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2020-01-0543 Published 14 Apr 2020
Optimizing Gear Ratio Selection for Lap
Performance
Robert Frederick Univ. of Alabama
Brandon Dixon University of Alabama
Citation: Frederick, R. and Dixon, B., “Optimizing Gear Ratio Selection for Lap Performance,” SAE Technical Paper 2020-01-0543, 2020,
doi:10.4271/2020-01-0543.
Abstract
S
electing the optimal gear ratios to determine the best
overall lap time for a racing vehicle is the goal of the
simulation presented in this paper. Given a discrete set
of individual gear ratio and final drive ratio options, the simu-
lation chooses the set of gears and final drive that produce the
minimum overall lap time. For example, one vehicle studied
in this paper, an F2000 formula car, has 32 ratio choices for
four forward gears and a final drive that has three different
options. The simulation will iterate through the gear options
to find the optimal gear selection for the best lap performance,
accounting for various factors that could cause improper
selection of gears. The simulation accounts for aerodynamic
factors, gear shift time, rolling resistance and tire scrub. All
values have been estimated from logged vehicle data, but
Introduction
I
mproving the lap time of a racing vehicle on circuit by
finding better gear ratios for the car/circuit combination
using recorded vehicle data as the simulation model is the
purpose of this paper. Given the recorded vehicle data, engine
torque and a few other parameters of the vehicle, performance
can be estimated using different gears than the gears currently
in the gearbox. With the set of options for the gears, the goal
is to find the best combination of gears that produces the
fastest lap. Using this optimization allows the ability to
estimate the performance of any vehicle without creating a
complicated vehicle model to simulate the car on track.
Recorded vehicle data reflects any aerodynamic and frictional
losses from the vehicle at any point on track and because this
simulation will not change the velocity at any point by a large
amount, it is not necessary to model these losses in
the simulation.
Lap Simulation Tool
Performance with different gear sets can be simulated using the
recorded vehicle data to estimate new vehicle speeds. Based on
the demonstrated performance, along with the current gear
experimental data can be easily used to help improve the
vehicle model. Two vehicles were used in this simulation to
compare the different types of racing and how that affects the
gear selection. The first vehicle is the F2000 racecar, also called
a Formula Continental. The F2000 car competes on a high-
speed racetrack where aerodynamic loads will have a large
effect. The second vehicle is a Formula SAE vehicle which
competes on a relatively slow autocross track where traction
will play a larger role and the aerodynamic effect will be lower.
Therefore, the main losses will be some type of frictional drag.
The selection of the optimal gear stack should show where the
optimal area to run the engine for each vehicle is located. The
optimal gear stack will also highlight the key areas where the
vehicle needs full power and where the trade-off is better to
not have full power.
ratios and engine torque the model, an estimate can be made
regarding the vehicle’s performance with different gear ratios.
Full throttle segments are the only part of the track that is opti-
mized, essentially separating the track into a collection of “drag
races” that are of varying length and begin at varying speeds.
If the sum of the segment times is reduced, then the optimal
gear set can be found at the fastest lap time. An assumption can
be made that non-full throttle segments can be ignored because
the driver is maximizing vehicle performance when less than
full power is needed, so if the driver has enough power, these
segments will remain the same performance.
Vehicle Models
Two different vehicles, an F2000 formula car and an FSAE
car, are used in this paper to both show the difference in how
gear ratios affect the two vehicles and show how the simulation
can be adapted easily to work with very different vehicles.
F2000 The F2000 car used in the paper is a Citation F2000
single seat formula car which utilizes a Ford 2.0L Zetec engine
and has wings for aerodynamic downforce. The gearbox for
this car is a Hewland LD-200 and has 4 forward speeds and
a selection of ratios are available for each gear. This car can
compete in the F2000 Championship series or SCCA club
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2 OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE
 FIGURE 1   The F2000 torque and power curves collected
on a chassis dynamometer.
© SAE International.
racing in the Formula Continental class. The F2000 car data
is from pole position qualifying laps in the F2000 pro series
at Road Atlanta, Virginia International Raceway, and New
