The Rodin Motorsport upgrades aimed at delivering performance across the board

With drivers pushing to the limit on track, teams finding new ways to make a difference off it is becoming more and more crucial in pursuit of victory.

FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 teams are of course limited in that the series runs the same specification car, from the internals to the bodywork covering it and the tyres provided by Pirelli and fuels from Aramco.

Rodin Motorsport have elected to invest within and have recently opened their new Driver Performance Centre near their UK headquarters, aimed at delivering improvements in the minute details.

Sporting Director Benn Huntingford explains what’s new and how it all works.

“We’ve invested in a full motion simulator from Dynisma. With the physical size of the simulator alone, we’ve built a new facility, primarily around the sim but also incorporating extra facilities to fully support a driver’s development path required to succeed in single-seaters.”

“We also have five static simulators set up with live data telemetry in a purpose-built room, a gym with a sauna and everything else the drivers need to work on their performance outside the car.”

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How it came together

The investment in the new facility has been a long time in the making. Rodin put the wheels into motion well over a year ago and are optimising their new equipment in the early phase of this year.

“It’s quite a substantial investment,” Huntingford explained. “We ordered the simulator a year ago, as the production lead time for a motion sim can take up to 12 months before it arrives and is set up.”

“Then in terms of the facility, that had to come together quite quickly once we had the delivery date for the simulator.

“We had to prepare the building and build all the infrastructure that needs to be in place ready for the sim. So, we've been working on it properly for the last year.”

Data from the 2025 post-season test in Abu Dhabi as well as the initial rounds of 2026 will be important for improving the accuracy of the team’s new equipment.

The Rodin Sporting Director believes the benefits it will bring will prove crucial across an entire season.

“We came online initially with the full motion sim in October, before an extensive period of development where we worked on the vehicle models, the dynamics and correlating everything with the real car.”

“There's a lot of work we can do in terms of bringing the car model on and getting up to speed and then utilising our F3 and F2 drivers’ feedback and the experience of being in our car at the track has also been crucial in making sure we extract the potential out of their pre-event preparation.”

The biggest changes

The simulator will bring performance, not just in terms of familiarity of circuits for drivers, but with the accuracy in which Rodin can analyse and prepare for rounds going forward.

From the motion physics and other sophisticated elements of the new sim to the other upgrades the team has made such as physical preparations taken in-house, Rodin expects to be able to use their new facilities to gain extra performance across the board.

“Having the motion makes it a lot more realistic, with more feedback for the driver with the movement and the bigger screens and the whole environment, so it just becomes a step closer to reality,” Huntingford continued.

“But also outside of the driving, Formula 2 and Formula 3 aren't just about being quick now, because everybody's quick. There are all the systems you need to learn, all the processes, the tyre warm-up, what you do with the brakes and the clutch.

“So it's the ability to be more accurate with all of that, as well as working alongside their engineers on those processes. That's a bigger part now of what the drivers need to take on and learn compared to in the past.

“It's quite new for us, but we believe a junior team needs to be looking after all these things in-house. Everything from the driver's fitness - we've got a full-time human performance coach that looks after the drivers, benchmarks where they're at with their physical performance along with VO2 max testing, nutrition, understanding jetlag, the whole package.

“Having all that information available and focusing on what we can do with the drivers feels like a real step forward.”

How it can help the team in 2026

With the level of competition constantly growing, every detail that teams can eke out over their rivals is more and more important.

Huntingford believes that the increased level of detail the team can go into with the new facilities will make the difference, especially as they look to make those final few thousandths count even more.

“There's always been quick drivers, and it's always been about small margins, but I think more and more now we're seeing we can go to a circuit and we see the grid separated by less and less. The margins just get smaller and smaller.

“All the teams are good, all the drivers are good and finding that little advantage seems to get a little bit harder each year.

“So with the new sim, something that we can do is train the drivers to be more adaptable. For example, when there's changes when we get to a circuit and the grip feels a bit different to what we're expecting, we can pre-empt all of that with the driver.

“We can work through those different scenarios so that we're a little bit more prepared when we arrive at the circuit to cope with different situations.

“The level in F2 and F3 is constantly rising, other teams have got strong facilities as well so it's just a case of making sure that what we can offer is as competitive as everyone else and executed to the highest standard.”