Aussie tech-giant’s performance salvaging Williams F1 team judged on the stop watch
Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes will launch the biggest public gamble in his tech giant’s history when its Atlassian Williams Formula One car takes to the track in Melbourne this weekend.
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Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes launches the biggest public gamble in his tech giant’s history when its Atlassian Williams Formula One car takes to the track in Melbourne this weekend.
The Australian software company has partnered with struggling British Formula One team Williams to revive its floundering fortunes race by race in real time in front of the world.
“This is unique in our customer engagements,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said. “We’re judged on the stopwatch.”
Williams is one of Formula One’s most prestigious brands with previous drivers including Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Aussie champion Alan Jones but has not won a Grand Prix since 2012.
“This is one of the biggest partnerships in Formula One, it’s not a sticker on a car,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said. “It’s a real deep partnership to try to improve the team with the expertise that we have.”
Atlassian has put tech experts into the Williams headquarters in Oxford in the UK to see how its generative artificial intelligence platforms can streamline the process of building a winning racing car.
Failing to make those improvements away from “the glamour of the track” will be seen by the world on a global stage in 24 countries throughout the Formula One season.
“It’s one of the ultimate high wire, high pressure sports but as a business we want to show up in those circumstances and have a go,” the Atlassian chief executive and co-founder said. “Then you measure yourself, then you do better the next race.”
Williams Racing Team principal James Vowles said the team had previously used Excel spreadsheets to try and track thousands of parts and he was amazed they ever managed to build a car.
“We’re trying to build a car that is 20,000 roughly, components all coming together within a space of two weeks,” he said. “One Excel spreadsheet had 100,000 lines in it.”
Mr Vowles said the Atlassian experts were now helping to streamline those processes and build the team from the foundations up to create a winning car through the constant “refinement of milliseconds”.
The drivers were with Atlassian staff in Sydney yesterday and being filmed for Netflix documentary Drive to Survive. They understand the scale of the problem Atlassian has undertaken in return for first naming rights of the legendary race team.
Alex Albon said he liked to “downplay” how good this year’s car will be. “We know this will be a building year for us and really it will be about the midfield,” he said. “Next year will be the year for us.”
Spanish race ace Carlos Sainz, who joined Williams after being replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, has already admitted his new car is still a bit of a mystery. “I guess we will find out once we get to the track on Friday,” he said.
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Originally published as Aussie tech-giant’s performance salvaging Williams F1 team judged on the stop watch
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