VI-grade to partner with Citroën Racing for FIA WTCC
Marburg, April 3rd, 2014 – VI-grade, the leading provider of best-in-class software products and services for advanced applications in the field of system-level simulation, today announced that Citroën Racing has selected driving simulation technology from VI-grade to implement a driving simulator for driver training during the 2014 WTCC season.
Some months ago, Citroën Racing announced the decision to join the 2014 WTCC with 4 drivers: the four-time WTCC winner Yvan Muller, the nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb and F1 test driver Jose Maria Lopez for the complete season and Chinese Ma Qing Hua for five rounds. As a part of this decision, and being entirely new in the discipline, the team identified the importance of having a driving simulator in order to support its drivers in learning new tracks.
The STATIC Simulator, entirely implemented by VI-grade, will be installed prior the beginning of the championship at Citroën Racing premises in Versailles and used for the preparation of the FIA World Touring Car Championship.
“We are confident that driving simulator provided by VI-grade will help our drivers a lot in getting familiar with all different tracks of the WTCC” said Xavier Mestelan-Pinon, technical director at Citroën Racing. “Our drivers tested VI-grade solution before taking a final decision and their feedback was very positive. This helped us to select the right partner for implementing a driving simulator. We are now all working around the clock in order to have the simulator ready for the start of the season. We also appreciated the fact that with VI-grade products we will have the possibility to use the C-Elysée WTCC both for off-line simulations and on our driving simulator.”
“We are extremely happy to provide our driving simulator technology to a company like Citroën Racing that always played a very important role in motorsport activities”, said Guido Bairati, International Sales Director, VI-grade. “We are also very proud to be appointed Citroën Racing Technical Partner and to help Citroën Racing drivers to take the lead and set the pace in the upcoming WTCC Season.”
The STATIC Simulator by VI-grade is a professional solution that allows OEMs, Tier1 suppliers and Research Institutes to use driving simulator to start bridging the gap between physical testing and simulation. The simulator is based on the same VI-DriveSim software package that is used on COMPACT Simulator and on DiM, but is also fully compatible with 3rd party software solutions. This makes it possible to upgrade the static simulator to a dynamic simulator later on, leveraging previous investments. HMI, Vehicle Dynamics, NVH and ADAS are some of the disciplines that could be developed using a static simulator by VI-grade. Cylindrical screen and professional projectors make it possible to reach very high level of realism and to give driver an immersive driver experience. Thanks to the real-time hardware infrastructure, static simulator is also suitable for software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop applications.
Some months ago, Citroën Racing announced the decision to join the 2014 WTCC with 4 drivers: the four-time WTCC winner Yvan Muller, the nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb and F1 test driver Jose Maria Lopez for the complete season and Chinese Ma Qing Hua for five rounds. As a part of this decision, and being entirely new in the discipline, the team identified the importance of having a driving simulator in order to support its drivers in learning new tracks.
The STATIC Simulator, entirely implemented by VI-grade, will be installed prior the beginning of the championship at Citroën Racing premises in Versailles and used for the preparation of the FIA World Touring Car Championship.
“We are confident that driving simulator provided by VI-grade will help our drivers a lot in getting familiar with all different tracks of the WTCC” said Xavier Mestelan-Pinon, technical director at Citroën Racing. “Our drivers tested VI-grade solution before taking a final decision and their feedback was very positive. This helped us to select the right partner for implementing a driving simulator. We are now all working around the clock in order to have the simulator ready for the start of the season. We also appreciated the fact that with VI-grade products we will have the possibility to use the C-Elysée WTCC both for off-line simulations and on our driving simulator.”
“We are extremely happy to provide our driving simulator technology to a company like Citroën Racing that always played a very important role in motorsport activities”, said Guido Bairati, International Sales Director, VI-grade. “We are also very proud to be appointed Citroën Racing Technical Partner and to help Citroën Racing drivers to take the lead and set the pace in the upcoming WTCC Season.”
The STATIC Simulator by VI-grade is a professional solution that allows OEMs, Tier1 suppliers and Research Institutes to use driving simulator to start bridging the gap between physical testing and simulation. The simulator is based on the same VI-DriveSim software package that is used on COMPACT Simulator and on DiM, but is also fully compatible with 3rd party software solutions. This makes it possible to upgrade the static simulator to a dynamic simulator later on, leveraging previous investments. HMI, Vehicle Dynamics, NVH and ADAS are some of the disciplines that could be developed using a static simulator by VI-grade. Cylindrical screen and professional projectors make it possible to reach very high level of realism and to give driver an immersive driver experience. Thanks to the real-time hardware infrastructure, static simulator is also suitable for software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop applications.
Update - Jan 3rd, 2015: Discover at this link what Argentinian driver Jose Maria Lopez had to say about the role of our driving simulation solutions in their success at the 2014 World Touring Car Competition with the Citroen Racing team!
About Citroën Racing
Citroën is one of the most successful team in motorsport in the modern era – and arguably of all time. The team has accumulated 5 world titles in Rallye Raids (Dakar) plus 17 World Rally titles since 1990 in the face of severe competition. Citroën Racing is based at Versailles, to the west of Paris where Citroën’s competition cars are designed, engineered, constructed, tested and rebuilt between events. In 2014, Citroën Racing takes part into two world competitions: FIA WRC and FIA WTCC. For further information click here.