An effective process for trackside vehicle development

Abstract

Porsche cars are developed with the aim of giving their customers both a sporty and comfortable vehicle in every day’s use and a high performance one on the track. That’s why their development takes place not only on general roads, but also on race tracks, in the most variable conditions ranging from hot to icy surfaces. The desired performance can be achieved in a quicker and more certain way if effective tools and processes for car data analysis are available. Such tools should ideally show the car performance and dynamic behavior in a clear and straightforward way, so that different configurations can be compared, the rate of progress in reaching design goals can be easily evaluated and the next steps to push the development process forward can be detected with little effort. These tools and processes were created on the basis of Ve- DApost, Porsche’s virtual environment for data analysis, and in close cooperation with Porsche Motorsport. Meanwhile they have been integrated into Porsche’s development process and have been made available to all the other brands within the Volkswagen group.