Is this the best F1 simulator… in the world?
In a dark room not entirely unlike the set for Blade Runner a genuine LMP2 test driver called Thomas asks some awkward questions. "Are you physically fit? Have you eaten recently? Do you need the bathroom?"
Not really. Can't remember. I didn't until now.
"The steering wheel is weighted up to 70kg through corners and the brake pedal up to 200kg at racing speed. You will also experience around 2G through corners so you need to be physically fit to control the car.
"And if you have eaten you may want to wait - about four per cent of people vomit. And don't look at the side screens. They project 300 frames per second for an impression of speed and make some people unwell. This can also make you want to... use the bathroom."
We're at I-Way in Lyon, France. It's a €6million complex, home to €6million worth of professional driving simulators. There are 18 in total - six F1 cars, six rally cars and six endurance cars - and they're the only ones of their kind this side of Abu Dhabi.
And they're not some fairground lash-up - the visual grammar is spot on. Three rooms house each sextuplet of "consoles", all of which are based on real racers.
The F1 area's got six BRD simulators, which look rather similar to Toyota's 2008 TF108. They have a fiberglass and carbon composite monocoque chassis, quick-release steering wheel, Nomex F1 seat and six-point harness.
The rally room's filled with six equally convincing husks. They're genuine Citroen C2 bodyshells plucked from the production line (minus the engine) and modified to look like Junior World Rally Championship racers. Then there are the enduros - they've got a proper Dallara chassis with bodywork taken from a mould of the Pescarolo C60 Courage.
Underneath, each car's hooked up to a Cruden Hexatech six-degrees-of-freedom electronic motion platform, which throws the cars in every fathomable direction to create the sensation of pitch, yaw and roll as the driver accelerates, brakes and corners.
This, then, is pretty serious stuff. And could explain why we've been forced to wear a full race suit, silly FIA-approved driving shoes and why our instructor, Thomas, is rather well qualified to explain the workings of what is, ostensibly, a computer game.
He finishes the requisite ten-minute driver briefing and walks us towards what he says is the closest thing an ordinary human being can get to driving an F1 car...
To read the rest follow the link
