F1 Explains: race strategy in 2026 - with Bernie Collins

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1:06Hello everybody, welcome to F1 Explains, the official Formula 1 podcast that is all about answering your questions on the greatest sport in the world. My name is Christian Hugel and how this podcast works is you email f1explains at f1.com on any topic you like, so long as it is Formula 1 dependence. We insist on that much and we find an expert from the world of Formula one to put your question to and this week our expert is i can say this extremely comfortably one of our most popular guests in f1 explains history someone who's been with us right from the start and someone who you always go absolutely mad for on this podcast former formula one strategist and part of the sky sports f1 television team bernie collins what a joy it is to have you here welcome back to f1 explains hey thanks christian yeah it's good to be back and good three answering some of the questions and that's a very kind introduction.

1:58And it's entirely truthful, Bernie. It's entirely truthful. Bernie, we've got a bit of a mixed bag of questions today, sort of a bit of an F1 Explains quickfire episode. Of course, as I just mentioned, you were a strategist in Formula One. I say were because you used to work full-time within teams. I suppose once a strategist, always a strategist. You're still a strategist, but just for the television rather than for permanently sat wearing green in the case of your last job on the pit wall. So, of course, whenever you're on the pod, there tends to be strategy themed questions. So shall we start with, as is tradition, a strategy themed question?

2:39Let's go. Well, we should talk about the new season, Bernie. And of course, the new era of Formula One we find ourselves in, where so many things, of course, have changed. How has strategy changed this season, particularly race strategy? Yeah, I think there's been quite a few changes this season. We're only a little bit into it. I think it's continuously evolving as teams learn, drivers learn, etc. I think what we're seeing is that, let's say, the strategy up until race hasn't really changed. What teams and drivers do in qualifying is largely the same, if we think of that as being strategy as well.

3:16it's maybe more susceptible to errors because the cars have less downforce so we see more lockups or more mistakes from an engine management side so qualifying is maybe a bit more volatile than it used to be Racing we're seeing more overtaken than we did in the past in general for each of the tracks that we've been to so far so that's one aspect is overtaken is a little bit easier which tends to allow the faster cars a bit more of a way through than what they had in the past and we're seeing and that's you know down to lots of reasons and the reduced size of the cars how the battery is deploying those types of things we've also got new tires this year which lots of the other aspects that were new outside the power unit have sort of gone a bit under the radar because there's so much focus on the power unit but we've got new tires they're smaller than they were before but that means that when we talk about the tire compounds in terms of a c1 or a c2 it's not exactly the same as a C1 or a C2 that we had last year.

4:18So in general, I would say thus far, the tyres have been harder than they were last year and that means that we're seeing less tyre degradation. So the tyres are lasting longer into the race than they did last year and they're more stable throughout the lap. So those things combined are pushing maybe less pit stops that we've seen in the past because the tyres are able to go further into the race. So I think actually the tyres has been the biggest change that we've seen in strategy, which is a bit unrelated to the power unit changes. A couple of things to pick up on there. Firstly, on tyres, Bernie, if anyone missed it not too long ago, we were joined by Mario Assola from Pirelli to talk about the changes to tyres this season right here on this feed on F1 Explains.

5:06So scroll back on this feed to listen to that if you might have missed it and wants to go into more details on the change to the tyres this season. Bernie, one thing you said there that particularly interests me. Of course, I'm a Formula One fan, so overtaking is always going to particularly interest me. You're right, Bernie. Of course, we've seen so much more of it. Do you think when strategists are in their strategy meetings before the start of races, do you think they are saying, well, actually, we might be more likely to make up places? You know, of course, track position is always important, but do you think it might promote some bolder strategies as we move through the season, given strategists may say to their drivers, actually, mate, we back you to go and make these places back up because it is proving easier to overtake with this generation of car?

