MPH: 'Speed chess' and the new DNA of F1 racing

Because the new era ‘50/50′ electric/combustion Formula 1 cars can deliver enormous torque and horsepower, but not for very long continuously, there is a potentially crucial advantage to be had in finding the optimum trade-off between harvesting and deploying the energy. This applies to how the car is configured and set up – but also to the driver. That optimum is going to vary from track to track, day-to-day, tyre to tyre, circuit surface to circuit surface, to the game theory anticipation of what your rivals might do. It’s going to be a hugely complex equation in real time and very much situation-specific.

Here’s Kimi Antonelli talking about the challenge in a race situation: “In the way you have to use your energy while fighting with others, that is a very big step. And I think this year you have to come into the season very open-minded and in some ways you need to be very creative as well, because you can play so much with the energy, especially when fighting other people. It’s like playing chess, but like kind of a speed chess! Obviously, you don’t have as much time to think for every move, but you always have to try and be two steps ahead of the others, especially when fighting, when planning an overtake or when you’re defending. You are trying to predict or force him to do something.”

That was already the case to a certain extent. But with massively more battery power and many more mode options, the equation is exponentially more complex. Even a qualifying lap presents complexity in the choice. Because the combustion engine, when not on full-throttle, is used as a generator for the battery (partly compensating for the disappearance of the previous ERS-h), there are crucial choices to be made by the driver even over a single lap, as George Russell explains: “You have instances where when you go around the corners faster, you’re spending more energy and you’re harvesting less. So, you end up over the course of the lap having less energy to spend. So, you may gain a few tenths into corners, but you may lose a couple of tenths in the straight. So, that takes a little bit of time just to get your head around… understanding the small techniques that will gain you a couple of per cent of energy re-harvesting and just the small quirks around this new power unit.”

At some tracks, there may even be an element of lift and coast to get the ultimate qualifying lap. Esteban Ocon goes as far as claiming, “I think we can forget everything that we’ve learned since go-karts on how to go fast, but it will be interesting to learn a new driving style and hopefully find speed with it.”

Now factor into that mix the pre-existing tyre challenges. How much do you take from the tyre – even over a qualifying lap, but especially in the race? How does that impact upon the best energy trade-off? As that tyre performance changes according to how the track surface is evolving, how does it change how the driver should manage the energy? What about the wind changing direction or speed? These are not going to be insignificant, given the potency of the batteries, as Antonelli explains, “The batteries are incredibly sensitive to driving style as well. So depending on your input, it can change the deployment that you get in the next straight.”

In the Barcelona shakedown tests, Mercedes‘ boss Toto Wolff observed how, “On the Ferrari and the Red Bull, the way they were managing their energy was different to us. Not different worse, not different better. But different. How do you map it? Will we find on a Sunday, ‘Oh we’ve not mapped it in a way which is going to win us the race, we’ve just mapped it for a good grid position?’ The most clever guys in the car and on the engineering side are going to win.”

All of which seems to pose the perfect set of complex, dynamic equations for Artificial Intelligence to answer. AI is already used in F1 in, for example, CFD, where its value in maximising the regulation resource limitation is immense. It’s used in strategy simulations and in manufacturing; it’s even used to scan regulations looking for potential loopholes. So surely it will have immense value in solving such a complex set of equations as the energy usage split. The more real-time data which is fed into it from the races, the more effective it’s going to be.

Where AI potentially overlaps into a driving aid must of course be carefully guarded. It cannot be active or automated, but in terms of giving the race engineer instant answers to a situation, there is sure to be a value.

We’re on the brink here of something very significant in the sport’s evolution, as Wolff intimated recently. “Playing around with the energy management is almost like a gaming factor. But without devaluing what F1 stands for. I think it’s the next step of F1.”

As unintended consequences go, switching to bigger batteries has brought more than just the associated necessary changes, such as active aero. It’s potentially brought a whole new strand of DNA to the sport.