Racecar Engineering April 2016

The rest of us awoke as we spun off into 5ft high prairie grass Forty-six years ago there was an expedition to the darkest parts of the South American continent by a band of intrepid Brits, doing all the things people did in the comics such as The Eagle. It wasn’t meant to be that way, but the combination of the idea of sending a gaggle of Brit Formula Ford racers on a ‘Temporada’ in Brazil with a sprinkling of South American drivers for local interest, sponsored by Ford of Brazil and British United Airways, coupled with the sheer size of the sub-continent, made for some interesting moments. Emerson Fittipaldi had won the Formula Ford Championship by May 1969, in his first year in the UK, and both UK F3 championships by…

In motor racing, too often it now seems qualifying rounds of a championship have become just another step on the way to the final result I watched a fair amount of the Rolex Daytona 24 Hours race on IMSA’s live website. Unlike the Le Mans 24 hours last year, I didn’t wake up especially during the night nor miss out on proper meals to keep track of goings-on. Undoubtedly the absence of works LMP1 Audis, Toyotas and Porsches had a hand in this – these are remarkable machines to see in action – but I also found that the banked Florida track itself doesn’t provide particularly exciting viewing. It presents a challenge for the drivers and engineers, but actually there are not many corners in the three-and-a-half mile lap, no classic…

With many teams now starting work on the 2017 designs, the story of 2016 may be one of continuity, with the area of greatest technical change expected to be the power unit Formula 1 has now entered the third year of a rules cycle which began back in 2014 with the introduction of the then new 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged hybrid power units. That was probably the biggest year of change in the sport’s modern era. In stark contrast to that is the 2016 F1 season, which is most remarkable for how few changes there actually are in the Formula 1 technical regulations. This has resulted in some of the new cars being almost indistinguishable from their 2015 counterparts, something which became rapidly apparent during the first day of preseason testing where 10…

Formula 1 seems to be in such a state of schizophrenia that everyone and anyone can offer solutions to what is fundamentally a lack of interest in the younger generation. In fact, it is not just the young; Gerhard Berger admitted that he falls asleep watching Formula 1 once he knows who will win, usually after the first few corners. Rather than plunge headlong into this melee, I am going to ask you to momentarily suspend belief and imagine I am the God of Sport, residing on Mount Olympus. Imagine Zeus has just given me instructions to go and sort out F1, as he is sick of the whinging of mortals. The brief is to take no account of the politics or commercial self-interests, and on no account to form a…

The main question was whether or not the twin-motor choice would be too heavy for the existing Spark-derived chassis package Halfway in to the second season of the FIA Formula E Championship and the technical freedoms that were implemented from the all-electric series’ technical road map have not proved to be troublesome – for now at least. Indeed, three different winners from the first four races seems to offer firm evidence that Formula E’s CEO Alejandro Agag, the FIA, and the manufacturers now involved in the series have got it right. On top of this, both a single motor set-up powertrain (with e.dams and Abt) and a dual motor design (DS Virgin) have stood atop the podium. So all seems well in FE at the time of writing. But pre-season there were…

The design and construction of the frame was not unlike that of a fighter aeroplane fuselage of the day During the second half of the 1930s Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union showcased Germany’s engineering capabilities by dominating grand prix racing. This was very much a matter of national pride at the time and the German government provided the majority of the funding, while other governments did the same in the hope that their teams could take the fight to the Silver Arrows. For the Italian manufacturers, it proved too much, and they decided to focus on Voiturette racing, for smaller engined single seaters, towards the end of the 1930s. But the French government had not quite given up yet, and it offered a million franc prize for the French manufacturer that could beat…