Innehållsförteckning för February 2017 från Racecar Engineering

The gearbox was not speaking to the TC and the dashboard was sulking One of the great lies going on in the world is the triumph of technology. The reality is that the more technology comes into our lives, the more we are enchained by it. Let’s just take a small example. Once we got transistors into chips, to the tune of several million of them, we find that the simple tickling of AND and NAND gates can make inanimate objects take on a life of their own, even to the extent of seemingly having consciousness. The bad news is that this simulacrum of consciousness has an evil tinge. The latest conspiracy of electrical gadgets bit me hard in the nether regions a short time ago. Having been dragged from…

When the HALO frontal protection device was first displayed fitted to a car in public at Barcelona in winter testing the reaction from fans and the media was far from universally positive. Most teams, including Mercedes which was instrumental in its creation, have since trialled the concept on track. But the reaction, while more muted, has still not really been positive. But Paddy Lowe has another take on HALO. ‘Nobody has really commented about the higher cockpit sides on the cars in 2016 and complained that they can no longer see the drivers’ helmets and things,’ he says. ‘It’s why I find this stuff about HALO funny. If you drill back into the past, drivers used to go around in an open face helmet, or even none at all if…

It was blisteringly fast straight out of the box and lapped Lancia’s 2.2km test track a full four seconds faster than the 037 The Group B era of rallying, which ran from 1982 until 1986, was the last opportunity for engineers to create a virtually no-holds-barred racing car. The only real restriction was the minimum homologation requirement of 200 road cars. While the spirit of the regulations may have suggested that a rally version was then created from the road cars, few people – the rule makers probably included – were surprised that manufacturers instead then produced 200 road going versions of whatever rallying contraption their engineers had created. Manufacturers could then homologate the evolution version, which was effectively the rallying derivative of which a further 20 had to be…

Motorsport marketing guru Zak Brown is the new executive director of the McLaren Technology Group. His appointment came soon after Ron Dennis, the former chairman and CEO of the McLaren Group, stepped down. Former race driver Brown (45) took up his new position in early December and is now in charge of marketing and racing at McLaren. Sammy Johns has joined NASCAR operation Richard Childress Racing (RCR) as its new operations director. He will report to Dr Eric Warren, the director of competition at the Welcome, North Carolina-based organisation. Johns, a former NASCAR crew chief, comes to RCR from Richard Petty Motorsports, where he was vice president of operations. Speedway Motorsports Inc. has promoted Greg Walter to executive vice president of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Walter has worked at the US…

It was strange to be in 27degC temperatures just over a week before Christmas, watching racing cars in the Florida sunshine, but then racing is hardly ever a normal lifestyle. First of all Racecar Engineering attended the Dunlop tyre test programme with the European-spec LMP2 cars from Dallara, ORECA and Ligier, and with the GTE Aston Martin that has to adapt to new-for-2017 regulations. On Wednesday morning with a day to kill, I then drove two and a half hours north to Daytona to see the DPI cars in action for the first time. The two tests were illuminating. Sitting on a wall outside Turn 1 at Sebring, I timed Stephane Sarrazin in the Rebellion-run ORECA at 1m47.6s, already comfortably faster than last year’s pole position time for the Sebring…

A tyre seemingly exploding is not great for the tyre manufacturer – a dramatic failure like this must surely create the wrong sort of publicity Given the current insistence in the hierarchy of motor racing that the sport should be seen to be driving technology for road cars, the not uncommon sight of dramatic tyre failures – including in the most highly-televised global arenas such as F1 and WEC – presents the opposite image. Whatever the cause, be it debris or failure, the sight of one of these super-sophisticated machines destroying itself with a flailing tyre or spearing into the barriers at high speed because of an instant deflation is not a great endorsement of racing taking a technical lead. Especially when a good many up-market passenger cars already have…

Since 2014 there have been 59 Formula 1 grands prix, and only eight of them have been won by racecars not propelled by a Mercedes power unit Since the first race of the 2014 season Formula 1 has been dominated by discussion of one thing: power units. The talk, however, was not of the exceptionally high thermal efficiency of the new units, but more often it was of how they had become the main performance differentiator. Really this discussion was, and is, more about how one manufacturer’s PUs have dominated the sport under the new formula. Since the power units were introduced in 2014 there have been 59 Formula 1 World Championship races, and only eight of them have been won by cars not propelled by a Mercedes power unit.…

