r/F1Technical • u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer • Jan 22 '22
Industry Insights Industry Insights – Factory Based Performance Engineer
Hi All,
I’m been asked by a few people now to give some insight into my job and how I got here. As per previous posts I won’t go into too much detail on some of my days to day tasks but have given a rough outline of some of the more regular tasks so hopefully that is interesting, also worth noting this is 100% from my perspective, not that of the team.
u/GaryGiesel has already covered a fair few elements of what I would have said so I’ll try not double up on what he’s written too much!
From a young age I have been interested in F1 and my parents always suspected I’d end up in engineering of some description as always been tinkering or buildings things. I knew I wanted to work in F1 from around the age of 10 after being hearing that my teachers’ husband worked for a local team, which to my young ears sounded the coolest job ever, so I really tailored my education and experience towards this as much as possible. I was also very lucky to grow up local to lots of F1 teams in the “motorsport valley” so was able to get school work experience and summer jobs at my current team and a year in industry at another team as part of my degree course.
As you may expect, education wise I was always biased towards maths and the sciences but also enjoyed applied/engineering subjects so focused on these from GCSE onwards. A-Levels I took Maths, Physics and Design and Technology, also taking Further Maths to AS.
I went on to study Automotive Engineering at University as I was recommended this course by a few colleagues when on summer placements. Looking back, I feel this was the ideal course for me, as it was car focused and there was a good mix of modules that allowed me to specialise in the direction I wanted, whilst also being general enough to avoid the pitfalls of some (not all) motorsport engineering courses that sometimes aren’t highly valued outside of the motorsport sector. As is often said on here, something like Mechanical Engineering would have been a good option too but would have contained a more modules that would have been less interesting to me, so I have no regrets with my choice. It’s worth noting a good percentage of the students on my course have had no issues getting jobs outside of the automotive sector.
Whilst I didn’t get involved with formula student at university, I would definitely recommend getting involved as much as possible, I was very lucky to be friends with someone running a formula Renault car so spent a fair few weekends helping him out gaining experience there and later on I got myself a project car that took up all my spare time fixing and competing in autosolos. That paired with Uni work left no spare time for FS!
Whilst doing post A-level and Uni summer/short term placements at my current team I completely a range of tasks, from developing ride analysis and GPS competitor analysis tools to debugging and evaluation tasks. I was also involved in the suspension pre-event tasks for a couple of events which was fairly daunting as I had just finished my A-Levels (admittedly my boss had assumed I was degree level as I knew MATLAB fairly well, and they only found out on my final day when they asked what I had planned after I graduated and I replied I was starting Uni next week…).
On my year in industry I worked for a different team, where I was situated in the design office, working primarily on suspension and steering design. I found this very interesting and really enjoyed the work, although at points it was fairly stressful and full on, but I loved seeing my parts at the track and believe the team still use an evolution of some of the setup kit that I designed when there. Whilst working there I also volunteered in the race control room, it was a very small group at the time (6 people including me) which allowed me to get involved with lots of different tasks such as GPS and Audio competitor analysis and pit stop analysis, this was mostly focused on the timing of the individual mechanics in the stop, but also looking at how the driver could save time on entry and exit, even getting to speak directly to the drivers on occasions which was more than a little daunting at the time – especially when a certain Brazilian driver answered back!
After graduating I spent a year doing a ski season and travelling mixed with a few shorter-term placements at my current team, before landing my current permanent role, whilst this is a fairly unconventional route after Uni, I’m 100% glad I did it as feel I got the “ski bum” bug out of the system and confirmed a customer facing job is definitely not for me (not at all my fault but managed to get a named mention in a 1 star TripAdvisor review whilst working as a ski tech!)
My current day to day role is within the Performance Optimisation Section, which is within the Vehicle Performance Group, a department which looks at various performance sections, such the ride and suspension, mathematical modelling and includes the simulator section too. As a section we perform computer simulations to investigate the effects of changing components on the car and analyse track data to provide information and support to various departments such as the trackside engineers, aerodynamicists, design office and production.
