Formula One and Cybersecurity in the AI Era

Formula One is a world defined by performance, innovation, and a constant focus on what comes next. Every aspect of the sport is built around pushing boundaries, finding marginal gains, and operating with precision under pressure. 

Wherever teams are racing in the world, massive volumes of data—1.5TB per car, each race weekend in Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team’s case—move continuously from the car to the pit wall, to the factory, and back again, enabling constant analysis and faster decision-making. In cybersecurity, the challenge is different, but the dynamic is remarkably similar. At Zscaler, we process more than 750 billion transactions every day and make real-time decisions about what is safe, what is risky, and what needs to be blocked to protect our customers. Getting those decisions wrong can have far-reaching consequences.

The Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team AMR26 car at the AMR Network Technology Forum in Silverstone, UK

That is why the Aston Martin Racing Network’s first Technology Forum felt like such a natural place to talk about cutting-edge tech. Zscaler is the team’s Global Cybersecurity Partner and I was invited to join a panel at AMR’s Silverstone headquarters ahead of the British Grand Prix, speaking with leaders about what it takes to scale and innovate securely in the AI era.

What made the panel especially interesting was the range of perspectives on stage. From software engineering to data infrastructure to health-tech, each speaker talked about the opportunities AI is creating in their world. Different sectors, different models, and different use cases, but one clear theme: AI is creating real opportunities for companies ready to move.

The challenge, of course, is that speed on its own is not enough. Growth depends both on how quickly companies adopt new technologies and on how securely they do it. Formula One offers a useful analogy here: the brakes on an F1 car are what give a driver the confidence to push beyond 200 mph and still slow down enough to make the corner. In business, cybersecurity should play the same role. It should not hold innovation back. It should make it safer to move at speed.

That is where Zero Trust comes in.

As AI becomes part of how companies build products, serve customers, and run operations, the security challenge changes too. Businesses are no longer thinking only about people accessing applications and data, they also have to account for AI tools, machine identities, automated workflows, and the risk of sensitive information ending up in places it should not. The pace is faster, the attack surface is broader, data volumes are expanding, and legacy perimeter-based security (think the firewalls of yesteryear) is no longer fit for purpose.

Representatives from Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, Cognition, NetApp and EightSleep join Sunil Frida onstage.

Zero Trust gives organizations a better way to move forward, not by slowing innovation down, but by making it possible to scale innovation with confidence. If companies want to embrace AI without losing visibility or control, security has to be built in from the start.

Formula One serves as a reminder that in any high-performance environment, precision and resilience matter. The more ambitious you are about transformation the more important it is to build on a secure digital foundation. That is as true on the track as it is for every business navigating the opportunities and risks of the AI era.

That same principle is one reason our strategic partnership with Aston Martin Aramco is such a natural fit. Both organizations are focused on performance, innovation, and looking ahead to what comes next. Formula One is global, high-performance, and deeply dependent on secure digital operations, which is exactly the kind of environment where cybersecurity has to enable speed, not get in its way.

For more information on how Zscaler AI is revolutionizing cybersecurity for the enterprise, click here.