Bio
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs is a former racing driver and former F1 test driver who now engineers and designs the Cool Performance racing simulators. Born in Kent in 1991, he raced for over a decade, from karting all the way to GP2, winning the 2012 Auto GP World Series title and racing GT3 cars for McLaren.
Together with founder Oliver Norris, Adrian builds and tests the simulators used by professional drivers including Carlos Sainz Lando Norris, Kimi Antonelli and hundreds of other professional drivers and thousands of enthusiasts. Adrian brings a racing driver's feel for car dynamics to every simulator that leaves the workshop, from its design concept, to testing and production.
Cool Performance Head of Simulator Development and Manufacturing
As Head of Simulator Development and Manufacturing, Adrian is responsible for engineering and designing the Cool Performance simulator range, from the Formula Pro to the GT Pro. Every simulator is designed, hand-built and tested in-house at the Cool Performance workshop at Quaife Engineering in Kent.
Adrian comes from the Quaife Engineering family and is a director of R.T. Quaife Engineering Ltd. He combines that engineering background with his own experience of driving GP2, GP3 and GT3 cars to shape how each Cool Performance simulator feels to drive.
Adrian remains close to the Quaife Engineering business enabling him to utilise the forefront of motorsport engineering and testing into the Cool Performance simulator range.
The Quaife Engineering Connection
Quaife Engineering was founded in 1965 by Rod Quaife, who started out making close ratio five-speed gearkits for Norton and Triumph motorcycles in a small workshop near Penshurst in Kent. Today R.T. Quaife Engineering Ltd is based near Sevenoaks, Kent. It is best known for its ATB helical gear limited slip differential, introduced in the 1980s and chosen by manufacturers including Ford, General Motors and Lotus. It also makes sequential and synchromesh gearboxes and gearkits for motorsport and fast road use.
Adrian is a director, and the business is still run by the Quaife family. The Cool Performance workshop is at Quaife Engineering in Kent, so every simulator is designed and hand-built alongside more than sixty years of British drivetrain engineering.
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Racing Career
Adrian started karting at 11 and moved into cars at 14. In 2005 he won the T Cars Championship, becoming the youngest champion in the series' history, and in 2006 he received the British Racing Drivers' Club Rising Star Award.
He then climbed the single seater ladder through Formula BMW UK, Formula Renault 2.0 and the Formula 3 Euro Series, before two seasons in GP3 with Manor Racing, winning at Valencia in 2011. That season earned him a Formula One test with Marussia Virgin Racing.
In 2012 Adrian won the Auto GP World Series title with Super Nova, taking five wins and six pole positions and sealing the championship with two races to spare. He stepped up to GP2 in 2013, winning the sprint race at Monza, and raced a second GP2 season with Rapax in 2014.
In 2015 he moved into GT racing as a McLaren driver, racing the McLaren 650S GT3 in the Blancpain Endurance Series, including the Spa 24 Hours alongside Álvaro Parente and Bruno Senna, and winning the Silverstone 500 in the British GT Championship. In 2016 he raced in the GT3 Le Mans Cup with FFF Racing Team, scoring two podiums.
Founding Pro-Sim
Alongside his racing, Adrian built his own professional simulator business, Pro-Sim, building, selling and installing racing simulators. In 2017 he stepped back from racing to focus on it, installing simulators around the world and coaching drivers using telemetry analysis.
Pro-Sim also produces sequential and H pattern gear shifters built in conjunction with Quaife Engineering. Adrian brings that experience of building simulators for professional drivers and coaching them to his engineering work at Cool Performance.
At the Pro Sim facility, Adrian has coached thousands of drivers, including Lando Norris in his early days on the simulator that he designed and what was actually an earlier model of the Half F1 Car Simulator.
AS FEATURED IN
Pro-Sim Onboard At Spa
Jan 2015
Adrian drives a GT3 car around Spa Francorchamps on a Pro-Sim simulator, the business he founded before joining Cool Performance.
Driving The Virgin Racing F1 Car
May 2011
Adrian takes his first run in the Marussia Virgin Racing MVR-02 Formula One car, filmed by Virgin Racing.
Interview At Autosport International
Jan 2013
Fresh from winning the 2012 Auto GP title, Adrian talks to Henry Hope-Frost about his plans on the Autosport International stage.
Featured Articles
Voices From The Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup Paddock 4: Adrian Quaife Hobbs
Dailysportscar
Mar 2016
An Afternoon Of Coaching On A Pro Simulator Made Me A Better Driver
Car Throttle
Feb 2016
British GT: Silverstone 500, GT3 Race Report, Quaife-Hobbs & Vannelet Win
Dailysportscar
May 2015
Press Enquiries
For press enquiries relating to Adrian Quaife-Hobbs and Cool Performance, please email info@coolperformance.com