How AT&T provides Infiniti Red Bull Racing with 'crucial' networking and bandwidth for Formula One race operations
Al Peasland, head of technical partnerships, explains how connectivity is vital to collaboration within a Formula One team
"It's now obvious that Formula One is as much a technology race as it is a car race," says Al Peasland, head of technical partnerships at Infiniti Red Bull Racing, as the team prepares for the first race of the new season in Melbourne, Australia.
Technology has always played a role in Formula One, but now data analysis and high-speed networking are almost at the centre of the sport.
"Our ability to rapidly gather, share and analyse new data is more important than ever," says Peasland. "The team couldn't function without fast and highly secure communications on a reliable high-capacity network."
That network is provided by AT&T and has had a significant impact on the team, which won every Formula One Championship between 2010 and 2013, by allowing it to transfer at least 200GB of data between Red Bull's Milton Keynes headquarters and tracks around the world during every race.
But development never stops and, as Peasland notes, AT&T has provided year-on-year improvements to network connectivity that have enabled the team to increase efficiency.
"Our 2014 network was two and a half times faster than that of 2013 and provided higher bandwidth," he says.
"This has allowed us to make extensive use of telepresence, to introduce CAD and design tools into the garage, and to use factory-hosted data centres to run simulations and analysis. We couldn't run these applications without AT&T providing low latency."
A Red Bull Racing Formula One car has up to 100 different sensors attached to it, monitoring performance in many different ways and then uploading that data for analysis by teams both at the track and at HQ.
"This data is analysed with the help of factory-based engineers and simulation tools in the UK and France, using video conferencing sessions for face-to-face meetings," Peasland explains. "This collaborative multi-disciplinary approach helps us make strategic decisions that ultimately affect our race position and competitiveness."
According to Peasland, none of this would be possible without the "crucial role" played by AT&T.
"We have a secure virtual private network connection between the operations room at HQ and our other facilities and trackside teams at race or test events," he says.
"Team members also use smartphones as part of a unified communications solution that is protected via AT&T mobile device management tools."
"AT&T's support will continue to touch almost every aspect of Infiniti Red Bull Racing's operations," says Peasland. "Our plans include consolidating all of the team's WAN links onto the AT&T backbone", enabling the team to further improve performance.
"Sophisticated computer simulations are becoming increasingly important as a tool to help our engineers predict how the car will perform. We'll be using them more often on race days, requiring extensive computing and communications power," he says.
"In the near future, we're also looking to expand our AT&T unified communications solution to include IP-based phone services, presence and video conferencing," Peasland adds.
AT&T has also helped to enhance connectivity to the team's wind tunnel aerodynamic testing facility.
"Testing generates huge volumes of data that need to be analysed by engineers at HQ. A ten-fold increase in bandwidth and added resilience of the network to this facility, which is located in Bedford in the UK, will enable faster data transfer to our HQ for analysis and will greatly benefit the team on the track," he says.
"AT&T's blazing-fast network and innovative solutions directly affect how we develop the car and how we gather data, learn from it and adapt," he says.
"Our network infrastructure is now mission critical and gives us an edge on the track that is helping us to take Infiniti Red Bull Racing to the next level."