1,600 floodlights, over 220 kilometres of cables and months of preparation: Roberto Grilli tells us what it takes to bring the Singapore Grand Prix races to life
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1,600 floodlights, over 220 kilometres of cables, more than 100 people and months of preparation. These are just some of the many things that go into lighting Singapore’s 5.063-kilometre street circuit when Formula One comes to town for the glitzy night race.
The man behind it all? Roberto Grilli, the general manager of Italian lighting specialist DZ Engineering SRL, who has been lighting our city up for the races since the very first Singapore Grand Prix in 2008.
Here’s how he does it.
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DZ Engineering SRL is a company which designs and builds systems in the electrical, lighting and telecommunications fields. 13 years ago, it got involved with F1 when it was realised that they were the only company in the market with the experience to do a project of that scale.
“We were initially already well-known in the F1 industry, for telecommunication. When it was time to light up the F1 night race, we were also the only company in the market with experience in telecommunications, lighting, and television broadcasting. It was a perfect match for us and that was how we began our journey of working with F1,” explained Grilli who is a software engineer himself by training.
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