Transcript of a discussion on how the redesign of Formula 1 race cars relies on high-performance computing and innovative data center advances to coax out the best in fluid dynamics refinement.

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How HPC Supports the 'Continuous
Integration of New Ideas' for
Optimizing Formula 1 Car Design
Transcript of a discussion on how the redesign of Formula 1 race cars relies on high-performance
computing and innovative data center advances to coax out the best in fluid dynamics refinement.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett
Packard Enterprise.
Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the BriefingsDirect Voice of
the Customer podcast series. I’m Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor
Solutions, your host and moderator for this ongoing discussion on digital transformation
success stories.
Our next extreme use-case for high-performance computing (HPC) examines how the
strictly governed redesign of Formula 1 race cars relies on data center innovation to
coax out the best in fluid dynamics analysis and refinement.
We’ll now hear how Alfa Romeo Racing (formerly Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team) in
Hinwil, Switzerland leverages the latest in IT to bring hard-to-find but momentous design
improvements -- from simulation, to wind tunnel, to test track, and ultimately, to victory.
The goal: To produce cars that are glued to the asphalt and best slice through the air.
Here to describe the challenges and solutions from the
compute-intensive design of Formula 1 cars is Francesco
Del Citto, Head of Computational Fluid Dynamics
Methodology for Alfa Romeo Racing. Welcome,
Francesco.
Del Citto: Hello and thank you.
Gardner: We are also here with Peter Widmer,
Worldwide Category Manager for Moonshot/Edgeline
and Internet of Things (IoT) at Hewlett Packard
Enterprise (HPE). Welcome, Peter.
Widmer: Thank you.
Gardner: Why does Alfa Romeo Racing need to prepare for another car design now?
Del Citto

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Del Citto: Effectively, it’s a continuous design process. We never stop, especially on the
aerodynamic side. And what every Formula 1 team does is dictated by each race
season and by the specific planning and concept of your car in terms of performance.
For Formula 1 racing, the most important and discriminating factor in terms of
performance is aerodynamics. Every Formula 1 team puts a lot of effort in designing the
aerodynamic shape of their cars. That includes for brake cooling, engine cooling, and
everything else. So all the airflow around and inside of the car is meticulously simulated
to extract the maximum performance.
Gardner: This therefore becomes as much an engineering competition as it is a racing
competition.
Engineered to race
Del Citto: Actually, it’s both. On the track, it’s clearly a racing competition between
drivers and teams. But before you ever get to the track, it is an engineering competition
in which the engineers both design the cars as well as the methods used to design the
cars. Each Formula 1 team has its own closely guarded methodologies and processes –
and they are each unique.
Gardner: When I first heard about fluid dynamics and aerodynamic optimization for cars,
I was thinking primarily about reduction of friction. But this is about a lot more, such as
the cooling but also making the car behave like a reverse airplane wing.
Tell us why the aerodynamic impacts are much more complicated than people might
have appreciated.
Del Citto: It is very complicated. Most
of the speed and lap-time reductions
you gain are not on the straightaways.
You gain over your competitors in how
the car behaves in the corners. If you
can increase the force of the air acting
on the car -- to push the car down onto
the ground -- then you have more force
preventing the car from moving out of
line in the corners.
Why use the force of the air? Because it is free. It doesn’t come with any extra weight.
But it is difficult to gain such extra inertial control forces. You must generate them in an
efficient way, without being penalized too much from friction.
It’s also difficult to generate such forces without breaking the rules, because there are
rules. There are limits for designing the shapes of the car. You cannot do whatever you
want. Still, within these rules, you have to try to extract the maximum benefits.
You gain over your competitors in
how the car behaves in the corners. If
you can increase the force of the air
acting on the car … then you have
more force preventing the car from
moving out of line in the corners.

