Renault F1 revs up IT network links

Car maker burns rubber with £500,000 technology investment

Formula One may be trying to take IT out of racing, but the drivers will not go short of information.

Renault Formula One has upgraded its network and speeded up links between design staff and cars on the circuit, in time for the 2003 championship which started at the weekend.

"Our team on the track now has about 60 devices connected to our network, which requires a secure and robust 24x7 connection," said IT manager Graeme Hackland.

"Everyone is affected by IT now. About 10 years ago our circuit team's technology included a server under the seat of a truck and about 10 laptops. Now there's hundreds of laptops and workstations."

As part of its preparation, the company has invested about £500,000 in a 6TB storage system from Network Appliance.

"More than 100 of our staff are using it to access all the live design data for the team car during the race season," said Hackland.

"This includes some 50 designers who will generate about 10,000 design drawings over the course of the championship."

The design information must be kept for a minimum of three years, which puts a strain on the storage system, as the team generates about 2.5TB of data every season.

The designs are shared between the race engineering, aerodynamics and research and development teams, among others, as Renault continuously tweaks and improves its race cars.

Most of the work is done prior to the F1 season, as the car maker prepares for the championship.

All the teams use different platforms and applications to do their work, although Hackland plans to consolidate desktop operating systems on to Windows 2000 or XP by the end of 2003.

Renault came fourth in the 2002 Constructors' Championship. Its cars finished in fifth and seventh place in Australia at the weekend.