Innehållsförteckning för September 2016 från Racecar Engineering

This year’s UK Formula Student event saw more than 130 teams from over 30 countries gather together at the Silverstone race circuit to put their designs to the test against one another in the usual static and dynamic competitions. While the weather teased the paddock with gloomy grey skies and a brief shower on the Friday, there was for once no rain interruption on Saturday or Sunday, which helped to make this yet another successful event. This year was so successful, in fact, that for the first time in any Formula Student competition, 75 cars competed in the endurance event on Sunday, and while only 37 of these saw the chequered flag (and five were later disqualified, of which more later), the number of cars out on track easily beat…

The motors are not off-the-shelf units as is generally the case with other FS cars, instead they have been developed by the students themselves The AMZ Racing team from ETH Zurich had grabbed all the headlines ahead of the 2016 Formula Student event at Silverstone, after setting a world record for electric vehicle acceleration. That record, however, was taken using the team’s old car and the car at Silverstone was a new model dubbed ‘Gotthard’. This was deemed by the judges to be the best designed in the competition, and thus Zurich won the Carroll Smith Shield for the third time. Gotthard is ETH Zurich’s 10th Formula Student car and the seventh driven by electric motors, and here lies one of the secrets of the Swiss team’s success. The motors…

Drisk brakes employ a rotor shaped like a brake drum, but with both inner and outer surfaces finished. Both surfaces are clasped by a caliper like that on a disc brake, but having pads curved to mate with the rotor. The idea dates back to the Star car of the 1920s, and was revived in the 1970s by the European component supplier Valeo, whose Crown brake was looked at by several manufacturers. The arguments for it are: for a given wheel diameter, a larger working radius can be achieved; the surface area is increased, potentially improving cooling, and the packaging is likely eased. However, there are some problems, too. The inner and outer surfaces cool at different rates; the braking ring cannot be allowed to ‘float’ on the hub portion,…

The FIA got a little precious about the Formula 3 name a couple of years ago and stopped its use elsewhere. Because of this the European F3 Open Championship (previously Spanish F3) had to change its name to Euroformula Open, although it is basically a low-cost F3, running with a spec Toyota engine. It’s popular, too: ‘Euroformula Open is a European F3 championship, it uses exactly the same car, but because of the different rules packages the budget is just €350,000,’ says Gavin Wills of Team West-Tec, which runs cars in both Open and Euro. ‘That is really good value. It just goes to show what can be done when you have a rules package that is based completely around trying to deliver value.’ The FIA has now recognised there’s…

Key areas such as the nose, the engine cover and the wings are locked in to the kit The 2016 season of the World Endurance Championship sees the LMP1 regulations permit three bodykits, broadly broken down into Spec A for the first two races at Silverstone (and for some cars, Spa); Spec B for Spa and for Le Mans; and Spec C for the remaining races of the season, including the heat and altitude of Mexico City for the first time, in September. The race in Mexico was added only in September last year, and so this year the teams have been allowed ‘jokers’ to accommodate the extra cooling that they have predicted for this race. The kits cannot be mixed either; so a team is not allowed to run…

Formula E has enticed another manufacturer to its fold with the news that emerging US EV maker Faraday Future is to tie-up with Dragon Racing for FE’s third season. Faraday was founded as recently as 2014, but the Californian-based company has huge financial backing from China and is seen as something of a shooting star in the emerging performance EV market. It showed off its own single-seater concept car, the FFZERO1, at the beginning of this year. Dragon, which finished second in the inaugural FE teams’ championship, will be renamed Faraday Future Dragon Racing as part of the deal, which has been described as a technical partnership, and its powertrain will be badged the Penske 701-EV – Jay Penske owns Dragon Racing. This is not Faraday Future’s first involvement in…

It’s not all about the products, the people are important at Eibach too This is a special year for Eibach. It’s its 65th in business, and it has already celebrated in some style, with the completion of the largest investment in its history; the construction of an advanced new production plant in Wiethfeld, just seven kilometres from its main facility in Finnentrop, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The new plant has expanded Eibach’s capacity significantly, says the German spring maker, which has a huge involvement in motorsport across the world at all levels, including Formula 1, WRC and NASCAR. Eibach tells us that with the new factory it now has one of the most modern production plants for suspension components in the world. The new plant will also allow Eibach to…

