Can someone please explain exactly what the simulator does that makes the car win a race?
Does it take in the logged data and determine the car needs more front aero download to be faster? Or did the driver and engineer do that?
Does it calculate an exact amount of aero change required to achieve some previously established KPI? ie to achieve slip angle xx add xx aero to front.
Does it include a CFD study of the car to determine the ideal sized front canard to fix the understeer? Or were they just the ones that were in the truck?
Or like the FEA example from Cam, does it compare other methods of fixing the problem and allow you to choose the best one? ie less rear wing, more/lower front splitter, lower rear ride height, bump stop change etc.
If so did you run one or more of the other fixes before or after and the simulator predicted the correct lap time difference between these solutions? If so what was the accuracy? and what is the long term accuracy of all such tests? And how does a hand calc verify this difference?
I'm not taking the piss here, just trying to get an understanding of the story, and how it differs from.......
Driver - "It's got some high speed understeer in 6 and 7. Killing me as it won't take power without pushing wide."
Engineer - "Yeah I can see that here (on the data). Your way down there on what you were doing with less rear wing. But we need that extra wing in 3 and 4, we are actually about the same over the lap"
Driver - "well it's shit like it is, you've got to do something"
Engineer - "Hey, I've got some front canards in the truck, that will go a long way to sorting it, and if it is still not enough I'll fit the small Gurney at the back"
Driver - "Awesome, lets do it"
I get that a hand calc and the sim might predict that if you add xx download understeer will reduce and the front springs will compress xxx more on the main straight and the data will show that. But isn't that trivial?
Pete
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