As racing disciplines evolve under cost caps, regulations shift, and competition remains relentless, digital precision engineering is no longer a backroom advantage; it is now the frontline of performance.
At first glance, Formula One, NASCAR and endurance sports car racing could not appear more different. But behind the trackside drama lies a shared engineering mindset. Whether the challenge is completing a 24-hour endurance race or threading the narrow streets of Monaco, elite motorsport now lives and dies by its ability to measure, simulate and replicate, repeatedly and without fail.
Morgan Maia, Technical Director at Red Bull Racing, captures the complexity of modern Formula One in blunt terms. “We never have the car in front of us,” he explains. “We manufacture a part on Thursday evening, ship it during the night, and use it in Free Practice 1 in front of millions of people the next morning. There is no room for rework or error. It must be perfect.” The days of testing for weeks before a race are long gone. In their place is a compressed cycle of design, manufacture and validation, all carried out under the financial constraints of a $150 million cost cap.
That constraint, while intended to level the playing field, has become its own arms race. Red Bull now cycles through an estimated thousand upgrades per car per season. “Almost every race, the car is different,” says Maia. “We change the parts, the setup, the angle of the front wing, the suspension, the tools. With Hexagon, we can be confident those upgrades integrate precisely with the 8,000 other parts on the car, with tolerances measured in microns.”
The digital twin becomes physical
But precision is not just about building something once. It is about doing it again and again under pressure. For John Church, Managing Partner at JDC Miller Motorsports, repeatability defines endurance racing. “We may go through multiple body parts in a single weekend,” he says. “It is essential that each one fits exactly the same. That way, when we change a nose or tail, the drivers and engineers can trust they are still working with the same car.”
Church’s team competes in IMSA’s WeatherTech series with a Porsche 963 hybrid. In this complex machine, every component, including hybrid systems, bodywork, and chassis, must not only meet specifications but also deliver stable aero and mechanical performance over hours of racing. “We overlay our scans with the IMSA datums to make sure we are inside the three-millimetre legal tolerance before the car even leaves the shop,” he explains. “That means fewer surprises at the track, and it makes setup day a lot calmer.”
Despite the apparently looser tolerances in IMSA compared with Formula One, the mindset is similar. “Three millimetres sounds generous,” says Church. “But we are aiming for 2.999 millimetres. You want to be right on the edge, legally.”
And that edge must be maintained through collisions, rebuilds and rapid changeovers. “Everything is precise until you start hitting things,” Church continues. “But the second you do, you need a known-good baseline to return to. The technology allows us to reassemble with absolute confidence. There is no guesswork.”
Reverse engineering performance
In NASCAR, the engineering puzzle is further complicated by a regulatory shift that has disrupted traditional workflows. “We used to manufacture 80 per cent of the car ourselves,” says Alba Colon, Director of Technical Partnerships at Hendrick Motorsports. “Now we only design 20 per cent. The rest we buy from vendors. That means measurement is even more important. Every part is scanned and validated before it enters our shop.”
This shift has had unexpected consequences. Where once engineers controlled the design process end-to-end, they are now part curators, part reverse engineers, and part puzzle solvers. “We do not even have the engineering drawings for some parts,” says Colon. “So we reverse engineer them, understand their tolerances, and decide how they can best be matched with other components.”
Measurement has, therefore, become a tool of discovery as much as verification. “It is like a chess game,” Colon continues. “We are mixing and matching suspensions, chassis and bodywork to find the best possible combination, and the equipment helps us model that performance in advance. We do not guess.”
And it does not stop at structural parts. “We measured 3,000 pistons last year,” says Colon. “That level of scrutiny is constant. You measure before the race, you measure during teardown, and you measure again before the parts are reused.”
Measurement is confidence
Beyond compliance and manufacturing, measurement has become a psychological tool. “Our drivers feel everything,” says Maia. “They will tell you what is wrong in mid-corner, on entry, on exit. They can feel a millimetre difference or a micron. So when you make setup changes, they need to trust it still feels the same. The accuracy of our measurement tools gives them that confidence.”
That trust loop extends from the driver to the simulator. At both Red Bull and Hendrick, simulation plays a vital role in weekend preparation. “We do not get a lot of time on track,” says Colon. “Only 25 minutes of practice. Therefore, we rely on simulation and feed real measurements back in to close the loop. If the driver comes back and says do not touch the car; we know the simulation and setup have aligned.”
At Red Bull, even this simulated feedback must translate with absolute precision to the track. “The tools allow us to align the real-world setup with our digital model,” says Maia. “It means when we change something on the car, we know exactly what the driver will feel, and we can validate their feedback against known values. If we go too far, we know how to come back.”
From tolerance to trust
Precision is not simply a race to smaller numbers. It is about building trust in process, people and technology. “If you miss inspection twice, you lose a team member or start at the back of the grid,” says Colon. “There is no time for uncertainty. So the entire car must be right before it leaves the shop.”
That verification begins before the race, continues through the weekend, and repeats after the car returns. “We scan immediately after the event to understand what changed,” says Church. “Damage is obvious, but we are also looking for hidden shifts, small deflections, loose tolerances, and performance drift. Everything is measured because everything adds up.”
It is not just about legality. It is about operational discipline. “You can only control what you can measure,” Church adds. “Racing is about reducing variables. If you have consistency in your parts, your setup, and your processes, you gain confidence. That makes the team stronger, and it shows on the track.”
Sustainable speed and human resilience
A new theme is emerging across the disciplines: the sustainability of human performance. “Thirty-eight weekends a year is brutal,” says Colon. “You are not just building cars. You are pushing people to their limits. So, the better the tools, the faster and more accurately we can work. That matters.”
It is a reminder that the transformation taking place in motorsport is not just digital; it is organisational. “You are building for speed, safety and repeatability,” she continues. “You need equipment that works every time because you are putting your driver’s life in that car. Measurement is not an engineering detail. It is a duty of care.”
The data, then, becomes a currency of trust. “We do not just rely on one expert or one line manager,” says Colon. “Everyone in the team needs to believe the data. If the scan says the part is good, it is good. That alignment saves time, reduces mistakes and protects the driver.”
Digital advantage, human control
Formula One, perhaps more than any other discipline, exemplifies the merger of digital and physical. Maia offers a case study: “In Canada, our FP1 performance was strong. But we believed there was more to find. So we re-scanned the car, changed the setup, and tested again. FP2 was too aggressive. FP3 gave us the balance. That precision, the ability to correlate digital simulation with real-world results, is what defines modern success.”
That loop of feedback, adaptation and verification is now so refined that even the regulators have changed their approach. “Red Bull was the first team to use Hexagon in F1,” says Maia. “It worked so well that the FIA adopted it too. Now, all teams use it, but we have maintained our advantage due to our deeper partnership. We help test new tools and understand how to use them to the edge.”
Ultimately, it is not about the tool. It is about how it is deployed. “You cannot change the rules of the game,” says Colon. “But you can change how you approach the problem. That is where the real transformation happens.”
Precision, then, is no longer a narrow discipline. It is the language through which high-performance teams communicate, iterate and improve. And in modern motorsport, that language must be spoken fluently, not just by the engineers but by everyone who touches the car.
