A Formula One Car is an 'Internet of Things' in Itself

[DooKey]

Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One drivers’ championship for the fourth time in 2017. He was the fastest driver, in the best car – his Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport team also won the constructors’ title. Behind the scenes the data analytics that his team used is what really pushed him to the front. The Mercedes car contains over 200 sensors, some of which collect data points up to 1000 times a second. The car generates millions of data points per race weekend – about 300GB of data. Add in data from the rest of the business and the total reaches 45TB of data a week. It's easy to see that Formula One is the highest tech sport in the world. The only thing I worry about is one or more of these cars getting hacked during a race. I'm sure the teams have thought about this, but the ingenuity of hackers is infamous.

Christian Dixon, partner manager at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, says there is a “capability arms race” between F1 teams looking to use technology such as analytics, artificial intelligence and deep learning to maximise the potential of their cars and drivers.

 

[Verge]

Hackers can't afford to get into the races

 

[tunatime]

That is crazy and awesome at the same time...so skynet is going to start in an f1 car not some slow ass robot we can out run nice.

 

[thesmokingman]

They're quite used to espionage. The teams hack each other and commit corporate espionage on a regular basis. Hell it is even a part of some F1 manager type games, lol.

 

[Dead Parrot]

The first hacks will be monitoring the competition's car(s) live during the race so they can figure out their pit strategy and such.

 

[nightfly]

F1 used to be interesting. Now, it's just which company spends the most money, and hires the best engineers. The driver? Pick one. Put him in the best car. Win races. Examples: Jenson Button, Mark Webber. Journeymen racers, until they got the right car. Button even won a championship that way. Even Rossberg was just average until he got the right car. The days where the best driver can make an uncompetitive car competitive are gone. Witness Alonzo stuck at the middle or even the back of the pack now for years.

I'd rather watch midget racing on dirt tracks. More interesting.

 

[Arbit3r]

Say what you will about nascar, least in there the driver has to know something about car to tell the crew what is going on. in F1 the driver doesn't have to know anything cept how to turn a steering wheel and do what crew tells them to do with knob's. f1 had to add things in to make racing more competitive and seems like still isn't as you get to 1 sec behind car ahead you can't even pass most time even if you are 1-2sec faster a lap cause how dependent on down force from the air.

 

[krotch]

The only thing I worry about is one or more of these cars getting hacked during a race. I'm sure the teams have thought about this, but the ingenuity of hackers is infamous.

Host Defcon at an F1 race and see who can hack into one of the cars to gather data. If at any point in time during the event, they can pull data from the car, the F1 team takes a 1 second penalty. During pit stops, hackers can try to take control of the car. They can only do this when the car is fully stopped. Once the car moves again, they have to stop hacking. If they actual gain access to any of movement controls of the car during the pit stop, the F1 team takes a 5 second penalty. Every other lap, hackers are allowed to try to gain access to ERS. If they gain access, the F1 team cannot use the ERS for 1 lap.

That'd make things a bit interesting.

 

[ExplodingTaco]

Say what you will about nascar, least in there the driver has to know something about car to tell the crew what is going on. in F1 the driver doesn't have to know anything cept how to turn a steering wheel and do what crew tells them to do with knob's. f1 had to add things in to make racing more competitive and seems like still isn't as you get to 1 sec behind car ahead you can't even pass most time even if you are 1-2sec faster a lap cause how dependent on down force from the air.

Your kidding right? Have you seen how many adjustments are made per lap in the cockpit of a F1 car?

Right on the edge of the walls and constantly changing things flat out: