Course of action
A poor handling racecar seems an impossible occurrence these days, considering the access to gigabytes of logged data, tyre modelling and simulation tools, including CFD and lap time optimisation. It seems that with a small amount of testing and the huge array of information available, a car’s set-up and handling can be optimised in minutes, rather than the weeks or even months it used to take.
However, despite all the information we gather and analyse, it’s still easy to lose your way in the minefield of set-up options, and convince ourselves we still don’t have enough information. I know, because I’ve been there and done exactly that, thankfully more so earlier in my career than recently.
It is not difficult to imagine how a last-minute adjustment in pit lane during a qualifying session could induce just enough instability that a collision with a barrier or competitor would be unavoidable. So, when there is so much at stake, including the life of the driver, why do we still hear interview response such as “We struggled to get the set-up right”, or “The car could have been better…”?
Setting up a car is, fundamentally, a decision-making process, albeit a highly technical one
Value scheme
Setting up a car is, fundamentally, a decision-making process, albeit a highly technical one with the aid of detailed logged data and subjective driver feedback. Simply put, the course of action is as follows: firstly, understand the problem and the decisions that need to be made; secondly, list the available choices; thirdly, assign a value to each choice so they can be sorted by that value scheme.
A thorough approach would also consider the most likely outcome if the first choice was actually implemented, as well as the outcomes of any other highly valued choices. In the domain of race engineering, there are many expert engineers who can predict the change in handling for even the most detailed set-up changes, but they can still make the wrong choice in the heat of the moment. Likewise,
