Formula 1 has always worshipped the cult of improvement. Every lap-time, every tyre temperature, every braking point is questioned. Each car is equipped with hundreds of sensors, quietly collecting data which is later translated to aid car development. In the cockpit, the driver acts like the final sensor, translating all of the numbers into instinct and instinct into lap time.
On 1Password’s Securing The Win, Red Bull Racing drivers Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda discuss the importance of data in their fight for wins. Securing The Win is a docuseries, traversing how Oracle Red Bull Racing protects its competitive edge.
“A lot is done by data and it’s also something that I rely on a lot, engineers rely on a lot,” said Verstappen. The entire car is equipped with sensors including the tyres; tyre sensors have to withstand very high temperatures in order to transmit data. This information is used to understand factors such as tyre degradation which can be used to make pitstop plans for the race.
The Driver’s Feel
However, numbers alone don’t put that car on the top of the time sheets. The driver is able to understand the car by feel, the understeer, the twitches, how it behaves in real-life conditions. Together with both driver feedback and data collected, engineers and drivers debrief to understand how to extract the most performance out of the car.
“When you sit in the car, that’s where the fine-tuning comes in,” said Verstappen. “You really want to fine-tune the car and that’s also a very personal preference that it’s not always data-driven.”
Power Of Preparation
Both driver and data have a relationship of mutual symbiosis; both work better with each other. The information is a major starting point to how the car might behave on a particular track. It is not just collected from on-track performance but also racing simulations which can help set up a race weekend.
“It’s very important, especially the preparation. what we do before the raceweek is always the estimate thing—estimate kind of grip, what kind of behaviour we’re gonna get,” said Tsunoda.
However, being able to balance data and feel is a difficult task and that balance depends on a variety of factors.
“Some driver prefer to adjust or adapt what the data tells and some drivers like to believes what they feel. Some tracks, some situations goes to the way the drivers right and some day engineers are right,” added Tsunoda.
Securing The Competitive Edge
And because every scrap of information feeds into that fight for milliseconds, securing that intellectual property becomes of extreme importance. The margins between certain teams are razor-thin, with some tracks seeing extremely close field spreads. At the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying, just 0.126s covered the top 6. In a field that tight, losing a single data point is like giving away the blueprint for your own undoing.
