| Year | Premier | Reason this premiership gets an asterisk |
|---|---|---|
| 1897 | Essendon | didn't even have a Grand Final |
| 1898 | Fitzroy | general clusterfuck |
| 1899 | Fitzroy | too much rain |
| 1900 | Melbourne | Melbourne winning the flag from 6th so bullshit they changed the final system in response |
| 1901 | Essendon | umpiring error gives Essendon the semi-final 'win' - should have been Fitzroy in the GF |
| 1902 | Collingwood | season tainted by Essendon's 'Goodthur' controversy |
| 1903 | Collingwood | Collingwood's captain was called "Lardie" that's not even a real name |
| 1904 | Fitzroy | Crapp umpiring |
| 1905 | Fitzroy | MCG too wet and soft |
| 1906 | Carlton | fake Grand Final, was just the prelim in disguise |
| 1907 | Carlton | fake Grand Final, was just the prelim in disguise again - also illicit Geelong pre-season affair with the VFA's Richmond clearly taints the whole season |
| 1908 | Carlton | Essendon clearly psychologically scarred by vicious Fitzroy riots |
| 1909 | South Melbourne | Argus system 'challenge match' is kinda bullshit |
| 1910 | Collingwood | season tainted by Carlton bribery scandal |
| 1911 | Essendon | season tainted by player expenses shenanigans |
| 1912 | Essendon | rules tinkering: players have to be branded with numbers on their backs so that fascist 'Stewards' can report them - I mean what is this, the Napoleonic occupation of Iberia??? |
| 1913 | Fitzroy | silly finals system allows Fitzroy to play St Kilda again in the GF after losing to them in the prelim |
| 1914 | Carlton | Jamieson illegally in the back of Bollard, South robbed, #justice4bollard |
| 1915 | Carlton | comp too imba after University pulls out |
| 1916 | Fitzroy | wrong for spooners to also be premiers |
| 1917 | Collingwood | season compromised by WW1 |
| 1918 | South Melbourne | Carlton too distracted by the Allies thumping the Kaiser to perform well |
| 1919 | Collingwood | season clearly unbalanced by the winless Melbourne having their first professional season (ie. with paid players) eight years after the rest of the comp |
| 1920 | Richmond | a player debuts in the Grand Final for Richmond and plays a key part in the result? that's too implausible to be true |
| 1921 | Richmond | Richmond's season tainted by ball-stabbing incident in R7 |
| 1922 | Fitzroy | season tainted by Richmond fans death-threating an umpire into retirement |
| 1923 | Essendon | Grand Final played on Caulfield Cup day? that's not even close to September |
| 1924 | Essendon | nonsense round-robin finals system that was immediately scrapped |
| 1925 | Geelong | compromised draw with the three expansion teams |
| 1926 | Melbourne | Collingwood into the GF without winning any finals - a contrived win for Melbourne |
| 1927 | Collingwood | GF the lowest-scoring match in 20th or 21st centuries, not good enough to count as a real GF |
| 1928 | Collingwood | Pies players under a bribery cloud |
| 1929 | Collingwood | Pies hoarding all the goals and premiership points actually the cause of the Great Depression? #wakeupsheeple |
| 1930 | Collingwood | Geelong defeats Collingwood in the Preliminary Final but the Pies get to go again because the Argus system is a joke |
| 1931 | Geelong | R6 was played in two halves, either side of R7 and R8? you can't count 1931! how do we know who even really won? |
| 1932 | Richmond | uh... Melbourne playing three games for premiership points at the Motordrome and losing all three clearly tainted the season in ways we can't fully appreciate |
| 1933 | South Melbourne | Bloods deviously importing so many players from WA they should be called the "Swans" |
| 1934 | Richmond | I mean technically Richmond kicked more goals on the day but that's no match for Bob Pratt's 150 goals in the season |
| 1935 | Collingwood | Bob Pratt taken out by a brick truck the Thursday before the GF and you can't prove it wasn't a Collingwood player driving the truck |
| 1936 | Collingwood | Gordon Coventry rubbed out for 8 weeks and missed finals but clearly he was just a fall guy and they should have suspended the whole team |
| 1937 | Geelong | Sellwood? Hawking? Abbott? if the Cats were going to time travel modern champions back to take the cup at least they should have come up with better fake names |
| 1938 | Carlton | MCG 12,000 over capacity? some people actually watched the game from on the grass inside the fence? well that's just unsafe |
| 1939 | Melbourne | rules tinkering: VFL trying to get holding the ball called more often - now you can't just drop the ball when tackled! |
| 1940 | Melbourne | if you don't think St Kilda winning the Patriotic Premiership was the real premiership that year then you might as well go kiss A-dolf Hitler's boot |
| 1941 | Melbourne | season compromised by WW2 |
| 1942 | Essendon | season compromised by WW2 |
| 1943 | Richmond | season compromised by WW2 |
| edit: Methuen's suggestion - Jack Broadstock shouldn't have been on the field: went AWOL in order to play and was arrested by military police before Jack Dyer intervened | ||
| 1944 | Fitzroy | season still compromised by WW2 (no MCG) |
| 1945 | Carlton | Bloodbath |
| 1946 | Essendon | some of the Bombers' record 11 third-quarter goals have to be fake, it's statistics |
| 1947 | Carlton | season clearly should have been called off in shame after the Big V went down to WA in Tasmania of all places |
| 1948 | Melbourne | clearly the season should have ended on the drawn Grand Final, 69 to 69 |
| 1949 | Essendon | Coleman kicks his 100th goal for the season in the concluding minutes of the GF - a story stolen directly from Jack Titus in 1940, you have to ask what else was faked about Essendon allegedly 'winning' this premiership #fakenewsflag |
| 1950 | Essendon | Essendon's captain was the biggest Dick ever to play Aussie rules |
| 1951 | Geelong | Coleman set up by Caspar |
| 1952 | Geelong | season tainted by weather so wet and muddy they had to introduce white balls mid-season |
| 1953 | Collingwood | Cats' full-forward caught having an affair and forced out of the team, they then lose the GF and you can't prove it wasn't a Collingwood player in disguise sent to seduce him |
| 1954 | Footscray | season tainted by Fitzroy betting scandal |
| 1955 | Melbourne | Melbourne's kamikaze tactics |
| 1956 | Melbourne | season compromised by accommodations for the Olympics |
| 1957 | Melbourne | allowing everyone to compete for the night series clearly tainted the real finals somehow |
| 1958 | Collingwood | MCG bias |
| 1959 | Melbourne | uh-oh, Essendon implementing a special high performance training regime, sounds suss |
| 1960 | Melbourne | Melbourne shouldn't have been able to play a Grand Final with no opponent, that's clearly unfair |
| 1961 | Hawthorn | just the expansion teams playing, doesn't really count |
| 1962 | Essendon | medical shenanigans |
| 1963 | Geelong | whole of round 11 postponed due to weather, season obviously invalid after that |
| 1964 | Melbourne | Fitzroy clearly should have won the premiership: their lay down misère (zero wins, #1 worst offence and #1 worst defence) was clearly the highest bid |
| 1965 | Essendon | crowd support drove the Dons to the prelim win and a GF berth after a brutal attack off the ball on one of their players but was it a false flag operation????? |
| 1966 | St Kilda | timekeeper was a big St Kilda fan you say? oh sure, we can toootally trust that the siren was correctly sounded in this close fought St Kilda game |
| edit: showmanic also suggests St Kilda kicking the ball out of bounds deliberately (legal until 1969) to use up time at the end of the match | ||
| 1967 | Richmond | competition clearly unbalanced by players wanting to play for the Galahs rather than compete for the premiership |
| 1968 | Carlton | too windy |
| 1969 | Richmond | VFL tinkering with the dang rulebook again to try to boost scoring: now you get a free kick if the opposition kicks it out of bounds on the full?? |
| 1970 | Carlton | Syd Jackson probably should have missed the game through suspension |
| 1971 | Hawthorn | R21 Fitzroy v Carlton played in zero-visibility fog clearly a sign of interference by ghosts, season should have been abandoned |
| 1972 | Carlton | too many goals |
| 1973 | Richmond | take your pick of option 1, cheap hits and punches take out three Carlton players or option 2, Francis Bourke and Royce Hart not supposed to be playing but played anyway |
| 1974 | Richmond | Tiges tainted by R7 brawl at Windy Hill |
| 1975 | North Melbourne | season ruined by pointless rules tinkering: bizarre, wacky centre 'square' introduced to replace sturdy, traditional centre diamond |
| 1976 | Hawthorn | pre-equalisation era resource disparity: Hawthorn had a complete monopoly on former captains tragically about to die from cancer at too young of an age as a source of motivation, North Melbourne forced to rely on just wanting to win the premiership |
| 1977 | North Melbourne | rare second-ever drawn GF clearly contrived for the advantage of the first TV broadcast |
| 1978 | Hawthorn | political interference: North Melbourne supporters clearly too exhausted from booing Malcolm Fraser in R20 to effectively encourage the team to victory |
| 1979 | Carlton | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6orWbfMkWDI&t=8s |
| 1980 | Richmond | bottom of the ladder Fitzroy had more points for than top of the ladder Geelong? clearly a fake season |
| 1981 | Carlton | Garry Sidebottom misses the bus |
| 1982 | Carlton | Carlton illicitly obtains special powers from Helen D'Amico |
| 1983 | Hawthorn | Morwood/Foschini transfer clusterfuck making a mockery of VFL transfer rules - plus the Big V goes down to both SA and WA, just call off the season already |
| 1984 | Essendon | season destabilised by breakaway competition rumours |
| 1985 | Essendon | season tainted by biff: Lethal breaks Neville Bruns' jaw, John Bourke for the Pies reserves gets suspended for 10 years and 16 matches |
| 1986 | Hawthorn | illegal Tasmanian bank account |
| 1987 | Carlton | compromised draw with the new expansion teams |
| 1988 | Hawthorn | compromised draw with the new expansion teams |
| 1989 | Hawthorn | illegal Tasmanian bank account |
| 1990 | Collingwood | replay of drawn Pies v Eagles QF pushes back whole finals schedule, disadvantging Essendon |
| 1991 | Hawthorn | take your pick of option 1, you can't play a legitimate GF at Waverley or option 2, match tainted by Bound for Glory |
| 1992 | West Coast | Vic teams get their zones taken away and a foreigner team wins as a result #AntiVicBias |
| 1993 | Essendon | Baby Bombers bust their way through the salary cap |
| 1994 | West Coast | rules tinkering: arbitrarily changing the length of quarters from 25 to 20 minutes |
| 1995 | Carlton | Diesel Williams the recipient of not only payments outside the salary cap but also one of the first ever racial vilification charges |
| 1996 | North Melbourne | West Coast forced to play 'home' semi final at the MCG |
| 1997 | Adelaide | psychological warfare: Port Adelaide entering the comp and blasting innocent ears with their terrible club song - Crows unfairly advantaged by being already partly immune to Port bullshit - alternatively steroids in the AFL |
| 1998 | Adelaide | Crows somehow allowed to win flag from 5th on the ladder edit: and while losing their first final, just like Carlton the next year |
| 1999 | North Melbourne | finals system is so shit that Carlton finishes 6th, loses first final, yet progresses to semi-finals where they play West Coast who are once again forced to 'host' a semi at the MCG - Blues make it to the GF where they're rolled by Norf |
| 2000 | Essendon | season compromised by accommodations for the Olympics (and retrospectively, Lions' intravenous saline scandal and Carlton's salary cap breaches) |
| 2001 | Brisbane Lions | Lions' intravenous saline scandal (and retrospectively, Carlton's salary cap breaches) |
| 2002 | Brisbane Lions | six games not involving Carlton forcibly moved to Princes Park after Carlton moves games to Docklands - meanwhile Carlton wins the spoon and then has their salary cap cheating exposed, fuck 2002 Carlton basically - also Adelaide forced to 'host' a semi-final at the MCG |
| 2003 | Brisbane Lions | all the non-Vic teams made finals #AntiVicBias |
| 2004 | Port Adelaide | Brisbane forced to 'host' home prelim at the MCG - also because Port's win triggers insufferable debates about whether to count SANFL Port's flags |
| edit: lbguitarist's suggestion - St Kilda's PF momentum ruined by ground invasion after the G Train's 100th | ||
| 2005 | Sydney | Barry Hall escaping suspension after the prelim |
| 2006 | West Coast | druuuuugs |
| 2007 | Geelong | 1) Cats commit murder in broad daylight and get away with it, 2) disgraceful Melbourne v Carlton spoonbowl with priority draft pick at stake, 3) 'Guttergate' |
| 2008 | Hawthorn | morally bankrupt Hawthorn triple team Fev to stop him also getting to 100 goals |
| 2009 | Geelong | take your pick of option 1, season tainted by Melbourne's tanking or option 2, Hawkins hitting the post |
| 2010 | Collingwood | St Kilda robbed in broad daylight and the police did nothing about it |
| edit: NitroXYZ's suggestion - St Kilda robbed of momentum by replaying the GF the following week rather than playing extra time, replay replaced with extra time from 2016 season onwards | ||
| 2011 | Geelong | tainted by Meatloaf and the lavish Gold Coast concessions |
| 2012 | Sydney | season tainted by Essendon doping regime and the lavish GWS concessions |
| 2013 | Hawthorn | season tainted by revelation of Essendon doping regime |
| 2014 | Hawthorn | Brendon Bolton coaches Hawks to five wins from five games while Clarko out with Guillain–Barré syndrome yet nobody tests Bolton to see if he's some kind of cyborg or superman (though clearly swapped back for the real human version to go coach Carlton) |
| 2015 | Hawthorn | treatment of Adam Goodes puts a stain on the whole comp |
| 2016 | Western Bulldogs | umpiring so biased the AFL had to apologise for it |
| 2017 | Richmond | THEY'RE WEARING THE WRONG JUMPER |
