Mehul Kapadia, Vice President - Global Marketing at Tata Communications gives an overview of the company's collaboration with F1 including the F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize.
Tata Communications, which serves as the official connectivity provider to Formula 1 and the official managed connectivity supplier of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, has announced Benjamin Lambert and Alexander Gibson from the United Kingdom as the grand prize winners of the 2017 F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize. During a ceremony in the run-up to the 2017 Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, four-time Formula One World Drivers Champion Lewis Hamilton handed the winners a cheque for $50,000 and a bespoke trophy.
Tata Communications is also the official online hosting and Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider of F1.com. Their CDNs see a reported traffic of 50m unique users each year with more than 3.7m hours of video distributed online.
Speaking to BroadcastPro ME, Mehul Kapadia, Vice President – Global Marketing at Tata Communications said: Approximately 300 hours of effort go into ensuring a glitch-free setup just two weeks before the Thursday of each race week. It took just three days to install, test and de-rig the network at Abu Dhabi Yas Marina Circuit this weekend.
At the core, we provide Formula 1 with connectivity services. We connect each of the race tracks to their offices in the UK. On that connectivity they pretty much run everything. Data is transmitted in the blink of an eye (approximately 130 milliseconds) through 12,000km of fibre route across two continents. It helps that more than 28% of worlds internet routes travel over Tata Communications network.
