let's come back here in this humber, please
not October. Yeah, that was definitely a tough one.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Air temperature. How does that affect a car? My Volvo
runs like a tank no matter what temperature is.
Speaker 11 (18:10):
Well, the cold is kind of the enemy of Formula
one cars because frankly, they don't often run in the cold.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
This is Scott Mansel, and he's not only an X
racing driver, but he's also the founder of an immensely
popular Formula one YouTube channel called driver sixty one.
Speaker 11 (18:24):
Most of the temperatures across the year and the season
are within a kind of fairly warm range, right, and
so the engineers and the teams are just designing the
cars to run in these temperatures. Of course, if they
wanted to, they wouldn't be as quick, but they could
get them to run at colder temperatures, but they're just
not typically designed to do that. So they have issues
(18:48):
with the engine temperatures, with blanking the radiator ducts off
so you don't have as much cold air rushing through
over the engine and through the radiators. But as you
say that, the main problem is the tires, and it's
as simple as the rubber just doesn't get warm enough
to then have that chemical reaction that bite into the
racing circuit, and so you just have less grip overall.
(19:10):
And typically when you have less grip, it's just more
difficult to drive, Like you know, if it was if
it rained and there were wet conditions on track, it's
more difficult for the drivers, and so that means you
have to be more careful on the brakes. The breaking
distances will be longer, the risk of locking a tire
rup will be will be higher, the cornering spears will
be lower, and you'll have to be more gentle and
(19:31):
more sensitive on the accelerator. But where it's really difficult,
and I think we saw this with Lando in Vegas,
is in the quicker corners, because when you're in like
a slower corner, the tire is gonna scrub across the
Circuit's gonna slide across the circuit in a fairly predictable way.
(19:53):
This is what you're looking for as a driver. You
want predictability. You want to be able to not be
reacting to the car, but predicting what about to happen.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So one of the paradoxes of Formula one cars is
they're both some parts of the car built to resist
just about anything and the other part if you're just
like bang it a little bit it or falls apart,
don't sneeze in it. And so the air temperature is
going to affect the performance of a Formula one engine,
for example, on tracks like the hotter Middle Eastern circuits.
(20:21):
This is actually a pretty big issue. In addition to
managing your tires, for example, the driver also needs to
manage the engine temperature because the last thing you want
is an engine that's overheated.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Engine failure.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Okay, engine radia.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So that was air temperature. Then let's talk a bit
about track temperature, because this is also where it gets
really interesting. So track temp can have a huge effect,
and mostly on the tires because obviously it's the tires
that are hitting the track. And so, as we discussed
in that tire episode, these Formula one tires are extremely picky,
meaning that they have a very very narrow window of
(20:59):
what is called the optimum performance of these tires.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
It's almost like a Goldilocks saying, if it's too hot,
it's not great. If it's too cold, it's not great.
You get right in there eighteen to twenty three celsius.
Say you know sixty five to seventy five seventy seven
fahrenheit range, you're gonna have great tire performance because if
it's too cold, I always grip. If it's too hot,
(21:22):
I was grip to.
Speaker 11 (21:22):
Go back with cold tires on a race circuit, not
too bad aside from the low grip in slow corners,
but in the quick corners where the cars loaded up
with quite a lot of air row it feels like
there's a lot of grip, and when the car slides,
when the tire just gives up and starts to slide
across the surface of the track, it happens very quickly,
(21:45):
and it's difficult for the drivers to predict that, and
so you remove some of that predictability. So if you
look at Lando from Vegas, the car looked all right
and then all of a sudden it let go, And
it doesn't matter how quick his reactions are, he's not
going to you know, catch that in his head into
the wall. A similar thing happened to me. I mean,
I've driven thirty something f one cars over my career,
(22:08):
and a lot of them actually have been in the UK.
As you know, it's pretty cold over here, and we
did some testing at a circuit called Donnington over here,
probably in autumn or early winter one year, and it was,
you know, it's five or six degrees, not too far
from the temperatures that we saw in Vegas. And I
experienced that and I went off as well. You know,
(22:29):
I didn't crash, but I went off as well. And
when it happens, it happens. Incredibly quickly.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It just goes too cold there get slippery and they
go all over the place. I know, grip on the
tires too hot and the degradation of the tires greatly accelerated.
It also means that the time might be sticking too
much and they can't go as fast as they want to.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And then there's something I've been around the sport for
twenty twenty five years. They from people I've talked to
both on the AI and the modeling and the track
people side, they don't have a good model.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
The track temperature is actually pretty difficult to predect.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So the track temperature also evolves over a race as
the cars are heating that track up because the track
is bare and then you're throwing twenty cars on it
going really really fast, it's obviously going to effect the track.
And not only that, As we said previously, the tracks
are really wide, so the temperature of the track isn't
the same at all. Elements are all parts of the track,
(23:24):
so that's what's so a component. And if the track
temperature changes considerably during a race, the drivers have several
ways to actually deal with this. So one way is
thinking about how hard they want to push their tires.
They can alter their driving lines to suit the balance
of the car. They can adjust the differentials that that's
the amount of talk that transfers between the rear wheels
(23:46):
or the brake balance to the front aurea of the car.
So there's a bunch of things that they can play
around with as Formula One drivers. In addition to the drivers,
the mechanics can also play around with the different calling
configurations across a race. They can adjust the car set
up for different weather conditions. So all of that is
thought about in advance, and all of that is kind
of planned with all the different options available.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Atmospheric pressure barometric pressure can definitely impact engine performance, same
with humidity. Race performance can change your degrade based on
in handling crosswinds, tailwinds.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
The wind has a massive effect. So when we think of,
you know, our description of the car in the wind tunnel,
the wind is common in the most ideal situation, like
straight out of the car, and that is how the
car is predominantly designed to work in terms of the
loading on the car. Now, obviously a lot of that
wind is generated by the car driving out two hundred
(24:42):
kilometers an hour, that is you know, the headwind, but
if the ambient condition goes against you, you've got the
wind of the car and the wind of ambience. You've
got like this additive effect. If you've got a tailwind,
you've got a subtraction. You've got the head wind of
the car minus the effect from the ambient wind. So
(25:04):
that's obviously less wind to work the car. And that's
why the wind is really important in terms of how
the car is operating. And you know, a side wind,
every you know, you can do the physics on it,
but like every you know, angle is then taken or
add into the perfect wind condition of the car.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Yeah, rain or dry, do you make a difference. But
even cloudy versus sunny with the same temperature and track temperatures.
