Niki Saura's pit garage

Niki Saura's garage opens onto the pit lane at night, floodlights on and a car going past every few seconds. Inside there is a vintage single-seater on the floor, tyres stacked under their warmers and a timing monitor that never stops counting tenths. The Motorsport calculators are on the setup board, the wall, the tool chest and the floor.

Lap time comes from grip, and grip comes from how load reaches the tyres. Braking, cornering and accelerating move weight between the axles and across the car; springs and corner weights decide how it is shared; downforce adds load that grows with the square of speed; and gearing decides how much of the engine's speed range the car can use. The calculators here cover gearing and top speed, weight transfer, tyre contact patch, downforce, braking distance, corner weights, fuel load, spring rates and lap-time deltas.

The timing monitor shows the gap in tenths of a second, because that is how racers count.

“Downforce grows with the square of speed: twice as fast, four times the downforce.” — Niki Saura

In this office

• Gear Ratio & Top Speed: Theoretical top speed in a given gear at a target engine RPM
• Weight Transfer: Longitudinal weight transfer under braking or acceleration
• Tire Contact Patch: Estimated contact patch area and length from a tire's load and pressure
• Aerodynamic Downforce: Downforce generated at a given speed, frontal area, and downforce coefficient
• Braking Distance: Braking distance and total stopping distance including reaction time
• Corner Weight Balance: Front/rear, left/right, and cross-weight percentages from a car's four corner weights
• Fuel Load Strategy: Fuel needed for a race distance, its added weight, and pit stops required
• Suspension Spring Rate: Wheel rate and ride frequency from a spring rate, motion ratio, and corner weight
• Lap Time Delta: Estimated lap time change from a change in average lap speed

Project guides

• Set Up a Race Car's Corner Balance: Scale the car's four corners, then use those real weights for weight-transfer and spring-rate setup instead of guessed numbers.

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