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The Technology Behind Formula 1 Racing
swandives writes "The Australian Grand Prix F1 event is being held in Melbourne this weekend (27-28 March) and Computerworld Australia has interviewed the technology teams for BMW Sauber, McLaren Racing, Red Bull Racing, and Renault about how they run their IT systems and how technology has changed the sport. Each car has about 100 sensors which capture data and send anywhere up to 20GB back to the pits during a race. The tech guys arrive a week before a race to set everything up — the kit for BMW Sauber weighs close to 3200 kilograms — and when it's all over, they pack it all up and move on to the next event. Good pics too."
Perhaps you should look up the definition of sport ... I'll help, heres one that matters:
1. (General Sporting Terms) an individual or group activity pursued for exercise or pleasure, often involving the testing of physical capabilities and taking the form of a competitive game such as football, tennis, etc.
If you think there is no physical side to race car driving then I encourage you to ride as a passenger for one F1 race (not that you could) ... I'd bet 2 months pay you couldn't stay conscious just being in the car for a race, let alone staying alert and driving. $50 says you couldn't sit in the car and deal with the heat alone for the length of time they do. $10 says you couldn't stand on the asphalt with the fire suit on for the 2 to 5 hour duration of a typical summer F1 in the US or Brazil or the like.
You post makes it clear that you have no clue whats involved in racing and think when you watch the Indy 500 on TV that its really as easy as it looks on camera.
Yes, high end racing such as NASCAR, F1 and IndyCar (amount other less popular ones) have a great dependency on technology. So does football even if you don't realize it cause its not as obvious. When you consider that several types of racing limit the technology to something from one vendor then the tech matters a whole shitload less. IndyCar for instance uses one engine manufacture and one chassis manufacture and one brand of tire (that may have changed this year, they haven't really figured out their plan yet). So it doesn't matter that they have outrageous technology cause everyone else has the EXACT same tech, once again putting the human perspective back into it. Indy does try a little harder than F1 to make the field more consistent where as F1 is more open and as such has more expensive cars, but you'll find far more varying technology in your local walmart parking lot than you will at any modern high end racing event short of maybe some LeMans events with multiple classes of cars in one race.
Where there are large sums of money involved there are going to be people trying to maximize their portion of those large sums of money however they can and technology is a good reliable starting point for that. Of course its far easier on slashdot to read some article and start proclaiming things like your an expert about something you really don't understand at all. Congrats, you got that part down perfect!
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I was amazed to read this entire article and not learn:
a) what do they do with the data they collect? I'd have loved to learn what sensor data is valuable for, and how it changes the dynamics of the race. (Who cares how many bits they ship if you have no idea if the bits are _useful_ bits?)
b) how much of an impact does this have on the race? Does this make a 1% difference in track times, 80%, something in the middle?
Anyone have a link to an article which explains _why_ they collect all this data?
I've always figured that if it doesn't require you to be in some semblance of decent physical shape, it's not really a sport.
I'm not sure I can think of a less physically demanding sport than formula 1.
Next time you want to sit in a tiny box at 40-50C, and continuously concentrate for 2 hours on something that requires reactions as fast as a human can manage, while undergoing upwards of 7 lateral Gs. *Then* you can tell us that formula 1 isn't physically demanding.
The average driver loses 2 stone (12 kilograms for those on the continent) during a single race, because the sport is so physical.