Circuit of the Americas – the United States Grand Prix – is where "F1 remembers to be fun," said Ruth Buscombe over a cup of coffee before her AWS Insights Session at Soho House Austin. A car had not yet turned laps on the track. Kimi Antonelli hadn't become World Champion. And yet, the story fans would see at home on Sunday was already being built.

Kimi Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix from pole on a one-stop strategy that left him just two points short of the title he would ultimately win at the Mexican Grand Prix a week later.

Helping tell that story is Amazon Web Services (AWS), F1's technology partner since 2018. It is the engine behind two dozen F1 insight graphics, systems that analyze millions of data points per second, and the process that translates the strategy, performance, and drivers' choices into insights that reach 1.8 billion viewers (2025) worldwide.

In Austin, as with tracks around the Formula 1 calendar, a mix of historical data, real-time data, and experts like Ruth Buscombe has helped AWS 'open up' the black box of F1.

However, what fans at home see is only the finished product. The real story – the one told to Grand Prix on SI by Dean Locke of F1, Michael Aghataher from AWS, and Ruth Buscombe – is how it gets made, who decides what makes the cut on the screen, and how much that process has changed.

COTA: The Strategists' Race

Ruth Buscombe has been coming to Austin since the first F1 race in 2012, years before Liberty Media bought the sport and turned the U.S. audience into one of its largest growing markets. Years before AppleTV got in on the 'F1 game'. Years before AWS recognized a gap that needed filling on the broadcasts.

The American races, namely COTA, matter to Buscombe because of the unique personality the track presents to everyone involved. However, the races matter for another reason to many: who is watching. A United States Grand Prix weekend often pulls in millions of casual viewers in the United States who have never followed a full F1 season. This year, they did so not on native F1 platforms, but on Apple TV for the first time.

Buscombe says this audience, in particular, reflects where the actual growth of the sport is coming from.

"Our sport is watched by millions of people worldwide. 43% are under 35. 42% are female, and the biggest growing demographic is females aged 11 to 25. So many of our fans haven't been watching for the last 30 years. They haven't even been alive for the last 30 years."

Ruth Buscombe, AWS and F1 Strategist

It is within that gap, as I covered after the addition of F1 Strategy Insights earlier this season, that AWS cements its real purpose. In the F1 app, AWS looks to power personalization for fans. On the broadcast, F1 Insights do the job of a strategist – explaining why a car is fast, why it is slow, why a soft tire over a hard, and what inspires a strategy decision altogether.

"We want it to be that if you're turning on Formula 1 for the first time, or you've watched it for 20 years, you can learn something. To learn a sport is to love it. Once you understand the story, you can fall in love with it."

Ruth Buscombe, AWS and F1 Strategist

In AWS's vision, that experience of 'falling in love' with a sport boils down to feeling that you are a part of the process and have a deep understanding of why things are happening. In the COTA Paddock, AWS showcased that experience with the AWS Insight Track.

A game, of sorts, that allowed the user to choose their own adventure. "Show me what would have happened if Charles had pitted for hards and not mediums," or "show me what would have happened if Norris pitted two laps earlier." Truly putting an F1 fan in the seat of a strategist.

Insight Track is a look into the future of helping F1 fans not only 'fall in love' with the sport, but become one with it, and perhaps, have a new reason to blame their team for 'bad strategy calls'.

From the Car to Your Screen

While Insight Track isn't on the market yet, Strategy Insights, powered by AWS Track Pulse, has quickly become a key facet of the Formula 1 broadcast. Every one of those graphics starts on the car. Michael Aghataher, who leads the F1 partnership for AWS, walked through that series of events that turns a lap into a graphic.

"There are 300 sensors on the car, 1.1 million data points per second per car per race, and on top of that, there are 20-plus weather stations capturing things like temperature, humidity, and wind speed. Every 150 meters, there are timing loops, so you get to see where the cars are on track at any particular time."

