“I think this car will always have a special place in our collection…”  Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff mentioned to Autosport just last week “…very far back.”

Such has been the success of Toto’s team over the last eight seasons, a car that takes seventeen podiums, one win, one pole and finishes third in the constructors championship is considered a failure.  

The nascency of the “Mercedes-AMG W13 E Performance”, or just “W13” if you don’t mind, began with what turned out to be a rather radical approach to the new era of Formula 1. 2022 introduced one of the most significant changes to the F1 ruleset seen in some time, perhaps ever, in which cars were forced into a design that favoured underbody aerodynamics to create downforce using ground effect technology. Ground effect in F1 was originally invented in the late 1970’s and outlawed.

The premise of these changes was led by a desire within the sporting governance to provide better racing by allowing cars to run closer together. With these new 2022 cars, barge boards were banned, changing the way teams had to deal with the turbulent aero wake from the front wheels, favouring intakes on the front of the sidepod floor area that feed air into underfloor venturis. This went hand in hand with a mandated rear wing design to push the car’s wake upwards and reduce “dirty air” for the following car.

There were many other changes but this, along with a move to 18 inch wheels, was the most significant change from a design perspective that sent all of the F1 team designers back to the drawing board after five years of relative rule stability.

At the second test of the year, on the 10th March 2022, Mercedes unveiled the W13’s full aerodynamic package to gasps up and down the pitlane. Where most of the cars had opted for a wider body around the sidepods, Mercedes’ sidepods were “slimline”, pulling in tight to the rear of the car, with a wing mounted upon the homologated crash structure at the leading edge of the sidepod managing airflow from the wake of the front wheels over the top of the rear floor component and onto the rear wing. Where barge boards behind the front wheels had been used in previous eras to manage this wake, this wing mounting appeared to be managing this airflow, this design looked to be a potential work of genius.

Rival teams raised eyebrows, but when the car took to the track any concerns they had about this radical design approach’s potential seemed to ebb away.

Once running it was clear that the car was suffering with almost terrifying amounts of aerodynamic porpoising, as well as bouncing in the suspension, two phenomena brought on by ground effect’s general requirement for running the car as low to the ground as possible to gain performance. The Brackley based team were in crisis.

This of course makes it fascinating that the W13 was already slated to be coming to iRacing as a virtual steed long before all of this came to pass. With the 2021 constructor’s championship winning W12 already in the service, Mercedes had struck a deal with the US based sim developer we all know and love to bring their 2022 challenger into our virtual garages long before they knew how their season would go; giving us the chance to enshrine another genuine F1 curio within the virtual world.

Taking to the track in the iRacing W13, one of the first things to strike me is how stiff the vehicle platform is when compared to its predecessor. The provided setups for each of iRacing’s F1 aligned tracks are designed to provide a gentle learning experience, in as much as is possible with such a complex, rapid machine. The car is stable with a bias towards understeer that becomes more pronounced as the driver’s confidence grows.  

The tyres provided, noted as Soft, Medium, and Hard in keeping with F1 nomenclature, simulate Pirelli’s C4, C3 and C2 grades of tyre softness. For my first foray, I take to the Barcelona circuit with a set of hards (The 2022 Spanish Grand Prix utilised the C3, C2 and C1 compounds, so the iRacing Hards are equivalent to the Mediums used in reality) and a full tank of fuel to get a feel for things.

Stiffness is crucial to create a stable aero platform to optimise the airflow field into the diffuser from the front of the floor; if the floor is considered a “wing” then the more consistently this wing is presented to the flow field the more consistent the aerodynamic downforce created will be. Also, running the car lower will effectively constrict this flow and thus speed it up and create downforce in greater numbers.

Whilst my initial impressions involved adapting to the stiffness of the platform, I am ever mindful that the default setups provided are configured with considerably more compliance than will undoubtedly be required to extract maximum pace from the W13, so we have a long way to go.  

Handling wise, it is a little cold in Catalunya today and the hards are struggling for temperature without some amendment to pressures. In fast corners the W13 is producing a staggering amount of downforce; the rear sticks and sticks with the rearward centre of pressure showing its hand. Conversely, the fronts start to scrub when leaning on it through turns three, four and nine.

At slow speed, the understeer is more pronounced and I start working with the various tools within the car to try to help get the car into corners. In-car brake balance configuration features brake migration, to manage the balance dynamically as speed bleeds off (as has been seen in many other sim-virtualised modern F1 cars), and the obligatory amendments to entry, mid-corner and exit differential locking are available. Nevertheless, with a heavy fuel load and tyres outside of their optimum range, the car is cumbersome at low speed, with so much low end torque delivered by the Mercedes M13 V6 hybrid power unit it can be rather too easy to spin up the rear wheels in the lower gears and find oneself pointing the wrong way. Luckily, this happens to me only once: exiting turn ten after almost twenty-five laps with no one in the empty stands able to bear witness.

As the opening Grand Prix of the season dawned in Bahrain, Mercedes were still quite some way from understanding the problems that they were having with the W13, and were fortunate to score a three-four finish behind the Ferraris as a result of reliability trouble in the Red Bull camp. Saudi Arabia was worse, with the cars lining up sixth and fifteenth and scraping through to fifth and tenth in the race. The Melbourne circuit in Australia did not appear to see the car suffering so much with porpoising, perhaps due to the nature of the circuit requiring a higher ride height, and they were once again fortunate with attrition to score a three-four.  

Dire as it may have appeared relative to previous seasons, most of the teams were suffering with getting their all-new cars to work effectively. Mercedes were remaining a clear third best outfit, but the porpoising had to be solved.

In a porpoising scenario, the car ends up with a phase shift between its front and rear aerodynamics, instigating pitch in the aero platform. The phenomenon was first talked about in F1 circles in 1979 when Lotus introduced their Type 80, which aimed to push the ground effect concepts of the Type 79 further. In many ways it did: it did generate more downforce. But with it came porpoising, which made the Type 80 borderline undrivable.

Porpoising tends to occur when there is instability in the underfloor airflow field. When this instability occurs, the diffuser can stall the airflow, resulting in the rear suspension going into heave, raising the rear ride height and moving the aerodynamic centre of pressure forwards as a result of the pitch condition. The flow field then re-attaches to the diffuser, reversing the situation, and pulling the centre of pressure rearward once more and putting the front suspension into heave, resulting in a reversal of the pitch. This happens repeatedly, and very quickly depending on speed, creating a violent pitch oscillation which is not only very uncomfortable for the driver, but makes for an unstable aero platform and very unpredictable handling.

For the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola, Mercedes brought changes to their diffuser, sidepod inlets and lower rear deflector endplates in an attempt to tackle their porpoising woes. With qualifying taking place on a drying track after morning rain, the Mercedes pair did not make Q3. Lining up eleventh and fourteenth on the grid, and with the car looking skittish, barely controllable and slower than it had been all year, they still walked away with a fourth place finish. Miami saw only one car make it through to Q3, but a strong fifth and sixth in the race kept the points flowing in.

At the Spanish Grand Prix, Mercedes introduced a much larger upgrade, with an all new floor featuring revised edge detail, a lower deflector endplate on the rear corner in advance of the rear wheel, and a bib vane added to the floor body. These changes were aimed at improving flow conditioning into the diffuser to reduce instability, as well as increasing load. There was also an amendment to the front wing endplate to aid airflow to the rear of the car. Immediately, the W13 looked far more comfortable on track, with the smoother surface of the Circuit de Catalunya allowing the car to run as low as it needed to without suffering porpoising. Mercedes ended Friday just two tenths off the pace. This margin increased somewhat on single lap pace, lining up fourth and sixth on the grid, but they came home third and fifth in the race. Most encouragingly, the W13’s fastest race lap was just a tenth away from the fastest time set by a Red Bull. Smiles started to appear in the garage.

Whilst it appeared that Mercedes had made good progress ironing out its issues regarding underfloor flow field instability that led to porpoising, the W13 continued to suffer from ‘bouncing’ – a heave motion response caused by the underfloor aerodynamic instability – at the next two races. Monaco and Azerbaijan, both bumpy street tracks, would put frowns back on faces in the Mercedes camp.

