When Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix revs up this Saturday and Sunday, tech companies will compete for the podium every bit as much as frenemies Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Formula One has long been one of the most technologically advanced sports, consistently attracting partnerships and sponsorship agreements in the technology sector. The recent growth of circuits in the U.S. has accelerated this trend.
For 2022, Chinese technology company Lenovo will be an official F1 partner, and will collect data on sites used to support broadcast applications, an effort driven by Netflix’s success. Drive to Survive series.
Another important F1 partner is Amazon Web Services, which provides insight into the circuit’s new car design. AWS engineers were able to run millions of simulations to help design new cars 70% faster than they would have otherwise. “This new bodywork design includes a new front wing design, simplified suspension, new readings and layouts, and a number of other improvements,” said Priya Ponnapalli, senior manager and principal scientist at Amazon Machine Learning solutions Lab. Sportico. “The downforce loss has been reduced from 50% to 15%. And what that means is there’s more wheel-to-wheel action on the track, which results in more excitement than ever before.
AWS also helped F1 with data collection to aid fan engagement. “Every F1 car is equipped with 300 sensors, generating almost 1.1 million data points per second,” Ponnapalli said. “All of this data is coupled with historical race data going back 70 years stored on AWS, and used to create new insights that bring fans closer to the race and give insight into split -second decisions made by favorite drivers.”
At the team level, there is a match between technology giants Oracle and Dell Technologies. In February, Oracle expanded its existing partnership with Red Bull Racing, with the team changing its name to Oracle Red Bull Racing. This season the team will use Oracle’s cloud infrastructure services to improve performance on race day and to train upcoming drivers. Oracle technicians will also help Red Bull design the next -generation machine. The partnership had proven successful earlier this season as team head and CEO Christian Horner said in a statement that he believed the technology helped Verstappen achieve his goals. dramatic 2021 Championships in Abu Dhabi.
In the meantime, McLaren Racing has extended its partnership with Dell Technologies that began in 2018. Texas-based Dell will assist McLaren both in training drivers and developing new aerodynamic changes for the car.
“The sport is getting closer and closer and the boundaries are even smaller,” said Edward Green, head of commercial technology at McLaren Racing. “Sometimes the difference between positions in a group can be only two or three percentage points for the time being, the margins are really good. You have to find different ways to develop and find competitive advantage and I’m just giving an example about technical, where technical partnerships are very important.
AWS has also partnered at the team level with Ferrari, whose new cars have finished in the top two in every race this year. “Ferrari uses our AWS machine learning, analytics and computing and storage to improve car design as well as racing strategy,” Ponnapalli said. “And we have a nimble technique for experimenting and making those strategies faster.”
Technology is not just for the machine, but also for the people inside. Miami-based Eight Sleep, a fitness-sleep company, recently announced a partnership with Mercedes-AMG Petronas tim. Mercedes-AMG, including driver Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and team leader Toto Wolff, will be using the Eight Sleep product in next F1 season. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. Last spring, Eight Sleep completed a C series fundraiser that raised $ 86 million, resulting in a net worth of nearly half a billion dollars.
“This is a product designed to improve sleep performance. Hundreds of athletes from the NFL and NBA have used it,” said Matteo Franceschetti, one of the founders of Eight Sleep. Sportico.
Franceschetti, a former car driver, knows the importance of sleep when traveling around the world and racing in different time zones. He also knows that working with the F1 team will bring more eyeballs to the Sleeping Eight.
Franceschetti said much of the U.S. popularity of the F1, which was purchased in 2017 by Liberty Media, will inspire more partnerships. “Formula One is one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States, and since the U.S.-based company acquired it, they started to double down,” he said. “The real value of our deal is more about the ability to use all the assets on social media in campaigns with Mercedes drivers. That’s how you raise the brand.
Israeli sports technology company Blaze Pod have a similar but more organic path to success last year after several Formula One drivers, including Verstappen, used the product in an episode of Drive to Survive. Blaze Pod, a training platform, has raised $ 10 million last year and partners with many athletes from the NFL and NBA.
The technical aspects of F1 coupled with the personalities of the drivers have increased fan interest, which could lead to more technology sponsorship demands. “I feel Formula One is a unique combination of driver and car,” said AWS ’Ponnapalli. “And there’s a war between the biggest drivers in the world. But there’s also a war between the most innovative engineers in the world. And that’s what makes it amazing.”