Jersey Motorsports Park. These three tracks were selected for
their major differences in speed and downforce levels. The
F2000 power curve is relatively flat at the higher RPM but
drops significantly below 5500 rpm as shown in Figure 1. The
power curve is key to selecting the optimal gears.
Formula SAE The FSAE vehicle used in this paper was the
2019 car from The University of Alabama, which was named
CR19. The 2019 vehicle was used because it performed well in
the 2019 FSAE Michigan endurance event. The endurance
event is the most similar to a typically road race and is 37.5%
of the total competition score therefore an endurance lap is
used in this paper. CR19 uses the 2003-2005 Yamaha R6
engine and transmission. The transmission is the stock
sequential shifting gearbox. CR19 was the first year where the
car had a full aerodynamics package at competition. An aero-
dynamics package allowed the car to have longer straights due
the downforce at higher speeds. Because the FSAE car operates
at lower speeds, the effect of drag on the CR19 is very low in
comparison to the F2000 car.
Required Data
Only a few channels are needed from the data acquisition
system for the vehicle being tested. Recorded data channels
required are vehicle speed, throttle position and rpm. If the
gear position is available, then the rpm can be computed from
vehicle speed and gear position. A few data parameters for the
model are needed from the car as well: power or torque curve
from the engine, rear tire radius, gear ratios in the transmis-
sion, final drive ratio, and a set of options for the gear ratios
and final drive ratio. In both vehicles, data is retrieved from
MoTeC data logging equipment.
Finding Segments
Recorded data from the vehicle is used to break the circuit
into straight segments and non-straight segments. Straight
segments are defined as contiguous sections of the track where
the throttle is at 100% or close to 100%. The F2000 car has a
manual H-pattern gearbox, so there are slight throttle lifts
during upshifts. Throttle position for the purposes of
segmenting is calculated using a small sliding window so that
events like gear shifts do not break up a segment. Therefore,
if the throttle position is lowered for a short period of time,
around 0.1 seconds or less, then the throttle position is
assumed to be held at 100 percent. To confirm that this tech-
nique doesn’t affect the lap time of the simulation, the simula-
tion is run with the original gear set to verify the lap time
remains the same. The correction is handled in the longitu-
dinal acceleration of vehicle during those points. For each of
these straight segments, the simulation considers a different
set of gear ratios from the recorded data.
Calculations
A vehicle’s acceleration is proportional to the torque produced
from the engine and the gear ratio combination from the
engine to the wheels. Most modern race cars have a transmis-
sion gear stack with a final drive ratio, while some have one
or the other. This paper utilizes those facts to optimize the
gear selection of the vehicle. The simulation considers an alter-
nate set of gears for the vehicle and computes the change in
performance by calculating a new speed trace.
Calculating a New Speed Trace Given that the deriva-
tive of velocity is acceleration, the recorded speed data can
be used to calculate the acceleration at every point. The accel-
eration equation is shown in Equation 1,
dv
a= (1)
dt
where dv is the change in velocity between two data points
and dt is the change in time between two data points.
A new speed is calculated at every data point on the
straight using the torque available to accelerate the vehicle
with the new gears which will be estimated as shown below.
The Simple Approach The first approach was to model
a change in velocity as proportional to the ratios of the old
and new torque at the rear wheels as seen in Equation 2.
Gear Rationew t new
dv new = dv old * * (2)
Gear Ratioold t old
A large percentage of τold may be consumed by aerody-
namic drag, friction, and/or conversion to potential energy
which causes a problem with the simple approach. In fact, it
is possible for the vehicle to be decelerating even at full throttle
due to these effects.
The Improved Approach To improve the simple
approach, the loss of torque due to the drag and frictional
losses are estimated. The first step is to determine in the
recorded data how much of the available torque was used to
accelerate the car and how much torque was lost to aerody-
namic and frictional drag. Equation 3 shows the torque being
used to accelerate the vehicle,
t observed = Mass * Accelold * WheelRadius (3)
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OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE
where Mass is the mass of the vehicle, Accelold is the accel-
eration from the change in speed as in Equation 1, and τobserved
is the torque at the wheels creating the acceleration [2, 3].
