Development of a graphic tool for tracing Formula 1 driving lines along a racing circuit for safety purposes

Aim of this paper is the description of the research work performed by the Vehicle Dynamics Group (subset of the Design Group) of the University of Brescia in the frame of a project funded by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) to assess the safety characteristics of racing circuits for motorsport. The FIA Institute deals directly with circuits all over the world. In order to get approval and homologation for the organisation of any international race event, the circuit staff must submit a standardised AutoCAD® drawing to the FIA, where the track and the surrounding environment appear in plan view: track limits, kerbs, runoff areas, safety barriers are represented in dedicated layers. As a matter of fact the use of graphics showing the possible trajectory of a vehicle running off the road without control is the most effective method to assess the active safety characteristics of any race course by far. The design of a suitable racing line is therefore a fundamental step in the process. Up to now part of the analysis used to be performed by way of hand made graphic analyses, which reduced the reliability of the results. The authors are in charge of the development of a graphics oriented software code to trace a suitable and realistic racing line on a given circuit, starting exclusively from the graphics information contained in the FIA-standard AutoCAD® file. This computational tool -based on vehicle dynamics theory as well as experience in the racing field- is currently under development. The paper outlines the very first results and also a validation based on GPS acquisition (see pictures).