“I love Playstation, how difficult can it be,” I heard one of the other journalists mutter as we waited for our chance behind the wheel of the official Ferrari F1 simulator, situated in an unremarkable office building in Modena, Italy. As it turned out, “remarkably difficult” would be an apt answer. The stopwatch doesn’t lie. Fernando Alonso does around 1 min, 25 seconds around the virtual Monza circuit. My best? A rather lethargic 1 minute 38 seconds, which still counted among the better times of the day. More importantly, after only two laps we were all sweating and out of breath. This may be a sim, but it’s a sim that costs Euro 1,5 million, and is used by Ferrari for young driver training, learning new circuits and driver practise. It’s a serious piece of kit.
This exclusive-to-Ferrari simulator is an evolution of the professional sim developed by AllInSports in Modena, a company headed by Anton Stipinovich. Anton is a South African, and has worked in F1 for many years, having spent time with McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull. He is a very highly rated man in his field, with 80 F1 race wins and eleven world championships to his name.
The simulator software is used by most leading F1 teams and is displayed by HD projectors onto a curved screen, with custom software managing the warping and blending of the images. Nevertheless, as you pull out of the “pits”, this curved screen is one of the first things you’ll have to get used to. However, the curved nature of the screen combine very well with the moving platform to create a very “real” feeling experience.
The motion base moves a full carbon-fibre chassis, made by Ferrari in Maranello from the same moulds as real F1 cars, at surprisingly high velocities to give the sensations of braking and cornering. The steering wheel and pedal force feedback are directly from the professional simulator. Even the seatbelts are tensioned to further create a sensation of braking. The simulator features the actual Ferrari electronics system, and even the steering wheel and pedals are to current F1 specification. The physics model is so accurate that it gets the thumbs-up from drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. Massa, by the way, used this simulator to get back up to speed following his serious accident a few years ago. Alonso, meanwhile, has one of these simulators at his home.
And the tracks? The surfaces are laser scanned to give the sensation of curbs, gradients and bumps – I can vouch for it being very realistic. Hit the curbs in the first chicane of Monza and you will get quite a fright. The entire rig feels like it takes off. The sound is even faithful to reality, as evidenced by all the drivers’ faces pulled out of shape in the agony of accompanying crashing or scraping sounds.
But why do F1 teams go to such lenghts to create what most onlookers think are nothing more than gadgets? As Anton explained, it comes down to the lack of testing opportunities in F1 these days. This year track testing has been limited to three pre-season tests and one in May (Mugello). To cut costs further, the FIA has also placed restrictions on wind tunnel testing etc. But there is no ban on simulator testing. That is why it has become vitally important and why it is the focus of so much research and development.
Teams typically use these simulators to measure the impact that any mechanical changes would have on lap times – gear ratios, aerodynamic changes etc – because the physics model is so accurate and far reaching. However, because it also provides an environment in which all the variables can be controlled, it also makes it possible to test the impact a new fuel or oil could have in a real car. The Shell personel would simply provide the formula to a new oil to the simulator team, they would input the new data, and because everything else remains the same, it would be possible to test whether the oil would give the car an advantage.
But I’m not going to kid you. As technologically advanced and as important as this simulator is, it is a massive amount of fun. I’m sure Alonso has it at home for entertainment purposes, as much as “work”!