Engine torque at that point in the data is computed from
the engine torque curve and the engine rpm and the engine
torque can be converted to wheel torque using Equation 4.
t engWheel = t engine * GearRatio * FinalDrive (4)
Equation 4 is used to compute τold, where τold is τengWheel,
which is the torque at the wheels with the original gear ratios
and speeds. Similarly, τnew is computed as the torque at the
rear wheels for the simulated gear ratios and speeds [2, 4].
Next, the torque lost to aerodynamic drag and friction, τlost ,
is computed as shown in Equation 5.
© SAE International.
t lost = t old - t observed (5)
Accelnew can be calculated using the τnew and τlost as shown
in Equation 6 [2, 4].
Accelnew =
(t new - t lost ) (6)
Mass * WheelRadius
Accelnew can now be  converted back to dv using the
Equation 1 which returns the new speed at each point on the
segment. Once every new point from the recorded data is
calculated, a new speed trace is created.
Improved Approach Benefits The two approaches can
be compared by looking at two generic cases that are common
in the tracks presented in this paper. Case 1 represents a small
τlost so the dv equals the expected dv if there were no losses.
If the car was accelerating at 1 G then if the torque is 100 lb-ft
and increased by 10% then the predicted acceleration would
increase by 10% to 1.1 Gs. In Case 2, the τlost is high compared
to τobserved. The car is still producing 100 lb-ft but only accel-
erating at 0.1 G. The torque is increased again by 10%, if the
acceleration increases by 10% then the car would only accel-
erate at 0.11 G whereas the torque available to accelerate the
vehicle doubled, so the estimated acceleration increase should
be 0.2 G with the available torque based calculation. This
change made small gains across the lap in areas where the
hills were so steep that the car barely accelerated or decelerated
up a hill.
Lap Time Calculation Lap time can be calculated for
the new gear set by calculating the time it would take to travel
the required distance in that sector. The new time to travel
between two points can be calculated using Equation 7,
Speedold * Timeold
Timenew = (7)
Speednew
where Speedold is the speed from the vehicle data, Timeold
is the time between points of the vehicle data, and Speednew is
the new calculated time. Timenew is then summed throughout
the lap to get the new lap time so that the new lap time can
be compared to the old lap time.
Gear Changes The simulation can compare two options
on when to shift gears, either at a single specified RPM for all
gears or at the optimal rpm for that gear change. If the power
curve of the engine is roughly convex, then the theoretical
3
 FIGURE 2   Torque versus vehicle speed is plotted to show
optimal shift points.
optimal shift point is when the power in the next gear is
greater than the power in the current gear. This is graphed
using torque versus speed in the selected gears as shown in
Figure 2.
At the point where the power is greater in the next gear
then the vehicle will accelerate faster if the gear was shifted [2].
Assumptions
Three major assumptions are made to keep the simulation
simple and effective which are the number of gear changes
does not change by more than one shift per straight and the
changes in aerodynamic drag and frictional losses due to the
changes in top speed are negligible.
Gear Shifts in the Data Loss in speed from the gear shift
points remain in the same spot on the track for all simulations.
If the number of shifts change drastically then this will cause
the lap time variance to have more error. Also, if the new gear
stack is considerably shorter than the lap time gain most likely
be overestimated because the car will accelerate earlier on the
straight and the gear shift will be represented later. This will
allow a small build up in speed until the shift point, but the
buildup is only a tenth of a second or less of acceleration for
less than a couple of seconds. When modified manually, lap
time difference is less than a hundredth of a second in these
simulations. The simulation can also underestimate on taller
gear stacks with the same logic that now the shifts are earlier
than expected. More supporting information is shown a later
section labeled Throttle Position Example.
Top Speed Change Affects A change in top speed can
have a significant impact on aerodynamic drag, but if the
vehicle is still accelerating at the old top velocity and the simu-
lated top velocity is within 1-2 mph, then the effects of change
in aerodynamic drag should be minimal. The speed delta is
shown in a later section labeled Speed Comparison Example.
This increase in speed will influence the aerodynamic
drag of the vehicle, but at F2000 speeds, the speed deltas indi-
cated in the simulation only indicate an increase of
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4 OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE

aerodynamic drag by 2-3 percent. Because of this, the simula-  FIGURE 4   A visual representation of the VIR track.
tion may slightly overestimate the possible gains at the higher
speeds and the speed deltas in Figure 8 should gradually
decrease toward the end of the straight.
It should be noted that some of the best gear sets for the
simulated tracks result in very slight decreases in top speeds
due to shorter top gears hitting maximum rpm.
Change in top speed at the end of a segment would also
cause the car to have to brake earlier than it did in the original

© SAE International.
data. This is not accounted for because the change in length
of the braking zone is so small. Gains in top speed are around
1-2 mph where this speed difference would increase the
braking zone by less than 10 feet, and amount to a couple of
hundredths of a second longer braking zone.

Tire Radius Assumption Due to the dynamic load on  FIGURE 5   The sectors from the simulation at the VIR track.
the tires, the tire radius is constantly changing therefore calcu- Darker green indicates full throttle.
lating the speed based on the current vehicle speed can
be inaccurate. To verify a dynamic tire radius is not needed
the measured rpm is compared to the actual rpm in Figure 3.
The measured rpm has a little noise but otherwise the
calculated rpm is within about 25 rpm therefore the there is
no reason to use a dynamic tire radius model to calculate
the rpm.

© SAE International.
Detailed Example of
Simulation
An example track will be shown to highlight how the simula-
tion works. In this example, Virginia International Raceway
will be used. A track map is shown in Figure 4.  FIGURE 6   Zoomed picture of straight 1 at VIR displaying
The red dot signifies the start finish line for VIR. Using longitudinal acceleration.
this simulation, the VIR track is split into three different
sectors as shown in Figure 5.
The third straight contains the start finish line, thus

requiring that the lap start be moved to the last turn to
accurately represent the increase in lap time on straight 3.
Figure 6 shows the acceleration of the vehicle on straight
1 and highlights the benefits of simulation.
A key point from Figure 6 is that the car accelerates out
of the corner well and then slightly slower down the straight.
 FIGURE 3   RPM comparison between measured rpm and
calculated rpm.
© SAE International.
© SAE International.
When the vehicle approaches the Esses, it gets close to a
constant speed. Reduction of speed is due to increased drag
and vehicle scrubbing speed during the turns. First loss of
acceleration can be reasonably modeled in a vehicle simulation
with decent accuracy from CFD and wind tunnel testing.
Although the second loss of acceleration is difficult to model
without significant tire data and even then, it is still hard to
model accurately. This simulation can combine these types of
losses together and better estimate the optimal gear
ratio quickly.
For example, the straight can be separated into hundreds
or thousands of segments that can be used to calculate the
new speed with the new gear ratio. In Figure 7 the red and
green line highlight two data collection points from the vehicle

data that can be used to calculate a new speed at that point

on track.
The green point is the current point that represents where
on track the new speed is being calculated and the red point
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OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE 5

 FIGURE 7   A zoomed picture of the Esses from Straight 1  FIGURE 9   Speed comparison zoomed into straight 1.
at VIR.
© SAE International.