| edit: NitroXYZ's suggestion - Cats forced to play 'home' QF at their opponent's home ground; veryparticularskills' suggestion - Cotch dodges suspension after PF | ||
| 2018 | West Coast | Sheed played on |
| edit: PyrrhicNicholas' suggestion - Maynard was blocked | ||
| 2019 | Richmond | Gilstapo intimidation |
| 2020 | ? | pandemic-affected season |
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Dear Randy, I would like to ask what is your opinion concerning driver's influence on development of the car. And are there any big differences between the driver's feedbacks? Which driver was the best one you have been working with during those 5 years, concerning the feedback? Thanks in advance for your answer. | Driver feedback has a big influence on the development of the car, after all, if the driver can't exploit upgrades/developments/the car then you won't see any laptime gains - nobody else is in the car and so this feedback is vital. However, it is part of a multitude of tools, experience, analysis, etc. that we have, so you can't underestimate the other contributors to development also. |
| All of the drivers I have worked with have been quite different in terms of their feedback, I don't think I can pick a best one as they all have great qualities, Fernando seemed to instantly know what was wrong/where to improve, Lando is very open and easy to talk to, etc. | |
| Hi Randy!! I wanted to ask you how hard is predict the degradation and overall performance of this generation Pirelli tyres. Also, are you excited for the new rules? I was also wondering how international the McLaren team really is in terms of staff. Thank you!!! | I would say it's not super difficult in the current generation of tyres to predict degradation and overall performance - this is done by our tyre experts and the strategy team together. Things change, however, through the weekend and sometimes you have to be very much into the empirical data to spot shifts in behaviour because of this. |
| I am excited for the new rules - change keeps us on our toes and presents opportunities. Even though I thought single-shot qualifying was a bad idea before we implemented it, it presented an opportunity to really adapt your strategy in qualifying to take advantage - as an example of these opportunities. | |
| The team is really quite international, thinking about the people I work with on a regular basis, most are from the UK, but they also include Italian, Japanese, French, Spanish and German as nationalities. | |
| Can we get McLaren's Tooned back? Next year with Lando and Dan Ric would be fun! | I've already asked a few times. I love Tooned! |
| Very broad question, but what are your thoughts on simracing and how seriously some team/people take it? | I think simracing is a great thing, especially with the relative ease of access (cost and location issues) compared to typical motorsport. There is some mounting evidence of a correlation between simracing and physical racing talent as well. |
| I'm impressed by how seriously some people take it and how good they are - I think it can also be quite addictive - there's a guy in our team Oli who plays pretty much all the time, we think by next week he'll be able to complete a full lap of one of the easier circuits. | |
| Is AI (by which I mean applied neural networks) making inroads into how strategy calls are made in F1? It seems like it could be super useful for analysing how and when the tyres are going to degrade. | It is. I am a strong proponent of machine learning and artificial intelligence and we are getting some good benefits in this area. I can't say more. |
| How often do you pick a strategy that is not the fastest (by the models), but is counter to the other team(s) that you are trying to beat that race? | If you are referring to the "free air" quickest strategy - i.e. if I was racing alone, how many pitstops should I do and what tyre sequence should I use then we will almost always not use that strategy. |
| That strategy would be quickest if you have no other interactions with other cars, which is rare for any car in an F1 race - as you have interactions from battling/overtakes, lapping, etc. but it is not the best strategy (and potentially not the quickest) when interactions with other cars are present. | |
| Depending on the types of interactions there will be a force that acts on the "baseline" strategy mentioned above, the propensity to drop into traffic, for example, may push a stop lap later to avoid getting stuck or battling, etc. But all of these will need to be weighed up to come up with an "optimum" strategy. | |
| Ok, so one thing bothered me for a while now. In many races we see sudden safety cars or double yellows. More often than not, the commentators turn this into a "everyone has to decide real quickly what to do now" situation. Do you really decide just then whether or not to pit a car? If yes, why? I imagine you could easily run multiple real-time simulations that tell you at every given moment with a high precision whether pitting is beneficial or not. Is that not possible or is it just the commentators playing up the situation? | Really both things are correct. We try and simulate and analyse what to do in the future, even as humans, every second of the race we'll be thinking what we would do if there were a safety car, probing each other in the strategy team to test our strategies and so on, so in a way we are trying to be prepared before the safety car is deployed, if it is. |
| However, safety cars can be quite disruptive, depending on who has crashed or what has caused it, etc. your simulations and prior analysis may no longer be useful because the race state has changed too much. In this case you operate from first principles and (hopefully) a deep understanding of the key factors in the race that would sway decisions one way or another. | |
| Safety car decisions are also very game theoretic which can make things more difficult as you typically won't know your competitors' decisions until some time after the safety car is deployed, reducing your time down even further. | |
| Hey Randy! I am a big F1 fan and am very interested in what is one thing you hate about being F1? Could be anything just curious since I am not planning to do anything related with F1 (want to become a coder) but want to know something you dislike about being/doing/involved in F1. Also I know that you already answered something like this but are you going to miss the Carlos/Lando memelord group? Also what are you expecting Riccardo to bring in the meme side. I like to focus on the silly things about F1 hehe. | I think the one thing I do dislike about F1 is that more people can't be involved in it. I'm so fortunate to work with our young, extremely talented and proactive graduates, intern students and placement students but my role means I am also responsible for turning away swathes of talent as we have such a limited number of roles. |
| It's not fair that we are turning away people who are far more talented and would have far more positive impact than, for example, myself and it can be quite upsetting. However, as the sport continues to grow and prosper I'm sure there will be many more opportunities coming up. | |
