Why the reality of F1 engineering debriefs isn't what Drive to Survive makes out

Oh to be a fly on a wall in a setting as secretive as the Formula 1 paddock. Right now, perched behind a table in the computer-filled room constructed above the two Haas team trucks that form the race-weekend tyre store, GP Racing is finding out.

First practice for the British Grand Prix has just finished. Every F1 team is now holding the same meeting. One of 10 per weekend
which are critical to the outcome of each race and their seasons overall.

The debrief. Racing engineering heaven. Or hell if things haven’t gone to plan for Haas and team principal Guenther Steiner decides he needs to interject an expletive or 10. Otherwise, here it is Ayao Komatsu’s show.

Haas’s director of engineering sits at the head of the table in front of us alongside Steiner. Lining the table’s left side from their viewpoint are Mark Slade – formerly race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen at McLaren and Lotus – and Kevin Magnussen. On the opposite side is Gary Gannon and Nico Hulkenberg. Gannon guided Romain Grosjean and Mick Schumacher at Haas, while Hulkenberg was engineered by Slade when they both worked at Renault. Three more engineers line the table’s long sides, with two tyre technicians opposite Komatsu and Steiner at the far end and, behind them, a TV screen displaying the pit garage CCTV feed.

We’re just behind, trying to blend into the background, praying we don’t have to sneeze…

“OK, Nico, please,” says Komatsu.

And we’re away, Hulkenberg explaining exactly how his VF-23 has been performing around each of Silverstone’s 18 turns. We’ve had a preview of his feelings having listened in to Haas’s radio chatter from its pitbox during FP1. But this is another level of detail.

Hulkenberg gives intricate details as to exactly how his VF-23 has been performing around Silverstone

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Hulkenberg is specific on every corner – explaining how the wind, as ever blustering across Silverstone’s former airfield setting, is impacting the car and his feeling through each steering wheel stab. There’s work to do, as Hulkenberg reckons “the whole car just doesn’t feel in a happy place”.

As Magnussen pores over his laptop – each driver and engineer can see all their timing data and car telemetry traces, helping to pinpoint every moment of every lap – Gannon follows Hulkenberg with what he was seeing appearing in car number 27’s data and suggestions for changing its aerodynamic profile. The team will take this ever lower at Silverstone – to shed drag and try to reduce the wind buffeting.

After this, Komatsu invites four other engineers to offer their thoughts, but only a report on the various temperature sensors aboard “red car” (Hulkenberg's, Magnussen is coded “green”) is required now.

"The debrief is very important. And sometimes you sit there and say, ‘I didn’t learn anything’. But you have to have it consistent, that the drivers say what they feel" Guenther Steiner

Then the whole thing repeats, with Magnussen and Slade giving their FP1 feedback. It’s Hulkenberg’s turn to descend into his laptop screen while listening on. Following this, the whole engineering team is given a report on the wind speed and direction for various corners and how that impacts the yaw angles on each car.

“That’s good data,” announces Komatsu.

Now it’s tyre temperature feedback – the readouts specific for each run and the track conditions, plus the state the rubber is in once it had been removed from each car. Finally, team manager Peter Crolla provides his notes on how the practice pitstops have been conducted.

That’s just 10 minutes, over and out. We descend the twisting stairs and return to
the Silverstone paddock with Haas media attaché Jess Borrell, to whom we must thank for our special invitation. Our mind is suitably blown at the sheer scale of the data and the accompanying details. These F1 teams, they are just so good. No one even mentioned Haas had propped up the timesheets in FP1. It’s just the beginning after all.

Hulkenberg reckons “the whole car just doesn’t feel in a happy place”

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“The debrief is very important,” Steiner will tell us later in the weekend. “And sometimes you sit there and say, ‘I didn’t learn anything’. But you have to have it consistent, that the drivers say what they feel.”

It’s little wonder debriefs are “identical” at each F1 team, according to Hulkenberg. He would know – he’s raced for half the grid now. The practice must be so each time to dig down into what matters for making a car faster or more stable. And this has been the same format for a generation, since the drivers were “more involved technically because sometimes they came more from a background where they themselves had to work on the car”, per Steiner. This year, Haas is also urgently trying to solve its excessive race tyre wear when running in traffic, plus address that sensitivity to wind changes.