Michael Aghataher, AWS

All of that data lands somewhere very familiar for Formula 1: their Event Technology Center (ETC). From the ETC, the feeds go to Biggin Hill and to AWS for processing, then back before the director has to make the next broadcast decision in under 1.5 seconds.

"Formula 1 then gets to determine how they can use this to maximize fan engagement, either through Track Pulse or through F1 Insights powered by AWS, which is the suite of graphics that the F1 production team uses to educate fans about what's happening on track."

Michael Aghataher, AWS

The tools were truly put to the test just weeks before COTA at Sepang, as Buscombe recounted. Next to no track data existed for teams, fans, or Formula 1. AWS wasn't a part of the sport last time they raced there, so even Buscombe was in the same position as a fan at home.

"I don't have a Formula 1 car, just like our fans at home don't. I prepared all of my technical analysis, all of my projections and all of my strategy based on the AWS tools that we had during the race weekend."

Ruth Buscombe, AWS and F1 Strategist

At home, you would have never known, though. And that is exactly how AWS and Formula 1 designed it.

At the other end of this pipeline is F1's director of broadcast and media, Dean Locke. His team is the one that decides what ends up on our screens. The output doesn't stop at the F1TV or Sky Sports feeds; they also run channels for fans at the track, drawing half a million viewers a weekend.

More content means more competition for what actually lands on our screens at home or around the track. Locke sees the addition of F1 Insights as a crucial addition, one that was tested – and tested again – before they ever air.

"Each graphic on the screen has really got to earn its real estate. I watch other sports and sometimes I'm not sure what the graphic is telling me, so we go through a rigorous process of: 'is this earning the real estate on the screen, is it telling the story, and is it completely understandable?'"

Dean Locke, F1

Strategy Insights, launched just a few races ago by AWS and F1, is the clearest example of earning real estate that adds immense value to Locke's program.

"The team is sitting in the gallery and all of a sudden I hear them go, 'hold on, why have they not stopped or why have they done this?' If you're asking it in the gallery, the fans are asking that at home, and we have to explain that. We have the data to use to create that story."

Dean Locke, F1

F1 is also looking outside its own paddock for ideas. Locke said F1 pulls from film, gaming and other sports, and that the F1 movie was a recent source. Explaining that a lot of the technology that was used raised the question, 'How could we bring that into a live environment?'

The answer to the question may be found in a car on the way to work or over a coffee in the break room, but the common thread behind executing those ideas is F1's work with AWS.

AWS, Formula 1, and the FIA Working as One

The partnership AWS runs today looks very different from the one signed in 2018. Things have changed beyond "modernizing the broadcast."

"What we hadn't predicted was the explosion that came following 2020 with Drive to Survive. We entered the partnership for the racing purists and that has expanded into fandom, lifestyle and fashion, so we get eyeballs on our partnership that we didn't anticipate at the beginning."

Michael Aghataher, AWS

Drive to Survive highlighted the need for better storytelling. Track Pulse was born of that realization in 2021. Formula 1 continued to boom from 2023 to the present day, especially among casual fans. F1 Strategy Insights was born of that in 2026.

The same way that the Formula 1 fan has continued to evolve, Aghataher describes AWS's role as the "intelligence layer" that must continue to evolve alongside them.

That layer has now reached the FIA, which named AWS its Official AI, Cloud, Computing, Machine Learning, and Cloud Infrastructure Partner across all of its properties, just after the USGP this year. AWS technology can now be used to analyze track limit violations, speed violations, and more.

Which takes us back to Soho House. Before a single car had turned a lap in Austin. Buscombe was already telling Sunday's story.

The same technology that helped her tell the story of the United States Grand Prix now touches every corner of the sport. It is constantly being iterated on to tell the best story. It is the future of how Formula 1 is experienced by its fans, and the gateway to the "falling in love" that Buscombe so eloquently described.

To learn a sport is to love it. Once you understand the story, you can fall in love with it.

An ethos that AWS may have unofficially adopted in Formula 1.