[embrassingstuff]

Do u really feel an average/top driver can strategize during the race?

The race engineer has X10 data, X10 mental bandwidth, and X10 domain practice (that's his day job!)

There all these radio moments (Hamilton "how r we behind them?" after spinning out in Germany etc) .. which really makes it clear that the driver focus is very local (both spatially and temporally), as it should be!

[OriginalNebula]

Vettel called his pit stops in one of the last seasons and Schumacher was said to pull all the strings and that this was the reason for his success.

[actuator]

His racing antics and desire to win at any cost aside, Schumi was brilliant. There were way less real time metrics of pit stop strategies, more variables like refueling and less sensors in the car. He was a master strategist and now with each team having dedicated teams around data and strategy, I doubt we will see a complete driver like him.

[phreenet]

Calling your pit stops makes sense, sort of, for drivers. Top drivers like Vettel (well pre-Sbinalla Vettel) have a better "feel" for the tires and can gauge how they are doing. But this often times is risky and breaks down in races because the human brain, especially under the pressure of F1 racing, is not going to be tracking thousandths, hundredths, or even tenths of seconds off lap times over 4-5KM of traveled distance. You can hear frustration in engineers voices when trying to convince a top driver they need to get new tires after ignoring previous calls to "box" (come in for a pitstop).

[AmericanChopper]

Everybody has their off moments, but I’d say the top drivers strategize pretty heavily (even if your only counting pit strategy as strategy). Even then I’d say driver called pit strategies have about as much chance of working out as team strategies (which are mostly guess work). The only strategy the driver can’t really contribute to is the mechanical preservation strategy, because they can’t see nearly as well what the condition of their engine is. But even then, that strategy is the same all the time - make the engine and gearbox last the required number of races.