As well as being the fastest and most exciting sport in the world, it's probably fair to say that Formula 1 is also the most data-driven sport in existence today.
With all ten teams constantly searching for anything that will give them an advantage, and with sessions and races often decided by tenths of a second or less, making the most of the data generated by Formula 1 cars has never been more important.
McLaren has enjoyed a stellar season so far and has joined forces with official partner Alteryx to tell TechRadar Pro more about how data can help in its championship race.
Mountains of data
“Organizations have more data than ever before, yet the vast majority of them aren’t taking full advantage of that data,” said Alan Jacobson, chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) at Alteryx, revealing that more than 80% of industrialized data is unused, offering a “huge opportunity” to use this data to make better decisions.
“The good news is that almost every organization I meet with clearly understands that the ability to use data and analytics to drive business outcomes is more important now than ever.”
However, Jacobson adds that some companies have been slow to implement this transformation, “because it turns out that transformation is hard: It's hard to train an entire workforce and get them ready to work, so the challenge is figuring out how to get on the journey.”
And when it comes to the future, McLaren is certainly well prepared. The team has not won a Formula 1 constructors’ championship since 1998, but has enjoyed an incredible rise in recent seasons to challenge for the title in 2024, culminating in its recent dominant one-two finish with Oscar Piastri and Landon Norris at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Speaking to TechRadar ProDan Keyworth, McLaren Racing's business technology director, points out that there are 300 sensors on a single Formula 1 car, generating more than 250 million data points per car per race weekend (the equivalent of 11 billion over the course of a season), meaning the team is “dealing with a tsunami of information”.
“We have this winning mentality, so we know what our goals are at all times,” he adds, noting that taking a closer look at their data has helped not just the drivers or the pit crew, but all 1,200 McLaren Racing employees.
“If you understand what your goal is to win and then apply that to supply chain, logistics, finance, engineering, your HR team and your staff, you can begin to understand what data analytics can do to really elevate your business.”
Best of the best
McLaren and Alteryx clearly have a deep relationship, with the latter not only helping to increase efficiency and productivity within the team, but also in potentially more surprising use cases, such as data scientists looking to improve the way they visualize workflows and save time on coding.
“They are the best of the best and are really leveraging the tools,” Keyworth said.
It also highlights how Alteryx has helped the team with testing and development, a vital task in a sport that is evolving so quickly. With new regulations set to govern Formula 1 from 2026, teams will soon be working on three completely different versions for the current season, next season and a completely new version for 2026.
Keyworth notes that McLaren has used the roughly 250 million data points generated by each car per race to build a complete digital twin of the car for testing. Alteryx can then help “stitch” all the delta data sources together to find differences between this digital twin and its simulation runs against the real-world car to help find any marginal gains.
“We’re constantly analyzing that data, constantly criticizing ourselves… (and) we’re always looking for those little margins,” he says.
Jacobson agrees, noting that IT leaders really need to recognize that they need to change their mindset, since “fundamentally, the goal is to change business processes to drive efficiency and better outcomes.”
“It's really an exciting time for IT leaders to help their organizations use this data.”
