The First Formula One F1 Monaco Grand Prix at the Miniatur Wunderland 2024

Published on May 4, 2024

Many enthusiasts of rail transport modelling and scale model cars have been waiting for it for a long time: On April 25, 2024, the new section of Monaco was opened at the Miniatur Wunderland, the world’s largest model railway exhibition in Hamburg, Germany. The new miniature world on an area of 70 square meters was officially opened in the presence of Prince Albert II, Princess Charlène and their twins Prince Jaques and Princess Gabriella. Apart from the landscape, the marina and the beautiful houses of Monaco-Ville, the Formula One F1 race track in 1/87 scale is an absolute speciality and a real world first!

Formula One, commonly known as “Formula 1” or “F1”, is the highest class of international racing sanctioned by the “Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile” (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world’s premier forms of racing since its inaugural running in 1950. The Monaco Grand Prix is a Formula One motor racing event held annually on the Circuit de Monaco. It is widely considered to be one of the most important and prestigious automobile races in the world. The race is held on a narrow course laid out in the streets of Monaco, with many elevation changes and tight corners as well as the tunnel, making it one of the most demanding circuits in Formula One. In spite of the relatively low average speeds, the Monaco circuit is a dangerous place to race due to how narrow the track is, and the race often involves the intervention of a safety car.

Therefore, it was a particular challenge to build a model layout of this world-famous car race. In contrast to conventional scale model cars on model railroad layouts, the racing cars are controlled by an innovative drive system based on magnetic induction. This technology makes it possible for the miniature vehicles to drive truly autonomously and to influence each other. This means that every miniature car race has very different sequences and is truly unique.

The technical development of the car race took a total of eleven years! The main elements of this technology are so-called Halbach arrays. The racing track is 22 metres long and contains 24 track panels, 90 control panels and 90 positioning panels. Electronically generated magnetic fields on that panels let the race cars move in fractions of a millisecond. Furthermore, over 100,000 lines of programming code were required to develop the software. There are more than 39,000 meters of cable, about 5,700 hall sensors and at least 2,800 temperature sensors underneath the system.

In addition, a camera system was installed to film the race of the miniature vehicles directly from the race track. Similar to real television broadcasts, small micro-sized cameras are used to transmit a video stream to large screens installed in the model railway exhibition hall. These micro-sized cameras - adapted from Raspberry Pi Camera Modules - have been invisibly installed along the race track (e.g. behind the windows of houses or in ambulances parked along the track).

The team of Miniatur Wunderland saved the video data from each micro-sized camera and made it available to Pilentum Television for this video. Because the Raspberry Pi Camera Modules do not use autofocus, some video images are blurred. The cameras will therefore need to be correctly adjusted in future to improve the image quality. But note, this video footage are - as written in the video title - recordings of the first official race.

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Image and video footage by courtesy of Miniatur Wunderland

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