PMW Magazine (in full) featuring System Store Solutions

APRIL-JUNE 2012

PROFESSIONAL MOTORSPORT WORLD

Magic formula

Can Formula 3 withstand the challenge from GP3?

Get your coat

The latest developments in high-performance coatings

Perfect match?

PROFESSIONAL MOTORSPORT WORLD – APRIL-JUNE 2012

Toyota builds a petrolelectric hybrid for Le Mans

Interviews Published by UKIP Media & Events Ltd

Roger Griffiths Technical director, HPD

Paul Hembery Motorsport director, Pirelli

Beth Paretta

DeltaWing Half the weight and half the power of a regular Le Mans Prototype. Is this the future of sportscar racing?

Marketing and operations director, SRT

THE MAGAZINE FOR THOSE IN THE BUSINESS OF GOING MOTOR RACING ENGINES P.6, CHASSIS P.10, SERIES FOCUS P.12, SIMULATORS P.15, BUSINESS NEWS P.16, I REMEMBER P.64 WWW.PMW-MAGAZINE.COM

IN THIS ISSUE

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Narrow margin Ben Bowlby is the driving force behind the team taking the radical DeltaWing racer to Le Mans. Is this the future of sportscar racing?

WORDS BY GRAHAM HEEPS

Two years ago, PMW reported on the contenders for the 2012 IndyCar chassis contract (see April-June 2010 issue).

The radical DeltaWing design may have lost out to Dallara in the final decision, but the extensive research that went into the project won’t go to waste: a modified DeltaWing will compete at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.

Race organizer, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), has invited DeltaWing to take ‘Garage 56’, a slot that falls outside of the normal regulations and therefore won’t be eligible for classification in the normal race results. In doing so, the Highcroft Racing-run car will be the latest in a line of innovative entrants (see panel, p43). But with the build of the car having proved more difficult and time-consuming than anticipated, and the first engine not having being delivered until the end of February, the team knows it faces a tough task to get the DeltaWing in shape for the first Le Mans test day on June 3.

“We’re late,” admits Ben Bowlby, the car’s designer and chief technology officer of DeltaWing Racing Cars, speaking to PMW early in 2012. “But we haven’t wasted the extra time. We’ve used it to improve the performance of the car and its detail design.

“In fact, the car’s looking really tasty! The aero package is better than we ever expected, so the performance looks really strong: we’re lower drag and higher downforce. Our lift/drag ratio (L/D) is close to 6:1 and we’ll probably run at an even higher L/D than that. Our fuel consumption should be extremely low for our laptime; the engine stuff we have going on suggests that we’ll be able to run at around 27-28 liters per 100km, which is a very impressive number for a petrol [race] car.”

As has been the case all along with DeltaWing designs, the Le Mans car was tested full-size in the tunnel at

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Windshear in Concord before taking to the racetrack. However, the machine has been built away from its roots in North Carolina, at Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers (AAR) concern in Santa Ana, California.

Bowlby, whose enthusiasm for the project is infectious, first met the 1967 Le Mans winner in November 2010. Gurney quickly got behind the program.

“AAR are the champions of this project,” says Bowlby, a Brit who was formerly technical director at Chip Ganassi Racing and chief designer at Lola. “Dan Gurney understands what it takes to build a car and go racing. He made it possible for us – he put a drawing office together, he provided the people to manufacture the car, and he made his facilities available to us. This project would not have been possible without him and his son Justin, the CEO. It needed somebody to say, ‘go, start, cut metal, spend money!’”

The original proposal for an IndyCar single-seater has been modified for Le Mans. A crash-test-certified, ex-Aston Martin AMR-One tub sits at the heart of the revised car. To the front is a carbon-fiber front suspension module and a carbon nose as the primary energy-absorbing piece. To the rear of the central cell lies a steel tubular spaceframe that envelops the transmission and wraps underneath, mounted on rubber bushings to vibration-isolate the light chassis structure from the four-cylinder engine. Bowlby expects, however, that the vibration from the 1.6-liter, RML-built Nissan petrol unit will be less than from comparable I4s.

The engine itself is not a stressed member; Bowlby suggests that in future variants of the car, it could be swapped for other sources of motive power, such as a I3, a flat-four, or an electric motor and batteries.

Aside from the change of tub, the changes to the original Indy design have been fewer than one might think.

www.pmw-magazine.com

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

BURNING ISSUE

BURNING ISSUE

Right: Honda’s new V6 will be used by six of the IndyCar teams in 2012, including PMW Expo Awardwinning Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon ran the Dallara-Honda on an oval for the first time at Auto Club Speedway, California

Common to all INDYCAR ENGINES 2012-16: BASIC RULES 2.2-liter, V6, 60-90° block angle Minimum crankshaft journals: 48mm mains, 40mm connecting rods 12,000rpm limit Single BorgWarner EFR9180 turbo or twin BorgWarner EFR6578 turbos – modifications, variable geometry, anti-lag systems, intercoolers, and integral waste gates not permitted E85 ethanol fuel; two injectors per cylinder but only one for direct injection; maximum fuel pressure 300 bar 248 lb (112.5kg) minimum weight, not including exhaust, turbo, fluids, clutch, and so on Maximum boost pressure: 155kPa road courses; 140kPa short ovals; 130kPa speedways

Back in the race Honda’s IndyCar program returns to competition mode this year with the introduction of the HI12R engine WORDS BY MIKE MAGDA

Common mounting points for chassis bulkhead and gearbox

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Test mileage

Since 2007, when Honda Performance Development was left as the sole engine supplier to all IZOD IndyCar teams, HPD’s primary focus has been on durability, consistency, and cost containment in servicing the V8 engines it had developed with Ilmor in 2002.

Taking advantage of new chassis and engine rules for 2012, Honda has designed and built its own single-turbo V6 to compete against allnew twin-turbo powerplants from Chevrolet – which partnered with Ilmor – and Lotus, which has worked with Judd.

“Our original concept was V6 twin turbo,” admits Roger Griffiths, technical director at the southern Californiabased HPD. “When the competition came in and architecture was open to either single or twin, we had to look at all aspects of the installation in terms of performance, response, weight, torsion, and potential for development.”

Honda was certainly comfortable with either concept, having built singleturbo V8s for the now-defunct CART program, as well as the current HR28TT twin-turbo V6 used in the ALMS LMP2 class.

“That was helpful from both perspectives for us to understand where it was we were heading and why we were heading in that direction,” says Griffiths.

The original engine format called for a 2.4-liter unit. As IndyCar received more input from all three manufacturers during the development phase, officials reduced the displacement to 2.2 liters.

“There were concerns the 2.4-liter engines would be too powerful,” explains Griffiths.

Honda is releasing few technical details. The block is fully machined aluminum alloy with liners. One of the original 2.4-liter prototypes was on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this year. A makeshift protractor revealed a 75° cylinder-bank angle.

Officials won’t discuss crankshaft design or if the engine is odd or even fire.

“We’ve got a competitive series, and in particular we’re coming up against our homologation dates,” says Griffiths. “We’re not going to say anything about the engine architecture until that date has passed, just in case somebody else gets a lead from what we may or may not be doing.”

However, he is frank about lubrication issues.

“The oil is something we’ve used in past engines,” he says.

“The oil tank is now located on the front of the engine. I’m pretty certain everybody’s oil

“THERE WERE CONCERNS THAT THE 2.4-LITER ENGINES WOULD BE TOO POWERFUL” ROGER GRIFFITHS, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, HPD

Reigning champion Dario Franchitti tested the engine at Indianapolis

www.pmw-magazine.com

Dyno testing of Honda’s first 2.2-liter prototype engines started in early 2011. Three test cells were available at the HPD facility, and the company’s Roger Griffiths says that on many occasions, all three had the HI12R running.

“They do a combination of performance and durability work,” adds Griffiths, who says design changes were made continually during dyno testing. “Typically we’ll try out a new idea and see if the performance is there, then build up a general spec engine. We’ll run durability tests on that engine to ensure parts will go the distance.”

He says typical issues that required changes included fuel system layouts and induction.

Besides identifying potential mechanical issues, dyno testing also verified that computer simulations were “matching reality”.

“WE’LL TRY A NEW IDEA TO SEE IF THE PERFORMANCE IS THERE, THEN BUILD UP A GENERAL SPEC ENGINE” Dallara used the HI12R engine last fall for the initial shakedown of its new chassis, then Honda began its own track testing of the engine in early October. Other suppliers such as BorgWarner and transmission builder Xtrac were involved in early tests.

Honda is supplying six teams in 2012: Foyt; Dale Coyne; Rahal Letterman Lanigan; Sam Schmidt; Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing; and its anchor team, Chip Ganassi.

According to published reports, Honda experienced a few engine failures during track testing, and speculation in the media pointed to the required McLaren engine management systems.

“The first three and a half months’ worth of development in the car was done with another engine management system. Then we had to convert to run on the McLaren system. So everybody took a little bit of a step backwards,” hints Griffiths, who does not confirm actual engine failures nor elaborate on the problems.

H AV E YOU ME T ?

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INTERVIEW BY MIKE MAGDA

What is your earliest motorsport memory?

As a kid, flipping through the channels and watching any race on TV.

How did you get into the business?

This is my first professional motorsports job [Paretta was previously operations manager for Aston Martin Lagonda, the Americas].

On a personal level, I am an unabashed Formula 1 fanatic. I plan my vacations around Formula 1 races. In terms of driving, I’ve done a little bit with my Lotus [at trackdays] but my goal is to do Grand-Am – maybe the Continental Tire ST class. Maybe we could convert the new Dodge Dart down the line?!

What are the best and worst parts of your current job?

INTERVIEW

That’s actually a privateer effort. Racers Edge approached us – first with a Challenger in the Grand Am GS class. Then as we got further along, they asked if they could race a Viper. We’re down to the last few of our Viper ACR-Xs so we sold them one. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was more that a customer came to us.

Do you feel it’s important to get the new Viper into some type of racing later this year?

It could be. People like to see cars in that class racing. So that’s definitely a direction we could go in.

Given the current economic climate, how do you make a business case for motorsport?

It comes down to the people attending and watching the races.

If they can see us as a brand that is exciting, and also have an opportunity to see new cars, then it makes sense for us to be there.

Do you feel limited with only one NASCAR team doing development work?

Beth Paretta

rapid drop-off of the supposedly reality, of the season, compound. In sole tire start of the softest as Formula 1’s in performance more complex than that.

With its first season a success by most was right,” Hembery the situation get the balance then it doesn’t supplier deemedmight think that Pirelli “You have to too close your exposure observers, one you get them have it where stresses. “If to enjoy the international so you have to at a greater a difference, could now pause contract. But instead, motorsport have make the softer tire degrades year, if we his colleagues tire higher-performing, that comes with of tire. Last Hembery and second choice tweaking their be that we had director Paul rate than the through the winter, ourselves, it would the peak 2012. been flat-out a criticism of the racing in seconds between tire, to had a gap – 1.5 which meant specs to improve is to the profile of the rear data too big of the two compounds,degradation of The first change the handling balance. “The is performance talk about the high with on the team, for all the help the teams enough.” rear tire, dependinggrip through its that, it wasn’t large in amounted to for this season’s the softer tire, a 4-7% increase in degradation the is substantially giving around The difference second per lap, even on so the footprint of a looked at the 15 laps for the working loads, around a tenth explains. “If you taking around 15mm on each compounds. tire, so it was increased,” Hembery across the two see there is probably more than last softer to used tire, you would lap times to equalize difference] down peak that is being give to [the it nine shoulder or can bring the footprint [squarer] after eight in a “If we tried to shape he says, “then year. We’ve also , so that it doesn’t behave 0.8 of a second,” difference into play.” drivers. you bring that more progressivity makes it easier for the improving the and are all part of balance laps and snappy manner few teams didn’t have the Such measures that what spectators a feedback is “Last season Hembery notes the general want to see much show. have liked it; will viewers really was ‘the car’s where they’d 2012 season 2012 test in Jereza good job with the television The plan is that the and the drag from the first overtaking. done tactics tire tire, you’ve the good on last year, when more balanced, bit of a job with combined to grip build we’ve done a system (DRS) increase of a tricky-totire’. In reality events into put it reduction the rear a greater turning some that such I would also having given the front, but with us effect, overtaking fest. He believes with work to making compared TV ratings, having had time That follow news for the for the down to the teamscar around the tire better. racing is good will switch off the the field.” likely that viewers the race. and design racing throughout the difference it less portion of if only the should give closer ‘boring’ middle change concerns rose in 2011; Rally The second compounds available F1’s TV numbers of the World the two dry-weather was made of could be said between the weekend. Much at the same during the race two in 2011, and particularly the gulf between

Occupation: Director of marketing and operations, SRT and motorsports, Chrysler Group LLC Interests: Board member of Guardian Angel Motorsports

APRIL-JUNE 2012

PROFESSIONAL MOTORSPORT WORLD

Magic formula

Can Formula 3 withstand the challenge from GP3?

2012

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Half the weight and half the power of a regular Le Mans Prototype. Is this the future of sportscar racing?

Interviews Roger Technical Griffiths director, Hembery Is and half Prototype.

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SIMULATORS AZ SERIES O S E OSE AG Paul Hembery

Motorsport director, Pirelli

Beth Paretta

Published

Marketing and operations director, SRT

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Paul Hembery director, SRT Motorsport director, Paretta Beth and operations Pirelli

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Three thinking With thin grids, a monopoly in the chassis market, and pressure from other categories, can Formula 3 continue to survive and prosper? PMW investigates

FORMULA 3

The reason this year is so crucial is that 2012 marks the introduction of new regulations and hence a new car by the only manufacturer currently building for the formula. The problem, however, is that Dallara’s F312 has not sold as well as hoped; the company’s F3 man, Jos Claes, tells us it expects to ship just 40 cars – across five championships worldwide – by the start of the season.