5:50Yeah, I think so. I think when overtaken's a little bit easier, it has a few effects. So it takes away some of the importance of qualifying. Now, last year in 2025, we basically had a series where pretty much the qualifying positions was very, very close to the finishing positions. to qualify and had this overriding effect on the end result of the race. So that's a little bit better. It does, like you say, promote the opportunity. And we've not seen it so far yet, but I think we will. Where if someone's stuck behind another driver because the pace is too close, they may convert to a two-stop rather than a one-stop because they know that there's a chance of getting back through the traffic.

6:27People might be a little bit braver in their pit stop decision stopping a little bit earlier and not so worried about the traffic they stop into for example so there'll be lots of things as well as that the field um and that's the 22 cars are at the beginning of this regulation a little bit more spread out so at the end of last year when you were looking at who was in your pit window i.e who you would do a pit stop and come out behind the cars were all very close in pace now you can look at some much slower cars and know that you're able to overtake them. So it does have quite big effects on when you're thinking of your strategy going into the race or if you have a slightly slow pit stop, for example, hopefully you might be able to recover that.

7:11So I think it will push teams, maybe as we get more into it, to do an alternative strategy in the hope that they can use a fresher tyre to overtake towards the end of the race. Reminded me slightly there, Bernie, of the Australian Grand Prix, we saw a virtual safety car. I believe it was because Isaac Hadja broke down around about lap 11. Both Ferraris stayed out rather than pitting under the virtual safety car where they might have got an advantage. Perhaps that's a situation where if that had happened later in the season, where the teams might have had a bit more knowledge of how much easier it is to overtake on these cars, maybe Ferrari would have been tempted to split the strategy and think, for example, okay, Lewis, we'll bring you in in the hope that you can battle your way back forward?

7:57Yeah, I think so. I think there's a few aspects of that. One, you're not thinking about if you get stuck a little bit in traffic, how easy it is to come through. And two, that they weren't expecting that tyre that people fitted for the last bit of the race to last as long as it did. So the two aspects are going together. How easy overtaking is and how long the tyres are lasted. Now, it's worth saying that we might see later on in the season, Pirelli choose to bring softer tyres. so we might that that you know in my mind make strategy even more interesting again because you'll have tires that won't easily last long distances and you'll have easy overtaking you should have the tires dropping off more dramatically so higher degradation and all of that will go together to mean that you've got pace differences between the cars that allows quite interesting strategies and races to unfold interesting stuff we will continue to follow the strategic development of the season as we go on on f1 explains bernie i'm sure it's not the last time you'll be on with us this season so we'll pick it up with you later in the year um i mentioned the email address f1explains at f1.com do send your questions in thank you so much for all the questions we're getting so far this season loads and loads of them coming in we really appreciate it uh marcus is in melbourne australia speaking of the australian grand prix i hope you were with us a few weeks ago marcus marcus says how does strategy change from track to track bernie so many variables on this one isn't there yeah there's a lot of variables i think if we think of the first starting point for strategy is what's the quickest race to the end of the race if there was no other cars involved so totally no one traffic and the track specific aspects that go into that is what is the pit loss so how long does it take to do a pit stop how are the tires performing so what are the first lap speed differences between the tires and lap time so is a medium half and second quicker than a hard for example and then what the tire degradation is So how quickly, lap one lap, the medium gets slower than the hard tyre, for example.

9:53So all of those aspects build a very basic race model that says this is the preferred strategy to the end of the race, be that a one-stop or two-stop, whatever. So they're all circuit-specific. You know, the pit loss, the tyre degradation, that all comes from the circuit. The other thing that then goes into that is how easy it is to overtake. So how much are you going to risk that traffic? You know, if a two-stop is quicker on paper, I'd consider it in other cars. But if overtaking is really difficult, you might go to a one-stop, for example, because you don't want to get trapped behind other cars.

