Red Bull will now use AI for its F1 protest decisions

The march of AI is happening in all industries, and Formula 1 has not been immune as teams try to make the most of the benefits it can offer.

But while we have heard plenty in the past of AI being used to improve strategy decisions or help sift through data quickly to arrive at better set-up decisions, Red Bull says it is piloting something a bit different this year.

The squad has just revealed that, in partnership with title sponsor Oracle, it plans to deploy AI tech to help it when it comes to F1 protests.

Employing what is known as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) together with a large language model (LLM) to help quickly sift through thousands of pages of previous regulations and rulings, Red Bull hopes AI can help it build a stronger case each time a protest is on the cards.

In a statement the team said: “[This] will enable Oracle Red Bull Racing to query all historical regulations and generate responses in real time, dramatically improving its ability to efficiently query and adapt to sporting regulations over a race weekend."

There is some obvious time pressure for teams to decide whether or not a team has a robust case in such instances, with the International Sporting Code laying down a 30-minute window for teams to lodge any protest after the provisional classification has been published.

Historic precedent

The benefits of having strong evidence to support any cases taken to the stewards can be enough to swing things in favour of a team.

In the past, competitors have had to rely on savvy team managers to do this and come up with famous past examples of FIA precedent to bolster their cases.

It is something that Red Bull's former sporting manager Jonathan Wheatley - now preparing to take up his new role as Sauber's team principal - was well versed in doing.

One famous example of a team using old examples to help win a current case was the way that Aston Martin successfully overturned a 10-second penalty that Fernando Alonso was given at the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix for failing to serve a penalty properly after a jack touched his car while the penalty was being served.

Aston Martin won a right of review after sporting director Andy Stevenson produced minutes from a previous Sporting Advisory Committee meeting, as well as video evidence of seven previous different instances when cars had touched a jack when serving similar penalties without being sanctioned.

Faster simulations

As well as the pilot study for using AI to bolster its protests, Red Bull believes improved Oracle tech will have a positive effect on its simulations, too.

From the Australian GP, Oracle will use new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Computer A2 and A4 Flex to increase simulation speeds by 10% compared to last year – with it having already seen a 25% improvement since the start of their partnership in 2021.

AI tools are also being used to help with the development of sustainable fuels for the new Red Bull Powertrains engine that will debut in 2026.