When it comes to Grand Prix racing, having the best car and the best driver doesn't guarantee a win. Whilst the performance out on track is obviously the primary measure of success, it can often be the planning and tactics implemented by the team that makes the difference between victory and failure.

Developing a successful strategy for The BMW WilliamsF1 Team is the responsibility of a task force of race engineers and tacticians, led by the Chief Operations Engineer, Sam Michael. With hundreds of variables to consider, the team rely heavily on data analysis and HP technology to make the right decisions at the right time.

Recreating the race
With the increased restrictions enforced upon the teams as a result of the new rules and regulations there is now even less time to set the car up and experiment with strategies during a race weekend. In response, The BMW WilliamsF1 Team has focused their attention on running simulations with which to develop race tactics.

"One of the guys will do a simulation, which is the quickest way round the track," explained Michael. "We'll take that into consideration and evaluate how close the strategies are to each other in terms of time."

By simulating a racing environment in a virtual landscape the engineers and tacticians can not only adjust a number of variables, such as tyre type, fuel load, engine ratio and aerodynamic down force, they can also replicate the effect a particular circuit will have on the FW25, without the car actually having to touch real tarmac.

The Team uses a vast library of historical information, drawn from telemetry data gathered from previous races, to run accurate simulations. The data is stored on a rack of HP ProLiant DL380 G2 servers that offer enormous storage capacity and the powerful processing capabilities required to run a simulation.

Tactics on track
Once a simulated strategy has been achieved, it's time to put the theory into practice. During a race weekend the focus turns to refining the race tactics and ensuring that the cars will survive the full race distance. "When you come to the race you're not looking at things that make the car go faster any more," said Michael. "You're looking at keeping the car going."

HP technology plays a vital role at the circuit - throughout practice, in both qualifying sessions and during the race itself. In addition to providing the Team with fast access to historical track data, the servers also ensure the on-site computing power required to modify a race strategy as a result of changes to the circuit and the weather.

The recent Grand Prix at Brazil highlighted this vital requirement, as the Team had to alter their race strategies on the fly, taking into account the brand new track surface and adverse weather conditions. "We used a HP link from the pitwall to our weather radar to predict when the rain was coming. This information was sent directly to the pitwall during the race," Michael commented.

Each ProLiant server runs Intel® Xeon™ Processors up to 2.8GHz and benefits from up to 6GB RAM, providing the team with an impressive computing resource. With such a tool at their disposal, the Team can react to the data gathered during the practice sessions and alter their tactics according to their grid positions after Saturday qualifying.

"If you qualify near the front row it's more than likely that you can do the optimum strategy because you won't have cars in front of you," explained Michael. "If you qualify badly but the car's performance is there then you're better off doing fewer stops because you can't overtake people."

Reacting to the rules
The new format of a race weekend has also had a dramatic effect on the way teams develop race strategy. With the cars locked away between Saturday qualifying and the race itself, the teams have to factor in the three laps of Saturday 'Superpole' as effectively the first three laps of the race.

The previous practice of building a car for Saturday and then rebuilding it for Sunday is no longer valid, as the qualifying car now has to be robust enough to run a full race distance. With that in mind, developing a watertight strategy for the full race weekend is now even more important.

"The new regulations mean the same amount of work has to be done in half the time," commented Michael. "Race start fuel load must be decided prior to qualifying so all the strategy simulations must be done beforehand. We use HP Notebooks to run these simulations. Likewise, we also use them to investigate setups prior to the single lap qualifying as we have less track time available to get the setup correct."

The ability to make split-second decisions during a race is also key to the Team's success. With a strategy that can adapt to the constantly shifting parameters of a Grand Prix event, the Team are far more likely to get a result. The recent Brazil race showed this to full effect, as the Team repeatedly altered their plan to take into account the multiple safety car periods.

The Team use HP technology to access the flow of data from the car to the pits after every lap. As the drivers speed around the circuit, over 200 different channels of vital statistics are transmitted back to the Evo Notebooks and ProLiant servers in the pits, and it is this data that determines the team's changing race strategy.

"You're looking at gearbox temperatures, engine temperatures and tyre pressures," Michael continued. "You're also looking at brake wear - making sure that your wear prediction programme, which we have on the pit wall, is matching what the actual wear on the car is."

With up-to-the-second data to hand, Sam and his team are able to alter the race strategy to take into account the levels of performance of the car and driver. As a race unfolds and the car is placed under greater pressure, issues such as brake wear come into force, and the strategy is again altered, ensuring that both the car and driver make it to the chequered flag and onto the podium.