For the afternoon session, I bring the fuel load down to one-third race distance and switch to the Mediums, the C3s. I Bring up the tyre pressures all-round, particularly on the underused right-side, and lower the ride height front and rear at speed to as low as I can get away with.  iRacing’s “setup calculator” allows the “ride height at speed” setting to be assigned directly, rather than via packer adjustments and judicious telemetry study.  

Right away the car is more alive on the lower fuel load and the rear is even more nailed to the ground; so much so as to create something of an imbalance and I am soon back in to put more front wing flap on to better balance out the high speed behaviour.  

The grip is intoxicating through the first sweeps of turns one and two, and I seem to be able to brake deeper and deeper every lap. Turn three is flat-chat full throttle and I feel like I am lifting purely for my own confidence to tuck the nose in on entry to turn fournine.

At the lower speed turn five it is still hard to get down to the apex, but the benefits I am reaping in the high speed sections are making laptimes tumble. As I am pushing harder, just as I think the rear has seemingly unbreakable grip, I get a snap on the exit of turn four, then the rears give out under traction on the kerb out of turn six; I am getting closer to the limit.

Bouncing… This catchily named term is noted when you see a car literally, well, bouncing on all four corners. Mercedes Technical Director Mike Elliott talked with RaceCar Engineering magazine in their December issue about it and had the following to say:  “Bouncing issues are complex. The aerodynamics put energy in the vertical motion of the car due to a phase shift between the aerodynamic load and the car’s ride height position that gives a net energy input more than the dampers can deal with. The fact we have to run these cars so low to the ground, with so much downforce on them to be performant, means they must run really stiff , and that’s a huge contributor to these significant consequences.”

F1’s move to eighteen inch rims with lower profile Pirelli tyres have an impact here, Elliott goes on:

“The new tyres want slightly different things to get them into the window that works when compared to the previous thirteen inch ones. Though this isn’t the way to solve the challenges we’ve been facing with car behaviour. You have to put it in perspective. The tyre is not particularly stiff , and then you’ve got stiff suspension springs and, in parallel with the suspension springs, you have stiff dampers. In reality, these cars are inflexible, so it’s hard to dampen the motions and take a lot of energy out of the car’s movement.”

While the pain felt in the pair of street races was lessened somewhat by both cars scoring points in both, it remained the case that the Mercedes occupied a no-mans-land in performance terms; comfortably ahead of McLaren and Alpine behind, but significantly behind the faster Red Bulls and Ferraris ahead.

The Canadian Grand Prix appeared a far more competitive outing as, after qualifying fourth and eighth, the two Mercedes finished third and fourth once more; this time only seven and twelve seconds behind the leader, respectively.

At Silverstone they were on the podium again, suffering the first DNF of the year with the other car due to a gruesome startline shunt. Another notable update was brought to the car for the British round, modifying the front suspension design as well as modifications to the sidepod inlet to aid flow conditioning under the floor. Changes to the floor body added downforce load and aided flow conditioning, and a re-profiling of the rear wing tips would reduce drag on Silverstone’s long straights. Hamilton’s Mercedes appeared to be in the mix for the win, ultimately finishing third just six seconds back.  

In Austria, promising practice pace was somewhat squandered by both drivers binning it in Q3, but competitive drives once again secured a three-four finish. At the mid-point of the season, the best result for the W13 was third place and the constructors’ championship looked well out of reach. 

The W13 struggled with bouncing in Paul Ricard, despite a revised nose, but managed a double podium with a season best second and third place finish. The same result was repeated in Hungary, where a first pole position of the season had offered the hope of a win.

Belgium’s fast sweepers saw another downturn after this strong run, with the vagaries of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit forcing a compromise on ride height through Eau Rouge. In qualifying, the W13 was further away from pole than it had been all year. Another DNF struck after a first lap incident, with the remaining car coming home fourth, albeit almost thirty seconds back. Pace was strong in Zandvoort however, proving that the track layout was causing quite large swings in relative performance. They took the flag second and fourth, but then once again in Monza the pace dropped off. It appeared at this stage that to take a win with this car was going to require a dose of good fortune.

For my final session of the day, I start to experiment with stiffening up the heave and roll rates to try to solidify the underfloor aero platform and hopefully pull more performance out of the car. Once again I see immediate gains in rear downforce that require balancing out with front flap adjustments. We’re maintaining a thirty kilogram fuel load as I pop in and out of the pits; iRacing’s cost-capless environment granting me a fresh set of tyres each time.

When looking at configuration of the hybrid systems in the W13, it is once again clear that iRacing have dumbed things down from the real-world car. As they did with the W12, and with revisions to the McLaren-Honda MP4-30 in the service, they present basic options for the ERS recovery and deployment such as “build/balanced/attack.” Most of my running is on the “balanced” setting to allow me not to give it much thought. With a limited amount of  changes allowed even in private practice, based on competition regulation, it can be painful to experiment with these settings. On the whole I am not in favour of these simplifications; a simulator should aim to replicate the controls and systems of the real world vehicle as accurately as possible, and this has historically been an area where iRacing have excelled. I can understand the need to attract players to online races, which in complex cars can be tough given the learning curve, but it would be nice to have greater verisimilitude as an option in offline or hosted sessions at least.

Nonetheless, running in “balanced” mode did not present much trouble. With the system potentially changing the deploy mode on the fly, there can be a danger that you could enter a braking area at speed without a solid idea of the retardation available to you; something I had suffered in the aforementioned McLaren. Yet, in over ninety laps of Barcelona, and seventy laps of Imola, I had no such problems with the W13.

I did start to have trouble, however, with my push for stiffness making the car become more and more edgy. When the tyres were fresh and up to temperature they would hold on, but as the rears began to wear they started to cry “enough”, and after a few “brown trouser events” through turn four and turn six, I head back to the garage to loosen things up.

A chaotic, wet Singapore Grand Prix masked how close the W13 was to the leader’s pace; they were in the hunt for pole and set fastest lap in the race. Rain also fell in Suzuka, where the car’s aero deficiency saw their pace drop away from the top teams in the drier sessions.  

In Austin, for the United States Grand Prix, Mercedes fitted what was planned to be the final upgrade to the car: a new front wing, floor fences to once again aid flow conditioning, and revisions to the floor edge and rear wing endplates to increase overall load. These were met with strong performances; Russell taking fifth and Hamilton almost stealing a fortuitous win on the way to coming in second.

Mexico saw the W13’s second and third on the grid, but fall back somewhat on race pace to finish in second and fourth. Strong results, and outpacing the Ferraris, but not quite there. Through the season one thing had been clear: even if the W13’s pace was inconsistent track to track, it was able to look after its tyres better than most of the other cars. Perhaps this would be the advantage it needed in the final stretch.

The samba beats from the crowds rang out at Interlagos for the Brazilian Grand Prix, which featured a sprint event on Saturday. This meant limited practice running and, right away, it was clear that the Red Bulls were not happy with their front end. Everyone was struggling with tyre wear, and there was only one practice session before qualifying to do anything about it.

Then the rain came for that qualifying session, and a shock standout performance for Kevin Magnussen put him on pole for Haas. The Mercedes lined up third and eighth for the sprint; George Russell would win that event, with Hamilton fighting up to third. This would be where they would start on race day and the smart money said that this one was theirs to lose. The sprint had demonstrated that the Red Bulls were struggling and had dropped behind both the Mercedes and Ferrari on pace due to the nature of the circuit.  There was an air of calm confidence emanating from the garage of the Silver Arrows, which proved to be justified as Russell dominated from pole to take the win, with Hamilton close behind in second – the team’s first one-two since Imola 2020.

The season ended at Abu Dhabi where a grid lined up two-by-two and a representation of the season looked to bear up; the W13s firmly fifth and sixth. Russell would end the season with a solid fifth place, while Hamilton would suffer the W13’s first, and only, mechanical failure of the season and DNF.

