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."

Comments

Great! Now we can call it something else!

[h00manist]

I've always wanted to stop calling it a "sport". It's called a "car geek competition" now. -- I wonder how long will actual cars still be involved, and not just some 3D displays and simulations, due to danger, insurance or some other costs or whatever.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[Mindcontrolled]

For it to be the ultimate car geek competition to me, they'd have to lift the technical regulations. Anything goes on the technical level. Who cares for the drivers? Let the engineers fight it out!

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[zonky]

The technology is so intense in F1......

that they haven't even got around to producing HD TV feeds yet.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[zappepcs]

Why should technology not be in the sport of motor racing? It's technology that will push our passenger vehicles from 30-ish mpg to much more than that. Sure other vehicles can do more now, but lets take that ever popular SUV of USA. How do we get it making 75 mpg? Technology. The things that motor sports racing have done in the past have trickled down to passenger vehicles. If you want a damned flying car, it's going to need some technology! I say up with car geek competitions! Up in the air damnit!

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[amorsen]

Formula 1 racing requires physical fitness. I'm not sure whether that's particularly important for it being a sport, but anyway.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[timeOday]

That's one of the interesting things about technology-driven sports - there are no un-regulated competitions because they aren't competitive and aren't fun or interesting to watch. It becomes little more than a question of who has the deepest pockets.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[BitZtream]

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!

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[timeOday]

Say what you will about NASCAR and the NFL, because they're admittedly not true global sports - but the quality of the broadcasts is fantastic (picture quality, camera angles, closeups, slow-mo, high-tech infographic video overlays). I know there are purists who would rather see the broadcast be more like what you experience sitting in the stadium, but it's impressive technically if nothing else.

F1 doesn't even air on US network TV, it's cable/satellite only. And even then the commentators are constantly making inane comparisons to NASCAR.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[Opportunist]

That's why the F1 has been crippled and regulated to the point where basically all the teams have been reduced to whatever the poorest team can muster. Only so-and-so many engines, so many gearboxes, these tyres HAVE to be used, etc...

Coupled with the inability to overtake sensibly anywhere on the curve-heavy courses most races are won and lost in the pits. Who chooses the right tyres, who gauges the weather best, who chooses the right moment to refill and change tyres... the driver is basically reduced to getting the best position during qualification and make sure the car somehow survives the race with its engine hopefully intact enough that it lasts another race, because it can only be changed after the next race because that costs us 10 places in the grid and we don't have a chance anyway in the next but one race...

C'mon, what's that got to do with race car driving?

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[timeOday]

Bass fishing isn't hunting. Show me a mountain goat guide and I'll show you a guy who is physically fit.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[Mindcontrolled]

I see your point - but hell, we have enough sports that are determined by what athlete has the best genetic makeup. Why not creating one which is determined by who can throw the most money at the best engineers? Sure, it probably wouldn't have mass appeal, but a geek can dream, can't he? For me, F1 isn't interesting to watch in its current state. If I want to see driving skills, I watch a rally event. Give me some unadulterated car tech geekery! Battle of the Engineers!

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[beelsebob]

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.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[beelsebob]

They are? Last I checked they were no more insistent on this than footballers, rugby players and swimmers were. They are doing a sport, so people tend to call them sportsmen, that's about it. This isn't chess we're talking about.

And for sure you did suggest that F1 drivers weren't physically fit and weren't doing any sporting activity. Or was 80% of your comment just an off topic ramble about something totally unrelated?

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[Anonymous Coward]

The average driver loses 2 stone (12 kilograms for those on the continent) during a single race, because the sport is so physical.

citation fucking needed.