I can’t list all of my day to day tasks as a few are fairly specific, but the main elements of mine and my colleagues day to day jobs are tool development, pre-event analysis where we optimise the aero, suspension and brake cooling setups for race weekends and even future cars and post event model correlation where we match our vehicle model to laps from the weekend using a variety of scalings and offsets.
I also work in the race operations room on race weekends, the work here is very different to the weekday tasks and we need to be working similar hours to the track – e.g. for Australia we get up and midnight and Austin or Mexico don’t leave until around 5am. One of my key responsibilities is reliability/loads monitoring, making sure the suspension and chassis loads aren’t exceeding the design limits, and passing the information on to the relevant trackside staff should they do so – you never see an F1 car clip a wall or hit the curb hard the same way again after doing this, as I’m always imagining all the overload alarms the engineer monitoring that car is seeing! We also try to act as an extra set of eyes for the trackside performance engineers, keeping an eye that general setup changes are having the expected effect.
Another task that we do at the weekend is the brake cooling analysis, this is a surprisingly detailed task where we have to evaluate the best cooling and disc option, balancing keeping the brakes cool when the car is heavy with fuel and in traffic whilst maximising aero performance and not letting the brakes be too cold nearer the end of the race, paired with the fun that you sometimes have to react quickly should there be a “change of climatic conditions” (aka rain). An interesting example of where a team got this very wrong is Imola last year where Aston Martin sent the cars out on a damp track with way too aggressive brake setup and overheated the rear brakes on the laps to the grid, forcing a pitlane start for one car.
The final task that I do at the weekend is GPS competitor analysis, we look at a variety of factors such as comparing corner and straight line speeds to help assess where we are in terms of setup and where we are losing time compared to competitors.
Overall it would be fair to say I love my job, it may have some wacky hours and a fair few long (but normally interesting) days, but overall the reward of seeing your car hit the track and score points is amazing, if you’re lucky enough you may even get to experience a podium or win!
I’ll be checking the post over the next few days if anyone has any questions – please ask here rather than dm to keep the answers open to all!
21
u/kacze Jan 22 '22
tips for your first few weeks at an internship in F1?
67
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
Oooh, tricky one but simple things such as not having phone out whilst working (you'd be amazed the amount of interns that spend time sat looking at their phone when they don't know what to do) and be eager to help but also understand the people around you might have fairly tight deadlines!
Also don't be disheartened if you get given a job that feels very simple or overly repetitive, one task I had when I was there for a few weeks was to run a grid of setups through the lap sim - this was literally change a setup item and click run repeatedly for about 3 days - logging the run time and failure rate, it felt VERY boring/pointless at the time but years later I learnt that all the department had spend days doing that same task to try and build a big picture of how well it ran and my work was genuinely useful and the fact I got on and did it was one of the sole reasons I was invited back, where other student had complained or sat one their phones.
10
Jan 23 '22
Any tips on how to get an internship in the first place? I applied to quite a few and only got interviews for 2 :(. Any obvious things most applicants miss?
28
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 23 '22
Not really sadly other than the standard advice of try to stand out, there's often lots of applications for internships so make sure you have the grades and a polished CV but also you need to stand out with something interesting to catch the eye (for example, I had an interview where I spent 30 mins discussing a 24h pedal car race project I ran with my local scout group aged 15, just because the interviewer also had participated in the same racing series
45
u/LuckyNumber-Bot Jan 23 '22
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
30 + 24 + 15 + = 69.015
11
u/jamminjoenapo Jan 22 '22
Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I had dreams when I was on high school and college to work in Motorsports but never got the opportunity. Still went to school for mechanical engineering as my college didn’t have automotive engineering degrees (hindsight i should have gone to a different school but that’s another story). Somehow ended up always getting pulled back to manufacturing in big rigs and ag equipment but now am working at an automotive tier one supplier with a heavy race pedigree so I guess 12 yrs later I’m finally getting to what I wanted to do originally. My day to day isn’t nearly as interesting but no way I can convince my wife to move over to Europe lol.
