Covert information gathering ...

[LongQ]

It happens everywhere it seems, though how the competition managed to install this without it being noticed is hard to imagine ...

http://paulwebbphotography.com/categories/browse/e...




There are some great shots on the referenced site. It is especially well populated from the mid 90s.

[jacobyte]

Ahh, that's Superspeedway. It's like Lap of the Gods, but done with high speed (and high resolution) film so that the quality is awesome. I seem to recall it was done for IMAX.

Not overall as exciting as LotG, but well worth watching.

[dredge]

Nice

Actually your post reminded me of something I was thinking after reading that recent FIA transcript: what are the different ways (we know of) that F1 teams use to get information on competitors? I mean technically, not "hire a pretty girl to go ask some questions"

From memory the transcript mentions:

• Calculating speed (and gearing?) from analysing the sound from other engines. Do the teams get the same edited feed we see on TV or do they have access to all of the cameras individually?

• Determining weight distribution by watching a car being craned off the track.

• Not quite in the same vein - estimating pit strategy by watching the difference between Q2 and Q3 qualifying laps. Somehow.

I find it all fascinating. I suppose there is also "taking lots of photos of other cars" but that's a bit less specific! Anyone got any other interesting ones?

[Exige46]

The teams will have their own microphones positioned around the track. The Honda big bang engine (500cc GP bikes) was outed because the other teams were able to figure out that the pistons were not firing at equal intervals through each engine revolution.

[dredge]

Thanks, Exige46. Hadn't really thought about spotters (and microphones!) around the track.

I still wonder if the teams get the feeds from all of the cameras or if they've got their own people out and about filming things. I guess they get the same feed as we do considering that's what the drivers always seem to be watching while sat in their cars, but it seems a bit odd.

[thunderbelmont]

Teams have analysts why spend their time looking at the competition, and working out what they are doing via clever computer simulations.

They don't need any "historic" dossiers of information written months before the season started as that information will be out of date before the first practice session, let alone qualifying or the race.

There are people milling around the weighbridge who relay "what they see", I've even heard of weighbridge calibration engineers being offered "the earth" to rig the scales to either make a competitor overweight, or their own car read right when it's underweight.

Many of the media-tabard people are allied to teams, and they are their gathering data covertly all of the time.

It's cloak and dagger, no two ways about it. Only this crap in the press at the moment has blown things out of all proportion.

Though they say that any publicity is good publicity.

I wonder how much McLaren have been paid to "not appeal".