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The force the car generates is called downforce, which is the opposite of lift force from
the design of an airplane. The airplane has wings designed to lift. The racing car is
designed to be pushed down to the ground. The more you can push to the ground, the
more grip you have between the tires and the asphalt and the faster you can go in the
corners before the friction gives up and you just slide.
Gardner: And how fast do these cars go nowadays?
Del Citto: They are very fast on the straight, around 360-370 km/hour (224-230 mph),
especially in Mexico City, where the air is thin due to the altitude. You have less
resistance and they have a very long straight there, so this is where you get the
maximum speeds.
But what is really impressive is the corner speed. In the corners you can now have a
side acceleration force that is four to five times the force of gravity. It’s like being in a jet
fighter plane. It’s really, really high.
Widmer: They wear their security belts not only to hold
them in in case of an accident, but also for when they
brake and steer. Otherwise, they could be catapulted out
of the car because the forces are close to 5G. The
efficiency of the car is really impressive, not only from the
acceleration or high speeds. The other invisible forces
also differentiate a Formula 1 car from a street car.
Gardner: Peter, because this is an engineering
competition, we know the simulations result in impactful
improvements. And that then falls back on the
performance of the data center and its level of
innovation. Why is the high-performance computing
environment such an essential part of the Formula 1
team?
Widmer: Finding tens of thousands of a second on the
racetrack, where a lap time can be one minute or less,
pushes the design of the cars to the extreme edge. To find that best design solution
requires computer-aided design (CAD) guidance -- and that’s where the data center
plays an important part.
Those computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations take place in the data center.
That’s why we are so happy to work together with Alfa Romeo Racing as a technology
partner.
Gardner: Francesco, do you have constraints on what you can do with the computers as
well as what you can do with the cars?
Widmer

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Limits to compute for cars
Del Citto: Yes, there are limits in all aspect of the car, design, and especially in the
aerodynamic research. That’s because aerodynamics is where you can extract more
performance -- but it’s where you can spend more money as well.
The Formula 1 governing body, the FIA, a few years ago put in place ways of controlling
the money spent for aerodynamic research. So instead of putting on a budget cap, they
decided to put a limit on the resources you can use. The resources are both the wind
tunnel and the computational fluid dynamics. It’s a tradeoff between the two. The more
wind tunnel you use, the less computational power you can use, and vice versa. So each
team has its sweet spot, depending on their strategy.
You have restrictions in how much computational capacity you can use to solve your
simulations. You can do a lot of post-processing and pre-processing, but you cannot
extract too much from that. The solving part, in which it tells you the performance results
of the new car design, is what is limited.
Gardner: Peter, how does that translate into an HPE HPC equation? How do you
continuously innovate to get the most from the data center, but without breaking the
rules?
Learn How Massively Parallel, High-Density HPC
Servers Double Throughput
While Slashing Energy Use
Widmer: We work with a competency center on the HPC to determine the right
combination of CPU, throughput, and whatever it takes to get the end results, which are
limited by the regulations.
We are very open on the platform
requirements for not only Alfa Romeo
Racing, but for all of the teams, and
that’s based on the most efficient
combination of CPU, memory,
networking, and other infrastructure so
that we can offer the CFD use-case.
It takes know-how about how to tune the CPUs, about the specifics of the CFD
applications, and knowledge of the regulations formula which then leads us to get that
success in CFD for Formula 1.
Gardner: Let’s hear more about that recipe for success.
We are very open on the platform
requirements for not only Alfa Romeo
Racing, but for all of the teams, and
that’s based on the most efficient
combination of CPU, memory,
networking, and other infrastructure.

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Memory makes the difference
Widmer: It’s an Intel Skylake CPU, which includes graphic cards onboard. That
obviously is not used for the CFD use-case, but the memory we do use as a level-four
memory cache. That then provides us extra performance, which is not coming from the
CPU, which is regulated. Due to the high-density packaging of the HPE Moonshot
solution -- where we can put 45 compute notes in a 4.30 rack chassis -- this is quite
compact. And it’s just topped out at about 5,000-plus cores.
Del Citto: Yes, 5,760 cores. As Peter was saying before, the key factor here is the
software. There are three main CFD software applications used by all the Formula 1
teams.
The main limitation for this kind of software is always
the memory bandwidth, not the computational power.
It’s not about the clock speed frequency. The main
limitation is the memory bandwidth. This is why the
four-level cache gives the extra performance, even
compared to a higher spec Intel server CPU. The lower
spec with low energy use CPU version gives us the
extra performance we need because of the extra
memory cache.
Gardner: And this isn’t some workload you can get off of a public cloud. You need to
have this on-premises?
Learn How Massively Parallel, High-Density HPC
Servers Double Throughput
While Slashing Energy Use
Del Citto: That’s right. The HPC facility is completely owned and run by us for the
Formula 1 team. It’s used for research and even for track analysis data. We use it for
multiple purposes, but it’s fully dedicated to the team.
It is not in the cloud. We have designed a building where we have a lot of electricity and
cooling capacity requirements. Consider that the wind tunnel fan -- only the fan – uses 3
megawatts. We need to have a lot of electricity there.
Gardner: Do you use the wind tunnel to cool the data center?
Del Citto: Sort of. We use the same water to cool the wind tunnel and the data center.
But the wind tunnel has to be cooled because you need the air at a constant
temperature to have consistent tests.
The lower spec with low
energy use CPU
version gives us the
extra performance we
need because of the
extra memory cache.

