Why F1 risks giving fans a data overload

Formula 1 thrives on data. A car will not leave the garage without a host of sensors monitoring everything it is doing - with all that information rapidly fired back in real time to factories that can be thousands of miles away.

Whether it is car speeds, tyre temperatures, oil pressures, G-forces or even driver heart rate, during the course of a season trillions of pieces of information are transmitted around the world in the hope that a magic detail can help transform performance.

And even when the cars are not running themselves, F1 teams will have super computers rapidly processing strategies and set-ups in a bid to make sure that the next time the pitlane is open, no time is wasted in maximising the performance potential.

The expansion of data in F1 has been rampant in recent years. Back in 2010, an F1 team was using 5000 data logger channels to monitor car performance. That number had doubled to 10,000 within two years.

Then, for the start of the turbo hybrid era, thanks to the increasingly complex power unit elements, teams were using 30,000 data channels. Fast forward to the present time and teams are now talking about more than 50,000 channels being in operation.

Much of this data has previously been left in the domain of the teams or F1 chiefs themselves - and it ultimately brought little obvious benefit for fans.

The more a team can perfect its car set-up, and the better it can be at finding the best strategy and the best way the manage the tyres, then the less chance there is of unexpected events that throw up surprises in races.

The number of race simulations that teams run through is a prime example of how unexpected events are being wiped out.

Ten years ago teams were running about 100,000 different simulations ahead of a race to give them an idea of what the right approach was going to be.

That number had jumped to 200,000 in 2012, before there was a massive escalation for '13 - as technology advanced and teams started running through 800,000 race sims.

The acceleration has been intense since, with teams now running just under two million simulations. That should pretty much cover all eventualities.

We must never forget that it is jeopardy that really makes for great sporting spectacle. Lob in difficult to handle cars on a tricky track surface with unpredictable tyres and some random events like reliability dramas, safety cars or rain, and things get very much spiced up.

In the meantime, if you can't beat them, you have to join them: and F1 chiefs have made the move to bring more data to fans

Earlier this week, I spoke to Carlos Sainz Jr about the data dilemma - and whether F1 should continue to embrace its expansive use or try to cut back to make things more random and put the onus back on the drivers.

"It's one of the things that I have a battle with inside my mind because in a way you want F1 to be at the top of technology and of data, to be pioneers in areas like we are," he replied.

"There's no car like Formula 1 nowadays with these hybrid cars and the fastest ever cars in history, which nobody talks about that much - which disappoints me a bit.

"But in a way, you would like to see more of the pure part of the sport, which is the human side. I think there's a balance there to find and we probably haven't found 100% of the balance yet."

F1 has long debated the need to balance out the desire for unpredictable racing through less data, while listening to the wants of teams that insist that such streams are there for safety reasons - and argue that the championship should be at the forefront of technology anyway.

Attempts to ban the influence of teams making use of data - like through pit-to-car radio messages - have always hit a brick wall in being fully implemented. Suggestions about banning telemetry altogether have never found support among teams, who argue that the cars are too complex these days to run without it.

For 2021 there has been talk of preventing teams from using their factory 'Mission Controls', but it remains to be seen whether or not that falls by the wayside as teams kick back.

In the meantime, if you can't beat them, you have to join them: and F1 chiefs have made the move to bring more data to fans.

Recently, F1's managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn revealed that next year the championship will use artificial intelligence to help power some new data graphics, which will include those on tyre performance, an overtaking predictor and a pitstop strategy element.

On the face of it, such a move is a great win for fans. Getting hold of data that has previously been unavailable for TV viewers - like the tyre temperatures of a rival car - is a brilliant bonus.

It offers tremendous scope for an added layer of understanding of what teams and drivers are up to, and will give potential for those that want to dig deeper - like understanding characteristic difference between two drivers or two cars.

But on the flip side, there could be some unintended consequences - primarily coming from the data doing too good a job.

One of the fundamental attractions of live sport is that its outcome is unpredictable. That stands for whether it is a final battle between two heavyweights, or the possibility of a minnow coming out on top.

In F1's case, if we got to a scenario where all the data crunching has been done and the computers are safely predicting the top six from the races, then does that not take away much of the reason for tuning in?

In the days of qualifying with race fuel loads, where there was not full disclosure of what levels different drivers were running on Saturdays, that lack of information raised the levels of intrigue and served to heighten excitement.

If we know for sure that Lewis Hamilton's rear tyres have been overheating massively in practice, and he has no chance of keeping them alive in the race after qualifying behind a Ferrari front row, what would be the reason to believe he could transform things on Sunday and offer a proper fight?

If we see Sebastian Vettel closing in on Lewis Hamilton and are told he has zero change of getting past, does that rob us of interest to keep paying attention?

Sometimes too much information can be a bad thing when it comes to entertainment. Murder mystery books don't give you the answers on who committed the crime at the beginning - nor percentage data for who is the most likely candidate. It all plays out in the readers' head until the final page.

It will be intriguing to see how the overtaking predictor works too. If in football, the moment a player grabbed the ball and headed to goal, you were told that there was a 100% change he would score, would that make you more or less inclined to keep watching?

If we see Sebastian Vettel closing in on Hamilton and are told he has zero chance of getting past, does that rob us of interest to keep paying attention?

Which direction the increased fan data takes us is hard to predict right now. But the only certainty is that it is right F1 experiments with such innovations - and right too that if there are some negative elements that come up, then it should not be afraid to change course.

As Sainz said: "If Liberty or F1 is doing that, it's because they feel it's going to help the fans to understand the sport, maybe the younger generation that are not so engaged with Formula 1 as they were some time ago. We will see.

"The FIA, Liberty and everyone is testing at the moment. Everyone's trying to get directions to see where Formula 1 is going, and I don't see a bad thing to test. Maybe it turns out to be a good thing, maybe it turns out to be a bad thing.

"I'm not against testing things to make the racing a bit more simple to the guys at home because I tell you, my grandfather doesn't understand a thing that happens in Formula 1 right now because the racing is too complex."