Bulls, Stars and Horses: Practice makes Perfect

In my previous post (click here), I had mentioned about the “July 3–5 first race weekend”. This might have triggered a question in your mind — What do the drivers do for three whole days? That too on a weekend! Don’t these guys have a life? A race weekend can be compared to a suspense movie stretched over three days, with the Race on Sunday being the climax. It can also be compared to a test match in cricket, where though the initial proceedings are boring (sorry to trigger any cricket fans), the strategy used in the beginning affect the final result. Since it's difficult to focus on the entire weekend all at once, here we discuss the first part of this build-up — the practice sessions.

A bit of an Analogy

Since F1 is all about driving, let us use it to understand what the teams use the practice sessions for. Assume you are going out on a long drive, to a place you have never been. What do you do before starting the trip? Ideally, you check up on the car, whether it is ready for the journey or not, by checking the fuel levels, the tyres, the engine, adjusting the seat to get comfortable, etc. Next, you open your Navigation App of choice. You see the traffic and route details to figure out the best way to reach your destination. All this preparation takes place before you even start driving.

Now imagine all this, but on a much larger scale. The car you are driving is a delicately tuned (More on that in a future post) piece of engineering, not to mention costs millions of dollars. Adding on to that, you are also competing to be the first one to reach the destination. Therefore, preparation on a much larger scale is required, and that’s what practice sessions are for.

Drivers and Teams spend a lot of time analysing data

Free Practice 1 & 2 — Friday

F1 cars are highly delicate machines that need to be tuned for max performance

The race weekend starts with Free Practice 1 (FP1). This is the first time the cars hit the track, so the drivers use this session to get to know the track and the performance of the car. As I mentioned, F1 cars are fine-tuned machines. For a driver to extract the maximum potential out of them, the car should fit like a glove in hand. Therefore, FP1 is all about getting to know the car characteristics and the track feel.

Now, assume you are preparing for a competitive exam or a presentation. Chances are, more often than not, you will practice dry runs, preferably in similar conditions to what you might face on the day of truth. Free Practice 2 (FP2) is identical to this dry run for F1 teams and drivers.

FP2 takes place at almost the same time on Friday, as do the Qualifying and the Race on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Therefore, it is especially critical, since the track is closest to the conditions that might be present during these crucial sessions. The teams and drivers, therefore, have mock simulations for the qualifying and the Race. The primary difference is in the fuel loads that the cars run with. Qualifying is all about maximum speed over one lap, so the car should be as light as possible.

On the other hand, the Race is about having consistency. Since refuelling during the 2 hour/300 km race is not allowed, cars need to be quick while carrying almost 100 kgs of fuel on-board. Therefore, cars are loaded up with fuel, to gather data on the consistency of performance over longer runs. All this data is crucial for the team engineers to collect information on car performance, helping in to form strategies for the next two days.

Free Practice 3 — Saturday

Drivers practice to perfect their approach for Qualifying and the Race

Saturday is when things start getting interesting. Before qualifying, the last Practice session takes place —Free Practice 3 (FP3). This session is especially vital since conditions can often change overnight. One day it is raining, the other is bright and sunny. It is the last chance for the teams to tweak the car before the qualifying starts. This is because a freeze is put on car setups once qualifying starts and the car can’t be tweaked even for the Race (called “Parc fermé Rules”, other than specific basic setup changes, the cars can’t be altered in a significant way post start of qualifying).

This was just the start of the weekend for you. In the next post, I will talk about the two most exciting sessions of an F1 weekend — Qualifying and The Race, so stay tuned for that!!

PS: I know this article could have gotten a bit of technical/monotonous/boring, but this was needed for building the groundwork for some important aspects I wish to delve deeper into soon. Watch this space for more updates…