10:26So the overtaking then affects your sort of race plan more than your optimum, fastest strategy. There's lots of other things that goes into that, like the temperatures you're expecting, the wind conditions, every big influence on car setup, for example, what the track roughness is like. so you can get and you can see it just on normal like street surfaces or pavement surfaces you know how much of the little greens can you see or how smooth is it and that all has a bearing on the tires and it all has a bearing on those other bits of the model like tire degradation and yeah and how we build up that model together track roughness we'll come back to in a moment our next question speaks a little bit about that i just wanted to pick up on one thing there obviously you as a strategist Bernie you're going to be relying on data from previous race weekends now obviously in this era of Formula 1 you might be looking at let's look at the Japanese Grand Prix from last year but we're in a very different era of F1 so is data from last year less important than it was before is one question and my second follow up to that is we're also going to a completely new track this season in Madrid where I'm guessing it's even more difficult for strategists like yourself because we've never raced there before.

11:39Yeah, so if I start with the normal track question, so teams, let's say, have done a few races now. So they have some knowledge of how the tyres, the car, the overtake and is performing this year. So what they will do is they will look at Australia, if we take that example, and we'll say, okay, degradation this year, and I'm making these numbers up, so do not quote these numbers. Degradation this year was half of what degradation was last year. So the tyres are lasting twice as long. really ballpark numbers and they'll do that for Australia, they'll do that for China, they'll do that for Japan and then over the course of the season you get a relationship between this year and last year.

12:19You get a relationship in terms of overtaking and in terms of how the tyres are performing and then you take that relationship and you apply it to the circuit you're currently at. So when you come to Barcelona for example, you look at Barcelona last year and you'll say okay on average this year degradation is half so we'll apply that to the model from last year roughly there's been twice as many overtakes okay we'll apply that to the model of Barcelona last year so you take your Barcelona data which is still the most relevant thing that you have for Barcelona and you will apply the 2026 offsets to it so that's how you get your base model going into Friday morning in Barcelona and then obviously any running that you get throughout that event starts to override the information that you've got in the past.

13:07So you're sort of interpolating the information between 2026 and the circuit that you're at. And obviously, the further you go through the year, the more data you've built up on this 25 to 26 comparison. So the later races get better and better and better in terms of your accuracy going into it. Because you'll have some circuits, Australia is a good example. This year it was dry, last year it was wet. So the 2026-25 comparison for Australia is probably not that good. But China, very similar conditions. So the more data you get as a strategist and engineer, the better. It just gets better and better.

13:44So then when you get to Madrid, you don't have a Madrid model, like you say. You'll have a simulator model and you'll have some estimates of overtaking, of track roughness, of tyre performance. But what you might do then for Madrid, and I don't know which comp points it's going to be in Madrid, but let's say it's C1, C2 and C3, you'll start to look at how that hire has performed at similar tracks. What I mean by similar tracks is similar speed corners, similar number of braking zones, all of these things. You'll start to look at tracks through the year. You might look at Baki, a street track, similar type corners.

14:23So you'll start to take elements of the tracks you've been to in 2026 and formulate a Madrid model, but it will definitely be the weakest model that you go into on a Friday, which is why we always say at a new track, the Friday running is so, so important. And one of the reasons, for example, last year in China, having not been there for many, many years, having a sprint weekend was really, really difficult. So the learning that you get on Friday in Madrid is really, really important to try because that model will be less accurate than the others. Hopefully that explains it. It explains it perfectly.

14:58We should just say, if you knew it's a Formula One, the reason why sprint weekends can be particularly difficult, particularly on tracks like China, where there isn't loads of data is because the teams get less practice time. There is usually three free practice sessions over the course of a weekend. For a sprint weekend, that goes down to one. And then we, of course, have sprint qualifying and the sprint race. and again if you're slightly new to us Pirelli has five compounds of tyre of which it selects three to be that weekend's soft medium and hard tyre those five compounds are named c1 c2 c3 c4 and c5 you can see how they came up with the naming formula which is very logical c1 being the hardest and c5 being the softest well done to all involved with that it's an excellent naming system that I hope stays for many years because if I can understand it there's a chance other people will too Bernie Collins let's go to Joel hi Joel Joel says hello I listen to this podcast every week Joel we appreciate you Joel says while watching free practice one in Suzuka the commentators were talking about resurfacing the track I presume they meant the track had been resurfaced as opposed to the commentators had done it themselves I don't think that'd be Alex Jake's a strong suit but fine.

