Got into Formula 1 recently, and they constantly talk about “conserving tires”, but the tires are always on the road? It’s always spinning? Do they just mean go slower??? Why would you want to go slower in a race?
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Races are usually won and lost in the pitlane, the less time you can spend in the pits for any reason, the more likely you are to win over a competitor.
When you drive as fast and hard as possible, you wear out tyres quicker and use up fuel faster – both things that will bring you into the pit lane for a stop.
So, you need a strategy, ideally, you want to try and pit for fuel and tires at the same time for example – this means conserving your tires to match your fuel consumption as much as possible, then on your last few laps, you might choose to go hell for leather knowing you’ll be pitting for fuel and tires. Or you might push hard on a new set of tires for a few laps to make up the lost pit time some, then ease off to preserve fuel/tires.
Racing is about more than who’s car can go the fastest 🙂
If you want to see how pit lane strategy can really shake up a race, check our endurance racing, like the 24 hours of le mans – teams can end up rebuilding half a car in the pit lane mid-race and still come back for a podium finish for example. During the LMP1 Hybrid seasons, the manufacturers were also limited on how much fuel they could carry and how much electric power they could deploy each lap etc – race strategy gets really interesting when you add those in!
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