© SAE International.
is the next point used to calculate the acceleration between
the two points to effectively calculate the new speed. These
The spike at the end of the straight is from the driver
calculations are based on the equations in the Creating a New
approaching the rev limiter on the engine therefore the simu-
Speed Trace section of the paper.
lation believes it can accelerate faster than possible. The simu-
lation shifts to the next which causes more torque to be deliv-
Speed Comparison Example ered. The error only lasts for the last tenth of a second which
does not affect the lap time.
The difference in speed between the collected data and the
simulated is small. At most places on the track it is less than
2 MPH, but this small gain builds up over time and decreases Throttle Position Example
the lap time significantly. Figure 8 shows the speed delta
To support not having a driver model for simulation, a throttle
between the collected data and the fastest lap simulated
position data trace is shown in Figure 10.
at VIR.
At VIR the F2000 car was above 90 percent throttle
Most of the speed gain happens in the first 2 seconds of
position for 75 percent of the time, and between 40 - 90 percent
acceleration out of the corners. In Figure 8 the acceleration
for only 4 percent of time, a significant portion of that is
looks almost instant but Figure 9 shows the acceleration is
shifting. It typically only takes less than 1  - 2 seconds of
gradual over the first 2 seconds. The improved acceleration is
throttle modulation for the throttle position to reach 90
created by a shorter gear that produces at most 16% more
percent or higher. Shift time is so short that moving the shift
torque. More torque would cause the combined Gs to increase
does not affect the simulation significantly. Three shifts happen
less than 1% during the possible traction limited areas that
on each long straight for less than 0.1 seconds each during a
only last around 0.2 seconds, even though the increase in
30 second straight, therefore the shift points affect 1 percent
acceleration lasts for almost 2 seconds. Therefore, there is an
of the acceleration. For these two reasons the simulation does
overestimation in acceleration that should be  less than
not need a driver model to accurately optimize the gear set.
0.25 mph and only experimental data will validate
this assumption.
Runtime and Parallel
 FIGURE 8   Speed comparison between the collected data Computing
and the optimal gear set.
The simulation is programmed from scratch using C. This
gives the greatest flexibility for controlling the computation

 FIGURE 10   Throttle position trace from VIR.

© SAE International.

© SAE International.
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6 OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE

and optimizing performance. The runtime for the data sets  FIGURE 11   The New Jersey Motorsports Park GPS
used in this paper are reasonable for a simulation time where track map.
more than 5000 options are attempted. The F2000 vehicle had
4 gears with 7 reasonable first gear options and 19 gear ratios
for 2nd through 4th. In general, the number of combinations
possible can be calculated using Equation 7,
n!
C= (7)
r !* ( n - r )!
where C is the number of combinations possible, n is the
number of options and r is the number of options in the
sub-set[1]. It should be noted that C will much smaller than
the n factorial that would occur if it made sense to place any

gear ratio in any position in the transmission. We limit the
combinations to those that have the gear ratios in
descending order.
In the case of the F2000 car the calculation is slightly
harder. It would be the combination of the gears from 2nd to
4th times the number of gear options in 1st. For the F2000 car
this provided 6,783 possible combinations and computed on
a laptop in about 18 seconds. The F2000 options calculation
varies from most because 1st gear is physically different than
the rest of the gears.
With a gearbox that contains the same gears and 20
options for each gear there are only 4,845 for a 4-speed
gearbox. The number of combinations grows quickly with the
number in the subset. For instance, an 8-speed gearbox with
20 different options for each gear is has 125,970 options. While
this is a large number it would still run on a laptop in less than
6 minutes.
It should be  noted that this simulation is such that a
parallel implementation would be straightforward. This simu-
lation would be considered a single instruction multiple data
set approach to parallel computing that can be closely scaled
to the number of processors. A GPU optimized version could
easily run the 8-speed gearbox on a GPU in a few seconds.
Lastly, this simulation also scales linearly to the number
of data points from the data. In example runtime, the lap time
was around 80 seconds with 100 points per second. The
runtime would scale based on an increase in points per second
or if the lap time was greater.
Simulation Results
The simulation results showed a wide array of different selec-
tions for each track that were sometimes close to the previ-
ously selected gear and sometimes further away. Many solu-
tions are provided to the user, including that the driver has
the choice of which gears to use.
© SAE International.
New Jersey Motorsports Park New Jersey Motorsports
Park was the first track tested with the F2000 car. GPS trace
of the track is shown in Figure 11.
New Jersey Motorsports Park is the track with the smallest
gains in lap time because the original gear selection was the
closest to the optimized result. Table 1 shows 5 of the fastest
gear options.
Top 15 gears selections can be found in the Appendix.
These gears are shown to show the range of optimal gears for
this simulation. The simulation shows that there are a range
of different ratios for each gear that could be combined to
obtain the fastest lap. In each case the simulation indicates a
full set of gears that can be combined to produce the results.
The F2000 car has enough gear options that every track
has quite a few options with basically the fastest time. This is
convenient because the driver can then select gears that work
well in practice, especially as it relates to shift points on
the track.
Road Atlanta Road Atlanta was the second track tested
with the F2000 car and the GPS trace is shown in Figure 12.
Road Atlanta is the track with the medium lap time
gained and the gear ratios are significantly different than those
from New Jersey. Table 2 shows five of the fastest gear sets
at Atlanta.
Top 15 gears selections can be found in the Appendix.
Road Atlanta also has a wide selection of gear sets that generate
TABLE 1  The optimal gear ratios for the F2000 at New Jersey
Motorsports Park.
Lap Time
Gain (sec) 1st Gear 2nd Gear 3rd Gear 4th Gear

