Claude Rouelle is a high performance and race car designer, research and development engineer with 30 years of experience in design, test and racecar engineering in Europe, Japan and USA.
Claude earned his masters degree in industrial engineering from the Institute Gramme, Belgium in 1978. His thesis, for which he got the highest distinction possible, was about the design and construction of a formula car and its test in a wind tunnel.
A few months after graduation, Claude decided to put his theories to the test. He created his own company designing, testing, building and selling Formula Fords. During five years, he gained hands-on experience in racecar design, construction techniques and in the research and development of car handling.
From 1983 to 1987, he worked as a race engineer for Volvo, Toyota and Alfa Romeo in the European Touring Car Championship and the European Rally Championship.
Claude then worked for 2 years for the French Formula 3 team Oreca winning two titles and 15 races out of a possible 24 races.
He served as the development engineer for the AGS Formula One team in 1991.
For the next two years he was Reynard racing cars' technical representative in Japan and also worked as a technical adviser for Apomatox Formula 3000 team. In 1993 Claude moved to the IndyLite series finishing second in the championship and winning the title in 1996. Claude then moved up to CART for the 1994 and 1995 seasons.
During his career, Claude worked as a race engineer, a technical adviser and manager on dozens of circuits and rallies with several drivers and different cars from open wheeled F1 and CART cars to Touring Cars, and from endurance cars to sprint cars.
In 1997, he created OptimumG, a consulting company that also teaches race car engineering and data acquisition to individuals and small groups through seminars organized worldwide by MoTeC, a world leader in data acquisition systems. Claude also puts on seminars for companies like Ford, GM, Daimler Chrysler, Goodyear, Michelin, AP Racing, Dynamics, and several high performance and race car component manufacturers.
He is a frequent lecturer at the Ecole Supérieure des Techniques Aéronautiques et de Constructions Automobiles in Paris, France and the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. As a mentor of several students in Europe and United States he has supervised several theses related to suspension kinematics, aerodynamics, tire traction and simulation.
In parallel with his on track activities, Claude has always believed in understanding the "why", the "how" and the "how much" of racecar performance, not just the "what".
Credentials:
Master Engineering Degree
Institute Gramme,
Liege, Belgium
25 years of race engineering experience in F-1, CART, Indy Lites, Formula 3, ALMS, NASCAR, European & Japanese Touring Cars & Australian V8 Supercars
Acclaimed International teacher: Racecar Dynamics & Data Acquisition Seminar supported by MoTeC, conducted over 200 seminars, thousands of satisfied attendees
Dozens of in-house engineering seminars for major corporations engaged in motorsports.