On the ground, these figures translate into thin grids for both the main international F3 championships: the Euro Series expects 15 cars out – all of which will be the new chassis – and the British is looking at 17 cars,

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www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

Formula 3 has one thing in abundance: history. The category has been around, in one form or another, for more than 60 years, and in that time it has propelled some of the sport’s greatest names to superstardom, provided a proving ground and marketplace for race car manufacturers, and survived its fair share of global recessions.

The question is, with one chassis now dominant, other formulae competing for budgets, and a global downturn that shows little sign of ending soon, will it survive for another 60 years?

Or could 2012 mark the beginning of the end?

There is a series that we’re not in that I would like to see us in. Look out for an announcement soon! <

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by UKIP

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Interviews ths

FORMULA 3

Is there a series that any Chrysler brand would like to be in, but isn’t at this time?

Interviews

Paul T H E M A G A Z I N E Fthe O Rpower T H O S E I NHPD THE BUSINESS OF GOING MOTOR RACING

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What grassroots motorsport would you like to see more participation in from your group?

We’re looking at a lot of things, including B-Spec with the Fiat 500.

“I AM AN UNABASHED FORMULA 1 FANATIC. I PLAN MY VACATIONS AROUND FORMULA 1 RACES”

HEEPS

BY GRAHAM

www.pmw-magazine.com

There are two schools of thought. You could say that if you had six teams, it’s that many more teams in simultaneous development. The other side is that we have very direct communication; we’re able to work through things quickly. Now that we’ve got fuel injection, it’s very important that we’re working together to get up to speed with the new technology. Then in 2013 we’ve got the new car. Having efficient and direct communication is a plus.

Age: 37

MotorsportFOCUS P.12, SIMULATORS P.15, BUSINESS NEWS P.16, I REMEMBER P.64 ENGINES P.6, CHASSIS P.10, SERIES W Wdirector, W.PMW-MAGAZINE.COM

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I REMEMBER…

Carlin driver Jack Harvey (Dallara F312-VW) in pre-season testing for the 2012 British F3 Championship

WORDS BY MIKE BRESLIN

Three thinking

…controversy at the Indianapolis 500

April-June 2012 |

www.pmw-magazine.com

COVER STORY 40 DELTAWING It’s light, fast, and looks like nothing else.

PMW gets the lowdown on the Le Mans racer from its creator, Ben Bowlby

FEATURES 22 ON THE COVER FORMULA 3 Mike Breslin reports on the factors affecting the future success of this longestablished single-seater training ground 28 SITE VISIT Graham Heeps takes in Carlin Motorsport’s brand-new, purpose-built factory 32 INTERVIEW: PAUL HEMBERY Pirelli’s motorsport director gives his thoughts on how to achieve closer racing in Formula 1, and the plight of the WRC 36 TESTING PMW explores the test tracks at the ATP proving ground in Papenburg, Germany 46 ON THE COVER POWERTRAIN Making its first trip to Le Mans since 1999, Toyota is using hybrid technology in the TS030. By Charles Armstrong-Wilson 50 ON THE COVER COATING INNOVATIONS Inventions that put motorsport ahead of the road-car industry for a change

What’s the motivation to return to Grand-Am with the Viper, given that the car is out of production right now?

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HEMBERY IS PIRELLI’S PAUL IEVING CLOSER FOCUSED ON ACHULA 1, BUT RACING IN FORM ON THE WRC STILL HAS AN EYE

INTERVIEW

Contents

The best things are the people, and being able to attend more races.

The worst is that everything is on the same Saturday, so you’re trying to be in too many places at the same time.

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

INTERVIEW

001

J. C. Agajanian originally had A. J. Watson build the Watson Roadster for Lloyd Ruby, and he raced it in 1960.

Tony Bettenhausen helped me get the ride the following year. I brought my own mechanic, Johnny Pouelsen, and was the Rookie of the Year in ‘61. If there was any race I should’ve won it was ‘62. I was long gone, then the brake pedal went to the floor.

At the start of 1963, I went to the tire tests, and that taught me a lot. I was able to slide the car and do things you normally wouldn’t get to do. We were a little concerned about the rear-engined [Lotus] cars of Jimmy Clark and Dan Gurney.

They were set up to run on one pit stop and I had to make three. At the time, you had to look at the big picture with what was happening in England. Gas was expensive, and they had to develop more efficient cars. We wanted more power, bigger cars,

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

bigger engines. All that caught up at Indy and was a reflection of the times.

I never did race with Jimmy side by side.

I was long gone in the race, then the oil tank cracked. [Controversially, Jones was not shown a black fl ag for the leaking oil.]

When it first happened, oil hit my left rear tire and I slid sideways. I slowed down and Jimmy started gaining. He got within four or five seconds. Finally it quit leaking and I picked up speed. In fact, one of my next-to-last laps was my fastest all day.

Eddie Sachs spun in the race. The next day he jumped all over me at the Autolite lunch, saying that he spun in my oil. I said, “Jeez, you were losing a wheel. That what’s made you spin.” “No, man,” he said, “I spun in your oil.” I told him he was full of crap and should bust him in the mouth.

He said go ahead. So I let him have it and knocked him on his ass!

I didn’t know J. C. was arguing with the officials about throwing a black fl ag. I wouldn’t have stopped anyway. But the controversy did tarnish my win. Frankly, I should’ve won four or five times in the seven years I ran there. Rookie and second year I could’ve won. Third year I did. Fourth year I was leading with the same roadster but it caught fire in the pits. In ‘65 I finished second to Jimmy Clark. I was running second in ‘66 in a car I built. Then in ‘67 I drove the STP turbine car and was long gone until the bearing failure.

Looking back, I guess I wasn’t always a smart driver. I knew how to go fast, I just didn’t know how to go long enough. Like with the turbine. It had so much torque, and what hurt it was the hard acceleration out of the pits. If I’d just taken it a little easier coming out of the pits, I would have won hands down. <

REGULARS 04 DAVID TREMAYNE F1 is set for a thrilling season, and UK PM David Cameron is on board!

06 BURNING ISSUE Farewell V8 twin-turbo, hello single-turbo V6. Mike Magda on Honda’s new Indy motor 10 CARBON COPY Proton’s updated Satria Neo S2000 rally car is a driver’s dream. By Matt Joy 12 SERIES FOCUS: GP3 Graham Read talks to movers and shakers from the GP3 Series 15 HOTLIST The latest simulator developments 16 BUSINESS UPDATE Joe Saward goes to the movies 18 HAVE YOU MET? Beth Paretta, SRT/Chrysler Group 64 I REMEMBER...

Controversy at the Indianapolis 500

PARNELLI JONES SPOKE TO MIKE MAGDA

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a petrolbuilds Toyota for Le Mans hybrid electric

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES 54 55 56 57 58

Classic designs reborn Record participation Higher-speed CFD Pro versus pro Products & services round-up

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| April-June 2012

ROLE CALL

002

EDITORIAL Editor Graham Heeps Assistant editors Rachel Evans, John O’Brien Chief sub editor Alex Bradley Deputy chief sub editor Nick Shepherd Proofreaders Aubrey Jacobs-Tyson, Frank Millard Contributors this issue Charles Armstrong-Wilson, Mike Breslin, Matt Joy, Mike Magda, Graham Read, Joe Saward, David Tremayne

ADVERTISING Publication director Mike Robinson Publication manager Val Lesishin

PRODUCTION Art director James Sutcliffe Design team Louise Adams, Andy Bass, Anna Davie, Andrew Locke, Craig Marshall, Nicola Turner, Julie Welby, Ben White Head of production & logistics Ian Donovan Deputy production manager Lewis Hopkins Production team Carole Doran, Cassie Inns, Robyn Skalsky

CIRCULATION contact Adam Frost adam.frost@ukipme.com Annual subscription: £42/US$75 CEO Tony Robinson Managing director Graham Johnson Editorial director Anthony James

Professional Motorsport World magazine ISSN 1748-9296 Published four times a year by UKIP Media & Events Ltd Abinger House, Church Street, Dorking, Surrey, RH4 1DF, UK editorial/sales tel: +44 1306 743744 editorial fax: +44 1306 875824 sales fax: +44 1306 742525 email: motorsport@ukipme.com The views expressed in the articles and technical papers are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher. While every care has been taken during production, the publisher does not accept any liability for errors that may have occurred.

This publication is protected by copyright ©2012.

Printed by William Gibbons & Sons Ltd, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT, UK

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Mike Breslin

“The F3 support race at the 1983 Silverstone GP sticks in the mind,” says Mike. “It was won by a guy called Senna...

Every lap inch perfect.”

Don’t miss Mike’s piece on F3’s future (p22)

Graham Heeps

The editor’s favorite F3 memory is from Snetterton in 1984, watching Johnny Dumfries (a polite young man!) blitz the field in David Price’s BP-sponsored Ralt-VW.

Parnelli Jones

To the best of our knowledge, Parnelli never raced a Formula 3 car. But he enjoyed great success elsewhere as a driver and team owner, including his 1963 Indy win (p64)

Joe Saward

“Covering European F3 was the most enjoyable period in racing in my career,” says Joe. “We were all young and going places, and the energy and enthusiasm was inspiring.”

David Tremayne

“The most electric race I ever saw was Martin Brundle beating Ayrton Senna in Donington’s F3 race in 1983. Ayrton was inches behind all race long, never giving him a moment’s peace!”

A note from the editor We have a major focus in this issue on the future of Formula 3. For decades, F3 has been, in Europe and beyond, the key training ground for young drivers with ambitions for a career in single-seaters. Now, with thinning grids, new chassis and engine rules being implemented, and tougher competition than ever from upstarts like the GP3 Series (p12), the category is at a crossroads. The FIA’s recent recreation of the European Championship is recognition that F3 needs a shot in the arm.

Fortunately, there’s a tremendous amount of goodwill toward Formula 3. The opportunity to make changes to the car’s setup, and alter certain components, means it retains a position as a learning environment for young drivers, mechanics, and engineers that the rival ‘spec’ formulae can’t match. And it has more practical advantages, too, such as more track time. Leading team boss, Trevor Carlin, who runs teams in both British F3 and GP3, recently told me, “There’s always competition between categories, and they have different plus-points and negatives. It depends what drivers want to learn and achieve. Being on the F1 support package [like GP3] is fantastic, because you get a bit of profile, but it’s also bad, because you get no track time and you’re in the back end of beyond, paddock-wise.

That’s a price worth paying for some people for the profile.

“Other people see the value in F3 because there’s lots of mileage and technically it’s superior, a bit more interesting.

But you don’t have the crowds. I suppose in a perfect world you’d have F3 cars on a Grand Prix package with a bit more track time and an open paddock!”

For Carlin, the car itself is key.

“Spec cars should in theory cut the cost of racing – they don’t always because you have to buy everything from a single supplier. But I personally like the technical challenge of being able to change stuff. It’s interesting. You don’t want to just take a part off, clean it, and bolt it back on – you want to look at it and see if you can improve it. That’s human nature. I think GP3 will assess where they’ve got with this current-generation car and see what they do for the next-generation one.”

Carlin is a big fan of the new F312 Dallara, with its F1-style front suspension, and is hopeful that 2013’s planned change in F3 engine rules will prove a success.

“I assume they will go ahead next year and build engines to a blueprint, not necessarily based on a road car engine.

If it gets the support from the engine builders then it’ll be a good thing and cut the costs. I don’t see the need for a turbo, it’d take away the purity from an F3 car, but then the world’s ‘going green’, so who knows?”

Who knows, indeed. I for one would love to see a strong Formula 3; a second chassis manufacturer to challenge Dallara would be particularly welcome. Any takers?

Graham Heeps READ ALL ABOUT ASTON MARTIN RACING’S UPGRADED VANTAGE GTE FOR LE MANS, ONLINE AT: www.pmw-magazine.com

2012

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004

DAV ID T R E M AY NE

Everything is in place for a great F1 season. Even the UK’s Prime Minister is impressed…

Formula 1 stood on the verge of another great season as these words were written.

Which, when you think about things in the perspective of worldwide recession and the battle to save the European Union, is something that should cheer us all.

For the first time in history, six World Champions will do battle, and there will be 20 races. In testing, less than one second covered the top 10’s best laps.

Racers of the caliber of Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Kimi Räikkönen, and Michael Schumacher lend great credibility to their sport, and the fact that they comprise a quarter of the grid can only be a good thing. People like stars, and these are six of the highest echelon. They are also characters: Sebastian and Jenson are the smiley good guys, always ready with a quote; Fernando is the sometimes sulky

“FORMULA 1 IS AN INCREDIBLE SUCCESS STORY. SPACE SCIENTISTS LOOKING FOR IDEAS COME TO THE BRAINS IN FORMULA 1” anti-hero; Lewis the edgy lone-wolf intent on winning; Kimi the ‘Ice Man’; Michael the ruthless veteran they love to hate. Five guys from the new era, and one who ties them all to a past when only Mika Häkkinen could offer him any real competition in the aftermath of Ayrton Senna’s death.

The recent award-winning Senna movie did much to boost the sport’s image, and the fact that it made general release is something else we should celebrate. Good news for a sport that is often criticized by those who don’t fully understand it or engage with it.

