Racecar Engineering August 2019

One of the things that I do which is distinct from working with racing cars is giving lectures about the design, build and operation of them. At the start of the presentation the first phrase usually goes along the lines of a caveat: ‘I can’t tell you how to do it, but I can certainly tell you how not to do it.’ This derives from compiling all the mistakes that I have committed along the years in the business and is into volume XVII by now. This is called experience, but it is really ‘oops, I was wrong, let’s not make this mistake again.’ And believe me, ignorance may be bliss, but it does not make you go faster and it can be very expensive. Grand designs The main concepts of design should…

I hope that the Canadian GP five-second penalty debacle will not have faded from its controversial post-race headlines by the time this column is printed. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the incident (if indeed there are any), Sebastian Vettel’s more measured later comments about his disillusionment concerning current F1 have contained much which should be listened to. Most important of all, they should be acted upon. The FIA’s obsession with safety and correctness at all costs has become an Ancient Mariner’s albatross circling over the sport. I am not signed-up to the ‘rules are rules’ view, rather I respect the time-served opinion that rules are for the (strict) obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men. If further ammunition for my argument is required Le Mans provided it.…

It looked like some sort of dark, Scandi April Fool joke. First there was Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl who refuses to attend school while politicians refuse to do something about a future that holds few prospects for her, and in April toured Europe by train to berate politicians and the Pontiff for their inertia in doing anything about climate change. Then, shortly afterwards, Swedish racing driver Stefan Johansson wrote a three-part article about the future of F1, advocating, among quite a few other things, 1400bhp Formula 1 engines. In fact, Johansson’s article was a fine, courageous and timely piece, reviewing very broadly the whole of F1’s potential future in respect of economics, technologies, relevance, regulated competition, sporting issues, entertainment and, of course, its effect on the rest of motorsport.…

If you are unfamiliar with the FIA World Rallycross Championship then allow me to enlighten you. Imagine merging the brutal environment of a rally with the chaos of a touring car race, add a jump in, and some drifting, and you are getting close. The 600bhp turbocharged Supercars punch 0-60mph (100km/h) acceleration times faster than F1, so the dash to the first corner becomes a six-way drag race. This is followed by six laps of hardcore racing on tracks where up to 67 per cent of the lap surface is dirt, while the other 33 per cent is asphalt. Then there is the joker lap, which is an alternative section of track that adds at least two seconds of lap time which every driver needs to complete once per race.…

Electric car racing is nothing new, indeed EVs were racing at Crystal Palace in London when Queen Victoria was still sitting on the throne, but in recent years it has certainly become ever more relevant. The automotive industry is heading to a future where all passenger cars will likely have some degree of electrification. In fact, some nations are moving to make it law that by 2030 all passenger cars sold must have either a hybrid or fully electric powertrain. This has, in part, led to hybrid vehicles being used in the two top categories of motor racing, Formula 1 and LMP1, and also the rise of the all-electric Formula E championship. Formula E started out as a purely one-make championship, but has more recently opened up a number of areas…

This car has taken on its own bold identity and no longer resembles a Juno, hence the name change A group of motorsport enthusiasts and professionals are currently building what could be described as the ultimate national-level sports racer in Auckland, New Zealand. The project is the brainchild of John Ryall, a successful Auckland businessman and passionate weekend racer. He has always yearned to build the ultimate sports prototype racer and compete in the New Zealand Sports Car Series. To this end he bought a Juno 2-litre Mugen Honda powered SSC car in 2014. This had about 250bhp, but that wasn’t really powerful enough. So Ryall set about ‘improving’ the racecar. When he came across the CFD expertise of David Higgins of Kinetic SIM and the composites skills of Gregor Haeberlin of Haeberlin…