How do teams calculate strategy options and preferences?

[m06w41]

While this relates to F1 and other race categories, I thought it may be better to post here in a less "specific" forum. This may have been asked previously but when searching for "strategy" or "race strategy" the posts are generic in nature. I am hoping to understand things more thoroughly.

I recently completed a class for Management Science and we covered a specific type of problem called a "transportation problem". The idea is that you use a series of things you know (cost, inventory, location, transportation duration, etc) to calculate the the most efficient (or lowest cost) method of getting stuff from point A to an end point using these intermediary factors. My thought the entire time was I wondered if this type of analysis is the type of analysis that racing teams do when looking at strategy? At a higher level I was fascinated that some of the constraints used in a transportation problem are identical to the constraints in a race strategy discussion.

So, teams have a set of known as well as well calculated estimates; max fuel, estimated lap time, race distance or duration, fuel effect, tire deg effect, etc. They also likely have some statistical assumptions about probability of a safety car, probability of weather related events, and the like.

How do they use their known items, their estimates and their best guesses to evaluate their best strategy options? What are the tools or techniques they use to evaluate these strategies?

In other words, what specifically does this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aCv0c483jE) use to analyze the best options leading up to a race.

[m06w41]

Shuck - no takers :'(

[-o<

I'm open to ideas too? Maybe there's a better place to post this or research it?

[Brenton]

They know roughly how much faster or slower the car will be under different combinations like new vs old tires. A basic strategy calculation is pretty simple. Try playing a racing Sim like one of the F1 games or Grand Prix 4... You'll be doing it yourself if you want. Just add up all the estimated lap times and compare a race run on different strategy. It's basic arithmetic mostly. Then factors like track position come into play like the likelihood of being held up by a slower car if you pit earlier vs later for example.