As I continue to pound around the sun starts to drop low in the sky over Montmelo and, with it, the track temperature starts to fall. At the track’s peak I record a time that was around seven tenths away from the time set by George Russell in FP2 during the Spanish Grand Prix, and feel happy enough with this pace. As the temperature drops, I never manage to match that pace again, whilst continuing to pop in and out of the pits to further experiment with setup. The colder track surface makes it harder and harder to maintain temperature in the tyres and the fronts increasingly scrabble to hold their line where previously it had been solid. I revert to the setup that yielded the peak laptime and head out for a final run, despite my shoulders and arms advising me that they’ve had enough of wrestling this direct drive wheel.

The next day I take the car to Imola, a circuit that the Mercedes team struggled with in real life, to see how the car compares.  Right away the track surface is more tricky to deal with, and the car becomes more skittish over bumps as we lower and stiffen it.  As a circuit Imola requires one to use the kerbs to extract decent lap times and on almost every turn I wince at the sound of the car smashing into the ground as we land.  Setup provides options to adjust heave and roll rates but we simply cannot get away with roll rates as stiff here as we enjoyed in Barcelona.

As we saw in Catalunya, getting a good high speed feeling involves continual adjustment of these spring rates, while the front flap and rear gurney fine tune the balance; but where the smooth sweeps of Barcelona made the process relatively straightforward, Imola is a trickier customer.  Every change gives us a different feeling, it may feel better in Rivazza but terrible in Piratella, try to fix that and we lose precision in direction change and every Variante is a nightmare. Ultimately laptime is all, as over two hours I fail to get the car feeling comfortable around this circuit; sooner or later you’ve just got what you’ve got!  After sixty-five laps of Imola I finally have my first crash, after asking too much on the turn one kerb, I am spat into the wall that the Ayrton Senna monument looks down upon. Time to pack up.  

The W13 is demanding to drive, especially on the limit, but like many F1 cars its sheer speed can really pull you in to keep running it more and more. Nothing quite compares in simracing to pitching a modern F1 car into a high speed corner and finding yourself exclaiming at how much sheer grip the machine has.

At Barcelona I could not get myself into a position whereby I had the car porpoising or bouncing, however I did experience what appeared to be some bouncing at Imola on the main straight, but it was not severe.

It is unclear to me what specification the W13 model in iRacing is representative of, and I was unable to obtain an answer to the question at the time of writing, but as we’ve seen, the car was upgraded notably throughout the season. The 3D model, particularly around the exposed rear floor area, seems to suggest an early season specification, but the aerodynamic stability seems to suggest that the physics implementation may be more apposite to the late season aero package. 

After six or so hours in the car I feel like I have only scratched the surface of the depth on offer; setup options are not as extensive as some other offerings, aero adjustments are limited to high, medium and low downforce packages with no finer control of what these entail.  Once a package is selected one is left to adjust the ride heights and heave and roll stiffness to manage the floor optimisation, with the rear gurney and front wing flap adjustment the only options for overbody aero, iRacing in general do not bother with cooling so there are no adjustments there that might present a drag trade-off.  When it comes to suspension we can adjust static ride height offsets, cambers and toes, alongside the aforementioned front and rear roll and heave spring rates. There are no configuration options for dampers or anti-roll bars, the W13 of course has both of these components so omitting them from the setup options seems strange, especially when dampers can be so critical in managing the underbody aero platform stability. In the garage the differential and brake-by-wire configurations offer the same electronic controls as are available in the cockpit, again, it seems surprising that the engineers would not have more options at their disposal.  iRacing have typically been very good in providing a thorough series of available setup options in their other complex cars, so I am somewhat surprised to see the W13 appearing so simplified.

That said, the sensitivity of the car to setup changes and the varying demands of different track layouts leaves us replete with experimentation potential. The demands of the W13 will present fascinating challenges for a while yet.

This is the first F1 car from the modern ground effect era to be officially implemented into a racing sim and I must commend the hard work iRacing have clearly put into it, and also thank the Mercedes team for granting the licence and letting us get a taste of such modern machinery. All too often these unique cars fall away from our consciousness as the season ends, but now the W13 is with us in virtual form for years to come.

Back to Toto:  “…I think that hopefully the next few years will do her justice, because the learning curve with that car was enormous. Our fundamental understanding of aerodynamic, vehicle dynamics correlation, has gone through a step change of learning.”

The W13 may not be remembered as the most successful Mercedes Formula One car, but it certainly won’t be forgotten.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/shrapnel1977

“Fernando we’re not sure the fuel dash is working correctly. Can we have multi H13 position two?”

“Try purple C3 position three Jenson, exit diff locking.”

These words are typical of those we hear on pit-to-car broadcasts in Formula One (F1) racing in the modern era. Words of drivers who are making constant adjustments to their machines in order optimise the car’s performance, tyres, fuel, and now Energy Recovery Systems (ERS.).

In 2014, F1 introduced new rules to dictate that all cars must operate on Hybrid power units; a change that completely re-worked the way F1 cars were to function in a race situation, and would completely change the packaging requirements of the vehicle as laid down by the designers.

In 2015, McLaren commenced their relationship with Honda as a works engine partner with their new MP4-30 chassis that was mated to the Honda RA615H V6 internal combustion engine (ICU). This intricately engineered 1.6 litre lump did not come alone, however, as the hybrid rules dictate that an F1 car must run two ERS systems with an MGU-K (Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic) and an MGU-H (Motor Generator Unit-Heat) which recharge energy into a battery that can be deployed to the rear wheels adding an extra 160 horsepower (hp) to the 600-odd that the ICU is pushing out.

Some time ago, our good friends at iRacing announced that they would be modelling the McLaren-Honda MP4-30 within their venerable simulator.  This meant that us every day simracers would be given the chance to get to grips with the various controls and switches that Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso have spent the season with; a tantalising prospect at the time, but questions were there about exactly how much control we would have over the cars various systems.

We needn’t have worried:- iRacing’s history had given us a clue. Despite being considerably less complex as a racing machine, iRacing’s implementation of the 2009 Williams-Toyota FW31 covered all the bases admirably, with in car controls for various differential controls, variable brake bias and a few other “trick” bits of kit on the car. At RAVSIM we’re great believers in a car simulation being just that, if there is a switch in the real car, it should be in the sim, and you should be able to use it. Be it entry differential settings on an F1 car, or heater controls in a BMW E30, if the car has it, so should the sim. It’s not something most developers agree with, however.  Some sims don’t even trust us with controlling our own pit-lane speed limiter button, after all. Thankfully, iRacing’s view is a little more aligned to ours.

Last week the MP4-30 was released, and since then the bold and the brave of iRacing’s top drivers have been working day and night to understand the various settings and controls on the machine. With various in-car settings that can (and in some cases have to) be managed during a race, along with a few other settings and configurations that can only be worked with in the garage, it has been a minefield for some of the less technically minded simracers. As someone who has been fascinated with these controls since the car was released, I am going to try and see if I can decode some of the “magic” going on.

“Jenson default X5B.”
“You’re going to explain that one to me, I can’t find it.”

So to start with, let me skip back a little bit and try to explain what each of the components in the MP4-30’s power unit actually do.

First is the petrol engine, or ICU. I’d presume that if you’re a simracer and you’ve found your way to this site then you probably know what one of these is. In this case the Honda RA615H is a 1.6 litre V6 unit with the V set at 90 degrees, as dictated by the rules. The ICU is connected to a turbocharger allowing the engine to be more compact but produce similar power to the 2.4 litre V8 engines used in F1 prior to 2014. The turbocharger is a device used to efficiently utilise the energy stored with the engine’s exhaust gases, comprising of a turbine and compressor supported by bearings on the same axis.

Exhaust gas energy rotates the turbine powering the compressor, which in turn compresses and increases air fed into the engine’s combustion chamber, thus allowing for more fuel combustion and a higher power output.

