BT powers Williams F1 comms
March 5, 2015
By Colin Mann
Grand Prix racing team Williams has agreed in principle a multi-year strategic technology partnership with UK telco BT.
The Williams Martini Racing team will use BT’s high performance network services globally, facilitating secure and high speed communication and more effective collaboration between team members. The team’s fixed and mobile voice needs will be brought together by BT into a single service, hosted in the cloud and delivered globally on a wide range of devices.
BT will also be bringing its suite of technologies and consulting services to Williams’ Advanced Engineering division that takes Formula One derived technology and knowhow into the automotive, motorsport, energy, civil aerospace and defence sectors.
From the Formula One season opener in Australia, March 13th – 15th, BT branding will appear on the headrests of the Williams Mercedes FW37 car, as well as being seen within the team hospitality and garage environment.
The two organisations worked together on a pilot scheme towards the end of the 2014 season, which demonstrated some of the tangible competitive benefits that could be achieved with higher performance network services for Williams. Those benefits included improved car performance due to additional strategic capability, quicker pit stop practice and race video analysis, improved performance and reliability of demanding big data computing processes, including applications relying on video, telemetry and voice.
Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive, BT, said that Williams was one of the most successful and well-known Formula One teams in the world. “Both BT and Williams have an illustrious history of competing successfully at the top with cutting edge technology. This is the beginning of a real partnership with two great British brands determined to win as a team on the world stage.”
Claire Williams, Deputy Team Principal and Commercial Director, Williams, added: “We are delighted to welcome a company of BT’s pedigree and stature as a new partner of the team. This relationship will include a technical collaboration that will ensure that our employees are fully connected and can work seamlessly together regardless of where they are in the world. BT will also be using the power of Formula One and the Williams brand to showcase their products and services to a global marketplace and we look forward to working with them on exciting marketing campaigns for 2015 and beyond.”
Pat Symonds, Chief Technical Officer, Williams, said: “Vastly increased network speed can totally alter the way we work. The benefits for our routine operations are self-evident and witnessed by an enormous increase in our ‘off site’ analytical ability. The less obvious benefits include the ability to gain higher speed access to our crucial information sources, independently of where we are racing. This includes, for example, the ability to interrogate remotely our CAD system back at base, build new assemblies and then export the required information for use on the racetrack in a matter of minutes.”