Hans B. Pacejka

They were named the "Magic Formula" because there is no particular physical basis for the structure of the equations chosen, but they fit a wide variety of tire constructions and operating conditions.

[5] The Pacejka tire models are widely used in professional vehicle dynamics simulations, and racing car games, as they are reasonably accurate, easy to program, and solve quickly.

A problem with Pacejka's model is that when implemented into computer code, it doesn't work for low speeds (from around the pit-entry speed), because a velocity term in the denominator makes the formula diverge.

The general form of the Magic Formula, given by Pacejka, is:[8] where B, C, D and E represent fitting constants and y is a force or moment resulting from a slip parameter x.

At the time of the founding of the journal, Pacejka had been an associate professor at Delft University, specializing in vehicle dynamics.