| I will miss the Carlos/Lando pairing just as I miss the Stoffel/Fernando pairing and many of the others. I have been fortunate enough to work with some extremely talented and friendly drivers so in a way you miss every one and every pairing. On the other hand I'm sure it will be just as great, in a different way with Ricciardo - I'm looking forward to some bonza Aussie slang and pulling out the "Chopper does the weather" video each year! | |
| hello. as a 16 year old student doing a levels what would u say helped u the most in terms of getting to the position u are in now? im intestered very much in working in f1 when i grow up and im looking to do mechanical engineering in uni. thank you | I would say that Maths, Further Maths and Physics helped and will help the most - especially in preparing you for engineering at university also. |
| If you have other subjects to choose as well, then I can also put in a word for doing what you enjoy as well as what you 'need'. | |
| the below is a reply to the above | |
| Thanks for replying. Would you mind telling me what uni you went to aswell? Loads of choices to pick from and im unsure | I went to the University of Oxford. There's a very large mix of colleges and universities represented here and thinking about recent graduate hires we have talented people from UCL, University of Bath, University of Southampton, Cambridge University, University of Newcastle and many more. |
| Are there any members of the traveling team that have a business / not engineer background? Would love to work in F1, but being an economist does not help. Right? | Being an economist is not common and I don't know of anyone who is travelling who is an economist by background. But for reference I did Engineering, Economics & Management with a fair amount of Economics and Econometrics. It's not impossible, but as long as you're smart, motivated and can pick up the engineering knowledge you have a shot. |
| Hi Randy, many thanks for taking the time to answer questions. I’ve snuck two questions into my post. How many people would typically work on strategy within an F1 team and would many of these be based in Brackley during race weekends? Are there any roles in your strategy team that are targeted at or suited to actuaries / risk modellers / mathematical modellers/ statisticians rather than engineers? | Around 3 to 6 would typical for a strategy team and normally teams will have 1 of the team trackside, the rest back at HQ. For clarity, none of our strategists should be working at Brackley (Mercedes) - if they are we will be having some difficult conversations! |
| I would say that strategy does lend itself to those backgrounds (I'm a part qualified actuary - I rejoined F1 before I finished my last few exams), as much as it does to engineering backgrounds (or maths, or stats, or physics, etc. etc.). | |
| Just wanted to say I really appreciate you answering so many questions. What race of the (original) 2020 calendar did you most look forward to? And what is your approach when determining a strategy for a new F1 track, such as Zandvoort? | Both Vietnam and Netherlands GPs were very much up there, because of being new to the calendar. This always adds some extra challenge and can lead to more mixed performances compared to the baseline pace of each cadriver. |
| You tend to rely a lot on Friday data where you are more pressured than usual to learn as much as you possibly can as you've not run their before. There's also a fair amount of prediction and forecasting before you ever leave (as you have to pick tyres, etc.) and a lot more scenario analysis than normal (and there's a lot normally too). Most teams will have the tracks in their simulators and offline simulations weeks, if not months before the actual event as well. | |
| What exactly does a CS do in F1? Asking for a friend | I think many roles could be applicable, but most teams will have fairly substantial Software Engineering departments, as well as lots of modelling and computation activities in Vehicle Science and CFD - all of these may be quite well suited. |
| Hi Randy. Are there routes to get into motorsport and F1 without the usual maths/engineering route; asking as someone who loves the though of F1 but was shit at DT and intends to study politics? | Based on some of the stories I had read before working in F1 it had seemed that a degree in politics may have been the way of surviving the 'Piranha Club' - however, that is not the case, thankfully. |
| It will depend on the kind of role, without gaining engineering knowledge or scientific knowledge you'd struggle to work in the core technical or operational areas but we have a finance department, planning department, HR department, etc. and there may be roles in those other areas that are more suitable. | |
| I’m currently at uni studying Mech Eng to hopefully work in F1 some day, and applied for a summer placement at McLaren this year. Of course that’s been cancelled now, and I’m gutted, but am still hoping to be doing an undergraduate placement year in the 21/22 academic year. Ideally, a summer placement this summer would have been a way for me to get my foot in the door and add some much needed experience to my CV, but what would be your advice now, to make myself as appealing a candidate as possible in the decreasing amount of time I have until the application? | Try and find something else, that you enjoy and that is relevant if possible - go fix up an old car, do some formula student, learn a programming language, etc. |
| Nobody is as gutted as me that Covid is meaning we won't get to work with some very talented summer interns this year. | |
| Hi, I'll go right to the point, I'm from Colombia and finishing my last year of Mechanical Engineer, I've worked as a Mechanic for 2 years and understand quite good vehicle dynamics, I'm good in mathematics and I like to code on python and Matlab, and I keep improving my English. Do you think I have an opportunity as an intern in any racing team? Data analytics, vehicle dynamics something, I just want to get in haha, cheers. | Don't rule yourself out. Many of us never thought we'd get our dream jobs in F1, many of us never thought we were smart or able enough and many of us probably feel like that even once we're in - especially for me, seeing all of the young talent applying for jobs each year. Perseverance is key - you're doing the right things. |
| "No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda | |
| Hi Randy, thanks for the AMA! When do the drivers get the last word for a chosen strategy? Is it only in the race, is it before too, given they know the tracks? How the strategy team work alongside all the valuable input from the guys behind the wheels, so you could as a team be always certain about a given strategy? How much drivers and strategists disagree about something? Best of luck in July, I will be rooting for you guys. EDIT: Grammar. | Nearly always the strategy is decided by the strategy team, I can't really remember occasions where the driver or someone else has chosen the strategy. That doesn't mean that the drivers don't have input, before the weekend when we nominate tyres, during the weekend with feedback and during the race over the radio - but we let the experts in each area make decisions and so the strategy is driven by the strategy team. |