In 2013, F1 engines were limited to 18,000 rpm, but from 2014, the rev limit was reduced to 15,000 rpm, along with a maximum regulated fuel flow of 100Kg/hour capped at 10,500 rpm. Thus, as power output increases proportionately with the amount of fuel burned, higher revs burn more fuel, and increase output, in a shorter time. By capping the maximum fuel flow at 10,500 rpm, the same amount of fuel flow is available with revs above this point, increasing mechanical resistance, and decreasing the merits of revving higher than 10,500 rpm. F1 engines of the past were designed to maintain higher revs to create higher output, but the new hybrid F1 shifts the focus to designing engines that use energy more efficiently.
In the cockpit this means that the driver has to be careful to shift up to the next gear at the right time in the rev range, rather than “run it to the limiter.” This efficiency is enforced yet further with a fuel limit in races of 100Kg, which often sees drivers having to use different engine modes for managing fuel consumption.

Within iRacing these settings can be adjusted in car by moving the “G” control between 0 and 9 (available on the in-car controls menu and visible on the gold thumb dial on the left of the steering wheel). The lowest setting, 0, gives 100% turbo boost pressure, with each increment upwards limiting the boost by 1%. Thus a setting of 9 gives 91% boost from the turbo. The higher settings provide better overall fuel consumption at the expense of ultimate power from the ICU component.

Whilst Honda’s ICU has come under some scrutiny for its performance in 2015, it’s fair to say that this is far from the weak link in the solution.  Honda’s experience in Japan’s Super GT with the hybrid CRZ GT300 machine, as well as their involvement in WTCC which operates with a similar “small-block allied to turbocharger” design, suggests that their engineering group have quite some experience in this area. Nevertheless, the RA615H was a completely new design, which facilitated McLaren introducing a new gearbox for 2015 to optimise the mating of the ICU and gearbox in the rear of the car.

“Jenson this is fuel three, we need fuel six.”
“You would not believe how early I am lifting off.”

Next up comes the MGU-K. This unit is not dissimilar to the KERS systems that F1 has been running since 2009. This takes electrical energy harvested from the rear axle under braking, which is stored in the ERS battery, and deploys it to the rear wheels when under power. When powering the car using electrical energy stored in the battery, the MGU-K adds 160 hp (at maximum deployment) to the ICU’s 600 horses.

This is not unlike the systems used in road cars such as Honda’s “Fit”. Within the F1 rulebook, however, the electrical energy charging the battery from the MGU-K is limited to 2 MegaJoules (MJ) per lap, and the maximum energy used by the battery to power the MGU-K is limited to 4 MJ per lap, presenting a compromise in management of this energy over a lap. With the design restrictions ensuring that energy is harvested at a lower rate than it can be deployed, there is even more compromise to be built into the equation.

Back in the iRacing cockpit we have a number of controls for the MGU-K that can be manipulated by the driver on the fly, as well as a few that can only be set in the pit lane. Let’s take a look:

MGU-K Regen gain (TRQ – Gold dial to the right of the steering wheel): With settings from 0-9. This manages how aggressively the MGU-K harvests energy from braking events. With 9 being the most aggressive setting and thus harvesting the most energy into the battery at a given time.

MGU-K deploy mode: Set to either Fixed or Adaptive, this determines how the MGU-K deploys power to the rear wheels with settings managed via separate switches. Fixed mode applies a fixed deployment rate at all times, whereas Adaptive will automatically adjust the MGU-K deployment rate to work to a set ERS battery charge state.

MGU-K deploy fixed (MFC – dial on the bottom left of the steering wheel): This defines a fixed rate of MGU-K power output to the rear wheels under power that is adjustable between a range of 1 to 14. With 1 being maximum output at all times (which will heavily decrease battery) and 14 being no deployment (leaving the ICU to do all the work). This setting only applies if the MGU-K deploy mode is set to fixed with the above switch.

MGU-K deploy adapt (MFH – dial on the bottom right of the steering wheel): In adaptive mode the dial is also adjustable between 1 and 14. This manages the MGU-K deployment rate based on a target ERS battery charge state. Thus setting the dial to 1 will set the deployment rate to a more aggressive (more power) rate with a minimum ERS charge set at 20%, with 14 managing the available battery to a maximum charge rate of 85%. Conceptually thus, on a setting of 1, once the battery gets towards 20% the adaptive system will reduce MGU-K deployment to allow the battery to recharge, and then automatically increase deployment again when more battery is available.

MGU-K deploy ramp (F – only available in the garage): This sets how aggressively the ERS power is deployed to the rear wheels upon throttle. Adjustable between 0 and 9, with 9 smoothing out the power delivery for improved traction and 0 offering a heavily aggressive deployment

The MGU-H is the next piece of the ERS system puzzle, which adds to the overall efficiency of the power unit. The MGU-H converts heat energy from exhaust gases into electrical energy to recharge the ERS battery. ERS-H is yet to be used in road going hybrid cars and consequently is a major area of research that may eventually benefit the greater motoring world.

Unlike the MGU-K, the F1 rulebook does not place any energy usage restrictions on the MGU-H. Electricity generated by the MGU-H may be fed directly into the MGU-K, effectively bypassing the MGU-K regeneration restrictions and tapping the full 160hp.  This highlights the importance of developing a system to fully utilize the MGU-H, and any new F1 power unit heavily depends on how effectively the MGU-H performs. Within iRacing there are no controls for the MGU-H as it operates based simply on the exhaust gases escaping from the manifold. What can be seen within the iRacing MP4-30 is that, when one sets the MGU-K regen setting to zero, there is still charge being pushed into the ERS battery, coming from the MGU-H. Alas, the charge harvested from the MGU-H is usually negligible, as the MGU-H will be sending energy to the MGU-K on throttle, so the overall power delivery needs to be balanced alongside MGU-K deploy and regen settings.

So how does it all hang together on the track? At all times, as long as the driver sets the switches accordingly, energy is harvested into the ERS battery, or is deployed from the ERS battery in different ways depending on what the car is doing.

Under braking the MGU-K generates electricity from part of the kinetic energy lost when the car is braking, and stores that electricity in the ERS battery. As the MGU-K’s maximum output is 160hp (or 120 kiloWatts) and the amount of energy allowed to be stored in the battery is 2MJ per lap, the MP4-30 needs to brake for around 16.7 seconds per lap to reach this maximum charge.

Upon acceleration out of corners the car can accelerate faster by adding the power output of the MGU-K to the ICU’s power output, in the process depleting the charge in the ERS battery. However, concurrently the MGU-H is utilising the exhaust gases to recharge the ERS battery while the turbocharger uses its compressor to send compressed air into the engine. Under full-acceleration, the exhaust energy fed to the turbine can increase to a point where it exceeds the amount of air the compressor can handle to feed into the engine, in this situation the MGU-H converts this excess exhaust energy into electricity, which it then sends directly to the MGU-K for deployment to the rear wheels.

There are no rules on how much electricity the MGU-H is allowed to generate, so the MGU-K’s output can be added to the ICU’s output without worrying about the rules on the amount of electricity that the battery can charge or discharge. Thus, unused exhaust energy can be efficiently used to accelerate faster.

The MGU-H also solves the problem of turbo “lag” on power application by using an electrical motor to power the turbo’s compressor, saving the turbine from having to wait for the exhaust gas to do so.

“Can you have a look at the braking for the hairpin please. How many more laps on the red button?”
“Jenson we have 11 laps red button remaining.”

Phew! So anyone coming fresh to modern F1 technology may need a break after reading all that. But it’s not quite over. There are a few more tricks up the F1 driver’s sleeve in the cockpit of the MP4-30. Like the FW31 before it, this car is fitted with various settings for management of the active differential at the rear of the car, as well as dynamic brake bias settings. I am not going to go into depth on these settings, but looking at the newer options available with this car we note that buttons can be mapped to functions such as the “Push-to-pass” and DRS.

Push-to-pass, or the overtake button (OT on the steering wheel), is simply a button that allows the MGU-K deploy mode to switch to its most aggressive deployment rate (1) for the duration that the button is held down. Whilst this obviously brings about a noted depletion in the ERS battery charge, it can be extremely useful to pull off an overtaking move.

