Ferrari To Use Cutting Edge New Simulator For 2022 F1 Car

On the face of it, it may seem like Formula One's most iconic team is struggling, but slowly but surely in the background, a foundation is being laid down by team principal Mattia Binotto which could set it up for success as the sports enters a new era of ground-effect aerodynamics. One of the key puzzles to the piece is its simulator. According to a feature by The Race, the new Ferrari simulator is a generational leap over the current one called lovingly the "spider" by the team. It has been internally dubbed the 647 project and will be in use at some point in September.

The new simulator is in a bespoke building between the main Ferrari complex in Maranello and its legendary test track Fiorano. It has been developed in partnership with a British company called Dynisma.

The company itself was founded by a former Ferrari and McLaren engineer named Ash Warne. Warne was a senior vehicle dynamics engineer between 2014 and 2017 who left to form the new company. Before his stint at the Prancing Horse, he was at McLaren where he worked on the Woking team's simulator programme between 2010-2013.

He also served as an aero modeller and a performance engineer at McLaren.

As The Race reports, the driver-in-loop simulation is long-established tool which is not only critical for driver preparation but also the development of the car. After all Formula One is a sport that marries the man with the machine and for them to be in total harmony of each other, this becomes one of the most crucial tools.

Ferrari is hoping this simulator plays a key role in the development of the 2022 car giving it an advantage over the competition.

Ferrari are currently P4 in the world championship and are aiming to win their first title since 2008

"Simulation and digital technology are going to play an ever more important role in the development of a Formula 1 car and we believe we have made the best possible choice, focusing on creating a tool that will enable us to make a generational leap in this sector," said Ferrari head of supply chain Gianmari Fulgenzi.

"To produce it, we chose Dynisma, a young and dynamic company. It has taken two years to complete this project and now we are ready to start using it on the 674 project, which is the name given to the car that will be produced based on the new technical regulations that come into force in 2022," he added.

Mattia Binotto was Ferrari's technical chief before he become the top boss and is well aware of the infrastructural deficiencies at the prancing horse
Photo Credit: AFP

The Ferrari boss, Mattia Binotto has been in the midst of a major infrastructural upgrade at the iconic team. He recently announced a partnership with AWS as its cloud provider which will also help it develop its future vehicles. Binotto feels that technologies like the simulator and AWS cloud which provides ARM based compute instances are critical. The existing simulator was used for the 2021 car and race-weekend preparation. It will be used till the end of the 2021 season after which it will be used by the members of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

Charles Leclerc recently revealed that he tried the 2022 car in the simulator. "It feels very different," Leclerc said of the 2022 car.

"Then I think it's a question mark for everyone, whether we are developing well or not. It's such a different project. It's very, very early days so nobody knows where we are positioning ourselves compared to the others. But we are working on it.," he said.