Just what risks does Colin Kolles want to take?

By Huw Alban
May 9 2006

Forum contributor CRX asked a very simple question. "I wonder what he (Colin Kolles) means by 'take more risks', my guess goes to risk a bit more and push the engine to higher revs so that we can be faster on race. What do you think?" Well, we went away and asked the team directly.

CRX was referring to a quote from the team Managing Director in the post race press release published not long after the European Grand Prix finished.

Just to refresh everyones brains the full quote from Colin Kolles was:

"Both Tiago and Christijan drove consistently, but I think that as a team, we will need to take more risks with our race strategy. We appear to be reliable again and the speed is improving from race to race, so we're looking forward to continuing this trend in Barcelona."

Debate on the forum in answer to CRX's original question has been frequent and varied.

"Maybe he wants to do some stops worth 4 seconds, just change 2 tyres and run full (to the) brim", suggested Junkyjordan - Be Smashed.

"I think they will try a radical pit strategy - 1 or 4 stops," was put forward by Tfneva.

Go-jordan stuck his neck out. "What he means is taking risks instead of doing the same as everyone else. Jordan under Gary Anderson and Mike Gascoyne was great at doing risky strategies, like France 1999 and Brazil 2003.

"In all fairness to him he has a point and I think for a midfield team like MF1 it is worth the risk, especially if a safety car makes a regular appearance at a particular race, or a wet race."

The ever level headed MikeR was confused by Colin's statement but took a similar view to that of Go-jordan. "I read Kolles' remarks as simply saying that the team, having tried the conventional conservative route, perhaps needs to try some different thinking regarding race strategy.

"I see no real hidden agenda, given that the return of tyre changes and the change to V8's has left many teams struggling with their strategy. (e.g. McLaren). I think he is simply saying that after 4 or 5 races it is time to look at it again and make some changes that give the team a chance to gain on those ahead."

Biowierd went straight for the Toyota engine as to the real meaning behind Colin's words. "I think that he meant that the team will start to push more the engine. After this weekend it seems that the team is using the engine on eco mode during races in order to not gamble a 2 car finish, but that's not that important if you are not able to fight any other team (i.e. STR) !

"In Science we say that if there's many ways to interpret data, usually the simplest way is also the most fruitfull!"

This huge difference in views over what is a single sentence, prompted me to go and ask our team sources for more detail on exactly what Colin meant.

"Colin was referring to our pit stop strategy," we were told on Tuesday.

"He wants the engineers to stop being so reliant on their computer simulations and gamble a little bit. The simulations, obviously, do not take into account the various shunts, retirements and safety car periods that inevitably occur during a race. Therefore, if we are to take advantage of these unpredicatable situations, we're going to have to take some risks."

Looks like MikeR and Go-jordan were collectively right on the money with their interpretation of the statement. Nice one fellas!

Without actually asking, Bioweird's take on the subject also attracted an official response. If you ever needed proof that the team do read our forum then you've got it right here.

"As for tampering with the (engine) revs, that's a big no-no. We need Toyota's permission for that. Besides, their engineers are the ones who actually control it."

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