Racecar Engineering January 2017

No public, no sponsors. No sponsors equates to the death of the business The Norse Eddas speak of Urth, Veroandi and Skuld, the Norns, maiden giantesses who see the past, the present and the future. ‘Thence come the maidens mighty in wisdom. Three from the dwelling down ‘neath the tree; Urth is one named, Veroandi the next. On the wood they scored, and Skuld the third. Laws they made there, and life allotted to the sons of men, and set their fates.’ Quite. Presumably, if we ask them what the near future brings, we would be warned that a revolution is coming. But do we know what a revolution is? It used to be seizure of power by popular forces aiming to transform the nature of the political, social, and economic…

Despite the short sharp shock nature of Gymkhana videos, and rallycross racing, aerodynamics still play a decisive role For Derek Dauncey, team director of Ken Block’s Hoonigan Racing Division, getting the Ford Focus RS RX prepared for filming Gymkhana Nine, the latest in Block’s hugely popular stunt driving internet films – which at the time of writing has accumulated 14.5 million views – was a fairly straightforward job. Following Block’s participation in the FIA World Rallycross Championship in Canada, the team made straight for the outskirts of New York, where the video was to be filmed and immediately began preparation. ‘We left Canada and went straight down to Buffalo, did the livery change, did some repairs and we changed the settings and that was it; we went and did the filming,’ Dauncey…

‘The main project goal was to increase the overall aerodynamic performance’ Super GT is Japan’s premier race series. In recent years it has been going through something of a transition, with a raft of new regulations. But it has always had a two-class structure, with each category having its own ethos. The top class, GT500, is essentially still a playground for manufacturer teams, with Toyota, Honda and Nissan fielding cars. In 2014 new rules were introduced which are largely harmonised with those of DTM, and for this year these have been further updated. Meanwhile, the second tier class, GT300, has always been more about pitting cars developed by smaller Japanese tuners against the best customer cars Europe and North America have to offer. The global rise of GT3 over the last decade, however,…

A team of three fabricators took two months to make the conversion, with progress stopping and starting around their usual workload as part of the race team For those who already think Aussies are slightly bonkers, this story’s for you. It’s the tale of a race team that decided to take a Supercar, one which contributed to Jamie Whincup’s 2013 championship win, no less, and recreate a 1970s icon. The team in question is Roland Dane’s category-leading squad Triple Eight Race Engineering, and the icon is the quintessentially Australian Holden Sandman. This was the ultimate expression of the panel van craze of the ‘60s and ‘70s ,which brought together the load carrying capacity of a ute (or pickup) and the enclosed protection of a wagon (or estate). An ability to fit surfboards…

On the evidence of the Hong Kong round, probably three-quarters of the grid are in with a chance of winning a race this season The amusement always runs high among members of the media at the Donington tests every year as each team so valiantly attempts to pull down a veil of secrecy on its motors, inverters and transmission options for its new models. This year, though, there is little in the way of change in the regulations for season three, but some teams have opted to subtly alter things, in particular Renault, Audi and Venturi, while others have gone for more wide-ranging set-ups, such as DS and NextEV. With the regs staying stable, the grid has closed up, and on the evidence of the Hong Kong opening round, probably three-quarters of…

The Venturi FE team hopes that the introduction of a new advanced technology can help it to join the front running teams in the championship this season, with new semiconducting silicon-carbide (SIC) diodes being used on the Venturi VM200-FE-02 in an effort to improve efficiency. Developed by global technology company ROHM, the special SIC diodes have made the Venturi’s inverter 2kg lighter, with electric efficiency being increased by 1.7 per cent, and the volume of heat extraction components has been reduced by 30 per cent. The material is believed to be capable of withstanding higher electric fields than conventional silicon, which results in extremely low losses of power and higher temperature resistance. Unveiling the new technology in Hong Kong, Venturi technical director Frank Baldet said: ‘We are very proud to be co-developing…