A closer look at F1 Cylinder Head Design and Pneumatics

Again, I'm delighted to have another excellent and detailed technical article on the blog. This time we have Brian Garvey explaining the specifics of Formula 1 engine's cylinder heads. Brian is Mechanical Designer and Prototype developer and specializes in one off castings and composite parts. He does all of his work alone and he has great recommendations. For those of you who wish to contact him, please get in touch with me first. The original post where I found this exclusive content is at F1Technical.net.

Here we go, Brian in first person singular: 

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In this post I will be unlocking a few secrets hidden within this part - cylinder head. Mainly, its construction, how it was made, and the parts inside and how they go together. I will be cutting sections from it, so anyone who is nervous, or cannot bare to see this sort of stuff cut up then leave now, its not the thread for you. If you have a keen interest then this is the thread for you. You tend to learn nothing by just looking at pretty pictures in terms of Head design so you really have to get inside to unlock all.

To my knowledge, this is the first time this has been done in the public domain.
I do not work directly for any F1 company, and have acquired this head legally.
I have read all disclaimers in reference to second hand F1 parts and what I am undertaking is legal.

I am not going to mention the makers name all the same just in case I've missed some small print. If any reader wants to guess as to which car the head belongs to then guess away, but I will not admit to whether you are right or wrong.

I have chosen to hold back a few pictures of some pneumatic valve train parts since the site owners didn't reply to an email concerning this post a while back. I asked for a token gift/wall poster given that this thread was a shocking amount of work to get it in a position where the info could be shared and understood easily by all and become a solid reference in time to come for anyone interested. Sadly a response never came.

I have a keen interest as well as experience in Motorsport as well as Aerospace, Metallurgy, and Mechanical Engineering. I have also an extreme Interest in petrol n/a engines, and head design.
I have been researching all this stuff since I was young, and have continued to do so to the current day. I have designed and made many parts mainly from cast aluminium. Doing everything from Design, Costing, Pattern Making, and Machining.
Next year I hope to cast my first 16v cylinder head, doing everything from design, to mould making/pouring/machining etc, myself. I had intended doing it last year but other stuff got in the way.

It's from a V10 engine making in the region of 850hp with a rpm limit of approx 15,000rpm. It runs pneumatic valve train, has four valves per cylinder, barrel throttles, in-cam oiling, valve axis angled in both planes, bucket tappets, and cam cover coolant distribution. It is also one of the last v10s.
The cam cover(not pictured) is also too a stressed member and it is these that provide location for the top fixing studs to the CF tub.
It is important to note that both the right and left bank cylinder heads are identical castings - they are just machined at ends in different ways to make way for the cam gears and so on. This mirroring has many advantages in that it speeds design and production meaning only one head needs to be designed and not two separate head castings. This is something that makes a lot of sense and something that is not immediately apparent after initial analysis.
Internally the head also has the similar design features in that each combustion chamber and the coolant area directly above it as well as the valve actuation are identical on all five combustion chambers along the length of the head.

To put it in other words, the coolant gallery shape, volume, and architecture in general is exactly the same as its adjoining counterparts within the head. This has the benefits of thermal uniformity in respect to coolant, oil, and combustion chamber temperatures along the entire casting.
It also offers the other advantage of the sand cores required to form the coolant gallery above the combustion chamber to be all the same thus requiring just one small core mould to form the entire coolant gallery within the head. Cores are bonded together to a total of five long and installed as a unit within the main sand moulds. It too is a very clever 'modular' system which also saves a lot of design work and indeed coolant flow analysis required in many cases where the coolant gallery is one large free form non-uniform shape within the head. These types of 'non-uniform' galleries are more common in production cars whereby coolant enters or exits the head at one or two points meaning the gallery over one combustion chamber is higher or lower volume to the rest due to the shape required in order to converge coolant towards an opening.

In order to make the internal coolant galleries or 'passageways' easier to understand I have completely removed one cylinder section from the head and sectioned it up. This allows RTV silicone models to be struck off the parts so that a very accurate representation can be made of the internal coolant gallery above the combustion chamber. Since all five are identical only one model is required.

Below is a general picture of what we are dealing with, it is an image of the sectioned of the head showing basic layout with the intake or 'valley' side facing the camera. Once section - the section that the model was taken from has been omitted and in its place a model of the ports and combustion chamber + spark plug position.



