Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by CWuestefeld on Sunday October 04, 2020 @10:07PM (#24683924)

Anybody in tech, and especially information technology, should be able to find something fascinating in F1. Winning an F1 race requires a huge amount of data processing, both for the operation of the race car itself, as well as for the simulations of race strategy in realtime.

The teams bring enormous amounts of equipment to each race. Obviously a lot of that equipment is wrenches, screwdrivers, and related machinery. But every team is bringing essentially a portable datacenter to each race:

The car has around 300 sensors and the SECU monitors over 4,000 parameters. During the course of a typical race the car will transmit around 3 GB of telemetry data as well as around 4 GB of logging, however this is just the seed for computation. When processed and combined with other sources such as audio and video analysis it can mean a team leaves a typical race weekend with over a terabyte of valuable data — data that is drawn on again and again before and during future events and seasons. -- https://www.eetimes.com/the-importance-of-electronics-in-for...

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by ll931110 on Sunday October 04, 2020 @10:52PM (#24684122)

Even cheats in F1 are brilliant by engineering standard. Look at how Ferrari (allegedly) circumvent the fuel flow limit by aliasing techniques.

https://motorsport.tech/formula-1/fuel-flow-gate-did-ferrari...

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by modoc on Sunday October 04, 2020 @11:41PM (#24684373)

While not F1, I did get to check out the garage of a Nascar team and was blown away by the technology and engineering. The car has a ton of sensors recording all kinds of data, and they have a rig that can use that data to essentially put the car into the physical condition at any millisecond of a previous race, i.e. wheel and tire position, precise suspension loads, etc.. so they can physically examine the car/tires/etc.. at any moment in reply of the whole race. Extremely cool stuff!

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by jimbokun on Sunday October 04, 2020 @10:23PM (#24683981)

Any good books on F1 technology, data processing or otherwise?

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by exDM69 on Monday October 05, 2020 @04:01AM (#24685568)

Try Adrian Newey's ghost written memoir "How to Build a Car". It's not a deep dive into technological tidbits, but has got some interesting details about the technology and the development of his cars.

To those not familiar, Adrian Newey, currently at Red Bull Racing, is the most successful race car designer by almost any metric. His first championship winning cars were designed in the 1980s (for American racing series), and he's built championship winning cars for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull.

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by TheCondor on Monday October 05, 2020 @10:24AM (#24688017)

How did you digest that book? I admire the heck out of his accomplishments but he seems like maybe not such a great person. Not sure he’d be an interesting dinner guest. All the anti-social stuff of a top sportsman but in a position where he simply doesn’t age out of it and have to be a normal person. Not a bad guy, per se, but not someone who’s life you want your to emulate.

Very interesting read, especially about the dynamics. Winning teams have a focus, they don’t run well by committees (look at Ferrari) the difference between a championship and average season is often in the margins and the spaces between the “rules.”

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by exDM69 on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:07PM (#24689647)

I liked the book, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't get along as friends and I definitely would not want to work for him.

I might be all wrong with this, but it's the impression I got from his book.

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by dharmab on Sunday October 04, 2020 @10:32PM (#24684021)

A lot of it is proprietary and kept secret from other teams. Diagnostic monitors and even the back of the steering wheel are censored in official media. Chain Bear F1 is a YouTube channel that produces good summaries from public information.

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by wastedhours on Monday October 05, 2020 @03:50AM (#24685508)

Not books, but Racecar Engineering magazine [0] is a fantastic source, as is Craig Scarborough [1] for little nuggets of current developments.

[0] https://www.racecar-engineering.com/ [1] https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by andrewf on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @03:22PM (#24711673)

I enjoyed https://www.amazon.com/Formula-Technology-Peter-G-Wright/dp/... but it's focused on the mechanical rather than the data stuff. As a non-MechE I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed Ignition! as a non-chemist.

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Re:Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead by flavius29663 on Monday October 05, 2020 @08:56AM (#24687311)

and not only that, but they do impose limits on how much they can use at each stage. I know for example that the computing power for the algorithms that generate the best shape for the best air flow are all equal among teams.

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