DRS (Drag Reduction System) opens a slot gap in the rear wing on certain denoted parts of the circuit that significantly reduces drag and increases top speed. This is freely usable in practice and qualifying sessions, but restricted in the race to being used only when within one second of the car in front. Opening of the DRS has to be engaged by the driver, with one green light on the top left of the steering wheel becoming illuminated when entering the DRS detection zone (the area on the track in which you must be within one second of the car in front), which increases to two green lights when the car enters the DRS zone, at which point the driver should press the DRS button as soon as possible to maximise performance through the DRS zone. When the DRS is engaged, there will be four green lights on the dashboard. Opening the DRS in the rear wing has a knock-on effect of reducing rear downforce and thus upsetting the front to rear downforce balance. This is something the driver must be aware of when the DRS is open.

Managing the various in car systems when driving the car at speed is a juggling act that any aspiring McLaren-Honda MP4-30 driver in iRacing will have to master if they are to achieve success. Each circuit will differ in configuration as battery re-charge is dependent on braking events and total deployment will vary based on the amount of time on throttle. The key to this setup is to find an optimum balance between deploy and regen on the MGU-K that you can work within, whilst using the push-to-pass button to increase power at required intervals.

Naturally, you want to maximise performance with the lowest possible deployment setting, if MGU-K deployment is set to fixed. If you perform a lap with a deploy rate of 1, and a regen rate of 0 then you may find on some circuits that the ERS battery is flat before the end of the lap, with the maximum deployment of 2MJ completed well before the end of the lap. Thus you need to start to dial in some regen. The assumption would be that maximum regen would be desirable, to always recover as much battery in braking events, but the compromise here comes in braking performance. As the MGU-K works to harvest energy from the rear axle, there is a an additional diff locking effect that not only increases braking zones, but also introduces understeer into the corner entry phase. It is distinctly apparent in tests that with the lowest possible regen settings on the MGU-K, the shortest braking distances can be achieved. As well as that, the feeling in the car on entry is “cleaner”, whereby the driver feels more in control of the car’s balance upon entry to the corner via their own foot pedals. As the driver adjusts the MGU-K regen and deploy settings the balance of the car on entry and exit can change notably, meaning a driver has to become adaptable to these changes on the fly. A qualifying run with heavily aggressive MGU settings will suit for one lap, but when given the balancing act that may be required to maintain efficiency over a full race it is not unlikely to see a laptime difference of up to 4 or 5 seconds between the two sessions.

To find the optimum laptime in the MP4-30 a driver must work to find a balance between MGU-K deployment and regeneration that suits the particular track layout and their driving style. All the while maintaining sufficient ERS battery charge when you need it for overtaking, keeping fuel consumption under control (day-to-day iRacing races are typically 50% of F1 race distances with a fixed fuel load), hitting the DRS button in the right places, managing brake bias and differential settings as fuel load changes, and, you know, not crashing a car capable of hitting speeds well in excess of 200mph very quickly.

“Ok Jenson so manage the temperatures. We want you to save as much fuel as possible and we need some hard braking events to keep the temperature in the front brakes.”

“And rub your tummy and pat your head? Alright we can do this.”

Many column inches have been written this year about McLaren-Honda’s relative lack of performance compared to the rest of the F1 field. This is not noticeable in iRacing, of course, because there are no Mercedes, Ferraris or William’s out there on the track. As such the MP4-30 seems really rather fast.  One area the iRacer will not have to worry about as much as McLaren’s incumbent world champion drivers is heat management. At the beginning of the 2015 season there were notable concerns in Woking about the reliability of the MP4-30 with regards to its various ERS components. With the McLaren chassis being designed around the “size zero” design concept: Whereby to optimise airflow over the car for aerodynamic performance the internal packaging of components was made increasingly tight. Since 2014, with two MGU’s, a V6 ICU, turbocharger, compressor and turbine to shovel into the space behind the bulkhead and in front of the 8 speed gearbox and rear suspension assembly this design concept has pushed F1 engineers to the limit.

With the turbine reaching up to 1000 degrees Celsius, you have torsion bar dampers, anti-roll bars and hydraulic system components, servo valves, wiring harnesses and the like only a few millimetres behind the turbine which all need to be kept relatively cool and protected from the heat being generated. Meanwhile the aero guys are asking for less bodywork and thus less space internally.

From what is documented, this caused considerable reliability headaches for McLaren-Honda in the earlier part of the season, and drivers were routinely having to manage temperatures where possible by staying out of the dirty air of other cars, and careful brake temperature management.

iRacing, as yet, still does not allow us to manage radiators or cooling ducts within car setup, and while brake and engine temperature are modelled in the sim, there is no real management of it from the driver’s point of view required. As well as this, only one of Pirelli’s tyre compounds has been modelled, the yellow-walled soft tyre, which on first impressions is quite easy to manage on wear (At Road America and Nurburgring GP testing sessions).

With that aside, iRacing’s McLaren-Honda MP4-30 is a masterpiece of systems modelling in a commercial sim, and by putting control into the hands of the player and refusing to dumb it down the team in Bedford, MA can only be commended.

Driving the MP4-30 is a joy, driving it quickly is a huge challenge that truly allows us to appreciate the work that goes into each and every F1 race for the men in the cockpit.

With thanks to Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button for their illuminating quotes taken from the 2015 season.

On August 26^th 2008, iRacing opened its doors to what many suspected would be the last simracing product they would ever want.  The involvement of simracing folk hero David Kaemmer, as well as the financial support of John Henry, promised a product that could redefine the genre; and that’s just what it did.

With a farm of online servers and an unprecedented online race scheduling system, along with complex matchmaking and licence qualification, the service brought something to simracing that has yet to truly be bettered. As iRacing enter their fifth year of service they are still top dog, with a huge userbase and over a thousand races per week being carried out.  As we enter 2013 we enter a new age for simracing as a number of “next generation” products enter the fray, can iRacing stay on top?

I sat down with iRacing President Tony Gardner to talk about past, present and future for the service.

Jon Denton: iRacing is now into its fifth year of service, how are things going?

Tony Gardner:  Things are going well.  The business has gone in the right direction every year and we are excited about what we have in store for our customers in the future.

Jon Denton: Has the service grown as quickly as you would expect?  How close to the expectations set in August 2008 is the service with regards to user numbers and financial projections?

Tony Gardner:  Anytime you start something like this you have several scenarios in mind.  We knew it would be a long-term endeavour in any case.  We thought and frankly hoped that the most likely thing that would happen is that we would steadily grow and that is what has happened both in terms of revenue and new members.  Of course you have a dream that it is just going to be a massive hit overnight, but I think that was more a dream considering the size of the sim market.

Jon Denton: Over the years iRacing has been established by many as the “king”, and the sim that all the competition has to beat.  How closely do you keep an eye on the competition, and how much does what they are doing sculpt your future plans?

Tony Gardner:  We keep a close eye on the competition.  We’re glad they are out there and I hope they keep trying to make the best products they can.  The more sim racers and sim hobbyists we can create as a market the better.  I also think that many of the other products take such a different approach that it’s hard to directly compare and, again, I think the variety helps the overall market.

Jon Denton:  It’s true; none of the competition has taken the same direction as iRacing to focus on the online racing service and sanctioning body.  Given the strength and power in numbers that iRacing has in the community right now, I would personally say it is best for any competition to take a separate route.

The community can be fickle, with many opting to love or hate one product or another. Only a few simracers seem to feel it possible to enjoy multiple products. One need only look to the iRacing forums to see that some are very vocal in what they want from their simracing, and thus make a lot of noise trying to convince iRacing of their point of view.  How much does the vocal element of the community sculpt the future plans of the service, with regards to prioritising certain features?

Tony Gardner: The community plays a big role in future plans.  We try hard to listen to the silent majority as well as the vocal minority, although we can’t always do what the community wants and when they want it.  I wish we could.

From a technology perspective, if we are going to do things the right way, sometimes A and B need to be done before feature X, Y and Z.  It can be difficult to communicate that to the market.  Additionally, although this is a pretty small market, it is very diverse.  It takes a long time to please all facets of the market.  In other cases, sometimes things are just very complicated; they require a lot of work and simply take a long-time because you just can’t throw any engineer at the project to make it go faster.  It takes a very special skill-set — and a long-time to develop that skill-set.