So it's more than just one component. It's really the
full fledged what is the forecast from sun cover and
we'll call that incoming solar radiation and get real kind
of technical on that, to humidity, to bear measure pressure,
(25:48):
to you know, temperature, track temperature.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But there's a butt.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
There's always a butt.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
There's always about.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
There is always but to.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Make things even more complicated, they are actually not allowed
to adjust the car settings between the qualifying that happens
on Saturday and the actual race.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
That happens so interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So if the forecasts shifts completely and drastically from the
Saturday to the Sunday, you are kind of stuck with
what you set up on the car on the Saturday
for the Sunday race. Maybe one of the things to
say about Formula one is it's always a game of compromise. Yeah,
all of this to say, and we can ponder about
the strategy behind this or that if we wanted to.
(26:28):
Being able to predict the weather during a Grand Prix
race is absolutely crucial to inform the strategy and inform
the drive on how to drive. But the reality is
it's really hard to predict because anything can happen.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I mean, is it that hard to predict? Like I
have an app on my phone that just tells me
what's going to be tomorrow at four pm. I can't
the team, principal whatever, just download it and then punch
in boom. Problem solved.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Well, I will believe me. I get enough screenshots of
apps during the week that I know people download the raps.
But when we start getting into finer tuned forecasts, if
you're in a commercial business, like where an app's gonna
come from. You're either taking direct model output and just
plugging it in. Maybe you're averaging it together, which you
(27:13):
average them together, you get a little better performance, but
you don't know the rain timing. If if I could
have average four of them together, models together, and then
once said the rain is gonna start at five, one
it's going to say it's gonna start at nine. One
says it's gonna start at one, and then once the
other one's gonna start at five pm, you average them
all together, it's going to rain all day. And that's
probably not the case. So when you have a meteorologist
(27:37):
on site, like f one does, they're looking at all
the models. They're probably running their own high resolution models
on their own in house. I want to watch the
radar come in. I know the geography in the area,
say something like the Red Bull Red Bull Ring and
where there are a lot of mountains in the area
that you can have rain coming to the area, but
(27:58):
the mountains break them up. Versus someplace like Austin, where
it's just flat. You could stand and see thirty miles
away that there's a storm over there. There's nothing to
break it up. But you're still going to want to
know the timing, how fast that storm's moving, Is it
getting weaker, is it getting stronger.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
They want to know exactly what minute it's going to
stop raining, what part of the track the rain is
going to start, when it's going to stop, Is it
going to get worse or better? So to that end,
which is why I like this question or this pushback
to that end. Formula one has its own traveling weather service.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Of course they do.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Rather than looking at the big picture, it focuses on
the very very narrow patch of sky tracking storms, even
individual clouds when they're approaching the circuit.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
You see what this is going to be boring cloud.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
See where it's going. It's separated from its group.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
The least reliable. It is protecting cloud cover, and the
cover has a massive effect on track temperature.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
We do have more for you on this, but first
we've got to take a short break and we'll come back.
Mike check one.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Two.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Hey, we're back.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I could have scattered clouds or shadows coming across the
region across the track. Mons is probably the best example
where you start see shadows come across in areas and
now that track area is cooler by a couple of
degrees than anywhere else on the track. So you not
only have to mentally I think the drivers kind of
(29:31):
mentally know that. But yeah, you're going from a cool
to a hot to a cool. It could be up
in the you're going up in the mountains a little bit.
It's even at small elevation changes it can be marginally cooler.
And I'm talking you know, we talk about you know,
tens of a pounds of a psi here for tire pressure,
(29:52):
but we're talking tensive degree of temperature on the elevation
changes on high elevation change areas.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
To that effect, they go around their own weather radar,
which they then assemble on site every single week. Back
to that logistics episode that we have. Nothing is just brought.
That's too easy.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Yeah, on the race weekend, they'll probably send two meteorologists
out want to kind of run and set up the radar.
They have what's called a field mill as well, which
will measure electrical charge in the air for a lighting potential.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So we've got the tools and the equipment and the
strategy around it. And here's the key thing. Each team
has their own people assigned to this. They're assigned to
track this specific data and make the strategic calls in
real time. But would you be surprised that, despite all
of this technology, how often the weatherman gets it wrong.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
It's one of the best jobs weather man. You can
just be wrong all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, and no one will bat and I live. Oh
it's difficult.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, it's like being a podcast host. Nobody really is
listening to you in the first place. You're fuld and laundry.
You're driving a truck where no one cares. No one cares.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
I'm sure you've heard this where they will say to
the drive I think it's going to start raining, and
the drivers to talking about it's already raining, raining, or
you just say, hey, just stick your head out to
the pitwall for a second and see if it's actually
dry away outside. Especially when we go and race in
tropical destinations think Singapore, Malaysia, where the weather changes like
absolutely constantly.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I would say that the tracks I like to look
at are forecast for more the ones close to the coast,
because the weather can just change so rapidly, so it's
interesting to see what could happen, especially during hurricane season.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
They've just got to be ready for any circumstance possible
and imaginement.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
And look at the rain pouring down and when it
rains in Malaysia, believe me, it comes down not by
the bucket fall, but by the ocean full.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I know we've had a whole episode dedicated to the
high tech of Formula one and how it's always forward
thinking and pushing the boundaries. But once in a while
they will deploy some very low tech methods to track
the weather. One of them could be having scouts along
the racetrack with talkies to just let them know when
it's starting.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
To rae I wet it's happening.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
The other one is even funnier than this, which is
just looking at the crowds and the fans and figuring
out when they start putting up their umbrellas.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
That's a great one.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Easy.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Another you know, not a source of data.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Someone's hat just flew off their head. It must be wind.