Qualifying day

We head back to the Haas trucks after the soaking third practice session on Saturday. We start to suspect our incognito cover has somewhat been blown when Steiner arrives a moment afterwards and fixes us with a piercing, almost demonic stare while asking: “I hope you’re learning something?!” We nod our affirmative.

Here Hulkenberg and Magnussen give their thoughts on just the handful of laps of dry running before the rain arrived. Having listened in, Komatsu notes “Nico has got exactly the same comments” regarding Magnussen’s thoughts on rear stability out of Brooklands, Luffield and through Club’s multi-apexes – “we need to look at that with the aero guys, [to see] how much yesterday’s conditions were really killing us”. But he’s pleased Magnussen is now happier with his car feeling after he’s been switched to the set-up Hulkenberg had tried on Friday.

When required next, the race engineers explain how their car aero balances change moving from dry to wet conditions. Again, things are short and precise. The feedback order mirrors post-FP1 and will do so in each debrief still to come.

Just an hour later, Haas reconvenes for a rapid two-minute pre-qualifying strategy briefing. It’s lacking a certain cut-off time for the Q1 and Q2 segments because of how the order can vary in drying conditions here, since the track is still drying from its FP3 dousing.

Magnussen gives his thoughts on just the handful of laps of dry running before the rain arrived

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Komatsu declares they will therefore “fuel for the whole session” in Q1 and decide “just before the session” on the best tyres. With no more rain predicted, it will be up to the drivers to dictate any compound or tyre warm-up changes for the critical late Q1 runs.

“We’ll adjust accordingly and take it from there – simple,” concludes Komatsu, recalling the previous wet-to-dry sprint shootout qualifying in Austria, where Hulkenberg had ended up an impressive fourth in the mixed conditions.

Qualifying goes differently for both drivers, with Magnussen left stranded on track in Q1 and so qualifying last, while Hulkenberg misses Q3 by just 0.1s in 11th.

"I just go into stare mode. I have the timing stuff in front of me and the race traces sometimes help to remember where I was at a certain point and what I want to bring across" Nico Hulkenberg

Komatsu starts off the post-qualifying debrief apologising to Magnussen – “I don’t know what to say, it should never happen obviously” – before Hulkenberg feeds back on his “straightforward quali”. Magnussen was still “really happy with the balance” on his two timed laps and, although he didn’t run for as long, he again has feedback on his VF-23’s performance in each corner. Even the competitive sessions are really chances to test in modern Formula 1.

After this, the reason for Magnussen’s stoppage is explained as a drop in oil pressure, which opened the clutch and shut off his engine. An oil leak was subsequently found in the Haas garage and the team has already decided to fit a different engine to car #20 for the rest of the weekend.

Once again, we leave to reflect on what we’ve seen and heard. It’s striking just how calm the whole thing is. There is absolutely no fuss. Having watched George Russell tear into Williams in such a setting in Drive to Survive season two, the contrast with the cool detachedness of Hulkenberg and Magnussen is stark.

They, in turn, have rather different manners of delivering feedback. Each time he speaks, Hulkenberg monologues directly into his laptop. Magnussen instead turns right and directs his comments to Komatsu and Steiner, with accompanying hand gestures.

Magnussen was still “really happy with the balance” on his two timed laps despite trouble in qualifying

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“I just go into stare mode,” explains Hulkenberg. “I have the timing stuff in front of me and the race traces sometimes help to remember where I was at a certain point and what I want to bring across.”

Steiner, however, has
a different theory: “One is German and one is a free spirit!”

Steiner has seen Haas through its initial F1 entry era, then the occasional Magnussen/Grosjean war, on into 2021’s double-rookie season, Schumacher’s many crashes last year and now the apparent calmness while running two seasoned pros. He can therefore compare how all that impacts these most crucial moments of information gathering.

“The biggest difference that I’ve seen,” Steiner explains, “is rookies basically give you a summary of the test programme. But it’s normal and you cannot blame them.

“I haven’t heard anybody getting heated with his team-mate in a debrief in a long time. Because they know there are too many people watching. And they don’t want to put their guard down. [And show] that they get upset. That doesn’t happen anymore. In the old days that happened. And now it’s more like Ayao or me getting aggravated if somebody says something stupid.”

There’s one more day to go. The most important for any team: race day.

