Innehållsförteckning för December 2022 från Racecar Engineering

You have to hand it to Gene Haas and Guenther Steiner. Between them, they played Formula 1’s constructor regulations to perfection, so much so that without an in-house design office, or a fully-equipped factory, they have mounted a credible world championship campaign and, at the close of the European grand prix season, Haas lay seventh, ahead of Aston Martin, AlphaTauri and Williams – all teams with comprehensive facilities at their disposal. Expressed differently, Haas F1 Team was about the only entrant able to file its budget cap reports on time, as required by the FIA’s financial regulations, without fear of breaching 2021’s $145m limit. The history of the team, which took its first start in the 2016 Australian Grand Prix (finishing sixth, before going one better next time out in…

Whether in motorsport or mainstream automotive, battery technology remains the most vexing, and expensive, stumbling block on the path towards range and price parity with ICE vehicles. While an electric motor, power electronics and associated transmission can easily out gun ICE in terms of power-to-weight ratio, even without having to resort to the exotic end of the market, batteries are – to put it bluntly – fat and heavy. However, the situation is already very much advanced from where it was a decade ago, and marching forward at a pace. Think back to 2014, when Formula E needed two stage races, with drivers swapping cars, to the situation that will (if all of the parts work as advertised) see cars run full races, at a higher power output, using a…

NASCAR’s Next Gen vehicle has been an incredible success on track, with an unprecedented 17 different winners and numerous thrilling races over the 2022 season. While a great year was certainly hoped for, such an outcome was far from certain in mid-to-late 2021 as teams began testing their own cars. As could be reasonably expected with the debut of a brand new car, issues began to appear that were not seen during NASCAR’s own prototype testing. This is the story of the race to fix some of the most concerning issues before the new car hit the track, with high hopes of delivering one of the best seasons in NASCAR’s recent memory. Prototype 1 NASCAR’s on-track testing approach with the Next Gen car extended through much of the early part…

Everyone knows that front-engine racecars went out of fashion years ago, just about when the 1950s stepped into a mini skirt and became the swinging ’60s, in fact. But not everybody likes to put the horse behind the cart, and every now and then there’s a slight revival. Examples are the Panoz Sports Prototypes of the early 2000s, or the more recent Nissan GT-R LM. Yet it’s not just quirky Le Mans racers that have kept the front-engine design philosophy alive for, as many readers will be aware, in the UK there’s a championship dedicated to such cars. Clubmans has been around since 1965 and the category now offers those with a technical and creative approach to motorsport a place to let their imaginations run wild, the only proviso being…

TECHNOLOGY – ENGINE CONTROL UNITS The advancements in engine control units (ECUs) over the last 40 years have played a large part in re-shaping the tuning and vehicle control landscape. Not only have developments in this field made contemporary racing and production engines more efficient and more tractable, but the modern ECU offers failsafes, accurate systems modelling, greater systems integration and a range of other features that require evermore focus and attention from the systems calibrator. What we used to call a tuner. In this article, we look at some of the recent developments in ECUs that have broadened their range of applications, as well as some of today’s more intriguing calibration challenges. Basically, the ECU consists of a processor that uses a pre-programmed map that monitors inputs and controls…

FORMULA 1 – MERCEDES AMG F1 W13 E PERFORMANCE ‘It’s easy to say we’re having a tough time when we’ve been through the last eight Formula 1 world championships, winning them all, and we’re not in that position this year,’ says Mike Elliott, technical director of Mercedes AMG Formula 1, on the team’s 2022 performance to date. ‘We’re bound to think it’s not brilliant. However, looking at a wider context, the 2022 regulations intended to mix up the field and improve the show. In that way, Formula 1 achieved those outcomes.’ At time of writing, with four races left of the season, Mercedes was sitting third in the Constructors’ Championship, 67 points behind Ferrari and an insurmountable 232 points behind Red Bull Racing. Mercedes’ change of fortune since the introduction…

The epiphany that changed Vandervell’s life was the 1930 news that Clevite in Cleveland, USA had developed what it called a ‘thinwall’ bearing At the age of 32, Guy Anthony ‘Tony’ Vandervell had an epiphany. A great motorsports enthusiast who had raced motorcycles since he was 15, and was a dispatch rider in the Great War, he learned of a new kind of engine bearing being developed in America. This was of interest to him because his industrialist father had bought a small bearing business in a London suburb and put Tony in charge, feeling this was the best way to involve his wilful and opinionated son in business. From this small acorn grew a great oak that would immerse Tony Vandervell deeply in all aspects of Britain’s motor industry.…

TECHNOLOGY – ADVANCED SUSTAINABLE FUELS In part one last month, we looked at the Advanced Sustainable (AS) fuels F1 has mandated for power units from 2026. In this follow-up article, we look at why the world needs them to replace fossil fuels for combustion in increasingly obsolete internal combustion engines (ICE) for wheeled transport, and how they stack up against the alternative options available. Currently, a medium-sized turbo diesel car returns around 45mpg. An imperial gallon of diesel embodies 49kWh, which means it travels 0.9 miles per kWh of energy in the tank. Add a hybrid system, and the mileage can be improved by around 30 per cent to 1.2m/kWh. Both these powertrains currently use carbon that is not present in the atmosphere and emit CO2 into it. They also…