"My boss Mark Preston tells me that I am responsible for "…everything with wires…." But in reality heading up the 10 strong Electronics group involves an even wider set of responsibilities," says Stephen Watt, Head of Electronics at Super Aguri. The man with the wires talks about his role in the team and more...

"Probably the highest profile responsibility in my role is that of preparation and maintenance of the electronic control systems that are fitted to the car. These help enable the modern F1 car to achieve the levels of performance that they are now capable of, and equally, if they are not 100% reliable and correctly configured they will limit its performance just as dramatically. The 'on-car' systems consist of around 12 electronic boxes depending on configuration. The car runs a combination of monitoring and control systems sourced from Honda and also external suppliers as well as monitoring and camera systems that the FIA require all teams to run. So you can see that technical liaison with these organisation is extremely important as is ensuring organisation and good working practices during the preparation and running of the cars."

"The on-car electronics require a significant amount of software, it is difficult to estimate exactly how much but in total it is approximately 100+ man years of code development! The software is constantly improved in order to increase the performance, usability and reliability of the car and so I have overall responsibility for ensuring that the correct versions of software are used at all times when the car is running."

"Trackside, the Electronics department is also responsible for monitoring the control systems on the car. There are several thousand parameters generated by the on-car systems. Whilst it is not possible to monitor all of these manually it is still necessary to check several hundred that relate to control systems on the car such as the hydraulics, gearbox and clutch. It takes a certain type of skill and discipline to do this and as such, I am responsible for ensuring that our group includes people with these unique skills and that they are able to do this job in a precise and procedural manner."

"The electronics used in the garage is often overlooked by the technical press and media but this is equally as important as that on the car. My department is responsible for providing everything from battery chargers to garage wiring to computer racks from which we operate the cars. I have to ensure that we work closely with IT in order to ensure that we integrate our systems with the infrastructure they provide. Then of course there is the responsibility for maintaining this equipment and moving it around the world so that it is all present and correct ready for every race and test. The trackside equipment does not stop at hardware and so I am responsible for providing the race team with software tools that allow the data to be gathered, stored, post-processed and analysed such that it gives the engineers a picture of the cars performance and behaviour. Again, these tools rely heavily on the infrastructure provided by IT and so once again liaison is necessary."

"During the season it is very important in my role not to get too distracted by the race-to-race schedule and to keep in mind the longer term strategy of the team and also our group. This entails keeping abreast of the direction the sport is taking as well as the regulations, our teams objectives and any new technology that may become available that might help our team improve its performance. In doing this we work closely with other departments such as R&D and the Design Office to develop new systems and equipment."

"More often than not our ambitions for development of the systems on and off the car far out-strip our budget and resources. As such I have take a view on where we spend that budget and resource and where we do not so that we achieve the most for the team, or to put it another way, 'the biggest bang for our buck'."

"2008 will be an interesting season for electronics in F1 because for the first time the electronics 'platform' used on the car will be largely standarised and also the control software will be specified by the FIA. My role in this has been to understand the implications of this for our team and to communicate with MESL (McLaren Electronic Systems Ltd.) and the FIA regarding the standard system's introduction. The changes in the rules and there associated limitations to control systems development have some interesting implications to the way data and simulations are used trackside, so I am looking forward to the year ahead!"