Telemetry addicts
How the data can make you faster
Data is the lifeblood of modern motorsport. The graphs look like gobbledygook at irst, but practised racing eyes see individual corners in each rise and fall, like reading the Matrix.
The amount of data available is dizzying, so I’m advised to focus on four key elements: the traces for throttle opening, brake pressure, vehicle speed (so you can see how much speed you’re carrying into, through and out of each corner) and the delta (time lost and gained in real time).
There’s nowhere to hide; every missed braking point, every fractional conidence lift, is displayed in black and white.
The same basics apply at the highest level in F1, says Bruno Senna: ‘You still start with the basic trace like this. When you need to understand what the car is doing – for example, you want to go faster but the car is bouncing, or understeering – that’s when the engineers go into the really ine details, and use the data at a deeper level than the drivers.’