Raphael ThysThis UK company has taken fighter-jet sim tech and created a motor racing system that beats most F1 team setups. And you can buy it (if you can afford it).
Photograph: AXSIM
If a Formula One car suddenly loses aerodynamic downforce, it can snap sideways with sufficient ferocity to fracture a misplaced thumb. Axsim’s system isn’t that extreme, but it’s potent enough to give your upper body a pretty serious workout while reminding you of the major talent deficit that exists between even a competent driver and a pro. This is an outrageously realistic bit of kit.
It’s also a sign that racing simulators have truly come of age. Back when Formula One had money to burn, the teams enjoyed unlimited testing. The front-runners had their own dedicated test squads—drivers, mechanics, and data analysts who would travel the world more or less in parallel with their racing colleagues. Great for optimizing lap times, trying new aero components, and evaluating young drivers. But it was also ferociously expensive, and in-season testing was banned by motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, in 2009. For 2022, a new cost cap has further tightened the screw.
Cue the rise of the simulator, a rapidly evolving and much more cost-effective mechanism for learning a new circuit and doing all the stuff that used to be done “for real.” Not everyone was happy about it: Michael Schumacher actively detested simulators, and even some of the sport’s biggest stars could be prone to motion sickness.
But that was then. F1’s increasing reliance on sims and the boom in e-sports has narrowed the gap, and racing sims also appeal to high-net-worth individuals with enviable car collections who will happily blow six-figure sums on a state-of-the-art rig. Track days are great fun, but a sim doesn’t burn through tires or fuel, and it’s available 24/7. You can also make your own weather.
Even better than the real thing? Axsim doesn’t go that far when touting its plug-and-play system, but it has the credibility to match its marketing spiel. It’s a sub-brand of a company called Cranfield Simulation, itself a subsidiary of UK-based Cranfield Aerospace Solutions (CaeS). Among other things, it has delivered 130 simulation systems to 21 different armed forces during the past 30 years, with iconic aircraft such as the F-16, F-18, Tornado, and Eurofighter Typhoon.
Photograph: AXSIM
A key component is Axsim's motion-cueing G-seat, which uses electric actuators to replicate eye-height changes and the heave that occurs during vertical acceleration, as well as the surge that happens in fore and aft movement. Cleverer still, pneumatic airbags in the seatbelt harnesses inflate to replicate the g-force. (G, of course, is a physical force equal to one unit of gravity that’s multiplied during rapid changes of direction or velocity.) In reality, you only experience up to 1 g with the Axsim, but that doesn't matter because it fools your brain all the same.
This know-how led Cranfield Simulations into motorsport, and it has supplied sim rigs to Formula One, Nascar, and world endurance race teams. Who better to replicate the sort of eye-popping g-force generated by an F1 car than the people who’ve figured out how to mimic an F-15 during combat maneuvers?
Aside from the science, aesthetics are important, and the Axsim delivers here too. The chassis we’re trying is a composite tub apparently based on an old Red Bull F1 car, although it’s wider than the original. You can order it in any color you like and create your own livery, too.
The company’s setup in Cranfield is regularly used by pro drivers, but not everyone has their snake hips or Yogic flexibility. Getting in is easy enough, but the rest of it is uncomfortably accurate: I’ve raced a variety of cars and driven a handful of retired Formula One machines, and if the belts aren’t pulled so tight that your eyes are bulging, then they’re not tight enough. Here they’re also pumped up, thanks to those g-force airbags.
The seat is molded to fit your frame and body shape, so the driving position should be optimum. The pedals are beautifully crafted aluminum items, and the pedal box can be moved forward and back.
Now, most sims sit on a sled or hexapod. Axsim’s setup combines an extruded aluminum base and steel tubular frame, and like others it uses an FIA-approved D-Box, which simulates roll, pitch, and heave. But the killer USP here is that the whole rig can also slide sideways up to 18 degrees, replicating the yaw motion that occurs in high-performance driving.