| There are sometimes disagreements, for example, we may think a 1 stop strategy is possible and the driver may think its not, like with all things we'll discuss it rationally and then decide what to do. Sometimes the driver is correct and the 1 stop is too slow to make it work and sometimes we are correct and the 1 stop is the right choice. We try and have the right expertise, skill and feedback coming into the strategy group such that we are correct most of the time (otherwise what is the point of having a strategy group). | |
| Thank you! | |
| This is probably way too late. Do you require a chemist/physicist, my credentials includes but not limited to growing up on Bruce McLaren road. How do you handle inter Strategy-team disputes when/if there is a split between differing choices of strategies. What would you consider to be your go to technique to settle these/bring the team back together after maybe choosing a strategy that it becomes quite clear later on that it was not the optimal choice? | Well done on having parents who chose to live on Bruce McLaren road - they're welcome to get in touch 😀 . |
| I'm assuming you mean disputes inside the strategy team at McLaren (intra? My Ancient Greek is a bit rusty.)? | |
| I think we are fortunate to have very few disputes whatsoever (thinking about any kind of disagreement) - the team atmosphere is really great and we are all just quite honest with each other and open - if one of the team tells me that I made a mistake, or could have done something better then that's probably some of the most useful/trusted feedback I will ever get to get better. It's kind of a nice feeling knowing that you have to do everything really well, because some of the best people in your field work with you and will call you up if not - so you are constantly improving. | |
| Sometimes we will disagree on stuff, there's a lot of data but a lot of things become subjective, as its a case of weighting some factors over other and the weightings can't always be determined. We may disagree sometimes on (mostly non-strategy) stuff and tend to just work out which underlying assumptions/beliefs/knowledge are different and align if we need to. | |
| I think strategically we have very few disagreements - I can't really remember any. If one of the guys told me something could be better, I'd go away and try and work out how to improve it/avoid making the same mistake/ask them to help me fix or improve it, etc. so any disagreements we do have don't really linger. | |
| Thanks for doing this AMA! Since most F1 teams are based in and around the UK, how often do teams hire Canadians/Americans for intern level or full-time engineering roles? P.S I am currently a Canadian software engineering student in Montreal working towards a career in F1 someday. | I would say it's fairly rare, but I think a lot of that will be based on volume of applications, we get a lot and from memory they are largely non-US/Canadian. |
| For some internships and placements we require the right to work in the UK which may also be more difficult for Americans/Canadians to achieve - unfortunately this is because we are quite limited in what we can do in this space. | |
| For other roles, including full-time roles it shouldn't be a detriment to your application - especially not if you are able to address it as well in your cover letter. | |
| F1 never stops, obviously, but are there any cities or circuits that you especially enjoy visiting because of the facilities or culture, rather than the racing? | In terms of cities, it's so hard to pick just one, we are fortunate enough to travel to some amazing places. |
| I have to say that Melbourne (Australia), Suzuka (Japan) and Austin (United States) have to definitely be up there though! But there are so many others that are up there too. | |
| Is Hamilton really that good or is it the car? Would he be as good if he was in, say, a McLaren? | I think the evidence stacks up to say that Hamilton really is that good. I imagine he would be as able in a McLaren, but we have to admit that our car isn't yet as quick as his car - but don't worry we're working on it and going in the right direction! |
| How many have strategies are developed for every race? | We will easily simulate millions of races, if not billions of races for each race. Unfortunately the number of permutations of races possible far exceeds this number, so we have to employ some smart methods to make each simulation more useful than it would be if we just tried to simulate everything. |
| [deleted] | Thank you for the concern - but although I'm giving my own views this is being done in conjunction with our Marketing and Communications teams - so there is no risk of me being fired (for this). |
| I have heard the radios from Sainz at Brazil 2019 and i know he didn't pit during the SC because he didn't have a delta behind, but i still don't understand one thing about the strategy followed that race. My question is, what led you to put Lando on the hards and Carlos on the mediums? Were you aiming to do a 2-stopper with Carlos originally and changed your mind after the Safety Car "shortened" the race? Or did you believe he was better and keeping the tyres alive? | There are reasons, but I'm afraid these lips have to be sealed on this one. |
| Is there like a kill switch for the car that the team can use to shut off the car | Yes there is, you may hear race engineers telling their drivers to go from "P2 to P1 or P0" and that is effectively what is happening (turning the car off). This procedure is drilled into every driver and race engineer as its very important for safety too. |
| We can't turn it off remotely as we're not allowed to communicate from the pits to the car (otherwise we'd probably be making all kinds of changes all the time). | |
| How many Gigs of data are generated after a race? Does it vary a lot per race? (provided no failure of some sort) | It can vary but we're roughly talking between 100 and 200 gigabytes of car data, and lots of other types of data such that its probably 1 to 2 terabytes of total data per weekend. |
| How faster cars could go if they had track specific gear ratios like they used to have? | With the current generation of cars and powerunits - it's not a huge amount (I can't give numbers). Locking down ratios was and is a great cost-saving measure with little noticeable impact for fans or spectators. |
| Having worked with the likes of Jenson and Fernando, how much did their feedback work into your calls? Is jenson really brilliantly nice as he comes across? | Jenson was my favourite driver growing up, so it was a privilege to work with him - he's a really nice guy. |
