Each car has 120+ sensors. These measure everything from oil, water, exhaust and tyre temperatures to speed, engine revs per minute (RPM), clutch fluid pressure, G-force and even the driver’s heartbeat.
The number of sensors isn’t exact because from track to track and from practice to race they are added or removed depending on need.
Data is collected in the Electronic Control Unit which is ‘the brain’ of the car, it also acts as the primary logger recording more than 500 parameters. The data is sent via the telemetry antenna back to the pits in real time.
The cars also have a high performance logger with 1Gb memory taking up to 200 channels at a maximum sample rate of 1KHz per channel.
The most recent data is buffered, so if communication fails, the car keeps retrying until it is completed.
Telemetry data is also combined with radio and video footage and transmitted in a separate feed for media coverage, administrative and safety requirements.
In addition, the cars have a separate telemetry system that provides race control with the GPS location of the cars on the track. This allows them improve safety by reducing the response time to send flag signals to the different parts of the circuit.