Oracle partners with Red Bull Racing Honda for improved F1 data analytics

Oracle on Thursday announced that it had partnered with four-time Formula Champion team Red Bull Racing Honda to focus on car performance, machine learning and analytics. The company will work with the four-time F1 champions as its official cloud infrastructure partner.

The racing team will use its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to optimise data that it collects across its organisation. With Formula 1 being a data-driven sport, information is used from building a car to tuning its aerodynamics and what modifications need to be made based on the competition and other requirements. Teams pour in millions of dollars every year to focus on both design and strategy as they compete with other teams that are also making similar investments.

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Cars built for Formula 1 racing are fitted with several sensors that monitor temperatures, brake conditions, how the engine is performing, precision lap timings and how much the tyres have worn out. These take out the guesswork and the responsibility from the driver to keep monitoring everything on the vehicle and focus on the track, while advanced systems send this data back to computer systems that manage this data.

Data that is collected from the vehicle and on the track is used in tandem with analytics to make sense of all the conditions and turn it into an actionable strategy for the team and the driver. With multi-year plans focused on both on and off-track engineering operations, artificial intelligence and machine learning, Oracle will work with Red Bull Racing to plug into the former’s OCI for machine learning and data analytics -- for an advantage on the track.

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“This is the perfect alliance of two organizations that share a passion for design, performance, and winning,” said Ariel Kelman, Chief Marketing Officer, Oracle. “Red Bull Racing didn’t win multiple Drivers’ Championships and Constructors’ Championships in its relatively young existence without pushing boundaries. Oracle is committed to working with Red Bull Racing Honda to discover and create the technologies and designs that will allow it to surpass expectations and set new standards in Formula 1,” said Oracle's Chief Marketing Officer Ariel Kelman in a press statement.