It's getting wind.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
Yeah, I'm wondering. You're you're in your personal life. Where
where do you get your weather report? Do you just
go to like the weather channel or a weather app,
or do you like do you predict your own way?
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I personally like to use my radar. I find that
one very more accurate than other weather app.
Speaker 6 (32:37):
Do a lot of your like friends and family, Like,
do they.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
All hit you up for all the time? Yes, all
the time? Sometimes though even like ask me, like about
what's the weather going to be like in these months?
And we can only we can barely see a week
ahead of us. I'm like, I don't think it's going
to be that accurate, but I would give it my
best shot.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Where where do you see the field of meteorology and
race weather prediction going? I mean, will you eventually just
just know what the weather is?
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Hopefully Knox and I'll be out of a job.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
What has been really interesting is the evolution of AI
in forecast models, where they're going back and taking all
the previous information and all the ground observations and upper
ere observations, and we'll say, okay, when have we seen
this pattern before, and we'll go through how that pattern evolve.
Speaker 6 (33:32):
So you don't like a world in which like the
AIS and computers get so sophisticated that basically weather prediction
is solved, Like, that's not a world you envision, not.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
In our lifetime. Now, Yeah, somebody I could write in say, hey,
write me up some good interview questions from a meteorologists
on racing. Well, but here you're using your insight and
your ialition and you're able to adapt your ushians to
my answers. So there's always going to be a need
to have humans in the chain.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yeah, fair fair point there, and fair point you know
for the.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
General person going to day to day if I want
to know whether to grab an umbrella, that's fine for
high resolution, high performance risks where that I've worked in
with both racing and commodity trading, both high dollar spends.
You want that accuracy, you want the human insight. As
(34:29):
a human, I'm a little biased.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
But no, you know, I find that comforting less in
the sense of like being you know about your job,
that your your job security. Sorry, I mean I'm glad
for that as well, but more in the sense of
there's something a little like, I don't know if I
want to live in a world where the weather is predictable,
is you know, it's sort of like like that's it's
(34:53):
weird to imagine.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That is a very holistic. It's a very holistic view
of it. There's this broader view that takes in not
only the human element, engineering, pure science and melts them
all together into something we love.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
To that end, Michael, any thoughts on meteorology, any strong
feelings about the weather.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I was surprisingly delighted to hear you talk about the
weather for so long. And I know that you kind
of genetically have to because you're British, but to my astonishment,
it was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
I'm glad to hear that. You know what, You've just
made my day? How to make it brit happy? Tell
them you enjoy the web.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I love all the high tech, high tech, high tech.
And then it's like, hey, stick here, Ralph, go over
there and are you wet? Debruh? Did your hat fell off? Okay,
we got a confirmation. And man, visually, when it rains
on an F one race, it is so fun to
look at. You can't believe they do it.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Less fun when you're an F one fun you're standing
in the crowd.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's not me.
Speaker 6 (36:05):
This has been Choosing Signs F one, a production of
Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcast and one oh one Studio Podcasts.
The show is hosted by Michael Costa and Tony Cowan Brown.
This episode was edited, scored, and sound designed by senior
producer Jojai may Thaddle. Scott Stone is the executive producer
(36:30):
and head of Audio, and Daniel Wexman is Director of
Podcast Development and production Manager at one o one Studios.
At iHeart Podcasts, Sean Titne is our executive producer, and
a special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and
David Hootkin from one oh one Studios. For more shows
(36:51):
from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Whatever you do, don't
forget to rate us and tell your friends it really
does mean a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Next week on Choosing Sides F one, we reach our climax.
So I can't believe I'm saying this. This is the
moment that you have all been waiting for, Right Michael,
you are going to reveal to us what kind of
Formula one fan you fashion yourself to be.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I can't believe this. I can't believe it's here. I'm
still reading the regulations manual. Okay, so maybe that's a
little bit of a hint. I have a lot to contemplate.
There's so many good episodes here for me to review
and listen again, and I'll make my decision, and it's
gonna be. It's not gonna let you down.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Do you think you're gonna pick one or do you
think you're fashioned yourself a multi fastening, multi faceted, or
multi hyphenate.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I'm gonna pick one because that's the only one I
give a shit about.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Okay,
Michael, Tony, Chris Brother outside today. You know what I
miss about New York and big cities, of being able
to walk from one place to the other and feel
the weather forecast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You always do this, what the Brits always do this?
Every British person always has to somehow talk about the weather.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, that's what we do.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I noticed even the F one commentators, many of them
are from the UK, and even during a broadcast, during
an actual race, they'll divert to talking about the weather.
There's a race happening right now. Talk about the race.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, but you know the way the clouds move and
the sun peaks through, and you know impending doom of rain.
How can you not be fascinated by it?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
From My Heart Podcast one on one Studios and Sports
Illustrated Studios, this is choosing sides, Yes one, Wow, Tony,
will you tell me the truth for fucking once in
this thing? Okay, this episode has nothing to do with
(01:03):
F one. It's just a British thing, isn't it. Regardless
of the subject matter. You always will sneak in the weather.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, that is true. We will always find an excuse
to sneak in the weather. You will hopefully find off
to this episode that the weather has absolutely everything to
do with Formula One.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Actually, how so it has.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It has a pretty massive effect. Actually so, I'm Bernie Collins.
I am an ex head of race strategy for the
Aston Martin Formula one team. Before that, I was a
performance engineer with Jensen Button in twenty fourteen, so I've
been trackside in F one for around eight and a
half years.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
I always been a fan of Whether my whole life,
so I'm just ecstatic to be on here.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
This is Elizabeth Olmacha. She is a meteorologist specializing in
race and motor racing predictions, cool and in her free time. Michael,
she actually chases storms storm chaser. It has bed time.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I would say it would be more like a freelance
storm chaser. I do it on my free time, but
I highly don't recommend people doing it if they don't
understand what they're getting themselves into, because it can be
a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Just like driving a Formula one car. Leave it to
the experts. This is doctor Aaron Studwell.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
President founder of race Weather.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
A meteorologist specializing in motor sports, and a huge petrol
head himself.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Love the sport, love the racing, love racing in general,
and happy to provide a service to fans, teams media.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Are you also a storm chaser like Elizabeth?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
When I lived in Oklahoma?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I did.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
I've seen tornadoes in person, but yeah, I live on
the East coast of the US now, so it's not real.