Jon Denton: Where do you see the overall direction of iRacing going in the next five years?  Do you think there will be any change in the way we go virtual racing on the horizon?

Tony Gardner: Five years is a long time.  Part of our direction will always be based on the technology of the future. How fast it accelerates and what barriers and limitations are removed will be part of our development decisions and could change our priorities.  It is definitely possible that we will explore other platforms for iRacing in addition to the PC in the future, but that is not currently in our plans.  The shorter term horizon will simply be working hard on existing models and continuing to add new features and racing opportunities on the PC platform.

Jon Denton: How will iRacing keep players interested in racing in their sim over the next five, or even ten years?

Tony Gardner: Just like our customers, we have many ideas and most of them line-up with our customers’ requests.  However, I don’t think there’s a single magic button because everyone is looking forward to something different.  I think at the end of the day our goal is to keep making iRacing better and better and to keep offering new elements of the service along with different and new types of racing.

I also think making the racing itself more dynamic and adding more elements to the racing will be a focus in the near and longer term, to insure that so no two races are ever the same.   I see races becoming even more exciting and the in-race strategy becoming more important.  Being a smarter racer and being able to adapt in the future might well become more important than they are today.  Practice always help in any sport or any skill-based activity, but laying down hundreds of practice laps or working on a killer car setup might not help as much in the future as it does today.

Jon Denton: Looking at the details of the service itself, it pends around a few key structures that, with greater or lesser complexity, allow the player to decide when, where and what to race, and who they will race with.  Safety Rating, or SR, determines the licence level that can be attained by a player, and is built up by competing in races or qualifying sessions without hitting anything with your virtual car. This SR builds per session, and when it peaks you move up to the next licence point.  This goes from Rookie, to D, C, B, and A licences, with a PRO licence being open to the most committed.

In the early days of iRacing, the licence levels and SR were much bemoaned as “grind”, as promotions were covered once a season (3 month period).  In more recent years I would say it has become easier to move up the licence levels.  Was this the right choice?  Or does it perhaps limit the time players spend in “lower categories” to the detriment of their ability?

Tony Gardner: Yes I think we have found the right balance.  I’m glad we made the change.  I think it is more fun now and you still get a big sense of accomplishment climbing the ladder versus it being perceived as a grind by some.  In a perfect world from a pure racing perspective, sure, we would want everyone to have to grind their way up and be super skilled and super safe on track to make it to the A license level.  However, that is not realistic and we would have a ghost town if that was our attitude and model.  Not everyone has the time and skill to do that, but they still want to progress to new racing opportunities.  Others are interested in a certain series and already have the skill to drive successfully but not the time and patience to grind their way up the ladder.  On the other hand, we do feel it is important to get plenty of seat time, get comfortable with the sim and prove you can drive cleanly so, again, I like the way we have it.

That does not mean that we are not always looking at ways to improve, in fact we have tweaked our competition ladder dozens of time already.

Jon Denton: Today’s structure is much more pleasing, with a much wider variety of cars per licence level, and a much quicker progression, it’s a far cry from the days many of us spent pedalling a Pontiac Solstice around Lime Rock for months on end.

Do you feel that the current structure of licences and car allocations is something that needs to be developed?  And if so, should it be harder, or easier, to reach a Class A licence in either class (oval or road)?

Tony Gardner: Every iRacing member has an opinion about this, but from a hard versus easy perspective I think we have it about right with our current general license ladder for both the oval and road side.  We have talked about other ladders however.  For example, we could have a pro-type ladder in which it is very hard to move up — if that is what you are looking for.  Conversely, we could have an open system with no license ladder at all, just open racing.  We also could have more ladders or even licenses by series.  You simply earn a license for a given series.  At some point, however, you can add so much complexity, that it backfires for the average sim racer.

At the end of the day, most people simply want to enjoy a closely-matched race field along with a challenging and clean race and series.  That is really what all these systems were put in place to try and do and I think we have been extremely successful in that regard.

Jon Denton: A player’s iRating is what is used to determine matchmaking between players, with highly subscribed races being placed into “splits” based on relative iRating.  It is based, loosely, on the players finishing position in events, with players gaining or loosing iRating based on their finishing position relative to the strength of the field (That being the collective iRating of the other competitors).

iRating presents an odd dichotomy to racers.  A driver that is clean, finishes races and doesn’t crash will increase their iRating and will often end up bracketed with drivers that are faster than them.  This is because their continued ability to obtain results will see their iRating always increase, even if their speed does not.  Thus, when they have an iRating of 1600 they may run with drivers of their speed, but when that iRating reaches 2000, they may be bundled into splits where a top five is their best achievable position, given that they are racing with drivers of a certain raw ability.

Paradoxically, a driver that is very fast, perhaps even of almost “alien” speed, but who crashes a lot and impacts their iRating due to lower finishing positions causing a negative iRating, can end up placed in race splits with drivers much slower than them.  Thus, the cleaner driver wins much more rarely than the maniac.  Should a driver’s pace to be taken into account in some way, alongside their relative “safety” in the matchmaking process?

Tony Gardner: To be clear, iRating is what we use to match drivers in race fields.  Simply put, it is a running calculation over time based on where you place in races and the strength of the field of those races.   Right now we use license level and safety rating to qualify the driver for a series.  It seems you are suggesting that we blend the safety rating and the iRating for match-making rather than just iRating.  We actually have done that for our Pro Series in the past.  Additionally, we have repeatedly analyzed the effect of weighting the iRating and safety rating in all sorts of ways and the truth is it does not change the fields by more than single digit percentage.  What is that telling us?  Fast drivers, drive clean, especially over time.

Jon Denton: I wasn’t really suggesting this. The fast driver that crashes may affect their SR, but ultimately restoring SR is not difficult.  They will, however, lose iRating for races where they finish near the back (a DNF is still classified).  Their results can then look like “win, win, last, last, last, win” as they are split with slower drivers, their wins get them less iRating to move up, and their continued inability to not fall off the road keeps them in the lower split level and not racing with drivers of their speed.  This may be wise, because they are not statistically “safe”, but it also means that their stats are imbued with a high win ratio due to always being against competition that is beneath them on pace.  I was not suggesting that SR be merged into matchmaking, though that is an intriguing prospect, but rather that a driver’s laptime pace be part of the process.  

Tony Gardner: The example you provide above of a racer driving like a maniac and winning races is rare and it’s a statistical anomaly.  Over time, statistically, iRating correlates closely with clean driving and safety rating.    This might not be the best example to make my point, but if you look at the best racers on iRacing, statistically they are very clean drivers.  Greger Huttu has a perfect safety rating of 4.99 at a Pro level and over an 8,000 iRating.  Ray Alfalla also has over an 8,000 iRating and a very high safety rating.

Maybe blending the two would have a helpful psychological effect to keep people driving cleanly, but it would also complicate the understanding and the purpose of the two ratings.  However, it is worth continuing to think about.

Jon Denton:  Part of simracing, and all racing, is that there are going to incidents, and then fall out.  iRacing have put themselves into the position of race stewards by providing a protest system for enraged racers.  In a post-race red mist, any angered driver can submit their protest and usually hope for the offender to be hung, drawn and quartered.  The reality is somewhat different, of course, and many remember the “it’s just a game” mantra after a short while.  Nim Cross, chief steward at iRacing, suffice to say, is a busy man.

Protests must be something that consumes a lot of time to iRacing staff. Do you feel that the protest system is working for players, on the whole?  Should there be harsher punishments for “brain fade” incidents that may not be deliberate?  Are harsher punishments really possible when the players being punished are paying customers?

Tony Gardner: Yes I think the Protest process is helpful and another essential piece of the system.   It is difficult to automate everything, so we go the extra mile to add a human element to it in order to try and coach mistakes and weed out bad behaviour or chronically unsafe drivers.

