Virtual reality F1

[Marbot]

With testing restricted to just 15,000Km,teams will be using simulators to do quite a bit of their testing for them.Who's got the best,how good are they and is it really a good thing?

Interesting articles on the subject.

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21101.html

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft21102.html

Will it get to the point where tracks aren't needed at all! ?

[ivanalesi]

McLaren is believed to be the only F1 currently using a dynamic simulator at the moment, but teams are incredibly secretive about what they are doing and the Woking team will not even confirm this. The team is believed to have spent as much as $40m on this and worked with British Aerospace engineers. The driver sits in a full-size F1 monocoque, in front of a large, curved plasma screen on which are projected images of the race tracks. The whole unit is mounted on a device called a hexapod, which is a motion platform which features six independently-actuated legs, the lengths of which change in order to orient the platform. Sound and imagery add to the environment created.

If that is the whole description of dynamic simulator, they can be ordered and it's nothing new it seems. Here: http://www.cuesim.com - RBR uses simulator from this company, and since it's Qinetiq owned, may be Williams has a similar one.
But I think McLaren do something more than this, a whole basketball pitch is big area and such dynamic simulator as the one described is much smaller.
You can see on the website, there are a lot of videos with helicopter and Eurofighter simulators.
Btw, car racing has a distinct advantage compared to all the other sports, it can be simulated(you can't simulate football or basketball) and if this technology turns so good that you can prepare a young driver, then it will bring much more talent to the sport and of course more popularity.

[Bononi]

It's a nice thing to play with it. Everyone should have one, I mean the regular guy.