Formula 1 broadcasts will gain a new predictive graphic this weekend, called Strategy Insight, developed in collaboration with AWS.
Built on top of Track Pulse, F1’s real-time data platform, the tool uses machine learning to explain what teams are likely to do next based on current race conditions and historical precedent, rather than simply reporting what has already happened on track.
The feature marks a distinct step in how AWS’s broadcast technology has evolved since its introduction to the sport.
Where earlier F1 Insights told viewers what a driver had just done, Strategy Insight is designed to tell them what a team is about to do, and why.
“F1 strategy’s always been described as a bit of a dark art and a black box, and now with the power of the insights that we have available to us that are empowered by AWS, we can make that a glass house,” Ruth Buscombe, an F1 Race Strategist and AWS Technical Advisor, told Sports Business Journal.
Buscombe previously led race strategy for Alfa Romeo’s F1 team, and has also worked with Scuderia Ferrari HP and TGR Haas.
She now serves as an on-air analyst for F1’s world broadcast feed, and said the depth of data behind Strategy Insight closely mirrors what she had access to while working directly for a team on the pit wall.
The tool is designed to surface a decision-making process that changes constantly throughout a race, rather than presenting strategy as a single fixed plan.
“Teams are constantly assessing and changing strategy,” Buscombe said.
“That Strategy Insight plugin, we hope, is a way to be able to bring that story to the forefront, to give the viewers at home a clearer window into the decision-making process.”
The Strategy Insight plugin, we hope, is a way to be able to bring that story to the forefront, to give the viewers at home a clearer window into the decision-making process.
Ruth Buscombe
Strategy Insight debuts at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix – where AWS is the title partner and is a race Buscombe said was chosen deliberately as an ideal test case for the technology.
“If you wait too late on the two-stop, you lose. You go too early and it’s a one-stop, you lose,” she explained.
“Teams typically need to commit to a two-stop strategy by around lap 20 of 70, a decision window Buscombe said usually closes even earlier in practice.
“Teams have got 15 laps to work that out, and we are going to bring that story live at home. So you don’t have to wait to see what teams are doing. We’re going to show you the story as it evolves.”