From above, showing valve angles - splayed in both planes as mentioned above. Splaying the valve angles in the less common plane creates real estate for the bearing surfaces between the tappets as well as lessening the amount of bore shrouding when the valve is in the open position. Instead of opening parallel to the bore, it is now angled slightly to the cylinder centre point.





The intake ports,



A view down the intakes, something else!



The exhausts, again, beautiful ports



A view out the intake from the combustion chamber, all ports have a surface finish of around about 320 grit paper finish,



The seats, exhausts,



Intakes,



Port models,











Lets get back to the combustion chamber and the coolant above it.

As I mentioned above, the coolant galleries above each combustion chamber are identical, the blue model below resembles exactly what the sand core would have looked like which is required to form these hollow sections within the main casting.
Five of these sand cores are made from the same core box, they are then bonded together and the entire unit core as an assembled item placed into the main moulds. If you look very closely at the blue model you will see where I have glued on imitation core plugs in some of the pictures. These plugs are required in the finished head as it is here that the cores extend out as slender pegs and locate into 'core prints' in the main mould. These 'core hangers' holes are dotted along either side of the finished casting and there are also two at both ends. Im guessing, or at least I would have made all the cores with these 'pegs' sticking out both sides(parallel with crank) where cores are to be joined to each other. At the time of bonding, you would leave the pegs extending out from the cores at either end for location in mould, but cut off the rest of them so that the cores could be joined to each other. The point at where each core joins the next forms communication ways between each modular coolant gallery. These can be seen as two neat round holes in the parts of the head that have been sectioned.
Coolant flow through the head is the conventional method used in nearly all high/super performance cylinder heads of this power output. In a normal car, coolant usually flows from the block through headgasket drillings, up into head and across all the combustion chamber roofs - exiting in one main outlet either somewhere in the middle, or at one end of the head. In this case it differs for more even flow and cooling whereby coolant flows vertically through drillings located again in the headgasket but this time flow is directed through the one piece cam cover/bearing ladder assembly through four vertical drillings. These can be seen both in the sectioned casting, and indeed the blue model - shown by the vertical blue tube. These drillings all enter a common tapered tube cast into the rocker cover. The taper ensures even flow velocity throughout its length. The total coolant capacity of the head is approx 2.45L.
The method in which these vertical drillings intersect with the coolant areas is also very clever. If the cores were to have these vertical slender tubes at time of manufacture they would be extremely fragile, so instead, the cores are made without these tubes. Once the casting is ready to be machined these vertical tubes are finished bored deeper and break through centrally between each modular coolant gallery as shown below also. These vertical drillings are lined with thin tubing after to form sealed drillings since the drillings pre lining are open to the main cambox/beam for a small portion at the top since the beam section in the centre of head is actually hollow.

















A rare shot of such a tidy casting area around the spark plug location. Notice how much room there is for coolant to circulate between the exhaust port and the sparkplug. This is the most important area when cooling is concerned above the chamber and is also why they run such tiny plugs,







The vertical coolant channel showing liner tube and break through section into gallery at base,







A view from inside the gallery, the flow is split by the central divider/head face support section,



Another point to note in the image below is to consider the head mounted in its working position, in this case rotating the parts below to the left - the position of the vertical drilling in the gallery ensures no trapped air at the internal gallery roof area,





Coolant flow through head-gasket area is given priority via two drillings beneath the exhaust ports, only one smaller drilling exists between the intakes.

Moving onto the oil system now. The oil is pumped from the block up into the head and from there into the hollow camshafts. Unlike some cylinder heads where hydrodynamic oil films are formed by supplying pressurized oil to the journals via internal drillings within the casting, this case is different.

Here oil is supplied to each journal via drillings in the camshaft itself. This has several advantages in that it ensures a constant supply to each journal, it does away with complex drillings within the head which take up room and it also provides excellent cooling throughout the camshafts length.
The head features oil squirters also which take their supply from a groove in the lower cam journal. These take a small amount of pressured oil from the cam via a small drilling - the spray is directed at the tappet face where the cam lobe presses on it.
These squirters are fitted and bonded into a drilling which runs the full length of the head. A full drilling is the easiest to drill as access is extremely limited for chuck/collet holder clearance should they have drilled each hole individually with a right angle head assembly.
The entry and exit locations of this drilling are simply closed with adhesive either end.

Below are a collection of pictures displaying what is described above. The first picture the shape made by the oil way up to the cross drilling that connects both cam supplies,



The cross drilling is just inside this section,





The oil enters the cam here through an orifice. Im guessing the sizing of this orifice is done in the r+d phase as it is a separate part and threaded + staked in after.