F2000 Results Original

Selection
0.00 1.937 1.631 1.388 1.166

The simulation results from the F2000 data on the three 1st 0.17 2.000 1.706 1.471 1.263
© SAE International.

different tracks showed a lot of differences. New Jersey showed 2nd 0.17 2.000 1.706 1.471 1.283
the smallest gains around two tenths of a second faster and 3rd 0.17 2.059 1.706 1.471 1.263
VIR showed the greatest gains at more than three-quarters of 4 th
0.17 2.059 1.706 1.500 1.286
a second faster.
5th 0.17 2.059 1.778 1.500 1.286
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OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE 7

 FIGURE 12   The Road Atlanta GPS track map. TABLE 3  The optimal gear ratios for the F2000 car at VIR.

Lap Time
Gain (sec) 1st Gear 2nd Gear 3rd Gear 4th Gear
Original 0.00 1.875 1.556 1.316 1.19
Selection
1st 0.84 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.211

© SAE International.
2nd 0.84 2.125 1.778 1.500 1.238
© SAE International.

3 rd
0.83 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.238
4th 0.83 2.125 1.833 1.471 1.211
5th 0.83 2.125 1.833 1.500 1.238

Virginia International Raceway is the track with the best

lap time gain and that is because this track has three long
TABLE 2  The optimal gear ratios for the F2000 car at straights for the F2000 car where two of them start at the low
Road Atlanta. rpm of 1st and accelerate to the top of 4th. Table 3 shows the
Lap Time
resulting gear selections for VIR.
Gain (sec) 1st Gear 2nd Gear 3rd Gear 4th Gear Top 15 gears selections can be found in the Appendix.
Original 0.00 1.875 1.556 1.316 1.19
Gear selections for VIR are actually very similar to Road
Selection Atlanta. Gain in lap time is approaching a second, compared
1st 0.39 2.125 1.706 1.421 1.211 to the original gear set which is the highest increase in lap
time for the F2000 car. Large lap time gain is from the larger
© SAE International.

2nd 0.38 2.125 1.706 1.389 1.211

number of long straights starting from a low speed acceler-
3rd 0.38 2.125 1.706 1.471 1.238
ating to close the top speed.
4th 0.38 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.211
5 th
0.38 2.125 1.778 1.500 1.238 Conclusion for F2000 Tracks If all three tracks are
compared, all tracks preferred a lower gear than originally
selected, especially in the lower gears. There are a few things
close to the fastest time from the simulation. One key differ-
to note about this observation. Based on the lap time increases,
ence is that the Atlanta gear sets all have the lowest two gears
it appears the original gears selected for the F2000 car were
available as the first gear. It seems that the larger gains in
too tall in general. Also, there are two things that the simula-
Atlanta are from the original gears being too tall in 1st to 3rd
tion is not accounting for that could diminish some of the lap
gear whereas the 4th gear was approximately correct. Larger
time gains. First, shorter gear set will cause an overestimation
gain in time is mostly generated on the back straight where
of lap time gain, but this is limited to a few hundredths and
the car accelerates from the low end of the engine power in
should not be an issue with these large gains. Second, the simu-
1st at about 60 mph to 140 mph, hitting redline in the 4th gear.
lation is not accounting for wheel slip with the lower gears.
Gear change from the original 1st to the optimal 1st is the
Greater amount of wheel slip could cause issues with the driv-
difference in exiting the corner at 5000 rpm to 5400 rpm where
ability of the car, but it is unclear whether these ratios are too
the power would be 8% lower at 5000.
low until they are tested on the car. If the lower gears produce
too large a problem with wheel slip then the simulation can
Virginia International Raceway Virginia International
be run without the problematic gears in the selection set.
Raceway is the third track tested for the F2000 car and the
track map is shown in Figure 13.
FSAE Results
The FSAE car was tested slightly differently that the F2000 car,
 FIGURE 13   The Virginia International Raceway GPS instead of optimizing the gear ratios, the final drive was opti-
track map. mized. Changing the gears to a different ratio instead the stock
motorcycle transmission is difficult and expensive because the
gears must be custom made. The final drive is a lot easier to
change because the engine torque is supplied to the differential
using a chain so the sprocket sizes can be changed.