‘We’re increasing the allowed engine capacity in Formula Student from 610cc to 710cc’ Formula Student 2017 will see a number of new regulations in force, and some of these are sure to have teams rushing back to CAD suites around the world to reconsider various elements of the car designs, as Andrew Deakin, the chairman of Formula Student has explains: ‘2017 FSAE is a major rules change year, the rules that we ran under this year just had typo corrections and safety critical changes, but for 2017 we spent a lot of time looking at certain areas.’ Deakin outlined a number of changes to the safety regulations including revisions to the impact attenuator rules, as well as mounting points on monocoque chassis. Teams were also advised that it was felt…

Suspension was a major area of focus for many of the teams this year There was an array of new and innovative design solutions on display up and down the pit lane this year as, partly as a result of the growing trend toward the use of large wings, suspension was a major area of focus for many of the teams. Almost as soon as the cars arrived at the track there was talk spreading through the Formula Student paddock about the suspension configuration on the Monash University car. The Australians had opted for a hydraulic suspension which worked by interconnecting the front and rear of the car, the team dubbed it ‘the hydro’ and says its a hydraulically actuated mode separated suspension system which has only ever been attempted…

Centre-point steering has many theoretical advantages, but also many practical drawbacks. With the scrub radius reduced to zero, the driver is spared all the ‘noise’ that arises in the steering feedback from even minor road surface irregularities, allowing a better feel of what the tyres are trying to tell him. It also permits the elimination of kingpin inclination, which only exists as a compromise solution, reducing the scrub radius at the expense of the adverse camber introduced with any steer angle. Using conventional suspension linkage, this merit in principle demands, when its rendered in metal, a deeply dished wheel, yet still leaves little or no room for brakes. One solution is to use inboard brakes (such as Citroen DS/ID). Another way is to transform the wishbones from a triangular structure…

Getting such a large vehicle to handle correctly with all the weights generally in the wrong place requires something of a mental reset It is perhaps one of the oddest forms of motorsport there is, and at first glance truck racing does not seem like a particularly sensible activity. But, on closer inspection, it is one of the most entertaining forms of racing in the world, both from the standpoint of spectators and engineers. Truck racing exists all over the world, but its real heartland is Europe and in 2016 the FIA European Truck Racing Championship was relaunched by a new promoter, the forward-looking and ambitious ETRA organisation. The new management has set itself the brief of growing truck racing and increasing its visibility across Europe, while also keeping what…

Williams Formula 1 deputy team principal Claire Williams has said the recent vote for the UK to leave the European Union has already hit its business, due to the sharp fall of the pound against the euro and the uncertainty in the sponsorship market the decision has precipitated. Williams, who is now very much the public face of the team her father founded since her elevation to the deputy team principal role in 2013, explained that as her team purchases its power units from Mercedes in euros, recent moves by the FIA to slash engine bills by €4m for 2018 have now effectively been nullified. ‘There have been short-term impacts around costs’Williams said.‘We unfortunately pay for our engine in euros. All the hard work we have done to bring the…

Andersen Promotions, the company behind the Road to Indy single seater ladder in the United States, has announced a series of cost-cutting initiatives and financial incentives for its Pro Mazda Championship. Pro Mazda, which is the second step on the IndyCar driver ladder – under Indy lights and above USF2000 – is to get a new chassis in 2018, the Tatuus PM-18. The PM-18 will now be made available to teams as early as June next year, providing an opportunity for a summer testing programme with the new chassis in preparation for 2018. Andersen Promotions will also now offer teams a $5000 discount on the PM-18, or to each driver who commits to running the entire 2017 season, this is in addition to its almost 20 per cent full-season entry…

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Red Bull F1 tech maestro Adrian Newey designed a car for the road, then here’s your answer. The AM-RB 001 was actually co-designed by Newey, the project a collaboration between Red Bull and Aston Martin, Newey working alongside Aston Martin chief creative officer Marek Reichman and chief special operations officer David King to create the hypercar. The AM-RB’s full spec has not been released, but we’re told it will be powered by a naturally-aspirated V12 engine and its carbon fibre construction is expected to give it a power to weight ratio of 1:1. It’s also said to boast unprecedented levels of downforce in a road-legal car, much of this generated through underfloor aerodynamics. Between 99 and 150 cars, including all the prototypes…

