Formula One goes Down-Under this weekend
The second Formula One season with the new car design promises even more performance improvements…
Well, it is almost April and another year has flown by and Formula One fans find themselves at the start of another season. And it is looking like the 2023 season will be full of surprises. Or not? Certainly, there are a lot of questions: Will Oracle Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen win again? What about all the driver changes? How is Pierre Gasly doing at Alpine? What about the Italian team at Scuderia AlphaTauri? How important is all the simulator and testing data really? And how are the teams handling season 2 with the new car design? Will all those behind-the-scenes changes and tweaks pay off in performance?
Unfortunately, we can’t predict the future, but as the racing teams prep for the Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne, Australia this weekend, we took a moment to check out how some of Siemens’ (many) favorite teams are doing in the early days of the season. Of course, every team on the grid is after top performances — and getting the most feedback and data off the track and simulators this season is critical to making it big on race day.
Digital twins, real-time data and digitalization
So before we take a closer look at some of the teams (and if you happen to have 9 minutes or so for a creative break in your day) – check out this neat piece from Oracle Red Bull. Not only do they show the concept behind how they obtain all that critical test data remotely, it also gives you an idea what a team might do with their F1 cars after their heyday.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Aero updates and more downforce at Scuderia AlphaTauri
Over at our Italian friends in Faenza, Italy, the big news is the new Scuderia AlphaTauri F1 rookie driver (and Formula E World Champ) Nyck de Vries, who is filling in the shoes left by Pierre Gasly. (And do we dare say another Dutch driver who started at AlphaTauri?)
“Obviously, there is always a little bit of optimization to do with the car as it is, but it’s also a moving target. If you add performance to the car, then we might need to reassess or rethink how we execute the best performance out of it, but we clearly need more points of downforce, so we will have to see what the upgrades deliver,” says Nyck de Vries as he preps for the Melbourne race.
If you missed the story last year, we were onsite in Faenza to talk to the designers and engineers firsthand to hear about personalized seat design, safety and how digitalization helped design the new 2022 car.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Inside the world of Composite Design Engineering at Alpine
If podcasts are more your style, then you most definitely want to check out this “The Future Car” podcast featuring Elizabeth Apthorp, a composite design engineer at Alpine. (Remember that Renault changed its name to Alpine in 2021.)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Of course, there is Oracle Red Bull Racing. (Sorry I couldn’t resist another shot from the Red Bull Racing Road Trip in honor the Australia Grand Prix.)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
And that being said, here’s to another stunning race season with a little help from Siemens Xcelerator tools like NX, Simcenter and Fibersim to name a few.
