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Straker like a – small-scale – cross between Mission Control and a City dealing floor. A meeting table ran down the other side of the truck, surrounded by a curved bench.
    ‘Let me introduce you to Oliver Treadwell, Ptarmigan’s Strategy Director, who’ll run through what’s going on,’ Backhouse said. Treadwell was in his thirties, slightly shorter than Straker’s six two, and had a mop of blond hair. Straker moved forward to shake hands.
    ‘For the race on Sunday, we have the prat perch – our command centre – on the pit wall,’ said the Strategy Director in a noticeable Australian burr. ‘But this set-up, in here, is our eyes and ears on the track and pit lane in the build-up to the race. We collect all the data and information we need to decide our drivers’ race strategy – the number of pit stops, what kind of tyres to use, and when.’
    Straker’s eyes ran over the array of screens. CCTV pictures from the Ptarmigan cars were displayed, along with various digital channels from the sport’s commercial rights holder.
    ‘These guys here,’ Treadwell indicated, bracketing them with outstretched arms, ‘are watching all the telemetry from both our cars on these screens. We can measure, remotely via on-board sensors, upwards of two hundred and fifty aspects of the car – temperature, pressures, loading, etc. – and all this real-time data can be called up instantly via our touch-screen menu system.’
    ‘So who’s that?’ asked Straker, pointing to a face shown on a video conferencing screen with whom one of the team was clearly conversing.
    ‘That’s the factory back at Shenington, in Oxfordshire. All the data we collect is simultaneously fired back there and fed into asimulator. We then extrapolate all the discernable trends on the cars while they’re racing to see what effects they could have. Those findings, too, help us adjust our strategies and, hopefully, afford us better reliability and performance.’
    Treadwell used his arms again. ‘These two guys are monitoring the weather. Rain’s our biggest concern, although we’re hopefully looking okay this weekend. Even so, atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed all have a huge influence on the workings of the cars. So, we monitor the weather closely and adjust our set-up accordingly.
    ‘And here,’ said Treadwell walking further down the row of consoles to the far end, ‘is our Intel headquarters. All the teams keep an eye on what the other teams are up to. These guys are trying to work out the strategies – number of pit stops – the other teams will adopt for the race, while over here,’ he said pointing with splayed fingers at a bank of recorders, ‘we aim to collect every bit of VT footage of all the other cars and their crews – filmed by ourselves or captured from the official broadcaster, whether external or on-board. We then collate, scrutinize and analyse everything we can. Assessments will be made of any unexpected components – or actions by drivers or crews – that we notice, any of which might give away an innovation they might have made. We also record the engine noise of every car for analysis, and listen for anything unusual. And then, when we do come across something interesting, we brief our director of the relevant aspect – engines, gearbox, brakes, fuel, tyres, aerodynamics, pit crew, strategy – showing them what we’ve found.’
    ‘All very sportsmanlike.’
    ‘Yeah!’ said Treadwell with an exaggerated tone of Australian. ‘Everyone does it, though, so I guess it’s a level playing field.’
    ‘Anything interesting come up recently?’
    ‘Kind of. We think Massarella’s diffuser is non-compliant. We’ve written to them about it this morning – and are waiting to hear back.’
     
    T hat evening Straker was invited by Quartano to join the Ptarmigan Team in hosting Dr Chen of Mandarin Telecom at a gala dinner held in the Casino in Monte-Carlo. Although not officially connected