Aston Martin F1 Team: Redefining Racing With AI

Few names in motorsport carry the weight of Aston Martin. Founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, the British marque has been synonymous with performance and precision for more than a century. Its racing roots run deep, taking in Grand Prix racing from 1922 and outright victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1959.

The brand's return to Formula One came in 2021, under the ownership of Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll. Five years on, 2026 marks a significant new chapter. For the first time, Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team operates as a full works outfit – meaning it develops and controls its own power unit programme – with Honda supplying the engines.

The driver line-up reflects both experience and ambition. Double World Champion Fernando Alonso and Canadian Lance Stroll lead the charge, supported by an expanded driver programme that includes third driver Jak Crawford, test and reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne, and team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa.

Yet in modern Formula One, success is not determined by driving talent alone. The sport has become one of the most data-intensive environments on earth, with each race weekend generating billions of data points across the car, the pit wall and the factory. The teams that process and act on that information most effectively are increasingly the ones that compete at the front.

For AMF1, closing that gap means investing heavily in data infrastructure, AI and the partnerships that make both possible.

The man behind the data

Fabrizio Pilotti joined AMF1 as Chief Information Officer in 2025, bringing with him more than a decade of experience at the sharp end of motorsport. Before taking the role, he spent nearly 11 years at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, the engine-making division of one of Formula One's most decorated constructors.

His remit at AMF1 is broad. He leads the team's digital transformation and oversees how data and emerging technologies are applied across the organisation – from trackside operations and race strategy to engineering, manufacturing and business functions.

The scale of the challenge is significant, to say the least. Each Grand Prix weekend generates billions of data points from across the car, and the team's ability to convert that raw information into actionable insight – quickly and reliably – can be the difference between gaining or losing ground in a championship.

“In Formula One, success is defined by marginal gains, so the ability to interpret and act on information in real time is critical,” asserts Fabrizio. “This spans trackside operations, race strategy and the way teams collaborate across engineering, manufacturing and business functions.”

The infrastructure underpinning that ambition is increasingly powered by AI. 

Building an AI-ready organisation

Central to AMF1's AI strategy is its newly-established partnership with Cohere, a Canadian technology company that specialises in enterprise-grade generative AI — systems capable of generating text, analysing documents and answering complex queries based on large volumes of data. 

Cohere serves as the team's Official Generative AI Partner, giving the entire team access to North, a platform enabling AI-powered search and generative capabilities across the business. Rather than deploying AI as a standalone tool, AMF1 is embedding it directly into existing workflows.

“North allows us to integrate AI directly into workflows, helping to automate routine analysis, distil complex datasets and improve how information flows between departments,” explains Fabrizio. 

The operational benefits are already visible across several functions. Areas such as manufacturing, supply chain planning and race weekend execution are all in scope. 

Fabrizio expands: “By reducing manual effort and accelerating access to insight, teams can work more efficiently and react more quickly. “In a high-pressure environment like Formula One, even incremental gains in productivity and responsiveness can have a meaningful impact on overall performance.”

For Cohere, the partnership represents a genuine test of what enterprise AI can achieve in one of the world's most demanding data environments. 

Francois Chadwick, CFO at Cohere, says: "Together with the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, we're excited to push the boundaries of what enterprise AI can deliver under extreme performance conditions.”

From simulation to strategy

Beyond the Cohere partnership, AMF1 is exploring AI applications across a wider range of performance and operational areas. A modern Formula One car comprises more than 13,000 components, each subject to continuous development across a season that spans more than 20 races on four continents.

AI is helping the team manage that complexity. On the performance side, it supports design iteration, simulation and race strategy, allowing engineers to assess more scenarios faster than would otherwise be possible. It also feeds into the analysis of real-time telemetry – the stream of live data transmitted from the car to the pit wall and factory during a race.

The supporting infrastructure is equally important. Partners such as NetApp, a data management and storage company, and CoreWeave, a cloud computing provider specialising in high-performance workloads, underpin the data architecture that makes these capabilities possible.

Fabrizio continues: “Enterprise generative AI tools, including those from our partnership with Cohere, help streamline data analysis and improve how teams access and use information. These technologies work together to enable faster insights, stronger collaboration and more effective execution across the organisation.”

Innovation with guardrails

Introducing new technology into a Formula One team is not without risk. Reliability is non-negotiable: a tool that performs inconsistently under pressure is worse than no tool at all. 

AMF1 manages this tension through structured validation and iterative development.

“Technologies such as AI can help accelerate design and decision-making, but they work alongside established engineering processes rather than replacing them,” Fabrizio explains. 

“Potential improvements are identified, then rigorously tested through simulation and other validation methods before being deployed.”

That same discipline applies when assessing new partners and tools. Speed of implementation matters, but not at the cost of accuracy or stability. 

“Even relatively small efficiencies, such as time saved within a process, can end up making a big difference over a race season," says Fabrizio. “Ultimately, it's about maintaining a disciplined cycle of testing, learning and refinement, allowing us to innovate while taking the necessary steps of development.”

Fan experience in a data-driven sport

Formula One's growing reliance on data and computing does not only affect what happens on the track. As the sport becomes more sophisticated, the way audiences engage with it is also evolving. 

Race strategy – both in preparation and during live sessions – is increasingly shaped by AI, and that feeds directly into how races unfold and are experienced by viewers.

Fabrizio sees this as a natural consequence of the sport's technological direction: “As AI and high-performance computing continue to advance, they are enabling more refined approaches to areas such as race strategy. 

“As these technologies continue to evolve, including the potential for more automated decision-making, the sport itself will continue to change. That progression feeds into the fan experience, as audiences engage with a sport that is becoming more precise, more responsive and increasingly shaped by innovation.”

Pursuing marginal gains

Fabrizio identifies two trends he expects to define Formula One's technological landscape in the coming years. The first is the deepening influence of AI across every aspect of the sport. The second is the shift towards more powerful and scalable computing infrastructure.

“Teams are adopting enterprise-level cloud platforms to handle the volume of data and complexity of calculations required, with a strong emphasis on speed, resilience and flexibility,” he says. “This infrastructure is increasingly a competitive factor in its own right.”

In a sport where fractions of a second separate success from failure, the ability to build, integrate and trust that infrastructure may prove just as decisive as any upgrade fitted to the car. 

"Formula One teams will continue to explore emerging technologies in pursuit of marginal gains,” Fabrizio concludes, "with the focus always on identifying innovations that can deliver a measurable performance advantage.”