After that you only need to use the paddles, unless something goes dramatically wrong.
Once the revs are high enough, or the LEDs are just over halfway across the steering wheel, you gently ease out the clutch. To do that, you need press the neutral button, hold the clutch paddle at the bottom left, and then select first gear on the right-hand side of the wheel. After you firmly press the brake – which has about a centimetre of travel – you softly land on the asphalt, and then you have to select first gear. Once you’re finally installed, the simulator takes a few minutes to boot up, and you find yourself floating above the track. It’s not as graceful as they make it look on TV. You have to essentially fall into the car while kicking your legs forward and, when you finally do get in, it’s like lying in a bathtub with your feet next to the taps – with a telesales headset on.
#Mercedes f1 2017 drivers#
Formula 1 drivers sit in a far more reclined position than in your average road car, so F1 cars are a pain to get into. Starting the Mercedes-AMG W08 F1 carĪfter watching a few other journalists, it was time for my turn in the simulator, and the first hurdle was actually getting into the thing.
#Mercedes f1 2017 professional#
What’s more, it also uses the same FIA-approved ECU as the real car, and that means you use a real, £50,000 Formula 1 steering wheel when you’re driving it.Īs for the software? The Mercedes team uses a rFactor Pro, a professional racing sim program, but everything plugged into it – such as the car data and the tyre-behaviour modelling – is written by Mercedes engineers themselves to be as realistic as possible. That’s quite a long time without to go without checking Instagram, so I don’t blame him.ĭespite its odd appearance, the simulator has exactly the same dimensions as the real car inside. This addition does makes sense, though, because the simulator operator told me that drivers can spend between four and six hours a session in the simulator. There’s no wheels or sidepods, but it does have speakers behind the driver’s head and a small pouch for your smartphone – the latter installed since Lewis Hamilton joined the team. Developed and designed in-house by Mercedes, and costing well over £1 million, the sled can move in pretty much every axis – although movement is turned off for us – and it resembles the front and cockpit of an F1 car. It’s basically a room with huge, curved screens on three sides, and what Mercedes calls a sled in the middle. One level below, you’ll find the simulator itself, and it’s like nothing else I’ve been in – apart from Ansible Motion’s simulator. It’s where the simulator operators sit – and where Hamilton and Bottas’ engineers will be when they’re running through programs in the simulator downstairs.
#Mercedes f1 2017 full#
On the top level, you’ll find a mission-control-esque room, covered with screens full of telemetry and other data.