| Their feedback is really important - often (and Jenson would attest to this) we would disagree on how many stops there would be but never would you not value the feedback or use it (even if you decided other things were more important). | |
| the below question has been split into four, enumerated | |
| Thank you for doing an AMA. I have a couple of question for you: 1. did Lando win the bet with the wallpaper | Thanks (but not sure we'll win the 2020 season - I hope we do). He did. This bet required no skill and only a lack of shame. |
| 2. Right now am applying for Mech. Eng. programs in SA (KAUST) US and UK and I hope to work in F1 or Formula E one day, do teams prefer degrees from one country to the other. | No, we don't prefer any country but for some roles there is a requirement to have the right to work in the UK. |
| 3. How many possible strategies do you come up with before the race weekend, do you have one for every grid possibility, temp, tyre setup etc. or is it more simpler? | Millions if not closer to billions. We simulate a lot of different variables including many that you mention. As the weekend progresses the set of permutations shrinks, as it does with each passing lap in the race. |
| 4. as Alonso's former strategist do you see him coming back to F1 for 2021 and to which team? I hope you can answer my questions, and win the 2020 season. | I'm not sure - I hope he does because a talent like his belongs in F1 and I hope he doesn't (I'd rather not race against him). |
| Hi Randy, thanks for taking the time to come on here. One of my biggest interests in the sport (aside from the racing) is the commercial side of it. Specifically sponsorships but also the negotiations behind them and just the general business of the sport. What college degrees would be most useful to enter the commercial side of a team, and how often would such positions open? What kind of positions would someone be aiming for to enter an entry level role? I'm about to enter college next year and need to finalise my course choices now, and am hoping for some insights on how to break into that world...thanks again! | I think anything focusing on the business side could be helpful (e.g. economics) but I think you also have some freedom to do something you enjoy. My impression is that relevant experience will be more useful than degree choice. |
| What was the biggest mistake you've done and what were you able to do to correct it? Or in other words how do you deal with mistakes during the race in order to get everything back in order? | I've made many, many mistakes and will make many, many more - but they don't tend to stand out as we hope that we make a mistake, learn from it, change processes and procedures and analysis and move on. I guess one of the biggest changes to how we worked came after Germany 2018, where we, like many teams, made the wrong choice for tyres in the changeable conditions - we learnt a lot from that event. I've experienced lots of poor luck and bad results from races, but I try and separate mistakes from what we can't control. |
| I think we're very good at not looking at 'sunk cost' now, once you've made a mistake, or something has gone wrong or against you, it doesn't really matter any more until after the event is over when you can analyse it and improve - there's no point expending any energy or thoughts on it in the race, you have to move on to the next thing and you shouldn't try and recover the mistake - it's happened, let it go and work out what to do from where you are. | |
| How hard it is to become an F1 engineestrategist? How much time you took to to become one? | I would say it's difficult to get "your foot in the door" and unfortunately things have gotten so much more competitive over time that it can really take a long, sustained effort to put yourself in a good position. |
| I ended up waiting a few years for the "dream job" offer in F1 after my placement and to be honest I thought I would never receive that offer. | |
| Perseverance is really important - it is so much more competitive to get in today than it was when I did - but that doesn't make it impossible. | |
| Did Lando keep the screensaver or did you get to keep your £250? | Lando has no shame (and may have forgotten how to change the screensaver) and won that particular bet. |
| Is there a limit set by the F.I.A. as to how many people can work for a Formula 1 team? And if so, what is the limit? | So there is no limit in terms of the total number of employees, although as the Financial Regulations come into force and we are subject to a budget cap there will be a natural "soft limit" from that. |
| We are currently limited to 60 operational personnel for nearly the entirety of the race weekend at the track - designed to stop teams spending too much money flying too many people all around the world. | |
| There must be so many people travelling from race to race - what's the atmosphere like around the paddock on the weekend for someone working it? Does it feel like an F1 'community' or do you all generally keep within your teams? | It does feel like an F1 community. People move around teams fairly frequently so I think most people will know someone or have worked with someone at the majority of other teams. You also get to know your counterparts fairly easily. |
| It's a great atmosphere, there's obviously an underlying feeling of competition and trying to beat your opponents, but there is also a mutual respect as well and most people are actually quite normal human beings (or very good likenesses at least) and quite fun to chat to. | |
| Hi, thanks for doing an AMA! Are there any roles in F1 for someone with a pure economics degree? EEM at Oxford would’ve been great but they stopped offering the degree a few years ago. Thanks | Yeah - what a shame about EEM being discontinued - I thought it was a great course! |
| There are suitable roles, most teams will have finance departments and areas that even cover financial planning, analysis and strategy. You would also be suitable for more typical roles if you were able to find a way to pick up the engineering side of things. | |
| Hey Randy! I've been reading through all these questions and answers, they're all awesome. I also might be a bit late, sorry. I'm 16 and have dreamt(literally) of being a f1 aerodynamicist when I grow up! I have a knack for physics and calculus. What kind of degree do I try to pursue/study? I am absolutely bewildered by the amount of information out there. Is mechanical engineering the right place to study fluid dynamics, or engineering science? Thank you in advance! P. S. I live in New Zealand | It can vary between general engineering, mechanical engineering, aerodynamics, aeronautics and so on. I would suggest you find something you enjoy and also interrogate the course content to see how applicable it may be to your career desires before committing. |
| What do you think about Lance stroll? Do you rate him as an F1 Driver? | Lance's race pace has been fairly strong this last year, he has been close to Perez in that respect and Perez is no slouch in races. |
