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When Karl Kempf figured out a way to get a microprocessor on a Formula One car about 30 years ago, he didn't realize that it would change the sport forever.

It was 1976 and the young mathematician's first job out of university was with tire maker Goodyear, but he spent most of his time on loan to its F1 customer Ferrari.

"It was just the next thing and an interesting project for a young mathematician at that point," said Kempf, who is now Intel's director of decision technologies.

"It was pretty early days. You can't even compare the computing power to today — it was a different planet. You'll laugh: We had a tape recorder on the car to capture the data."

Before Kempf arrived at Ferrari, the team only had a stopwatch and the driver's comments to figure out what the car was doing on the track. Once ready, his microprocessor technology could tell the car to optimize the camber angle of the tire — the angle between the vertical axis of both the wheel and the vehicle — to deliver better grip in each corner as the car circulated around the track.

Once the concept proved its worth — the car ran two seconds per lap faster — Kempf began working on a full-blown "active ride" system that could fine-tune the car's suspension 60 times a second.

While the development was light ears ahead of the "slow track" or "fast track" suspension settings that most teams used, it ended up being shelved for a few years because of Lotus's introduction of ground effects.

Technology returned to the fore when ground effects were banned a few years later and a revolution began in F1.

But it didn't happen overnight.

"Even 10 years ago, we had two or three laptops and some basic telemetry data and no more," said Peter Furrer, head of Information Technology for BMW-Sauber.

"Now it's become quite important, because without the telemetry and the simulations we do, we would not be able to compete with the other teams."

Today, computer technology governs just about everything in the car, except for the driver. When travelling to races, BMW-Sauber brings a large telemetry station, dozens of laptops, 24 servers to use as desktop computers and five servers for data storage.

"Technology is integral to the overall performance of the team — our Latitude laptop is actually used as part of the ignition system, so really it starts the car," said Todd Forsythe, Dell's vice-president of global relationship marketing. "It's not just advertising."

When BMW-Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld asked the team if switching from a two-pit-stop strategy to one during last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix would be possible — and quicker — the team's computers provided the answer after analyzing the numbers.

Heidfeld moved from eighth at the start to finish second, while teammate Robert Kubica took the BMW-Sauber's maiden F1 win from second on the grid.

Relationships with technology companies have become the norm for most F1 teams. Many forge partnerships with high tech outfits that work quietly behind the scenes looking for ways to help the team find the slightest advantage on and off the track.

At races, roughly 150 sensors on the BMW-Sauber cars monitor almost every aspect of the car's performance, from oil pressure to suspension movement. The team collects about five megabytes of information a lap. Once the data is crunched, the team can make adjustments to the car to help make it quicker.

But sometimes problems simply can't be analyzed by the limited equipment brought to the track. So, the information is sent back to the factory in Europe where simulations can run on the team's full supercomputer arsenal to help find a solution.

And, in many cases, gaining time between sessions is almost as important as getting the car around the track faster. This year, Williams partner AT&T delivered a higher speed network to the team and the outfit has already seen the benefits.

"When we were in Jerez [Spain] testing before Christmas last year, it took 40 minutes to send testing data back to the factory. After the new network was introduced, it was cut to eight minutes," said Williams account services manager Matt Jones.

"When we need to send data to the factory in the two hours between sessions at a race, every minute we gain to work on the cars is critical."

Part of the Williams deal with AT&T includes a security component to ensure the team's data doesn't fall into the wrong hands. It also runs the Williams website.

While being able to ensure that a F1 team stays connected to the factory is the biggest part of the deal, succeeding in the high pressure world of grand prix racing also sends a message to AT&T's other customers.

"This partnership is emblematic of the types of solutions we provide," said Joe Weinman, AT&T strategy and emerging services vice-president.

"For every business, the network has become the lifeblood of the operation — it is critical in F1, but we also have to remember that a retailer won't be very happy if they can't process their point of sale transactions."