Interesting article on Weather and Formula One by the BBC.

“Formula One drivers and their teams have to be prepared for any weather conditions, and adapt their race plan according to the weather forecast.

Formula One is one of those sports which relies a lot on the preparation and technical skill of the car, driver, and his support team. Decisions about what features to include on a car in a particular race can make a big difference to the end positions and how successful a team is.
The race will go ahead regardless of the weather conditions and drivers and their teams have to be prepared to plan ahead and adapt their race plan accordingly.

Varying conditions
The Formula One season sees races take place all over the World on a range of circuits – from Silverstone in Britain to Montreal in Canada, Kuala Lumpar in Malaysia, and Suzuka in Japan.
One race could be in scorching conditions and the next could be cold and wet and the teams have to be able to adapt, both for the warm-up on day one of the event, and even more importantly on race day itself.

Tyres
For the support teams it can be a bit of a guessing game before the race to decide which kind of tyres to put on the cars. If there’s rain around, wet tyres, which have grooves in them (similar to normal car tyres), are probably the best because they allow water to run off them.
Choosing the correct tyres to suit the weather conditions
They help avoid the risk of the car aquaplaning. These are different to dry tyres, which have four shallow grooves in them allowing for more contact with the tarmac and therefore enabling the car to go faster.

In dryer conditions, the race will be run a lot faster and more overtaking will be possible (depending on the circuit, of course). Choosing the wrong tyres can make a big difference on the race positions. For example, this season’s Grand Prix at Spa in Belgium saw really wet conditions at the start of the race, as the track dried up teams started to switch from wet to dry tyres. Race positions changed dramatically according to which lap the teams decided to enter the pit though. Driving just one extra lap on a dry surface with wet tyres, saw several cars fall behind.

Other problems associated with the wet
During the race, the wet weather is likely to have the biggest effect. If there’s water on the track it effects how the drivers race. As well as considering what tyres to use, the wet means the drivers have to use a lot more skill to handle the increasing demands the water can put on them.

In wetter weather, the speed the drivers go at will be reduced. It will, therefore have an effect on where they overtake and the distance they can make between themselves and the driver behind.

Wet weather on the track also means visibility will be dramatically reduced. Spray coming off the car in front will affect how far drivers can see. Not only will it have an impact on how well they can see the driver ahead, it will also reduce their ability to see the drivers behind, and this could be a disadvantage if they’re not expecting someone to be as close as they are. ”

More on the BBC.

Photo from autoblog.