The visuals are supplied by Samsung, with a choice of ultra-wide curved 49-inch gaming monitors, or three linked 4K UHD displays. The built-in audio is from KEF, using its Ci160QR Uni-Q speakers and a Rega io amp. The brains are, surprisingly, nothing special: an Intel i7 Windows PC with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (we’d have expected a 3080 or 3090 at this price). Just one plug socket is needed to power the entire unit.
The wheel is identical to a high-end single-seater race car’s, a beautifully manufactured—and expensive—tool with anodized switches to alter brake bias, the differential, lap time delta, and so on. It’s supplied by a specialist called Precision Sim Engineering; Max Verstappen has one on his home sim, although I’m not sure he really needs the extra practice.
Axsim’s simulators are compatible with all the leading software titles, and ours is running the Windows PC sim Assetto Corsa. So you can have any car you want, with any setup, on any track, in any conditions. And the company’s offer runs the gamut of superior high-end home entertainment up to a system a pro driver would recognize and happily use. Note: You cannot hook this up to an Xbox or PlayStation, Axsim says. “You could likely get the visuals, but thanks to their closed systems all the dynamic data needed for that pitch and roll would not be there, so the simulator would just sit static,” says simulation development engineer Nikita Miliakov.
All of this comes at a considerable cost. Prices for this full-fat system are just shy of £100,000 ($135,450), but you can start at £39,900 ($54,100) and spec up from there. A stripped-down version, the GFQ Simulator, comes in at a less wallet-thumping £16,400 ($22,234), while a third option sits between these two.
We start at Spa, home to the Belgian GP and the blindingly fast uphill section called Eau Rouge. F1 cars pull approximately 4 g through the right-hander here; at Silverstone’s famously fast Copse corner, the lateral acceleration is almost 5 g. That’s why F1 drivers end up with necks wider than you’d find on a nightclub bouncer.
Full disclosure: Although an experienced driver, I’m not a gamer and have a pretty well-developed cynicism when it comes to simulators and virtual reality. But the Axsim is a revelation.
Never mind the lateral loads and the sheer physicality of a full-blooded racing car; delivering authentic steering and brake feel is an incredible challenge. This does it, to the extent that it’s initially difficult to process the forces at work in the fast, high-downforce sections, especially under braking.
Photograph: Jeremy White
You can always go much, much faster than you think and brake way, way later. In fact, great empires have come and gone in the amount of time I’m leaving on the table. After a good few laps, things improve, but there are crashes and before long over-heated tires. If there was a simulated team manager, they would be rather irate.
I know Silverstone better than Spa, and the sensations through Copse and then into the Maggots and Becketts complex are as accurate and adrenalized, and almost as painful (especially if you run wide across the curbs). It also replicates what happens in an F1 car if you disrespect the physics and do something stupid like lift (ease off the throttle pedal) mid-corner. The ensuing spin and impact doesn’t just dent your ego, it actually hurts a bit too. At least it feels that way.
Once you manage to get your chosen racing car around the track in a non-embarrassing manner, which is much harder than it sounds, and Gran Turismo experts have had smirks wiped from their faces, you can of course opt to race AI drivers, as well as other online Axsim owners. This is a whole new level of difficulty and realism.
The fatigue after a 25-minute session racing a full starting grid of AI drivers was striking. The exhaustion came from a heady mixture of sheer concentration, the visceral nature of the simulation, and the bodily exertion of battling with the steering and those faked g-forces.
You can learn lessons, and the result is both physically and mentally immersive—not to mention hugely addictive. “It’s about 75 percent accurate,” Miliakov says. I'm not so sure. I think it might be higher. My hands and wrists are still aching two days later.
Prices for AXSIM’s Formula Simulator start at £39,900 ($54,100), rising to £99,900 ($135,454) for the Full Motion and G-Force system. A 12-month warranty is included, with the option to extend, and the service package includes OTA updates.