Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Racecar Engineering

Renault introduced turbocharging into F1 in the late 1970s and after initial struggles used the technology to win world championships. With that in mind it should perhaps come as no surprise that the French manufacturer was one of the main driving forces behind the introduction of the current Formula 1 power unit regulations. Renault was the first to show off its new 1.6-litre V6 engine (in this very publication) in late 2012, and was the first to show off a full power unit in 2013, but when Formula 1 preseason testing began at the start of 2014 pretty much everything went wrong. It was almost an echo of the 1977 to 1979 F1 seasons, where that first turbo engine blew up so often that the cars from Paris earned the…

Development programmes are rife and the whole topic of BoP has become a political debate, rather than a sporting one Back in 2005 the FIA GT Championship was very much a victim of its own success. GT promoter Stephane Ratel had a series with his ‘dream cars’, including the Ferrari 550 Maranello, the Dodge Viper and the Lister Storm. But then along came Maserati with its MC12, which essentially used the same running gear as the Ferrari Enzo. The car, mid-engined and fabulously expensive, matched Ratel’s desire for exotica, but he also knew that it would blow the Corvette C5R, and others that had supported his series through the thin times, out of the water. Enter stage left Max Mosley, who promised to balance the car through aero restrictions, while…

‘Motorsport cannot close its eyes and just have fun going in circles’ Shortly before the Le Mans 24 Hours the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) announced that in 2018 it would introduce some form of emissions limitation in the LMP1 category. In doing so the French organisation has taken the first steps down a road that many in the industry feel motorsport needs to take. It should perhaps come as no surprise that emissions are now in the spotlight following the VW affair of 2015. With both F1 and LMP1 considering new power unit regs for 2020 or 2021, it seems highly likely that these rules will shift from the efficiency based formulas we have now, and emissions will play a major role, too. The current efficiency gains made in…

The pieces of the LMP2 2017 jigsaw are falling into place with the first of the chassis set to run this summer fitted with the new Gibson GK428, 4.2-litre V8 naturally aspirated engine. The engine has been tested to 600bhp, and with an efficient aero package, top speeds at Le Mans are expected to top 330km/h in low downforce trim, challenging the mid-order LMP1 cars. The British manufacturer won the tender to supply the reference engine against which all DPI power units will also be balanced against, based on its previous experience supplying the likes of F3000 and A1GP. The terms of the tender were strict; the price was limited to €1300 per running hour, the servicing of the engine was included in the price, as was the time between…

TCR, which is overtly based on a GT3 business philosophy and allows manufacturer sports departments to build touring cars to sell, already has its own International Series, plus numerous regional and national series around the globe. The STCC, though, is thus far the highest-profile championship to adopt TCR rules. Jonas Ludin, CEO of series promoter STCC AB, said: ‘We were looking for a set of regulations that could bring [our] touring car competition back to its place as one of the premier motorsport series in northern Europe. TCR is the perfect opportunity to build a longterm programme for the years to come.’ STCC was created through a merger of the Swedish and Danish series in 2011, and it currently uses Solution F silhouette cars. However, recent grids have been thin,…

The record books show that Porsche won the 84th edition of the Le Mans 24 hours, returning a back-to-back victory for the 919 Hybrid and a first win for Marc Lieb and Neel Jani, a second for Romain Dumas. However, the real story was the showing from Toyota’s TS050, with its all-new chassis, engine and hybrid concept. The Toyota team persevered with an aggressive strategy, one that was almost perfectly executed and good for beating the competition, but for a loose pipe between the turbocharger and the intercooler that caused a loss of power. The data shows that the car was slower crossing the line at the start of lap 383, with eight minutes of the race remaining; then Kazuki Nakajima reported a complete power loss out of the first…

We learnt that the cars are sensitive, and reliant upon rear side force In our last article we looked at how the X-3 test programme was investigating the effects of downforce and side force on a NASCAR Sprint Cup (NSCS) car (see RE V26N1). Over the off season the NASCAR R&D Team in North Carolina then got busy on working on two major developments impacting both the Sprint Cup and the lower tier NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS). Both explore what makes the cars race together well in two very different conditions – one in the max handling conditions of an intermediate oval, the other in the unique slipstream conditions at the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega. For 2016, NASCAR embarked on a path to lower aerodynamic reliance in the series…

