Red Bull Motorsports
F1
How Red Bull Racing turns eSports wins into success on track
Oracle Red Bull Racing have built the best sim racing team in F1 and are using the skills and techniques honed in eSports to gain an edge on the racetrack.
Откъс от статията
Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing are the best sim racing team in the world. They have just retained their F1 Sim Racing World crown, their fourth in total and in Jarno Opmeer and Frederik Rasmussen boast two drivers’ world champions backed by Sebastian Job, a double iRacing World Champion.
But how do Oracle Red Bull Racing translate success in sim racing to glory in F1?
Sim racers Jarno Opmeer and Frederik Rasmussen
© Tom Platinum Morley/Red Bull Content Pool
01
Building the world’s best sim racing team
Since the introduction of the F1 Sim Racing World Championship, Oracle Red Bull Racing has led the way, using the competition to bring new fans closer to F1. By bringing the sim team on to the Red Bull Racing Factory campus in Milton Keynes and providing a dedicated eSports arena where the team can compete.
“Since F1 teams have got involved in sim racing, Red Bull have been pioneers: they want to have the best drivers and compete for wins,” says Sebastian Job. “They had a very strong team from the start and have always been on the front foot.”
The crucible: The arena for the F1 Sim Racing World Championship
© Tom Platinum Morley/Red Bull Content Pool
02
Taking F1 methods into the eSports arena
Oracle Red Bull Racing has applied the same technical and strategic approach it uses in F1 to the esports team, giving them access to Oracle’s cloud-based computing infrastructure, real-time data dashboards and lap-by-lap analytics to help drivers improve performance in virtual races.
“Every tool that we’ve been developing for the Sim Racing team has been derived straight from what we know from Formula 1,” says Dan Smith, technical partnerships executive at Oracle Red Bull Racing.
Key player: Max Verstappen
© Rob Smalley/Red Bull Content Pool
And four-time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen is also one of the biggest advocates for eSports. “When I'm sim racing, I'm doing the same as I do in real life. You can look at the data – your steering inputs, your braking inputs, your throttle inputs – to learn what you can do better. Then once you've understood these things, you start going into strategy, because sim racing is exactly the same as real life.
“When I'm home in my off season, I'm continuously still doing the same thing, that I might be driving a GP car or like a prototype car, but your brain, like, you're still fired in the same way, and that's what I like.”
As well as backing Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing, he also runs Verstappen Sim Racing, arguably the leading sim racing teams in the world and competes in tournaments and uses his considerable experience to mentor the drivers and team.
You can feel the car moving underneath you because of the motion platform. Like a real car, you’re sensing so much through your bum
03
Crossing from sim racing to the factory sim
Red Bull Racing uses the skills and experience built in the sim racing arena to improve performance on track. The sim drivers themselves have a key part to play within the F1 race team. “They’re pushing their sim racing drivers to become simulator drivers for the F1 team, and no other team is doing that,” added Job, who is also a Verstappen Sim Racing driver.
Sebastian Job in the Oracle Red Bull Racing sim
© Andy Parsons/Red Bull Content Pool
The modern simulator in the factory is a key ingredient in any team’s success on the circuit, providing accurate feedback that can be applied to real world racing.
“The simulators that we have now are just unbelievable. They are the closest thing you could imagine to driving a real car. It feels just like it. The only thing missing is the G force,” says Lob. “You can feel the car moving underneath you because of the motion platform. Like a real car, you’re sensing so much through your bum.”
04
Using AI and sim racers to find the perfect strategy
The team strategists run billions of AI race-strategy simulations on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), helping give drivers Verstappen and Isack Hadjar the best chance to win.
AI reduces the human workload enormously. “Drivers previously have had to tirelessly put hours and hours and hours into these simulations in order to try and find the best setups,” says Joe Soltysik, esports lead for Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing. “AI can run hundreds of simulations all at one time for that driver, based on their driving style to help them find setups that work best for them according to that track. It's like having hundreds and hundreds of copies of our driver all going on time. That saves them hundreds of hours.”
Test driver Yuki Tsunoda takes a fan sim racing at Suzuka
© Ian Witlen/Red Bull Content Pool
The team strategists select the programme for the sim team to put to the test. The Red Bull sim racing drivers play a key role, either performing strategies or prepping the sim for the team’s reserve driver Yuki Tsunoda. They are supported by an engineer who uses OCI to share the findings with the strategists and ultimately the drivers and pit wall.
It means each time the cars leave the garage, the sim team have already explored numerous different racing set-ups, strategies and conditions, saving the team time as they work toward the optimal set-up for the race. The work continues throughout the Grand Prix as the sim team will complement the work done trackside by running more tests between practice sessions until the start of qualifying for Sunday’s main event.
Sebastian Job at the Red Bull Ring
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
05
Developing new drivers with Red Bull Junior Team
Verstappen has always been a fan of sim racing, using his sim rig at home to develop his skills. The Dutchman represents a generational shift on the F1 grid: when Lewis Hamilton was a child, sim racing did not exist, but the dominant driver of his generation won two championships racing remote control cars. Nowadays, every young driver uses sim racing as part of their training regime to fine tune their race craft and learn every centimetre of the F1 race circuits.
With track and testing time limited in F1, the factory sim is the perfect place for young drivers like Nikola Tsolov to prepare for upcoming races as well as test himself in F1 machinery. A huge advantage of a sim is that its realistic environment allows drivers to push the limits without risking themselves or their cars. The sim racing drivers are again invaluable by setting up the sim ready for the junior team driver to use the moment they arrive at the factory.
Sebastian Job drives the RB8 at Goodwood Festival of Speed
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
06
Sim Racing levels the playing field
The cost of a season in karting is well beyond the budget of most ordinary households. Even the most dedicated parent needs to commit considerable cash and personal time into supporting their child through a campaign. And at the end, there’s no guarantee their child will get the breaks or attract the backing to get them to the top. Globally, not every child has access to nearby karting facilities or a high level of competition to help them raise their skills.
But gaming to sim racing offers a viable path to the top for young people giving them an arena to develop their skills and prove their potential. “We simply didn't really have the money to go high level karting,” explains Job. “So I started sim racing, which was cheaper and I thought maybe I could win a competition which could get me into real life motorsport… somehow.”
It paid off with Job initially signed to Fernando Alonso’s sim team and ultimately recruited by Red Bull Racing. The F1 team also share Job’s vision and ultimately put him behind the wheel of a racing car: initially a Porsche GT3 and ultimately he put Sebastian Vettel’s championship-winning RB8 through its paces around the Red Bull Ring.
And while Verstappen plays a key role in growing sim racing as a sport, he is also interested in helping take sim racers from the screen to the racetrack. “It's very tough, but in my future projects, I want to at least give them an opportunity to race a real car, potentially GT cars or maybe endurance,” she says. “That might open the door to so many other opportunities as well.”
Откъс от статията