| Lance's qualifying positions have made it hard for him to score more points - so that's an area that will clearly payback for him (in terms of points scored) if he can improve on it. | |
| Hi Randy, hope you’re doing well over lockdown! I’m currently in my second year of Automotive Engineering and would love to work in motorsport when I graduate (as many of us do). Firstly I wanted to ask whether you felt academic achievement, work experience or who you know in the industry is the most important part of getting a role in F1? And secondly, if you were an engineering student again now what would you do to stand out (especially for someone wanting to work in race strategy)? Really appreciate you doing an AMA by the way, and good luck when the season starts! | I would hope that knowing someone no longer has an impact on getting a role in F1 - I certainly feel that it shouldn't. |
| Both academic achievement and work experience can be useful - it's hard to rank them. Personally, I have always valued "intelligence" highly - but to me that includes things like book smarts, applied smarts, problem-solving, proactivity, etc. | |
| Thanks for the luck. | |
| Hello! I am currently working for Honda Performance Development where we develop and build the Indycar Honda engine. I got in through an internship from my community college and I have been tearing down and inspecting the engines when they come back to us. I am young and have only taken little math classes so far because I want to become an engineer one day and work in F1. I just don’t know what kind of engineering I should try to get into. I’d love to become one of the engineers who push our engines to the limit at the track. People have told me mechanical engineering can quite basic just designing parts while electrical engineers deal with stuff like engine mapping. What should I do and pursue? | Awesome - sounds like a fun job! |
| I don't think Mechanical Engineering will hold you back and at many colleges and universities you can specialise enough into the areas that are a little more related to Control Systems/Powerunits to help. I also don't think Electrical Engineering will hold you back either. | |
| From experience, most of our Control Systems engineers I have worked with have done either Mechanical or General Engineering, but not all have. | |
| I would pick what you enjoy and try and get some good and relevant experience and knowledge around that - for example, given you're already at HPD, can you offer to help out with some basic tasks in that area there? | |
| Hi Randy, I know you’re an engineer. I’ve applied for a job in Marketing at McLaren (and other teams) multiple times over the years, and had no success. I live in Australia but I have a dual Australian-British citizenship so I can live and work legally in the UK. I think my skills are strong enough to justify an interview, but I always seem to get rejected. Is there a bias towards hiring people already in the UK? Is being in Australia hurting my chances of scoring a job somewhere like McLaren even if I’m willing to move? | I'm sorry but I'm not sure - I know in engineering we are careful not to be biased, but we have to sometimes consider the right to work in the UK. Perhaps you could try reaching out to HR to find out if there is any feedback? |
| why Vettel spin | Find me a driver who hasn't. I've never worked with Vettel, but have a lot of respect for him. Driving these cars is not easy and I imagine that driving them 0.1% faster than the other excellent drivers you're competing against (because that's what a tenth of laptime comes down to) puts you even closer to the line between a truly quick lap and disaster. |
| PS: Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick? | |
| Thank vou for this AMA. I am a PhD Student in engineering Physics. I would like to know where did you start your career as an engineestrategist? As a motorsport enthusiast I would like to be part of a motorsport team. Do you have suggestions from where to start looking? | I think answered elsewhere in this thread, so I won't repeat the comment here. |
| Keep an eye on the McLaren careers website (and if you really want to work elsewhere - their websites too). | |
| Thanks for all the info in your pervious questions. Do many strategist or engineers work their way through F3 and F2 to get to F1? Is it common/possible for someone to start out in engineering in like suspension design and then transition into strategy? I’m a going into my 3rd as undergard as a ME, does McLaren offer opportunities to pay for grad school and work on the team? What is the difference between the strategists who travel and ones who don’t travel? Do you or other strategists contribute to the design of the next year’s car? Thanks if you get a chance to respond. It’s really thoughtful of you to do this, and I think it reflect very highly on McLaren that you’re doing this! I joined Formula Student in college during my first year and started doing data analysis for my team. Because of my time so far in Formula Student, I picked up following F1. It has been possibly one of the best decisions I’ve made. I’m highly interested into going into F1 now as either an engineer or a strategist. | Hi - thank you for the kind words. I've enjoyed answering these questions! And great that you've picked up a passion for F1. |
| In my experience, very few of the strategists I have worked with/invited to our team have been in F3 or F2 prior - that's not to say that that is a bad route and certainly I have met some very talented F3 and F2 engineers (including a strategist who has really impressed as well). | |
| The other route you mention, doing some other role at an F1 team and moving over is probably more frequent. We've generally tended to hire people we've worked with and there are plentiful volunteering/assisting opportunities to teammates in the F1 team. | |
| The Engineering Graduate Scheme (which I am biased about positively) is amazing in terms of talent (that's not bias, that's 100% honesty) and so we've actually taken most of our strategists from there as people finish their 2 year rotation period through the F1 business. I can not recommend the Engineering Graduate Scheme enough. | |
| Can you give a funny or interesting story that happened to you and McLaren (about strategy) on a race weekend last year? | No really funny "strategy" stories from this year - at my first race (Australia 2013) I did jump off the pitwall in front of the safety car at least 2 times causing an emergency stop though - and I did get sent on to the track when it was live later that year... |
| But an interesting story, after Germany I had a very long chat with Carlos in the airport. Initially he was happy with 5th, but we chatted and I explained how we could have got a podium (his first!) by making a different decision, because of how things played out, but that that would have been the wrong choice. It was a great conversation and I think Carlos came around to our way of thinking fairly quickly and sensibly. We sat there and said we just needed to carry on making decisions the right way and the podium would come, little did we know we wouldn't have to wait too long... | |