A tale of two races

Ahead of the British GP, Magnussen and Hulkenberg are informed of final adjustments the team will make to its aero balance choices via front flap and steering wheel setting changes – based on the data Haas has logged across the weekend and the dry race temperatures. Then it is differential, brake balance settings, fuel levels (adjusted for the expectation of running in traffic, with associated slipstream and DRS effects) and engine modes outlined, before the specific start procedure instructions.

Grand Prix Editor Alex Kalinauckas goes behind the scenes with Haas' engineering team

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Crolla provides an update on receiving track limits violations “much quicker than we did last week” in the Austrian GP farce, and explains the movements of the fictional APXGP team, should either driver wonder why Brad Pitt and Damson Idris are present for the national anthem. Finally, the tyre strategy, complete with ‘Safety Car windows’, is outlined again: Hulkenberg set to run a hard-medium
one-stopper, with Magnussen doing the reverse.

Then it’s into 52 laps of action, where Magnussen completes just over half of that scrapping at the rear of the field before another engine problem ends his race. Hulkenberg tangles with Sergio Perez early on and damages his front wing but fights back to finish 13th.

For one final time we head back to the Haas trucks, knowing we’ve been well and truly exposed when Hulkenberg fist bumps us on the way in (he’ll also shuffle past our chair to dispose of a banana skin later, insisting politely we stay put). Magnussen, having completed his media duties much earlier, is already at his laptop alongside Slade.

Magnussen admits he “messed up” at the start and “got caught out with the short time that you have as the last car” – not managing to select the required ‘Mode RS’ engine setting for the launch and so “obviously had a terrible start because of that – but that’s my bad”

Steiner arrives and gestures in commiseration to Magnussen. Last up is Komatsu, who kicks off this final meeting, by far the longest, with another apology to the Dane. Then it’s the drivers going through their races, starting with how the car behaved on their reconnoitring laps to the grid. Hulkenberg regrets starting on the hard tyres since this led to much high-speed understeer, before getting into “the Perez situation” and how difficult the Haas becomes to control when battling another car.

Komatsu notes the “broken record” of comments matching those from previous races – his exasperation not with the driver but the car-handling situation Haas has grappled with through the first half of the season. He also says, “if we had a normal car, there’s no chance we’d be starting on the hards”, but the team had had to guard against its tyre wear issue.

Magnussen admits he “messed up” at the start and “got caught out with the short time that you have as the last car” – not managing to select the required ‘Mode RS’ engine setting for the launch and so “obviously had a terrible start because of that – but that’s my bad”. Balance-wise, he felt things were fine after he’d got going, before reporting an odd sensation of his tyre grip levels improving once he’d been able to get their temperatures under control, at the expense of his pace.

Before the final comments come in from around the room, Hulkenberg interjects to report “one thing I forgot to say – again I look like I work, and I think Kevin too, in a coal mine” regarding excess brake dust.

“With all that coming out,” he adds, “we’ll have more brain damage than we already have!”

Team Principal Guenther Steiner says "two or three times a year I speak in the debriefs, not more"

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

For the first time all weekend, we hear Steiner speak up on this issue.

“Normally, two or three times a year I speak in the debriefs, not more,” he later explains. “I apologised to them, that they have to breathe the dust. And guess what? On the [post-Silverstone Pirelli test two days later completed by Hulkenberg and reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi] test, it was fixed.”

Having heard detailed analysis on Hulkenberg’s damage-related downforce loss and a slow pitstop report from Crolla, Komatsu finally invites technical director Simone Resta to explain planned updates that might assist with the problems the drivers are reporting. Floor and front-wing reviews are to be the focus ahead of the summer break.

“Thank you,” Komatsu concludes. “Thanks for putting up with it. I think the programme is 100% clear – no denial about it – we just need to be focused on those two areas. Tyre management and wind sensitivity. Otherwise, it will be the same again. We need to find solutions…”

“Regroup, go again,” agrees Hulkenberg.

 We place our all-black headset back on the table between the tyre engineers and head for the stairs and our final exit. No one else leaves. Ice creams might’ve been distributed by Haas’s hospitality staff, but there’s still so much work to be done. That feedback needs to become reality.

This is F1. It never stops.

The computer-filled room is constructed above the two Haas team trucks that form the race-weekend tyre store

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images