The car seen on these pages (apart from the opening shot) is Chassis 215, which first saw action during the 1986 Monte Carlo, where it was entered for Henri Toivonen and navigator Sergio Cresto. They won the rally in convincing fashion despite incurring slight damage. It then served as a back-up car in several rallies for a succession of drivers but was never campaigned again by the works team. In 1988 it re-appeared in the European Autocross Championship and the following year it was driven to the title in that series by Italian driver Illide Romagna. With its contemporary racing career over, it was then sold to a Japanese collector and returned to its Monte Carlo-winning livery. It was subsequently acquired by a discerning British enthusiast who has since only…

It is possible to execute a set of commands that can be dangerous Most data and control systems come pre-loaded with embedded software that allows them to perform the tasks needed for the racing environment. In the majority of installations, the base algorithms allow teams and manufacturers to achieve the performance they want when they want. There are, however, sometimes software constraints that don’t quite match up with specific needs or hardware. When these instances come up, the traditional solution was to task the manufacturer of the control or logging hardware to make a change to the embedded code. This would often mean long lead times and, of course, there would be an additional cost involved. Allowing a customer access to generate embedded code can be quite tricky as it…

Set up day on Sunday saw the Dunlop team unload 1000 tyres in preparation for the test, mark them up and prepare the schedule for each of the cars. Using a bar-coding system, the engineers know which tyre compound and construction they are dealing with for each set, and purposefully keep that private from the teams. The tyres are then put into sets, but great care is taken to ensure that each model of car goes out on different tyres, to prevent teams locking horns in terms of outright pace. T1, therefore, will be the first compound and construction used for each of the manufacturers, but they will be different for each car, and even the teams will not be told which is which. After unloading and checking, each tyre…

Rosche worked for the German manufacturer for 42 years, specialising in developing race engines that propelled BMW to success in F1, touring cars and sportscars – not forgetting Formula 2, where its F2 engine scored over 150 race wins. Munich-born Rosche joined BMW from university in 1957 and because of his skill in calculating cam profiles he began to specialise in this area, earning the nickname ‘Nocken-Paul’ (Camshaft Paul). His first race engine success came with the 2-litre turbo unit that won the European Touring Car Championship in 1969 and in 1975 he led the development of the straight-six that powered the M1. He then went on to design the powerplant for the legendary first generation BMW M3. But he will be mostly remembered for the outlandish turbocharged BMW F1…

There will be a need for prototype short-run battery manufacturers The power of motorsport technology development was demonstrated by the choice of Audi to highlight diesel in LMP1. I think out of its experience has come a realisation across the world of OEMs, that if you engage correctly with motorsport it will accelerate and enthuse people, and even the most odd powertrain choice, as diesel was considered, will be popular. This is an interesting benefit. It shows that motorsport is powerful at change. Now we are entering a position where OEMs have never been faced with more rapid change, and they have no clue what we as consumers will use in future. It is easy to assume that it will be electric, but in the interim – if there is…

PUBLIC OPENING TIMES: Saturday: 9:00am to 6:00pm Sunday: 9:00am to 6:00pm TRADE TICKETS (12-13 January) Tickets do not include access to LAA (Live Action Arena ), which is sold separately at £11 (advance and on-site) Each ticket includes a Trade Directory (value £10), collectable on the day. STUDENTS Ticket type Trade days (12 and 13 January) Public days (14 and 15 January) Student 1 day entry pass £28 - Student 1 day entry pass + LAA £33 - Tutor 1 day entry pass £28 - Tutor 1 day entry pass + LAA £33 - How to book Trade Days. To register visit www.autosportinternational.com or call 0844 335 1109 (BRSCC Members should contact the BRSCC directly) CONSUMER TICKETS…

Those who contribute to the design and development of the products also earn shares based on their experience level The 2017 Formula 1 technical regulations have been met with some scepticism in the motorsport engineering community, but design work has continued regardless and the first fruits of that can now be revealed. Nicolas Perrin, a French motorsport engineer based in England’s rugged Yorkshire Dales, has been working on his own answer to the new regulations, the Perrinn F1-2017 (the extra n is a deliberate branding move). Perrin has a long history in motorsport, having worked in Formula 1 with Williams and Manor, as well as in LMP1 with Courage Competition and Pescarolo, and in 2013 he set up his own design bureau. Unlike a typical constructor Perrinn has a collaborative…

