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This Week in Startups · Saturday, June 27, 2026

Startup Skin Systems Revolutionizes F1 Aerodynamics with Sensor Tape

Lyle Davenport of Skin Systems discussed how his company is changing aerodynamics testing for motorsports. Instead of relying solely on traditional wind tunnels, Skin Systems uses tape embedded with sensors to collect real-world data on cars while they are on the track.

personLyle DavenportcompanySkin Systems

The tape

3 quotes
You think of, you know, you always see images of cars in the wind tunnel and they're monitoring with all these sensors. This company is like, we've got a better way. Check out the tape. You don't need a wind tunnel anymore.
Jason Calacanis
So, um, that's where we've got to. We've spent about two years building, uh, the hardware to get to the point where we are today.
Lyle Davenport
We can have up to 100 sensors on the vehicle at a time. So, um, between the data that we're generating off the tape and the metadata that we're collecting in terms of GPS and IMU data, so where the car is and how it is interacting pitch roll your acceleration.
Lyle Davenport
Heard on This Week in Startups — “Why F1 Teams are Replacing Wind Tunnels with Smart Tape | E2305, published Saturday, June 27, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.08
Startup Skin Systems Revolutionizes F1 Aerodynamics with Sensor Tape — Heardvine