| hi randy quick question are there any legal related jobs in f1 in specific for lawyers | Yes, most teams will have (small) legal departments. |
| What are some of the biggest challenges with data visualization that you face? I imagine you have to sift through a lot of telemetry data quickly for your work. | I think some of the biggest problems are having too much data and being able to drill down to the important stuff quickly and making information presentable to those not familiar with the data so it is easy to comprehend the conclusions/summary/analysis. |
| Hi Randy, Could you explain what Ferrari were doing last year with their fuel flow sensor? And how teams found out? And how sure we are they were doing that? And do you expect other teams to have developed DAS? Thx mate. | I'm afraid I don't know what Ferrari were doing, if anything. Teams conduct a lot of competitor analysis so we do often spot things that others are doing or may be doing that way. |
| I don't, due to the ban and the complexity and time required to develop such a system but I don't know. | |
| Hi Randy. I couldn't find this specific question. So would you guys love to see less durable tires. Or more obliged pit stops so that there would be more tire strategies possible? | As a strategist, I would love to see less durable tyres than we currently have - but I also understand that drivers want tyres they can push harder on and for longer (to battle each other) and there are a myriad of other factors that Pirelli are also dealing with to produce the "perfect" tyre. |
| So yes, strategy-wise less durable and higher degradation tyres would, in my opinion, lead to better racing, but they could have negative effects on other things. | |
| I disagree heavily with constraints on strategy as I think they will make racing worse, so I disagree with obligated numbers of pitstops (I have just written another answer about that if you'd like more detail). | |
| For the more “business” roles, do you guys hire people with MBAs or are people with just undergraduate degrees hired as well? (Eg. business strategy for the team, supply chain etc) Do you have an approximate of how many challenges would someone from Canada would have to overcome to get a job? (Or how much better would they have to be than someone from the UK) | I think there are probably not many MBAs based on my knowledge but that does not mean its not a good asset to have and that it won't help you. |
| I think the right to work in the UK can be very helpful, otherwise it shouldn't help or hurt you. | |
| Evening Randy, I’m actually an undergraduate physicist. I had applied for the race team internship for this summer. I was very sad to hear that it was cancelled. I was really hoping to get a better understanding of how you guys model the tires and decided on optimal strategies and lap times to find the shortest race time. Do you know of anyone who releases tire data publicly that I could have a look at when I eventually get bored this summer? Also I saw that placement over summer as the first stepping stone for a career in formula 1. I’ll be graduating next year so won’t have an opportunity to reapply. Do you have any advice for someone in my position, looking to get into the data analysis side of formula one without much prior knowledge. Thank you for your time. | I'm so gutted that Covid has scuppered our plans this year, I get to manage the summer placements and it's a highlight of each year of work. |
| Pirelli do a great job of releasing tyre information each weekend to the press and on their website - I'd suggest you start there. | |
| Do all of your plans get tossed if unexpected rain comes? Do you make strategy plans for rain happening at say lap 10, a different plan for if lap 15, etc? And how does rain potential affect amount of fuel you'll carry, if at all? | We don't toss our plans. We do plan for wet and changeable races, as well as all kinds of other scenarios too. |
| Less fuel is used in the rain as you are going slower (and considerably so) but before you remove too much fuel you'll need to think about the certainty of rain during the race (when you decide hours before how much to fuel the car) and its intensity and duration... | |
| the below is a reply to the above | |
| Thanks for the reply, I know you've had a lot asked. If you don't mind me asking, what's the strangest weather pattern/geological event/etc you've ever made a "no real chance of happening, but just in case" plan for? | I think the typhoons in Japan are always pretty special to follow, there have also been heatwaves and occasionally snow/ice. |
The Bitcoin Aussie System is an innovative investment platform built on the incredible value fluctuation of Bitcoin. Using a proprietary algorithm that buys low and sells high, with a reported 99% ... This betting system is used by a Sydney professional that uses it along with his serious betting, it is one of those systems that may require some patience. It all depends on the number of race horses you are using. More free punting tips to come. The system. You only select horses that are resuming or have not won a race this preparation. Fractional Kelly betting The recommended Kelly criterion stake will be multiplied by this value. For standard Kelly betting, set the fractional Kelly betting value to 1.00. If you want to be more conservative than the Kelly criterion, enter a value less than 1 (e.g. input 0.5 if you want to wager 50% of the stake recommended by the Kelly ... Bitcoin Aussie System Review. The Bitcoin Aussie System scam app and fraudulent automated trading software by Jasper Boyle is an old get-rich-quick scheme which has been around since 2018 when it was originally launched. Originally our staff was alerted about this cloned website after receiving complaints from a few of our members. If you're new to Aussie rules betting, an outright market is the easiest way to get started. With this type of bet, the odds system is similar to the majority of UK sports, making it easy to adapt an existing betting strategy to suit Aussie rules betting. With an outright bet, you simply predict which team will win a game, league or tournament ...
[index] [45286] [15867] [5041] [41050] [2540] [14924] [54347] [58941] [17658] [61148]
This is a way of getting profit out of betting using arbitrage way with minimum risk. Live example method - showing how to profit in either way. ... Aussie Wealth Creation 799,154 views. 14:07 ... This software has 3 powerful ratings combined with an expert rating of every race.in Australia. Able to be quickly exported to excel. High strike rate and RO... Aussie Wealth Creation 785,733 views. 14:07. Tipico Systemwette Rechner ... [Round 2 - Low Limit] Easy Way Baccarat Betting System + $500 Session Roll, $10-$100 - Duration: 10:43. We come up with one specific system whose expected profit per season totals 5.45 units. Hence, if your average bet is $100 you can expect to earn $545 per year. The next video is starting stop. Loading... Watch Queue