There isn’t one correct rate to feed in steering and release the brakes QUESTION I just read the January issue’s Consultant on the proportioning valve. My analysis leads to what may be a slightly different conclusion. Let me lay out the logic and see what you think. In straight-line braking with a correctly set proportioning valve the rear brakes do not lock. When the pedal is released the forward weight transfer stops giving the rear wheels more potential traction. Consequently, even though the rear pressure does not fall until the front drops below the rear, the rear wheels are not at risk of locking. What happens in trail braking? Here one needs to set another parameter which is that the driver is following a constant radius. Given this caveat the…

The Swift SC92F that continues under the MIRA full-scale wind tunnel spotlight this month hails from the formula’s 25th year, exactly halfway through its existence. And if one thought that the designers would have whittled drag down to an absolute minimum during that first 25 years, well, our findings from this session indicated otherwise. In our December issue we used flow visualisation methods to examine where there were potential sources of further drag reduction and in January’s issue we saw how four per cent was shaved off the drag by reducing the radiator inlet and outlet apertures. This month the quest for further drag reductions continues. Table 1 shows the baseline aerodynamic data at the start of the session, and also after the runs reported last month. Coefficients multiplied by…

The World Endurance Championship was thrown into something of disarray in 2016 as Dunlop and Michelin engaged in a perceived tyre war, the former having signed a deal with Aston Martin to develop its GTE tyre. The company started with its first specification, that saw it through the first three races, including Le Mans, and then brought a new rear profile tyre to Mexico, and then a new front to match it. There was a new compound range in Austin, and then another new specification in Bahrain. Falling outside the scope of the Balance of Performance, this meant a whole new area of performance that could disadvantage the runners on one tyre brand and has led to questions being asked at the FIA as to how to fix it. A…

‘I think 2017 is going to be a huge challenge, unlike any which the Formula 1 teams have faced to date’ With the diversification that has become a fact of life for many motorsport engineering concerns these days there surely must come a point where one amongst them suddenly steps back and says; ‘Heh, we’re not racers anymore!’Which begs the question: when does a motorsport company cease to be a motorsport company? Take an operation like Wirth Research (WR), for instance. WR was set up in 2003 by former Simtek F1 boss and Benetton chief designer Nick Wirth. The company’s most recent high profile motorsport programme has been working as a technical partner to Honda Performance Development (HPD), developing a series of successful Acura LMPs and more latterly the Honda…

Initially selected from more than 4000 hopefuls, the university students and budding young engineering talents who are the regional winners are: Caitlin Bunt (24, USA), Felix Lamy (21, Canada), Alexandros Palaiologos (24, Mexico), Riccardo Manfredini (24, Europe), Xuezi Li (23, China), Shihab Solaiman (23, UAE) and Jaden Partridge (21, Asia-Oceania). Their 12-month placement, split between Infiniti automotive and the Renault Formula 1 team, includes accommodation, access to an Infiniti Q30 company car, and a full salary. They have now relocated to the UK and are sharing two Academy houses near the work placements; at the Infiniti Technical Centre in Cranfield and the Renault Sport Formula 1 team in Enstone. Tommaso Volpe, global director at Infiniti Motorsport, said: ‘With Formula 1 more relevant to the automotive industry than ever and our…

The world of motorsport is entering into a significant period of change, especially with the wholesale rule changes governing Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship which are set to come into place in 2017. New regulations mean teams must now find new solutions to meet them, while at the same time developing ever-more innovative ways to gain that all-important competitive advantage. Autosport International and Autosport Engineering in partnership with Racecar Engineering remains the first place to witness these brand new developments ahead of the new season. The world’s leading suppliers and buyers of cutting edge motorsport technology such as AP Racing, Xtrac, Hewland Engineering, Eibach, Young Calibration and Mazak will be exhibiting – on these pages we’ve highlighted some businesses to look out for at ASI. For over a…

Following the successful introduction of the Lifeline Zero 3620 fire suppression system, the company has launched the new Zero 3620 Firemarshal, a further development of the original system, designed to meet the increase in demand as more categories are required to use systems approved to the FIA 8865 suppression standard. Autosport International caught up with Lifeline’s managing director Jim Morris, ahead of January’s show at the NEC, Birmingham. ASI: Where is Lifeline right now? JM: We took a significant step forward in terms of driver safety when we introduced the Zero 3620 system, and with Zero 3620 Firemarshal, we have made another leap. We can now offer a real cost-effective alternative to the many teams and competitors that require FIA 8865 approval for their fire suppression system. ASI:…