Aero Dynamics – An F1 view on aerodynamics for race cars

Air Force

Kyle Forster: An F1 view on aerodynamics for race cars

Australia can be too easily discounted as too far away from the leading edge of motorsport – namely Formula One – to be relevant and involved. That’s a fallacy look at how many Australian drivers and engineers have made the grade – then there’s motorcycle riders and engineers, mainstream automotive engineers: the list is long especially considering the size of our population. Kyle Forster is one of those engineers who made the move to Formula One but in his own words “particularly coming from outside of Europe it’s difficult to get into Formula One.”

In early November Mr Forster agreed to share some of his experience, knowledge and practices with the SAE-A audience in a 2-hour webinar on aerodynamics which is his specialty area. Mr Forster has been a racecar engineer for 14 years and spent almost as long working to achieve his dream by studying for an undergraduate degree in engineering, then finishing his studies with a PhD in aerodynamics from the University of New South Wales.

“I always wanted to work in F1 so I searched pathways into F1 – that pathway for me was to get a PhD,” he said. “At the same time that I was doing my PhD I started up a consulting firm as well as finishing my buggy and starting my YouTube channel (Kyle.engineers).” As he neared the end of his PhD, he began to hunt down that elusive job in F1 and pinned down a position with Mercedes Petronas Formula One where he worked for three years – they were three championship winning years – before returning home to Sydney. “I applied to Red Bull and Mercedes; Red Bull never got back to me, but Mercedes did.” It sounds simple when it’s a potted history, but Mr Forster knuckled down very early in his studies and by the time he had finished his thesis on The Variation in Co-Rotating and Counter-Rotating Upstream/Downstream Vortex Interactions he had won a university medal and had achieved average marks of over 90 percent in his studies. He explains the thesis as a simple problem of two vanes in a line, one moved to different offsets and looking at the vortex interaction of these two vanes but done in great depth. All the way through university Mr Forster kept himself busy not just with study but with Formula SAE working on the Redback Racing UNSW team first as head of bodywork, then head of steering and finally technical director. As he explained during his webinar FSAE involved a lot of extra work that requires students to balance university study and FSAE but he also said: “for me undoubtably,

the skills I learnt from it, the breadth of knowledge, the ability to work in a team – it’s a no brainer I would 100 percent do it again. “Personally would I hire a grad engineer for a race car engineering role without it? Probably not,” he concluded. In the same vein, was the PhD work worth it? He said it was for him as it got him past the HR screen and into the interview room with Petronas. And like the vehicles themselves, an F1 interview is like no other. Mr Forster emphasised that in each part of the interview they’re trying to drill you as hard as possible to work out where your knowledge ends, it was harder than any interview he’d had. “The interview can duck around a bit, from car to supersonic aircraft knowledge – diversity is important,” he said. Luckily, he had that diversity having been involved in aerospace projects as well as automotive projects during his studies.

For an engineer there’s a lot of super cool things about F1, Mr Forster explained, such as when you’re at your desk you have a milliondollar wind tunnel at your disposal sitting behind you. You learn so much and you have access to the coolest tools and amazing budgets. Moving to the other side of the world was not as easy as it seemed, and Mr Forster struggled with the location of the team, which was in a small town in the middle of England with a very small population. There’s a lot of pressure to perform and succeed, and the hours are long. It becomes an all-consuming lifestyle. You lose touch with reality a bit. There are definitely no regrets about doing it though. Once back on home soil he concentrated on his business JFK Consulting (https://jkfaero. com/) and has continued with his YouTube channel, both have been very successful. Since coming back from F1 he has worked on a Porsche that successfully competed at the world’s most famous hillclimb – Pikes Peak in the US. And has worked developing an autocross car, boat developments and touring cars as well as biotech projects. Variety is enjoyable. For the most part of Mr Forster’s webinar, he concentrated on explaining the various aspects of designing aerodynamics for race cars comparing work done in Formula One with work done for Touring Cars and his personal favourite, Time Attack cars. Time Attack is a type of motorsport where racers compete for the best lap time. Each vehicle is timed through numerous laps of a track. The fastest wins – quite simple. “Time attack cars and F1 are favourites because they are the craziest expressions of aerodynamics in different packages,” he explained. Downforce and drag were the first two areas he explained in his presentation including how to achieve it: flow energy = kinetic energy + static pressure. Needless to say, it is not as easy as a simple calculation and he went into greater depth throughout his talk to ensure that he led the listeners from one idea to another working through: vortices, aero balancing, testing and design, key developments and compromises. Finally, he ended his presentation with a case study of the aerodynamic differences between a Porsche and an F1 car, before opening the floor to questions. JKF Consulting also runs an in-depth course called Race Car Aerodynamics: the Definitive Course which comprises of 69 lessons, during the webinar a special discount was offered to webinar attendees. The course is intended for: • A university student looking to get ahead of their peers with high level aero knowledge • Someone looking to apply for a job in F1 as an aerodynamicist • An amateur or professional racer looking to maximise performance on their car • A professional aerodynamicist looking for an aero refresher • An engineer (racing or otherwise) looking to upskill into race car aerodynamics • Anyone with a keen interest in and passion for aerodynamics. The course starts at the fundamentals and builds from there.

More information is available at: https://courses.jkfaero.com/courses/ race-car-aerodynamics-the-definitive-course