Innehållsförteckning för February 2025 från Racecar Engineering

Opinions differ as to when the aerodynamics of a racecar come into play. Some maintain the effect is almost negligible, and certainly not noticeable, at low speeds, while others insist that useful downforce can be generated even when a car is going slowly. Few, though, would claim a car can produce downforce standing still. Yet that’s exactly what Nic Mann’s extraordinary hillclimb creation, the Mannic Beattie, does, generating 70kg of downforce just sitting on the line. We will return to how it pulls off this neat trick later, but first a little background, some of which might be familiar to long-time readers as this car was originally featured in 2010 (RE V20N7), although it’s been developed significantly in the 14 years since. Mann started his hillclimb journey in a highly…

Red Bull Powertrains is perhaps the most ambitious project in motorsport history, yet it is one born out of frustration Red Bull is unlikely to win any architecture awards for Building 8 on Bradbourne Drive in Milton Keynes. But at least it has given it a nice name: The Rindt Building, named after Austria’s 1970 Formula 1 world champion, Jochen Rindt. There is a simple reason why more effort was put into the name than the design – it had to be done very quickly. Red Bull Powertrains Ltd was founded on February 16, 2021 and, by 2026, one of the most successful F1 teams of this millennium will be propelled by power units developed and assembled inside The Rindt Building’s walls. ‘It’s kind of bold and audacious to say…

Multimatic, best known in racing as a chassis and suspension supplier, but which is also a supplier of systems, components and engineering services to the automotive industry, has bought a majority share in racecar damper supplier, PKM Consulting. PKM will join Multimatic as an autonomous division within its Special Vehicle Operations Group and will become responsible for all racing damper operations by 2027. It will have full access to Multimatic’s resources and its founding partners will remain on its management team to ease the transition. ‘As family-owned and operated organisations, we are fully dedicated to the long-term success of our customers competing around the world,’ said Pascal Zurlinden, vice president of operations at Multimatic SVO. ‘This agreement significantly elevates our ability to achieve this goal through the tremendous expertise of…

What does Dacia make you think of? To most, it is a manufacturer of low-cost, dependable, no-frills road cars. It hardly stirs any emotions when it comes to motorsport, or performance. The tradition of this Romanian auto maker, recognised across Europe as part of the Renault group since 1999, is more about getting people from a to b cheaply than going anywhere fast. Consequently, its motorsport involvement has been sporadic at best. Competition versions of the 1310 and 1410 road cars were campaigned in Romania’s national rallying scene in the 1980s, while the single-make Dacia Logan Cup operated in five countries during the late 2000s. Former Romanian prime minister, Victor Ponta, was one of the champions. In 2012, four-time Formula 1 champion, Alain Prost, won the Andros Trophy ice race…

Honda has been an on / off factor in Formula 1 for six decades, first joining the sport in the summer of 1964. The company groups its grand prix involvement by eras and there have been four of them so far. Notably, the Japanese manufacturer has scored grand prix wins in each era, most recently powering Max Verstappen to the first of four consecutive World Championships wins, starting in 2021. Established in 1948, the Honda Motor Company was still strictly building motorcycles in 1961 when its founder, Soichiro Honda, first looked at entering Formula 1. The Japanese company was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world at the time, and its racing department had just scored two class wins at the prestigious Isle of Man TT. Though its first four-wheeled…

Motorsport was one of the early adopters of additive manufacturing (AM) technology. Formula 1 teams started utilising rapid prototyped parts in the 1990s, and functional parts started to appear on cars towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s. However, the final frontier for additive technologies remained highly stressed structural parts, particularly for powertrain applications. Now, that hurdle has been overcome, while the materials technology, machines and, most importantly, processes have reached levels of maturity whereby additive-manufactured parts can be deployed in almost any part of the vehicle. Of course, it is not always desirable to use AM. Traditional lay-up techniques for composite parts such as chassis, tubs and suspension members are still required (though AM has opened up possibilities for complex internal patterns, thanks to printed materials…

After a turbulent season of regulation change, the FIA World Motor Sport Council has finally released its technical vision for the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) from the 2027 season onwards. The future of the WRC’s top class, Rally1, had been in constant debate throughout 2024, as the FIA and WRC Promoter sought to ensure its long-term stability and relevance. In the short term, hybrid systems - which were introduced in 2022 - will be dropped next year. Looking further ahead to the 2027 regulations overhaul, hybrid systems will remain on the table as part of a ‘built-in freedom’ to choose different powertrain types. Similar to the FIA World Rallycross Championship, which now features a ‘battle of technologies’ (see p40), the WRC27 rule set will allow ICE, hybrid and electric…

McLaren’s rise to win the World Constructors’ Championship for the first time in 26 years was one of the biggest stories of the 2024 Formula 1 season. Having finished fourth in 2023, the Woking-based squad made considerable steps with its car to pressure, and then surpass, the champion of the last two years, Red Bull. It now hopes to maintain that momentum into the final year of the ground effect regulations and beyond. At the head of McLaren’s upward rise has been a strong technical leadership team moulded around team principal, Andrea Stella. That efficient group, combined with the introduction of a new wind tunnel facility, has paid noticeable dividends, with updates that have consistently yielded improvements to the race-winning MCL38. Stella’s leadership circle was bolstered last year by the…

It has been a turbulent few years for the FIA World Rallycross Championship (WRX) to say the least. Politics and a pandemic delayed the series’ switch to electric cars and, just when the concept was gaining momentum, a paddock fire that destroyed one team’s equipment halted everything. However, WRX rose from the ashes and reformed to become the first high-level series to race electric and combustion cars side by side (it had been done at the Dakar Rally two years prior). The result has produced a very relevant ‘battle of technologies’, set against the fast and furious backdrop of rallycross. The idea of introducing electric cars to WRX was first sparked in 2016. By 2017, the commercial rights holder at the time, IMG, together with the FIA and several manufacturers,…

Before it was granted its famous name, a prototype racecar had its first outing at Queensland Raceway, to the knowledge of only a few select individuals. By the end of the session, it had lapped the track seven seconds faster than any other racecar had done before. It also completed those 80 laps trouble free. That car, later named a Brabham BT62, was intended from the beginning to be a track-only car, with the later development of the BT63 GT2 conceived to carry forward a legacy in motorsport. It weighed less than 1000kg and, with all the necessary efficacy of road holding, put to excellent use the 750bhp available in the power unit. The sheer performance demonstrated that day was almost too good to be true, and yet the truth…

The Cadillac Formula 1 team will be powered by Ferrari when it lines up on the grid for the 2026 season. It will also use the Ferrari gearbox, which will help to finalise its rear suspension layout. Ferrari confirmed the ‘multi-year agreement starting from 2026 with Andretti Formula Racing LLC’, though the wording of its press release was later edited to say Cadillac, rather than Andretti, which was the original entrant that F1 rejected in early 2024. Cadillac, which has yet to have its entry formally accepted in writing, stated its intention to produce its own power unit from 2028, but has since changed its language to say it will do so by the end of the decade. It will be one of three teams in 2026 to use Ferrari…