If I'm here, I'm generally tropical storm chasing or hurricane chasing.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
I didn't realize there were like different categories of storm chasers.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
If there is one thing that fans love and hopeful
and drivers are terrified of is the unpredictable last minute
weather change. The effects of the weather on a circuit,
on the driver, on their performance, on the performance of
the car cannot be understated. It basically changes the whole game.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
You're asking a driver to drive as close to the limit,
and we talk about the limit being the limit of grip.
So if you think of taking a corner really slowly,
that's easy. Anyone can do that. And then if you
go up in like ten kilometers an hour, you know
every time you do the corner, there will be a
point where the car no longer makes the corner. The
drivers are working out where that point is, Like how
(03:33):
fast can you go around that corner before the car
starts to slide? And if you get a gust of
wind one lap to the next, the car will be
theoretically able to do that corner at a slightly different speed.
If the temperature is a bit different, then the tires
will have a slightly different level of grip. So what
you're asking the driver do is predict that maximum limit
(03:57):
lap one lap, one lap. And I heard a really
interesting thing recent from Alonzo who said that every lap
of the reis the track is improven, and every lap
of the riis the car is getting lighter. So every
lap of the rest, the grip in that corner is
different than the weather plays a part in that. So
if you get a driver, you know, and that's where
we see drivers having a little off because there's been
(04:17):
a gust or whatever the case may be. And that's
why we hear so much of the READLYO where the
teams are telling them the winds picked up, or we
hear the driver asking the question because they can feel
the effect on the car and we're trying to keep
them ahead of the gear.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
If we can any examples of.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That, Yeah, there's a very well known historical example of this,
which is the story of Nikki Lauda's accident. The late
Nikki Lauder's accident during the nineteen seventy six German compree.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
All the top drivers are here at Novo Gring for
the European Grand Prix.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
The Nuva rings what my girlfriend used to wear in
college so she wouldn't get pregnant.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
I'm sorry, what what to quote?
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Tony moving swiftly on the most dangerous of Grand Prix courses,
notorious among drivers.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
It's a giant, giant circuit and Niki Lauda, one of
the greats. Before the race, he basically raised the flag
and he said, listen, I'm looking at this circuit and
safety measures are not in place. There's a crash on
the other side of the ring. It's gonna take you
too much time to get to those people like, this
is just not safe. And people people basically like laughed
(05:25):
him off, and the other drivers, yeah, we're like, uh,
we're good to race. Stop stopp being a scaredy cat.
There's even a vote among the drivers, and the drivers
voted him down. They voted to keep going in the race.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I know where this is going.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Then race day comes and it's raining.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Right. Do they ever stop for any type of weather? Yeah,
they do.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
If it's too heavy in the downpour, then it will
affect their visibility, and that's usually when they away.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Even I think now they're like a little bit too
safe about it sometimes.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, some would argue, why do we have rain tires
and wet tires if we don't go racing when.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
It's wet, right, They hardly, They hardly use the wet
tires because usually when it's when it's raining hard enough
to them use wet tires, they they don't let the
drivers race.
Speaker 8 (06:14):
Which I will argue that I think now that we've
got the helmet coms and the driver's view, we might
understand what the drivers see and absolutely don't see, and
we might have more empathy of like, oh, yeah, you
actually can't go racing.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
We see videos from the seventies and eighties and these
rooster tails and they're still out there racing in this
torrential rain. But we've lost so many drivers in these
kind of incidents. Were bad accidents that really just didn't
need to happen. So I think now there's an abundance
of caution where we're going to say and that's not
a negative or we're gonna say if you can't see
(06:47):
the car ahead of you, even when they're the red
the red light's blinking and they're regenerating the energy that
you know, it's not good for the driver, it's not
good for the sport.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
So the terrible irony here, of course, is that on
race that Nicko Lauda didn't want.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
A tempted to arrange a boycott of the race.
Speaker 7 (07:03):
Exactly right, Niki Lauder lost control of his Ferrari on
a one hundred and fifty mile an hour curve.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
He crashed horribly and was chopped in a burning car.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
The race was restarted, but for Louder it was a
race for life. Almost died while his fellow drivers jockeyed
for position. He was being rushed to an intensive care
unit with severe burns, fractures and lung damage. Surgeons pronounced
he was near to death and last rites were administered.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
Six weeks later, with bandages all over his body.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Crowds of sightseers and hosts of newsmen gathered at the
Ferrari factory in Marnllo, Italy to welcome Nicki Lauder back
from the dead.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
He's back in a racing car.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
What the fuck?
Speaker 7 (07:46):
Just forty days after doctors had given up hope and
a priest had knelted his bedside, the Austrian Ace climbed
back into the cockpit of his glaring red Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I'm looking at images of the accident right here. And
it's tricky because he might have put in his head
that this was a dangerous place to ride. But also
that could have nothing to do with this is a
professional race car driver who's very good. That's too bad.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
It does also bring us back a little bit too
manifesting destiny.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, and I don't want to buy into that, because
therefore you would never speak up out of a safety
concern because you'd be afraid.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And it's yeah, oh, it was just like he knew
what he was talking about.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, or it's just absolutely I like that. That's
very pragmatic. And I like that that he said, this
is a big circuit. People go fast here, You're not
gonnably to help me out.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
There's a sentence that you might hear, which is rain
is the great equalizer Formula one. It shows the priss
of a lot of these drivers.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
They're going to call it a great equalizer, but I
think some are more equal than others. There are drivers
who are better in the rain than others. I'm not
going to specifically name drivers, but I know there are
drivers who kind of dread driving in the rain, and
they're drivers who grew up driving in the rain.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Drivers who grew up and were born in countries like Belgium,
Austria and the UK where it rains a lot definitely
have an advantage. Some of the best in the rain
are the likes of Maxwistappan UIs, Hamilton, Lando Norris. What
do they all have in common? They all lived for
a long time, so there's pictures and videos of them
in go karts in the absolute right like aqua planning
(09:19):
to your heart's content. And I think we see this
on road cars as well. You can see when people
are used to driving in the rain. California rains for
a minute and it's a standstill in the city.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
People know how to drive, Yeah, no idea. Go down
to the south and there's a little bit of a
frost and everyone's cars crashing all over the place.