Concentrating, sweating, and using your muscles to compensate for high G forces will definitely cause you to lose more weight than the normal driver just going down the highway, but 99.9999999% of that is just going to be the water from the sweating. Which cannot account for 12 kilograms.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap. How can you say the quality of the broadcasts is fantastic when 1 hour of game takes 3 hours to broadcast? Last summer I started watching English Premier League football (soccer) on Saturday mornings, and the contrast is incredible. Once kickoff happens, there are no breaks in coverage before halftime. None. The clock starts, the cameras roll, and there are no ads, no breaks, just game time. Fifteen minutes for halftime, and you're back at it. No breaks until the game's done. A 90 minute + maybe 8 minutes of added time game takes about 2 hours to broadcast. Then comes Sunday and the NFL. You watch a play, maybe two, and we're gone for commercial. There's only 5-8 seconds of actual gameplay per play (not counting snap counts, I mean actual movement), most of the non-commercial time is spent being bombarded with meaningless analysis/stats or watching that goddamn stupid robotic football player strike poses while they plug the halftime panel. There's covering a sport, and then there's the NFL broadcasts.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[Scootin159]

+1 - as someone who HAS driven a formula race car before (even one not remotely as fast as an F1 car, but still immensely quicker than any street car), I can confirm that it is VERY physically demanding. You wouldn't believe the amount of effort it takes just to keep your head upright. I'm a fairly decent athlete (although not pro caliber), yet before doing a concentrated workout routine, I couldn't go more than about 5 laps before I was just too physically tired to continue safely.

It's a fairly minor workout for your legs (although remember that the brake pedal of an F1 car takes nearly 100# of force to push down, ~15 times a lap for 50 laps), but it is a VERY intense workout for your arms and neck.

Anyone who doubts this - I challenge them to just 5 minutes in a 125cc go kart. Despite having nowhere near the capabilities of an F1 car, you'll still get a sense of the physical exhaustion involved. If you can go 20 minutes (at speed) without special training, I commend you.

Re:Great! Now we can call it something else!

[john83]

Yeah, looks like it's more like 2-3 kg ([1] gives 2-3 l of water), which is comparable to what a professional soccer player will lose in a game [2] (which is only a simulation, but I've heard pro players in interviews mention weight loss of up to 4kg in matches in hot conditions). F1 is physically difficult, no doubt, but I'd expect a weight loss of 2 stone over a couple of hours to be pretty much fatal.

[1] http://www.f1complete.com/content/view/2672/392/
[2] Nicholas, C.W., Nuttal, F.E. and Williams, C. (2000) The Loughborough Intermittent Shuttle Test : A field test that simulates the activity pattern of soccer. Journal of Sports Sciences 18, 97-104.

All we need

[Beelzebud]

All we need is a good computer analogy to explain this story!

Re:All we need

[Tackhead]

All we need is a good computer analogy to explain this story!

It's like overclocking with liquid nitrogen instead of watercooling. Speed costs money; how fast do you want to go?

Re:All we need

[Shadow Wrought]

Speed costs money; how fast do you want to go?

How many Library of Congresses can I get to the Furlong for three-fitty?

Re:All we need

[Bugamn]

It's as if we discovered that instead of algorithms, what really did the work inside the computer where little chinese men going up and down.

CFD

[heffrey]

Lots of the teams use CFD to help design their cars but basically CFD doesn't work anywhere near as well as old fashioned wind tunnel testing and so all the top teams spend all year (24/7!) doing tunnel testing!

Good pics?

[hh4m]

Good pics? Where? I didn't see a single pic of a server setup or wireless equipment :(

Re:US Participation

[russotto]

Racing. Not driving fast in a line where position basically never changes unless someone screws up drastically. That's just a high speed parade. For all of NASCAR's faults (and they are legion), it's not THAT boring.

Re:All that tech and...

[fbjon]

There is no remote control, actually. The teams are only allowed two-way voice radio and one-way telemetry.

there are laws, too

[h00manist]

There is more to driving mass adoption, social behavior, and technology. Law, for example. Tax laws have encouraged US adoption of massive trucks as cars. Change the laws, and everyone changes their behavior.

Re:Was held This weekend

[galvitron]

Best F1 race I've seen in a while. Very exciting and TONS of passing. I guess rain is the answer to F1's boredom problem?

Re:Was held This weekend

[onepoint]

yes let's have more rain, just the opening was amazing ( 3 wide into the turn ) ....

rain adds a huge variable to the entire set up, as does the tyre type. I woke up just to watch the races ( then back to bed )

The best in the world

[galvitron]

The tech in F1 is outstanding. They are above and beyond all other forms of motor racing and car technology in general. The Le Mans Prototypes are the only thing approaching F1 levels.

