F1 to use artificial intelligence TV graphics in 2019

Watching a Formula 1 race in 2019 could turn out to be a lot more immersive than ever before, as Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be used to power a range of new in-race TV graphics, aimed at making viewers more aware of what’s going on at the track.

According to Autosport, this technology is part of the ‘F1 Insights’ alliance with Amazon’s machine learning tool and the use of the latter’s Sagemaker machine learning tool.

“For next season we are expanding ‘F1 Insights’ for our viewers, by further integrating the telemetry data such as car position, tire condition, even the weather, so we can use Sagemaker to predict car performance, pit stops and race strategy,” stated F1 motorsport boss Ross Brawn, during a recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) conference in Las Vegas.

“[There will be] some exciting new AI integrations into next year’s F1 TV broadcast.”

Brawn gave the public three examples of how these new graphics might be used during a race broadcast. The first is to offer the viewer a more in-depth insight into the state of each driver’s tires, so that fans can know when somebody is suffering from overheating.

“We know that somebody is in trouble: his rear tires are overheating,” said Brawn. “We can look at the history of the tires and how they have worked and where he is in the race, and machine learning can help us apply a proper analysis of the situation.”

“We can bring that information to the fans and make them understand if the guy is in trouble or if he can manage the situation.”

Another interesting idea is that of using the tech to predict the likelihood of an overtaking maneuver.

“Wheel-to-wheel racing is the essence, a critical aspect of the sport and now with machine learning and using live data and historical data, we can make predictions about what is going to happen. What is great about this, is that the teams don’t have all this data. We as F1 know the data from both cars and can make this comparison, and this has never been done before.”

His final example was a pit stop analysis: “Stopping at the right time and fitting the right tire can win or lose a race,” added the F1 exec. “We are going to take all the data and give fans an insight into why they stopped and when they stopped – did the team and driver make the right call?”

The 2019 Formula 1 season kicks off March 17th in Melbourne with the Australian Grand Prix.