Speaker 9 (09:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And the absolute king of this skill is the legendary
Late Art and Center, also known as the rainmaster.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Cool, absolutely marvelous. Vella went round the outside of Louder
into the rough.
Speaker 10 (09:48):
Ga and that was brave and skillful.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Just just to put that into numbers for you, because
that name is actually backed by by statistics. His overall
win rate in Formula one at Donsenna is twenty five
point three percent. That means he won about a quarter
of the races he started. But of those races, the
ones that were in the rain, he won more than
half of them fifty five percent.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Wow. Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Wet conditions are often used as an example of when
actually the car is less important than the driver. So
actually the driver coming can make quite a big difference
because of his ability, let's say, to work in this
very changeable condition. But there are still some teams that
are better at management of those situations. So people always
(10:35):
think there's more risk and reward in those situations as well.
So some people really delight in the chaos of it all.
I always thought it was a bit panicked. So I
wasn't that sure that Reian was good for.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Us, because you were you were the one in the
chaos having to make the decisions. Yeah, exactly, give you
some order.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
It's like, oh, Yeah, exactly, it's it's you know, but
for a for a lower team, a team lower down
the order, it is more likely to bring this avharc
result that doesn't otherwise happen. So that's why I think
it's a bit more of an equalizer.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So tell me about driving in the rain, what is okay?
How is that different?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Hey, it's going to affect the grip of the car
and how it goes round the track. To complicate things,
these f one circuits and tracks, as we've spoken about,
are massive, which means that there are massive areas where
puddles of water can start compiling together, which means you
can start ending up with aqua planning as well. It
(11:29):
also means that certain aspects of the track are going
to drive faster or slower. So when they start switching
out to the tires, you will hear them saying I
can see the sun on the second part of the track,
but it's still raining on the first part of the
track where you use the wet tires the dry tires.
That adds a layer of strategy, but also just complicated
to drive on the right tires, wrong tires, right track.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Even just where you have more peaks and valleys, not
a flat track, but say more in Europe where you're
going up a hill and you may have worked us
your winds at the top of the hill. It can
be across wind, it could be provide more downforce, it
could be a tailwind. Going down the street. You're gonna
the driver's gonna need to know that, both from a
handling condition, in from a speed condition.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And it also just affects visibility. Again when you think
about it, they're lying down in these cars. They're very
close to the ground. If you are in front, you
are in a great position. If you are in the back,
you're getting everyone's rain and water and backspash in your face. Yeah, yeah,
whitch go.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
This is the start of the nineteen ninety eight Belgian GP.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
Oh, this is kind of pulling.
Speaker 10 (12:32):
This is the worst start for aprol rate.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
But I have ever seen in the whole of my life.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I'm looking at this video and if you mean every
place crashed, I mean, first of all, there's one car
in the front who has good visibility, and then every
other car is just toe you can't see anything.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And we're laughing.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I know, it's not funny.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
The danger on like, yeah, none of these cars have
wheels left. It's just it's a wheel race.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's not funny. It's you know, in between my laughing,
I want to say, it's not funny, it's very entertaining.
I'm gonna look at the second one spree coming off
the front axle. The any visibility you have is just canceled.
This just doesn't look feasible. It doesn't look feasible, it
doesn't look possible.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
This is where the gut instinct and driving right.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I would encourage anybody who's listening right now to just
go watch a helmet cam of any one of these
F one drivers on a dry situation. It seems chaotic
and unreasonable. And now in the rain, it's uh it certainly.
I mean, are they going slower in the rain? Absolutely
not me. When it rains in New York, I'm going faster.
Speaker 10 (13:42):
Today, on the exit ramp from the Queensboro Bridge, comedian
Michael Costa, recklessly driving his Volvo station Wagon causes a
multi car pile up. Thankfully no one was injured, but
drivers stuck in the ensuing traffic We're not happy.
Speaker 9 (13:55):
Do I like it?
Speaker 5 (13:56):
No?
Speaker 6 (13:56):
It's a lack of respective rules.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 10 (13:59):
Is. I'm Danielle Waxman for Fake NYC News quick Break
for ads and we'll be back before you can say aquaplaning.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So when you're talking about whether you're really just talking
about if it's raining or not wet or dry.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
A lot of people think it's just rain and that
will affect the tracks, but it's not just rain.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
For most of us. Minimal changes in temperature and small
shifts will mostly go unnoticed, like we don't know if
it's dropping temperatures, But in Formula one, even these smaller
increases or decreases, even if we're talking one or two
degree changes, actually has a pretty big impact on how
the different teams are going to approach a race or
a different session. When we're talking weather forecasting, we're not
(14:45):
talking what we see on the TV or even my
little British chit chat about the weather. It's actually we're
talking about all the different layers. So air temperature, track temperature,
even sometimes like the driver's temperature, how are you doing
inside of the cockpit? Are you okay?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
It can be twenty to thirty degrees hotter inside the
cockpit than it is outside on a track. So if
it's stay it's ninety degrees. It can be like one
hundred and twenty inside and there is no air ventilation
or like ac you know that you can just crank up.
These drivers, they have to adapt to these different conditions.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
The temperature inside of Formula one car during an actual
race will average to about one hundred and twenty two
degrees fanheight.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Wow, that's an average, and that's just inside the car.
That's yeah, inside the car. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
For as much as weight as they lose any normal race,
they'd probably lose even more if it's you know you
talk about widely erase Jetta at night, Well, it's going
to be ninety five degrees during the day. Jet is
actually a humid environment because it's right next to the water.