16:10How does that affect the cars, the strategy and the weekend overall? So yeah this is the second Japanese Grand Prix in a row Bernie where a part of the track has been resurfaced. How does that affect things? Yeah so the track has been resurfaced I think it was like two-thirds of the track this year I think from turn seven to the end of the track and yeah you're right Joel the commentators we talk about it a lot because it does have a bearing so there's a few things that will have a bearing on and and some of them will seem very minor but when you're trying to get in the very detail of strategy it makes a big difference so the first one is track roughness um and that is when you look at the track or you look at the um like asphalt sorry i always say tarmac which is the wrong word when you look at the asphalt is it not tarmac tarmac is a brand name and i didn't know that it's like when people say do the hoovering.

17:07You shouldn't do that because that's the vacuuming. Yeah, there you go. Who knew? Yes, the asphalt. Other brands of asphalt are available. I presume. I don't really know. Carry on. So just to be, yeah, anyway, but I always struggle with the word asphalt. So asphalt. So you can see this made up of tiny little stones and you can have a look when you're writing about it. You'll see some surfaces that are lots of gaps in between the stones. You can clearly see the stones. That'll be quite rough tarmac or asphalt. Then there are some that almost look like perfectly polished, very, very smooth. And the difference in those two surfaces has a massive effect on the tyres because the very, very smooth surface has a lot of contact patch with the tyres.

17:50And the very, very rough surface, because it's got the gaps, has much less contact patch with the tyres. So the smooth surface will have a lot more grip. Think of it like sandpaper. So if you've got the very rough sandpaper and you rub that across a tyre, you're taking lots of surface off the tyre. So the rough tarmac, as well as being not as much contact patch, will lead to higher degradation. Bahrain is a prime example. Very, very rough tarmac asphalt, very high tyre degradation. So that's the first thing we're trying to check is the new asphalt that they've put down is it rough or smooth does it match what they've done before and that is the biggest contribution by far the second is how clean or dirty is it over the sessions we talk a lot about track improvement track improvement is because we were putting some of our own rubber down on the track and that has had been to increase the lap times increase the grip allow drivers to brake later so the track improvement is another I think.

18:56So how many races have there been before us? How long is it going to get to get that tarmac up to speed? And then the final, maybe more minor point is how dark is the tarmac or asphalt? The darkness sets the track temperature. So if you can sometimes see on tracks very dark patches, and in that patch, the tarmac or the asphalt will be a higher temperature. And that affects sort of things like tyre surface overheating. So those are the three elements of tarmac that are important. It always amazes me in Formula One that little things, where it seems little on the surface, like a track resurfacing can just change everything.

19:37And I've been in paddocks for race weekends where a track resurfacing has changed everything. And it's the talk of the weekend. It's, yeah, such is the technicalities of the sport. This is a good point to take a little bit of a break. When we come back, and me and Bernie have had a preview of this, when we come back, I think one of the cutest moments in F1 Explains history is on the way. If that doesn't make you stick around, I don't know what will. Back in a second.

20:10Welcome back to F1 Explains. My name is Christian Hugill. I'm with Bernie Collins, the former Formula One strategist, where we're doing some quickfire questions on all things F1. F1explained at F1.com is the place to send your emails, your questions. You can send them in the form of just written words. We don't mind the written word on this podcast. But if you would like to hear your voice played to the world, which some people think is a wonderful thing, some people find it absolutely terrifying. But if you're happy to do so, attach your voice note to your email and we will play it and it will go all over the world.

20:46That is exactly what this listener has done. Hi, I'm Jeremiah from New York and I like listening to F1 Explains. And a question I have is how expensive is it to race a team in Formula One? Thank you. I mean, that's one of my favourite voice notes we've ever had. And I'm going to sound really British here, but I love Jeremiah's cute, young New York accent. Like a proper little New Yorker. I just think that's adorable. It's very cute. Bernie, I'd love you to go through the answer. So, yeah, how expensive is it to race a team in Formula One? I'm guessing, Bernie, it's very expensive. but I believe you can help us break down a few of those numbers.