There was a point a few years ago (before the new regulations went into effect) where they were worried that the intake speed of the air into the engine was approaching supersonic. Nobody really knew what that would do to the engines (read: intake manifold).

Last year, on Speed channel, Steve Matchett was interviewing a Red Bull engineer, and the engineer basically said that the real life "Q" from British Intelligence had approached them with questions about their tech. That really says something about the level that F1 plays at.

Here is an interesting fact: Despite all the limiting regulations that have been put in place, including reduced aero packages, no refueling, no traction control, etc., this weekend at Melbourne a new lap record was set by Vettel. The old lap record was set in 2004 with a V10 engine revving to probably 21,000 rpms. Current engine is a 2.4L V8 probably revving to 18,000 rpms. So, despite all the restrictions, the teams are still able to move the technology forward so drastically that they are basically nullifying the FIA's (sport governing body) efforts to slow the cars down.

As an American working with technology, I would hope that more of my peers appreciated the extreme cutting edge that F1 dances on.

Re:The best in the world

[galvitron]

You are right in the sense of the racing being at the highest level. WRC, Le Mans, and MotoGP are some of the best racing ever. But from a purely technical level (as the topic of TFA focuses on) F1 is the highest. Look at Toyota's $200 million budget for the last years. And that is just one team...who knows what Ferrari spends.

What do they do with the data?

[Chris Colohan]

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?

Re:What do they do with the data?

[sjasmund]

I do data acquisition/telemetry/electronics with endurance racing teams in ALMS and other series. While we don't have quite the infrastructure that F1 teams have, we do collect quite a bit of data. In the car, there is a data acquisition system consisting of a combination display/logger, which also collects data from several other components on the car via CAN network. Data can be logged at speeds up to 1000 Hz for detailed analysis once the car is downloaded in the pits. This data is also broadcast via telemetry while the car is on track. The Engine Control Unit has it's own logging capability as well, which collects engine parameters and traction control data. We also collect video whenever the car is on track.

The data we collect is used for several key purposes.

1. Driver performance -- The drivers use a handful of logged channels (steering angle, throttle position, gear, brake pressures, lat/lon G, etc.) to compare laps. With the data, we can overlay laps to compare where time is gained or lost in relation to other laps for a driver or compare to their teammate/co-driver. This helps both drivers to see how things can be done better, which improves laps times.

2. Engineering -- Sensors such as damper (shock) position, ride heights, aero pressures, etc. allow us to quantify what the drivers are telling us. Ultimately, we have to tune the handling of the car to what will allow the drivers to go the fastest. After each outing or session, we'll debrief and they'll tell us what the car is doing in various places around the track. We then use the data to help identify what it is the car is doing physically and what adjustments need to be made to give the driver a better car.

3. Health of the car -- Many channels (temperatures, pressures, amperages, etc.) give us a picture of the health of the car. The car must be reliable and this information can tell us if a component is failing. Even though we can't send data to the car while it's on track, there are ways that we can utilize some of the redundancies built into the systems (electrical systems anyhow) or change other things to help assure the car will make it to the finish.

a look a virgin's 100% CFD

[mjwalshe]

As Virgin racing have gone for a 100% CFD approach it would be interesting to see a write up on their set up that they use to design the car.

Re:US Participation

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Why do they have a track that is pretty much a convex oval?
 
Ovals are much better for spectators attending the race. Road courses only work when televised.

But why would they set up these weird conditions that make it such an artificial competition?
 
NASCAR started manufacturing finishes to create drama and draw ratings.

Formula 1 is tedious. Dull dull dull dull dull

[Colin Smith]

It is only beaten in levels of tedium by they Indy 500. I once watched that... WTF? What a bunch of pansies.

You want racing?

Moto GP
World Superbikes
British Superbikes
Isle of Man TT
 

McLaren's technology for air-traffic control...

[bagsta]

...there is a very interesting article in this UK Wired's issue regarding how the Heathrow air-traffic controllers are going to use the McLaren's proprietary software to simulate air-traffic like an F1 race...