Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2018 i Racecar Engineering

This first shakedown really signals the end of the design phase and the start of the development phases Bloodhound SSC wowed LSR (Land Speed Record) fans and international media as the car completed its first public shakedown runs at Newquay Airport in the UK at the end of October. Everything went pretty much according to plan for the Bloodhound team, with a very minor brake fire the only drama of the day. But while that might not sound so dramatic, the emotions from within the team were palpable. It was one of those witnessing grown men cry moments as the car did its first public high-speed runway runs. The team has been together for about 10 years and many before that were involved in the previous Thrust SSC record. So…

Perhaps the part of the roadmap that will have the biggest impact of all is the plan to no longer use an MGU-H From the first publication of the 2014 Formula 1 power unit regulations it was made clear that a new set of rules would be introduced in 2021. What those rules would be was, until very recently, entirely unclear. A large number of different and often conflicting ideas and opinions were being discussed by different parties with different motivations, everything from a 3.4-litre V6 twin turbo engine to some kind of large capacity V12 were suggested at different times. But what was clear was that many in the sport felt that the current generation of power units were simply not right for Formula 1. ‘For me, these engines…

‘The main challenge is to fit all the required features of a high performance motorsport damper into a very limited space’ Quite often, the only time we hear F1 teams talk about suspension is when they are arguing the legality of their clever designs with the FIA and the rest of the paddock in the latest regulation row. So why can’t teams leave their suspensions alone? Well, that’s simply because suspension is arguably the most important tool for gaining track performance. The main purpose of the suspension is to absorb the oscillations between the vehicle body and the wheel, generated by undulations in the track surface. Also, maximum contact between the tyres and the track also needs to be achieved for optimum grip. Suspension also plays a role in maximising…

This quote from Mark Donohue goes to the core of what our business is about: ‘The four footprints of your tyres are the only thing that lie between you and St Peter’. We can talk about aero loading, engine power, inerters etc. until we run out of breath. But if we don’t have a clue about what the tyres are doing we’re lost. Having been around the business for a while, I can tell you that when you design a racecar there’s a lot of empirical knowledge of what to do to work a set of tyres. What I have not seen is a clear mathematical methodology to achieve this. This is what we’ll be discussing here. Also, given that we are now in a racing world where we have…

The new series, which hopes to start sometime in 2018, will use Bcomp’s new high-performance lightweight material for the automotive industry, which should cut up to 40 per cent weight with maintained performance. Bcomp’s PowerRibs and ampliTex reinforcement fabrics have previously been used within the sports and leisure markets, while the company has also collaborated with the European Space Agency on the development of lightweight space applications for several years. Bcomp has also tested a revolutionary LED system within the natural fibres which can create a display for live data and telemetry on the body of the car. Electric GT (EGT) CEO Mark Gemmell said:‘Not only do Bcomp’s revolutionary natural fibre panels give us increased performance in terms of damping and stiffness, it’s also helped us achieve a 20 per…

‘For the WRC to be right at the heart of the ASI show is very good news’ The 2018 World Rally Championship is to launch at Autosport International ahead of the season-opener in Monte Carlo just a fortnight later – marking the first time a top-tier FIA World Championship has launched at the show in its 27-year history. All the leading WRC drivers, co-drivers and team principals will be in one place and on hand to talk about the 2018 championship, sharing their opinions on what the new season will bring across all four days of Europe’s biggest pre-season motorsport show at the NEC Birmingham, from 11 to 14 January 2018. WRC takeover Each manufacturer team contesting the 13-round 2018 season, M-Sport (Ford), Hyundai, Toyota and Citroen will parade their…

‘With a customer engine cost, reliability and performance have to have equal weighting’ Before the start of the 2014 racing season both of Japan’s top racing categories, namely the GT500 class of Super GT and the open wheel Super Formula championship, adopted a brand new engine formula. Dubbed NRE (Nippon Race Engine) the new regulations mandated a 2-litre turbocharged in-line 4-cylinder design featuring direct injection. As was the case with Formula 1 and LMP1, the rules also saw the introduction of a fuel flow limit, although in this case governed by a physical restrictor rather than a sensor. The result of the introduction of these new rules was the creation of three very small, light, powerful and extremely efficient engines, one each from Honda, Nissan and Toyota. In bench testing…

If I was doing this I wouldn’t build a mini formula car, I’d build a mini Super Modified QUESTION I have really enjoyed your articles in Racecar Engineering and I hope you would be able to help with the suspension design of our new GP Midget chassis for the 2018 season. We are designing the car from the ground up and given that the rule book for UK GP Midget oval racing is very open in regard to the suspension we really could do with a hand with what direction we should go in. Our current car uses conventional double wishbone suspension with large coilover dampers at each corner. My plan for the new car is to make much better use of aero, which will be a first in the…

Initially the springs are coiled longer than the finished free length High performance springs are another crucial element of a suspension system. These have to be designed to ensure a consistent and accurate rate with every increment of deflection. This is achieved in two parts, says Mark Campbell, engineering manager at Hyperco: ‘To design these precision springs, you have to understand the ‘bowing and buckling’ that results from four critical physical parameters and their relationship to each other. These include: total deflection to free length ratio, mean diameter of body coils to wire diameter, free length to end coil ID [inner diameter] and corrected stress level of the spring at solid height.’ Precise work ‘You also have to be able to manufacture the springs accurately, which requires precision equipment with…