Here is the bearing that controls endfloat of the cams. Its important to note here that the main large groove in the middle is just for axial positioning and does not supply the oil squirters. These are fed from the smaller grooves and holes in the actual journal surface. The squirter rears are not open to this large central groove.







A shot of the cam showing axial endfloat ring, as well as the main supply hole at the end(hard to see) and also the angled lobes required to activate the splayed valves.



An overhead shot showing other journals and general layout,



With regards oil drain from the head, and its flow back to the sump, two holes at either end of the head look after this. They are placed on the exhaust side of head which is the lowest side when the head is in service. Two very slightly ramped drains with their highest points in the centre of the head directs oil to both these drain holes. The ramp down to the holes is very slight and not much more than 2-3 degrees from horizontal.

Here you can see the outline of the drain path from the outside and its protrusion outwards at the far end which translates to a downwards slope once head is in service and angled on the block,



The drain hole on one end,



An inner shot along the drain, notice too the cast pillar which is directly under the camcover bolt - tying the cast structure together and sharing loads,




The cam cover locates onto head casting with a solid steel dowel either end - Same in the cast of the heads onto the block itself,



A Quick mention of the head studs and securing nuts. These are normally a major problem in terms of room required for acess to them in order to remove the head. In this case everything has to come out in order to undo the huts and remove the head. Once the cams and pneumatic valves have been removed a crows foot spanner is used to undo nuts as they are not directly accessible with a straight socket. It is similar to some Ferrari production engines in this way necessitating the use of a special tool.

This image gives a good Idea how access is gained through the tappet bore with the crows foot spanner,



Onto the pneumatic valve train, this head uses a barrel and piston type pneumatic arrangement. The barrels are pressurized via two main drillings parallel with the crankshaft. These main drillings can be seen below exiting at the tub end of the head,



And again mid way through the head, if you look closely you can also see the vertical drilling leading from the barrel counter-bore into the main drilling,



Here is a closeup of the counter-bore itself, showing the three tapped holes for fixing the barrel as well as the air supply hole/drilling,







Here it is with the valve guide pressed in, notice the small groove in the guide with the O ring above. Oil enters this groove via cuts in the base of the barrel where it flows around the guide groove and exits out another drain cut in the barrel base pictured below,



There is a small entry point drilling in this groove needed to supply oil to the stem for added cooling/lubrication,

Below are the grooves mentioned in the base of the barrel, one directs splash/run off oil to the stem, the other is the drain. When installed one groove faces up hill and collects the oil directing it in towards the guide,



Notice too the orange seals (x4) required to seal the barrel to the counter-bore, three for the screws, one for the air hole,



Internally, the barrel base has been pocket milled out in order to lighten between the screw positions,



The screws do not lie equally (120 degrees)about the centre meaning the barrels cannot be installed/indexed wrong blocking off the air entry hole.

With the guide removed and installed in the barrel you can see how the grooves in the base feed the groove in the guide,



The hole in the bottom of the barrel is angled at the corners to allow the barrel to be installed down on the guide compressing the O ring as it is eased down therefore avoiding damage to seal and doing away with any special tools.

The tappets are pretty much 'standard items as far as it goes,



The body of the barrel is turned down to allow the tappet to slide down over it without crash when the valve is in the full open position,





Here you can see just how little clearance there is between the tappet bore, and the barrel wall when installed - the tappet slides in this gap,



Installed, with the squirter aimed at the centre,



Here is a shot of the top of the valve guide seal, I took it before everything had been stripped and polished before the analysis started,



Here is the same valve guide with the seal removed and the entire thing media blasted and polished for easy insertion in and out of valve guide drilling to port,





The stem of valve, complete with low friction texture surface coating for improved oil retention - remember, a hydrodynamic film is not easy sustain on a reciprocating valve stem and it is relying more-so on boundary lubrication. On close inspection it does look more like PVD coating but further testing required to be certain, the 'roughness' certainly does aid oil retention,



The assembly,





The barrel interior bore is of extremely high surface finish, almost mirror like. One of the most critical features with such dry sliding seal design we see here is surface finish on the bore walls. It must resist corrosion during periods while the engine is being built, being stored, or is in transit. The cylinder features hardcoat anodic coating internally and externally on the base. The anodic coating also benefits in terms of lessening sliding friction when impregnated with PTFE.