One man who does, perhaps surprisingly, is UK Prime Minister David Cameron. On a visit to McLaren late last year to open the new factory that builds the MP4-12C roadgoing sports car, he addressed his audience with these words: “When I come here and see what you’re doing, it’s a great reminder that actually in Britain we do still have world-class engineering, world-class manufacturing, world-class production techniques. I’ve been to a few factories, a few car manufacturing plants in my time – I’ve never

April-June 2012 |

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been to anything quite like this. It really is inspiring, what you do.

“One of the things that so impressed me is that it is not just about the extraordinary Formula 1 cars you make, or indeed the incredible new cars we’ve been looking at. It’s the technology, the invention, the patents, it’s all of that intellectual property that is going to lead to so many other great businesses in the future.

“It is something that is not said often enough, but Formula 1 is an incredible British success story. Its engineering is so groundbreaking that when space scientists are looking for ideas they come to the brains in Formula 1. You remember the Beagle 2 [spacecraft] – it was encased in a lightweight plastic first developed for Formula 1 exhaust systems.

“We can be proud that British engineering is not just dominating Formula 1, but actually changing the world. It’s visits to places like this that make me optimistic about the future, even in the difficult times we face. This country has the talent, the ideas, the expertise to create and to sell more to the rest of the world.”

Wow! That made a change to detractors harping on about carbon footprints. There have long been moves afoot to ‘educate’ us into being somehow ashamed of ‘the British way’, even though it’s fair to say the rest of the world largely respects and admires it and cannot understand why we are so into selffl agellation. Cameron’s comments were thus timely and encouraging.

But it’s not all sweetness. Many believe the return to Bahrain is controversial as the political situation there remains unsettled, and that any action from dissidents might ensnare the sport’s foot soldiers – the mechanics, team staff, and media – rather than the drivers and team principals who have access to suitable protection.

And because of a new technical regulation that has its roots in safety considerations, 75% of the new cars are ugly due to a step in their noses. Ugly cars are not a good engineering advertisement.

But overall, things in F1 are positive. As well as the six World Champions, Mark Webber, Felipe Massa, and Nico Rosberg should all be there in the thick of the fight, and the scrap in the midfield will surely be tougher than ever.

And we’re also going back to the USA. F1 belongs there, and should never have left. <

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BURNING ISSUE

Right: Honda’s new V6 will be used by six of the IndyCar teams in 2012, including PMW Expo Awardwinning Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing

Common to all INDYCAR ENGINES 2012-16: BASIC RULES 2.2-liter, V6, 60-90° block angle Minimum crankshaft journals: 48mm mains, 40mm connecting rods 12,000rpm limit Single BorgWarner EFR9180 turbo or twin BorgWarner EFR6578 turbos – modifications, variable geometry, anti-lag systems, intercoolers, and integral waste gates not permitted E85 ethanol fuel; two injectors per cylinder but only one for direct injection; maximum fuel pressure 300 bar 248 lb (112.5kg) minimum weight, not including exhaust, turbo, fluids, clutch, and so on Maximum boost pressure: 155kPa road courses; 140kPa short ovals; 130kPa speedways

Back in the race Honda’s IndyCar program returns to competition mode this year with the introduction of the HI12R engine WORDS BY MIKE MAGDA

Common mounting points for chassis bulkhead and gearbox

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BURNING ISSUE

007

Test mileage

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon ran the Dallara-Honda on an oval for the first time at Auto Club Speedway, California

Since 2007, when Honda Performance Development was left as the sole engine supplier to all IZOD IndyCar teams, HPD’s primary focus has been on durability, consistency, and cost containment in servicing the V8 engines it had developed with Ilmor in 2002.

Taking advantage of new chassis and engine rules for 2012, Honda has designed and built its own single-turbo V6 to compete against allnew twin-turbo powerplants from Chevrolet – which partnered with Ilmor – and Lotus, which has worked with Judd.

“Our original concept was V6 twin turbo,” admits Roger Griffiths, technical director at the southern Californiabased HPD. “When the competition came in and architecture was open to either single or twin, we had to look at all aspects of the installation in terms of performance, response, weight, torsion, and potential for development.”

Honda was certainly comfortable with either concept, having built singleturbo V8s for the now-defunct CART program, as well as the current HR28TT twin-turbo V6 used in the ALMS LMP2 class.

“That was helpful from both perspectives for us to understand where it was we were heading and why we were heading in that direction,” says Griffiths.

The original engine format called for a 2.4-liter unit. As IndyCar received more input from all three manufacturers during the development phase, officials reduced the displacement to 2.2 liters.

“There were concerns the 2.4-liter engines would be too powerful,” explains Griffiths.

Honda is releasing few technical details. The block is fully machined aluminum alloy with liners. One of the original 2.4-liter prototypes was on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this year. A makeshift protractor revealed a 75° cylinder-bank angle.

Officials won’t discuss crankshaft design or if the engine is odd or even fire.

“We’ve got a competitive series, and in particular we’re coming up against our homologation dates,” says Griffiths. “We’re not going to say anything about the engine architecture until that date has passed, just in case somebody else gets a lead from what we may or may not be doing.”

However, he is frank about lubrication issues.

“The oil is something we’ve used in past engines,” he says.

“The oil tank is now located on the front of the engine. I’m pretty certain everybody’s oil

“THERE WERE CONCERNS THAT THE 2.4-LITER ENGINES WOULD BE TOO POWERFUL” ROGER GRIFFITHS, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, HPD

Reigning champion Dario Franchitti tested the engine at Indianapolis

Dyno testing of Honda’s first 2.2-liter prototype engines started in early 2011. Three test cells were available at the HPD facility, and the company’s Roger Griffiths says that on many occasions, all three had the HI12R running.

“They do a combination of performance and durability work,” adds Griffiths, who says design changes were made continually during dyno testing. “Typically we’ll try out a new idea and see if the performance is there, then build up a general spec engine. We’ll run durability tests on that engine to ensure parts will go the distance.”

He says typical issues that required changes included fuel system layouts and induction.

Besides identifying potential mechanical issues, dyno testing also verified that computer simulations were “matching reality”.

“WE’LL TRY A NEW IDEA TO SEE IF THE PERFORMANCE IS THERE, THEN BUILD UP A GENERAL SPEC ENGINE” Dallara used the HI12R engine last fall for the initial shakedown of its new chassis, then Honda began its own track testing of the engine in early October. Other suppliers such as BorgWarner and transmission builder Xtrac were involved in early tests.

Honda is supplying six teams in 2012: Foyt; Dale Coyne; Rahal Letterman Lanigan; Sam Schmidt; Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing; and its anchor team, Chip Ganassi.

According to published reports, Honda experienced a few engine failures during track testing, and speculation in the media pointed to the required McLaren engine management systems.

“The first three and a half months’ worth of development in the car was done with another engine management system. Then we had to convert to run on the McLaren system. So everybody took a little bit of a step backwards,” hints Griffiths, who does not confirm actual engine failures nor elaborate on the problems.

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

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BURNING ISSUE

Choices, choices The first roundtable for a new IZOD IndyCar engine formula was held in 2008 with many of the OEMs from the USA, Japan, and Europe in attendance.

Initial goals were maintaining parity among the teams and helping the auto makers to market a consumer-relevant engine.

Considerable discussion focused on the merits of V6, V8, and I4 configurations, including the ‘Global Racing Engine’ concept, which was highly touted by some of the Europeans.

“We like to think common sense prevailed,” says Honda’s Roger Griffiths. “We ended up with V6 architecture.”

The only significant change in the rules after the first announcement was the reduction to 2.2 liters. Minor adjustments were made with follow-up committee meetings, and the manufacturers were required to submit engines for homologation by late February 2012, one month

“WE LIKE TO THINK THAT COMMON SENSE PREVAILED. WE ENDED UP WITH V6 ARCHITECTURE” before the first race of the season at St Petersburg, Florida, on March 25.

IndyCar will monitor engine performance throughout the season.

Manufacturers can request changes to engine components and the McLaren Electronic Systems engine management software if homologated parts are breaking, if a supplier falls out of a program or if changes can lower production costs.

Changes can also be made in mid-June and at the end of the season if a manufacturer’s engines demonstrate a power deficit of more than 2.5%.

April-June 2012 |

A revised calendar means the new-generation cars won’t race on an oval until Indianapolis in May

“WITH ITS SIMULATION AND TRANSIENT DYNO PROCESS, HONDA HAS THE TURBO SYSTEM AND THE OTHER ENGINE-DRIVEN CONTROLS READY FROM THE START” MIKE HULL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CHIP GANASSI RACING

scheme layout will be similar – scavenge pump on the right side because the oil coolers are on the right side of the car.”

Griffiths says cylinder-head port design is a combination of lessons learned from previous engines, including Formula 1.

Numerous styles were tested virtually and on the flow bench before settling on the current design. Steel and titanium are allowable valve materials.

“It’s a combination of balancing the right material against the cost,” says Griffiths. “We have restrictions on how much we can charge for these engines.”

Honda’s single turbo will be located inside the bellhousing, a strategy carried over from the CART era. Twin exhaust outlets in specific locations are required by rules.

“You have to be considerate of what’s going on inside the bellhousing,” says Griffiths.

“We’ve done it for many years and have experience of what’s going to work.”

Teams do have some flexibility in helping the drivers adjust to the turbo’s different power curve.

“You’re able to tune a lot more,” says two-time IRL

www.pmw-magazine.com

champion and 2008 Indy 500 winner, Scott Dixon. “There are more options, so maybe more advantages if you can find things that work.”

Team officials also note the transition to turbo engines has been less of a problem than it would have been in the past.

“I think that is due to the fact that electronic control of the system takes its direction from the technology of today versus where it was several years ago,” says Chip Ganassi Racing managing director, Mike Hull. “With its simulation and transient dyno process, Honda has the turbo system and the other engine-driven controls ready from the start.”

Last year, IndyCars used E98 or almost pure ethanol.

The new rules call for E85.

“If we had gone from conventional racing gasoline to E85, it probably would have been more challenging. Direct injection, from the outset, was a challenge because nobody had done it in a high-speed engine,” admits Griffiths, noting that Porsche’s LMP2’s V8 ran at just over 10,000rpm.

“We’re running to 12,000rpm.

With E85, you have quite a high flow rate required for the

horsepower you’re producing.

With those engine speeds, you have a very small window to inject the fuel.

“We’ve designed the engine to have a quite reasonable amount of over-rev capability,” he continues. “We know these engines will get over-revved, particularly on the downshift.”

Specific numbers have not been released, but HPD is expected to build between 40 and 50 engines for the season – all expected to be within 1% of each other in power output.

IndyCar has also raised the service interval from 1,400 to 1,850 miles for each engine.

“Previously, we had a number of years to build up to 1,400,” says Griffiths. “Now we have to start at 1,850.”

HPD has set the bar extremely high for itself. Last year, the outgoing Honda IndyCar V8 engines logged more than 206,000 miles in competition without a single failure. According to Honda, only six in-race engine failures were recorded in more than 1.19 million miles of racing, qualifying, and practice over the past six years when it was the IRL’s sole engine supplier. <

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010

CARBON COPY

Tech spec PROTON SATRIA NEO S2000 DIMENSIONS: 3,905mm (L) x 1,800mm (W) x 1,300mm (H) WHEELBASE: 2,440mm TRACK: 1,543mm WEIGHT: 1,200kg ENGINE : MEM-Proton 2,000cc I4.

278bhp@7,600rpm. GEMS X25 engine ECU and power management system.

Integrated datalogging and color dashboard display TRANSMISSION: Xtrac ‘532’ 4WD Super 2000 transmission system. Six-speed sequential gearbox with engine cut on up-shift. LSDs: front/rear – plated mechanical, externally adjustable; center – spool SUSPENSION: Tubular fabricated front and rear crossmembers. Lower wishbones and MacPherson struts. Reiger dampers. ARBs (optional sizes available), one-piece alloy hubs (interchangeable front to rear) BRAKES: Front – Alcon four-piston forged calipers, 350mm vented discs (asphalt) or 300mm vented discs (gravel). Rear – Alcon four-piston forged calipers, 300mm vented discs WHEELS: 18in x 8in alloy for tarmac, 15in x 6.5in alloy for gravel

Particle accelerator With an Asia-Pacific title-winning season behind it, Proton’s Satria Neo S2000 rally car is reaching for greater heights on the world stage in 2012 WORDS BY MATT JOY

Kicking off the season in fine style, Proton’s Satria Neo S2000 rally car took a maiden SWRC win on Rally Sweden.

Finishing more than three minutes ahead of the secondplaced Ford, the Satria led from start to finish. It had previously shown promising speed at the season opener in Monte Carlo, too – testament to the development work undertaken over the winter by preparation specialist Mellors Elliott Motorsport (MEM).

Chris Mellors, owner of MEM, tells PMW that the 2012 development program centered around changes that enabled the drivers to extract

April-June 2012 |

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the maximum from the car, rather than a focus on outright performance. Repeated running over a set stage had revealed gains that were down to ‘testing-itus’ rather than improvements in the car, as Chris explains: “One of the most significant changes is the engine – not so much the power, but the dynamics of the car. We spent quite a lot of time on the dyno because the drivers are always asking for more power. The [stage] test would then go very well, but we couldn’t actually replicate those results on events. After studying the data for quite a long time it became apparent that the drivers were effectively

learning how to drive the car on that particular test stage.

If you looked at the duty cycle of the engine, it was always around 7-8,000rpm. When you went to the rally with limited pace notes, the data coming off the car showed numbers down as low as 4,000rpm out of corners.”

With useful improvements in torque lower down the rev range without sacrificing too much top-end power, Chris and the MEM team found that the drivers were in the right gear more of the time. A useful knock-on effect was that the differentials were working better and it allowed more loading of the suspension.

