WELCOME to mission control – and that mission is to retain the F1 world title.
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F1 2021 calendar: practice times, dates and racetrack info
That all changes when he’s back in the garage and each time is reminded to ‘plug in’ his radio to keep it off the airwaves.
But that is also another area where Merc excels, with a network of transcribers typing up what other drivers say and the digital boffins are able to monitor what’s going on elsewhere, grabbing still images from real-time footage.
Dominique Riefstahl, who runs the RSR, says his role is keeping an eye on their cars, as well as their opponents.
He says: “I’m the first point of contact if there are any questions coming from the track, and making sure we get the right people involved for analysing, answering, finding the image that they’re looking for.
“As a simple example, at the start, the first thing we do is we already have the onboards of our cars but also the cars around us ready, and we’re watching them live.
“If something is to happen to us, it would be reviewed and we could see if there is contact or not.
“Then it might also be, did Max Verstappen go beyond track limits at a certain corner, or did we go beyond track limits?”
Outside of the RSR, there are yet more details of how much work goes on behind the scenes and away from the racetrack.
Riefstahl added: “We have support from systems, who are the guys running all the automation on the cars and there are guys running in the F1 simulator.”
The sheer scale of the operation is staggering and as I leave just after midnight, around 60 minutes after qualifying in Austin, the work is only just beginning in Brackley.