Recently I’ve been working on a customer racecar that has allowed me to put into practice some simulation techniques with regards to damping. Not only was I satisfied with the result, but I was also satisfied with how it was achieved. It used a combination of the shaker rig toolbox and the lap time simulation features of ChassisSim. Some good lessons were learned so it makes for a worthwhile discussion. Before we begin I have to say that I can’t give you specific numbers with regards to the dampers. Since this is a customer car, for me to do so would be professional suicide. That being said I don’t see this is a setback because the crux of this technique revolves around understanding damping ratios, so we can still have…

The deal, which has initially been agreed to run until the end of 2020, is said to be worth $200m, and includes sponsorship of this year’s Italian Grand Prix – in effect saving the historic event, which has been under threat over recent months. This marks an extension of an already large sponsorship portfolio for the Dutch beer brand, which is also involved in the Rugby World Cup, Champions’ League football and the James Bond movie franchise. While Heineken would not confirm the widely quoted $200m figure, it can be extrapolated from the fact that the company says it will be one of its biggest ever deals. Its Champions’ League sponsorship costs Heineken over $70m a year, and a figure of $200m over five years would mean $40m a year,…

Renault has been something of a constant in Formula 1 for almost 30 years, winning world championships as an engine supplier and as a works team. Only Ferrari as a manufacturer has a longer continuity. Even at times when the brand officially stepped back from the sport, such as in the late 1990s, it was still on the grid with its Mecachrome, Supertec and Playlife branded V10 engines. Indeed, the marque has been involved in the sport from the very birth of grand prix racing, winning the first ever official grand prix, the French GP, back in 1906. Yet part way through 2015 it looked as though its long run of participation was about to come to an end. Senior figures in its management team were openly saying that Renault…

Here are the headline figures concerning next year’s new WRC regulations. Close to 50bhp more power than this year (to 380bhp), from a turbo inlet restrictor diameter increase from 33mm to 36mm for the 1.6-litre 4-cylinder engines. Minimum car weight goes down by 25kg, and handling and traction improvements come from a central differential with active slip-limiting. The cars will also be 55mm wider. Meanwhile, aero changes include increased dimensions for the fixed rear wing, with an extra 30mm overhang allowed. A 60mm front overhang is also permitted, and the rear diffuser design is free, within maximum dimensions. These new rules were approved by the FIA WMSC on July 12 last year and Volkswagen Motorsport was the first top team to test designs and development components for its 2017 World…

‘Two or three years ago we would not have expected to reach these levels, it was unthinkable, impossible, but now we are here’ When Formula 1 announced it would adopt a new efficiency based engine rulebook, the idea was for the sport to become more relevant in terms of production car technology, especially hybridisation. But in the third season of the current rules things have panned out rather differently. ‘At the early stages of the development of these power units all you would hear about was the energy recovery systems (ERS). That is because it was new, but now that has changed’ Remi Taffin, technical director (engines) at Renaultsport F1 says. ‘With ERS we have kind of reached a maximum level and our focus is now on the ICE and…

The future of the LMP1 category has been laid out by the FIA and ACO, and it will result in some visually quite different looking cars in 2017, and particularly from 2018. Much focus has been placed on bridging the gap between the privateers in LMP1 and the works teams. Currently only two teams run privateer cars in LMP1, though others such as Strakka Racing and the works Alpine team have looked at stepping up to the sub-category, depending on the direction of the regulations. One key area in all this was a desire for both a performance increase, to bring LMP1-L closer to the works cars with their hybrid power units, and also a reduction in costs. To achieve this the aerodynamics of the cars have been adjusted by…

Currently, and at least up until 2020, the top teams are given the lion’s share of revenues, largely because of contracts signed to keep them in the sport when CVC, F1’s majority shareholder, was planning to float it on the Singapore Stock Exchange and was working to lock in value by getting the teams to sign long term contracts, with the big teams offered the best returns. However, there is a growing feeling that this process has led to an unfair situation, as the teams with the most resources also get the most money. With the negotiations for new contracts for post-2020 now about to begin, team bosses have suggested a number of alternatives, and of six asked recently which system they would prefer, it was interesting that each had…