The first hours of a revolution are fascinating. It’s brewing. It’s bubbling. Tectonic plates move. How far will it go? No idea.
This is the situation F1 finds itself in. Here she is in the early morning of a quiet revolution. That of artificial intelligence.
AI is set to play a central role in the evolution of motor racing. Put yourself in the shoes of a team manager. You manage two cars. Each produces a million data points per second. Multiply that by 5400 seconds. Then cross-reference this data with that on wind, rain, temperature and track quality. Oh yes, also keep an eye on your 18 competitors. No human being, not even the world’s Rubik’s cube champion, can beat AI at processing so much information instantly.
Stefano Maltomini can attest to this. He looks after digital operations and data at Ferrari. I met him in the team quarters on Friday, before free practice. The Scuderia, he says, is already making a good place for AI.
How ?
“Before, our F1 cars were equipped with hundreds of small sensors that relayed data to us. In addition to being expensive, these sensors made the car heavier. With the help of our partner AWS, we have developed a neural network that reproduces sensor signals. »
Concretely, Ferrari has dropped the sensors in its cars. Its engineers now rely on algorithms powered by the data that AWS collects all around the circuit. “And our car is lighter! », enthuses Stefano Maltomini.
Projects involving AI are increasing in F1. Think about anything that is predictable, like gas mileage and tire wear. Or even, to the modifications that can be made to the design of cars to improve aerodynamics.
Neil Ralph, Senior Sports Industry Specialist at AWS, is working closely with F1 to create new tools. His team has developed 23 parameters that can be used by both teams and broadcasters. He showed us some of them on Friday. The most spectacular is the one that makes it possible to predict the probability of an overrun after a pit stop.
To demonstrate the power of the tool, Neil Ralph shows an actual fight that occurred between two drivers at the Qatar Grand Prix. At the bottom of the screen, you can follow live the probabilities that Lewis Hamilton will overtake the driver in front of him. In just a few seconds, his chances of success go from 68% to 82%. This is relevant information, both for engineers and amateurs.
PHOTO JACOB NIBLETT, SHUTTERSTOCK STUDIOS
The F1 technical center
Formula 1 also uses AI a lot to improve the viewer experience. Several applications are technical – zooms, slow motion, virtual advertising. But there are also fun tools that allow us to better appreciate the race, such as a graph indicating the number of centimeters between a car and a wall. Good luck for those following the race at home.
AWS and F1 have also developed software to help broadcasters find answers to their questions more quickly. The equivalent of a ChatGPT entirely devoted to F1. This innovation excites the director of racing television, Dean Locke.
“Last year, Max Verstappen was breaking records race after race. It was remarkable. So much so that we lost track. Was this his ninth victory in a row? His tenth consecutive leading position? » The software provided the answer instantly.
“We can also use it for more obscure statistics. For example, when will Fernando Alonso become the most lap-scoring driver in Formula 1. Or, when was the last time a Japanese led a race? »
To tell you how much AI is exciting F1, even the trophy that will be presented in Montreal on Sunday was created with the help of artificial intelligence.
PHOTO GARETH HACKER, PROVIDED BY AWS
The trophy which will be presented on Sunday in Montreal
And now the big question: how far will it go? Will the revolution soon swallow up engineers, technicians and researchers?
No, say the experts I consulted.
“Algorithms do not emerge from nowhere,” argues Stefano Maltomini. These are engineers who used their knowledge to program them […] The time our engineers used to spend analyzing data is now being used for other things. This leaves more room for their creativity, their intuition and human intelligence. »
AI, adds Dean Locke, “has made us better. It allows us to do things incredibly quickly. And that’s good, because in F1, everything happens incredibly quickly.”