Formula 1 racing team BAR Honda plans to speed up the testing of its cars this season with an overhaul of communications between engineers and operational staff.

Using voice-over IP (VoIP) technology from Avaya, the F1 constructor team will feed track-side information back to its headquarters in Brackley, Northamptonshire, so that vital changes can be made in preparation for each race.

David France, head of IT at BAR Honda, told Computing he expects the technology to bring significant time savings and to cut communications costs by 30 per cent, as the team prepares for Grand Prix at the 17 different countries it visits each season.

'There's a great deal expected of us this year because we came second in the world championship,' said France. 'But winning depends on good design, good preparation and good testing of the car.'

'If something isn't working we need to get hold of the right person at the trackside or at the factory, so communication is important to us.'

The IP telephony system will run over BAR Honda's wide area network linking its headquarters to operations trucks at races.

By using Avaya IP handsets and 'soft phones', which link directly into PCs, BAR Honda no longer has to change employees' phone numbers, making it easier to locate them at crucial times.

'In the past we would order analogue phones in the country we were visiting and would need to bully local phone engineers into setting up the network in time,' said France. 'This would create further administration for us by having to set up new telephone directories each time.'

The VoIP technology has already been installed at BAR Honda's recently expanded headquarters, linking five of its buildings more easily and helping with future office moves.

BAR Honda plans to introduce unified communications technology before the first race in Melbourne in March, so employees can receive important information wherever they are. 'It will allow us to send voice calls to email systems using digital files,' said France.

BAR Honda also hopes to install Avaya speech-access voice-dialling software and wireless IP telephony by the end of the year.