As mentioned at the start of this thread Im choosing not to show pictures of some of the pneumatic parts, in this case the piston. It is nothing special and has just two seals, one in the centre where stem passes through it, its located on the underside of the piston below the collets and is that same type seal we have seen above in the top of the guide except no sliding exists at this seal since the stem and piston/collet keeper are an item.
The other seal is located in the edge of the piston and is the main gas seal between the barrel and the piston. Again, it is nothing special and dare I say a 'common' seal/arrangement.
So in total there are eight seals needed in each pneumatic valve spring assembly - two of which are sliding seals, the other four being static o-ring seal arrangements. The first of the sliding seals is situated in the piston itself where it seals against cylinder bore, the second sliding seal resides in the top of the valve stem where it provides a seal with the valve stem. The other four seals are used around cylinder fixing holes, air feed hole, and valve stem hole through piston. This amounts to a total of eighty seals just in the pneumatic spring assemblies alone.
No air control valve/reg or valving items are present within the head itself.

Ill finish with two shots of the combustion chamber itself,





With all of the above in mind I hope the article and information here has helped everyone from Casual Viewers, Enthusiasts, F1 fans, Engineers, Designers, Students, and Teachers Worldwide.

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Short guide to F1 Telemetry - Spa circuit

Hello, prior to Belguim Gran Prix at Spa circuit, here's a really short intro to F1 telemetry sheets. This is the type of information that is being analyzed by both drivers and race engineers - either prior to the race or after it.
First of all, let's start with the base - the ATLAS. This is the software responsible for the creation of that telemetry print, and the acronym stands for Advanced Telemetry Linked Acquisition System, developed by McLaren Electronic Systems (MES). At the core of the ATLAS software product is SQL Race; an application program interface (API) of Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
Let's first mention that this is the standard FIA approved data acquisition system for all cars on the grid. The software itself is a close resemblance of the idea behind Microsoft Excel - it consists of multiple sheets, consolidated in a  workbook. Each of the sensors on the car collects information and then sends it back to the garage where it is being stored in a database. This software package, ATLAS, is highly customizable in order to accommodate the wide variety of needs of F1 engineers.

For now, I will guide you shortly to the meaning of each of the lines. For easier reading, they are marked with numbers, respectively Line 1, Line 2. and so on.
Every line has its description and metric at either the left or the right side.

Image credit: Caterham F1 Team, Renault. Click for full size

First of all, let's start with the X axis - it represents one lap of the Spa circuit and the unit is meters.

• Line 1: This red line shows the RPM (Revolutions per minute)
• Line 2: The blue line is car's speed
• Line 3: The green one is lateral acceleration
• Line 4: Purple line is the gear position / changes 
• Line 5: Orange line is the throttle pedal position
• Line 6: Brown line is the brake system pressure

It is really as simple as that :) Questions are welcome.

Race Strategy explained

Hi everyone, we are back on track with another exciting and exclusive installment of F1 Framework related topics. Judging from the stats, you have really enjoyed the insight on Engine Maps brought to you by Maurizio Bollini - he worked as engine engineer for Michael Schumacher when he was the Ferrari F1 driver, during 1996 to 2006 period.
Today, he goes strategic to explain what are the main considerations behind Race Strategy - an imminent element of every single start in Formula 1.

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When explaining the basic concepts of the F1 Race Strategy, let’s consider two of the factors contributing to race pace: the tyre behavior (and degradation) and the weight effect of the car on the lap time. We are going through a very simplified demonstration.

Tyre behavior

A given set of tyres is used in a race stint. During the utilization in the stint, the tyres go through four phase of life:

• warm-up phase (the firsts one or two laps)
• performance phase (depending on the compound, from 10 to 20-30 laps), 
• degradation phase (depending on several factors, it can be very few laps), 
• Give-up (in very short time).

During the warm-up phase the tyre reach the optimal working temperature in its working range. The working range depends on the compound and other factors. Pirelli tyres for F1 2013 season have the following working ranges:

Low Working Range

• Super Soft, 85-110 deg
• Medium, 90-115 deg
• Hard New, 90-115 deg (from Bahrain 2013 onward in the season)

High Working Range

• Soft, 105-125 deg 
• Hard, 110-135 deg

The performance phase is a window whose duration depends on the compound, the track characteristics and the car. For the softer tyres it could be somewhat like 10 laps, for harder tyres it could be in the range 20-30 laps. In this phase the tyres gives the best performance and so the lowest lap time.

