Racecar Engineering May 2017

Jordan was given a most unusual national colour, a muted brown The colour of any object depends on both the physics of the object in its environment, and the characteristics of the perceiving eye and brain. So objects can be said to have the colour of the light leaving their surfaces, which normally depends on the spectrum of the incident illumination and the reflectance properties of the surface, as well as, potentially, on the angles of illumination and viewing. A spectrum is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without steps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colours in visible light after passing through a prism. While most humans are trichromatic (having three types of…

Bending car and track to your will and talent, and you to the challenges that they present, is a lot more satisfying than the equivalent of painting by numbers It’s fair to say Lewis Hamilton is known for making comments that are sometimes controversial, frequently confusing and sometimes downright irritating, but happily it’s also true that the real racer that he is generally shines through. A recently expressed opinion of Hamilton’s struck home with me and encapsulated much of the issues surrounding modern motor racing. Referring to his objection against data-sharing between team-mates, he made the observation that this can make it too easy for new drivers to come into F1 and quickly be up to speed. I particularly appreciated Lewis’ additional points. ‘For example, when we’re driving we’re picking out braking…

Will a faster, more physically demanding Formula 1 car really be more spectacular? More to the point, will it allow closer, less predictable racing? Here we go again! The anticipation is higher than usual this year, stoked by the promise of more exciting racing and more dramatic cars. And yet, as the new cars have appeared – and they really do look better proportioned – we have two wise, experienced engineers making deflating comments, even before they turned a wheel: Adrian Newey: ‘I don’t know, it’s a very subjective thing, but being brutally honest I think kind of trying to introduce the illusion of speed by having swept front wing, swept sidepod front and swept rear wing endplate is kind of just a bit Wacky Races.’ Patrick Head: ‘If anybody was thinking…

‘First we had to get the shape of the new production car in good time, then we had to scale it. But that was the easy bit’ In 2012, ITR, the promoter of the DTM, forged a deal with GTA, the promoter of Super GT, in order to unify the technical regulations of DTM and GT500. This agreement aimed to cut costs for both classes and ultimately create a new top level global racing category called Class 1. But things have not gone to plan, or schedule, and the two series have yet to fully merge. However, there have been some moves toward unification in recent times. Both GT500 and DTM have used the same basic package of control parts, including the transmission, brakes and the monocoque, and the same basic technical…

When Audi Sport quit the World Endurance Championship, and its sister company VW quit the WRC, at the end of the 2016 season it left the Audi competition department in something of a state of turmoil, and a major restructuring was needed, with Deiter Gass replacing Wolfgang Ullrich, who retired as the head of the department. ‘It is a bit early to understand the feeling within the organisation,’ Gass says. ‘Obviously there was a lot of disappointment after the WEC announcement and that lasted a while. But over the last three months we have been restructuring. We call ourselves Audi Motorsport now, and operate within Audi Sport. ‘Internally we have been called that for some time. In a big company you have to attend a lot of meetings to get the…

It’s clear that the idea of a joint DTM and Super GT race is still very much on the table, with the 2019 season the target The 2017 season sees the Super GT championship in Japan going in to something of a new phase. It has adopted new aero regulations following the same overall dimensional changes and aims as the DTM series in Germany (see previous feature) and this has resulted in a rebalancing of power in its premier GT500 class. The introduction of the new regulations has seen TRD switch to the new Lexus LC500, while Honda has also switched to a new model, although less obviously. In 2014 Honda used the NSX Concept car as the basis of its GT500, but now the production model is on sale it has…