Like my computers, I like my cars to be a combination of fast, luxurious, well designed, visually stunning and needing to say a statement of some sort. Ladies and gents, with those criteria I was very much in heaven while within the Ferrari camp.
The day started with an early flight from Sydney to Melbourne. From here a group of us met to make our way out to the track. Unsurprisingly Melbourne was bustling, as a city does when such a huge event hits town. After about an hour wading through traffic – we were told later that we did quite well on the timing front – we eventually arrived at our destination, and upon arrival were handed small blue folders. Let’s call them folderettes.... they were cute.
These folderettes had the tickets that would get us past the rows (and rows) of security between the general public and the luxurious team hospitality rooms, as well as into the paddock and the pits.
As you breeze through these check points like you own the place -– all the while making sure your pass is in clear sight -– it becomes very, very easy to become jealous of people who do this on a regular basis. Either way, this was my chance to lap up the atmosphere -- which could only be described as mesmerising.
We arrived at the circuit about 15 minutes into the first one and a half hour time trial. You know these cars are fast, you know these cars are loud and you know they’re quite simply, freaking cool. But it’s not until you’re physically on top of the vehicles as they peel out of the pit garage that every single notion you held is dismissed and replaced by a wave of emotions that leave you stunned and in awe -– Formula 1 truly is the pinnacle of motorsport!
With cars so often used as an analogy to describe and break down computing concepts, I couldn’t help but to unleash the geek within. The amount of times I compared the cars to all aspects of enthusiast computing -– sustainable limits, maximum limits, design, modifications... just everything kept my mind truly believing the geeks of the world and F1 were made for one another.
A trip into the pits very quickly makes this fantasy a reality. The sheer amount of computing technology and hardware utilised by the Ferrari team was awe inspiring -– even for a techie who sees endless amounts of hardware pass through the labs.
Ferrari runs analyses of aerodynamics, fuel consumption, track tyre wear, track sector times -- Hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had told me they even analysed Raikkonen’s passing of wind. At the end of the day though, these teams are using some serious computing power. Laptops and small form factor PCs line the team’s track side monitoring platform, laptops pepper the garage and racks upon racks of multi-CPU server clusters are number crunching non-stop over the race weekend. All the resources are pooled together to get that little red car around the track faster than that little silver car. Not quite this weekend, though.
The cleanliness of the Ferrari garage was also astounding. Everything was meticulously organised and purposeful -- it was as if even oil spills would have to occur within certain criteria as set by Ferrari management. It was a tightly run shop to say the least.
At the end of the day and between us, if you ever do get the chance to check out the pinnacle of motor racing, do yourself a favour and take that opportunity. These vehicles and the teams behind them demand respect and frankly, after seeing what I’ve seen, I don’t think I could possibly have any more than I did as I left the paddock –- it was utterly inspirational.
Cheers to Ferrari and AMD for having us for the day -– much appreciated.
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