Technical articles
Canopy in the Dynisma DiL
July 12, 2022
by Rowland Jowett As a former senior simulator test engineer I have spent many a day preparing for the next race event with F1 champions, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, in the driver-in-loop (DiL) simulator. I have become…
March 17, 2022
Overtaking Trends: The case for 2000bhp F1 cars Written by Rowland Jowett It would be convenient to make sweeping generalisations when it comes to car performance, for example, perhaps the short braking zones of F1 cars make them difficult to…
January 24, 2022
Overtaking Fundamentals: Action packed 2022 F1 season? Written by Rowland Jowett Perhaps the most exciting aspect of an F1 race is the tension surrounding an overtake. Over the years, F1 regulations have been shaped by the governing body and teams…
The Heart of F1
January 11, 2022
The Heart of F1 Written by Alex McCormick Racing or Playing Ping Pong? In this series of articles, we’re exploring what it is that sets one racing series apart from the others. Every racing series, formula, or championship has its…
December 7, 2021
The Soul of Formula E Written by Dr Oliver Watkins The Soul of a Series? When I was a much younger man, the F1 team I was working for decided that it would be a good idea to have a…
A Farewell To Truck Arms
October 6, 2021
Written by Dr. Oliver Watkins On November 7th 2021, NASCAR will race its Generation 6 car for the last time, and in so doing say goodbye to one of the most unusual suspension geometries in modern motorsport. Here at…
A Thousands of simulations to learn to sail an AC75? We only needed one
March 26, 2021
Written by Dr. Oliver Watkins In recent days, my LinkedIn feed has been full of justifiably delighted Quantum Black engineers talking about having trained thousands of bots to learn to sail the Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) boat for…
December 21, 2019
The racing format of Formula E provides incredible interest. Like other series, the cars qualify and line up on the grid in descending order of speed, but tight tracks, close racing and energy strategy decisions mean that overtaking is frequent.…
F1 Goes To Indy
December 13, 2019
The idea of an F1 team going to compete in Indianapolis is hardly a new one. The most recent example being McLaren’s disastrous foray in 2019, which resulted in an ignominious failure to qualify. However, what few people have asked…
October 2, 2018
There are some key facts about performance that almost every engineer in every F1 team should know. These are the “fundamental sensitivities” of the car. That is to say, if we change parameter “x” by a small amount, how much…
F1 vs Porsche 919 Evo at the Nordschleife
August 8, 2018
Would an F1 car beat the recent lap record around the Nürburgring Nordschleife of 5m19.546 set by the Porsche 919 Evo? We took a look at this question and by using our cloud computing simulation platform we’ve endeavoured to find…
April 26, 2018
In many race series, getting the most out of your tyres is essential for staying in the lead when it comes to pit stops. By and large F1 drivers are excellent at tyre saving. Many years of practice and staring…
Battery Thermal Management in Formula E
March 6, 2018
Energy strategy in Formula E is a major performance differentiator for race teams and getting this right is a great way to start your battle for the podium. However, at warmer races, not only do teams have to contend with…
February 28, 2018
As with any change to the F1 regulations, 2021 represents another opportunity to improve the racing spectacle, so we were interested to see if four-wheel-drive KERS could improve overtaking. Our simulations suggest that four-wheel-drive in the form of a front-axle…
October 25, 2017
There appears to be no slowdown in the relentless battle of auto manufacturers chasing down Nürburgring laptimes in order to gain a top spot at the ring and prove their engineering prowess. With a variety of cars running sub 7…
How to balance an F1 car through the corner?
September 14, 2017
Imagine you’re the race engineer for <insert your favorite driver name> and your aerodynamics department have just spent 3 months working on a new upgrade, your driver runs it and says: “it’s completely undrivable, there is too much understeer in…
August 25, 2017
The F1 teams have returned to work after a much needed mid season break, so it is with great anticipation that we watch to see how the championship battle will unfold. With only 14 points separating Vettel and Hamilton even…
Dynamic Simulation
May 2, 2017
We’ve been pretty quiet on the blogging front recently, primarily because life has been anything but quiet serving our platform clients. The clients themselves have also been pretty busy and we were really pleased to see the usage stats tick…
January 30, 2017
Back in 2013 power deployment in F1 was a big deal. The new powertrains due to appear in 2014 required harvesting electrical energy from a turbo and under braking, then working out exactly where that energy should be fed back…
Aerodynamic Upgrades Facilitated: Isochronal Ratio
January 18, 2017
It is a mixed blessing when you hand a child an iPad on a long car journey. On one hand, you know that they will be so captivated by the slickness of the technology that you can guarantee a hassle-free…
September 19, 2016
We’ve had a number of excellent client meetings in the last few weeks, but one question has come up sufficiently often that it now qualifies as a Frequently Asked Question, and deserves a quick blog post to answer it. We’re…
Getting Started 3: matching telemetry
August 12, 2016
In parts 1 and 2 of our Getting Started series we covered how to sign-in to the platform, run a sweep of simulations, create a new car, and populate the car with the parameters of your own car. In this…
August 9, 2016
In the first instalment of this series we went through signing-in to the platform and running a quick car mass sweep for Barcelona with the default car. In this second instalment we will create a new car with our own…
Getting Started 1: sign-in, run a study
August 8, 2016
Since we revolutionised racing car simulation with the Canopy Platform, we’ve understandably had a lot of questions about how it works and how teams can use it whilst keeping all of their data secure. In this series of articles I’m…
July 14, 2016
These days simulation tools have a key role to play in almost all aspects of the operations of high-end racing teams. Throughout the life-cycle of a car, from concept design to race-weekend operations, the simulation tools used by the racing…
The Transformative Power of Speed
May 5, 2016
Welcome to Canopy Simulations. We are a new startup kicking off with one simple aim: to make cutting edge simulation fast, affordable and accessible at every level of motorsport. Between the members of our team we have 26 years experience…