I'm Felipe Vasquez.
I'm a vehicle dynamics researcher, university professor, and racing driver. I've spent the last 14 years making cars and motorcycles go faster. I have a PhD from the University of Southampton in motorcycle dynamics, where my research used real data from KTM. I currently collaborate with Kawasaki and Osaka University on active research, and I've published in a top academic journal and presented at international conferences.
I raced touring cars for three seasons, finishing 5th in the annual championship as a driver, and I won the motocross championship in my category in 2025. At the university I built a racing team from scratch with students, where we bought a car, prepared it, and competed for three years. I've also completed OptimumG's Applied Vehicle Dynamics seminar.
Why I'm here
As I was learning to drive in 2005, I became increasingly interested in how to make a car go faster. I studied mechanical engineering with the clear goal of building a career in racing cars and motorcycles. After graduation I began applying for a scholarship to study motorcycle dynamics abroad, and was rejected twice. In the meantime I started a suspension tuning business for race bikes, taught part-time at the university, and wrote a master's thesis on damping nonlinearities in off-road motorcycles. All while turning down doctoral offers in other topics. It was racing or nothing.
When I finally got the scholarship in 2016 I left for Southampton, where I spent four years studying how to optimise off-road motorcycle suspensions. The same scholarship required me to return to Chile afterward, so I came back in 2021 and took a position at my home university, where I created a vehicle dynamics course, built the racing team, and kept doing research. Now that obligation is complete, and I teach online because after almost ten years I know it's something I do well. Every year I remove what creates confusion, keep what builds understanding, and get better at finding the questions that crack into a student's previous thinking. These courses let me do that from anywhere, and reach anyone who needs it.
I know what it feels like to not know where to start.
When I began studying vehicle dynamics seriously, my biggest problem was not knowing what to study or in what order. I was convinced the real knowledge was locked away in industry secrets. I started with nonlinear dynamics before understanding the linear fundamentals, and because of that nothing fully made sense for a long time. What I needed was someone telling me to relax, study this and this first, that's the foundation everything else builds on. Nobody did, so I figured it out on my own.
That experience is what shaped these courses. I focus on the physical idea behind the equations rather than the algebra, because that is what makes understanding deep and lasting. Phenomena first, in the right order, so you actually build something instead of just accumulating information.
Check course 1:
Course 1