Just a few days after the race at the Baku City Circuit, the Formula 1 World Championship returns for the next round, the Canadian Grand Prix, which is back on the calendar for the first time since 2019. As usual, the event takes place at a circuit made up of the perimeter roads on the manmade island of Notre-Dame, in the Saint Lawrence river estuary.
It is a semi-permanent facility named in honour of the great Gilles Villeneuve and the track is both attractive and strange in many ways. It includes long straights interrupted by a series of chicanes and slow corners. As a result, the big challenge is finding a good compromise which offers stability under braking and excellent traction, without ignoring what is an important detail at this track, namely the need to able to ride the kerbs.
Paolo Pierro, Ferrari Track Electronics Manager, previews the next round of the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve:
What is your role within the Scuderia?
Paolo Pierro: “I’m in charge of electronics at the track. I see to the management of all electronics over the race weekend and during the preparation period. In practical terms, I coordinate the activities of the personnel who look after the electronics, which covers all the electrical components on the car (sensors, actuators, cabled and wireless communications), operation and programming of the strategy software, work on low level control in the car and managing the controls for the start. But electronics is also the communication systems to and from the car, between all the engineers and mechanics, as well as the telemetry systems on the car and transmitting images to Formula 1. Electronics also impacts on the work in the garage with the interface and supply to the car, as well as the electronics for the pitstops”.
What are the specific aspects of your work connected to the Gilles Villeneuve circuit here in Canada?
Paolo Pierro: “The track is 4361 metres in length and the race lasts 70 laps. Its characteristics, especially the hairpin at turn 10 and turn 13 at the wall of champions, are very hard on the brakes. This is the track where, more than any other, we keep all eyes on the caliper and brake disc temperatures to ensure that the measures we have in place are always consistent and effective. We also have to ensure that the brake-by-wire system that controls the rear brakes and adjusts brake balance with an electric motor, always responds in a matter of milliseconds and does not lose performance”.
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How much telemetric data is generated over a race weekend and how much radio communication is involved?
Paolo Pierro: “A Formula 1 car’s telemetry system requires a bandwidth of around 1MB/sec to send in real time, for around 10,000 channels. Each channel operates on a different frequency. When the car pits and we download the data, we have up to 40,000 channels available. These are then used to generate channels processed on the ground (in practice, high-level information is extracted from the information on the sensors that allow us to monitor the reliability and performance of the car). The number of these channels is even higher during Friday practice where we have some extra acquisitions. This means managing 50GB of data for each grand prix. The communication system is even more interesting: there are about 60 internal communication channels, of which 40 are transmitted to the Maranello remote garage. In a race weekend there are about 5000 internal communications, a thousand of them in the race alone. Communications to or in between mechanics account for another 1000, while engineers transmit around 150 communications per weekend with each driver”.
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