A day in the life, with a driver in the loop

What does a day in the driver-in-the-loop simulator look like? Aston Martin Aramco Third Driver Jak Crawford shares his typical duties when working in the sim at the AMR Technology Campus.

There was a time when the way an F1 team would develop its car, and prepare for Grands Prix, was to take a car, put it on a track somewhere, and run it from sun-up 'til sun-down. Teams would record up to 60,000 kilometres a year but now, the only times teams will test during the season is during a designated handful of Pirelli tyre tests. F1 has instead turned to simulation.

Most simulation is online: computer programmes running through myriad permutations of setup and strategy, providing a series of baseline models from which the team can start its weekend. But after this comes work in the driver-in-the-loop simulator: a realistic cockpit model, mounted on an articulated rig, placed in front of screens. The simulator racetrack shares a lot of graphic generation technology with video gaming but the fidelity of the models is considerably more advanced.

Lance and Fernando and their engineering teams will do sim sessions to familiarise themselves with the next sequence of races, but the brunt of simulator mileage falls to our test and reserve drivers and a dedicated sim engineering team. There are times of the year when they practically live in the sim.

Jak Crawford is getting a change of scenery over the next few weeks. Our Third Driver will be in the cockpit for the FP1 session in Mexico. It's an opportunity for him to take to the real-life track – but his work at the AMR Technology Campus is just as vital.

"There's a lot of simulator work in the lead-up to a race – usually two or three days of work," says Jak.

"There are two separate parts to that: the first is car setup, developing the aerodynamic specification, tuning the setup and the balance of the car. The team has good data from offline simulations, but perhaps when the cars go out in FP1, they'll see something different. Our job in the lead-up to a race weekend is to get ahead of that: and be able to say if the car is behaving like this, we can change that.

"The other part, which is becoming more prevalent this year, is working on the energy management side of the equation. We do a lot of work with Honda, tuning the deployment strategies. It isn't just a case of getting the car ready for Qualifying and race modes, there are also things like outlaps in Qualifying and race starts to consider, there are contingencies for when the track has more or less grip than expected. There is a right setting to be in for everything, and we will go through it all and make sure the system is robust."

The nature of the job means Jak doesn't particularly have a 'typical' day in the sim: he might be working on race prep, or doing race support, or doing correlation exercises on the previous race, or developing next year's car… but if he did have a typical day, it'd look something like this.

09:00 | Arrival

"I arrive at the AMR Technology Campus by 09:00, grab a coffee and then head straight for the simulator suite. It's usually quite an intensive session, running until 12:30. There might be breaks in the middle if we find a good stopping point to jump out and have a quick rest – but sometimes I might be sitting in the cockpit for up to three hours."

09:15 | Briefing

"Before we start, the simulator engineers and I will discuss the plan for the day, what we want to accomplish, and a general discussion about the track we're running. If this is a Tuesday or Wednesday right before a race, then it's a little bit more obvious what we're going to be doing. And then our running on Friday, when Lance and Fernando are on track, is solely focused on that race and maximising performance between the sessions and feeding that back to the trackside team."

On a week that isn't geared up to a specific race, we'll go through a lot of different things. Correlation is important, so we might do some work comparing the previous race to where we were in the simulator.

09:30 | In the cockpit

"What we're working on depends a little bit on where we are with the calendar. So right now, we're in an intense period of racing, with a lot of triple-headers.

"It isn't always possible to do our race preparation in the week of the race, simply because we know the race engineers who have a huge input into our programme will be away on long-haul flights. We will typically do a lot in race week though – so for Singapore I was in the sim all day Monday before heading there, and all of that work was solely focused on doing the final setup work for the circuit before the cars were built into their spec for the single practice session.

"On a non-track day, we do quite a lot of laps in the morning. The programme can be varied, but often it's a case of getting prepared for specific tests we want to do in the afternoon – and we use the morning to make sure everything's up to speed, that we're happy with the setup and the energy management side of things, and that my driving is at the level we need.

"On a week that isn't geared up to a specific race, we'll go through a lot of different things. Correlation is important, so we might do some work comparing the previous race to where we were in the simulator – for instance, lap-times or car performance. The goal of this is to make sure, going forward, the simulator is as accurate as possible.

"There's also a lot of development work behind the scenes. Of course, we want to improve the this year's car, but we'll also be working on next year's car. That tends to be a big focus, and more so as the year goes on. We'll also be working to improve our simulator models, because they're highly dynamic: everything is always changing in Formula One. The cars are never the same race to race, and you want to keep your tyre models and aero models constant and make sure they're running properly. So, we're often doing development work on that."

12:30 | Lunch

"We'll break for lunch, usually between 12:30 and 13:00, but it depends on the morning programme, and whether we've reached a good stopping point, and are ready to break and then move on when we return.

"Lunch is usually in the restaurant at the AMR Technology Campus, and there's quite a few different options. On the very rare occasions there's nothing on the menu that works for me, I'll wander the Technology Campus and visit one of the cafés and try my luck there. I don't have a particular meal I have every day – the only thing I keep consistent is my coffee intake."

A race like Miami, I went into the simulator at 18:00 UK time, to match up with a lunchtime FP1 session in Florida, and was there until 06:00 Saturday morning. Then I had to catch my flight there!

14:00 | Back in the cockpit

"Typically, we'll start running again at around 14:00 and go through to 17:30-18:30. In terms of duration, the stints are quite long and similar to the morning – though by this point I'll be up to speed with the driving and comfortable on whichever circuit we're running on the day. Because I'm now familiar with the circuit, and we have the energy management setup correctly, we can focus on testing and really getting deeper into the work.

"On Fridays, when we're doing trackside support sessions, the days are much longer, and the timing of those sessions is dependent on what's happening at the circuit.

"A race like Miami, for example I went into the simulator at around 18:00 UK time, to match up with a lunchtime FP1 session in Florida. Myself and the simulator team were rolling in to start our day as everyone else was leaving for the evening.

"We started our simulator session during FP1 and then it was maximum effort between FP1 and Sprint Qualifying to give the trackside team as much data as we could before the car had to go into parc fermé conditions. Then, after the day finished on track, we listened in to the trackside debrief, heard what Lance, Fernando and the race engineering team had to say, and then the race engineering group gave us a set of tests they'd like us to do in the simulator, preparing data overnight they can see first thing in their morning.

"That can run all night. For Miami I was in the simulator until 06:00 Saturday morning, and then had to go direct to the airport to catch my flight there!"

18:00 | Debrief

"Once we're finished with the afternoon session, we'll have a debrief to end the day. Nothing crazy, it's maybe only 10 minutes, but it's important to do the debrief and capture the important bits from the day, because we'll have done a lot of different tests. I'll be quizzed by the engineers, and my part of the process is to recount what I thought was useful. We have to note these things, and also what we think we can do better, and what we think can be improved on the simulator itself. The debrief can be accessed by all of the engineers in the factory."

18:30 | Gym

"Once we've finished for the day, I'll usually go to the gym before heading home, because the gym at the AMR Technology Campus is really nice.

"My trainer will be aware of which days I'm going to be in the sim, and he'll put together a training plan for the gym session and I'll work through that.

"I like to do more strength work when I'm at the AMR Technology Campus, because I'll only be there two or three days a week for simulator sessions, so the best split is to do strength there, and leave the running and cardio for days I'm at home. And that's my day done!"