2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Preview

2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Preview

The 2022 Formula One finale takes place at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi

  • Toto Talks Abu Dhabi
  • Fact File: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
  • Video Feature: How Much Data Does an F1 Car Generate?
  • Feature: Data and Electronics in F1, Explained!
  • Stat Attack: Abu Dhabi and Beyond

Toto Talks Abu Dhabi

To score a 1-2 finish in Brazil was an incredible result for the team, but it’s been made more special by the challenges we have faced this season and how we have overcome them.

Securing our first victory of the season is the result of so much hard work, dedication and determination from everyone involved. Our team never stopped believing and never stopped pushing. I couldn’t be prouder of them, and it shows just how strong our values are.

George was on it all weekend. Faultless on Sunday, he couldn’t be more deserving of his first F1 victory and we are so pleased for him. It’s a very special moment in his F1 career and a race we’ll all remember for many years to come.

Lewis put in a brilliant recovery drive. His race pace was impressive, and he put in some incredible overtakes, to fight back through the field and secure the 1-2 finish for the team.

We don’t expect to be as competitive in Abu Dhabi due to the circuit’s characteristics but given the surprises we’ve had this year with W13, we’ll just have to wait and see. We still have an outside chance of P2 in the championship – and the points gap to Ferrari is the smallest it has been all year. Hopefully we’ll keep this positive momentum going to end the year strong.

Fact File: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

  • Abu Dhabi made its F1 debut in 2009 as the sport’s first ever twilight race, with the start taking place at sunset. Around 4,700 light fixtures are used to illuminate the track.
  • The 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix marked the first race since several modifications had been made to the track layout, changing the lap length from 5.554 km to 5.281 km. The main changes were removing the old chicane at the start of the second sector and widening the following hairpin. The twisty chicanes at the start of the final sector were replaced by one long, banked corner.
  • Similar to other twilight and night races on the calendar, FP1 and FP3 take place in the daytime, while FP2, qualifying and the race are at night or twilight. Tyre and car behaviour are different in warmer daytime temperatures, so this is always a consideration with set-up and practice run plans.
  • The pit lane is the only one in F1 to feature a tunnel. Drivers pass under the track at the pit lane exit, re-joining on the left-hand side of Turn 2. It’s a tricky place to feed cars back onto the racing line as they return to the circuit mid-corner and can sometimes be unsighted.
  • This weekend’s race will be Lewis’s 200th with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, making him the first driver to reach 200 races with the same constructor.
  • Teams remain in Abu Dhabi for the post-season test on Tuesday. Lewis and George will be splitting the running in one car, focusing on tyre testing for 2023, while the second car will see Frederik Vesti, F2 driver and Mercedes-AMG F1 junior, make his F1 debut, testing W13 and fulfilling our young driver requirement.

Video Feature: How Much Data Does an F1 Car Generate?

The area of data and electronics has evolved massively in recent years. In our latest preview feature, Evan Short (Team Leader Trackside Electronics Systems), Chris Nelson (Trackside Control Systems Engineer), Christine Steven (Lead Electronics Development Engineer) and Daniel Boddy (Trackside and Technical Support Manager) look into this impressive technical area of F1 in more detail.

The video is now on YouTube and is open for embedding on your websites. Details are below

YouTube video link

We are also providing you with two broadcast formats (one is the finished social video but without music, the other features ungraded interviews and no graphics/music) on the below link, for you to use in your broadcasts or on your platforms. This is under embargo until 12PM GST on Friday 18th November.

Download link

Feature:
Data and Electronics in F1, Explained!

In a world where track time is limited and technology continues to evolve, data is becoming more and more relied upon in Formula One. But how much data does an F1 team generate and analyse across a race weekend, and why is it so important?

Where is F1 data generated from?

A variety of sources are used to generate data from our Formula One cars and tools, primarily sensors on the cars themselves. Those can be measuring anything from physical quantities like temperatures and pressures, through to things like system operations such as the gearbox or ERS units.

Those sensors are physically connected either through an analogue system to the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) which runs the entire car, or through a series of CAN buses around the car that bring information back to the central unit. CAN stands for Controller Area Network and is an automotive standard for network buses which connect multiple devices. There are 17 separate CAN buses on a car in its typical configuration, each communicating with many different devices. For example a pressure sensor might broadcast information on the bus and any interested ECUs could listen in and use the information.

During a race weekend, there can be over 250 sensors on the car. We divide these into three categories: control, instrumentation and monitoring. All of them deliver pressure, temperature, inertial and displacement data and are embedded into all systems on the car.

Their size varies depending on their function and type, but most of them are very small and light to not impact the weight and performance of the car. Many are not visible from the outside, although a few are, if you look closely, like the small thermal imaging sensors on the front wings.

