is it time for ai?

The upper echelons of motorsport are riddled with vast amounts of complex technology, both on and off the cars. Onboard contemporary high-end race machines, especially in the hybrid categories, you’ll find an array of electronic systems. And for efficient operation, these cars rely as much on well-designed software as they do hardware. Vehicle management typically involves using many electronic controllers interfacing with sensors and actuators all over the vehicle. In addition, they depend on highly accurate communication between various controllers using computer interrupts, timer circuits, micro controllers and more. Years of investment in this technology has refined the interaction between different control loops, and these days engineers can drive a complex vehicle and power unit package with reasonable efficiency. But, if motorsport is the proving ground for future powertrain deployment and research…

chicanery

This year’s 105th Indy 500 ran true to fascinating form. After first-lap jockeying for position, and the sponsor-pleasing buzz of leading ‘the world’s most famous race’, it soon settled into a fuel-saving, drafting snake of cars leading up to the first fuel stops, from which most team strategies would then evolve. Yellow caution periods, pit fumbles and closures and fuel consumption differences then jumbled up the order and the strategies from there on in. The final few laps culminated in an edge-of-the seat finish, just half a second separating winner and runner-up after 500 miles and over 2½ hours of high speed racing. Exactly what brings the fans flooding back, in person and on TV, year after year. Nervous brake down Not so usual this time was the number of pit-lane spins and…

standing on the threshold

In the Bump stop column in the last edition of Racecar Engineering, our esteemed editor quoted from a conversation with GT supremo, Stéphane Ratel. Stéphane probably understands the meaning of the word ‘sport’, as in motorsport, better than just about anyone else, having built up the GT3 series around the world, catering for owners and drivers who participate in motorsport for the sheer pleasure and sport of it. His two comments: ‘Electric is about mobility, not about sport’, and ‘Every category that relies on direct manufacturer involvement is doomed’ bring into focus the key questions facing international motorsport in the next decade: 1. What is promotionally important to the automobile manufacturers? 2. Can motorsport provide this promotion? 3. How does the sport function without them? The auto industry exists to provide mobility on the…

max attack

A big design criterion was we really didn’t want any turbo lag on this thing because there are so many first gear hairpin exits Bentley may have cancelled its factory GT3 programme, but the Continental continues to race in private hands and is still available for sale. However, the factory turned its attention to an entirely new challenge for its latest version, a Time Attack on the Pikes Peak hillclimb using a fuel that produces up to 85 per cent less greenhouse gas than regular fuel. The base car is run by Luke Clayton, a long-time Bentley customer, but the factory used his hillclimb experience, and car, to create its GT3 Pikes Peak. Using experienced team, Roger Clarke, and engine partner M Sport, Bentley pulled together some incredible expertise in order to…

target practice

Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) class is here, after a long and complicated gestation that saw the rules change several times before settling on a plan manufacturers could use to construct their cars. Racecar Engineering understands there could still be changes in some areas, as uncertainty, mainly related to new car performance, such as that of the Glickenhaus 007C, remains. One of the consequences of the performance targets set for this new class is that the performance of the LMP2 cars had to be aggressively reduced in order to achieve the necessary differentiation between itself and the LMH class. That has proven chaotic, and has seen LMP2 holding different technical rules in every championship in which it competes worldwide. The ACO gave the LMH class a target race pace in Le Mans of…

rather you than me

I resorted to telling them I would quit my job if we decided to make a change to their car after Top Qualifying Have you ever wondered what it is actually like to be a Balance of Performance (BoP) engineer for a racing series? How about being a BoP engineer during the most important race of the year for that racing series? Well, now is your chance to find out, because what follows is a real-time account of my experiences as a member of the BoP Technical Committee leading up to and during the 2021 Nürburgring 24h race event. For the past four years, I have been working as a member of the Nürburgring 24h Technical Committee. This committee falls under the umbrella of the ADAC Nordrhein, which is the organising body…