F1 Analysis Software

[Guvna]

Does anybody know which software packages the teams use to analyse data on race days?

Is it mainly proprietary or are there companies which specialise in developing this kind of software?

[GreigM]

Theirs will be proprietary, but you can get logging equipment/software - something like the DL1 from race-technology

[Jungles]

Guvna said:

Does anybody know which software packages the teams use to analyse data on race days?

Is it mainly proprietary or are there companies which specialise in developing this kind of software?

It will most likely be a bespoke solution. Probably a generic statistical analysis platform like SAS, SPSS, R, etc, with custom scripts or modules developed in-house.

Or perhaps they just use Excel.

[stevieb]

Some of the stuff I have seen developed is using SAS/SPSS and Matlab.

Some of the modelling they do during the race is mind blowing.. But very interesting.

[skwdenyer]

stevieb said:

Some of the modelling they do during the race is mind blowing.. But very interesting.

...and ultimately surprisingly pointless. Why? Because the staff move around relatively often, and there are only so many ways you can cut the data, so ultimately all the teams end up spending a lot of money analysing the same things in the same ways to try to find an advantage of the other teams who are all analysing the same things in the same way.

This sort of thing is one of the places that cost-savings can come from; once everybody has "x" it is time to ban "x" to save them all spending money to reach the same level of performance.

[Jungles]

skwdenyer said:

This sort of thing is one of the places that cost-savings can come from; once everybody has "x" it is time to ban "x" to save them all spending money to reach the same level of performance.

Cost savings would be minimal. It's not like they're employing actuaries for a gazillion dollars.

[stevieb]

skwdenyer said:

...and ultimately surprisingly pointless. Why? Because the staff move around relatively often, and there are only so many ways you can cut the data, so ultimately all the teams end up spending a lot of money analysing the same things in the same ways to try to find an advantage of the other teams who are all analysing the same things in the same way.

This sort of thing is one of the places that cost-savings can come from; once everybody has "x" it is time to ban "x" to save them all spending money to reach the same level of performance.

One thing that is it not and that is pointless, it is a good tool to assist the top teams. But i would say that as i like mathmatical modelling.

In most cases the modelling is done to assist in making a judgement call on strategy. Also they model tyre degredation, pit stop strategy and where they are likely to come out of the pits (Free air or traffic).

[yellowtr]

The software is developed by McLaren Electronics, in house. Software is called ATLAS and was originally developled for McLaren F1 team and now is the standard in F1. Its has changed massivley since I used it, but was pretty cutting edge stuff when I was there.

There are also bespoke applications written in MATLAB too.

Oh and Excel is certainly used