Michigan International Speedway 2019 The 2019

Michigan track was selected because the course had more
straights than the normal FSAE track which allowed for a
© SAE International.

better test. The track at MIS is shown in Figure 14.

There are a few initial concerns with trying to optimize
the gear ratios for the FSAE car in this way. First, the FSAE
tracks have very short straights which are usually less than
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8 OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE

 FIGURE 14   The FSAE Michigan track from the CR19 GPS braking zones for the increase in speed. While these are small
with the main straights marked. changes that would affect the simulation minimally, it would
make it more accurate. Another improvement would be paral-
lelizing the simulation to run on a GPU for a faster runtime
when a lot of gear options are needed or if the gearbox has
more gears in the gearbox.

Summary/Conclusions

© SAE International.
In conclusion the simulation shows significant lap improve-
ments. In the case of the F2000 car, these improvements are
with a vehicle that is already well optimized and performing
at a high level. The simulation has the ability to verify that the
chosen gear ratios are well optimized or indicate better options
TABLE 4  The optimal final drive ratios for the FSAE car in
for the ratios. Further testing and comparison to empirical
Michigan using the optimal shift strategy.
results will have to be performed to determine the extent that
Lap Time Gain (sec) Final Drive the simulation results can be achieved. All inaccuracies deter-
Original Selection 0.00 3.545 mined in the paper have been determined to be small and
1st 1.13 4.254 therefore should not affect the results of the empirical testing.
2nd
1.10 4.077
© SAE International.

3rd 1.07 4.432

4th 1.06 3.899 References
5th 0.97 4.609
7th 0.93 3.545 1. Epp, S.S., Discrete Mathematics with Applications Fourth
Edition (Cengage Learning, 2010).
5 seconds long. In general, the short straights limit the benefit 2. Jazar, R.N., Vehicle Dynamics (New York: Springer, 2008).
of this type of simulation but data in Table 4 indicates that lap 3. Mashadi, B. and Crolla, D., Vehicle Powertrain Systems (West
gains are larger than expected across the table. Results suggest Sussex, U.K.: Wiley, 2012).
this simulation can work well. 4. Milliken, W.F. and Milliken, D.L., Race Car Vehicle
Interestingly, the lap time gained using the original final Dynamics (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive
drive ratio was 0.93 seconds. Improvement is due to the Engineers, 1995).
optimal gear shifting strategy. If the simulation is run without
the optimal shifting, then the original final drive does not
improve. Based on this data the FSAE car would improve the Contact Information
most by using a better shift strategy. An underlying issue is
that the drivers usually avoid first gear because it produces Robert Cole Frederick
too much wheel spin on occasion. Therefore, this shows there 303 Helen Keller Blvd. Apt. C338
could be a large gain if an optimal traction control system or Tuscaloosa, AL 35404
a better differential was implemented.  rcfrederick@crimson.ua.edu
(205) 999-2347
Conclusion for FSAE Tracks Optimization for the
FSAE car highlights that the car would benefit heavily from
a better shifting strategy which would cause the team to imple- Acknowledgments
ment a traction control system or increase corner exit traction. Content in this paper was produced to benefit The University
While this was not the intent of simulation, it does highlight of Alabama’s Formula SAE team, Crimson Racing. We would
the weakness of the FSAE car. like to thank all the team’s supporters and sponsors because
without their support our growth as engineers would be much
more challenging.
Future Work
Next steps for this project are to experimentally validate the
Definitions/Abbreviations
results. Additional data will be gathered with both the F2000 CFD - Computational Fluid Dynamics
car and the FSAE car to test the validity of these simulations.
NJMP - New Jersey Motorsports Park
Another goal is to improve the accuracy of the simulation
through removing assumptions, such as devising a way to RA - Road Atlanta
move the shift locations in the speed data or by adding longer VIR - Virginia International Raceway
 Downloaded from SAE International by Brunel University, Wednesday, April 12, 2023