So that's going to be both of the crew and
the driver. It's going to be just depleting and you're
(15:57):
going to have We've seen races where drivers have just
got got out of the car and just kind of
flopped against the car, their helmet at their side, just
drinking water or having water poured down their neck. They're
so busy it's dark here, fading with.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Flow blood pressure and just passing out in the car.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So for example, during this year is Qatar Grand Prix.
We had a combination of heat and humidity, which meant
that it was absolutely unbearable for the drivers.
Speaker 9 (16:23):
Honestly, yeah, I fell ill by fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
One driver is the band Okon who said that he
felt like he was vomiting in his helmet.
Speaker 9 (16:32):
You know, I was throwing up in the car. And
I've managed to come down afterwards, tried to really focus
on what I had to do, and I've managed to
get down the control.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
But got so bad that many fans but also people
within the industry and the ecosystem were saying, this is
probably a bad time to be racing in such a rouson.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Once again, Michael Karsta brings it back to tennis. I mean,
humidity affects a tennis ball tremendously. I can only imagine
a fire burning machine with four wheels on it.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
And fire burning machine in really incredible temperatures like we
had this year. I think it was like the Katar GP.
When we're talking about safety. The drivers were cracking open
their helmet visors so they could get air coming in.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
That air that we get into the cockpit is just horrible,
you know, it's like I don't know a fire, you know,
going through the through the helmet.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
One of the drivers describe cracking open their helmets so
they could get air. By the way, really dangerous. The
last thing you want to do with a helmet is
crack it open, because that's where something can go fly
right into your eye. But that was my only solution
to try and call down, which, by the way, it
did bring up a whole conversation which if we go
back to the logistics of Formula one, it did bring
back a conversation about the racing calendar and why are
(17:47):
we racing in Qatar at the time of the year
where it's actually really hot, which goes back to actually
the logistics of pulling off that F one race calendar
is really really really tricky.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
Yeah, let's let's come back here in this humber, please
not October. Yeah, that was definitely a tough one.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Air temperature. How does that affect a car? My Volvo
runs like a tank no matter what temperature is.
Speaker 11 (18:10):
Well, the cold is kind of the enemy of Formula
one cars because frankly, they don't often run in the cold.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
This is Scott Mansel, and he's not only an X
racing driver, but he's also the founder of an immensely
popular Formula one YouTube channel called driver sixty one.
Speaker 11 (18:24):
Most of the temperatures across the year and the season
are within a kind of fairly warm range, right, and
so the engineers and the teams are just designing the
cars to run in these temperatures. Of course, if they
wanted to, they wouldn't be as quick, but they could
get them to run at colder temperatures, but they're just
not typically designed to do that. So they have issues
(18:48):
with the engine temperatures, with blanking the radiator ducts off
so you don't have as much cold air rushing through
over the engine and through the radiators. But as you
say that, the main problem is the tires, and it's
as simple as the rubber just doesn't get warm enough
to then have that chemical reaction that bite into the
racing circuit, and so you just have less grip overall.
(19:10):
And typically when you have less grip, it's just more
difficult to drive, Like you know, if it was if
it rained and there were wet conditions on track, it's
more difficult for the drivers, and so that means you
have to be more careful on the brakes. The breaking
distances will be longer, the risk of locking a tire
rup will be will be higher, the cornering spears will
be lower, and you'll have to be more gentle and
(19:31):
more sensitive on the accelerator. But where it's really difficult,
and I think we saw this with Lando in Vegas,
is in the quicker corners, because when you're in like
a slower corner, the tire is gonna scrub across the
Circuit's gonna slide across the circuit in a fairly predictable way.
(19:53):
This is what you're looking for as a driver. You
want predictability. You want to be able to not be
reacting to the car, but predicting what about to happen.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So one of the paradoxes of Formula one cars is
they're both some parts of the car built to resist
just about anything and the other part if you're just
like bang it a little bit it or falls apart,
don't sneeze in it. And so the air temperature is
going to affect the performance of a Formula one engine,
for example, on tracks like the hotter Middle Eastern circuits.
(20:21):
This is actually a pretty big issue. In addition to
managing your tires, for example, the driver also needs to
manage the engine temperature because the last thing you want
is an engine that's overheated.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Engine failure.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Okay, engine radia.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So that was air temperature. Then let's talk a bit
about track temperature, because this is also where it gets
really interesting. So track temp can have a huge effect,
and mostly on the tires because obviously it's the tires
that are hitting the track. And so, as we discussed
in that tire episode, these Formula one tires are extremely picky,
meaning that they have a very very narrow window of
(20:59):
what is called the optimum performance of these tires.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
It's almost like a Goldilocks saying, if it's too hot,
it's not great. If it's too cold, it's not great.
You get right in there eighteen to twenty three celsius.
Say you know sixty five to seventy five seventy seven
fahrenheit range, you're gonna have great tire performance because if
it's too cold, I always grip. If it's too hot,
(21:22):
I was grip to.
Speaker 11 (21:22):
Go back with cold tires on a race circuit, not
too bad aside from the low grip in slow corners,
but in the quick corners where the cars loaded up
with quite a lot of air row it feels like
there's a lot of grip, and when the car slides,
when the tire just gives up and starts to slide
across the surface of the track, it happens very quickly,
(21:45):
and it's difficult for the drivers to predict that, and
so you remove some of that predictability. So if you
look at Lando from Vegas, the car looked all right
and then all of a sudden it let go, And
it doesn't matter how quick his reactions are, he's not
going to you know, catch that in his head into
the wall. A similar thing happened to me. I mean,
I've driven thirty something f one cars over my career,
(22:08):
and a lot of them actually have been in the UK.
As you know, it's pretty cold over here, and we
did some testing at a circuit called Donnington over here,
probably in autumn or early winter one year, and it was,
you know, it's five or six degrees, not too far
from the temperatures that we saw in Vegas. And I
experienced that and I went off as well. You know,
(22:29):
I didn't crash, but I went off as well. And
when it happens, it happens. Incredibly quickly.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It just goes too cold there get slippery and they
go all over the place. I know, grip on the
tires too hot and the degradation of the tires greatly accelerated.
