Lenovo is helping the Ducati team to achieve the best results again this year
At Ducati Corse's Track Champions event in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, Lenovo is presented a technology portfolio which will help the team fight for the title in 2024.
„We look forward to the start of the new MotoGP season with Ducati Corse, continuing a successful 2023 season that has shown progress, both in technology and on the track, culminating in Francesco Bagnaio winning the MotoGP Riders' Championship for the second consecutive year. Undoubtedly, the fight will be tough and we look forward to continuing to work with the team, using our innovative technology and services to raise the bar for high performance. The goal is not only to fight for the title, but also to develop technical innovations that are created for the track, and that are available to everyone, for example, within the portfolio of Ducati street bikes.“, commented Luca Rossi, President of the Lenovo Group for Intelligent Devices.
As the Technology Partner of Ducati Corse since 2018, the Lenovo company, which also includes the well-known Motorola phone brand, provides the team with state-of-the-art data technology that turns them into sources of concrete information that help the team improve its functioning, conducts complex simulations and brings strategic decisions in seconds.
In the technology-driven world of MotoGP, the ability to understand data and use it for strategic decision-making is more important than ever. During each race weekend, Ducati Corse collects a total of 100GB of data from the eight Ducati Desmosedici GP bikes racing on the track, each with around 50 sensors. With the aim of further improving on-track data analysis, the 2024 season will bring the introduction of Lenovo ThinkAgile hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) to the Ducati Lenovo Team garage. A powerful and flexible platform will help the team quickly analyze huge amounts of data, while promoting mobility and reliability, even in harsh conditions, thanks to Lenovo ThinkSystem SE350 edge servers.
This AI-optimized infrastructure will power Ducati's deep learning and machine learning tools, which are used to improve the performance, reliability and safety of Ducati racing bikes, as well as to analyze data collected from sensors on the bikes and on the track, comparing them to the “feelings” of the rider.
Ducati Corse also uses Ducati Lenovo Remote Garage
The data is not only analyzed on the track: Ducati Corse also uses the Ducati Lenovo Remote Garage, which allows the engineers located in Borgo Panigale (Bologna) to receive real-time data from the garage, perform complex analyzes and collaborate seamlessly with the field team to optimize the settings motorcycles before they return to the track again. To further improve productivity and remote collaboration, the Ducati Lenovo Remote Garage room at Ducati headquarters has been completely renovated using a variety of Lenovo hardware, including monitors, workstations and accessories.
Teams based at Ducati headquarters are also responsible for aerodynamics and fluid dynamics simulations, powered by Lenovo's High Performance Computing (HPC) technology, based on Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530, SR630 and SR650 servers. Lenovo's HPC infrastructure will continue to play a key role in racing bike innovation and improving on-track performance, thanks to built-in AI acceleration for edge workloads and optimization for faster data analysis. In addition, to meet the ever-evolving needs of the fast-paced sport discipline, Ducati Corse has signed a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Agreement with Lenovo, which enables additional power and services available on demand via a public cloud service to quickly adapt to unpredictable high-end times, with Lenovo as the single point of contact.
LenovoIn this mission-critical environment, Lenovo's wide range of workstations, PCs, tablets and monitors empower people at every level of the organization, from the seat to the track, improving operations, collaboration and data analysis. Lenovo ThinkPad P1 mobile workstations accompany the team's electronic engineers to the starting line, just minutes before the race, when the bikes are set up.
But Lenovo technology will soon cruise the track as well: from the 2024 season, the Ducati Lenovo team will present an innovative solution for conducting field surveys on the track, with the help of the Lenovo ThinkStation P360 Ultra workstation. Ducati Corsa engineers have developed an autonomous driving robot with a wide set of inertial and optical sensors, which will travel along the track at the start of the GP weekend, allowing the team to get a digital copy of the track as close to reality as possible. Lenovo's compact, high-performance workstation will enable Ducati Corse to collect and analyze a total of 200GB of data per track – allowing the Ducati Corse team to receive up to 2.6 million data every second (255 MB/s) from LiDAR sensors (Light Detection and Ranging) alone And Ranging).
“There is great excitement about the start of the 2024 MotoGP season. We are looking forward to testing again after an exceptional year. Next to us is Lenovo again, a key player who, in addition to being the main partner of the official team, is also a key technology partner with whom we have made significant progress and achieved important results on the track. Ducati and Lenovo share similar philosophies that encourage us to always go further and constantly set new and ambitious goals. We have been working together for years to win on and off the track, and we will continue to do so with the same determination, thanks to the new opportunities provided by AR and VR technologies. Everything is ready to start the engine on March 10 in Qatar and cheer again together with all the Ducatists #ForzaDucati!” said Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding.
Innovation is a continuous journey, and the two organizations are constantly researching, testing and implementing new ideas and technologies with the goal of winning both on and off the track. For the future, Ducati Corse is considering the possibilities offered by AR and VR technologies, as well as Lenovo's additional services to help achieve its sustainability goals and gain the flexibility needed to face the challenges of the ever-changing world of motorsport.