THE pure adrenaline rush of hearing the roar of a supercar zooming by at more than 300 kilometres an hour epitomises the excitement of Formula One racing.
And that's what most spectators will be savouring at Singapore's inaugural Formula One race, which will also be the first F1 night race in history.
However, technology buffs would also be interested in a very important bit of trivia: Formula One is arguably the most technologically advanced sport in the world.
Alex Burns, chief operating officer of Williams F1, notes that each team designs and builds its own cars in accordance with a strict set of regulations prepared by the International Automobile Federation, known by its French acronym, FIA, which was founded in 1904 in Paris.
'Car development is like an arms race; whichever team does the best job of designing a fast car within the regulations will have the best chance of winning the Championship,' says Mr Burns.
He adds: 'The factors that make up a fast car vary from circuit to circuit and a design that does well on the very fast straights at Monza may not be successful on a tight street circuit like Singapore. So teams have to design some parts of the car specifically for a particular circuit.'
Mr Burns said the first concern for the teams is safety - 'the cars need to be designed to pass a number of crash tests in order to minimise the risk to drivers when accidents occur.'
Williams, like all other major Formula One teams, needs specialist technology partners to help out. Lenovo is Williams' technology partner and Mr Burns noted that the computer firm helps its business at all levels.
'Our racing team, like many other businesses, needs to have compute power on the go, but unlike other businesses, we are running mission-critical software applications on hardware that travels the globe - the race engineers run advanced simulation packages on the pit-wall as the race unfolds and make split-second decisions about tyres and fuel strategy in response to what is happening around them.'
For Scuderia Ferrari, Indian IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is a major technology partner.
TCS CEO S Ramadorai told BizIT, tongue in cheek, that an F1 car is not an average commuter vehicle where sophistication means air bags and tinted windows.
'It's the most advanced car platform in the market, often compared to a jet engine in its complexity. Everything moves constantly under extreme stress . . . testing not only the driver but all systems. Safety must go hand-in-hand with speed, with mechanical and electronic systems performing flawlessly,' he said.
Experts compare an F1 car to a moving solutions platform that tests not only the stamina of the drivers but also mechanical and electronic systems that have to perform under levels of extreme stress.
'From car electronics to safety, aerodynamics to trouble-shooting, TCS works with the F1 team to provide IT-based solutions before, during and between races,' Mr Ramadorai adds.
Thomas Schiller, Toyota Motorsport's GM of IT & facilities management, told BizIT that the characteristic of F1 is always, on the one hand, to push development of every aspect of the car to the limit and, on the other, to keep the car driveable.
'Everything has to work seamlessly together. For example, engineers in the aerodynamic area aim to gain fractions of efficiency points everyday by using advanced technologies such as fluid dynamics simulations and smart procedures in the wind tunnel for optimised aerodynamics.
'But even outstanding aerodynamics does not guarantee a huge advantage if the brakes are inappropriate or the chassis settings are either too hard or too soft, for example. That's the attraction of Formula One.'
Toyota Motorsport uses the services of EMC and Panasonic for its IT needs. EMC supports the team with its storage devices and technology parts and proper support anywhere in the world. Panasonic supplies its Toughbooks designed for use in extreme conditions.
'One can't even fire up an engine without a laptop computer. Therefore we have, as well as the IT infrastructure within the facility, two mobile data centres which can be completely operated independently,' Mr Schiller added.
Williams' Mr Burns pointed out that the technical set-up is similar at every race. 'We have telemetry links from the cars to the garage and then a network to connect the garage, pit-wall and office where data engineers study the traces from the many sensors on the cars.
'At races in Europe we bring the engineers' office - in the back of a truck - whereas outside Europe this is a separate building provided by the circuit. We increasingly use wireless networks at the track to simplify the infrastructure and so make it quicker to set up and dismantle.'
Mr Burns added that one of the challenges is that the telemetry signal can be blocked by hills or tall buildings. 'We do not yet know how much coverage we will get around the new circuit in Singapore.'
He noted that the fact that the race will be run at night for the first time will raise some problems.
'We are planning as best we can but I expect something will come up that we are not expecting and that is when our ability to react quickly and make the right decision will come into focus.'
BMW Sauber's F1.08 car - like cars from other manufacturers - is covered with nearly 100 sensors. During a race, antennas along the track collect data from the car which is travelling at speeds in excess of 300 kmph.
For the BMW team, the information is processed through technology partner Dell's servers and notebooks. 'The mission-critical data - everything from oil temperature and brake heat, to tyre wear and fuel consumption - will influence race strategy and tactics on the track,' says a BMW Sauber spokesman.
'It's always teamwork at the end of the day which is the difference between success and failure,' Toyota Motorsport's Mr Schiller noted.
He added that in total, around 650 people are working at Toyota Motorsport GmbH, where 90 per cent are working in the background and only the racing team, the drivers and the senior management are visible to TV viewers.
Williams' Mr Burns added that his organisation has 550 staff in total and 'more than 200 of them are employed in the development and design of the cars at our headquarters in the UK. Around 150 manufacture the cars, as we make new cars for every season and then generate very regular updates to these cars.'
All in all, the IT that goes into an F1 race is almost as impressive as the cars themselves. So, in a few days' time, when you sit back to watch the fun, be it at the race track or in the comfort of your home, marvel at the technology that makes the race such a wonderful spectacle.
This article was first published in The Business Times on Sept 22, 2008.
