Racecar Engineering September 2016

The pessimistic view would be that machines will take all the jobs It is a sobering thought that when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 36 years. But there is an advantage to longevity; one does get to see the amusing circus that is human existence, and the constant return to scenarios we have seen before. Politics does go off in unexpected directions, some of it due to the usual mess caused by good intentions having unintended consequences, one not being paranoid and adhering strictly to Hanlon’s dictum:‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.’ The US, and the UK in particular, that being our Anglophone sphere of interest, but also other countries, are a good example of what that can bring, and the ensuing…

There can be no question that the engineers have severely reduced the spectacle, the cars are just too tamed, this is an unchallengeable fact That rarest of happenings these days – a Formula 1 test – took place at Silverstone after the British Grand Prix. Accordingly I took the opportunity on the Tuesday to catch up on seeing the latest machinery first-hand. The morning had dry running. The initial impressions of amazing braking and acceleration registered as usual, more so than the cornering speeds. LMP1 cars earlier in the year were more impressive, even if this is illusory (but they do have a lot of downforce and much better tyres). After a while, however, watching became rather boring frankly, except when a driver (rarely) overstepped the limit. As has been a widespread lament…

‘We don’t have a history to refer back to, just numbers that are floating around in the heads of our people’ The Haas Formula 1 team was born in a North Carolina steakhouse, when Gene Haas met Italian Formula 1 engineer Guenther Steiner for the first time back in 2010. It was not long after the collapse of the USF1 team, which had been located nearby. The failure of USF1 actually served as a lesson for many considering an entry into the top level of motor racing, and certainly put more than a few investors off getting involved in Formula 1. But it was also as a direct result of that failure that Haas found himself in that steakhouse. ‘USF1 and Ken Anderson [one of the founders of the stillborn team] kind…

This year’s UK Formula Student event saw more than 130 teams from over 30 countries gather together at the Silverstone race circuit to put their designs to the test against one another in the usual static and dynamic competitions. While the weather teased the paddock with gloomy grey skies and a brief shower on the Friday, there was for once no rain interruption on Saturday or Sunday, which helped to make this yet another successful event. This year was so successful, in fact, that for the first time in any Formula Student competition, 75 cars competed in the endurance event on Sunday, and while only 37 of these saw the chequered flag (and five were later disqualified, of which more later), the number of cars out on track easily beat the…

‘We’re increasing the allowed engine capacity in Formula Student from 610cc to 710cc’ Formula Student 2017 will see a number of new regulations in force, and some of these are sure to have teams rushing back to CAD suites around the world to reconsider various elements of the car designs, as Andrew Deakin, the chairman of Formula Student has explains: ‘2017 FSAE is a major rules change year, the rules that we ran under this year just had typo corrections and safety critical changes, but for 2017 we spent a lot of time looking at certain areas.’ Deakin outlined a number of changes to the safety regulations including revisions to the impact attenuator rules, as well as mounting points on monocoque chassis. Teams were also advised that it was felt there was…

The well-established Rennteam Stuttgart won its fourth Formula Student UK event with its F0711-11, a car that was developed with downforce very much in mind. So it was no surprise that the aerodynamic package has changed considerably from last year. Stuttgart actually originally planned to use some concepts from last year’s car, but during simulations it found it was left with an aero package which excelled in straight lines, but fell short in the corners. To fix this for the new car the aero balance was shifted with a new concept front wing. Also, following the lead set by Oxford Brookes in 2015, a fourth element was added to the rear wing in front of the DRS (which results in the car having 30 per cent less drag). This is to…