A question On the suspension side, how different are the setups for most tracks less the stupid bumpy ones like Cota? The travel has to be minimal so there isn’t a ton of stroke to tune.
14
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
This is very different car to car and team to team, the suspension is really just aimed to give as good aero platform as possible (so normally stiff as possible) whilst also giving enough compliance that the wheels aren't in the air and the drivers eyeballs aren't being vibrated out of their sockets. Will give an example from a few years ago at my previous team, but we had options that were 3.5x as stiff as the softest in roll and and 4x in heave. Hope that answers what you were after?
9
u/jamminjoenapo Jan 22 '22
Yes that’s exactly what I was looking for. Without giving away too much to strangers on the net I’m in the damper side of manufacturing and am curious how far f1 designs have deviated from our current solutions. We are really only hampered by excessive weight and fitting it into a vehicle and don’t have to care about a rule book (well safety stuff but that’s different). the loads we deal with are very different than single seater race cars so really just curious how different. That said I’m on the manufacturing side not design but in my position I’ve been learning quite a bit of the design theories.
10
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
Up until last year we had some fairly f1 specific designs but the 2022 rules make us run much more basic dampers and springs so I'd imagine much more similar to what you're used to
6
u/jamminjoenapo Jan 22 '22
Ok awesome I’d love to pry more but realize that’s a bit too much to ask. I’m excited to see the new cars to dig into the tech. I still think it’s something f1 should be able to develop within reason especially with a budget cap in place. There is actual real world crossover which everyone is looking at now.
16
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
As I understand it there's going to be a kind of FIA mandated show and tell for new parts on the car every Friday so developments should be clearer than they used to be and should allow people more insight than before
9
u/twoturtlesinatank Jan 22 '22
thanks for writing this and entertaining our questions!
What's your project car? and do you sometimes take ideas from work and jerry rig things on your car? (maybe some small pieces of aero here and there).
Is it ever boring?
Do you have any fun work perks? Aside from the obvious, get to see races, sit in team garage... do the teams have, I don't know, maybe a cool break room during race weekend with neat waffle makers or something like that? Kinda a dumb question, but I'm curious.
How do you adjust for the amount of "suspension" the tires offer? Going into 2022 with thinner tires, I assume this means that there is more load for the suspension, since less tire to absorb that load. This could all be completely wrong, but if it isn't how do you compensate for that? Is it just like switching from hard to soft compound, and just cranking up the stiffness? (again don't really know so this is probably wrong)
thank you for answering my dumb questions if you do.
16
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
No problem, happy to give an insight into the world of F1.
Project car is a GTM K3 kit car, wouldn't really say I take ideas from work other than the fact 3d printed parts often make it onto the car. Most of my interior is 3d printed as "standard" parts for a 30 year old kit car don't exist! I do use my degree knowledge when doing mods but that's just engineering principles etc.
Never boring - sometimes not exciting but always work to do and more interesting than a lot of the stuff I know of people in the Automotive sector are doing!
Some work perks, pre-covid we got to meet the drivers a few times a year and last year got to visit the track (Silverstone) when we were running a junior driver in an old car. Some staff factory open days are also organised which are a good opportunity to show family where I work.
I won't answer this in full other than there are larger changes than tyres for next years regs that will likely have a bigger effect to suspension setup.
9
u/GaryGiesel Verified F1 Vehicle Dynamicist Jan 23 '22
Are you trying to say that you didn’t find the Friday of the Eiffel GP deathly dull? 😜
10
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 23 '22
Nah, I had plenty of other work to get on with so it was a blessing 😂
7
3
u/subject189 May 09 '22
What kinda of 3D printers do you have access to at work? If you can't say models can you at least say what category? FDM, SLS, SLA, etc.
