today in the chronicles of women in motorsport...

Just listened to ruth buscome's pitstop podcast episode (amazing btw!) and i didnt know she was head of strategy for seb's first ferrari win. This is what she wrote on instagram when he retired❤️😢

The comments on Charles's ice cream post...

Recommend this episode of the PitStop podcast with Ruth Buscombe who was head of race strategy at Alpha Romeo and has worked for Ferrari and Haas. Really interesting behind the scenes stories. And yes okay she also says nice things about Charles but it’s a great listen for many reasons.

“The first time he sent me an email I printed it out because it was one of the greatest moments of my life.” - on receiving an email from Ross Brawn

highlights from ruth buscombe's podcast interview (or, views from a strategist baddie on the track)

listened to the ruth buscombe - the former ferrari, haas and sauber strategist - pitstop podcast over lunch and intended to make only a few notes, but she’s so sharp and funny that i ended up scribbling loads. anyway, enjoy:

ruth’s on gardening leave atm (hasn’t said where she’s going yet. peep the quadrant hoodie tho...). they have long gardening leave because strategists and engineers have so much proprietary info on the cars, they’re usually allowed at least a year to wait it out so they don’t (in theory) bring the intel with them

ruth worked with the FIA to build and simulate where the DRS zones should be because DRS used to be a free for all across the whole track. crazy to imagine huh

on planning for a race vs being reactive: if other teams make a “wrong” strategy in a race or something unexpected like change their number of pitstops, you’d have to be fluid in responding to that or it fucks your race too. she used daniel in shanghai (?) one year as an example

ruth was with seb for his first ferrari win!! legend. there were a number of personnel changes when he arrived and then she was “left holding the strategy baby [for that race] and i was like — okay!” lol. “this was after 2014 a winless season and you don’t want that because you bring shame upon the whole of italy”. aksjsksks.

kinda wild tho. ruth called for the two stop in sepang that resulted in seb’s race win and was 25 when this happened. making the calls like that is so impressive

on vegas: the maths of poker is the same as the maths of strategy (what!!!!! incredible)

she worked with charles and says he’s a very genuine guy, and very talented obviously

they ask her about the lewis ferrari signing and she drops the lore that lewis had actually been in talks with them ages ago, before the merc era. “maybe this [urge] has always been there”.

she was a DIEHARD mclaren fan and went to the ferrari job interview as practice but ended up saying yes to ferrari 💀💀 “ferrari carbed and ice creamed their way to my heart. and they showed me the factory bits you don’t normally see” she’s so real. “i went to ferrari for the interview and then mclaren. like the old grey mclaren not the cool one now. people thought something was wrong with me cus i grew up loving mclaren and then i was going to work at ferrari” AHHAHAKSKSKKSKS

kind of hilariously, she gets motion sickness from watching and monitoring the sim side of the engineering, which is kinda why she switched to the strategy side. the switch happened after one of the races with nando and massa, she proposed unsealing a gearbox on one of the cars, a legal thing, and it got the team a good result so that was history

she thinks max will win based on pace advantage this year cus of the braking evolution this year

2026 is gonna be a huge change in the reg cus of the power unit

all the sacrifice is for race day because it’s such a punishing career travel and time-wise. “if you do not see pressure as a privilege this is probably not the job for you”

on diversity: there’s a study from before liberty media’s takeover that said “the average f1 fan is a 53 year old white male blue collar worker who lived in coventry”. and now there’s a much wider range of fans. and also directly references lewis’s mission 44 as helping to broaden reach.

“drivers are like children. you cannot say who’s your favourite child otherwise you cause like, years of therapy. even if you like one child better than the other you should never say” HELP HAHAH

she troubleshooted a (sauber?) race during one of her first races, there was nothing was loading on the pit wall screens. she’s furiously checking the backend. lights out and they had no numbers. then “the lord sent me an aborted start”. turns out it was a timezone setting issue in the computers. crazy stuff. they ended up going from the back to p6 (!!)

on joining the career ladder as a strategist: there is no strategy school so it’s about learning skills you need to do the job. e.g. doing a maths or computing degree etc. she did the formula student challenge when they build a f1 car

random but: “the first time ross brawn sent me an email i printed it out. best. day. of my life.” 😂

on strategy calls and being able to adapt for different tracks: “as a strategist you do not want to be a one trick pony. you want like. a whole field of ponies”

(the end. loved her perspective. hope we get more in the future!! the whole thing is 100% worth listening to if you have the time.)

