Behind the Scenes: How F2 teams prepare for action

If Formula 2 was a theatrical production, it would have all the crucial elements of an on-stage thriller. Over the course of a season, the pendulum threatens to swing from one of the lead drivers to another, while bit-part players have the platform to stand out and set the story into motion.

While the audience is enthralled by the on-track action, it wouldn’t be possible without the behind-the-scenes action taking place within the F2 paddock. Half of the battle is fought off the circuit, as engineers and mechanics alike work long hours to prepare their cars for each session, leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of performance.

Thanks to the BWT Arden team, we’ve been granted a look behind the curtain. Motorsport is so much more nuanced than simply turning up at a circuit, putting a car together and sending it out to run – as Arden’s race engineer Manuel Aboy discusses.

“When we arrive at a circuit, the first thing we do is try to give all of the initial information we have to the mechanics, so what gear ratios we’re going to use, the balance ahead of free practice, what the setup is going to be and anything else they need to know mechanically. We hand that information to them as soon as possible so they can start to prepare the car as soon as possible. After that’s done, we need to focus on preparation between the engineers and drivers.” That preparation occupies the majority of a Thursday around a driver’s media commitments, and ranges from reconnaissance walks around the circuit to combing through data traces so that, when the sessions come around, the team has everything they need to perform to the maximum of their capabilities.

“We have engineering meetings in order to decide what we’ll run in free practice,” Manuel says, “what we’ll test and what we’re going to explore, and driving-wise we’ll go into what’ll be the run plan, and what’s happened in the past and try to analyse how our previous experiences were.

“In Sochi, we were last here in 2014 and 2015, so we don’t have so much data to analyse, but even with that you have to go back and look at what we had back then, what problems we faced, and to be careful at this certain corner. All of this information needs to be given to the driver.”

“We do our trackwalk with the drivers, looking at videos and doing our pre-event driver report so they have all of their references, braking at so many metres and knowing what gear to use and when to use DRS. Then you start building the weekend around that, working on targets for the driver to do in Free Practice.” Once the drivers are acquainted with their surroundings, the engineers will then brief them ahead of the practice session. There’s plenty for both parties to tick off of their lists but, with just 45 minutes available, time is at an absolute premium – and any disruption is a colossal blow to a team’s preparation. Manuel goes into the minutiae of what the drivers need to work on during a typical practice session.

“Free practice is to ensure the driver is well prepared for quali, that’s our main target. For example, in a first run you’ll go out and ask them to understand the braking points, to understand which gear is better for each corner, and once you try that to also try to understand what setup will be best for the circuit ahead of qualifying, because a lot of the time you’ll only get two push laps and you have to have everything perfect.

“During the weekend, we progress – we begin with both cars running different things, and then after free practice we sit down and look at the balance and how this car with certain settings is behaving. We look at the feedback, and together with the data from our simulations, it gives us a good indication to go to qualifying.”

Once qualifying rolls around, there’s plenty more gamesmanship; trying to anticipate what the other teams do is another variable involved in the session as each of the twenty drivers is vying for clear track to extract the maximum of pace capable during their flying laps. There’s plenty more preparation to do out on the circuit too, as tyre and brake temperatures must be spot on before a driver even considers trying to set the pace.

“One of the things you have to prepare beforehand is the run plan before free practice and qualifying,” explains Manuel, “especially when it comes to quali. Sometimes you’ll run quali with an outlap, prepare and push, but other teams might do it out, double prepare and push – so when you’re on a push lap, everyone else is doing their prepare lap and that way your quali is ruined.

“So, you need to look at what people were doing in the past, and also looking at whether you can do two push laps in a row, whether you can run in the middle of the session – all of those things. You need to be ready so when you get here, the drivers can get their run plans for both free practice and quali.”

The engineers also have to be primed and ready to take advantage of events during the races. In an ideal world, everything would be run to plan, but situational hazards – such as safety cars – often play their part. Different circuits require different approaches, Manuel explains, and calculating risk during a race is another huge factor – a well-executed opportunistic strategy can be make or break for a team’s fortunes.

“In preparing a strategy, you normally look at the past. On this kind of track, there’s no escape road. If there’s an accident, the most likely result is a safety car. So you look at the past and how many safety cars there were in those races. Looking at that, the chances of having a safety car are quite high, so when it’s like that you always want to play the safest option.

“Sometimes, you get a surprise, like [Tadasuke] Makino at Monza – I think it was a surprise to everyone! But I don’t think anyone expected to have so much tyre degradation on the option tyres in Monza, and everyone was running two seconds a lap slower than Makino once he’d got the clean air. That was a good strategy, but nobody else was really doing it. It’s just one clever guy in the paddock! Usually as an engineer, what happens is you don’t want to take the risk and mess it up. Sometimes, the people who take the risk win out, but it’s not as likely.”

Having experienced the old GP2/F2 car for a number of seasons, the engineers this season have had the added work of adapting to the new F2 2018 chassis. Although the early races left F2’s brightest bulbs to scratch their heads, recent races have brought a sense of familiarity as the fraternity begin to understand the current-spec car.

“At the beginning of the season when we were preparing for Bahrain and Baku, we had to adjust the downforce and use different gears compared to what we had in the past. Now, looking at the data from Spa and from Monza, the speeds match up, if not faster in places because of the new aero, so in terms of setting things up it’s very close to the old car.”

In Formula 2, where the smallest margins can become the difference between victory and defeat, every single piece of detail is necessary. Drivers have to learn their lines, and engineers have to direct their performances using every bit of data available – that is, if they want to earn the plaudits on a global stage.