Innehållsförteckning för March 2022 från Racecar Engineering

‘To work within the regulations, you end up with something very complicated to achieve something that potentially could be done with a much more simplistic shape’Mike Elliott, technical director at Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team What can be said of the Mercedes Formula 1 teams’ domination of the first hybrid era of Formula 1? Starting with the F1 W05 Hybrid in 2014 and culminating in the F1 W12 E-Performance in 2021, Mercedes Formula 1 cars have tallied an unsurpassable number of combined points every season since the dawn of the era, seeing it crowned Constructors’ Champion eight years in a row. The manufacturer’s 2021 machine, the W12 E-Performance, was the most challenged by the opposition, mainly by Red Bull’s RB16B, which won the highest number of races in 2021, but that…

To put into perspective the lap time improvement of the [ORECA] LMP07 that was introduced in 2017, the pole position time on the car’s first run at Le Mans was faster than the 2011 overall pole position time set by Audi in LMP1 Sportscar racing has gone through an evolution in 2021, with the ACO and FIA introducing the Hypercar category as the top class of the World Endurance Championship. In doing so, the top-class prototypes are slower by design than the old LMP1 cars, and that in turn has shifted attention onto the raw speed and reliability of the LMP2 machines. LMP2 was designed for privateers, yet has seen such a huge improvement in performance over the past decade, that in professional hands the cars challenged Hypercars on certain…

The following is an edited extract from Competition Car Aerodynamics, by this writer, and outlines a method for sizing an inlet duct. It is based on an example of a 2005 F1 engine originally provided by Dr Rob Lewis (then at Advantage CFD, now at TotalSim) but applicable in principle to other engines if capacity, rpm and volumetric efficiency (plus boost level, if pressure charged) figures are available. Assuming technical regulations do not mandate an engine inlet restrictor, how big, and what shape should an airbox inlet be? Gut feeling suggests engine capacity and rpm are critical factors, but the amount of air an ICE shifts depends on its swept volume, rpm and volumetric efficiency (the ability to pump more air than its actual capacity). It’s then relatively simple to…

The IndyCar series has confirmed a contract extension with chassis and aero manufacturer, Dallara, for an unspecified length of time. Dallara has been a chassis supplier to IndyCar for 26 years and has been the sole chassis supplier to the series since 2008. The Italian constructor strengthened its ties with IndyCar when it also signed an exclusive deal for chassis supply to the Indy Lights series in 2015. ‘Dallara is honoured to have been part of this journey for 26 years and counting,’ says Andrea Pontremoli, Dallara Group CEO. ‘We understand the responsibility that comes in extending our partnership with IndyCar over the course of the years to come and are excited to be part of this long-term plan. ‘Being such an integrated partner to IndyCar, we feel the inspirational…

Gary Crotty, NASCAR executive vice president and chief legal counsel, has been elected by the FIA General Assembly as one of 36 judges to serve on the FIA Courts. A member of NASCAR’s board of directors, Crotty is the first NASCAR representative to serve in this capacity. His term, which began on 1 January 2022, runs through to 31 December 2025. ‘It is an honour to be recognised and named to this prestigious post,’ said Crotty. ‘I thank the members of the FIA General Assembly for placing its faith in me and look forward to serving. It is one of the true highlights of my career.’ As an FIA judge, Crotty may sit on the FIA International Tribunal or International Court of Appeal. Both act independently from the other FIA…

Mercedes AMG High-Performance Powertrains (HPP) developed the M12 2021 Formula 1 power unit, chasing every possible improvement to deliver a step forward when it hit the track in all eight cars it powered during the 2021 season. Going into the eighth season of stable regulations, the power unit manufacturers understand the current hybrid engines, but rule stability also means it’s increasingly challenging to unlock additional performance. Teams therefore need a highly focused approach. According to Hywel Thomas, managing director of Mercedes HPP, ahead of the 2021 season Mercedes-AMG HPP identified three main areas on which to work: improving the efficiency; improving technology in the power unit and improving reliability, while also adding innovation into the racing power unit. That was particularly challenging because last season finished late. Hence, the winter…

In order to reduce the performance of the LMP2 cars for the 2021 FIA WEC season, the FIA and ACO dropped power, minimised the aero options, and prescribed less performant tyres that Goodyear had to supply. Yet LMP2 cars were considered too fast (see table below) and Hypercar teams were unhappy. For the 2022 season, further restrictions have been introduced. These include: l For WEC and 24h of Le Mans o Further reduction of engine power by 8kW (including the effect of the 2022 fuel specification). The power reduction will be performed with an air inlet restrictor (at full throttle) developed and managed by Gibson. o The bodywork configuration will be: • Le Mans kit (as per 2021). • Removal of front dive plane. • Diffuser strakes shorten by 50mm, modified / produced…

