Honda Refreshes IT Systems Before F1 Season Starts

Topics:  Honda

Anthony Fontanelle
March 12, 2007

Formula 1 is one of the most exciting motor sports around. Different teams vie for the constructor’s championship. To help them achieve this feat, everything has to be in place.

Every system must be checked carefully in order for teams to perform at their highest level during each and every race of a season. From the drivers to their cars to the crew, everything should be prepared for well before a season starts or before a race begins.

The start of the new F1 season is coming closer, and in connection with this, the Honda Racing Formula One team has replaced their IT systems. Later this month, the step taken by the team will ensure that the technology they are going to use will not be prone to breakdowns or malfunctions.

A team’s IT system goes wherever the race goes. They should be at hand since these systems play a major role for the team and for the whole race. Since these equipments go along with the rest of the race crews and drivers, they are exposed to heat, cold, dust, noise, and vibrations from different racetracks all over the world. This is the reason why IT systems are replaced every two years. This is needed since the races take the drivers, cars, crews, and the IT systems all over the world. See, some countries that the F1 Grand Prix visits each year are Australia, Bahrain, Canada, England, Brazil, Malaysia, and the U.S.

Honda’s IT director, David France, said that “the equipment is vital to get data from the cars and make it immediately available for trackside analysis.” He also did add, “There must also be connectivity to the main factory to enable a data exchange with our strategic systems. We will be replacing everything, from the servers to the switches, routers, and laptops for staff.”

The data that the IT systems hold are very vital to ensure optimum performance of the car. Some of the data that it gets from the race car is the amount of fuel left and this is a vital piece of information since in Formula One racing, one of the strategies used to get ahead of the competition is the number of stops a car has to make to refuel. The brakes are also checked by the system, this is also vital to protect the car and the driver from meeting an accident on the track.

In addition to the restructuring of their IT system, Honda has also released the design for their new cars and will also launch a website to support it. The site will be available in a few weeks before the start of the new season later this month. “The IT department was brought in five weeks ago to develop the site,” says France. “Pipex has hosted our site for several years and was asked to develop the new site,” he added further.

Pipex Communications PLC is a British company which specializes on internet and telecommunications solutions. The company has moved the new sites to another location in order to increase bandwidth. This will translate continuous availability, faster speed, better security and support.

Mark Blower, an analyst for the Butler Group, commented that F1 teams uses technology for leverage. “It is critical that data is available all the time so the infrastructure must be robust and resilient and must be replaced before it breaks,” says Blower. “Cost is not as much of an issue as it is in other commercial environments. Because Honda has a mobile infrastructure, it should be easier to simply remove and replace existing equipment,” Blower added further.

Source:  Amazines.com