CARBON COPY

Above: Mecsek Rally, 2011. Below left: P.G. Andersson on his way to victory in SWRC, Rally Sweden, 2012

This idea of ‘driver-focused’ changes then set the tone for the rest of the development program – Mellors says the car is now easier to drive, and the drivers have responded to that.

“You can spend hours and hours on rigs, but there’s nothing like getting out there in real time,” he adds. “The thing that testing gives you more than anything is how the driver feels about the car, not necessarily the overall performance of it. You could design a car that would be enormously fast around a particular corner, but when you transfer that to the real world and it’s snowing, it just doesn’t happen. It’s finding that balance between what you know you can do mechanically, and what you need to do to get the driver’s psychological speed through that corner.”

Weight has been another key area of attention during the winter, as in 2011 MEM was faced with a relatively limited

development program to get the car ready for competition.

For 2012, an overall weightsaving of around 18kg has been made, but perhaps more importantly, a lot of the weight has also been moved lower down in the car.

“This year, Proton has given us a bit more help and we’ve been able to reduce the weight and also get the center of gravity down by using some lighter components higher up in the car, and moving things around,” says Mellors. “At the same time as getting rid of some weight, we’ve actually made the car more functional, easier to service, and better for the driver. The ultimate speed of the car is not necessarily how fast it will go round a corner, but how fast the drivers believe it will go round the corner.

“The suspension has been a major area of development following on from last year.

We’ve changed the damping settings and done quite a lot of work on differential settings and brakes to maximize the extra torque from the engine.”

MEM changed to Reiger dampers at the start of 2011, which resulted in dramatic and instant improvements in the car’s gravel performance, as well as more modest benefits in its performance on asphalt.

The previous dampers had issues with stiction in the bodies, which meant difficulties in terms of tuning the chassis, as Mellors explains: “Over big, fast wheel movements it wasn’t a problem, but with small wheel movements you did get the body of the damper doing most of the damping, not the actual hydraulic part. The thing about the Reiger dampers is that you have very little friction within the tubes, so you can concentrate on getting the damper to its job. We’ve spent quite a bit of time with the valving and the settings of the dampers and made the car much faster. They are a bespoke unit for us; we spent a long time with the engineers and we had a car over in Holland at their premises so that we could maximize the amount of stroke we could get out of it.”

Aside from the individual setup changes for each rally, the car now has increased camber and improved traction, while the rear wishbones have been strengthened to cope with high-camber stages. A testament to the performance of the 2011 car, however, is the fact that elements such as the brakes and steering have remained almost completely unchanged for 2012. <

0 11

Above: Service during the Czech Rally (IRC), 2011

Hot stuff The Satria triumphed in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship in 2011, with Alistair McRae taking the drivers’ title, and the manufacturers’ championship and team titles also secured. The demanding nature of the rallies presented some unique challenges for Chris Mellors and his team – in particular, the extreme temperatures of events in Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia.

“Some of the in-car temperatures on those events were bizarre, and for this year we’ve got new ducting in the car to get cool air on to the driver and co-driver, which has proved very worthwhile. The crew feel much more relaxed and can therefore concentrate on the job in hand. It would be interesting to do a study on whether the air conditioning would be a benefit to driver performance over power loss – I’m sure there would be! Losing 10 or 15bhp would be worthwhile if the driver was absolutely on the money.”

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

012

SERIES FOCUS GP3

GP3 Series race action from 2011, with Marussia Manor Racing’s Matias Laine leading the way

Costs

Sponsorship

Cost is always a sensitive issue in motorsport, so it is no surprise that the organizers of the championship are unwilling to reveal any costs associated with participation in GP3.

Julian Rouse, the sporting director of leading team MW Arden, also restricts his reply to a clear-cut “no comment” on this subject, but Frédéric Vasseur, the CEO of Lotus ART Grand Prix (which is to be known as Lotus GP in 2012 and has been the most successful team in GP3 to date), is happy to explain: “The budget is similar to Formula 3 – around €600,000. We operate our GP3 team like our GP2 one and drivers have the benefit of the same tracks at the same events.” Prize money is improved this year with Pirelli’s offer of €200,000 to the champion driver, on the condition that he or she competes in the 2013 GP2 Series.

April-June 2012 |

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The fact that GP3 runs alongside Formula 1 and GP2 in Europe helps to attract sponsors. Vasseur makes a simple point: “Sponsors in GP3 and GP2 are attracted by the sun known as Formula 1 – they all want to be there.” Adds Rouse: “We have had some good team sponsors in the past couple of seasons and this has helped to improve the profile of the team and attract the right caliber of driver.”

Leading car-care products manufacturer SONAX’s motorsport sponsorship includes Formula 1 and DTM teams, and CEO Manfred Hoffmann explains its strategy thus: “Motorsport fans are car enthusiasts and we can reach these potential buyers of our products across different ‘channels’.

I think that engaging in GP3 is necessary for enterprises that wish to distinguish themselves in motorsport.”

TV coverage Last year, global television coverage showed growth in all areas compared with 2010, with the average audienceper-round up by 11%. In total, 10 million viewers watched GP3 in 2011 via 18 broadcasters.

Despite the numbers, Vasseur remains a little sceptical. “For sure, it could be better, but it’s the same for all series except F1. Nobody is really happy with the TV coverage as it is so focused on F1. We have never attracted a sponsor via the TV. To be on the TV is more of a satisfaction for the drivers and their parents. Sponsors are more attracted by the events we can organize around the F1 circus.”

In the UK in 2012, Sky Sports will show live coverage of all GP3 races on its new F1 HD channel, with race action and analysis too in a weekly magazine show.

GP 3 SERIES FOCUS 013

The last word

GP3 Series

Manfred Hoffmann

MD, SONAX & owner of the Hoffman Group

In a motorsport structure already offering a wide array of racing opportunities for aspiring young single-seater drivers, how successful has the GP3 Series been to date?

WORDS BY GRAHAM READ

The GP3 Series was introduced in 2010 as a feeder championship for its bigger brother GP2, which in turn has become widely accepted as the best route toward Formula 1.

Thirty-car grids have been the norm in the series’ first two years, but this has been due to the threat of fines for any of the 10 competing teams if they didn’t run the required three cars.

This ruling has been relaxed for 2012, with two cars obligatory, and a third allowed if desired.

One key achievement of the series is that it has

attracted many of the best Formula 1 hopefuls.

Progression for some drivers to GP2 level and beyond has already been evidenced, so the concept of GP3 as a stepping stone seems to be working.

The organizers of the GP3 Series are intent on upholding the philosophy and guiding principles of GP2, introduced seven years ago, and their five core values are performance, cost control, entertainment, safety, and preparation. Various key aspects of this championship warrant closer scrutiny as it enters its third campaign. <

“Our long partnership with the Arden Team in GP2 and GP3 has helped heighten the awareness of the SONAX brand among motorsport fans around the world. Additionally, we conceive our engagement in GP3 as promotion of young talents, just like our partnership with the ATS Formula 3 Cup.”

Bruno Michel GP3 Series CEO

“The first two seasons of GP3 have delivered some great racing and have showcased promising talents, starting with champions Esteban Gutiérrez and Valtteri Bottas, both of whom have already been signed up by F1 teams as reserve drivers. Our young series is getting stronger each year and we are expecting 2012 to be just as successful and exciting.”

Julian Rouse

Sporting director, MW Arden “Monaco will be a good addition to the race calendar. It’s a fantastic event with amazing heritage and it is a circuit that drivers rarely get to learn, so to have the opportunity to gain some experience there at such an early stage in their careers is a real bonus.”

GP3 vs F3 GP3 and Formula 3 may be similar in terms of performance and budgets, but GP3 CEO Bruno Michel clarifies the key difference as he sees it: “Eleven GP3 drivers so far have graduated to GP2, which reaffirms our commitment to preparing young racers for the next step in their careers. In such a competitive environment, it is key for young drivers to gain race experience on current Formula 1 tracks.”

Rouse shares this opinion: “With the GP3 races scheduled on Saturday afternoon after F1 qualifying and on Sunday morning before the F1 race starts, this is a big benefit as the drivers have the opportunity to perform in front of all the F1 teams. This most certainly improves the possibility of them getting recognized.”

Frédéric Vasseur

Changes for 2012 The need for teams to run only two cars may be a threat to grid sizes, but the impact could be minimal, as Michel confirms: “We want to protect the teams’ futures and we think that in the future 30 cars is a bit too many.” Rouse, for one, is happy with the change. “The relaxation of the three-car ruling is obviously good for the teams as it gives everyone a bit more flexibility.”

Space limitations in Monte Carlo ended hopes of GP3 being added to last year’s F1 weekend in the Principality, but Michel has succeeded for 2012, commenting: “This is a fantastic exposure opportunity for the Series and for the drivers to showcase their talents.”

Another change is that GP2 squad Ocean Racing Technology is to take over Tech 1’s GP3 entry. Team principal José Manuel Guedes tells PMW: “For this first season, we are focusing on building a strong technical team.”

CEO, Lotus GP (formerly Lotus ART)

“For me the most important thing is to find the best solution to prepare the driver for GP2. Our target in GP3 is to attract the best future drivers for GP2, and GP3 is definitely the best preparation for GP2.”

Top left: ART has been rebranded as Lotus GP for 2012. Above: Carlin driver Alex Brundle at the pre-season Estoril test

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

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HOTLI S T SIMUL ATOR S

New projects – Base Performance These are busy times for Darren Turner’s Base Performance simulator company, which is adding GT and Formula 3 simulators to its circuit familiarization and driver training portfolio.

For its next project, Turner plans to have the company’s first motion platform up and running this summer. It’ll feature motion cueing for pitch, roll, and heave.

015

VI-DriveSim Dynamic

“Top-end simulators are very expensive, and unless you can replicate the motion and the cueing correctly, it’s worse than no cueing, which is why we’ve always had a static sim,” he says.

“Our platform will do certain things very well without getting too expensive. Whatever we spend on a platform has to come back through the customers, and we don’t want to put our fees up.”

Moving away from the industry-standard Stewart platform is the VI-DriveSim Dynamic simulator, intended as an engineering tool. Using an Ansible Motion-developed proprietary 6DOF motion platform, graphics by SimCoVR, a custom vehicle physics model from

VI-Grade and a driver interface and calibration by Multimatic, the system is said to offer more realistic telemetry than any aircraft-derived unit. This is relayed through a 160°, 1.5m high, 4m-diameter cylindrical screen that moves in conjunction with the X-Y-axis projectors.

Seats of learning News from the fast-moving world of driving simulators COMPILED BY GRAHAM HEEPS

HQ move – Cruden Cruden has moved into brand new, purpose-built headquarters in Amsterdam to cope with increased orders. At the facility, located 15 minutes from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the company will manufacture all of its Hexatech and Hexathrill 6DOF simulators, simulator components, and develop a pipeline of new products. The building also houses Cruden’s in-house Content & Design Studio, which builds simulator operating

G-force – Pro Performance software and professional image generation for the simulated environment.

Maarten van Donselaar, Cruden CEO, says, “The new facility enables us not only to grow the business, but to provide a more suitable setting for hosting increasing numbers of potential customers who come to experience and specify our simulators and take advantage of our consultancy services.”

The company supplies race teams in Formula 1, sportscars, GP2, GP3, and DTM, as well as research institutes and universities such as the UK’s University of Hertfordshire, which is using the simulator to help train the race car engineers of the future. Cruden is also reported to be working with several automotive OEMs on vehicle engineering simulation projects.

The creators of a new simulator, due to open this summer in Horley, UK, believe it will change the way racing drivers prepare for competition. The facility at Pro Performance has taken two years to develop and includes a fitness element, but with realism claimed to be far greater than any existing simulator on the market.

The simulator will feature a large doublecurved spherical screen in 3D, adjustable steering column and pedal box, and an innovative new seat that can molded quickly to each driver.

The braking system takes longitudinal g into

account. It’s able to handle over 200kg of force, more than any current racing car. There’s also a new g-force system that will train a driver’s neck and add realism, while longitudinal and lateral g is transmitted to the user in real time using a specially designed helmet.

Pro Performance says these forces should not only aid in a driver’s fitness regime, but also provide key cues as to what the car in the simulator is doing – something not provided anywhere else on this level.

Pro Performance also offers a bespoke racing driver gym including a neck-strength trainer.

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

016 BU SINE S S UP D AT E

Screen test

Formula 1 has missed a trick in being slow to embrace the financial opportunities offered by the movie industry WORDS BY JOE SAWARD

The documentary feature film Senna recently won two BAFTA awards, as the Best Documentary and for Best Editing. This has shown that motor racing is anything but a niche interest.

US movie goers have known this for a long time, but the Formula 1 group has kept its head buried in the sand, missing opportunities that have come up to promote the sport – and to make money. This short-sighted attitude has meant that Formula 1 has been left behind, in cinematic terms, with NASCAR and IndyCar getting the benefit from movies like Days of Thunder (1990), Driven (2001), Herbie Fully Loaded (2005), Talladega Nights, and Cars (2006)/Cars 2 (2011).

Driven was originally an F1 project, but Sylvester Stallone and his backers gave up in the face of Formula 1 intransigence.

“I apologize to fans of Formula 1,” Stallone said, when he announced that the film would be about IndyCar racing. “There is a certain individual there who runs the sport that has his own agenda. F1 is very formal, and it’s very hard to get to know people. Here in CART it is much more open and that will be

April-June 2012 |

reflected in the film. It is extremely important to me that we create a film that accurately depicts the true sense of CART – the emotion, excitement, speed, technology, and glamour that is Champ Car racing.”