It also means that the time might be sticking too
much and they can't go as fast as they want to.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And then there's something I've been around the sport for
twenty twenty five years. They from people I've talked to
both on the AI and the modeling and the track
people side, they don't have a good model.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
The track temperature is actually pretty difficult to predect.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So the track temperature also evolves over a race as
the cars are heating that track up because the track
is bare and then you're throwing twenty cars on it
going really really fast, it's obviously going to effect the track.
And not only that, As we said previously, the tracks
are really wide, so the temperature of the track isn't
the same at all. Elements are all parts of the track,
(23:24):
so that's what's so a component. And if the track
temperature changes considerably during a race, the drivers have several
ways to actually deal with this. So one way is
thinking about how hard they want to push their tires.
They can alter their driving lines to suit the balance
of the car. They can adjust the differentials that that's
the amount of talk that transfers between the rear wheels
(23:46):
or the brake balance to the front aurea of the car.
So there's a bunch of things that they can play
around with as Formula One drivers. In addition to the drivers,
the mechanics can also play around with the different calling
configurations across a race. They can adjust the car set
up for different weather conditions. So all of that is
thought about in advance, and all of that is kind
of planned with all the different options available.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Atmospheric pressure barometric pressure can definitely impact engine performance, same
with humidity. Race performance can change your degrade based on
in handling crosswinds, tailwinds.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
The wind has a massive effect. So when we think of,
you know, our description of the car in the wind tunnel,
the wind is common in the most ideal situation, like
straight out of the car, and that is how the
car is predominantly designed to work in terms of the
loading on the car. Now, obviously a lot of that
wind is generated by the car driving out two hundred
(24:42):
kilometers an hour, that is you know, the headwind, but
if the ambient condition goes against you, you've got the
wind of the car and the wind of ambience. You've
got like this additive effect. If you've got a tailwind,
you've got a subtraction. You've got the head wind of
the car minus the effect from the ambient wind. So
(25:04):
that's obviously less wind to work the car. And that's
why the wind is really important in terms of how
the car is operating. And you know, a side wind,
every you know, you can do the physics on it,
but like every you know, angle is then taken or
add into the perfect wind condition of the car.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Yeah, rain or dry, do you make a difference. But
even cloudy versus sunny with the same temperature and track temperatures.
So it's more than just one component. It's really the
full fledged what is the forecast from sun cover and
we'll call that incoming solar radiation and get real kind
of technical on that, to humidity, to bear measure pressure,
(25:48):
to you know, temperature, track temperature.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But there's a butt.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
There's always a butt.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
There's always about.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
There is always but to.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Make things even more complicated, they are actually not allowed
to adjust the car settings between the qualifying that happens
on Saturday and the actual race.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
That happens so interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So if the forecasts shifts completely and drastically from the
Saturday to the Sunday, you are kind of stuck with
what you set up on the car on the Saturday
for the Sunday race. Maybe one of the things to
say about Formula one is it's always a game of compromise. Yeah,
all of this to say, and we can ponder about
the strategy behind this or that if we wanted to.
(26:28):
Being able to predict the weather during a Grand Prix
race is absolutely crucial to inform the strategy and inform
the drive on how to drive. But the reality is
it's really hard to predict because anything can happen.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I mean, is it that hard to predict? Like I
have an app on my phone that just tells me
what's going to be tomorrow at four pm. I can't
the team, principal whatever, just download it and then punch
in boom. Problem solved.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Well, I will believe me. I get enough screenshots of
apps during the week that I know people download the raps.
But when we start getting into finer tuned forecasts, if
you're in a commercial business, like where an app's gonna
come from. You're either taking direct model output and just
plugging it in. Maybe you're averaging it together, which you
(27:13):
average them together, you get a little better performance, but
you don't know the rain timing. If if I could
have average four of them together, models together, and then
once said the rain is gonna start at five, one
it's going to say it's gonna start at nine. One
says it's gonna start at one, and then once the
other one's gonna start at five pm, you average them
all together, it's going to rain all day. And that's
probably not the case. So when you have a meteorologist
(27:37):
on site, like f one does, they're looking at all
the models. They're probably running their own high resolution models
on their own in house. I want to watch the
radar come in. I know the geography in the area,
say something like the Red Bull Red Bull Ring and
where there are a lot of mountains in the area
that you can have rain coming to the area, but
(27:58):
the mountains break them up. Versus someplace like Austin, where
it's just flat. You could stand and see thirty miles
away that there's a storm over there. There's nothing to
break it up. But you're still going to want to
know the timing, how fast that storm's moving, Is it
getting weaker, is it getting stronger.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
They want to know exactly what minute it's going to
stop raining, what part of the track the rain is
going to start, when it's going to stop, Is it
going to get worse or better? So to that end,
which is why I like this question or this pushback
to that end. Formula one has its own traveling weather service.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Of course they do.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Rather than looking at the big picture, it focuses on
the very very narrow patch of sky tracking storms, even
individual clouds when they're approaching the circuit.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
You see what this is going to be boring cloud.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
See where it's going. It's separated from its group.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
The least reliable. It is protecting cloud cover, and the
cover has a massive effect on track temperature.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
We do have more for you on this, but first
we've got to take a short break and we'll come back.
Mike check one.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Two.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Hey, we're back.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I could have scattered clouds or shadows coming across the
region across the track. Mons is probably the best example
where you start see shadows come across in areas and
now that track area is cooler by a couple of
degrees than anywhere else on the track. So you not
only have to mentally I think the drivers kind of
(29:31):
mentally know that. But yeah, you're going from a cool
to a hot to a cool. It could be up
in the you're going up in the mountains a little bit.
It's even at small elevation changes it can be marginally cooler.
And I'm talking you know, we talk about you know,
tens of a pounds of a psi here for tire pressure,
(29:52):
but we're talking tensive degree of temperature on the elevation
changes on high elevation change areas.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
To that effect, they go around their own weather radar,
which they then assemble on site every single week. Back
to that logistics episode that we have. Nothing is just brought.
That's too easy.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Yeah, on the race weekend, they'll probably send two meteorologists
out want to kind of run and set up the radar.
