Formula One F1 - Sao Paulo Grand Prix - Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, Sao Paulo, Brazil - November 3, 2024 Red Bull's Max Verstappen in action during the race REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) - When Max Verstappen goes to Las Vegas chasing a fourth successive Formula One title, he will be racing around a floodlit track his Red Bull team have simulated some eight billion times already.
The Saturday night race on a street circuit that runs along the Nevada City's famed Strip is on Nov. 23, and a win would clinch the championship for Verstappen with two rounds remaining.
"We run four billion simulations before we arrive at the track," Jack Harington, Red Bull's partnerships group lead who works with software giant and title sponsor Oracle, told Reuters.
"And then we take the data from FP1 and FP2 (first and second practice) and introduce those into the simulations and run those four billion again."
Billion, he emphasised, not million -- although not many guesses are needed on who will win the title this year, given Verstappen is 62 points clear of McLaren's Lando Norris.
"There's always that saying that you have to sometimes just stick your hand out to see if it's raining in the pitlane but there's always variables that are going to catch you by surprise," said Harington.
"The more simulations you run, the more things you see and the more chance you will have of being able to react to them efficiently."
Red Bull use Oracle's cloud infrastructure to run the simulations to hone strategy and be prepared for every eventuality.
Red Bull are also building their own engine for 2026 and Oracle's senior director of product management Taylor Newill said high-performance computing was playing a big role in development simulation there too.
Race simulations are run through the year but particularly when there is a major decision coming up, such as when might be the best to take an engine penalty -- as Verstappen did last weekend in Brazil when he raced from 17th to first.
That wet race was further complicated by crashes, red flags and safety cars.
Red Bull's strategy was risky, Verstappen staying out during a safety car period after McLaren title rival Lando Norris had pitted, but paid off when worsening conditions led to the race being halted.
"For the more detailed planning of the in-event strategy, we will start around two weeks in advance," said Red Bull's senior race strategy engineer Stephen Knowles.
"The preliminary simulations sweep a wide range of possible outcomes in terms of tyre and car performance, plus a wide range of potential incidents and timing thereof.
"This allows us to plan our weekend, and particularly tyre usage ahead of time, with the goal of scoring the highest number of points possible but with enough contingency in place to cope with the unexpected."
Harington said using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) also had cost and sustainability benefits with teams operating under a strict cost cap.
"We can switch on the cloud ahead of a race weekend... run these huge amounts of simulations, turn off the cloud and then switch it on again when we need to do it again," he explained.
"Whereas before we had to invest in physical stuff to be able to run these, so it's much more cost efficient for us as well. Every race-winning strategy call we've made since 2021 has been made on OCI."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)
