AI puts pedal to metal in Formula One race car design process

Formula One racing is witnessing a technological shift as teams increasingly embrace artificial intelligence to gain competitive advantages. Racing Bulls Formula One team, the sister team to industry leader Red Bull, has partnered with Swiss AI firm Neural Concept to revolutionize their race car design process. This collaboration represents how cutting-edge AI is transforming even the most specialized engineering fields, where milliseconds of performance improvement can dramatically impact race outcomes.

The big picture: Racing Bulls is implementing Neural Concept’s AI platform to accelerate and optimize their Formula One car design process through data-driven workflow.

• The AI platform is reportedly among the world’s leading technologies for engineering design, complementing traditional Computational Fluid Dynamics with high-speed simulations.
• While conventional simulations typically require hours to complete, Neural Concept’s proprietary AI reduces this to mere seconds, allowing thousands of designs to be evaluated under various track conditions.

Why this matters: In the ultra-competitive world of Formula One racing, design optimization directly translates to performance gains on the track.

• The technology enables more comprehensive testing under simulated real-world conditions like changing winds and variable temperatures, potentially revealing optimal designs that might otherwise remain undiscovered.
• Racing Bulls could use the performance boost, as their drivers Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson currently rank ninth and 15th respectively in the season standings.

What they’re saying: Team leadership emphasizes the critical importance of innovation in the high-stakes Formula One environment.

• “In Formula One, every millisecond counts and innovation at the design stage can be the difference between leading the pack or falling behind,” said Laurent Mekies, Racing Bulls’ team principal.
• Pierre Baqué, CEO of Neural Concept, described their mission as “revolutionizing engineering with deep learning and unlocking a new symbiotic collaboration between human expertise and AI’s analytic speed and power.”

Behind the numbers: Neural Concept’s technology has already gained significant traction in the automotive industry beyond racing.

• The company, which originated as a spin-out from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, now provides AI-powered engineering solutions to 40% of leading auto OEMs in Europe and Asia.
• Their technology is also used by a quarter of the world’s top 100 Tier 1 automotive suppliers, indicating broad industry acceptance of their AI design approach.