They have what's called a field mill as well, which
will measure electrical charge in the air for a lighting potential.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So we've got the tools and the equipment and the
strategy around it. And here's the key thing. Each team
has their own people assigned to this. They're assigned to
track this specific data and make the strategic calls in
real time. But would you be surprised that, despite all
of this technology, how often the weatherman gets it wrong.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
It's one of the best jobs weather man. You can
just be wrong all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, and no one will bat and I live. Oh
it's difficult.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, it's like being a podcast host. Nobody really is
listening to you in the first place. You're fuld and laundry.
You're driving a truck where no one cares. No one cares.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
I'm sure you've heard this where they will say to
the drive I think it's going to start raining, and
the drivers to talking about it's already raining, raining, or
you just say, hey, just stick your head out to
the pitwall for a second and see if it's actually
dry away outside. Especially when we go and race in
tropical destinations think Singapore, Malaysia, where the weather changes like
absolutely constantly.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I would say that the tracks I like to look
at are forecast for more the ones close to the coast,
because the weather can just change so rapidly, so it's
interesting to see what could happen, especially during hurricane season.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
They've just got to be ready for any circumstance possible
and imaginement.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
And look at the rain pouring down and when it
rains in Malaysia, believe me, it comes down not by
the bucket fall, but by the ocean full.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I know we've had a whole episode dedicated to the
high tech of Formula one and how it's always forward
thinking and pushing the boundaries. But once in a while
they will deploy some very low tech methods to track
the weather. One of them could be having scouts along
the racetrack with talkies to just let them know when
it's starting.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
To rae I wet it's happening.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
The other one is even funnier than this, which is
just looking at the crowds and the fans and figuring
out when they start putting up their umbrellas.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
That's a great one.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Easy.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Another you know, not a source of data.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Someone's hat just flew off their head. It must be wind.
It's getting wind.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
Yeah, I'm wondering. You're you're in your personal life. Where
where do you get your weather report? Do you just
go to like the weather channel or a weather app,
or do you like do you predict your own way?
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I personally like to use my radar. I find that
one very more accurate than other weather app.
Speaker 6 (32:37):
Do a lot of your like friends and family, Like,
do they.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
All hit you up for all the time? Yes, all
the time? Sometimes though even like ask me, like about
what's the weather going to be like in these months?
And we can only we can barely see a week
ahead of us. I'm like, I don't think it's going
to be that accurate, but I would give it my
best shot.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Where where do you see the field of meteorology and
race weather prediction going? I mean, will you eventually just
just know what the weather is?
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Hopefully Knox and I'll be out of a job.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
What has been really interesting is the evolution of AI
in forecast models, where they're going back and taking all
the previous information and all the ground observations and upper
ere observations, and we'll say, okay, when have we seen
this pattern before, and we'll go through how that pattern evolve.
Speaker 6 (33:32):
So you don't like a world in which like the
AIS and computers get so sophisticated that basically weather prediction
is solved, Like, that's not a world you envision, not.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
In our lifetime. Now, Yeah, somebody I could write in say, hey,
write me up some good interview questions from a meteorologists
on racing. Well, but here you're using your insight and
your ialition and you're able to adapt your ushians to
my answers. So there's always going to be a need
to have humans in the chain.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yeah, fair fair point there, and fair point you know
for the.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
General person going to day to day if I want
to know whether to grab an umbrella, that's fine for
high resolution, high performance risks where that I've worked in
with both racing and commodity trading, both high dollar spends.
You want that accuracy, you want the human insight. As
(34:29):
a human, I'm a little biased.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
But no, you know, I find that comforting less in
the sense of like being you know about your job,
that your your job security. Sorry, I mean I'm glad
for that as well, but more in the sense of
there's something a little like, I don't know if I
want to live in a world where the weather is predictable,
is you know, it's sort of like like that's it's
(34:53):
weird to imagine.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That is a very holistic. It's a very holistic view
of it. There's this broader view that takes in not
only the human element, engineering, pure science and melts them
all together into something we love.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
To that end, Michael, any thoughts on meteorology, any strong
feelings about the weather.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I was surprisingly delighted to hear you talk about the
weather for so long. And I know that you kind
of genetically have to because you're British, but to my astonishment,
it was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
I'm glad to hear that. You know what, You've just
made my day? How to make it brit happy? Tell
them you enjoy the web.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I love all the high tech, high tech, high tech.
And then it's like, hey, stick here, Ralph, go over
there and are you wet? Debruh? Did your hat fell off? Okay,
we got a confirmation. And man, visually, when it rains
on an F one race, it is so fun to
look at. You can't believe they do it.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Less fun when you're an F one fun you're standing
in the crowd.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's not me.
Speaker 6 (36:05):
This has been Choosing Signs F one, a production of
Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcast and one oh one Studio Podcasts.
The show is hosted by Michael Costa and Tony Cowan Brown.
This episode was edited, scored, and sound designed by senior
producer Jojai may Thaddle. Scott Stone is the executive producer
(36:30):
and head of Audio, and Daniel Wexman is Director of
Podcast Development and production Manager at one o one Studios.
At iHeart Podcasts, Sean Titne is our executive producer, and
a special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and
David Hootkin from one oh one Studios. For more shows
(36:51):
from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Whatever you do, don't
forget to rate us and tell your friends it really
does mean a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Next week on Choosing Sides F one, we reach our climax.
So I can't believe I'm saying this. This is the
moment that you have all been waiting for, Right Michael,
you are going to reveal to us what kind of
Formula one fan you fashion yourself to be.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I can't believe this. I can't believe it's here. I'm
still reading the regulations manual. Okay, so maybe that's a
little bit of a hint. I have a lot to contemplate.
There's so many good episodes here for me to review
and listen again, and I'll make my decision, and it's
gonna be. It's not gonna let you down.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Do you think you're gonna pick one or do you
think you're fashioned yourself a multi fastening, multi faceted, or
multi hyphenate.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I'm gonna pick one because that's the only one I
give a shit about.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Okay,
Host
Michael Kosta
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