Racecar Engineering March 2018

In last month’s edition (V28N2) I marked 60 years in motorsport – my first event was the Sao Paulo Grand Prix at the end of 1957 – with a trip down memory pit-lane, recalling some of the great names and huge characters among the racing drivers I’ve worked with and known. This month, let’s remember some of the great designers (and a team owner) who are no longer with us, that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and knowing. Jumping past Colin Chapman, who has had enough written about him to make any story superfluous, the other huge influence for me was Guy Ligier, who caused me to end up living in France permanently after coming to work at the Ligier factory at Magny Cours. An ex-F1 driver who used…

The four months of lost time put the team under immense pressure, and perhaps compromised the ultimate set-up for the car BMW’s history with endurance racing has been somewhat chequered in the last 20 years in that, while it won the 1999 Le Mans 24 hours overall with the V12 LMR, one of the best-looking prototype racecars the world has seen, in GT racing the picture has been more complex. From the M3 GT2, featuring a 4-litre V8 engine which did not exist in true production form, to its new car, the M8, which is based on the 7 Series executive saloon, the firm has often not had a car that fits with the traditional GT philosophy along the same lines as Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin or Corvette, with their sportscar derived…

‘I want to be in the hunt for wins come the latter half of the season, and surprise some folks in the championship fight too’ The Daytona 24 hours in 2017 saw the competition debut of Mazda’s DPi car, powered by a 2-litre, 4-cylinder turbo engine built by AER, which was housed in a chassis designed by Riley Technologies and Multimatic Motorsports. The RT24-P promised much, but somewhere between the drawing board and the track problems arose, and it’s fair to say that the car never fulfilled its potential. The relationship between Multimatic and Riley began when Larry Holt, the vice president at the former and also its motorsport boss, was approached by Mazda to find a way into the IMSA series. Holt was not at all keen on building his own…

The 2018 LMP1 grid was looking rather bleak until Ginetta declared that it would compete, claiming the first privateer spot. This was followed by the news that Mecachrome would supply it with 650bhp in the form of a 3.4-litre V6 turbocharged, direct injection engine. This LMP1 concept is an evolutionary step from the V6 already raced in both GP3 and F2, with the former naturally-aspirated and the latter a turbo with port injection. ‘After the first GP3 and Formula 2 tests, we realised that this engine could be a good base for an LMP1 car. Not only could this V6 meet the power demands of LMP1, but direct injection was also feasible and it met our cost objectives,’ says Bruno Engelric, managing director of Mecachrome Motorsport. ‘The current WEC regulations are…

Ginetta has fought for its place in the top tier of WEC, staving off a plan to introduce an LMP2-plus concept Ginetta finally took the wraps off the car that it hopes will win at Le Mans, the Mecachrome-powered G60-LT-P1, at Autosport International in January. The new LMP1 was unveiled by Ginetta chairman, Laurence Tomlinson, technical director, Ewan Baldry, and Graeme Lowdon, who confirmed that the intention was for Manor Racing – of which he is sporting director – to run the car alongside an LMP2 entry in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Following the withdrawal of Audi and Porsche from the WEC, leaving Toyota as the only major car manufacturer involved in LMP1, Ginetta has fought for its place in the top tier of the series, staving off a plan to…

‘Nobody who competes in Land Speed Records is really competing against another person. They are competing against a number’ There is an overused expression, often heard when extreme projects are launched. It was first applied to mountaineering, in response to a journalist asking George Mallory why he wanted to climb Mount Everest he apparently replied ‘because it’s there’. Marlo Treit gives the same answer why he wanted to beat the record for the fastest car in the world. And now his twin-engined streamliner, Target 550, is about to take a big step towards this goal. In the mid 1960s the outright Land Speed Record split in two with jet propelled cars treated separately to those with driven wheels. While the jet cars evolved into wingless jet fighters (literally in the case of…