Half way through the last lap of the Brazilian Grand prix I thought it was all over. Lewis Hamilton was sixth and there looked no way he would make the pass to get him the points needed to be World Champion. But Mclaren knew different because of the information they had. Their computers were telling them that Lewis was going to catch Timo Glock.

Modern Formula One teams rely on their information today. They take data from the weather man, the engine, the drivers, the tyres and the track temperatures and crunch that information to allow them to make the best decisions possible for their drivers.

They knew it was going to rain in the last few laps. They knew the temperatures would fall away in the tyres and they would lose all grip, and all the other data said bring Lewis in and get him on the right tyres while Glock’s team just took a gamble despite the information they had. It might have paid off another day but this time it went Lewis’ favour.

More and more sports are gathering as much information as they can and seeing ways they can make that information give them the edge. I was in reading in the summer of how at the start of training Lance Armstrong would have all sorts of tests to see what state of fitness and health his body was in. From those tests they would design his training program to get Lance from where he was to where he needed to be for the Tour de France.  As good as he was there is still so much science and raw information crunching behind it.

So can gathering information and analysing it give us the edge? Well for most businesses it can. In our own business every day we are learning the more we can gather and manage data on sales, marketing and projects then the better we can sell and more important the better we can deliver.

McLaren an Lewis Hamilton will work even harder next year to gain another world title. They will gather even more information and use it to squeeze every drop of performance out of the car. If we do the same then we can get the most out of our business, job or department.