Racecar Engineering August 2016

We soon find engineers and team principals driven to game the system In the early 1940s Jazz saw the birth of a new wave, characterised by dissonant triadic and chromatic chords, fast tempos and eccentric rhythms, intricate melodic lines punctuated by pop-tune phrases, and emphasising the inventions of soloists. This was called bop, also bebop. If we look up bop in the dictionary we also have the noun being defined as ‘a blow’. But there is another definition of bop for the racing fraternity: ‘Balance of Performance’, which is an extension of the tradition of handicapping used in horse racing. Wiki defines handicapping in sports as ‘the practice of assigning advantage through scoring compensation, or other advantage given to different contestants to equalise the chances of winning. The word also applies to the…

To lose at Le Mans after 23 hours and 57 minutes while comfortably leading and with just one lap remaining must have seemed unbearable Thank you, Bernie, for making me swivel-eyed from simultaneously trying to follow both the grand prix from Baku and Le Mans, especially with the start of the former coinciding exactly with the finish of the latter. There is no way that these events should ever have been allowed to clash. Perhaps it didn’t cross Mr E’s mind that many of the F1 TV fans on which his business is so dependent may also follow that other motor racing discipline, which he treats with such disdain? Not the best way to boost F1’s waning TV audience. Of the two, the 24 Hours was by far the most exciting, the…

Renault has been something of a constant in Formula 1 for almost 30 years, winning world championships as an engine supplier and as a works team. Only Ferrari as a manufacturer has a longer continuity. Even at times when the brand officially stepped back from the sport, such as in the late 1990s, it was still on the grid with its Mecachrome, Supertec and Playlife branded V10 engines. Indeed, the marque has been involved in the sport from the very birth of grand prix racing, winning the first ever official grand prix, the French GP, back in 1906. Yet part way through 2015 it looked as though its long run of participation was about to come to an end. Senior figures in its management team were openly saying that Renault was…

Renault introduced turbocharging into F1 in the late 1970s and after initial struggles used the technology to win world championships. With that in mind it should perhaps come as no surprise that the French manufacturer was one of the main driving forces behind the introduction of the current Formula 1 power unit regulations. Renault was the first to show off its new 1.6-litre V6 engine (in this very publication) in late 2012, and was the first to show off a full power unit in 2013, but when Formula 1 preseason testing began at the start of 2014 pretty much everything went wrong. It was almost an echo of the 1977 to 1979 F1 seasons, where that first turbo engine blew up so often that the cars from Paris earned the nickname…

The record books show that Porsche won the 84th edition of the Le Mans 24 hours, returning a back-to-back victory for the 919 Hybrid and a first win for Marc Lieb and Neel Jani, a second for Romain Dumas. However, the real story was the showing from Toyota’s TS050, with its all-new chassis, engine and hybrid concept. The Toyota team persevered with an aggressive strategy, one that was almost perfectly executed and good for beating the competition, but for a loose pipe between the turbocharger and the intercooler that caused a loss of power. The data shows that the car was slower crossing the line at the start of lap 383, with eight minutes of the race remaining; then Kazuki Nakajima reported a complete power loss out of the first chicane…

Here are the headline figures concerning next year’s new WRC regulations. Close to 50bhp more power than this year (to 380bhp), from a turbo inlet restrictor diameter increase from 33mm to 36mm for the 1.6-litre 4-cylinder engines. Minimum car weight goes down by 25kg, and handling and traction improvements come from a central differential with active slip-limiting. The cars will also be 55mm wider. Meanwhile, aero changes include increased dimensions for the fixed rear wing, with an extra 30mm overhang allowed. A 60mm front overhang is also permitted, and the rear diffuser design is free, within maximum dimensions. These new rules were approved by the FIA WMSC on July 12 last year and Volkswagen Motorsport was the first top team to test designs and development components for its 2017 World Rally…