OPTIMIZING GEAR RATIO SELECTION FOR LAP PERFORMANCE 9

Appendix TABLE 7  Full table of results from the F2000 car at VIR.

Lap Time
TABLE 5  Full table of results from the F2000 car at NJMP.
Gain (sec) 1st Gear 2nd Gear 3rd Gear 4th Gear
Original 0 1.875 1.556 1.316 1.158
Lap Time Selection
Gain (sec) 1st Gear 2nd Gear 3rd Gear 4th Gear
1 0.84 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.211
Original 0 1.938 1.632 1.389 1.167
2 0.84 2.125 1.778 1.5 1.238
Selection
3 0.83 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.238
1 0.17 2.059 1.706 1.471 1.273
4 0.83 2.125 1.833 1.5 1.238
2 0.17 2.059 1.706 1.471 1.263
5 0.83 2.125 1.778 1.5 1.211
3 0.17 2.059 1.706 1.471 1.286
6 0.83 2.125 1.833 1.5 1.211
4 0.17 2 1.706 1.471 1.273
7 0.83 2.125 1.833 1.471 1.211
5 0.17 2 1.706 1.471 1.263
8 0.82 2.125 1.706 1.421 1.211
6 0.17 2 1.706 1.471 1.286
9 0.82 2.125 1.833 1.471 1.238
7 0.17 2.059 1.778 1.5 1.273
10 0.82 2.125 1.706 1.471 1.211
8 0.17 2.059 1.778 1.5 1.286
11 0.82 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.19
9 0.17 2.059 1.706 1.5 1.273

© SAE International.
12 0.81 2.125 1.706 1.471 1.238
10 0.17 2.059 1.778 1.471 1.273
13 0.81 2.125 1.778 1.421 1.211
11 0.17 2.059 1.706 1.5 1.286
14 0.81 2.125 1.706 1.421 1.19
© SAE International.

12 0.16 2.059 1.778 1.471 1.286

15 0.81 2.125 1.706 1.5 1.238
13 0.16 2.059 1.706 1.471 1.238
14 0.16 2.059 1.778 1.471 1.263
15 0.16 2 1.706 1.5 1.273

TABLE 6  Full table of results from the F2000 car at RA.

Lap Time
Gain (sec) 1st Gear 2nd Gear 3rd Gear 4th Gear
Original 0.00 1.875 1.556 1.316 1.190
Selection
1 0.39 2.125 1.706 1.421 1.211
2 0.38 2.125 1.778 1.500 1.238
3 0.38 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.238
4 0.38 2.125 1.778 1.471 1.211
5 0.38 2.125 1.706 1.471 1.238
6 0.38 2.125 1.706 1.471 1.211
7 0.38 2.125 1.706 1.421 1.238
8 0.38 2.125 1.706 1.389 1.211
9 0.38 2.125 1.778 1.500 1.211
10 0.37 2.125 1.706 1.500 1.238
11 0.37 2.125 1.833 1.500 1.238
© SAE International.

12 0.37 2.125 1.706 1.421 1.190

13 0.37 2.125 1.778 1.421 1.211
14 0.37 2.059 1.706 1.421 1.211
15 0.37 2.125 1.706 1.389 1.190

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