Member Stories
Cool Performance

Tucked away inside The Old Church School in Frome, Cool Performance is quietly shaping the future of motorsport training. Founded by ex-Formula drivers Adrian Quaife-Hobbs and Oliver Norris (brother of McLaren’s Lando Norris), the company builds some of the most advanced racing simulators in the world – the same kind used by top-flight drivers to stay sharp between races.

We caught up with Oliver and Joel Somerville (CMO) to learn how it all started, what goes into building a truly lifelike simulator, and what’s next for the company.

Let’s start with the basics – what is Cool Performance, and how did it all begin?


Cool Performance was founded with the goal of making the most realistic home racing simulators possible. We build systems for professional drivers and passionate racers who want a true-to-life experience they can use for serious training or just for fun at home.

What first sparked your interest in racing simulation, were you drivers yourselves, engineers, or something else entirely?

Cool Performance was started by ex-formula drivers Adrian Quaife-Hobbs and Oliver Norris, brother of McLaren driver Lando Norris. They noticed during their racing careers that there was a lack of accessible home training equipment available and a huge barrier to entry with expensive track days that only provided very limited amount of track time. An idea came to create professional racing simulators to help drivers train to make it more accessible for the road to becoming an F1 driver and reach the highest levels of motorsport.

You’ve worked with some impressive names in motorsport, can you share a highlight or two from that journey?




We’ve made well over a thousand simulators, with hundreds of those being professional drivers from F4, F3, F2, and up to F1 level. One of the first Cool Performance simulators was built for McLaren driver, Lando Norris, to assist him on his journey to F1. Lando still uses his simulator to this day as a training tool to keep him sharp between races and to use during the off season. We work with many more emerging drivers that are on the journey now to race at some of the highest levels of motorsport.


What goes into building one of your simulators?



We design, develop, and build all of our simulators in the UK, in our workshop in Sevenoaks, Kent. Every sim is hand built by our team and hundreds of hours go into creating each one, from machining the aluminium chassis panels, to custom powder coat paintwork and assembly. Once fully built, it’s essential that all the software is configured accurately to the custom hardware components. It’s a lengthy process, but this is the core element that makes the simulators drive so accurately. Once set-up, the simulators get delivered and installed to the client and they receive full training from our team on how to easily get on-track.


How close does the experience come to driving a real car on-track?



In terms of driving feel and feedback – extremely close. Everything from the steering weight, braking, throttle response, and seating position can be modelled to replicate the dynamics of a real race car or high-performance road car. Our simulators are paired with industry-leading racing software that accurately models every car and circuit, taking into account – tyre wear, fuel load, weather, and track surface conditions to create an experience that mirrors real-world racing.

That said, certain physical sensations such as g-force, vibration, and body movement can’t yet be replicated with complete accuracy. While motion systems exist to simulate these effects, they often deliver exaggerated or misleading feedback. For that reason, in the pursuit of pure realism, we typically avoid using them on our simulators.

What’s a typical day like for the team here in Frome?



This varies from speaking with new potential clients, to planning and delivering new simulator events, and developing our product line and offering further. There are always times where we need to jump on the office simulator to provide live expertise to customers or run them through options and setups. We may also find ourselves having a drive on it ourselves from time to time to take some much needed down time. 


Why did you choose The Old Church School as your home base, and how does the space fit what you do?



We searched for several co-working options around the local Somerset area, The Old Church School not only offered this, but also the option to take on a studio as the company grows. After several months using the large co-working space here, we have now taken on a studio as our main headquarters where we can operate the main operation from.
Having the flexibility to grow and expand here has been a huge benefit for the company and allows us to scale further in the future.


What do you think is next for Cool Performance, any new tech or projects on the horizon?



With a huge growing market in America, we have more customers from the states and expect this to continue growing over the next few years. There are some exciting new driver collaborations coming next year as well as constant developments of our product line to ensure we are continually improving and offering the best products available in the market.


And finally, if you could jump into one of your simulators right now, what track would you choose, and why?



It would have to be Brands Hatch as our first choice. The track is based only 30 minutes away from our workshop, and is the first track we jump on when we give a new simulator a shakedown drive. Its build-up of corners and elevation changes make it a super exciting, yet challenging, track to master.