Formula 1 Melbourne GP 2023 Tech Blog: F1 Tech Perspective

Nick Ross April 3, 2023 Blog

SMBtech is at the Melbourne Grand Prix and touring the circuit in the days leading up to the race – and the race itself. The whole event is a great festival in Melbourne with all manner of technology, stands and classic cars surrounding the main race itself. What follows is what caught our eye – newest updates are at the top:

Tech and automotive at the 2023 Melbourne GP

melbourne gp F1 spa — We weren’t initially enamoured with the idea of ‘Backpackers’ accommodation, but frankly, this was a great end to days and days of walking.

melbourne gp F1 sunset — After a long four days, a heavily delayed race approaches the end in blinding sun.

melbourne gp F1 final day sun — From hot, cold, wet, dry randomness to straight-up cooking on the final day. Despite the perfect racing conditions, we still managed to have racing chaos with a record three red flags due to crashes, somehow.

melbourne gp F1 roulettes — They came from out of the sun…!

melbourne gp F1 oscar piastri — Oscar Piastri.

Literally the local boy, from Brighton, just down the road, now racing for McLaren. Oscar Piastri gives SMBtech a wave.

melbourne gp F1 Lewis Hamilton — Lewis Hamilton.

The best driver in the history of motor racing gives SMBtech the thumbs up.

melbourne gp F1 martial snags — Martial Snags.

My new chums the martials sensationally shared their snags. Hubby left early to watch the main race on TV. It’s not a terrible idea. The F1 festival is fantastic all week, but the final race is hard to follow from around the circuit. Especially if you’re under 6ft and don’t have a seat in the stands.

melbourne gp F1 V8s — V8s.

Just a regular car driving round Melbourne streets looking for a park.

melbourne gp F1 storyville bar — Storyville.

Another recommended evening retreat treat is Storyville. An amazing, fantasy-themed, phenomenal cocktail bar.

melbourne gp F1 casa ferrari — Casa Ferrari.

Let’s face it, you want to go here, but you’re not getting in.

melbourne gp F1 estang — Ford eStang.

Here’s the electric Ford ‘Mustang’ Danny Ric liked that we covered the day before.

melbourne gp F1 merchandise stands — That’s a lot of merch for a lot of money.

melbourne gp F1 70years — 70 years of cutting-edge automotive tech up close. And boy, do they sound great if you’re lucky enough to hear one turned on… like when they try and get them out of the rain.

melbourne gp F1 race radio — Race Radio.

To be frank, on Sunday, these headphones with embedded commentary are a very good idea as it’s a struggle to hear anything over the loudspeakers once the cars spread out around the track and, unless you’re in front of a big screen (there aren’t as many around the track as there should be), you’ll struggle to know what’s going on. This isn’t so much of an issue in qualifying and shorter, lesser races.

melbourne gp F1 roulettes — Air Force Roulettes doing their thing.

melbourne gp F1 pitstop turn14 — Pit Stop Turn 14.

The snappily titled Pit Stop Turn 14 area has many displays and activities that will please and interest those who don’t even like Formula 1…

melbourne gp F1 kartracing — Karting Australia.

Karting Australia gets you into racing no matter your age.

melbourne gp F1 Turn 14 park — More from the Melbourne GP’s Turn 14 tech park.

Here we have the Defence Force recruiters. Next to them is the UNSW Canberra Academy Racing Club.

melbourne gp F1 LANdu — LANdu.

LANdu is a regular local LAN, er, do. It’ll be fun, though! Check it out here.

melbourne gp F1 deadly science — Deadly Science.

Deadly Science provides science resources to remote schools in Australia.

melbourne gp F1 mindflight — Mindflight7.

Mindflight7 does educational VR. This incudes, school VR incursions, VR career education programs, curriculum integrated programs, professional development, school VR room implementation and content development.

melbourne gp F1 bae systems — BAE Systems.

BAE Systems is a defence contractor and will be involved with the AUKUS Submarine contracts.

melbourne gp F1 sportsgrad — SportsGrad.