Ouch!

In Formula 1 they scoff and say (quite rightly) that Driven was a poor film, but when you look at the box office it was not such a disaster. It cost US$15 million to make and raked in US$74 million.

One of the first things that Randy Bernard did when he took over as IndyCar CEO was to establish an office in California, with the primary goal of working with the entertainment community to create promotional opportunities. The result of that initiative is a deal with DreamWorks Animation to create Turbo. This will be the story of an ordinary garden snail who dreams of becoming the fastest snail in the world and ends up

even features an F1-style car, called Francesco Bernoulli, which is painted in the colors of the Italian flag.

What did Formula 1 get from that? Nothing.

Rather than trying to charge film companies, Formula 1 might be wise to give them the access they require and negotiate to get a cut of the profits.

Apart from John Frankenheimer’s classic Grand Prix, back in the 1960s, Formula 1 has failed realize the value of the cinema. There was a breakthrough when the company allowed footage to be used for Senna, and there is often talk of other projects. At the moment there are three films being discussed about Ferrari and its drivers, and another about racers from the 1920s. Last year Tom Cruise was given a private test of a Red Bull F1 car, at a small circuit in California.

The most exciting thing is that before all of these, Ron Howard will make a movie called Rush, based on the story of how Niki Lauda and James Hunt battled for the World Championship in 1976. Filming has begun of a script written by Peter Morgan, who has enjoyed much success with films such as The Queen (2006), Frost/Nixon (2008) and more recently Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. But what F1 needs more than anything is an animated franchise, which will both generate money and create

“RATHER THAN TRYING TO CHARGE FILM COMPANIES, FORMULA 1 MIGHT BE WISE TO GIVE THEM THE ACCESS THEY REQUIRE AND NEGOTIATE TO GET A CUT OF THE PROFITS” Such profit margins are nothing compared with some of the other racing movies. Herbie Fully Loaded made US$144 million, Days of Thunder US$157 million, and Talladega Nights US$162 million. To date, Cars has made US$461 million at the box office, and Cars 2 has left the original movie spinning its wheels, with box office receipts of US$559 million.

By comparison Senna, which has had limited distribution, has grossed just US$8.2 million.

www.pmw-magazine.com

racing in the Indianapolis 500.

If Bernard and his people have done a good deal, they will get a share of the box office and, much more importantly, the merchandising.

The Cars franchise is still developing, but since it was launched in 2006 it has made an average of US$2 billion per year in merchandising, with characters such as Lightning McQueen, Sally Carrera, and Mater being familiar figures for the race fans of tomorrow. Cars 2

a new generation of fans. One already exists on television, with Roary the Racing Car having enjoyed a decent amount of success on the small screen since it launched in May 2007.

Formula 1 has a demographic that the marketing men like.

Wealthy, well-educated men with disposable income. But the F1 audience is getting older and the new generations need to be hooked. What F1 needs is to create a character that Mums like… <

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H AV E YOU ME T ?

018

INTERVIEW BY MIKE MAGDA

What is your earliest motorsport memory?

As a kid, flipping through the channels and watching any race on TV.

How did you get into the business?

This is my first professional motorsports job [Paretta was previously operations manager for Aston Martin Lagonda, the Americas].

On a personal level, I am an unabashed Formula 1 fanatic. I plan my vacations around Formula 1 races. In terms of driving, I’ve done a little bit with my Lotus [at trackdays] but my goal is to do Grand-Am – maybe the Continental Tire ST class. Maybe we could convert the new Dodge Dart down the line?!

What are the best and worst parts of your current job?

The best things are the people, and being able to attend more races.

The worst is that everything is on the same Saturday, so you’re trying to be in too many places at the same time.

What’s the motivation to return to Grand-Am with the Viper, given that the car is out of production right now?

That’s actually a privateer effort. Racers Edge approached us – first with a Challenger in the Grand Am GS class. Then as we got further along, they asked if they could race a Viper. We’re down to the last few of our Viper ACR-Xs so we sold them one. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was more that a customer came to us.

Do you feel it’s important to get the new Viper into some type of racing later this year?

It could be. People like to see cars in that class racing. So that’s definitely a direction we could go in.

Given the current economic climate, how do you make a business case for motorsport?

It comes down to the people attending and watching the races.

If they can see us as a brand that is exciting, and also have an opportunity to see new cars, then it makes sense for us to be there.

Do you feel limited with only one NASCAR team doing development work?

Beth Paretta Age: 37 Occupation: Director of marketing and operations, SRT and motorsports, Chrysler Group LLC Interests: Board member of Guardian Angel Motorsports

There are two schools of thought. You could say that if you had six teams, it’s that many more teams in simultaneous development. The other side is that we have very direct communication; we’re able to work through things quickly. Now that we’ve got fuel injection, it’s very important that we’re working together to get up to speed with the new technology. Then in 2013 we’ve got the new car. Having efficient and direct communication is a plus.

What grassroots motorsport would you like to see more participation in from your group?

We’re looking at a lot of things, including B-Spec with the Fiat 500.

“I AM AN UNABASHED FORMULA 1 FANATIC. I PLAN MY VACATIONS AROUND FORMULA 1 RACES”

APRIL-JUNE 2012

PROFESSIONAL MOTORSPORT WORLD

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There is a series that we’re not in that I would like to see us in. Look out for an announcement soon! <

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022

FORMULA 3

Three thinking With thin grids, a monopoly in the chassis market, and pressure from other categories, can Formula 3 continue to survive and prosper? PMW investigates

JAKOB EBREY

WORDS BY MIKE BRESLIN

April-June 2012 |

www.pmw-magazine.com

FORMULA 3

Formula 3 has one thing in abundance: history. The category has been around, in one form or another, for more than 60 years, and in that time it has propelled some of the sport’s greatest names to superstardom, provided a proving ground and marketplace for race car manufacturers, and survived its fair share of global recessions.

The question is, with one chassis now dominant, other formulae competing for budgets, and a global downturn that shows little sign of ending soon, will it survive for another 60 years?

Or could 2012 mark the beginning of the end?

The reason this year is so crucial is that 2012 marks the introduction of new regulations and hence a new car by the only manufacturer currently building for the formula. The problem, however, is that Dallara’s F312 has not sold as well as hoped; the company’s F3 man, Jos Claes, tells us it expects to ship just 40 cars – across five championships worldwide – by the start of the season.

On the ground, these figures translate into thin grids for both the main international F3 championships: the Euro Series expects 15 cars out – all of which will be the new chassis – and the British is looking at 17 cars,

023

Carlin driver Jack Harvey (Dallara F312-VW) in pre-season testing for the 2012 British F3 Championship

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

024

FORMULA 3

at best, around half of which will be F308s for the second-tier National Class. Lisa Crampton, general manager of the British championship, says, “It’s looking sustainable. But healthy would be having more than 20 cars on the grid, and unfortunately, in this day and age, for a lot of motorsport that’s a very big ask.”

Which begs the question, was this really the time for such a major change? Barry Bland of Motor Race Consultants is well known in F3 – mainly through his involvement in the Macau Grand Prix and other standalone events – and until recently he was president of the FIA’s Single Seater Commission. He makes the point that the introduction of the new car, which had already been postponed for a year, was unavoidable: “The car has been introduced now to comply with the new FIA safety regulations, and that’s the point that has to be plugged: the chassis is much safer. Safety is the priority, cost is next.”

This is indeed true, and the new car has F1-standard safety features, but that second priority – cost – is certainly not forgotten, and one of the objectives behind the new regulations was to come up with an F3 car that ultimately cut expenditure (see Three-conomics, p26).

Most teams agree that the new car will cut costs, but in the short term the simplified aerodynamics should also help level the field a little this year, with less scope for aerodynamic development from the engine manufacturers. This is something that Volkswagen has been known for in recent years, to the annoyance of rival Mercedes-running teams such as Anthony Hieatt’s Double R Racing.

“I think Volkswagen has come in and spent a fortune on aero parts to the detriment of F3,” says Hieatt. “In my opinion, we should be free to choose our engine and chassis, and then Front suspension detail (above) and CFD image (left) of the Dallara F312

April-June 2012 |

www.pmw-magazine.com

that’s where the involvement of manufacturers should end. To have a manufacturer distort championships is a bad thing.”

It’s unclear whether VW will remain in F3 for the new engine formula, but the new-for-2013 motor – the introduction of which was postponed – is sure to help cut costs, because it’s simpler and will last longer.

As things stand, the outlay for F3 motors is a sizeable chunk of a budget, with the lease of an engine for a year costing around €100,000.

Teams hope the new engine rules will cut the budget by €50,000, although Neil Brown – whose eponymous company is building a 2013 engine – could not be precise on price: “We haven’t got a price yet, but it won’t be as expensive as current engines.”

Of course, any drop in costs is welcome. But is F3 really so expensive anyway? Most of those involved in the formula actually think it’s relatively good value – and they have a point. Budgets for British F3 are between £500,000 and £650,000

FORMULA 3

025

Three’s a crowd

Think of Formula 3 as the Top Gear of motor racing. Like the TV show, it’s been adapted by different countries around the world, each of which has put its own peculiar slant on the winning formula. So, as well as the top FIA championships – British, Euro, Japanese – there are also some lesser series where a driver can get F3 experience for around half the price.

For instance, the F3 European Open (formerly Spanish F3), which uses spec Toyota engines and Dallara

restrictions,” says René Rosin, team manager at F3 Euro Series champion Prema Powerteam. “That’s good for the drivers to learn, to understand what’s important, to learn to communicate with the engineer.”

Of course, things are not as free as they were, mainly because there’s no sign of anyone stepping up to the plate to take the fight to Dallara, and although Mygale, Lola, and Dome have all made noises, no one really expects a new challenger to emerge anytime soon. “It’s a shame that there aren’t more but the fact is that Dallara’s doing a fantastic job,” says Bland. “And a manufacturer can’t justify all the research and development costs in producing a

Above: F3 has 60 years of history.

This is Adrian Campos in a Ralt-VW at Monte Carlo in 1984

STELLA MARIA THOMAS

a year (around £300,000 for National), while Euro Series teams charge a sponsor (or more likely, a driver’s father!) around €600,000. It’s a substantial sum, but as Crampton points out, an F3 driver gets a lot of track time: “There’s a big stigma that F3 is expensive, but we actually have the most mileage. We have 20 test days, plus there are the 10 race weekends, within which there are three races each weekend, so in terms of track time, I think last year we had about 900 minutes just on the race weekends. If you do a price-perminute comparison with the others, particularly GP3, we’re very good value for money.”

Moreover, it’s worth remembering just what F3 has to offer, why it’s worked for so long, and the fact that every single person approached for this article agreed on one thing: that F3 is an excellent training ground. If you doubt it, look at the F1 grid – most of the drivers have F3 on their CV. “In F3, the engineer and the driver are free to work on the car without any

chassis of various vintages – including the new car, this year – has budgets for winning cars at around the £300,000 mark.

Meanwhile, the Italian championship (pictured above) features FIAT engines, plus the added attraction of a Ferrari F1 test at the end of the year for the winner, and budgets for this are around £330,000.

Other offerings include the German F3 Cup, the South American (SudAm), and the Australian championships.

new car when the market has dropped down from 80 to around 40 cars.”

On top of that, a manufacturer would need to find a top team ready to risk running a new chassis and then help to develop it. With budgets generally coming from drivers who can’t afford a bad year, that’s quite a challenge.

Most say they would like to see a return to multichassis competition in F3, but for now they have to be content that there is still the room for a team to show engineering flair and innovation with the Dallara – which is not the case in spec formulae such as F3’s most direct rival, the F1-supporting GP3.

It’s the F3 race car that has helped fight off GP3’s challenge in the

“THERE’S A BIG STIGMA THAT FORMULA 3 IS EXPENSIVE, BUT WE HAVE THE MOST MILEAGE. IF YOU DO A PRICE-PER-MINUTE COMPARISON, WE’RE VERY GOOD VALUE” LISA CRAMPTON, GENERAL MANAGER, BRITISH F3 CHAMPIONSHIP

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

026

FORMULA 3

“THE CAR HAS BEEN INTRODUCED TO COMPLY WITH NEW FIA SAFETY REGULATIONS, AND THAT’S THE POINT THAT HAS TO BE PLUGGED: THE CHASSIS IS MUCH SAFER” BARRY BLAND, MOTOR RACE CONSULTANTS

Three-conomics As far as Dallara’s new F312 is concerned, less is more… well, more or less. On the one hand, at €94,800 the car does cost €2,000 more than its F308 predecessor.

But on the other hand, as Jos Claes explains, the increase in cost is more than covered by infl ation, and the 16 Zylon panels in side protection alone – just part of the safety upgrade – also justify the price tag.

Then again, there are fewer aero add-ons (barge boards and fl aps) for your money, but ultimately that should save on costs, too, Claes says: “The running cost of the car comes down. It’s less complicated to run, and there are fewer things to repair or replace after minor accidents.”

Long term, the new regulations should also take the heat out of the F3 arms race. One example is brakes.

“In the past, a team might have chosen another supplier because it had managed to make the disc lighter,” says Claes. “Now we have the minimum weight in the regulations, and the standard parts are extremely close to it.”

April-June 2012 |

Top: The annual Macau Grand Prix is one of the classic F3 events.

Inset: F312 wind tunnel model

This approach is a feature of the new regulations, and most applaud it. However, Gavin Wills (above), boss of reigning European F3 Open champion Team West-Tec, who has bought two F312s, says that although he welcomes the new car, he’s not convinced it will be cheaper to operate this year. “Dallara has put its prices up for spares, so I don’t expect it to be cheaper to run to begin with,” he says. “None of the existing spares are transferable.”