‘We don’t have a history to refer back to, just numbers that are floating around in the heads of our people’ The Haas Formula 1 team was born in a North Carolina steakhouse, when Gene Haas met Italian Formula 1 engineer Guenther Steiner for the first time back in 2010. It was not long after the collapse of the USF1 team, which had been located nearby. The failure of USF1 actually served as a lesson for many considering an entry into the top level of motor racing, and certainly put more than a few investors off getting involved in Formula 1. But it was also as a direct result of that failure that Haas found himself in that steakhouse. ‘USF1 and Ken Anderson [one of the founders of the stillborn…

The well-established Rennteam Stuttgart won its fourth Formula Student UK event with its F0711-11, a car that was developed with downforce very much in mind. So it was no surprise that the aerodynamic package has changed considerably from last year. Stuttgart actually originally planned to use some concepts from last year’s car, but during simulations it found it was left with an aero package which excelled in straight lines, but fell short in the corners. To fix this for the new car the aero balance was shifted with a new concept front wing. Also, following the lead set by Oxford Brookes in 2015, a fourth element was added to the rear wing in front of the DRS (which results in the car having 30 per cent less drag). This is…

The appeal of F4 is as old as the sport itself: comparatively affordable little racecars running circles around big expensive racecars The word amateur has taken on a rather offensive shading over the last century or so. It originally simply meant someone who does something for the love of it, but to many it now connotes a dabbler, a dilettante, not-ready-for-prime-time. Well, Jim Morton is an amateur, and his ‘prime time’ at Mosport in Canada is 1:25.4. In a mixed field that included 1600cc and 2-litre open wheelers, that puts him ahead of all the 1600cc cars, and mixing in with the 2-litre stuff. The thing is, Morton’s Formula Four car has just 750cc. Oh … and he made the car himself. In fact, this is Morton’s third home-built F4.…

To run a car to a reasonable level in F3 for a season would require a budget around the €700,000 mark Stefano Domenicali, president of the FIA Single Seater Commission, has no doubt about just where Formula 3 should stand on the driver development ladder. ‘Formula 3 should be the first international category in which youngsters can compete in high performance single seaters in a professional environment, while still being accessible in terms of the current financial landscape. At the Federation, we are working on ensuring the smooth running of a championship run at a professionally high level.’ But there are those in the motorsport industry who might question the FIA’s success with this, especially when it comes to the words ‘financial’ and ‘accessible’ for as Fortec Motorsport team principal…

Our full ground effect concept car worked well except when very close to the car in front, when it was worse than the previous two concepts Over the past year or so we have been reporting on CFD studies on digital Formula 1 concept models carried out by Dynamic Flow Solutions and its director Miqdad Ali (‘MA’). Essentially the dual aims of the project are (a) to enable visualisation and greater understanding of the complexities of the aerodynamics of a Formula 1 car, and (b) to specifically study what happens in two car line-astern configurations to better understand the aerodynamic interactions in overtaking scenarios. By generating actual data on a range of different aerodynamic design concepts we have witnessed a number of extremely interesting effects along the way. This month…

If you have been in this business long enough you will have heard the term ‘the magic number . The magic number refers to the percentage of front lateral load transfer distribution at which the car produces the most grip. As with many things in this business it tends to get thrown around like a bad football, with some people swearing by it and others thinking it is totally irrelevant. The focus of the article will be on how we can use a tyre model derived from actual data to delve in to what the magic number actually means. What you are about to see here is a fascinating case study in to one of the by-products of racecar simulation. One of my perpetual frustrations with this business is how…

The second-tier GP2 series it to stick with its current incarnation of spec racecar until the end of 2017, postponing the chassis change that was set to come in to place for the start of next season. The decision to keep the Dallara GP2/11, which has now seen five years of service, has partly been put down to the current economic situation, but the move might also allow extra time for a convergence with the all-new FIA Formula 2. GP2 boss Bruno Michel would not comment on the tie-up with Formula 2, but he did confirm that the postponement of the new chassis was down to ‘the economic situation’, and that this had been agreed with the teams in the series, who said they were willing to wait another year.…

The ownership of the Sauber Formula 1 team has changed hands in a deal which the Swiss company’s founder, Peter Sauber, says should ‘secure its future’. Sauber has had a troubled time with its finances this year, and was not able to pay its salaries on some occasions due to problems with cashflow. However, it has now emerged that Longbow Finance SA has bought the team’s parent company, Sauber Holding AG. Longbow is itself a Swiss company, but is also said to have close links to Tetra Laval, the global packaging giant – of Tetra Pack fame – which is a long-term backer of Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson The change in ownership will not result in a name change for the team, which has been in F1 since 1993 –…