McLaren F1 embraces AI-powered ITSM to build race-day infrastructure

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For 76 years, Formula 1 has sought the pinnacle of automotive engineering. Each season of the motorsport consists of a series of races, or Grand Prix, in multiple countries on both purpose-built circuits and closed roads. With data and AI now at the heart of every F1 racing team’s operations, their IT departments race to assemble the necessary infrastructure at each race location days before each event. The McLaren Mastercard F1 Team, for instance, which happens to be the reigning Formula 1 Constructors Champion with team driver Lando Norris as reigning Formula 1 Drivers’ Champion, leverages AI-driven ITSM to tackle that challenge. “We go through a whole process of building the entire garage and infrastructure that supports the team before they’ve even turned up,” says Dan Keyworth, executive director of performance technology and systems at McLaren Racing. Staying ahead of the game Keyworth’s early setup crew arrives at each venue a week in advance of a given race, and transforms an empty shell of a garage into a cutting edge facility, running kilometers of cabling and setting up all the systems needed to support the 300 sensors that stream real-time data from the cars and drivers — like tire temperature, engine performance, aerodynamics, and driver biometrics — to more than 30 people in mission control, all while a race is going on. “We build out an entire office and run three and a half kilometers of copper cabling,” Keyworth says. “We make sure we’ve got all our engineering stations, pit islands, and pit wall all in place, and that it’s well tested.” They also do a comms check to make sure all systems operate correctly. “That happens when our trackside infrastructure, which is a mobile data center, gets wheeled into the garage,” he adds. “We hook power up to the network, and then we’re effectively ready to go racing in that location.” A well-oiled tech machine As soon as the early setup crew is done, they’re on a plane to the next venue to start all over again, leaving two trackside IT personnel to support race-day operations. The crew essentially builds the IT infrastructure for a garage from scratch every week during the racing season. To make it all run smoothly, Keyworth’s team utilizes Freshworks’ AI-powered ITSM platform Freshservice, which helps deliver traceable workflows for race-weekend operation checks and employee lifecycle management. IT raises recurring tickets before each event to verify all systems, from monitors and microphones in the control room, to data links and communication equipment. The platform also supports on- and offboarding workflows, integrated with Workday, to help scale IT service delivery as the team grows. “Service management is the core of everything we do,” Keyworth says. “Using traditional IT processes to drive repeatability gives us a competitive edge, particularly using Freshservice for workflows that automate proactive tickets so we can set things up properly.” Those workflows include prechecks of mission control, preemptively running tool chains to ensure they’ll perform as expected on race weekends, and simulating data from the cars. “We want to be proactive,” Keyworth says. “We look at all the alerts and different anomalies, and ensure we’ve done everything up front before so we have a smooth operation for the weekend.” Layers of connectivity Keyworth says Freddy AI, the AI-powered assistant built into Freshservice that handles employee requests, has also freed up the IT operations team and engineers to add more value. Plus, it gives more facetime to people at the race venue’s garage, and at McLaren’s factory back in England. So it helps sort and prioritize tickets as they come in. “McLaren is a people business,” Keyworth says. “You want processes running seamlessly and workflows running in an automated fashion so you can free up people.” While most IT teams don’t need to continuously build out infrastructure at the pace McLaren does, Keyworth says the lessons he’s learned should translate to many other organizations. “We don’t wait until the off season to make changes,” he says. “We’re evolving our technology stack at the same pace the car is being evolved for every race weekend.” The underlying attitude, however, is to celebrate change. “We embrace a certain level of bravery,” he adds, “but the key thing is we remain calm under pressure and learn from any opportunity that presents itself.”