Lynn: Sim Work Compensates Lack of European Testing

Alex Lynn reckons Chip Ganassi Racing is well prepared for the European leg of the FIA World Endurance Championship season as a lack of testing mileage has been compensated by intensive simulator work.

The Cadillac V-Series.R is set to make its European debut in this weekend’s 6 Hours of Portimao, with Lynn piloting the V8-powered hybrid prototype alongside Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook.

Cadillac is in a unique position in the 11-car Hypercar field assembled for the second round in Portugal, being the only manufacturer to not have conducted any testing on European soil prior to the start of the season.

All of the car’s development has so far been centered in North America, with the car primarily running at Sebring International Raceway, Daytona International Speedway and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

Despite the lack of European mileage, Lynn told Sportscar365 that he thinks the team is ready to hit the ground running at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve.

“I think so,” Lynn said. “I think we’ve been doing a lot of hard work in the sim, just in general, like really building up the program.

“Everything’s brand new here again, but I have to say I’m so impressed with Cadillac Racing.

“We turned up here and everything’s brand new, everything’s ready. It’s just been a serious amount of work ethic and work rate from everyone.

“But I think we know what the car wants and I think actually it’s going to suit European tracks.

“I think Dallara and Cadillac have built a car that’s going to really suit this style of racing.”

When asked about what he thinks makes the car suitable to European venues, Lynn specifically pointed to aerodynamics.

“If we can get the car in the right window, where obviously with the old DPi car, it was strongly suited to bumpier tracks and street tracks where, let’s say, it wasn’t as ride height critical.

“All race cars are, but I think this car is well suited to fast-flowing circuits, which tend to be quite European-based.”

Lynn believes Cadillac will be able to compensate for a lack of on-track running in Europe thanks to an intensive simulator schedule.

“In general, we’ve been really ramping up our sim program,” he noted.

“And that’s really important because of all the systems that are on this car, it’s really lending itself that it needs to bring software updates and big updates to the software of the car.

“You need somewhere to test it out. Obviously, when you put new code in a car, it has to be robust and the simulator is the only place you can really do that.

“It’s the only place where you can go and do hundreds and hundreds of laps every single day.

“With everything, and with the driver-in-loop simulator, it’s really getting pretty close to being very realistic for what we need.”

The Briton highlighted that the No. 2 driver crew has spent four full days in the simulator preparing for the Portuguese venue, but that Cadillac’s current simulator efforts extend beyond just Portimao.

“It’s quite a lot, but also we’ve already been getting ready for Spa. I think, to put it into context, the first track we ever did with this car in the simulator was Le Mans.

“So we’ve already started building up the toolbox of the car in the virtual world.

“But again, that’s about hard work to get everything in the virtual world to replicate the reality.”

While Lynn admitted it would have been beneficial to have completed real-life testing laps in Europe prior to this weekend’s race, he believes the time in the simulator lessens the impact of a lack of mileage.

“It would be better, but the way that racing is these days, you need to have a really good simulator program so that you don’t need to,” he said.

“So that we can learn. Because, again, like we said, we’ve done four days in a row, hundreds and hundreds of laps.

“If we can make that super relatable to reality, then you can just carry on working without anyone having to bring a truck anywhere.”