Longer term, things look better.

“For sure, for the first year it’s increasing a bit, because you need to buy new parts,” says Rosin, whose team has bought four F312s. “But if you look at 2013-2015, then I think there will be a cost reduction.”

www.pmw-magazine.com

marketplace, too. “In the beginning, GP3 created a bit of a problem, because of the F1 attraction,” says Rosin. “But from what drivers say, the attraction is fading because the car is too easy to drive and it’s not a car they learn in. And driving at 8am on the morning of a Grand Prix doesn’t really make sense!”

But perhaps F3 need not worry too much about other formulae anyway?

Maybe the answer is closer to home.

Put the British Championship and the Euro Series together and you would have one very strong series. The problem is that both have their own unique attractions: the Euro Series with its priceless supporting role with the DTM; the British with its unique heritage. And neither side wants to let go of that which it holds dear.

But then why should they? Most involved believe that 15 to 17 cars is not too bad in the current climate and that F3 will soon bounce back to the 30+ grids of old. And then there’s F3’s history. The 1983 British Championship was a bare-knuckle scrap between Ayrton Senna and Martin Brundle that’s become the stuff of legend.

And how many cars were there on the grid back then? Around 15… <

www.formula3.co

THE WORD ON THE CIRCUIT

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028

SITE VISIT

Altogether now After years of working from multiple sites, the crack single-seater squad Carlin Motorsport is now under one roof in a brand-new factory WORDS BY GRAHAM HEEPS

Overview of the race shop. Note the Focus touring car: the Arena WTCC team is also part of Capsicum Motorsport, but based elsewhere

April-June 2012 |

www.pmw-magazine.com

SITE VISIT

029

Carlin Motorsport is long established as one of the world’s top single-seater race teams, with the stats to back up its success: 175 drivers have passed through its ranks; it has notched up 200-plus race wins; and in 2011 took championship victories in British F3 and World Series by Renault.

Some four years ago, Carlin expanded to take over the former Brabham and Yamaha factory in Chessington, southwest London, in addition to its main premises in Aldershot, Hampshire (see PMW, September-October 2008).

Now, its F3, GP3, World Series and GP2 teams have been located together for the first time in a brand-new, purpose-built factory in Farnham, just a few miles from the team’s former home in Aldershot.

These days Carlin is part of Graham Chilton’s Capsicum Motorsport organization, which also owns the Arena touring car team that will race the Ford Focus in WTCC this season.

Capsicum has invested £2 million into Carlin’s new facility, into which the team moved at the end of 2011 following a 10-month design-andbuild process.

The heart of the 483m2 building is a race shop that provides a home for the F3 and GP3 cars on one side, the ‘bigger brother’ World Series and GP2 Dallaras on the other. On a practical level, this makes it easy for information, tools, equipment, presentation ideas, and the rest, to be shared between the different teams.

And with some of the mechanics new to a particular car this year, it’s easy for them to get help and advice from their predecessors who might only be in the next bay across, rather than 30 miles away.

“It’s crucial to have everybody together because you get the cross-fertilization between the teams,” stresses team principal, Trevor Carlin. “Another important factor was to ensure that every department had an area to do every job properly, and the guys the tools to do their jobs easily.

“I was worried about putting Chessington and Aldershot together – possible personality clashes for example – but it hasn’t happened, everyone has got on brilliantly. It’s reinforced the sense that we’re one team, with good team spirit – we just happen to run four separate championships.”

The upper storey wraps around the race shop in a C-shape, allowing the transporters to back in through one of two loading doors to load or

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

030

SITE VISIT

discharge their cargo either into the race shop, or directly onto a first-floor platform.

Behind the race shop is the technical complex, including preparation shops for the production of carbon parts, a pattern shop, machine shop, subassembly area large enough to build up an entire rear-end, and the ovens and autoclave. The bulk of the equipment and machine tools therein are ex-Chessington, as is the surface table for measuring chassis stiffness.

“Chessington was a bit of a rabbit warren, having been repeatedly extended, and was 50 years old,” says Trevor Carlin. “We had a chance to bring all of that kit and put it in here [Farnham]; it’s all good kit, so why not use it? There’s no point throwing it away.”

Chessington’s ace card was its third-scale wind tunnel. Carlin originally planned to integrate that into the new building – it was designed to be high enough – but the area required would have compromised the space available for the race shop. Not wishing to split the cars up so soon after reuniting them, Carlin has leased an empty industrial unit in nearby Alton, where the ex-Brabham tunnel is currently being reassembled horizontally, at 90° to its former position.

“At the moment we’re concentrating on getting it built, then we’ll look at the measuring equipment and stuff,” he says, hinting at the potential for future upgrades. “Initially, we need to get it up and running in the same form

Everything in place Carlin turned to System Store Solutions to deliver a bespoke workshop solution in the Farnham race shop. The result is a clean and efficient working environment that matches the standards of today’s F1 team race bays.

It was down to F3 race engineer, Mark Owen to facilitate the refurbishments.

He worked with David Price, MD at System Store, on the layout design in preparation for the

Below: Exterior view of the new factory. Note the twin loading bays

Above: Felipe Nasr’s 2011 title-winning F3 car in reception.

Right: F3 wind tunnel model awaits its tunnel calibration task.

Far right: World Series tub on the surface table

April-June 2012 |

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installation of new Fami cabinets, worktops and units.

Each car has its own bay and units, including all electrical and compressed air outlets, located to provide the technicians with the most efficient work bay possible.

it was before. The old [F3] model is there, with all the figures to validate it. For sure, having moved it, the readings will change; we just have to get a baseline again. But it’s pretty bullet-proof that tunnel; I’m sure it’ll survive the trip!”

The rooms to assemble the tunnel models are located upstairs at Farnham, along with a canteen, trophy-laden office area, bodywork

“I am absolutely delighted with the finished workshops and the work System Store has done for us,” says Trevor Carlin.

“As a team, we pride ourselves on producing motorsport’s racing stars, and the workshops now reflect this.”

and tire storage, and a simulator room. The latter facility is a static item for now, but there’s a large area of floorspace set aside for a more ambitious simulator in the future.

Any such tool is very likely to be developed in partnership with BRD/ PureTech Racing, the former PMW Expo Award-winning company, which has been a technology partner of Carlin for the past two years. <

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032

INTERVIEW

April-June 2012 |

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INTERVIEW

033

IS Y R E B M E H L U A PIRELL I’S P CHIEVING CLOSER A N O D E S U C O F T U B , 1 A L U M R RACING IN FO E YE ON THE WRC ST ILL HAS AN drop-off osedly rapid , of the supp on reality, as In se d. e un th po of softest com tire star t e le th so s of 1’ a ce ul . an at in perform ason as Form plex than th as more com s by most With its first se Hembery e situation w th ed a succes lance right,” ba em lli e de re th r Pi t lie ge at th doesn’t to supp it k ve in en th ha th “You e might re em too close su th t po ge ex l re your u observers, on na yo he io w e internat to have it stresses. “If use to enjoy th eater e, so you have motorspor t gr nc d, a re ea at ffe st di es in a t could now pa ad e Bu fter tire degr have mak the contract. so s ith g, if we ue w , in ag ar es rm lle ye m fo co st co er s that ce of tire. La e higher-p bery and hi oi tir ch r em ei H nd th had ul co e ng w Pa se ki director inter, twea ould be that rate than the through the w ourselves, it w peak of e th sm . ci n iti 12 ee cr 20 been flat-out tw a in nds be e, to had ove the racing p – 1.5 seco ch meant of the rear tir specs to impr too big a ga mpounds, whi to the profile co ta is o da ge tw he e an “T th ch t e. of ation of nc ad ce la gr an ba The firs de g rm lin gh rfo hi nd team, is pe s with the ha lk about the e ta am th e te th on e l g th al in r lp .” nd fo he pe that, e enough ’s rear tire, de it wasn’t larg ip through its nted to for this season the softer tire, increase in gr adation amou gr lly 7% de ia 4nt a in ta e nd bs nc su on the re is en ffe t ev di in p, e giving arou pr la ot Th r so the fo second pe at the a s, ed of ad r the ok lo h fo lo nt u ps ng te yo ki la a wor ns. “If around ng around 15 embery explai 15mm on each pounds. so it was taki m ly e, co ab tir r o increased,” H ob tw fte pr e so is th than last ld see there lize across nce] down to tire, you wou g used more times to equa e peak differe er that is bein to give lap [th ld t it ou in g pr sh in ] ot br er fo n ar ght or nine e [squ ape th “If we ca “then af ter ei so tried to sh nd,” he says, t behave in a n’ co .” es se ay a do year. We’ve al pl of it 8 to at in 0. difference drivers. e ssivity, so th you bring that more progre improving th easier for the it ps of la es rt ak pa m l e al d nc e la an r ar ba s d ne e re th an an su m rs ve ea to py ha dn’t snap Such m t specta a few teams di notes that wha is l feedback “Last season ow. Hembery ant to see it; the genera sh w ed ly lik h al uc re ve m ha s r’s ill er ’d ca w ey e ew th on vi ‘th as re as se on he w w rez levisi that the 2012 2012 test in Je a good job with the te . The plan is the drag ng d ki an from the first ta s er ne ic ov ct do ta ed, you’ve , when tire ith the tire, more balanc ned to good ild on last year bit of a job w (DRS) combi of grip bu we’ve done a se ity em al st ea re cr sy In in n . trick y-tor e’ tir eate reductio ents into a the rear a gr ld also put it ing some ev ou rn at such w tu th I , s t having given ct ve bu fe lie , ef be ith the front ork with us ng fest. He w ki ta to er making e , ov tim gs compared w w d tin llo ra r. That fo ams having ha ws for the TV of f for the h down to the te car around the tire bette ng is good ne itc ci ra sw ill w the field.” at viewers and design roughout the it less likely th race. oser racing th difference portion of the e e e dl th id m ns g’ er should give cl in nc or 11; if only th co ‘b 20 in ge e an bl se ch numbers ro Rally pounds availa ld m TV The second or co ’s W F1 er e th th ea said of two dr y-w ade of the between the me could be Much was m ce weekend. rly at the sa ra la e cu th rti g pa rin d du 11, an the two in 20 gulf between IN TE RV IE W

HE EP S

BY GR AH AM

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

034

INTERVIEW

Techno tires Goodyear introduced RFID chips to NASCAR tires back in 2006, but Pirelli’s F1 tires don’t currently have the technology in them because trials that the Italian firm undertook with RFID in rallying showed it not to be 100% reliable. As Paul Hembery points out, “In sport, especially F1, if the chip stops working, people will suspect you of cheating. If we did do RFID we’d still have to have a barcode on the tire, which rather defeats the object, but I wouldn’t rule it out in the future.”

He has similar concerns about embedding more complex microchips and sensors in the rubber, even though so-called ‘intelligent tires’ are tipped to be the next big active safety enhancement for road cars, and F1 would seem the ultimate showcase for such developments.

“I think there would be a suspicion of things being able to be reprogrammed,” he cautions. “F1 is a business where people will suspect you of anything, and my experience tells me that electronics is still an area where F1 is very, very cautious because it’s invisible.

“I’m not ruling out using sensors in tires in the future – intelligent tires to provide us at Pirelli with information. Equally, we’d have to ensure that the information we acquire isn’t being fed into the cars’ systems, to start bringing back any form of traction control.”

What he does advocate, however, is central monitoring of tire pressures.

“Motorsport tires are a safety product and if you’re not careful, people will lower pressures, use more camber, and take tires into areas where they start to have integrity issues,” he says. “Then they’ll have an incident and deny all knowledge. In that area I think we need to have better control of pressure in all categories of motorsport, and I think any tire maker would say the same. We’d like to see real-time monitoring of pressure by a federation, not the teams, so that minimum pressures are adhered to.

It’s not that expensive either.”

Championship (WRC), which until the end of the 2010 season was Pirelli’s highest-profile motorsport engagement. Hembery is a big fan of rallying and his passion for the WRC shines through in his strong views on its future direction.

“We spent 25 years in WRC continually from its inception, so to be out of it now for two years is tough,” he admits. “The championship itself is going through quite a dramatic transition period and it’s a sport that needs sorting out from top to bottom.

We’re pleased with what we’ve done with young driver development; the sport needs a very strong push to create new driving talent. We’ve seen Ott Tänak come through recently to get a top drive with Ford, but in any sport you need to have a pyramid of success and a platform for showing people whether or not you’re a major talent. Because if you have that, it can bring manufacturers and sponsors out, if they feel there are some major talents out there. I’m sure the FIA are trying to come up with some ideas; maybe when they’ve found a promoter, they can work on the regulations for the smaller classes to create a platform for young driver development.

“At the moment rallying doesn’t have a very clear ladder of success, plus the costs are far too high.

Rallying should be an accessible sport, and when you have what are essentially medium-sized family cars costing between €400,000 and €500,000, when the road cars are maybe €15,000-€20,000, there’s a big gap there.

“It’s a shame because it’s actually the most spectacular sport,” he laments. “If you asked me what I’d prefer to go and watch in terms of enjoyment, it would be rallying. Anyone who has been in a top-level rally car knows it’s beyond belief what the top drivers can do. And you’ve seen with things like Ken Block’s Gymkhana videos, which get

April-June 2012 |

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Pirelli’s not short of F1 heritage (above). These are Farina (20) and Ascari (34)’s 1952 Ferraris

10-15 million viewings depending on which one it is, that the public has an appetite for seeing cars sliding around and having fun. I’m sure the powers that be will come up with something new, and when they have something interesting to look at, we’ll have a strong look at coming back.”

