Racecar Engineering June 2019

English has become the lingua franca of the world, something probably related to the spread of the British Empire, then with the American move to hegemony in a polarised postwar world. In racing there is no escaping English, as the sport’s official language, too. Even the FIA, a French-heavy ruling body, bowed to this in writing the technical and sporting regulations for racing in English – those used for final arbitration – due to the number of British F1 teams, who brought all their lobbying efforts to bear to ensure this was the case. Up until then I had successfully used my knowledge of the French version to open up loopholes to be exploited, and some years ago it was most entertaining to see Peter Warr and John Surtees at a Brazilian…

The ACO has, with the FIA, and both with the best of intentions, got itself in a terrible tangle over the impending new regulations for its top Le Mans class. First it planned a pure ‘hypercar’ concept – purpose-built hybrid racing cars that just made styling and brand reference to road-going high-performance vehicles – but reality has dictated a compromise. Now the plan is to allow the reverse of this (road-going hypercars modified for racing) to participate on so-called equalised terms with the dedicated race-designed machines. Neither now, apparently, have to be hybrids. This immediately introduces the prospect, much-hated by many – myself included – of balance of performance, to which Vincent Beaumesnil of the ACO has already alluded. Moveable aero devices have gone, too, and on top of this is an…

The DTM has finally brought its engine, chassis and aero regulations within touching distance of the Japanese Super GT GT500 rule set, which before too long should see the likes of Audi, BMW and newcomer Aston Martin lining up to take on Super GT stalwarts Toyota, Nissan and Honda, if only in standalone events to begin with later this year. It’s a mouth-watering prospect. But the DTM has had to make some major changes to bring this about. This includes the new 2-litre, 4-cylinder turbo engine, which has meant the weight has gone down by around 35kg due to the new architecture, with a reduction of 50kg overall in the minimum weight of the car – now 986kg without the driver. A fuel restrictor, rather than a flow meter for the…

One of the more obvious changes in the DTM this year is the arrival of Aston Martin, which has stepped in to fill the void left by Mercedes’ departure at the end of the 2018 season. The car is based on the Vantage, but a late decision on rubber-stamping the programme left the team with very little time to prepare, and the outfit that’s running the DTM car, R-Motorsport (which is developing the Aston Martin in conjunction with ex-Mercedes team HWA) now says that it is behind schedule in terms of the ideal development time-frame ahead of the first race of the year. ‘The development team received the confirmation of the project late, and only started development work on October 22,’ says HWA’s technical director Hubert Huger. ‘They had 85 days…

‘When we applied the Supra’s shape to the 2020 regulations we found that there was a really big drop off in performance’ It has taken almost a decade of negotiation but in October and November the GT500 class of Super GT and the German DTM will come together for a pair of challenge events. The first event will be held in Germany and will see a single racecar each from Lexus, Honda and Nissan take on the entire DTM field, then a few weeks later at Fuji Speedway the entire DTM field and the entire GT500 grid will come together for a two-race, six-manufacturer shootout. This will be the final step towards the creation of the long promised Class 1 regulations which Super GT will, mostly, adopt for 2020, and which DTM…

Toyota has put the Supra at the heart of its motorsport activity and it is likely that a number of competition versions will appear in the near future. Perhaps surprisingly, the first official racing version of this car is running in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but this is clearly just the tip of the iceberg, as the Japanese brand has been dropping heavy hints about a number of other Supra projects. In 2018 a Supra-based LM-GTE specification concept racecar was shown off at the Geneva Motor Show, but this really was little more than a design study. Based on a pre-production chassis the show car was built using a few genuine parts, but with no real intention of ever taking it on track. Indeed, the car was not even fitted with an…