No, we shouldn’t be harsher for one-off mistakes.  We all make them.  That is not the point of the protest system.  We are not playing judge of a single race on iRacing and trying to assign punishment for a single mistake.  We are looking for people who make habitual mistakes and habitually fail to treat people with respect.  If discussing an iRacer’s chronic issues does not work, we then try to correct bad their behaviour through some types of suspension.  If we find we’re simply dealing with a bad apple, we don’t want them in the service and we take that action.

No, it is not hard at all to “punish” the bad behaviour of a paying customer because, from a business perspective, that one person might be ruining the experience of 200 people during the course of day or week.  We can’t force 40,000 people to get along and play councillor if they don’t.   Thank goodness almost everyone does get along and they enjoy the fun and fellowship.  If they don’t, we remind them there are other choices if they don’t want to practice good sportsmanship.  Maybe they belong in a private league on iRacing that is set up to be the Wild West, or maybe some other type of race game is for them.

Jon Denton: In real-world motorsport most drivers are paying a lot of money to race, considerably more so than in iRacing. How would you say the attitude of the simracer in iRacing ties up with the feeling of the real-world club racer?  And can it really compare, given the disparity of the virtual and real environments?

Tony Gardner: I think the attitude can and does compare.  To many, certainly sim-racing is a serious hobby and a very serious form of racing competition.   If you want to be really good at sim-racing it requires skill, practice and dedication, just like in the real world.  The real world racers I talk to get their heart pumping for an iRacing race just like they do in the real world.

Jon Denton: How much consideration do you put into ongoing considerations concerning the service and the potential for restructuring “gameplay” elements (SR, iRating, etc) to keep the service “fresh?”

Tony Gardner: As discussed, we talk about it all the time and constantly make tweaks.  A lot of thought went into the gameplay elements and goes into it still, not to mention lot of development work. I think at some point we may try a variation of what we have but, with all our other priorities right now, ripping apart the competition system is not a high priority because it works well.

Jon Denton: Increased numbers of players are moving to “fixed” setup series, as opposed to those with open setups.  Do you think this is a reflection on the player base’s lack of desire to learn about setups?  Or do you think more can be done to help struggling players, setup-wise?

Tony Gardner: I think it is what it is.   Some people like working with setups and some don’t for all sorts of different reasons, whether it’s lack of interest in that aspect, lack of background, lack of knowledge, lack of time or simply because they like to know everyone is on the same footing in regard to setups.  I think it is all good.  I personally like the fixed setup racing because with the time I have available I enjoy driving versus working on setups.

We do our best to help educate people about setups by making videos, suggesting third party material and books, and providing guides, plus we just added pop-up help in the garage area. There is still more we can do and, as time goes on, we will.  Probably the best resource is other members; many of our members are terrific about helping other members out with car setups.

Jon Denton: Some would say that the core simulation itself is the area of iRacing that needs the most attention, primarily due to the ongoing work with Dave Kaemmer’s new tyre model (NTM).  The NTM has been around for a while now, and yet problems still persist with temperature build up that demand a very particular driving style.  At present the tyre gives up the most grip at lower temperatures, thus, anyone pushing the tyre too hard mid-corner can suffer a “collapse” in the tyre via a sudden loss of grip at either end of the car.  Drivers must balance the tyre within certain slip parameters to keep the temperature as low as possible over a lap.

It’s been mentioned that this is being worked on, do you have any detail on what changes can be expected and how long players can expect to wait for a more usable tyre?

Tony Gardner: The tyre model keeps progressing but yes, we are still working on it full time.  There are still a couple issues that we are working hard to improve and will make a big difference once resolved but I think we have had some nice break-through recently that members will soon see.  In addition, our research and work on tires helps lead to other improvements for other models in the sim.  For example, an improvement to the steering model which is coming out in the next build resulted from us having more accurate tires which make a nice difference in the driving.

Really, the tire model is down to a couple issues which again I think we have a handle on and then we’ll be able to do more work refining the tire compounds which is the main reason for some of the tire heat and wear issues.  I don’t think we are that far off from having the remaining requests and issues resolved.

Jon Denton: In reference to the previous question concerning fixed setup series, do you think there is a correlation between the above NTM problems, which have an impact on the realism of car setups, and the lack of desire for players to work on their own setups?

Tony Gardner: I’m sure that could be the case for some people but generally speaking, no, I don’t think so.  I think people liked fixed setups for the reason I mention above.   They like spending the free time they have for this pursuit driving and racing not working on the cars.

Jon Denton: The “Lotus 49 saga” is on-going, what’s gone wrong with the implementation of this car?  And how much input from Classic Team Lotus have you had in working things out?

Tony Gardner: I assume the saga you are talking about is that we regrettably announced the release of car and then later announced it is delayed with an unknown release date.

Jon Denton: Yes, if you’d be so kind as to accept my use of artistic hyperbole!

Tony Gardner: A lot of factors lead to the delay but at the end of the day we underestimated how long it would take.  There is not an abundance of data available on this car from Classic Team Lotus or anyone else compared to modern cars.  It is a light car with lots of horsepower along with what I would call non-advanced driving systems, so you really want to make sure you have everything dialled-in correctly because the car is already hard enough to drive.

It should not be that much longer before we release the car, hopefully. Right now there are just some things we don’t like about it, therefore we are not going to release the Lotus 49 until we get everything straightened-out.   Rest assured we are working hard on it.

Also we think the Lotus will be much better on a new version of our tires which we are getting close to nailing down as discussed.  We think it will be worth the wait to get it how we want it.

In the meantime we have the McLaren MP4-12C coming out on December 18^th which the improved steering model and it might be the funnest road car we have ever done.  Of course, we’ll see what the customers think, but that is the feeling by many internally.

Jon Denton: How much does the move to an optional x64 build extend the possibilities of what can be done with the simulation?  Does this present a problem with this build slowly moving away from the 32 bit build in terms of features as well as vehicle dynamics simulation?

Tony Gardner: No I don’t think there are any problems using 32 bit and we still obviously support 32 bit computing.  However we felt it necessary in the long run for iRacing to upgrade to 64 bit and felt now is the time to do it.  I’m glad we finished that project.  It was a lot of work.  Among many other things, it will allow us to develop a much richer product, graphically and otherwise and also allow us to fully utilize today’s computing technology.

Jon Denton: Are there any plans to enhance the vehicle simulation aspect of the sim, with more focus on mechanical wear, vehicle systems modelling, start-up routines, or maybe cars that can stall?

Tony Gardner: Yes, we’re always working on systems but as far as mechanical wear, stalling and features like that, there are definitely plans on how we add more degradation of cars as a race, excuse the pun, “wears” on.   Although I don’t think it would be good to have things just break or fail randomly like they do in the real world, but that is my opinion.

We would rather start with some of the more impactful elements, elements developed using real physics and math like brake wear and (obviously) tire wear, which we have now but are looking to improve.  We could include things like clutch or other mechanical wear as we add endurance racing, driver swaps and team racing in the future because at the point it is more relevant.  Like I said, we definitely want to add more realism and strategy to the racing by having other dynamics impacting the race, and mechanical wear certainly is one of those elements.

Jon Denton: Time for the obligatory street course question, the same one as asked last December in AutoSimSport:-  When will we finally see Long Beach in the sim?

Tony Gardner: Same answer as before: We would definitely like to finish it someday.  We just scanned our last two NASCAR cup tracks, Kansas and California, and we’re getting some great international road tracks done; the latest in the works are Montreal and Interlagos.  Maybe now that we have a very robust list of completed tracks for both road and oval, it might be worth starting to think about taking-on a huge street course project like Long Beach. Don’t expect it any time soon however.

Jon Denton:  Aside from what we have already mentioned, what do you think iRacing can do to “freshen up” the racing for the long term players?  Are there plans to introduce more variance to the racing environments, making each race unique?

Tony Gardner: Yes definitely.  The plan is to add other elements to the racing such as new sounds, surfaces, dynamic skies, environmental factors, new graphical elements, mechanical and physical wear, etc.  Also will be slowly revamping the entire website look, feel and usability, that has already started.  All this is going to take time, however.

