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F1 Technique: Getting accurate weather forecast is essential to teams

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Khatir Soltani
Austrian company UBIMET provides Formula 1 teams with high-quality, accurate weather services.

UBIMET, an industry leader in weather forecasting and severe weather warnings, also has its own team and about 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) of equipment on site at all Grands Prix. That includes weather stations, radar, radio modems, antennae and several servers for on-site computations.

Over the course of its six-day Grand Prix deployments, UBIMET analyses about 7,200 radar images and – during the race sessions – processes more than 1,400 pages of data to produce weather forecasts in real time.

UBIMET equipment set up in Montreal.
UBIMET equipment set up in Montreal. (Photo: UBIMET)

This provides F1 teams with weather forecasts and data that are updated on a minute-by-minute basis – information that is crucial in making decisions on car setup and strategy.

Depending on weather conditions, data and forecasts are updated every few minutes during Formula 1 races. To accomplish this, 93 different kinds of weather data are processed each minute.

Weather information provided to the F1 teams.
Weather information provided to the F1 teams. (Sky Sports F1)

Using its equipment, the company processes as much as 25 GB of weather data – equivalent to the storage capacity of 36 CDs – and 1,440 radar images each and every day, from Tuesdays before the Grand Prix until after the race on Sunday.

Since the start of this year's Formula 1 season [up to the summer break], UBIMET has processed 1,391 hours of measurement data, carried out 13,475 calculations and produced 336 forecasts.


Khatir Soltani
Khatir Soltani
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