Such an engagement is unlikely to be in competition with other tire manufacturers, however.

When asked whether the days of full-on tire wars are gone for good, Hembery says, “I guess the tire companies might be interested in it, but in reality the teams aren’t, because it’s a variable they can’t control. You tend to find that they don’t mind if they feel they’re getting an advantage. But if you’re in an environment where you’re not as good as your competitor, then eventually they will gravitate toward the winning tire anyway.”

“I THINK WE NEED TO HAVE BETTER CONTROL OF PRESSURE IN ALL CATEGORIES OF MOTORSPORT. WE’D LIKE TO SEE REAL-TIME MONITORING OF PRESSURE BY A FEDERATION, NOT THE TEAMS” He cites the rivalry between Pirelli and Michelin in the WRC in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the best years of competition he’s experienced.

“But I think those days are, for the moment, long gone, and I don’t think there’s any appetite in motorsport these days to move back to a tire competition. Who gets the value from it? If you look at what you do as a tire maker in terms of expenditure, it’s much higher, but the potential returns aren’t much improved. Even when you’re winning, it’s hard to convey that to the public, because they still see the car and driver as being the

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Key Account Manager/ Development Engineer (m/f) Pirelli’s line-up for the 2012 F1 season (above). Below: Räikkönen on mediums in pre-season testing (left); Pirelli Star Driver, Craig Breen won the WRC Academy in 2011 in a Ford Fiesta R2 (right)

dominant factors, not the things that stick to the ground. It’s very hard to convey what you’ve done to create that winning situation – if indeed you have.”

Sportscar racing is often held up as the last bastion of tire competition, but Hembery isn’t convinced: “Even Le Mans is a bit like a single-make formula because nobody’s really competing within the classes. If you look around the world, there isn’t really any genuine competition going on between tire makers these days. American Le Mans Series has some in the GT classes, but it’s limited. If you’re in competition then your rate of development is far greater, no doubt about it; your expenditure is extremely high as well… but even in a single-tire formula, you do learn a lot.

“Take Formula 1, which is a big challenge because of the absolute loads and stresses you’re putting a tire under, and the teams’ requirements for you to provide data and understanding your product in that environment. From that point of view it’s certainly a steep learning curve. And in a [spec-tire] GT championship you may have to make your product work in an equal way on seven or eight different cars, so you can still learn a huge amount.” <

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Driveline and Chassis Technology

036

VEHICLE TESTING

Confidentiality at ATP is assured by the screening, tree blankets and fences that line the site. No unauthorized spy photos from inside have ever been published

April-June 2012 |

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VEHICLE TESTING

Tried and tested

PMW visits ATP, the vast proving ground in Papenburg, northern Germany, to find out what it can offer motorsport teams

WORDS BY GRAHAM HEEPS

037

Back in 2003, PMW’s sister magazine, Automotive Testing Technology International, described Automotive Testing Papenburg (ATP), the 780ha proving ground just west of Bremen in northern Germany, as “probably the finest proving ground in Europe, and one of the best in the world”.

Praise indeed!

Almost a decade later, PMW’s recent visit showed that ATP, which is owned by Mercedes-Benz affiliate MBtech, remains up there with the very best. There has been steady investment in new facilities and equipment during the past decade, with more planned in the short and medium term.

The bulk of ATP’s business is with automotive manufacturers and suppliers, notably tire companies, many of which have long-term leases on workshops at the site.

“Motorsport teams mainly use the handling circuit, because it’s a copy of the sprint circuit at Hockenheim,” explains ATP’s sales and marketing manager, Ingo Stoehr. “They do a lot of roll-outs and shakedowns here at the start of the season. Others come here for driver training and evaluation.”

ATP’s tracks aren’t FIAhomologated, so you won’t find F1 or DTM teams circuit-testing there.

Instead, much of the focus is on smaller teams, often based in the region (the motorway links to the site are excellent).

With more than a dozen tracks available and up to 70 cars using them at peak times, safety is paramount. Perhaps the most important addition of recent years is the impressive GPS-based traffic control system (TCS). Co-developed with Bosch, BMW, and Volkswagen, this monitoring, messaging, datarecording, and emergency-detection system was implemented for the first time at Papenburg almost three years ago.

We watched an ATP technician fit the required antenna, black box, incar screen, microphone, and power supply to a Mercedes test car in a little over five minutes, although up to 15 minutes may be required for the trickiest applications. But once the system’s on board, the test driver no longer has to notify the dispatcher each time he moves from one test track to another, as his position is automatically relayed to the screens in the control room. Moreover, the driver need no longer monitor the radio to listen out for the positions of other cars, leaving him free to concentrate on driving.

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

038

VEHICLE TESTING

Machines in vision

One-stop shop

pco.edge image recorded at night, four images with different look-up tables in order to demonstrate the information content of an image with dynamic range of 1:27.000

PCO’s new pco.edge is thought to be a breakthrough in machine-vision cameras, because it can simultaneously deliver extremely low noise, high speed, wide dynamic range, and high resolution.

So how is that relevant for imaging at the racetrack? A high speed of 100 frames per second (fps) translates to 2560 x 2160 colored pixels every meter at a speed of 350km/h. In FullHD, the sCMOS sensor delivers 200fps, one image every 50cm at top speed. The wide dynamic range of 1:27,000 grey values and low noise guarantees that every detail is stored in the images. Dynamic range is of great importance if the lighting conditions cannot be controlled – as in motorsport. So, even if the sun becomes covered between two laps, one and the same image can be used to investigate shadow and light regions.

With standard equipment, one would need four cameras showing the same

scenery at the same time, but with different shutter times.

Software from SOLVing3D makes the pco.edge camera suitable for the track.

The s3d.pandora system uses the pco. edge as a small camera head, which can be placed close to the track. Fiber-optic cables are used to stream the data to the image server in the team’s pit. Pandora’s image server is equipped with 256GB ram, enough storage capacity to record five minutes at 200fps in FullHD quality.

The s3d.VideoAnalysis software for motion analysis is also included in the package. For example, in motorcycle racing, the system can measure the influence of the driver’s position on overall performance during test and training. And because s3d.VideoAnalysis also has the capabilities for 3D image analysis and precise geometric measurement, it should become easier and faster to understand problems.

If a driver has an accident, he can press an emergency response button on the TCS microphone, which will sound an alarm back at the control room. The system also has a number of automatic emergency detection alarms built in that detect incidents such as a car leaving the paved track or becoming stationary in an unexpected location.

In the case of motorsport use, tracks must be booked on an exclusive basis, for additional safety.

This includes the 12.3km (7.6-mile) high-speed oval, with its hands-offat-250km/h (155mph), up to 49.7° banked ends.

There’s no upper speed limit on this, ATP’s signature track, making it an attractive place for the likes of AMG and other tuning companies to run their highly modified vehicles in relative safety. The fastest recorded speeds to date – more than 400km/h (250mph) – were set by a RUF 9ff Porsche and a 1,407bhp (!) Pontiac Firebird. The 4km (2.5-mile) straights (surely an option for straight-line aero

ATP’s handling track, a copy of the sprint circuit at Hockenheim, is popular with motorsport users

April-June 2012 |

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High-speed cameras, fitted in or off-board a test vehicle or test sled, are an established part of safety testing.

Until now, test labs have often had to buy components – for example, cameras, lenses, lights, and controls – from different vendors, or had to rely on system integrators, which do not always possess the in-depth knowledge necessary for such demanding applications.

As a camera manufacturer, AOS Technologies now offers turnkey high-speed camera systems for sled and other test applications in the motorsport industry. These systems range from compact cameras, such as the S-PRI for off-board positioning, to rugged cameras such as the modular S-VIT. The top-of-the-line TRI-VIT features what its creators describe as “an unmatched spec” – 1,000fps at full image resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels, at a depth of just 46mm – and the Q-VIT also offers an image resolution of 3 MPixel.

All VIT cameras are tested and certified for shocks up to 100g; they also include a built-in battery and image memory, and can therefore operate as stand-alone cameras independent of control PCs or hubs.

In addition to the camera itself, the systems include all cables and synchronization equipment such as distribution boxes and high- grated camera hubs.

Accessories such as mounting plates and brackets, Hi- g batteries, lenses with crash cages, and light systems are specified with the user, Sled test track with turnkey high-speed and customized as necessary. camera system

testing?) are scheduled to be resurfaced in the next couple of years.

There are other options, too. The enormous, 300m-diameter vehicle dynamics pad – complete with approach lane from the high-speed oval – could be put to a number of uses. And the sinuous, country-roadlike southern durability track, all 4.8km of it, makes for an excellent, closed-course asphalt rally test stage.

Indeed, it’s a surprise that it’s taken until recently for a rally team to show interest in using this track for dynamic

development, again on an exclusiveuse basis.

ATP has a number of workshops of different sizes and levels of that can be rented to prepare cars for testing, and plenty of experience in hosting events for the press, customers, and sponsors. In short, there’s plenty here to interest motorsport teams; aside from some noise restrictions on weekend use, it’s surely only ATP’s location – away from established motorsport ‘clusters’ – that counts against it. <

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040

COVER STORY

Narrow margin Ben Bowlby is the driving force behind the team taking the radical DeltaWing racer to Le Mans. Is this the future of sportscar racing?

WORDS BY GRAHAM HEEPS

Two years ago, PMW reported on the contenders for the 2012 IndyCar chassis contract (see April-June 2010 issue).

The radical DeltaWing design may have lost out to Dallara in the final decision, but the extensive research that went into the project won’t go to waste: a modified DeltaWing will compete at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.

Race organizer, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), has invited DeltaWing to take ‘Garage 56’, a slot that falls outside of the normal regulations and therefore won’t be eligible for classification in the normal race results. In doing so, the Highcroft Racing-run car will be the latest in a line of innovative entrants (see panel, p43). But with the build of the car having proved more difficult and time-consuming than anticipated, and the first engine not having been delivered until late-February, the team knows it faces a tough task to get the DeltaWing in shape for the first Le Mans test day on June 3.

“We’re late,” admits Ben Bowlby, the car’s designer and chief technology officer of DeltaWing Racing Cars, speaking to PMW early in 2012. “But we haven’t wasted the extra time. We’ve used it to improve the performance of the car and its detail design.

“In fact, the car’s looking really tasty! The aero package is better than we ever expected, so the performance looks really strong: we’re lower drag and higher downforce. Our lift/drag ratio (L/D) is close to 6:1 and we’ll probably run at an even higher L/D than that. Our fuel consumption should be extremely low for our laptime; the engine stuff we have going on suggests that we’ll be able to run at around 27-28 liters per 100km, which is a very impressive number for a petrol [race] car.”

As has been the case all along with DeltaWing designs, the Le Mans car was tested full-size in the tunnel at

April-June 2012 |

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COVER STORY

0 41

Windshear in Concord before taking to the racetrack. However, the machine has been built away from its roots in North Carolina, at Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers (AAR) concern in Santa Ana, California.

Bowlby, whose enthusiasm for the project is infectious, first met the 1967 Le Mans winner in November 2010. Gurney quickly got behind the program.

“AAR are the champions of this project,” says Bowlby, a Brit who was formerly technical director at Chip Ganassi Racing and chief designer at Lola. “Dan Gurney understands what it takes to build a car and go racing. He made it possible for us – he put a drawing office together, he provided the people to manufacture the car, and he made his facilities available to us. This project would not have been possible without him and his son Justin, the CEO. It needed somebody to say, ‘go, start, cut metal, spend money!’”

The original proposal for an IndyCar single-seater has been modified for Le Mans. A crash-test-certified, ex-Aston Martin AMR-One tub sits at the heart of the revised car. To the front is a carbon-fiber front suspension module and a carbon nose as the primary energy-absorbing piece. To the rear of the central cell lies a steel tubular spaceframe that envelops the transmission and wraps underneath, mounted on rubber bushings to vibration-isolate the light chassis structure from the four-cylinder engine.

Bowlby expects, however, that the vibration from the 1.6-liter, RML-built, “phenomenally efficient” Nissan petrol unit will be less than from comparable I4s. The engine itself is not a stressed member; Bowlby suggests that in future variants of the car, it could be swapped for other sources of motive power, such as a I3, a flat-four, or an electric motor and batteries.

Aside from the change of tub, the changes to the original Indy design have been fewer than one might think.

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

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COVER STORY

“I HOPE WE SHOW WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR A MUCH SMALLER AMOUNT OF FUEL IF YOU DESIGN A CAR WITH EFFICIENCY AS YOUR RULEBOOK” “In reality, the suspension loadings are lower at Le Mans than on a high-banked oval, so we didn’t have to ‘beef up’ very much,” Bowlby says. “We did have to put a lot more brake on the car, and our partner Performance Friction has come up with a fantastic endurance brake package so that we should be able to finish the race without changing any components. Like the LMP1s, I don’t think we’ll have a pad change, although if we need one, we’ll do one. And interestingly, the brake components do weigh, in sum, exactly half what those of an LMP1 would.

It’s all relative – our car weighs half as much, it has half the power, so the brakes weigh half as much.

“For every aspect of the car we’ve had to get something designed and manufactured from scratch – there wasn’t a component on the shelf that we could use,” he adds. “It makes it harder because you have to find a supplier willing to make something

April-June 2012 |

Left: DeltaWing’s front tire size is 10/58-15, which gives 4in of tread width. Three of them will fit inside a single Audi R18 LMP1 front tire!