SportsGrad helps you get a career in sport. It also has a podcast.

melbourne gp F1 safe transport victoria — Safe Transport Australia.

Will VR public transport safety be as big a hit as Dumb Ways to Die?

melbourne gp F1 murmotorsports — MUR motorsports.

Melbourne University Racing had a stand for their engineering and racing team.

melbourne gp F1 virtual racing school — Virtual Racing School.

This is a school we’d be happy to attend.

melbourne gp F1 robogals — Go Girl / Robogal.

Robogals is a great Monash, STEM initiative for women.

melbourne gp F1 expo — Expo tent.

The Melbourne GP had an Expo tent for local STEM initiatives.

melbourne gp F1 paint your own helmet — Pose or paint? TBF, we think pose won.

melbourne gp F1 esports — Mandatory eSim racing for the fans.

melbourne gp F1 pitstop challenge — Pitstop challenge.

Full-size wheels and wheel-guns. It’s not as simple as the teams make it look.

melbourne gp drone legion dark studio — Virtual Drone racing.

Drone Legion is a VR drone racing game made by Aussie developers, Dark Shadow Studios. They had contests and prizes for their VR eSport.

melbourne gp F1 air force — We were pleased to see that, in addition to all the army types on show, the Air Force drone racing association was on show with demonstrations.

melbourne gp F1 opentext and micro focus — OpenText nee Micro Focus.

It was good catching up with the OpenText crew even though, despite the recent $6Bn takeover they still hadn’t been able to afford a new tablecloth (or pens).

melbourne gp F1 Grimshaw — Grimshaw Archtects showed off their model of Dubai’s Sustainability Pavilion with which was completed in 2020. It’s heavily solar powered and surrounded by solar trees.

melbourne gp F1 Bremont watches — Bremont is an up-and-coming, British luxury watch maker with some cool partnerships with the likes of Williams F1, the British Army, Jaguar and Rolls Royce. It also engineers precision parts for other high performance machines.

Bremont is the Official Timepiece Maker of the resurgent Williams F1 team. It’s not quite an official parterner like IWC is with Mercedes, but… maybe one day.

melbourne gp F1 Bremont — Bremont – British watchmaker.

We hadn’t heard about a new, premium, British watch brand, but Bremont has been around for 10 years. Founded by the English, English brothers, who were from an RAF family with interest in precision in engineering, the company wanted to bring watchmaking ‘home to Britain’ after both the American and UK watchmaking industries were decimated by the World Wars and the mandatory retooling of their factories… while Switzerland stayed neutral.

Bremont is based in Henley Upon Thames and sponsors the famous, local, Royal, rowing regatta. It also makes some high-spec parts for the Williams F1 team. These include the primary wheel hub nub (famously $10,000 each) and you get a used one of these with a watch purchase. Also, a Rocker Head Assembly, which helps with assembly of the rocker heads.

melbourne gp F1 uk innovation station — One set of speakers for the tech hub came from the UK Innovation Station.

The UK Innovation Station contained some eclectic brands including JCB, OpenText, Grimshaw and Bremont.

melbourne gp F1 diesel generator — Here’s the 20KVA equivalent. It’s half the size but one-fifth the power, noisy and smelly and runs on diesel.

melbourne gp F1 hydrogen generator — This Hydrogen-powered generator was part exhibition piece and part generator. 100KVA (1,000 Volt Amps) with zero emissions is surely something the world should aspire to using more?

melbourne gp F1 tech hub — A Tech Hub stage with beanbags might mostly have been used by race goers to shelter from the sun and rain, but they also witnessed some speeches from the likes of the ADF (armed forces) and supporting tech companies.

melbourne gp F1 crypto dot com — A rare unimpeded public view of the track… and a Crypto.com sign.

About The Author

Nick Ross

Nick Ross is a veteran tech journalist. He is Editor of SMBtech, an Australian-focused website for technology and business.

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