Why Digital Transformation Is Essential For The World's Fastest-Moving Industry

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At the 2016 Formula One Europe Grand Prix in Baku, the world saw the fastest pit-stop ever at 1.92 seconds, attesting that one split second can make a colossal difference in the world of motor racing.

For an industry where every millisecond counts, we need to tap on the power of digital in order to win; both on and off track. And for the Renault Sport Formula One Team, digital transformation is racing ahead at full throttle.

When we talk about technology in Formula One, people naturally think about the engineering technologies that are in place to ensure the car’s performance. However, our investment in technology goes beyond the nuts and bolts of our R.S. 17 chassis, and the R.E. 17 power unit.

In the digital age where data is the new oil, data is also our most valuable asset in helping our team to break the Constructors’ Team ranking. 2017 is the first year where we have built our R.S. 17 car as one single entity, and our goal is to break into the top three, in three years’ time. Investing in the right technology, and working with the right partner have become important trackside strategies – especially when we need to do more with less.

MAKING SENSE OF RACE DATA WITH THE POWER OF CLOUD

Data is everywhere in the world of Formula One. On a race weekend, our cars generate more than 35 billion data points equivalent to about 30GB of data. Our supercomputer generates 60TB of data per week – that’s enough storage for 25,000 hours’ worth of movies.

With Microsoft Cloud, we are now able to analyze sets of data retrieved from the race cars on the track in realtime in order to maximize race simulations. Insights can be immediately retrieved and further analysed by our engineers in our two factories based in United Kingdom and France, in reduced time.