The GT3’s been developed by M-Sport – which was responsible for the earlier Continental GT3 that was raced from the end of 2013 – in collaboration with Bentley Motorsport. It has used the all-new Continental GT road car as its base, which shares its structure with the latest Porsche Panamera, utilising it’s mostly aluminium structure as the foundation to deliver a race-ready weight of significantly less than 1300kg, and helping to deliver an ideal weight distribution for racing, we’re told. The engine is a development of the race-proven 4.0-litre Bentley twin-turbo V8, with a totally redesigned dry sump system and all-new intake and exhaust systems. Unrestricted power is in excess of 550bhp. Exterior aerodynamic surfaces have been crafted in the wind tunnel and Bentley says they are ‘based on the…

As part of a celebration of all things Ferrari at Autosport International a number of the marque’s racecars will be on display in a special Ferrari feature. Among them will be this AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT, which sealed the GT manufacturers’ crown at the last WEC race in Shanghai, Ferrari’s fifth WEC constructors’ title (2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). The 488 GTE packs a 4-litre, twin turbocharged V8 engine capable of 500bhp plus advanced aerodynamics, including a double splitter and under-body vortex generator, making it one of the most powerful and aero-efficient GT cars there is. For more on this car check out Racecar Engineering from March 2016 (V26N3)…

The 2018 Vantage is almost completely new – Aston Martin Racing says that there are just five carry-over parts from the old model This might seem strange for a car that is not due to make its race debut for more than seven months, but Aston Martin was right up against it when it launched its new Vantage, which will contest the FIA WEC ‘Super Season’ in 2018/19. The timing of the road car launch on which it is based, and the development of the GTE Vantage, meant that the team could not attend the Ladoux test in France in September, and was developing the racecar right up until it completed its homologation process at the Windshear facility in North Carolina in November – all the new cars and evo…

The FIA says it has six manufacturers interested in its 2020 regulations One of the big tasks facing the FIA WEC is to attract new manufacturers to the series. Audi left in 2016 and Porsche announced its withdrawal a year later. This left Toyota as the last to show its hand. Porsche’s handling of its withdrawal clearly rankles with the FIA. ‘I think that the problem that we may face in many championships, and we face in the endurance championship, is that you discuss the regulation with a small group of manufacturers, and then they go off,’ says Gilles Simon. ‘Obviously, motor racing means being submitted to the possibilities that an OEM can withdraw from one date to another, some are committing to a long term, and that gives an…

‘Because there is no motorsport industry here it means we are not confined by any kind of dogma’ There is nothing new in a company creating an all-new single seater from scratch. But it’s not often that you will hear of a new racecar coming out of a country with very little singe seater heritage. That is just one of the reasons the Griiip G1 is so very interesting. Based in Petah Tikva, in the Central District of Israel, Griiip has created an entry-level single-seater to the Sports Car Club of America’s Formula 1000 regulations. Called the G1 and launched earlier this year, the machine is paired with an Aprilia RSV4 Superbike engine and developed in association with Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality specialist Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC).…

When Martin Birrane took over at Lola in 1998 he made one thing quite clear; he wanted to build the best wind tunnel possible Since its downfall in 2012, you might have thought Lola joined the growing community of extinct motorsport concerns, who had their factories stripped of their racecars, personnel and assets, never to race again. Well you would be mostly right. However, one of Lola’s businesses survived: the Lola wind tunnel. When Martin Birrane took over the company in 1998, he made one thing clear; he wanted to build the best wind tunnel possible. ‘I knew before I even bought Lola that a wind tunnel was needed and, because I wanted to make sure that we had the best, I listened to our engineers. Of course, that meant…

Dave Pericak in no longer director of Ford Performance. Pericak was partly responsible for Ford’s successful return to Le Mans in 2016 with its GT. His duties are now to be split between motorsports engineering manager Mark Rushbrook, who will oversee Ford’s racing arm, and Special Vehicle Team director Hermann Salenbauch. Pericak has moved to another role within Ford. Former F1 driver Derek Warwick (63) has stepped down as president of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, which owns British Grand Prix venue Silverstone. He has held the position since 2011, when he succeeded Damon Hill. Monte Carlo Rally winner Paddy Hopkirk (84) has been elected as his replacement. Hopkirk has been a BRDC member since 1965. Doug Fritz, the chief marketing officer for NASCAR Cup Series outfit BK Racing, has…

Formula V8 3.5, which has been known by a number of names since its debut as World Series by Nissan in 1998, has been in decline since Renault pulled the plug on its sponsorship at the end of the 2015 – it was then known as Formula Renault 3.5. It has struggled for numbers since Renault pulled out and the final race of the 2017 season – during which it supported the WEC – saw a paltry 10 cars take the start. The WEC’s ‘Super Season’ has added to the series’ woes, due to uncertainties over its 2018 calendar. The series said in a statement: ‘Neither World Series Formula V8 3.5 nor any other top single seater series in the world have reached the ideal number of participating drivers in…