Formula Student teams develop race cars with Formula 1-grade simulation software
• Engineering students at five university Formula Student teams in the UK, Germany and Canada are gaining hands-on experience with the same professional Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) simulation software used by Formula 1 teams.
• The experience helps prepare students for engineering careers, building fluency in the simulation-led, zero-prototype, virtual development methods now standard across automotive and motorsport industries.
• rFpro provides software to a select number of Formula Student programmes, enabling access to technology normally reserved for professional motorsport teams and vehicle manufacturers.
• The announcement coincides with Formula Student UK at Silverstone on 15th July.
Hampshire, UK, 13th July 2026: Engineering students at five university Formula Student teams are developing their race cars using the same professional Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) simulation software used in Formula 1 and by the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers. It is enabling the students to gain hands-on experience with the tools and methods they will encounter when they enter the workplace.
Simulation software specialist, rFpro, provides its software platform to the teams as part of its Formula Student sponsorship programme. Currently spanning three continents, the teams that have thus far qualified for this special programme are; Oxford Brookes Racing and the Southampton University Formula Student Team in the UK, RennTeam and DHBW Engineering in Germany and the University of Toronto Formula Racing team in Canada.
The programme comes as the engineering profession faces a widening skills gap. The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) reports that 76%[RD1.1] of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with engineering now facing the UK’s largest skills shortfall of any sector with 145[RD2.1] job postings for every apprentice. Employers increasingly value graduates who arrive already fluent in the digital tools that define modern vehicle development.
“The automotive and motorsport industries are accelerating towards a simulation-first, zero-prototype development process,” said Nick Harrison, Development Director at rFpro. “It is essential for engineering students to have access and experience of these tools and processes before they enter the workplace. Giving them access to the same Driver-in-the-Loop tools used by Formula 1 teams means they get a jump start and arrive in industry ready to add value.”
Driver-in-the-Loop simulation places a real driver in high-fidelity virtual environments to develop and validate virtual vehicles before they are built or driven on track. rFpro is used by more than 50 OEMs and Tier-One suppliers for ADAS, autonomous vehicle and motorsport development, and the student licences give Formula Student teams the same toolchain as professional organisations.
For teams operating on tight budgets and limited access to test tracks, simulation enables vehicle models and designs to be thoroughly tested and developed before any prototypes are created. The students are using DIL simulation to validate control systems, iterate on suspension, aerodynamic and powertrain setups, and train drivers before arriving at Formula Student competition events – the next of which is the UK event on 15th July at Silverstone.
rFpro intends to extend its Formula Student programme to further teams over the coming seasons, to continue to broaden access to professional-grade simulation in the student engineering community.
Comments from the teams:
Tim Schule, RennTeam: “By providing a highly accurate and physically realistic virtual environment, it enables us to validate our control model and refine our vehicle setup before the car ever hits the track.”
RennTeam
Rohan Sadekar, University of Toronto Formula Racing: “A Driver-in-the-Loop (DiL) simulator is an important piece of that puzzle, allowing us to train our drivers and accelerate vehicle development using our own evolving models. Thanks to rFpro’s incredible flexibility, it integrated seamlessly with both our intended vehicle model and our DiL hardware.”
University of Toronto Formula Racing Team
William Wall, Oxford Brookes Racing: “Thanks to rFpro’s low-latency rendering capabilities and high-fidelity visual interface, we ensure that our driver immersion is excellent. The inclusion of replay and telemetry tools also supports data analysis and driver coaching, which we use in OBR to validate control systems and improve our drivers’ performance.”
Oxford Brooks Team
Liam Adams, Southampton University Formula Student Team: “SUFST utilises rFpro to develop our DIL platform, enabling seamless integration between our simulation software, high-fidelity graphics, and physical hardware. By placing a driver in a realistic virtual environment, the DIL system gives us deeper insight into vehicle handling characteristics and dynamic behaviour, allowing us to evaluate and refine setup changes with greater confidence.”
Southampton Formula Student Team
Florian Schuster, DHBW Engineering: “Our Formula Student team relies on rFpro to power our driving simulator during race preparation. Thanks to rFpro’s straightforward integration and setup, our team spends less time on configuration and more time on performance development and engineering excellence.”
DHBW Team
________________________________________________
About rFpro
rFpro, a member of the AB Dynamics Group plc, provides a simulation environment for the automotive and motorsport industries. It is used for the development and testing of autonomous vehicles, ADAS, vehicle dynamics and human factor studies. rFpro’s automotive customers are the world’s largest car manufacturers, tier one suppliers and sensor developers. We enable them to simulate, test and validate new sensors, control systems and vehicle hardware systems. The top ten OEMs that were early adopters of rFpro technology have already launched road cars which started their development, not on a test track, but in a rFpro’s virtual environment.
In motorsport we are the market leader of professional driver-in-the-loop simulator software – our customers include past and present champions of every leading motorsport category. We maintain the largest library of digital circuit models (digital twins) including race circuits for F1, NASCAR, WEC, IMSA, Indy, Formula E, Super-GT and Australian V8 Supercars. rFpro’s vision is for every driving simulator experiment to be conducted using the rFpro engineering-focused simulation engine. On every driving simulator, local or cloud-based, rFpro will form a fundamental part of vehicle development.
Press Contact
Richard Doherty at Automotive Technology PR
+44 (0)7814 961855
Richard.doherty@autotechpr.com
