by Rowland Jowett As a former senior simulator test engineer I have spent many a day preparing for the next race event with F1 champions, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, in the driver-in-loop (DiL) simulator. I have become…
Tag: Formula 1
Overtaking Trends: The case for 2000bhp F1 cars
Overtaking Trends: The case for 2000bhp F1 cars Written by Rowland Jowett It would be convenient to make sweeping generalisations when it comes to car performance, for example, perhaps the short braking zones of F1 cars make them difficult to…
Canopy Newsletter 12 – May 2020
There have been a lot of new developments since the last newsletter. Here is a summary of some of the highlights: Canopy is Expanding We’re delighted to welcome Lizzie Jarvis to the team as our Operations Director. Lizzie is a…
Gen3 Formula E: To Charge or Not to Charge?
The racing format of Formula E provides incredible interest. Like other series, the cars qualify and line up on the grid in descending order of speed, but tight tracks, close racing and energy strategy decisions mean that overtaking is frequent.…
F1 Goes To Indy
The idea of an F1 team going to compete in Indianapolis is hardly a new one. The most recent example being McLaren’s disastrous foray in 2019, which resulted in an ignominious failure to qualify. However, what few people have asked…
Canopy Newsletter 11 – Jul 2019
Tired of running thousands of straight sims to figure out how to rebalance your car? We might have the solution for you: Dynamic Constraints When comparing laptime across different setups, strictly speaking one should rebalance the car. The previous procedure…
Showing Our Sensitive Side
There are some key facts about performance that almost every engineer in every F1 team should know. These are the “fundamental sensitivities” of the car. That is to say, if we change parameter “x” by a small amount, how much…
F1 vs Porsche 919 Evo at the Nordschleife
Would an F1 car beat the recent lap record around the Nürburgring Nordschleife of 5m19.546 set by the Porsche 919 Evo? We took a look at this question and by using our cloud computing simulation platform we’ve endeavoured to find…
Get a grip on tyre saving
In many race series, getting the most out of your tyres is essential for staying in the lead when it comes to pit stops. By and large F1 drivers are excellent at tyre saving. Many years of practice and staring…
4WD KERS for F1 2021?
As with any change to the F1 regulations, 2021 represents another opportunity to improve the racing spectacle, so we were interested to see if four-wheel-drive KERS could improve overtaking. Our simulations suggest that four-wheel-drive in the form of a front-axle…