The degradation phase occurs for wear, abrasion, graining and blistering and the lap time start to increase. It is time to make a pit-stop to change tyres.

The give-up occurs when the cyclic stress reached the maximum acceptable level for the compound and construction. The combination of stress and heating generate mechanical and chemical changes in the rubber causing the lap time increasing sharply. Usually the car is called at the pit stop before this phase because it can cause tenths of retard on the pace.

Weight effect (on lap time)

The weight-effect is a value that expresses how faster the car run while the weight decrease because of the fuel burned. It is measured as seconds/lap/10 Kg.

It can be estimated at the Lap Time Simulator (LapSim), an application running on a PC, with experiments at different level of fuel or just by fitting real data public available from FIA.
The LapSim gives, for Australia 2013, a value for Weight Effect of 0.22 sec/lap/10kg.

As alternative, the Weight Effect can be easily estimated by fitting real data. Let’s consider the real lap times from Australia 2013 F1 race from three drivers.

For comparison, if we take the best of the fitting cases above we get a Weight Effect of 0.0722 sec/lap. Knowing that the fuel consumption in Australia is somewhat as 2.5 kg/lap, the fitted Weight Effect will be 0.29 sec/lap/10kg, not so far from what we get from the more accurate simulation and not so bad considering the “noise” affecting the second measure.

Going through a normalized value per 10 Kg is not really needed for this purpose but it is important to compare the weight effect of different race circuits.

Race Strategy example

As a race strategy example, we want to compare two tyre management options for the Australia race, called Option-A and Option-B. Both options use the same sequence of tyres, SuperSoft/Medium/Medium.

Option-A do pit at lap 13 and lap 35. Option-B do pit at lap 17 and lap 38. The pit-stop time is the same in both cases (20 seconds) and the tyre model, very simple and just for the purpose of this demonstration, is based on the Weibull degradation formula.

We calculate the lap time lap-per-lap for both options on the race distance including the weight reduction effect and the tyre behavior effect.

Then we sum the lap times in order to have a cumulative curve for Option-A and Option-B and we make the difference, lap by lap, of the last two cumulative curves. Results are plotted on the next chart.

By reading this chart, the conclusion is that at the end of the race, Option-A is slower of about 3.61 seconds respect to Option-B.

Using this procedure, it is possible to play with different scenarios. During the race, simulated lap times are updated, lap by lap, with the real lap time and the scenario update in accordance.

This is, in a very simplified way, what is behind a dynamic race strategy application.

This tool is used trackside by the Performance Engineers with the support of the Strategy Engineer at remote garage, the facility located at the Team’s Headquarter. Such example is Neil Martin from Scuderia Ferrari, who has been known to update the team in terms of strategy via remote link from Italy. 

Making the right strategy call is, of course, very important. The recent example was Mark Webber in Hungary, 2013 - he had to start P10, running for a long period on Medium compound and eventually making it to P4 with very late usage of the Softs. 

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Maurizio Bollini is the owner of MET Milano (www.met.it), a consultancy firm involved in motorsport. In the past he worked as engine engineer for Michael Schumacher when he was the Ferrari F1 driver, during 1996 to 2006. He can be contacted at maurizio.bollini@met.it.

F1 Simulators

In F1 world simulators are expensive set of hardware and software, whose aim is to resemble as closely as possible the real car feeling while driving on a certain track. Consider F1 simulators as the massively expensive version of the small simulators you may have at home or driven at some public car shows and events. Add to that equation the variable "sophistication" and you'll be closer. Still not convinced? Proceed below :)
The prime drivers to have that article are, as usual, sharing information inside F1 world, and the increasing emphasis on simulations overall, as testing on track becomes more and more limited, following recent news that teams have not agreed to open doors to in-season testing.

In details

Image: Youtube.com

Woking, Mclaren factory - this is what you are going to face on the front door of this secret place, fortunately, we have something to share.

