Racecar Engineering February 2022

It seems the Qatar and Saudi Arabia GP shenanigans were simply precursors to the Abu Dhabi ‘you couldn’t have written it’ championship finale. I have to say, regardless of everything else, this race provided one hell of a last lap, edge-of-the-seat drama. Could Netflix have dreamed for better? Mercedes is being sensible in not pursuing legal action concerning the controversial outcome. If not Toto Wolff, then the Mercedes hierarchy have realised that, apart from little likelihood of winning – especially as there is no obvious redress that could be sought – the German automotive giant’s reputation risked the inevitable accusations of sour grapes and being bad losers. After all, the company is not in F1 to generate bad publicity. However, the failure of team principal and driver to attend the annual prizegiving…

The 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship was the most competitive of any since the birth of the hybrid era in 2014. A battle from the outset between Red Bull Racing and Mercedes AMG Formula 1 teams saw the fight to decide the victor rage on until the last few corners of the last lap of the last race of the championship. Two powerhouse cars of the sport, with arguably the biggest difference in Formula 1 car design philosophy throughout the paddock, battling it out at every circuit made 2021 a season to remember. Here, we look at the Red Bull Racing RB16B and unpick its technical accolades with Red Bull Racing’s chief engineer of car engineering, Paul Monaghan. Before the gantry lights went out for the first race of the season…

FIA World Endurance Championship Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez took victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship, opening the Hypercar era of endurance racing with their second title together. Driving the Toyota GR010, which also dominated the overall results from the start, the trio started the season third at Spa after Kobayashi went off, finished second at Portimao in June, and then won at Monza as their team mates Brendon Hartley, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi hit problems with debris blocking a fuel filter. They then followed that with a further win at Le Mans despite a similar fuel filter system problem. The trio powered to victory in the first of two races in Bahrain and finished five points clear of their team mates. The Hypercar regulations mean the…

As a reference, with a car at sea level you can expect air density to be around 1.2kg/m3 In June 2019, Robin Shute became the first British driver to win outright at Pikes Peak, Colorado, the gruelling, 12.42-mile mountain course that winds its way up through over 150 corners from a start line at 9390ft above sea level to a finish line above the clouds at 14,115ft. As a quick reality check on those heights, that means it starts at a point twice as tall as the UK’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, and finishes at a point just below Base Camp on Mount Everest. Pikes Peak International Hillclimb is a far cry from the venues we find in the hotly contested British Hillclimb Championship, where competitors regularly see a finish line below the…

The final round of the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch in October 2021 marked the end of an extraordinary era. For 12 years, Swindon Powertrain has serviced a contract that is unique in topflight racing, providing an unbranded engine to any team or manufacturer that wanted to use it in the championship, and at a cost that was affordable to all. During the 12-year cycle of the engine it has undergone two major upgrades due to regulation and contract changes, been re-branded as the TOCA race engine, and has achieved every goal that the championship organisers set for it. During the lifetime of the contract, Swindon’s engines have covered nearly 600,000kms, won 119 races, scored 49 pole positions, and powered more than 100 drivers in the championship. There have been…

The internet can be a hit and miss method of research, involving lots of cats and craziness. But every now and then you stumble upon something quite fascinating, such as a list of Formula Fords produced before 1974 in an old rules document (search ‘brsccff1600 technical regulations’). It’s an interesting read, not least because it contains the likes of Lotus, Lola and March, but also because it’s so very, very long. From Alexis to Winkelman, by way of Blackjack, Cougar, Ladybird and Raven, there are 66 marques listed in all. That’s a lot of racecars. That’s a lot of racecar manufacturers. Things have changed since then. Dominant marques took over in Formula Ford in the ’70s and ’80s and the smaller constructors fell by the wayside. In the process, the very…