Aspiring and professional racing drivers alike want to hone their skills, as every hundredth of a second gained in track times is an advantage at the finish line. In a filing with the European Patent Office, Ferrari describes a system of multiple vehicle cameras that generate a 3D model to help drivers find and fix mistakes to improve their track times.
Understanding Racing Basics
Through instruction and practice, the racing basics can be taught and improved, but it takes time. The correct speeds for every track segment, corner-entry speeds, the right racing line, accurately clipping apexes, and stringing a series of corners together in a fashion that will yield the fastest possible track time are refined through trial and error. The learning curve eventually flattens out and you end up exchanging a lot of hard work and track time for incremental improvements.
Speeding Up The Process: See Yourself Drive
Drivers will jump at any opportunity to optimize and speed up this process, and Ferrari’s patent proposes fitting various cameras to the car that records video as the driver drives around the track. The cameras capture synchronized video feeds of the car, its trajectory through corners, and the surrounding environment to create a 3D map of the track, determining the vehicle’s orientation and position on the track in real time.
It gives the driver the opportunity to study the footage and easily spot mistakes. They can compare the recorded footage with an ideal driving performance to see where they fall short and to identify driving errors they might otherwise have been unaware of – or that are difficult to pick up by trackside cameras, spectators, coaches, or the driver themselves.
A Shortcut to Precision and Performance
The Italian automaker has come up with an intriguing idea that should prove invaluable on the track, especially for novice racers. It’s likely to be an expensive, premium option, but it goes with the territory of driving a sports car of this caliber. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, but Ferrari’s ingenious system seems able to significantly shorten the learning time – and to catch mistakes before they become ingrained habits.
