Williams sponsor, AT&T, helps cars perform better

Williams F1 has worked together with AT&T to increase the rate of vital data transfer from the AT&T Williams’ operations at the track to the technical support team based at its headquarters. This increase in speed allows the team to evaluate data faster and contributes to better decision making in the fast-paced environment of Formula One.

The company announced it is adding an AT&T WAN Acceleration Service – provided by AT&T – that will run its network 25 times faster than a standard broadband solution. The service:

• Offers real time communication between the company and its key suppliers
• Supports the team’s 2010 agreement to cap the number of race team personnel travelling to each Grand Prix
• Better supports customers by handling the 50 percent increase in data traffic transfer that has occurred since then between the track and technical teams at each of the 20 circuits, in 18 countries that host Formula One races
• Give engineers back at base access to the same information as if they were at the circuit

Chris Taylor, IT Manager at Williams F1, welcomes the new service: “In 2010, we increased the quantity and type of data we transferred across the AT&T VPN service by around 50% to 27GB. Using the VPN and AT&T WAN Acceleration Service today, we generate 30GB of data per event, which comes from 140 sensors on the car monitoring temperatures, pressures, speed, wheel position and loading. We can transfer files back to headquarters up to 25 times faster than traditional broadband and ISDN lines."

Alex Burns, CEO of Williams F1 explains: “Having additional data transferred real time means we can have more staff evaluating this at our headquarters over a race weekend and we can apply greater resource to any problem without them actually being at the track. This strategy also allows us to optimize car development from one race to the next as we can evaluate components quicker and bring them onto the car at a faster rate than previously."