Making F1 cars faster by upgrading support tech

AN F1 team's operations are not unlike that of a well-oiled factory.

The high pressure to deliver parts on time and iron out the slightest inefficiencies power a constant chase to tune and re-tune operations to keep ahead of competition, said Patrick Louis, former CEO of the Lotus F1 team in an interview with BizIT.

Mr Louis stepped down from the CEO's job in January, but remains on the board of the Lotus F1 team. He joined as chief operating officer in 2010 from Genii Capital, when the latter bought the operation from Renault, and moved up to the CEO role.

He revealed that measuring the performance and quality of the team's F1 facility was key to transforming it over the past four years.

When he arrived at Lotus' Enstone facility, Mr Louis quickly realised that there was no real measurement for efficiency. "I asked the factory manager about the efficiency of the machine shop. He said it was at 80 per cent. Since the machines weren't connected to a measurement system, I went down every day to manually note the output, and found that efficiency was actually 28 per cent. People were shocked when I told them this," he…