Ruth Buscombe
@RuthBuscombe • 31,417 subscribers
Strategy,Analyst & Presenter at F1🏎 Speaker🗣️ AWS Motorsports Technical Advisor & Brand Ambassador 🔗 to Strategy Newsletter in Bio👇Enquiries [email protected]
Videos
Mercedes: "And for my next trick… ready, set, slow." 🪄 Mercedes and George built their 0.8s pole margin from thinking fast AND slow. Lots of things made that lap fast: the driver, the car, the timing. But starting it slow made it faster. Silverstone: Mercedes coasted across the line to go faster. Baku: they charged across it. GIVES UP: ~9 km/h (up to 13) for 370 m = costs ~0.1s by Turn 1 GETS BACK: ~7 km/h (up to 10) for 1,540 m down the final straight = up to 0.36s back (0.15s on Leclerc). Pole by 0.837s. Start slow: out lap and into Turn 1, flat out but held in 7th, and the car stops accelerating because it's superclipping (harvesting at full throttle). 298 km/h at the line while the rivals shift to 8th and deploy: 302 to 311. Finish faster: on the final straight the rivals run dry. George doesn't. 331 km/h peak and 314 at the flag, against 302 to 309 for the others. Why it works: recharge resets at the line. At Baku the FIA allows 9.0 MJ on out laps and 8.5 MJ on a qualifying lap. So the harvesting before the line comes out of the bigger budget, on the lap that isn't timed. Every push lap in Q, 20 drivers shifted to 8th before the line. Mercedes never did (0 of 9). George first tried it in Thursday's FP2, and both cars used it on every push lap in FP3 and Q. Kimi did it too, before his crash in Q1. Could everyone do this? Don’t think so, each PU is different, code and the thing itself, so it’s not that simple to just copy past it, only McLaren and Ferrari tried the Merc PU Silverstone lift, but no other power unit has shown this one. Even the Mercedes customer teams (McLaren, Williams, Alpine) shifted to 8th like everyone else. Could a customer copy it? We don't know. Would be interested to know if there was a conversation in McLaren before P3 and Q if they spotted it if they could try it to go faster. That's the bit I love. Some teams are still chasing reliability and fixing problems. Mercedes are past that and into optimising, finding a tenth in the gaps. Is it why George got pole? It's part of the margin, not all of it. He had clean air and no tow, and he was quickest through the castle and sector 2 too. But it shows you that even at the front, with pole in the bag, F1 teams are still relentlessly pushing for extra performance. It's not a magic trick. It's maths.
Ruth Buscombe26,130 views • 6 days ago
Mercedes calculated THIS?? 🤯 In the moment, it feels wrong. Box just before the Safety Car, lose the free stop, driver frustrated. But the numbers tell a different story. Lap 21: 22.s pit loss → 0.3s margin That is the limit. This was Russell’s last chance to pit under green. Wait one more lap, and he loses the position to Charles. So they pulled the trigger. Meanwhile, Antonelli? 22.6s and growing. Every lap he stayed out, the margin increased. The overcut was working. No need to react. Just trust the car. And a Pit Wall operating to the limits. 🎥 We go deeper into this on Japanese GP Debrief YouTube out now. How Mercedes held their nerve, how McLaren triggered the cascade, and why Antonelli’s pace was there all along. If you want to understand how this race was really decided, it’s all in the full breakdown. 🔔 Subscribe to the Strategy Channel for extended video briefings: : 📨 Want more? Full debrief with race traces, data, and the telemetry breakdown is live in the newsletter. 🔗Missed it? Click for a time limited link to sign up now:
Ruth Buscombe79,534 views • 6 months ago
The Curious Case of the Lift. 🔍 He lifted. 40 metres before the line. On the lap that decided pole. And it was the fastest thing he could legally do. It started on Friday morning in P1, with a number racing cars do not do: both Mercedes, dead flat at 298 km/h down the Hangar Straight, pedal pinned. Cars speed up. Cars slow down. They do not hold a constant with the driver's foot flat to the floor. I filed it as curious. Then Sprint Quali gave the case a body: pole by 0.011s, and the losing car crossed the line coasting. So I checked every lap. 🔍 14 out of 14 qualifying laps. Both drivers. Every session. 🔍 Never once on a race run. 🔍 Same 40-metre window every time. Any wind. Any tyre. The suspects, eliminated: ❌ Driver error. 2 drivers, 2 sessions, an overnight telemetry review in between. ❌ Sandbagging. Nobody donates pole by 0.011. ❌ The wind. 16 lift points against the weather data. Correlation: 0.12. What's left is 1 line in the rulebook. When a quali battery runs dry, the power has to fade away slowly, by law. Unless the driver himself asks for less. So Mercedes spend every joule where the lap pays most, and end it with a foot instead of software. The driver is what keeps the car legal. The lift didn't lose pole. Flat to the line was never legally available. The lift was the fastest legal way home. PS: Ferrari took pole by solving the same lap backwards. Lowest drag on the grid, so the budget stretches: 322 km/h, still accelerating, flat across the line every single lap. 2 philosophies, 1 constraint, 0.011 between them. 📨 Every chart and every number, in the newsletter: 🎥 The full investigation: 🎧 Prefer your strategy by podcast? We're wherever you get your podcasts
Ruth Buscombe34,700 views • 2 months ago
Abu Dhabi GP. We have a decider 👀🇦🇪🏎️ 🟠 Norris arrives with a 12 point lead and a car with the strongest tyre thermal management in the field. 🔵 Verstappen arrives having cut a 104 point deficit through efficiency, consistency and pressure performance. 🟠 Piastri might be in third but History adds another layer. It’s been 15 years since we’ve had a three way decider BUT the last two three way title deciders, the driver starting third became World Champion. Kimi in 2007. Sebastian Vettel in 2010. Whilst P1 and P2 fight it out P3 slipped through the net. And Yas Marina is the perfect arena to settle it. Sector 1️⃣ Front support, direction change, stability on turn in. Sector 2️⃣ Pure efficiency and high speed braking through the double DRS zones. Sector 3️⃣ Combined traction and tyre thermals. This is where the race is won and lost. This track is rear limited and the finale is almost always a Medium to Hard one stop. Rear stability on the Medium decides the opening phase. Thermal discipline on the Hard decides the ending. Track position into S3 decides whether you can defend. And finales behave differently: • Drivers only race the rivals that matter. Others choose not to interfere. • Some gamble harder on strategy because it is the last race. Some go conservative. This reshapes overtakes, pit windows and pace deltas in ways you never see earlier in the season. The permutations mean any other car on the podium can flip the championship. A single position between Lando and Max, or between Lando and Oscar, changes who takes the title. And the question everyone will be asking: If the opportunity arises, will McLaren use Oscar to help Lando secure his first World Championship? Three contenders. One finale. A title decided by thermals, timing and who you meet on track at the wrong moment. 📬 Full Abu Dhabi Strategy Briefing drops later this week. 🚨If you haven’t joined The Race Strategy Society yet, you can still get sign up for the Abu Dhabi briefing for a limited time: 🔔 Want more? Subscribe to the Strategy Channel for extended video briefings: :
Ruth Buscombe79,505 views • 10 months ago
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