5
u/Username8831 Jan 22 '22
I don't know if this question is allowed given this is the Technical sub and not the main, and this isn't really a technical question, so feel free to ignore if so.
When something controversial happens in F1 - Abu Dhabi being the most recent example but I really don't mean to limit my question to this incident alone - is there as much of a spread of opinion as there is in the fan community, and do people get as partisan? I sort of assume it's a more professional atmosphere and therefore more measured responses from most individuals inside F1 teams.
12
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
Fire away, there's normally a fairly clear consensus and we often discuss to great lengths all the outcomes although as always a few people will disagree.
In this example, within my coworkers a good percentage felt a red flag as soon as the incident happened was the least controversial way to deal with it as would have given us a fantastic 5 laps to the finish in a similar style to Baku. Whether this was appropriate within the rules, who knows.
3
u/Username8831 Jan 22 '22
!thanks. Really appreciate this whole thread. It's superb insight that I (and I presume others) really appreciate. Thanks for taking your time to speak with us.
0
Jan 22 '22
[deleted]
1
u/Username8831 Jan 22 '22
I get that. But then presumably they're all F1 nuts with their own views on the big issues. So I guess I wanted to understand how that plays out in such a professional setting.
1
u/GaryGiesel Verified F1 Vehicle Dynamicist Jan 23 '22
We all constantly discuss the latest comings and going in F1 ;)
7
u/einsteinwasdumb Feb 11 '22
Is it too late to switch to a role in F1 t the age of 23?
11
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Feb 12 '22
Not at all, coworkers have changed much later than that!
1
3
u/sleepingyellowdog Jan 22 '22
How do you manage things like tine off, tine in lieu for overtime etc?
And how do you balance it without totally sacrificing your home life?
8
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22 edited Jan 23 '22
I normally take a couple of weeks at Christmas and there's the enforced 2 weeks in August. This does still normally leave a lot but taking every non race weekend Friday off works well and between back to back races I try to take the Tuesday off where possible.
You do still need an understanding partner, luckily mine also works weird shifts so we just try to time our time off together
2
u/OlliePav11 Apr 25 '22
Hi, Thanks for the post was a really good read. I am starting with a team in July and was wondering if the factory shutdown dates are known? They said it would be known at the start of the season but I haven't been told or seem to be able to find it anywhere. Thanks in advance and please don't hesitate to PM me if it is not meant to be published information.
3
u/yagofdez02 Jan 27 '22
I'm 16 years old an d I'm from Barcelona, here there aren't as many motorsport teams as in Uk, and I want to be involved in some about Motorsport but I don't know how, what advices could yo give to me?
Thank you!
6
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 27 '22
All I can really say is to research what local courses around you could lead to a career in Motorsport and try to follow those as they should have advise on local work etc. I've got a fair few colleagues from Spain (one from near Barcelona) and they all tend to agree that you need to be willing to move elsewhere (UK/Italy for the most variety) if you want to engineer cars. (There are a few bike teams in the Barcelona area I believe)
3
u/yagofdez02 Jan 27 '22
I would love to move to UK for the university, but I couldn't afford all the expenses. I have writted to some race teams, but they don't answer me or don't have any place for me, even if I offer to work for free. I'm a bit stuck and I don't know where to go.
4
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 27 '22
At 16 you're still too young to do a lot of the work (insurance wise you need to be 18 to work in a lot of places) so maybe ask what qualifications they find useful and study towards those?
3
2
u/LewisSpamilton Jan 22 '22
What sort of lap simulation software do teams use? Is it based on any commercial software or is it totally bespoke?
9
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jan 22 '22
I believe there's a fairly big mix here, some teams use modded commercial software but most use fully bespoke software developed in house.
3
u/WeeblsLikePie Feb 12 '22
then how on earth do you need to have an intern click through a grid of settings. If it's in-house you have full access! Automate that shit!
