Innehållsförteckning för May 2021 från Racecar Engineering

Sustainability is a word that’s thrown around a lot these days. By definition, sustainable means ‘able to be maintained at a certain rate or level’ or ‘conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.’ Across motorsport and the automotive industry in general, there is a lot of discussion about sustainability, which primarily revolves around synthetic fuels and alternative powertrain solutions. However, its definition seems to mean different things to different people, and the delta between the most sustainable and the least sustainable is vast. If one just looks at renewable fuel production, hydrocarbon fuels and, in particular, alcohols for use in internal combustion engines, can be made from organic matter that can be grown and harvested. But consider the rate of consumption per kilogram of fuel is significantly…

RE: You seem to have hit a sweet spot with the fans in the pre-season with your digital media results and openness with the technology you are using. JG: ‘It is tremendously pleasing. I don’t understand the secrecy of everyone else. Would I steal an idea from Toyota just because they show me the underside of their car? It’s a joke. These cars are finished. They are spec’d and it’s a BoP series. We have just been able to make our car a little prettier since the aero isn’t that challenging. “The sanctioning bodies have to get honest. If they cannot find a way to have 100 per cent honesty and a transparent BoP, the whole thing is meaningless” ‘I don’t understand why they [Toyota] have gone hybrid, either. What’s…

The Le Mans 24 Hours announced its 62-car entry for the 89th edition of the race in August. The race will feature five Hypercars, 25 LMP2s, seven GTE Pro entries and no fewer than 24 GTE Am contenders. Zircotec has launched a new heat shield solution that, it says, delivers a 40 per cent improvement in shielding and as much as 125degC reduction in exhaust surface temperature. ZircoFlex Shield has been tested in a 350bhp, 2.0-litre British Touring Car Championship turbo engine. AP Racing has been selected to supply front and rear braking to the FIA RX2e Championship, the first ever FIA electric Rallycross championship, which starts later in 2021. The series will feature at six European events with a grid of identical, lightweight, four-wheel-drive cars, each built around a…

In the 1980’s IndyCar, two British companies, first March and then Lola, introduced production racecars to the premier US open wheel motorsport world. Previous to the successful Indy 500 forays by Lotus and Lola with F1-inspired machines, the traditional front-engined ‘roadsters’ dominated USAC. Constructors such as Kurtis Kraft produced limited numbers, but not on a series basis. Other engineering shops would design and manufacture components – chassis, suspension parts, gearboxes – which teams could purchase and around which they would build their own-named ‘specials’. The clear superiority of the mid-engined British makes led to copies being made in the US and individual designs based on the development of these concepts were commissioned. Lola’s 1978 Indy 500-winning T500 persuaded makes such as Parnelli, Watson and Vollstedt to again follow, with Penske…

Pat Symonds, F1’s technical director, says Formula 1 considered bespoke fuels to maximise performance before deciding on ‘drop-in’ fuels, which replace existing fuels with minimal modifications required to the existing power units. Why, and what are the benefits, disadvantages and differences? ‘Initially, our thinking for 2026 was that we would go through a co-optimisation process, because when you start to make synthetic fuel what you’re effectively doing is combining carbon and hydrogen atoms. You’re no longer reliant on what you’re drilling out of the ground, instead you’ve got a big chemistry set in front of you. ‘Within limits, you can do what you like with the chemistry set, and it’s certainly possible to get around some of the disadvantages you can have with fuel drilled out of the ground and…

Q l wonder if you’d like to comment on leading and trailing arms on Citroëns, Volkswagens, old Fords and others? When a leading or trailing arm that slopes down toward the rear hits a bump, the rearward component of the force exerted on the arm tends to pull the chassis down, cancelling some or all of the upward force. So big Citroëns, with their long arms, have an awesome ride, and Beetles are great on rough roads. A friend had a ’48 Lincoln V12 coupe that had a great ride and cornered pretty flat without big anti-roll bars because of its high front and rear roll centres, and it just hit me, 70 years later, that that old, despised Ford suspension had long leading and trailing arms slanting down toward…

One of the great myths that perpetuate racecar engineering is the role bump steer plays. Like its close cousin, roll centre, and anti-dive and anti-squat, if you want to see the sparks fly walk into a bar and full of race engineers and say bump steer is irrelevant. Then sit back and watch chaos unfold. This recently came up on social media and, after a spirited discussion, a former student of mine suggested I do an article on this. So that is exactly what I am doing here and, after doing some sim’ work, some very enlightening things were found. What you are doing here is using the bump steer to make sure you can dial in the slip angles you want Firstly, we need to define exactly what bump…

‘We want to design and build a car down to the last component’Antonello Coletta, head of Ferrari Attivita Sportive GT Ferrari has confirmed it will return to Le Mans for the first time since 1973 with a full factory team, aiming to add to its total of nine overall wins at the French endurance classic. It was in 1965 that the marque last won at Le Mans, Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt taking the chequered flag in their Ferrari 275LM, and it is half a century since the 312PB was entered by the factory. The scene is set for an unforgettable period in endurance racing historyFrederic Lequien, CEO of the FIA WEC Since then, Ferrari has remained in endurance racing competition, more recently with the Dallara-built Ferrari 333SP, which was…

TECHNOLOGY – SLIP ANGLE In previous OptimumG articles, we have discussed how to define springs and dampers. We then took a little detour to talk about ‘magic numbers’, especially anti-roll stiffness distribution, a necessary step in determining front and rear anti-roll bars set-up. This month, we will demonstrate the meaning and usefulness of these magic numbers and, in doing so, take another step forward in understanding vehicle dynamics. The process we use to choose anti-roll bar stiffness is not hugely different to the one we use to determine spring stiffness. It is a mix of calculations and experience. Basically, the choice of front and rear anti-roll bar stiffnesses depends on the answer to two simple questions: what is the suspended mass roll stiffness that you want to achieve, and what…

The move to four-wheel drive in Formula 1 under new regulations that are being discussed for 2025 is a revolution in terms of a rule set. This would be the first time such a layout is compulsory in the global single seat category. It’s not, however, the first time anyone has tried four-wheel drive in Formula 1. Lotus, BRM, Matra and McLaren have all done so, although none won a single race with it or saw enough benefit to continue with the technology. Introducing a hybrid motor to the front axle is also nothing new – the Le Mans cars from Porsche, Toyota and Audi all had front motors, but the key difference is the minimum weight in these cars was higher, and the shape of the chassis more accommodating…