Dynisma builds the motion-based driver-in-the-loop simulators ECR will bring in-house. Image: INDYCAR
Ed Carpenter Racing is spending what INDYCAR calls “significant” money, figure undisclosed, on a machine whose best work is aimed at a car that will not race until 2028. That is either a strange timetable or a very good one. I think it is the second, and the reason has less to do with gadgets than with the scarcest thing in a race team’s week: track time.
On November 3, INDYCAR announced that ECR will bring Dynisma’s DMG-1 driver-in-the-loop simulator into its Indianapolis operation, with delivery scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. ECR is the first NTT INDYCAR SERIES team to use the DMG-1, and the announcement describes it as Dynisma’s first series partner. Treat “arms race” as a forecast, not a fact: nothing in the announcement says a rival is chasing one. What it does give us is a head start, and head starts are worth reading carefully.
What the DMG-1 is, and why the numbers matter
Dynisma is a UK simulator company, and the figures attached to ECR’s unit are motion latency under 5 milliseconds and primary motion bandwidth above 50 Hz. In plain terms, latency is how long the rig takes to turn the car model’s output into something the driver feels, and bandwidth is how much fine detail survives that trip. A rear end that steps out at the limit, or a kerb strike, is a quick, sharp event. A slow rig smooths it into mush, and a driver cannot learn balance from mush. Dynisma’s own launch material, which is a company claim rather than independent testing, says its direct-drive design strips out friction and backlash and cues motion in ways conventional platforms cannot.
The stated uses read like a to-do list for a team preparing for a new car: setup and dynamics work, driver familiarization, tire and balance optimization, race-scenario rehearsal, engineering correlation, and development of future vehicle models.
The IR-28 is the real reason to buy now
The Dallara IR-28 debuts at the start of the 2028 season with a lighter chassis, a revised aerodynamic concept and a next-generation powertrain. Ed Carpenter said ECR spent more than a year exploring an in-house simulator, and that a visit to Dynisma made it “the obvious choice” ahead of the new car. Delivery in early 2027 means ECR gets a full season of reps before the IR-28 arrives, plus a full season to learn where its simulator lies to it on the current car, which is the cheapest time to find out.
Alexander Rossi, who drives for ECR and serves as Chevrolet’s driver representative, has driven every IR-28 test so far, and he praised the DMG-1’s responsiveness and feedback for understanding car balance. A simulator is only as honest as the data behind it. A driver who has felt the real prototype and can say “the rig now matches” is how a team trusts its model. That is my reading, not something the announcement states, and it leaves a question ECR has not answered: what IR-28 data does a team in this position actually get access to, and when?
Who gains, who carries the risk
ECR gains rehearsal time that does not depend on weather, a track schedule or tires, and the release pitches exactly that for ovals, street courses and road courses when physical testing time is limited. The risk is the usual one: a simulator that is fast, vivid and wrong. Tire and aero models decide whether a setup change in Indianapolis translates to a real car at a real track, and no motion platform can fix a model that is off. The price tag is also hidden, so we cannot judge the return.
The pressure lands on everyone else’s calendar. Teams that wait will learn the IR-28 on the same limited track days, and the gap between a team with rehearsal and one without tends to show up first in preparation for drivers who lack experience. That includes teams rebuilding lineups, such as AJ Foyt Racing, which just signed a 20-year-old with no IndyCar starts. It is also the opposite kind of spend from a front-wing sponsorship that fans can see every Sunday: nobody will ever read a simulator’s name on a livery, yet it may do more for lap time.
What to watch
First, whether the unit arrives on schedule in the first quarter of 2027, with a season on the revised 2027 calendar still to run. Second, whether ECR starts talking about correlation, meaning how closely the rig matches what Rossi feels in real IR-28 testing. Third, whether any other team announces similar hardware. If one does, the arms-race talk earns its place. Until then, this is one team spending early on the one thing it cannot buy more of: time on track.
Sim hours or real track days: which gets a team to the front of the first IR-28 race?
Lead image: Rendered lineup of Dynisma driving simulators. Image: INDYCAR
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