21:35It's very expensive. It's definitely, well, I don't know Jeremiah's background, but it's probably too expensive. But we have... Jeremiah's going to listen to this and think, you know what, these numbers are realistic. I might have a go. Yeah, so the teams have what's called a cost cap, so it limits how much they can spend in a given year on the running of the car, the team members' equipment, getting everything to the track. And that number, I'm going to read that off to make sure I'm right, is$215 million. Yeah, which is about£170 million, which is coincidentally how much it costs us to keep producer Chris employed.

22:15I don't know if you knew that. I have been wondering. I have been wondering. Yeah, yeah, that's it. But that doesn't include things like driver salary, the salaries of the highest three paid members. and it also doesn't include things like marketing activities so when you see I guess maybe Red Bull are the best of it running demo cars at you know in the middle of maybe New York wherever they run it and those types of things are not included in that cost cap so actually in reality the entire team the marketing and the sponsorship all of the other aspects that go with it actually costs a lot lot more than that we don't have a number in that because some teams that spend more than others but the$250 million is what teams are under for each season.

23:07So a lot. Yeah,$215 million,£170 million or€199 million, according to producer Chris's maths here, which is usually extremely reliable in terms of our conversion. I mean, we're not doing live conversion tables here, but roughly that. And yeah, the cost cap, I remember when it was first suggested, Bernie, being a controversial thing that was suggested. But actually, I think it's sort of been universally welcomed in Formula 1 nowadays in terms of helping some of the smaller teams on the grid get profitable and stay in profit. But also, and I won't name any names, but there's definitely burning areas where you and I were watching the sport when we were younger, where the team that was winning in Formula 1 was simply the team that was spending the most money.

23:56And the cost cap stops that. But it's how you spend your money rather than just having the deepest pockets. Yeah, I think that is true. I think that there's still obviously an historic, you know, the teams that have spent the most money in the past are still some of the leading teams because it takes time to build it up and get these things. And sometimes teams will invest that money in infrastructure or other bits in the background. So it's still the historic aspect is still there, I think. And we should also say as well, there's no necessary guarantee that the teams will make the cost cap. And that's where prize money in the Constructors' Championship becomes extremely important.

24:34Teams haven't just got that money definitely available to spend. And it's not like it's a case of, oh, it's easy for us to reach that cap. And that's why, for example, you know, Williams coming fifth in the championship last season is huge for a team like Williams compared to coming seventh, eighth or ninth. because the money increases the further you get up the table. Joe Meyer, wonderful voice noting. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate it. We're going to stay in the United States of America now and go over to Wade in California. Wade has emailed F1explains at F1.com and Wade says, after turning the final corner of a hot qualifying lap, why do drivers steer towards the centre of the tracks as they approach the finish line?

25:16Why don't they stay along the edge, which is a slightly shorter path to the line it never fails to amaze me the small details that our listeners notice excellent detail from wade bernie what's the answer yeah so i think it'll very much depend a little bit track to track but exiting that final corner i think the priority is the exit out of the final corner so you whatever trajectory you sort of come out of if you think if if you're going to do a second lap then it's important to take the shortest distance that you can to the first corner and make sure that your entire straight is very well done.

25:54Whereas the line's obviously always much closer than the first corner. So they just get the exit of the last corner and then try and get to the line as quickly as possible. And the difference in distance is generally very small. It'll be more extreme, the effect that he's talking about, based on where the start finish line is compared to that final corner. The other thing is it'll also vary a little bit based on the traffic particularly behind the driver so in any given straight if they can move a little bit off the racing line so a little bit away from where they would optimally be it means that the driver potentially starting a lap behind doesn't have any sort of a toe down the main straight.

