Innehållsförteckning för July 2024 från Racecar Engineering

There hasn’t been too much to shout about for Red Bull’s second Formula 1 team since the current regulations cycle started in 2022, but that could all be about to change. RB, which started life as Toro Rosso, emerging from the ashes of Minardi in 2006, finished ninth and eighth in the last two editions of the 10-team Constructors’ Championship, notching up sporadic points finishes and only a single top five, courtesy of Pierre Gasly at Baku in 2022. The team, which is primarily based in Faenza, Italy, but has aerodynamic and R&D resources in the UK, enjoyed a strong ending to the previous rule set when it amassed 142 points and finished sixth in the table. After a languid start to the current ground-effect era, its management is eager…

Formula E has always been a battle of energy management, but its latest evolution of racecar has transformed the racing into a chaotic peloton, with more on-track action than ever, throwing conventional race strategy out the window. The regulations in Formula E have been written to force teams to utilise the energy from the battery as efficiently as possible. Before each race, the FIA dictates the number of laps and the amount of energy teams are allowed to use. Typically, this is around 25 per cent less than what is needed to complete the race, which is why they need to implement energy management techniques and also regenerate energy to ensure they reach the finish line. In RE V34N6, we delved into this complicated world of energy management and walked…

The arrival of spring saw multiple high-profile changes in Formula 1’s engineering job market, including the major news that Red Bull Racing’s chief technical officer, Adrian Newey, will leave the title-winning team after 18 years. At time of writing, Newey’s future direction had not been defined. However, during an appearance as a driver at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, the 65-year old indicated that he will likely ‘go again’ at some point after taking a break. Newey was a key part of Red Bull’s two waves of F1 dominance, including its current ascendancy during the championship’s ground-effect era that started in 2022. For that first year, he worked mainly on defining the RB18’s suspension concept, which proved to be a key factor in the team unlocking superior platform control without…

There have been major changes this year in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Not all of them have been obvious, but each has been significant. Series organisers the FIA and ACO have introduced a new Balance of Performance (BoP) system, in which they use their own analysis to create a table and then share that information with the manufacturers. The fact they now don’t tell the manufacturers the criteria they are using has caused some consternation among the teams, and increased pressure on the governing bodies to get it right. One of the key talking points is the so-called two-stage BoP, which separates the top speed performance balancing from the low-speed measures. The paddock was collectively worried about the Ferrari 499P, a car that seems to have good top speed.…

There was a Formula 1 race on the first weekend of April this year. It featured more passing manoeuvres than you could count, cars sliding broadside through turns and drivers punting other cars out of the way without a murmur from the stewards. This was not the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, but a Formula 1 Stockcar race at King’s Lynn in Norfolk, UK, and just one bit of an action-packed evening. BriSCA Formula 1 Stock Car is the pinnacle of the UK short oval racing scene and, while very different to its NASCAR namesake, there are also some similarities. British stock cars began in 1954, so this year marks the sport’s 70th anniversary, with cars based on roadgoing machines, but has evolved since into highly specialised devices now more…

Design has been a pursuit of humanity since day one. The practice of taking materials from the world around us and shaping them to create a useful function is one of the fundamental processes to have delivered us to the world we live in today. The initial motivations for our ancestors were driven by the desire to facilitate meeting needs for provision of food, water and shelter. These are the fundamental requirements of survival. Shaping a hammer to work a stone tool, or using plant materials to build a shelter, were some of humanity’s earliest design enterprises. With the perfection of concepts like the lever and pulley bolstering agricultural productivity, mechanisms such as the windmill soon emerged, enabling ever more complex functions to be considered and sparking an industrial revolution.…

IndyCar has confirmed it will debut its new hybrid system during the ninth round of the season at Mid-Ohio in early July. Each of the cars will be fitted with a low voltage (48V) MGU and energy storage system comprising 20 ultracapacitors located in the bellhousing, along with the Xtrac gearbox. The drivers will be able to regenerate on the brakes on road courses, and will have a paddle they can use on the ovals to quickly charge the ultracapacitors which is expected to be used in traffic. The extra power delivery will be via a button, similar to the existing push-to-pass system. Push-to-pass will still have a restriction on the amount of time per use and total time over the course of a race. Rules for the hybrid power…

It has now been seven years since the ACO confirmed it wants to introduce hydrogen to its top class and compete for the overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Since then, the technology has advanced so quickly that the final choice of what to use has still to be made, and the timeline is being pushed further away because of it. As Racecar reported last year, the original plan was to introduce fuel cell hydrogen cars, but refuelling them led to a fear of dramatic temperature changes from empty to full as pressure increases when the tanks are filled. Research into hydrogen ICE technology has advanced since then and using hydrogen as a combustion fuel is now a real possibility. There, the temperature of stored hydrogen is…

Each day, employees entering Xtrac’s design office pass a wall-mounted layout drawing for the company’s first racecar transmission. The G4 gearbox was developed by former Hewland engineer, Mike Endean, for rallycross star, Martin Schanche’s four-wheel-drive Ford Escort. The plan serves as a reminder of where Xtrac started, and how much it has grown in the 40 years since. Now entering its fifth decade, the British transmission manufacturer has an increasing staff count of almost 500 employees, two regional outposts in the United States and several long-term supply deals for major series. It currently builds the transmissions for IndyCar, NASCAR, Supercars, RX1e rallycross, all LMDh cars, most LMH cars, several in Formula E and more. In recent years, the company has diversified into the high-performance automotive sector with several electrification projects…

TECHNOLOGY – EV MODELLING Electric and hybrid racecars present many of the same engineering challenges as traditional internal combustion, but with some key differences when it comes to modelling and simulation at the design, development and performance optimisation stages. On the one hand, both present thermodynamic and mechanical engineering problems, with some aerodynamics thrown in for good measure. However, with an EV, there is also the matter of electrochemical reactions occurring in the batteries, and electro magnetics in the motors (not to mention a bunch of EMC-related issues). It is also a fact that all the elements of an EV powertrain are more interconnected than in an internal combustion engine and, with energy density of batteries still pathetic compared to petrol, the efficiency of those interconnections is of utmost importance…

French tyre manufacturer, Michelin, is facing a squeezed timeline to have its new prototype tyres ready for the 2025 sportscar season after a recent test was rained off. The tyre supplier planned to hold its final development test with its new slick range for all LMH and LMDh cars – which is set to include over 50 per cent sustainable materials – at Portimão in March, but the weather did not play ball. Michelin looked at organising a replacement test in late June, but manufacturers were reluctant due to a tight gap between the 24 Hours of Le Mans and air freight departing for the 6 Hours of São Paulo. It subsequently identified a private test at Austin in late July involving Ferrari, Toyota, BMW and Porsche. Michelin wanted to…