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How machine learning plays a role in F1 racing

Yahoo Finance's Allie Garfinkle breaks down the impact machine learning has had on Formula 1 racing and the computing power that goes into race data analysis, as Miami hosts its first F1 race.

Video Transcript

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back, everyone. When we think of Formula 1 we think of fast cars, star drivers, and high stakes, but there's another important part of the sport you might not immediately think of-- machine learning. Now as we head into the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, Senior Tech Reporter Allie Garfinkle is here to tell us how the sport is being shaped by machine learning. So Allie, what role does machine learning play in Formula 1 today?

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ALLIE GARFINKLE: Great to see you Rachelle. So there are a couple of things. First, for those who may not be familiar, machine learning is algorithms improving automatically through experience and data. And machine learning plays a huge role in Formula 1 today. I spoke to Dr. Priya Ponnapalli about it recently. She heads Amazon Web Service's Machine Learning Lab and that lab works both directly with Formula 1 and specifically with Team Ferrari. And as it turns out, there are hundreds of millions of sensors on every single car every single second generating about a million data points, so that's millions of data points a race. A lot of numbers. The thing to know is that when we're watching the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, those cars aren't just incredibly fast right now. They're also generating data that the teams hope will make them faster in the long term too.

SEANA SMITH: Allie, when it comes to this sport, Formula 1, is it more conducive, do you think, to this type of analysis than other sports, because this isn't something really that we've heard of when we talk about other professional sports?

ALLIE GARFINKLE: Yeah, that's a great question, Seana. So Dr. Ponnapalli has actually worked with all kinds of sports. She's worked with the Australian National Swim Team, the NFL, the NHL, and most sports can benefit from machine learning, she said. That said, because Formula 1 has so much data it can be particularly conducive. Ferrari, for instance, is a major success story for AWS. They've had a great season so far. Their ascension's been incredible and it's been a marked change from a year ago.

Charles Leclerc, one of their drivers, is now leading the Individual Driver's Championship and Ferrari is leading the Team Championship. It's been a big story with F1 and it's actually coincided with Ferrari's connection to AWS. So we have to be careful with correlation and causation, but no one can deny that Ferrari's results this year have been stellar.

SEANA SMITH: All right, Allie, thanks so much.