26:38So you don't want to help the driver behind who's starting their lap a little bit faster than they would otherwise have been. So there's a few aspects, I think, going into it. But the overriding one is that you're not so worried about where you're aiming on the straight. You're just worried about getting on power as quickly as you can out of the final corner. Yeah, makes perfect sense. Wade, great question. Thank you. This next one is for Martha, who is in Ottawa in Canada. Hello, Martha. Martha says, in qualifying, when multiple cars don't set a time how do they pick the order they get to be on the grid and when multiple cars have pit lane starts for changing parts how do they decide the order they get to come out of the pits bernie so the grid as we know is normally set by the lap time that people have set in their relevant qualifying positions so the top 10 in q3 for example if let's say two people don't set a lap time in Q1, then there's a number of criteria we start to look at in order to give them their starting position.

27:43So it might be, the order is, drivers who tried to start a lap. So drivers who left the garage, did an outlap and then started, so they crossed the control line and started a time lap. So they're the first group. The second group is drivers who left the garage and at least started their out lap but didn't get to cross the control line and then the third group is people who never even left the garage so they're the three groups that people are put into so if one driver went out and did a lap and a half he's ahead of a driver who went out and did half a lap for example and within those groups let's say two drivers go out and they both start a lap but don't finish it then the way that it will go is they look to what those drivers set in their last competitive session so if both of those drivers were in p3 they'll take their lap times from p3 if both of those if one of those drivers wasn't in p3 they'll go back to p2 and so on so that's how they formulate their positions now if they've not set any lap time at all in the qualifying session and obviously they need to be given permission to start the race so they need to have proven to the FIA that they are capable of setting a good lap time and so that's one thing to think about the Pittleian start one so if a driver has some penalties or an issue on the way to the grid or forced to start from Pittleian basically if they get to the end of the Pittleian and five minutes before the start of the race or more than five minutes before the start of the race they are forced to line up with the Pittleian in their qualifying order and that uses the same sort of breakdown that I just outlined.

29:29So even if they don't qualify in order, they'll be given a position. So they go to the Petlian in that order. So if someone qualified P5 and someone qualified P10, in the Petlian, they'll be one and two respectively. If they don't make it to the Petlian until after five minutes before the start of the race, they simply line up in the order that they got there. And so if they both go with four minutes to go, they just like it's whoever gets their first basically and that's to stop us trying to rearrange cars in the Petlion with less than five minutes to go now a bonus answer um unless there's a very good reason or there's lots of cars starting from Petlion the majority of people remain in their garage right up until the start of the race so they remain in the garage with their tire blankets on everything nice and warm everything under control and then they go to the end of the Petlion because it's a bit of an advantage to have your tyres that little bit hotter than it would be if you're on the grid.

30:29So that's why you tend to see people shooting out of the garage very, very late at dawn, just rolling to the end of the Petlion and then starting the race. But if there was five, six, seven cars, you'd see them like a mini grid in the Petlion. You've given a bonus answer. I'm going to give a bonus answer to a question that Martha didn't even ask, but it reminded me of, I think we've had this on F1 Exposed before, of when drivers set identical qualifying times and how that gets determined. Now, this has happened twice in recent seasons. In the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen and George Russell set identical times.

31:03They had fun together that weekend, didn't they? In the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix, again, Max and George both recorded identical qualifying times. That one was particularly satisfying because it was a one minute 12 dead. but in the 1997 European Grand Prix at Jerez that is the only time in Formula One history that three drivers have set identical time Jacques Villeneuve it says here Schumacher do we think that was Michael Schumacher or Ralph Schumacher if producer Chris could find out for me I'd be extremely grateful a Schumacher and Heinz-Harold Frensen posted exactly the same time of 1 minute 21.072 and in that circumstance It is whoever sets the time first gets to take the first grid slot.

31:50Producer Chris, do we know whether that was Michael or Ralph Schumacher yet? Because it's of imperative importance before we move on. The breaking news is it was Michael Schumacher. There we are. Thank you, Chris. The breaking news there from the 1997 season that it was Michael Schumacher. Had Ralph even started F1 in 1997? I would say no. No, I don't think he had, had he? So I got myself into a tears completely needlessly there. What a shame. Anyway. No, producer Chris says, do you want me to check that as well? We don't need to check that. It's fine. I'm sure Ralph will be happy. Chris says he's got to earn his money that we talked about earlier somehow.