It was agreed today that three Formula 1 constructors will change their names.

Lotus Renault GP will cease to be Renault, and change to Lotus, because Renault don’t really like them any more. Conveniently, Team Lotus will switch from Lotus to Caterham – and probably change their team name too.

Marussia Virgin Racing meanwhile will go from Virgin to Marussia, to better represent where the money’s coming from. Which, inevitably, isn’t Richard Branston – he’s too clever for that.

Here comes the maths bit

As any mathematician will tell you, the order in which you do things matters very much – and changing Formula 1 team names is no exception. The FIA needs to take care in the order in applies the name changes, or we could end up in an awful mess. Let me needlessly elaborate at excruciating length.

Functions

To enact these name changes, the FIA could simply apply three functions to all thirteen constructors. Let’s define those functions:

Order

So if we nest those functions, we should have our new team names. Let’s see how that goes:

Oh no! Now we’ve got two bloody Caterhams. That’s not what anyone wanted. Let’s reverse the order:

That’s better.

Conclusion

So, FIA: please remember to apply g before f, or we’ll all end up in a right pickle. Alternatively, just change all three names at once. That might work too.