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Gardner: And Peter, this configuration that HPE has put together isn’t just a one-off.
You’re providing the basic Moonshot design for other Formula 1 teams as well?
A winning platform
Widmer: Yes, the solution and fit-for-regulations design was so compelling that we
managed to get 6 out of 10 teams to use the platform. We can say that at least the first
three teams are on our customer list. Maybe the other ones will come to us as well, but
who knows?
We are proud that we can deliver a platform to a sport known for such heavy competition
and that is very technology-oriented. It’s not comparable to any other sport because you
must consistently evolve, develop, and build new stuff. The evolution never stops in
Formula 1 racing.
For a vendor like HPE, it’s really a very nice environment. If they have a new idea that
can give a team a small competitive advantage, we can help them do it. And that’s been
the case for 10 years now.
Let’s figure out how much faster we can go,
and then let’s go for it. These teams are
literally open-minded to new solutions, and
they are eager to learn about what’s coming
down the street in technology and how could
we get some benefits out of it. So that’s
really the nice story around it.
Gardner: Francesco, you mentioned this is a continuous journey. You are always
looking for new improvements, and always redesigning.
Now that you have a sophisticated HPC environment for CFD and simulations, what
about taking advantage of HPC data center for data analysis? For using artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)?
Is that the next stage you can go to with these powerful applications? Do you further
combine the data analysis and CFD to push the performance needle even further?
Learn How Massively Parallel, High-Density HPC
Servers Double Throughput
While Slashing Energy Use
Del Citto: We generate tons of data -- from experiments, the wind tunnel, the CFD
side, and from the track. The cars are full of sensors. During a practice run, there are
hundreds of pressure sensors around the car. In the wind tunnel, there are 700 sensors
constantly running. So, as you can imagine, we have accumulated a lot of data.
These teams are literally open-
minded to new solutions, and they
are eager to learn about what’s
coming down the street in
technology and how could we get
some benefits out of it.

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Now, the natural step will be how we can use it. Yes, this is something everyone is
considering. I don’t know where this will bring us. There is nothing else I can comment
on at the moment.
Gardner: If they can put rules around the extent to which you can use a data center for
AI, for example, it could be very powerful.
Del Citto: It could be very powerful, yes. You are suggesting something to the rule-
makers now. Obviously, we have to work with what we have now and see what will
come next. We don’t know yet, but this is something we are keeping our eyes on, yes.
Gardner: Good luck on your redesign for the 2019 season of Formula 1 racing, which
begins in March 2019.
Widmer: Thanks a lot.
Gardner: I’m afraid we’ll have to leave it there. We have been exploring how the strictly
governed redesign of Formula 1 race cars relies on data center innovation to coax out
the best in fluid dynamics innovation. And we’ve learned how the latest in HPC brings
about small but momentous design improvements -- from simulation, to wind tunnel, to
test track, and then ultimately on to victory.
Please join me in thanking our guests, Francesco Del Citto, Head of CFD Methodology
for Alfa Romeo Racing in Hinwil, Switzerland. Thank you.
Del Citto: Thank you, very much.
Gardner: We have also been here with Peter Widmer, Worldwide Category Manager for
Moonshot/Edgeline and IoT at HPE. Thank you, Peter.
Widmer: Thanks a lot.
Gardner: And a big thank you as well to our audience for joining this BriefingsDirect
Voice of the Customer digital transformation success story. I’m Dana Gardner, Principal
Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host for this ongoing series of Hewlett Packard
Enterprise-sponsored interviews.
Thanks again for listening. Please pass this on to your IT community, and do come back
next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett
Packard Enterprise.
Transcript of a discussion on how the redesign of Formula 1 race cars relies on high-performance
computing and innovative data center advances to coax out the best in fluid dynamics innovation.
Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2019. All rights reserved.

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