Also we’re working on team racing/driver swaps now and hopefully will continue to add other forms of motorsports racing as time goes on.

Jon Denton: With some competitors soon to release sims with shiny graphics and exciting new features, can iRacing stay on top with a game engine that is getting into its sixth year of development?

Tony Gardner: I really don’t look at iRacing as a game engine, but being in our sixth year of development makes it easier not harder to keep up!  We are ahead of the game.  We just moved to 64 bit and have all sorts of other projects going on to bring our “engines” to most current technology.  Graphics and sound for example.   That is what we have been doing all along: improving and updating our code base, models, graphics and systems. Because we do a significant software update every 3 months it just is not as dramatic as a company who might release something every 5 years but certainly lot of improvements coming in the future.

Jon Denton: Do you see a chance to expand the sim-racing marketplace in the future, or will serious simulation always be regarded as more of a niche hobby?

Tony Gardner: I’ve always felt sim-racing can be different things to different people; in fact it has to be or the market will not be big enough.  That said, I do see the serious sim-racing market growing as simulations become better and better and more and more people become aware of this type of racing and fun which is accessible to just about anyone all over the world.

Jon Denton: What are your hopes and dreams for iRacing, and sim-racing as a hobby in the next ten years?

Tony Gardner: Well I hope 10 years from now iRacing and sim-racing will still be going strong and much bigger than today.  I think it will.  I think sim-racing in general and iRacing in particular, just make a lot of sense as a form of racing for the average racing enthusiast. I think more and more race gamers & amateur racers will get exposed to sim-racing and iRacing as we continue to advance.

Jon Denton: Finally, anything else you would like to add?

Tony Gardner: Thanks for your publication and covering us.  You do a great job covering sim racing!   We look forward to the keep making iRacing a great choice for sim racers in the years to come.

Jon Denton: Thanks Tony, great talking to you.

A hotly debated subject over at iRacing this week seems to be the issues encountered with multi-class racing.  As previously covered, the iRacing Grand-Am sportscar series provides the chance for Riley Daytona Prototypes to be on track at the same times as the considerably slower Ford Mustang FR500S.  As with many classes of sportscar racing, there are two races on track at once, and everyone has to get along.

It’s just that, well, they don’t.

This has been exacerbated as the series moved, this week, to Lime Rock Park.  A small yet fast circuit in Connecticut, 1.53 miles (2.46Km) in length, with some very fast corners and tight confines, this track quickly fills with traffic and makes any race a challenge.  Additionally the place just feels a bit too small for a car as fast as the Riley and so fast laps can leave little margin for error, throw in some slow traffic and you’re hit with one of the biggest challenges of the series.

Some of us, like myself, relish this challenge.  Running amongst drivers of varying ability is one thing, working with traffic in a car almost 15 seconds a lap faster than those being passed, all the while being chased by competitors, is a genuine skill that will get the sweat dripping down anyone’s brow.

So what’s the problem?  Everyone loves a good race, right?  People would only enter a multi-class series if they understand how it works, right?

The main problem, it seems, would be that some people don’t seem to get it.  Where the closing speed is massive from a Riley to the back of a Mustang, some Riley drivers forget how to use their brakes.  Some feel that they should not have to lose time stuck behind a Mustang and that the Mustang should perpetually drive around the outer edge of the circuit so that they can cruise by in their Riley.  After all, they are the only person in the race, surely.  In fact, maybe they are the only person in the world.

In some cases, this seems to even manifest itself in Riley drivers feeling that they, as the most important human ever, should not have to use the brakes to avoid other cars at all.  They should pinball into car after car as if they were simply not there.  In the below video we see possibly the worst piece of driving I have ever seen in iRacing.  The first view is from the hapless Mustang driver, who gets turned around into turn one.  We then see it from the point of view of “our hero”.  This Riley driver is the way and the light, he shows us how it clearly should be done:

We can all learn from this, clearly, that if there is ever someone in front of you braking before you want to, all you have to do is smash straight into the back of them, and when a pesky Mustang thinks it has the audacity to ever think that it is part of a race that it should be shoved into a spin like the damned nuisance it is.

If only Fernando Alonso has had such a fundamental understanding of this remarkable form of racing, he could have simply pushed Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg into the unrelenting Abu Dhabi wall, cackling as he powered on to the 2010 World Championship.

Except that this just isn’t how motor racing works.  When people crash, they get hurt, if they don’t get hurt then expensive machinery gets damaged, someone foots a bill.  No one is happy.

The fact is that when people race for real they avoid crashes, they respect the people they race with and try their best to avoid making mistakes.

Where this has led is to a situation where Mustang drivers don’t know what they should do.  They have a race to run, they cannot spend all of their time being off the throttle, the faster car should have the speed to make a clean pass on a relatively straight part of the track.  However, they end up losing time because whenever a Riley is approaching from behind they don’t know what to expect.

It could be that they are going to be passed cleanly by a normal human who understands how motor racing works and entered a mixed class series understanding the challenge that awaited them, someone with respect for other people.  Or they could be being approached by “our hero”, who will seemingly just drive right into them as if they were not there.

This brings about a militancy in the Mustang drivers, where they start to become less co-operative.  Not surprising, if every race or session I entered saw me being punted into a wall and losing SR I would be pretty disenfranchised too.  For the Riley driver this adds a level of unpredictability too, will the Mustang you have to pass be co-operative?  Will they chop across your nose and cause you to leap on the anchors?

Of course, this unpredictability is part of the game, this is racing, we’re all trying to make the chequered flag as soon as we can.  Incidents can and will happen but surely we all try our hardest to avoid them?  Or do we?

This seems to be the odd part, for me.  Finishing a few places lower than I feel my ultimate pace could achieve may be saddening, but finishing the race in a hedge in a smashed up car is far, far worse.  Having then to contend with the inevitable redeye rage of whomever you’ve pointlessly shunted in a thoroughly avoidable accident is a stress level that no hobby should be causing.

Drivers like “our hero” seem to miss the classic cliché “To finish first, first you have to finish.”

This business has also brought about a feeling of shame amongst the many clean Riley drivers out there.  Those that drive in a normal manner, who have to read thread after thread of anger from Mustang drivers who’ve spent too long digging their cars out of the gravel.

Reading this from Mustang pilot David Duda:

…In a Mustang I have to know if the guy behind me is the one who will run over me to avoid losing time, or the one who expects me to hold a predictable line.  Needless to say, after one practice session I elected to not even try a race.  There was a total lack of respect to the point of asking me to get the Mustang off the track so they could run Q laps.  The DPs can have the track.

Saddened me greatly.  When qualifying for a multi-class race has people actively trying to exclude the other car class, it points to a kind of absurd elitism that only serves to prevent Mustang drivers from bothering.  Multi-class racing becomes single class racing, and the series that many drivers entered to enjoy running in traffic and improve their abilities and skills by challenging themselves, becomes a farce.

So, what can be done?  If a Riley driver can never be sure if the Mustang driver thinks they are some disrespectful buffoon or someone that wants to act like other people in the world deserve to exist, how can we potentially avoid accidents via misunderstanding?  Everyone makes genuine mistakes after all.  Some people even apologise for them.

How can this communication between drivers take place.  In real life there can be hand signals or indicators.  Perhaps, if multi-class is to become a solid feature of iRacing going forward, which I sincerely hope it is, then iRacing should implement indicators in the cars that have them, so that drivers can indicate which side the passing car should go to.  With clear instruction in the drivers briefing to ensure that this communication is understood.

Either way, there’s always going to be trouble if people in the faster cars have such a personally enforced superiority complex that they ask Mustangs to leave a session so that they can qualify.  Anyone coming out with such boorish obnoxiousness should not have entered a mixed class series in the first place.

Alas, Lime Rock was always going to highlight this issue, hopefully as the season goes on people will get more practiced with both passing lapped cars and being lapped cars.  Everyone’s got the same deal out there, perhaps the best thing is for a little bit of understanding, and remembering that a wrecked car is no use to anyone.