Fresh from an extraordinary victory in the final race at the Adelaide 500, and capping off another successful Supercars Championship season in 2024 for Red Bull Ampol Racing winning both the Teams’ Championship alongside 1st and 2nd in the Drivers’ Championship, let’s take you behind-the-scenes into the workshop of Triple Eight Race Engineering to find out what makes their engineering team arguably *the* best in the business.
From post-race debriefs, to engineering redesigns of key components on-the-fly, watch here as the team talks us through key technology elements that help give them an edge and provide small performance advantages that, cumulatively, can make all the difference for successful racing teams:
You can tell that legendary driver and now Triple Eight Managing Director, Jamie Whincup, truly loves what he does when he explains that “Triple Eight Race Engineering is an engineering company that goes racing. Our engineers are always pushing to extract the absolute maximum out of our race cars, and technology and software is a key part of speeding up that process.”
“As soon as we come off the track, we’re straight into a debrief and coming up with a list of things that we could have done better on the day and (asking) how can we make this car perform better at the track? That’s where Ansys comes in, and gives us competitive edge over our opposition.”
Engineering Simulation for V8 Supercars
Jeromy explains the challenges and opportunities that arise in such a fast-paced engineering environment. “At Triple Eight, we have to wear many hats, so having a tool that is easy to use and fit for purpose is essential. As engineers, we can’t create a solution unless we understand the problem and Ansys gives us the ability to replicate real world behaviour without compromising on accuracy. With our use of Ansys, we’ve saved the team thousands of dollars and weeks of time by not having to make physical prototypes and testing in field!”
Technical director Jeromy Moore and data and systems engineer Isaac Baldry, describe to us the frenetic day-to-day world of a V8 Supercars race engineer.
For Isaac, “engineering simulation is such a crucial tool to be able to understand the parts that we’re working on, and how they will operate in a real world environment. All of us engineers here have multiple roles, so it’s critical for us to be able to pick up the software and get the results that we need, and be able to trust them in a very tight turnaround. It’s extremely important that the software is easy to understand for a beginner, but also be capable of producing highly accurate results.”
Gen3 Homologation project
All three take a moment to reflect on the critical role that engineering simulations played in the Gen3 homologation project for the General Motors Chevrolet Camaro. This massive engineering project by Triple Eight, proudly supported by LEAP, involved starting from scratch on key components including the chassis, engine, body, front suspension, rear wings, and several new safety features.
Jamie explains that the Gen 3 Camaro was a purpose-built race car that Triple Eight designed for Supercars, from the ground up. There were thousands of new designs, thousands of new developments have gone into making up the Gen 3 product, which is used by the entire Supercar field.
For Jeromy, “Ansys was pivotal to our Gen3 design program. It really helped us out with the design of the front control upright, the rear wing of the Camaro supports, the steering column, and even the roll cage – which are made in three pieces for modularity and repairability.”
What’s next for Triple Eight and Red Bull Ampol Racing?
Revealing more of his hyper-competitive nature, Jamie adds that “every year, we keep fine tuning throughout the entire season, right up until the last race, which is where Ansys helps us continually innovate.”
Josh Hately, Engineering Solutions Manager at LEAP Australia reflects that “It’s been inspiring to partner with the Triple Eight Race Engineering team over the past decade, during which time Red Bull Ampol has won 7 out of 10 constructors championships – truly an incredible achievement!”
“Reaching the 10-year milestone is a testament to the strength of the collaboration between LEAP, Triple Eight and Ansys, and I’m excited to imagine what the future holds as the Supercars category continues to challenge engineers to innovate within tighter rules and restrictions that are aimed to achieve an improved racing spectacle.”
Jeromy also remarks that “when you’re using the same engineering tools as Formula 1 and NASCAR, you know you’re in good company!” At LEAP, we’ve happily watched the results of this hard work on display across the 2023 and 2024, two Supercars seasons that were filled with plenty of drama, intrigue as well as some mind-blowing racing!