If certain geometric requirements are met, the Watt linkage is a true straight-line motion device: within the entirety of its travel, the rocker pivot has a straight-line motion path. As shown in Figure 1, the requirements for this are: • Straight rocker, arms at 180 degrees to each other. • Arms equal length. • Links equal length. • At some point in the travel, the links must be parallel to each other and both perpendicular to the rocker. For true straight-line motion at A, AB = AC and BD = EC. To approximate straight-line motion at A with unequal link lengths, AB/AC = EC/BD, or AB*BD = AC*EC. That is, the link lengths need to be inversely proportional to the arm lengths: the long link goes on the short arm.…

Look at any area of modern life and the term artificial intelligence (AI) is being thrown around with abandon. A toaster that claims to use AI to predict the level of charring, or a fridge that criticises your dietary habits? These are of spurious applications, of course, but AI and its subset, Machine Learning (ML), are key to many applications now taken for granted. The most obvious of these are smart assistants, such as that Amazon Alexa, or the awful filters that can be applied to pictures and videos in some chat apps, both of which rely on AI. However, it is also starting to be leveraged in motor racing, automating a variety of tasks that traditionally suck up considerable amounts of engineering resources. But what actually is AI? The…

Maserati has returned to single-seat competition as a factory for the first time in 60 years, and a decade after its iconic MC12 competed in GT racing in customer hands. The Italian manufacturer confirmed in January that it will compete in the all-electric Formula E World Championship from season 9, scheduled to start in 2023. The return will coincide with the introduction of the Generation 3 car and is intended to promote the marque’s Folgore electric vehicle line, with knowledge flowing between track and road car production. ‘We are very proud to be back where we belong as protagonists in the world of racing,’ said Maserati CEO, Davide Grasso. ‘We have a long history of world-class excellence in competition and we are ready to drive performance in the future.’ Maserati…

Although F1’s sporting and technical regulations were largely rolled over from the 2020 ‘Covid’ season (around 60 per cent of the cars was carried over, although some of minor changes such as to floors and wings caused headaches) for practical and financial reasons, in 2021 F1 teams grappled with another variable, namely financial regulations – ‘budget caps’ in popular parlance – that were introduced after a protracted gestation. Under consideration even before Liberty Media gained control of F1’s rights in 2017, the budget cap restricts spend in performance-critical areas and is intended to level the playing field. Three main areas are targeted: car design and development, component manufacture, and testing and race operations. Spend in these areas was restricted to $145m (approx. £107m / €128m) in 2021, reducing by $5m…

Porsche attacked the challenge ahead without politics and with a clear vision, proper budget, major sponsor, solid pedigree and plenty of ambition 40 years ago, in 1982, the World Endurance Championship (WEC), and indeed global Sportscar racing, started its most successful era ever. The new Group C class would ultimately unite more manufacturers (10) than ever before, or since, in any FIA world championship. It would be run to the same set of technical regulations for longer than any other discipline before or since (nine seasons in total between 1982 and 1990) and took the first tentative steps towards sustainable motorsport, long before it became fashionable, or indeed necessary. In 1976, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), organisers of the Le Mans 24 Hours, created its own class for closed…

Following a conventional external aerodynamics optimisation project that, along with chassis and engine improvements, saw our subject racecar move right to the sharp end of its competition arena, attention was switched to aspects of internal ducting. In this feature, we’re going to dip into work done on the engine inlet duct, involving inlet relocation to ensure an ambient temperature air feed to the engine and detail optimisation of the inlet aperture and downstream trunking to maximise airbox pressures. In the November 2021 (V31N11) issue of Racecar we examined the optimisation of the front-mounted radiator duct on the 1995 TransAm Camaro GT1 of Swiss owner / racer, Daniel Buchi, which he races successfully alongside the similar car of his friend and colleague, Robert Brandli, in the Histo Cup in Austria, Hungary,…

The new, all-electric, single-seat racing series, ERA, has been confirmed as a support race for the electric TCR series in the 2022 season. The ERA will join the FIA eTouring Car World Cup (ETCR) at the second round in Istanbul mid-May, before continuing in Hungary, Jarama, Zolder and finishing the season at Vallelunga. A field of 10 junior drivers will race identical Mitsu-Bachi F110e single seaters in the 10 races. The car features an ERA sub-chassis, designed and made in-house in Belgium, mated to a Dome F110 chassis which uses a 24kWh battery. The ERA electric powertrain will produce a peak output of 130kW (175bhp), which is expected to power the 680kg car to a top speed of around 210km/h, while performance modes will be adaptable at the flick of…