Racing ahead to be the best in your sector

What does it take to become a Formula One world championship winning team?

The quickest drivers on the planet, to be sure. Best in class cars, the greatest engineers and statisticians, of course. But it also takes huge swathes of people away from the racetrack, incredible teamwork, and reams and reams of data with AI-powered support and intelligence to bring it all to bear.

That was the clear message from the very clever people at Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Technology as they hosted Inoapps experts and a select gathering of leaders from the UK’s energy sector at the F1 factory in Milton Keynes.

The focus was on utilising Oracle—not just as Red Bull’s sponsor—but as an integral part of the whole effort at gaining a winning advantage. We examined the power of incremental gains, and enhancing the output from the huge databank that Red Bull takes from every race, trackside event, and from the hundreds of cameras that span its racing cars.

But it’s not just about gaining the most from the track and practice sessions. Everything from the manufacturing processes to handling accounts and HR is scrutinized to ensure processes and people are efficient and give the best potential output they can.

That is what makes a great team.

Energy guests were given a privileged and rarely seen view of the factory that creates Red Bull’s Formula One monsters, and got up close to current and previous race cars. Meanwhile, the 2,000 or so staff at Red Bull were in a debrief with regards the latest race to determine lessons learned and areas for improvement. Everyone from the drivers themselves to the apprentice engineers, marketing teams and receptionists—everyone is a vital cog in this exquisite and high-performance wheel.

The sense of speed and exploration into ways of working and breaking boundaries is clearly evident. It pervades the place. Move at pace, make mistakes, and move on. This is a world where data and AI-support drive everything and enable the best in the business to achieve all they are capable of.

And the successes are incredible. Red Bull now produce and deploy their own F1 units in conjunction with Ford, thanks to the enhanced data and analysis provided by Oracle software—and all within a four-year timeframe, from start to delivery.

The energy sector representatives at the event—from oil to wind, manufacturing to electricity provision—was enraptured by that speed of thought and, even more excitingly, by the speed of delivery.

Much scrutiny and discussion gave the attendees significant food for thought. The event presented them with the opportunity to challenge their own operations to enhance output through better systems and AI-enhanced software offerings. The next session will probe some of the clear opportunities energy firms have ahead of them.