Every time a Formula One car starts a race, many things are at stake: the driver’s talent, the design of the cars, and a lot of data analysis.

McLaren Racing Ltd. has partnered with Splunk Inc. to maximize the value of data from each racing car’s more than 300 sensors, which monitor everything from fuel level and tire pressure to speed and battery health. The goal is to inform real-time decisions that improve performance, according to James Hodge (pictured), global vice president and chief strategy advisor – International at Splunk.

“When we look at what Splunk is doing, it’s making sure that is resilient,” he said. “Is the data coming off the car? Is it actually starting to hit the garage? When it hits that rack into the garage … then streaming that back with the right latency back to the working technology center? They are making sure that all of the support decision-making tools there are available.”

Hodge spoke with John Walls, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the recent Splunk .conf21 Virtual event. They discussed the importance of data to McLaren’s success, how Splunk fits into it, and the partnership between the two companies in other areas such as eSports. (* Disclosure below.)

Partnership extends to eSports

One of the key moments where data makes a difference in car racing is pitstop strategy. One car generates 1.5 terabytes of data over a race weekend, and the race team has to turn this data into decisions in a matter of milliseconds – the time to call a pitstop window is so fast that a human cannot react to on-track events quick enough, according to Hodge.

The data generated by the sensors gets streamed to the FIA, the regulatory body of motor sport, and then to the garage.

“They then stream it over the internet, over the cloud, back to the technology center working, where 32 race engineers sit in calm conditions to be able to go and start to make decisions on when the car should pit, what their strategy should be like, to then relate that back to the track side,” he explained.

In addition to being essential to the performance of race cars, the partnership between McLaren and Splunk has been extended to other areas, such as eSports. Splunk provides data analysis and live dashboards for the McLaren Shadow eSports team, analyzing timing data, tire temperatures and wear; optimal throttle and brake application; and other metrics, increasing the eSports team competitiveness in the V-10 R League, eNascar Coca-Cola iRacing competition and the Formula One Esports Series.

“Actually there are more data points that come out of the F1 2021 Codemasters game than there are in Formula One car; you get a constant stream,” he said. “The game will actually stream out real telemetry, so I can actually tell your tire pressures from all of your tires, I can see the lateral G-force longitudinal, … we can actually look at your exact position on track, how much accelerator, steering lock … and that gets pumped out in real time, up to 60 Hertz.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of during the Splunk .conf21 Virtual event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Splunk’s .conf21 Virtual conference. Neither Splunk Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: James Hodge