RUTH IS LEAVING???!?!??

Inspiring The Next Generation | FIA Girls On Track

also apologies to the queen ruth buscombe who is one of my absolute fav women on the paddock for having both alpha romeos in the top 10 coz wtf noone was expecting that

every so often i think about sebastian vettel going from the most hated driver -by the fans- to a driver who got such a massive goodbye, unseen to any other driver retirement in the modern era. the thousands of dedications from thousands of different media, the journalists speaking of his kindness, the mechanics talking about his dedication and his love to the sport, the teams talking about the end of the year gifts he'd made for all of them, without fault, otmar szafnauer and the bread seb made for him the first time they met. people like ruth buscombe who spoke about him in the highest terms (my f1 bradley cooper!), fernando alonso that was arguably the one with the most rights to feel wronged by seb (won everything in the years he was trying to win with ferrari) dedicated an entire helmet to him, pierre gasly, charles leclerc and carlos sainz spoke about him leaving such a mark in their personal careers even when they weren't in f1, pierre and the extremely long talk on the phone, carlos and his mark in milton keynes, charles and the letter for his simulator work in 2017, the shirts for their little track run in abu dhabi, the speeches and the memorabilia red bull and ferrari gave him, lewis hamilton refusing to accept he's leaving, talking about seb making him feel a little less lonely in f1, the way most fans keep bringing seb sings to suzuka and singapore, the excitement whenever he does the smallest thing that may indicate a return to f1. i think no other driver has been so loved in their farewell as seb was, i don't think any other driver will be as missed as he is.

Ruth buscombe who comments on each post of charles and even those of her brother. I say it's not for nothing

thats an interesting thing i also noticed! she left her job as a strategist (head of race strategy) at alfa romeo/sauber last season, so everyone speculated fred could have offered her a position at ferrari.

as we have noticed, there's a trend of fred quietly replacing his team with people he personally trusts more so she'd fit the pattern as they both worked at sauber during charles' rookie year.

she did not specify her next career move yet so it's definitely interesting to follow the ferrari rumours and see if she got a job there.

also charles and her were seen in las vegas together:

Ruth Buscombe (the Alfa Romeo/Sauber Head of Race Strategy) is leaving the team

If you needed a clearer read of the situation, here’s Lewis Hamilton’s ex head mechanic, and partner of the current F1 tv strategy expert and previous sauber strategy lead (Ruth buscombe) calling it brake testing

keep getting pitstop’s instagram reels w ruth buscombe explaining 2010s strategy choices… save me madam. madam save me

say more about this casino situation…..

@supercollide jul girl ur up to bat, over to u lmaooo

my contribution to casino!gax au lore: max learned to count cards from a young age. grew up with his dad, dad was a deeply unscrupulous guy. put into scary situations too young etc. was not obviously good at school but smarter than most of the kids in his class. definitely ran some sort of trading cards cartel on the school yard by the time he was twelve. he has a surprising amount of knowledge about indycar strategy because, as strategist ruth buscombe says, race startegy usually shares the same fundamentals as poker. he is a millionaire but drives a beat up honda civic because he thinks it’s funny. his favourite drink is whatever the person next to him is buying because he gets a kick out of doing something out of pure chance and seeing what happens.

meanwhile george went to a state college for mathematics with a minor in security and defense. he got headhunted by several defense industry companies but decided to go into casino security cus he actually fancied being able to tell people what he does, and he likes the people side of it (read: dealing with weird personalities cus he is one too). george’s favourite game outside of casinos is monopoly because he likes to keep friendships but also come close to ruining them only in the confines of the game. the first time he sees max try to be shifty at one of his tables he experiences a huge rush because this is the one all his industry folks talk about. this is the guy. the legend of the circuits who doesn’t stay longer than two months at any known location. the guy who is known by a code name but is somehow never photographed or seen: the golden lion.

now, the lion is in his den. and george, despite the teasing he gets and the bullshit he puts up with, is a hunter.

that’s all i got chief.

Rupert seems like a very well-loved guy around the paddock. Apart from the immediate people around carlos who wished him well under caco’s post you also had Ruth Buscombe (Alfa’s race engineer), Ben Thorne and Tom Clark (the alpine drivers’ coaches), Natalie Pinkham (the presenter), and Albert Farega (content presenter on motorsport accounts)

The Beeb have Ruth Buscombe I am just winning this weekend