Previous Senior Thesis Project

In Term two of Year 11 (2024), I started working on my first Senior Thesis Project (STP), "How do race teams seek to improve car and driver performance?"

I worked at this for around a year, before changing to my final STP looking into aerodynamics, CAD and CFD which you can access here.

For this project, I investigated several areas of a race team:

Data Analysis
Vehicle Dynamics
Driver Performance
Operations of a Race Team

Driver Performance

Through my project, I worked closely with Trakwell Racing's driver, Angus, to improve his driving via data and onboard camera footage analysis. I also worked with Angus to improve his driver nutrion and psychology.

Copy of Driver Performance Analysis Angus Baills Test Day QR 23_2_25.pdf

Copy of ANGUS Driver Feedback Report Test Days Jan_Feb 2025.pdf

Data Analysis

I learnt a lot about data analysis, particularly through MoTeC i2. Below are some documents where I report on my findings.

Copy of Driver Feedback Report- Roy and Bayley Hall, QR Test Day Feb 2025 21/2/25

Copy of MoTeC data analysis Phillip Island T&A LEITHHEAD

Vehicle Dynamics

I performed a lot of research on many areas across the topic of vehicle dynamics, which I then tried to implement via set-up changes and advice at Trakwell Racing.

Operations of a Race Team

Final version of the Set-Up Sheet that we decided on.

I created both in-depth and small versions, as at one point through we were planning on having multiple race's data on one page, but we ended up deciding on the in-depth version. The whole process took a while as there was much liaising between myself and Craig, but the end product is very good. I am very happy with how it turned out, I think that it looks very professional and I don't believe there's another Set-Up Sheet out there that looks quite like ours.

V2 FINAL SET-UP RECORD SHEET IN DEPTH, EXCELS CRAIG AND ANGUS (+ NOTE PAGE).pdf

As part of my previous Senior Thesis Project, I worked with Craig to create a Set-Up Sheet for the team to accurately keep track of data recorded from sessions on track.

I initially started by basing my versions loosely on what I have used previously at MARC Cars, but I found that these didn't go into much detail about what I wanted from my own sheet. I looked at some other ones from across the internet, but they weren't what I wanted either, so I decided on starting my own from scratch.

I created it using google sheets, and then converted it to google docs. I also made a pre-race checklist for the team for all tasks that need to be completed before races.

Craig has turned my sheets into a book, and we are exploring the opportunity of selling copies online.

Final version of the Pre-Race Checklist that we decided on.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse