AT&T Williams F1

Meet Max Nightingale, one of our Vehicle Dynamics Technicians and the mastermind behind our state-of-the-art simulator...

Personal
Age: 46
Star sign: Virgo
Start date at Williams F1: September 1990

Previous jobs in F1: R&D work at Arrows in the ’80s, followed by a stint at Leyton House, where I ran the team’s active suspension project.

Why Williams F1: I pretty much followed Adrian Newey from Leyton House to Williams. But he left a long time ago and the reason I’ve stayed ever since is because I feel at home here; it has a lot to do with the values of the company and the other people that I work with.

Hobbies: I used to row quite a lot, but a bad knee put an end to that. I also make my own hi-fi components, namely valve-based amplifiers and speakers. It’s quite a good way of relaxing and taking my mind off things at work.

Your biggest claim to fame outside F1? My ambition was always to row in the Henley Royal Regatta and I came very close to qualifying one year. At the last minute I had to go to the French Grand Prix and while it was disappointing for me, I felt bad for the other three guys in the boat, who’d trained with me for the best part of a year.  

Professional
Tell us about the simulator…I’ve been working on it for more than five years and it’s gradually evolved during that time into a very sophisticated system. Our aim has been to create an experience that the drivers and the engineers can compare to what they experience on the track, and I think we’ve achieved that.

What are the advantages of the simulator? The drivers can use it to learn a track that they’ve never previously seen, and there are technical advantages as well. For example, the guys who develop the software for the gearbox and differential use the simulator to fine-tune its parameters before heading to the test track. In these days of limited testing, that saves a lot of time. We can also do some set-up work on the cars as well.

How realistic is it for the drivers? They use it a lot, which I think speaks volumes. They are sitting in an old monocoque and using the actual steering wheel that they use in the car; we then aim to give them good feedback through the steering wheel, as well as very good visual feedback through the very wide screen display.

How do you use the simulator to prepare for a new circuit? We do a laser scan of the new track, which captures every bump and ripple on the asphalt. We combine that information with GPS readings, which we collect at the same time, and are left with an 80 million-point data cloud. It’s then our job to convert that data into something that looks and feels like the real track. The drivers and engineers then use the system to prepare for the race weekend.

To see the simulator in action, why not watch Nico's Lap of Singapore, or James Toseland Visits Williams F1 on WF1TV?