Speed cameras

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Polish driver Robert Kubica talks with a TV crew. An estimated 750 broadcasting staff covered the Bahrain Grand Prix which attracted a global TV audience of 350 million.

Formula One was back in Bahrain last month with hundreds of race officials and media, not to mention 40,000 fans, all looking to use broadcast technology to get a closer look at the action.

With 22 cars racing around the Bahrain International Circuit's 5.5km track at speeds of up to 340kmph, it can be hard to keep your eye on the action. To ensure all interested parties didn't miss a thing, an elaborate broadcast and communication infrastructure was put in place.

The sports governing body, the Swiss based FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile), monitors all the race action from its control room.

At the Bahrain circuit, 41 cameras monitor every turn of the track as well as the frantic activity in the pit lanes to ensure none of the sport's exhaustive list of regulations is broken.

Riedel Communications provided the FIA with much of the infrastructure required for this.

"We supply a custom-built carbon fibre race control desk which goes around the world with us to all 18 Grand Prix races," says Alexander Keck, Formula One rental manager with Riedel.

"It is very expensive to build the desk from this material but when you consider that every kg of weight costs US $100 extra to freight, you will begin to see that it is actually a good investment."

With the race schedule taking in destinations as far apart as Japan, Brazil and Canada, it is easy to understand how quickly the desk could deliver on the initial expense.

All this footage along with the audio from the radio links between teams and their drivers is recorded onto a 7TB hard drive system. The FIA race officials, through Keck, can then re-visit all of the events of the race as it happens, enabling them to award any necessary penalties for infringements of the rules during the race. An archive of the events is also maintained for any future appeals.

German broadcaster, RTL also covers every race of the season.

"There are more races than there used to be, more back to back races," says Friedrich Behringer, RTL technical operations manager.

"This means our technical facilities have to be really well integrated to reduce the time needed for rigging and de-rigging. It is difficult to get the costs and the timing right with the overseas races getting closer together. We have to rethink our methods of production as a result.

"For example, using fibre reduces the set-up time greatly. We were an early - if not the first - user of one cable for several signals. Multiplexing over long distances, without quality loss, saves a lot of cabling time at an event such as F1 that covers so much ground.

"We use the main feed from F1 and our contract allows us to use two radio cameras. We are not permitted to use any fixed positions. The main feed used to be provided by the local host broadcaster at each race, however nowadays this is done by Formula One Management (FOM) in most races - if not all - and that has been a big change," claims Behringer.

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