Nice insight into simulator operations during the race weekend
https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-fe ... /10674590/
Eric Van deer Veen, a Dutch engineer who follows the development of the SF-24 in the simulator, reveals how the drivers who are at home help find the correctives after the work on the track carried out by Leclerc and Sainz in free practice. You experience solutions and setup correctives to improve performance. A dark but precious commitment.
Ferrari needs to bring home a positive result from the Las Vegas GP if they want to give continuity to the battle for the Constructors’ World Championship when there are three races at the end of the 2024 season. Eric Van der Veen, a 37-year-old Dutchman, is one of the engineers of the Racing Department who works on the simulator following the sessions that the drivers do in preparation for the GPs.
The native technician from Breda, in addition to explaining in detail what are the pitfalls of a very particular city track like Las Vegas, accompanies us to understand what happens in the Maranello simulator, after the two drivers carried out free practice with the SF-24. It is an activity that is usually considered top secret by the teams and Van del Veen opens a window on the work of the testers who remain obscure, as precious.
Eric tells us what are the pitfalls of the track on the Strip...
“Las Vegas is one of those tracks that seems easy if you only look at the track, but it’s actually very insidious. There are only five sequences of corners, but they are all at low speed with large braking zones, and some are cyque. The large braking zones must be tackled perfectly even when traveling at speeds above 340 km/h, which requires a high downforce to give the driver the necessary confidence to brake, travel the corners and accelerate again to face the long straights immediately, where it is necessary little drag and low downforce”.
The long straights favor a drop in temperature of both the brakes and the tires...
“The large braking zones at the end of the straights, on the other hand, have new pitfalls, because the driver has to manage the collapse of the brake temperature and tires. To all this is added the fact of racing on a street circuit, where the margin of error is always reduced to a minimum. Finally, Las Vegas is in the desert and you run at night, when temperatures can drop even below 10 degrees, which makes it difficult to bring the tires immediately into the right temperature window in qualifying, and just as difficult to keep them inside that window in the race. As mentioned, the tyres cool further on the long straights, thus creating a uniquely challenging environment for teams and drivers.”
Last year you had very few data to use in the simulator, which was the only tool available to help the drivers and the team in preparing for this new circuit. Now that you have real track data, what role does the simulator play?
“If we compare what we knew last year with what we know this year, the situation is completely different. If the track model we used last year was based on drawings, this year we have a complete representation of the track and the asphalt. Having all the data from 2023 available, we can have a much more accurate prediction of what we expect to happen this year. This means that engineers and drivers, and I’m talking about both Carlos and Charles and the drivers who support us in the simulator, were able to better prepare the weekend both to familiarize themselves with the track and to configure the car.”
Did both the starter drivers work in the simulator?
“As usual, Charles and Carlos were in the simulator, they worked on the driving style and setups to try to get ready in Las Vegas, as well as to be prepared to face conditions potentially different from what we expect. It is in these cases that the simulator is an extremely powerful tool and the preparation sessions are really valuable to allow the riders to optimize their driving style for a specific track.”
But let’s come to understand what kind of support can you guarantee with the simulator to the team on track during the day of Friday with the two free practice sessions?
“The program of the driver in the simulator on the day of free practice involves a preparation work that focuses mainly on the optimization of the individual corners, since there are so few sequences of folds in which the drivers can make the difference”.
“It’s crucial that the drivers on the track have a car that allows them to push them to the limit without exceeding it, as the corners are tight and blind. So the simulator is mainly on the balance and on the driving style in corners, sometimes crossing the limit and touching the walls – fortunately the simulator the damage is not real (there is only one backlash to make the driver understand that he hit something!). Usually, in the sessions where we support the team on the track we use the laps made tested and reproduce exactly the conditions, set-ups and driving style.”
So, after reproducing the activity carried out in the free practice, look for useful solutions to improve performance?
“In this way we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the car, we try to improve the performance and we provide this feedback to the team on the track, which will then be able to work on the settings accordingly. We also use these sessions to understand what to expect in case weather conditions change over the weekend – for example, temperatures, direction and wind intensity can vary from day to day, or even during a single session. By reproducing these weather conditions in the simulator we can tell the drivers what to expect, allowing them to get the most out of the car even before they get on track.”
