DC to AC conversion and motor control
Why data matters in modern motorsport
Modern FORMULA 1 cars generate enormous volumes of data, but few people outside the sport understand how that information travels from the car to the engineers who rely on it. There are hundreds of sensors, complex vehicle networks, strict telemetry limits and analysis tools that all play a role in turning raw signals into something usable.
An F1 car carries roughly 250-300 sensors spread across the power unit, chassis, suspension, tyres, aerodynamics and driver controls. Each sensor answers a specific question like ‘is the tyre warming evenly?’, or ‘is a brake disc heading towards an unsafe temperature?’.
Some sensors sample at high frequencies (hundreds to thousands of times per second) so they’re able to capture transient behaviour that humans can’t observe directly. Having the infrastructure able to support those high frequency samples allows engineers to understand what the car is doing.
How data travels through the car
Raw sensor data doesn’t go straight to an engineer in the garage or back in the factory. First it must flow through the car’s internal network. F1 cars use multiple CAN buses, each dedicated to a different subsystem (chassis, engine etc). These networks are deterministic: messages never collide, and timing is guaranteed. This is an essential requirement when working with data in motorsport, if data were unreliable the whole pipeline collapses.
Sensor data converges at a central unit: the Standard ECU. Responsible for synchronising every channel, logging the full dataset, transmitting the live telemetry and managing different control systems and safety logic. Think of the ECU as the brain that turns hundreds of asynchronous inputs into a coherent timeline.
People often assume that everything is sent live. It isn’t. Telemetry bandwidth is limited, so only data that is required for immediate decisions is transmitted over RF. Telemetry gives engineers the current view of the car, enough information to act during a race, and critical safety information. Logging frequency can be adjusted to increase or decrease with different events to make the best use of mandated bandwidth limitations.
The rest of the data sits inside the ECU until the car returns to the garage. When the car is connected via Ethernet, the full dataset is transferred. This includes all channels not broadcast, and any packets missed due to RF. The server merges the transmitted telemetry and offloaded data into a single session for seamless analysis.
Transforming data into competitive advantage
Once all the information is available, engineers use it in two different ways depending on what they need to achieve. Live data is the limited set of signals transmitted while the car is on track. Live data exists so the team can react with confidence in real time. It supports strategy, communication and operational decision‑making during the race. Historical data becomes available once the full dataset has been offloaded. Historical data shapes long‑term performance rather than moment‑to‑moment decisions. It informs correlation work, reliability studies and upgrade direction across the season.
Tools like ATLAS help by organising both live and historical data into a structured workbook. They align channels, fill gaps and enable fast comparison so engineers can focus on what matters. But tools alone do not make the decisions. The value comes from the people interpreting the data, understanding its context and communicating its implications.
In the end, the real power of motorsport data lies not just in how it’s captured or transmitted, but in how it enables teams to make smarter, faster decisions when it matters most. From the sensors on the car to the engineers analysing performance back at base, every part of the pipeline exists to turn complexity into clarity.