As promised, here’s the short info about Red Bull’s simulator.
The Main man behind the simulator is Andy Damerum.
The cockpit is from the original Red Bull RB1 of 2005, yet it is programmed with the aerodynamics and engine specification of the current car.
Pedals and driving position are exactly the same, steering wheel works in full, all buttons, and is exact copy of the one that gets used on race weekend.
This cockpit is on top of a platform, which is mounted over six hydraulic “legs” - they are somewhat high, so the driver is almost 2 meters above the ground. Roll, pitch and yaw are there, as you can imagine - people with motion sickness better stay out
Since peripheral vision is weak with us, humans, compared to animals, we need more time and resources to identify the surrounding objects, thus, the simulator wants to try to emulate the environment closely and stimulate the brain’ Occipital lobe, which is mainly responsible for processing vision. Hence, there’s a single 180 degree vision screen to match the moving pictures of the track and objects that you leave behind.
Short note about senses stimulation: a while ago Williams F1 team had a technical partner, Qinetiq, who has done a research on how the nerve endings are sending info to the Cerebellum (smaller region in the lower part of the brain) about perceptions of yaw, pitch and roll. The research claims that if stimulated at early age, these perceptions are being developed much faster than at later age. Sorry for the medical distraction, I strongly believe, however, that physics and human body, most notably including the brain, are one of the most important aspects of the beloved sport.
Back on the simulator, any type of setting and parameters that can be altered during the race, such as angle of attack, toe-out, suspension, etc, can be changed in the simulator, too.
Something which is usually not changed is the grip levels, as they will produce different feeling for the driver, hence the grip is usually a constant parameter.
The engine sound is, well, fake, but certainly the sounds match the sound frequency of the gears. Feedback through the steering wheel is definitely there.
New tracks are added first via raw data, then video footage to polish the sharp edges, then input and potentially real data from car tested over there.
Andy Damerum or other team personnel is monitoring the live data: the same parameters are available there, as on the track, even named the same for full match: pDiff, nEngine, NGear, rThrottlePedal, MDiffDemand, etc.