How much data do F1 cars generate?

The short answer is, a lot! Across a race weekend, the total amount of data generated per car, including video and ancillary information, is over 1 terabyte and this increases substantially (by two or three times) once we do the necessary post-processing of some of the data during or after the event.

If you are talking about the exciting bits of data that are generated live by the car while it’s running, the figure is more like 30 megabytes per lap, but it can be two or three times more once the car returns to the pits and the data is offloaded using the “umbilical” physical connection.

But that’s not all: back at the factory, a huge amount of data is also generated, whether that’s on some of our state-of-the-art tools and equipment such as the dyno, simulator, the wind tunnel. But also smaller areas or individuals post-processing their own information in their specific areas.

Of course, some of the data generated at the track needs to be sent back to the factories and this is no easy job, particularly with the vast amounts of data generated trackside. Live data such as car telemetry is important for the team in the Race Support Room back in Brackley to analyse and review.

At European races, the data can be received within 10 milliseconds, so almost instantaneous. But for flyaways such as Australia (over 10,000 miles away) or Japan (around 6,000 miles away), the data takes around 300 milliseconds to send. Still incredibly quick, but a slight delay compared to races closer to home.

Offloading the car data and larger files takes a long time but it’s a priority for our IT team to get it sent back to the factory as quickly as possible, which is usually expected before the car goes out for its next run. Across a recent race weekend such as Mexico, roughly 11 terabytes of actual data were transferred backwards and forwards between the factories in Brackley and Brixworth, and the trackside team.

What happens to the data once it’s been generated?

Given the lack of testing time in F1, you cannot head back out on track and repeat a test, so the pressure is on to get it right the first time and the same thing applies to the data – we want to get the right data in the limited opportunities we have, so we can extract the most learnings from it.

Once the data is gathered from the car, it’s synchronised so we know what’s happening at the precise time on each of the sensors. It is then encrypted and transmitted back to the garage through our telemetry system – which is a common system used across all teams.

Many people trackside utilise software called ATLAS – from McLaren Applied – to analyse and review data, either live over a race weekend trackside and at the factory, or in retrospect. The drivers are always keen to learn more about their performance, so they will spend time after each session and at the end of each day reviewing data, looking at how they compare to their team-mate, reviewing braking data and corner speeds.

The engineering groups for each driver will also be busy reviewing and delving into the data, to see what nuggets can be found, to make the driver and car even faster for next time. Sometimes the vast amounts of data can be overwhelming, but that’s also an incredible engineering challenge: prioritising the information you need to analyse and reviewing the right data, to learn as quickly as possible.

Stat Attack: Abu Dhabi and Beyond

2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Timetable

Session

Local Time

(GST)

Brackley

(GMT)

Stuttgart

(CET)

Practice 1 – Friday

14:00-15:00

10:00-11:00

11:00-12:00

Practice 2 - Friday

17:00-18:00

13:00-14:00

14:00-15:00

Practice 3 - Saturday

14:30-15:30

10:30-11:30

11:30-12:30

Qualifying - Saturday

18:00-19:00

14:00-15:00

15:00-16:00

Race - Sunday

17:00-19:00

13:00-15:00

14:00-16:00

Race Records – Mercedes F1 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Starts

Wins

Podium

Places

Pole

Positions

Front Row

Places

Fastest

Laps

DNF

Mercedes

12

6

13

6

13

3

2

Lewis

Hamilton

13

5

10

5

11

3

2

George
Russell

3

0

0

0

0

0

1

MB Power

13

7

20

8

17

4

13

Technical Stats – Season to Date (Barcelona Pre-Season Track Session to Present)

Laps

Completed

Distance

Covered (km)

Corners

Taken

Gear

Changes

PETRONAS

Fuel Injections

Mercedes

6,819

35,219

111,864

339,131

271,960,340

Lewis

Hamilton

3,332

16,849

54,959

165,704

133,280,000

George
Russell

3,444

17,443

56,520

172,121

137,760,000

MB Power

25,396

129,159

417,888

1,258,628

1,013,040,340

Mercedes-Benz in Formula One

Starts

Wins

Podium

Places

Pole

Positions

Front Row

Places

Fastest

Laps

1-2

Finishes

Front Row

Lockouts

Mercedes

(All Time)

270

125

281

136

253

100

59

81

Mercedes (Since 2010)

258

116

264

128

233

91

54

79

Lewis

Hamilton

309

103

191

103

174

61

N/A

N/A

George
Russell

81

1

9

1

6

5

N/A

N/A

MB Power

540

213

561

221

438

198

91

118

2022 Sao Paolo Grand Prix, Saturday - Jiri Krenek
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2022 Sao Paolo Grand Prix, Saturday - Jiri Krenek
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