Mclaren

Mclaren is perceived to have the most advanced installation at the time of writing this article. These words come from the person who has spent lots of time inside it - Pedro de la Rosa, who used to be Mclaren test and reserve driver, currently doing the same at Ferrari. The work at Woking factory started back in 2003, which according to the Spaniard gives them (Mclaren) few years advantage.
Gary Paffet, their test driver says: "Certainly, inside the tub you get very similar feedback to what you feel in the real car". Jonathan Neale adds: "What separates the $2000 home installation and the multi-million dollar F1 simulator is the engineering and the science models that lie below. We do want to know what is happening with the tire contact patch, what the forces are, fine tune the engine modes, as they affect the downforce. We do want to know where the downforce is working when you have steer angle, roll and yaw".
"We have committed", Neale continues, "thousands of man hours in software models, tire matrices, engine modes in order to give the testing driver the best feeling about the car".
Chris Goodwin, chief test driver, admits that the simulator has been irreplaceable and essential part of their projects, which also helped Mclaren road cars division to integrate lots of knowledge in production.
This is how it looks like:

Ferrari

Our next stop is at Maranello, where Ferrari are enjoying the simulator installation done by company called Moog - a process which has started back in 2008.
Some of the technical aspects of the simulator are:

• Viewing angle - 180 degrees
• 10 multiprocessor computers 
• 60 GB of RAM
• Around 5 GB of data per day
• 3,500 Watt Dolby Surround 7.1 sound system

All this looks like this:

And finally, if you want to see it working:



Thanks to Axis of Oversteer for both photo and video.
It's not all roses for Ferrari, though - back on the connection between Mclaren and them - Pedro De la Rosa - when the Spaniard made an examination of the current status quo upon its arrival at Maranello, he explained that steps need to be taken, first in terms of hardware and then software built upon it, if Ferrari want to chase the rivals in that area.

Red Bull

Certainly, the reigning world champions, Red Bull Racing, are not just magically winning races and are surely complemented by similar system.
Before we proceed to the technical details, a short word on why such machinery is important.
The time stamp says 24.05.2013, Friday, Red Bull are noticing that they need about 1 second prior to going into qualification mode in Monaco. The information gathered on the streets of Monte Carlo is sent back to their base and Sebastian Buemi does about 400 laps in the simulator, which reportedly resulted in new parts / modifications being done to the front wing of the car (RB9) for the race.

The Main man behind the simulator is Andy Damerum. The cockpit is from the original Red Bull RB1 of 2005, yet it is programmed with the aerodynamics and engine specification of the current car.
Pedals and driving position are exactly the same, steering wheel works in full, all buttons, and is exact copy of the one that gets used on race weekend.
This cockpit is on top of a platform, which is mounted over six hydraulic “legs” - they are somewhat high, so the driver is almost 2 meters above the ground. Roll, pitch and yaw are there, as you can imagine - people with motion sickness better stay out.

Since peripheral vision is weak with us, humans, compared to animals, we need more time and resources to identify the surrounding objects, thus, the simulator wants to try to emulate the environment closely and stimulate the brain’ Occipital lobe, which is mainly responsible for processing vision. Hence, there’s a single 180 degree vision screen to match the moving pictures of the track and objects that you leave behind.

Short note about senses stimulation: a while ago Williams F1 team had a technical partner, Qinetiq, who has done a research on how the nerve endings are sending info to the Cerebellum (smaller region in the lower part of the brain) about perceptions of yaw, pitch and roll. The research claims that if stimulated at early age, these perceptions are being developed much faster than at later age. Sorry for the medical distraction, I strongly believe, however, that physics and human body, most notably including the brain, are one of the most important aspects of the beloved sport.

Back on the simulator, any type of setting and parameters that can be altered during the race, such as angle of attack, toe-out, suspension, etc, can be changed in the simulator, too.
Something which is usually not changed is the grip levels, as they will produce different feeling for the driver, hence the grip is usually a constant parameter.
The engine sound is, well, fake, but certainly the sounds match the sound frequency of the gears. Feedback through the steering wheel is definitely there.

One of the most frequently asked question is how tracks are defined within the simulator. New tracks are added in database model first via raw data (coordinates, numbers), then video footage to polish the sharp edges, then input and potentially real data from car tested over there.

Andy Damerum or other team personnel is monitoring the live data: the same parameters are available there, as on the track, even named the same for full match: pDiff, nEngine, NGear, rThrottlePedal, MDiffDemand, etc.

This is a typical screen that a simulator engineer is looking at:

Finally, short word about Merceges AMG F1 team - back in 2010 the Brackley-based squad has complained a lot about the lack of proper simulator. Today, 2013 in the summer, the team are already seeing positives in having Robert Kubica helping them with simulator work and feedback. The Pole has already had multiple sessions in the simulator, but his main task for now is rallying and there's no long term plan for him.

Once again, thanks for attending, questions are welcome!