5
1
2
u/funkiestj Jul 01 '22
Do you like it when Hamilton thanks all of you (or your counterparts at merc) back at the factory?
People make fun of that a lot here on reddit but F1 really is a team sport and all the team member matter, even if they are not on TV every weekend.
4
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Jul 02 '22
Yeah, it doesn't go unappreciated when our drivers thank the team, but when they do it in debriefs etc when speaking to us direct or over the intercom it feels more genuine definitely!
2
u/L4ndoN0r Aug 25 '22
Wow, this is very insightful. Thank you for posting this. I am a 14 year old (in the US) with hopes to become an F1 engineer. Could you give advice on how would I be able to land internships in the future? Thanks again.
1
u/Username8831 Feb 24 '22
So, I suppose the obvious question at this time of the season is ...
How do you assess the relative standing of the teams during and after pre-season testing, or is that a complete fools game? Do insiders tend to have a good idea of where teams stand or are you guessing like the rest of us?
If you do assess the teams, what are you looking at?
1
1
u/BlackVignu Mar 14 '22
Did you go to UNIMORE? Btw i'm from Italy
2
1
u/JanglyRiff Mar 22 '22
Hi, that was a really interesting read - thanks for sharing. My son wants to become a motorsport engineer and is looking at courses for degree now (halfway through A levels). Would you be willing to tell me which are the courses that don’t have a great reputation within the industry so I can help to steer him away from them?
1
u/Practical_Chicken_12 Mar 22 '22
If you only speak English are you at a disadvantage for a career, or if I just focus on the UK based F1 teams would I be ok with just English?
3
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Mar 23 '22
Whilst I know very basic German and even more basic french I have never used either at work and not knowing them would never have been an issue when working for the UK based teams (over half).
I know of people who've worked Audi (in Germany) who started the job knowing no German at all and only learnt it outside the office as the offices only spoke English, with a small amount of Italian between the Italian native speakers!
1
1
u/RonaldoMusky Apr 08 '22
What do you use to develop the custom tools for simulations? like any specific programming language or Matlab
3
u/oliverracing1 Verified F1 Performance Engineer Apr 08 '22
I personally use Matlab as it's fairly widely used across our group which helps when sharing tools etc.
1
u/FormulaFrancois McLaren Jul 15 '22
Awesome read. Thanks for sharing. I'm a mechanical engineer working in automotive industry with the goal of working for a motorsport team or company someday, but it's difficult to do from South Africa.
Question on how a race weekend Friday is like at the factory, do you guys watch or follow the sessions? Is there a screen up showing the practice sessions? Do the design engineers work on the Saturday or Sunday of a race weekend? What type of physical tests do you guys do at the factory on parts? Apart from FEA's and stuff. Thanks.
1
u/Illustrious-Canary-9 Aug 05 '22
Really interesting read! I’m curious as to options for finding a job related to f1. I have a masters degree in engineering, but not automotive or mechanical (I studied Architectural Engineering). However, I did my bachelor thesis on CFD, and my masters thesis on database structures and linked-data. I also do have experience with commercial programming and fulfill a lot of the skills I see in the job posts. Do you have any good ideas for how to “sell” myself to some of the teams, or how to gain some relevant experience?
1
u/cookeie Aug 28 '22
Idk if you’d know this, but maybe based on the brake cooling analysis. I have always been interested if the aerodynamics around the entire wheels assembly and wondered if you had any insight. Doesn’t even have to be f1. I’ve seen so many other areas of aero info but never anything around this area
41
u/baldGrumpyDad Jan 22 '22
I found this a very fascinating read, thank you. I’ve lots of questions, most of which I suspect would be to specific for you to answer. A couple of general questions that are hopefully ok: - what’s it like in the factory after a not great weekend? I’m imaging it’s a mix of pragmatism and high pressure to find an answer to why things went wrong and also to come up with a solution. - do you have any idea what career progression will be for someone in your role? Transition to track team or another team/department in the factory, climb the management ladder and start leading a team in your current department, …