Below: DeltaWing in the Windshear full-scale wind tunnel in Concord, North Carolina

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they’ve never made before. Take the wheels: BBS had to alter forging dies and manufacture the magnesium forgings; it’s a much longer process than taking a standard, regulation Le Mans wheel. The good side of it is that having done all that, there is now a complete menu of components to make a DeltaWing, and people have experience in making one.

We’ve done the hard part!”

Bowlby says that the goodwill of suppliers has been crucial to getting the project to the track. “We’ve still had to pay for a lot of things because of the risk people have taken in spending time on the project. Some people have made some money from us, but there’s been a lot of goodwill and a lot of people have been as careful as they could to give us things at as close to cost [price] as possible.

And some people have done a lot for free. I think we’re going to give them a remarkable return on their investment through the publicity they’re getting.”

One only has to look to the tub-donor AMR-One project from 2011 for an example of how a Le Mans adventure can quickly turn sour.

Bowlby knows that such an unusual, unproven car has the potential to fall flat on its face, but he’s as confident that it will work as intended.

“We’ve done as much simulation work as our resources allow,” he assesses. “You’d love to do a year’s

COVER STORY

043

The DeltaWing is the latest in a long line of innovative designs aiming to prove themselves at Le Mans, where lightweight, aerodynamic or unusually engined racers are nothing new, due in part to the tradition of the Index of Performance handicap system and its successor schemes.

In 1957, for example, when the 3.8-liter Jaguar D-Type was cleaning up at the head of the

field, Cliff Allison and Keith Hall’s streamlined 750cc Lotus 11-Climax took Index of Performance honors and 14th overall (a 1.1-liter sister car finished 9th).

Just a year later, a more radical powertrain was invited to compete in the 24 Hours, however. Rover had demonstrated the world’s first gas turbine car in 1950; the 150bhp Rover-BRM race

worth of analysis, but we’ve had to be quick and efficient. We’ve done what we need to do to convince ourselves that we’ve done it right, but no big study beyond that.

“A lot of the work was originally done with bespoke software. For our laptime predictions we’ve used RaceSim and rFactor. Our partners such as Michelin have validated with their sims, some of the other partners

Below: Ben Bowlby with Duncan Dayton, whose Highcroft team will run DeltaWing at Le Mans 2012

car of 1963 was based on BRM’s F1 chassis of the time, and driven by its regular F1 drivers – the reigning world champion, Graham Hill, and Ritchie Ginther.

By covering 4,172km (2,593 miles) at an average of 173km/h (108mph), the car picked up a prize of 25,000 French Francs (US$5,000 approx) from the ACO. Had it been eligible for the main classification, it would have

have done their simulations in their own ways. There’s been a lot of crossreferencing and double-checking.

We’ve not done an Adams model, but we used a bespoke 30DOF model that’s part of the [Ganassi] race team.

From where the car was originally developed up to the summer of 2011, with people like Jim Hamilton, the chief vehicle dynamicist at Ganassi, that was our standard tool for all of our analysis, so we had a lot of confidence in that.”

A first shakedown of the car in March at Buttonwillow Raceway in California apparently left drivers Marino Franchitti and Alex Gurney impressed by the car’s performance, despite having reservations about the sheer physics of the car. Despite the rearward weight-bias, Bowlby says that the DeltaWing is a natural oversteer-limit race car, which should boost overall performance. Initial calculations suggest that the 300bhp available from the Nissan Juke-

finished eighth. Two years later, a closedcockpit-coupe, more fuelefficient MkII version of the car (pictured above) finished 10th.

Since then, the ACO has invited Wankel rotary-engined and hybrid-electric vehicles to the race, and embraced biofuel and diesel powertrains.

derived engine will put the car somewhere between LMP1 and LMP2 in terms of outright pace.

The first test runs have underlined other benefits from the adoption of the small-capacity Nissan engine, too, as Bowlby explains: “The radiator’s 16.5in x 9.25in, but the Nissan engine with direction injection is only kicking out around 40kW in total heat rejection, oil and water combined. So when you do the calculations, that’s the radiator size you need. But we were running blanking at Buttonwillow in the desert...”

Demonstration laps and endurance tests at Sebring followed in mid-March, with other Le Mans competitors in attendance. Following that, the main parts of the car will ship to Europe for the completion of crash testing in April. The car will also be at Aragón in Spain for final testing of the completed car with final components, ahead of the short trip to Le Mans.

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

MAGIC CAR PICS

Innovators at Le Mans

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COVER STORY

Bowlby adds that his “dream scenario” is to do enough at the June 3 test day to secure a place at the race, and then to run cleanly for 24 hours, using “dramatically less fuel” than the car that’s done perhaps only a few laps more to win the race, and using very few sets of tires in order to achieve Michelin’s research goals for the DeltaWing’s bespoke rubber.

Another measure of success for the Garage 56 project might be the orders for future DeltaWing vehicles that a decent showing at Le Mans could generate.

“We have a bunch of partners – stakeholder investors who are bringing this project to fruition,” he says. “They certainly have ideas for future DeltaWing projects. Obviously, being successful at Le Mans could open-up a lot of opportunities. In our opinion, it’s the lightest, most efficient embodiment of a racing car, irrespective of powertrain. No matter what you power the thing with, you’re going to use less of it, and that’s a big advantage.”

Beyond the car itself, Bowlby hopes that the project could have a wider resonance within motorsport, too.

“I hope we run as trouble-free as we can, cover as many miles as we can, and show what you can do for a much smaller amount of fuel if you design a car with efficiency as your rulebook, as opposed to an inefficient rulebook. Then maybe people will say, ‘I wouldn’t mind having a go at that, that makes a lot of sense’. Maybe rulebooks in motorsport will end up being freed-up a little bit. Maybe the weight limit won’t be such a rigidly adhered-to performance-limiting factor.

“Having a minimum weight is a bit like saying, ‘you must burn this much fuel’. Colin Chapman was famous for making light cars, as was Eric Broadley, as was Arthur Mallock.

Point of interest The DeltaWing’s extremely narrow front end is perhaps the car’s most unusual feature. Not surprisingly, the suspension is bespoke.

“The suspension is conventional, in as much as you can make a 600mm-wide car conventional,” says chief designer, Ben Bowlby. “It’s a double-wishbone at the front.

The damper mounts direct to the wishbone – it’s not a pushrod layout and it doesn’t have an anti-roll bar in the front. That’s to do with the fact that it’s effectively a single wheel at the front.

“At the rear, it’s a conventional pushrod layout, but we do have a unique, not-done-before layout, where the pushrods actuate pullrods that actuate an anti-roll-

bar-and-spring actuation mechanism, whereby we have overdriven the main dampers and springs in roll compared to heave. There’s a ratio of excitation in roll.

“This gives us the extra roll-damping that we are missing in the car by having a very narrow front. The front contributes no roll-damping, because there’s no relative motion, so we had to damp the rear of the car much more.

Rather than try to do that

Whoever it was, they were better at making a lighter car when there was no weight limit. Chapman came over and beat the Americans at Indy by bringing a little car. Lightweight is a primary performance denominator. If

with a separate component, we achieved the higher rolldamping ratio by overdriving the main dampers.”

Bowlby adds that long-time AAR engineer, John Ward, did the detail design work in this area. At the beginning of the 1990s, Ward co-designed the Toyota Eagle MkIII GTP car (above) that won 21 of its 27 races, as well as the 1981 Pepsi Challenger Eagle. “The DeltaWing’s underbody owes a lot to that car,” says Bowlby.

race cars could get lighter again, it would be very much in keeping with the direction of the road car industry.

It’s more sustainable from an energy-consumption standpoint, and the message is correct.”

In the end, success or failure for the DeltaWing could all come down to time – or rather, a lack of it.

“I am most worried about the fact that time is moving on and we’re doing something that has never been done before,” he reiterates. “When you’re going to a place like Le Mans, you never know quite what you’re going to encounter on the journey.

I’ve just got to hope that we don’t run into something that needs more time than we’ve got.” < Additional reporting by Matt Joy Nissan is on board as a project partner. The newly liveried car is pictured here at Buttonwillow Raceway

April-June 2012 |

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POWERTRAIN

Recovery position Toyota Motorsport is returning to racing with a trip to its old stomping ground. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s taking its signature technology along for the ride WORDS BY CHARLES ARMSTRONG-WILSON

April-June 2012 |

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POWERTRAIN

Toyota returns to the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time since 1999. Ahead of Le Mans, the TS030 will make its race debut at the 6 Heures de SpaFrancorchamps in May

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Toyota last fielded a car at Le Mans, not least the company’s hugely committed, but ultimately disappointing, Formula 1 program. Its Cologne-based TMG factory received enormous investment to become a match for any F1 facility in the world, but sadly it was not matched by results, and the team finally pulled out after the 2009 season.

One could be forgiven for assuming that a cold wind has been blowing through the empty halls of the factory since then. However, you would be wrong. Apart from the facility reinventing itself as a commercial service to the motorsport industry (see PMW, Expo Special Issue 2010), the ability to compete in its own right had not entirely disappeared.

The evidence of this is the TS030, a car entirely designed within Toyota and built and run out of Cologne. It slips neatly into a sportscar tradition at Toyota, following on from the TS010 and TS020 – TS for Toyota Sport – that raced at Le Mans in the 1990s before the company’s ambitions switched to ‘greater’ things.

The new car, however, benefits from the resources and knowledge accumulated during the F1 years, as the project’s technical director Pascal Vasselon admits. In his view, the only real difference is the duration of the race. However, their wings have been clipped a little. Obviously the venture is working within a much smaller budget and, although they have a world-class facility at their disposal,

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the project had to take its turn behind the commercial clients.

That limited budget did not prevent Toyota coming up with a brand new engine for the car, though. It already has a very serviceable 3.4-liter V8 – the RV8K raced by Rebellion Racing.

Derived from the Formula Nippon unit, it has proved powerful and reliable – if not quite state-of-the-art to Audi and Peugeot standards. But Toyota is at pains to point out that the engine in the TS030 is brand new, owing nothing to the older unit. Beyond that, the company is revealing little about the normally aspirated V8, except perhaps a lower crank height, which suggests a more committed design.

Technically, the most interesting feature of the TS030 is the use of hybrid technology in the powertrain. It does not make it the first hybrid car to race at Le Mans, however. That honor goes to the Flybrid flywheel-equipped Hope Racing entry that competed last year (see PMW, July-August 2011). The Toyota is not even going to be the only hybrid taking part this year – Audi is also going hybrid – but Toyota’s design is an original route to capitalizing on the ACO rules.

The TS030’s hybrid system is an electrical system – but using super capacitors as the storage medium.

Ironically a similar system was used in F1, but not by Toyota; it was BMW that experimented with this technology with mixed results, while the Toyota F1 team used batteries.

According to Histake Murata, Toyota’s hybrid project leader, the first hybrid system to compete

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

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POWERTRAIN

Toyota’s driver line-up includes two-time Le Mans winner Alex Wurz, emerging endurance star Nicolas Lapierre, and ex-F1 driver Kazuki Nakajima

internationally was in 2002, when a Toyota Prius finished the 5,000-mile Midnight Sun Rally, an FIA-sanctioned event. But the Japanese OEM’s first competition experience with this technology dates back to the 2006 Tokachi 24-hour race, where a Lexus GS 450h was entered. The system was then improved, allowing the Supra HV-R to win the race in 2007.

“The Toyota Hybrid System – Racing (THS-R) is an evolution of the technology that helped the Supra HV-R win at Tokachi,” says Murata.

“Of course, there have been significant advances in the past five years so the system is more efficient, lighter and delivers better performance, but it can be considered part of the same story.” He believes this was an essential step in the evolution of hybrid systems for motorsport. “Toyota learnt a huge amount from this experience. We were able to better understand the demands and challenges of racing a hybrid system, so this experience took us a big step closer to the dream of racing a Toyota hybrid at Le Mans.”

In recent years the ACO has opened up the rules to encourage hybrids, but with certain limitations.

The maximum energy that can be generated in any braking event is 500MJ and that can only be harvested and delivered to either the front or rear wheels. Rather than committing to one or the other, Toyota has kept its options open by configuring the car to do either. This does not come without some compromises – most significantly weight distribution.

Placing motor generators in the front adds weight. However, taking them and their associated driveshafts

April-June 2012 |

“THE MAIN ADVANTAGE OF SUPER-CAPACITORS IS THE VERY QUICK ENERGY RECOVERY RATES, WHICH ALLOW THE SYSTEM TO FULLY RECHARGE IN A SHORT PERIOD OF BRAKING” HISTAKE MURATA, TOYOTA HYBRID PROJECT LEADER

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away causes a rearward weight shift at odds with the aero downforce balance, so they have to be replaced with ballast. This aggravates a problem with the weight of the system, which is believed to be more than 150kg – a big part of the 900kg total.

For the rear version, a DENSOdeveloped motor-generator is hooked up to the transmission. The company is an official partner and was also responsible for the 2007 Supra units.

At the front, an Aisin AW motor generator is being evaluated.

If a front-mounted system is used, then there is the theoretical possibility of using it to influence the handling.

However, the rules dictate that the front-mounted option cannot be used to power the car below 120km/h, severely limiting that potential.

According to Vasselon, the benefit is not just performance, but efficiency:

“For any given performance level, a hybrid powertrain will achieve this with less fuel, so it is an extremely relevant technology and one we are excited to bring to endurance racing.”

Packaging was less of an issue in a sportscar than it would have been in a single seater, and the Nisshinbo capacitors occupy the space provided for a theoretical passenger. “The main advantage of super-capacitors is the very quick energy recovery rates, which allow the system to fully recharge in a short period of braking,” says Murata. “This is a key point in developing a hybrid system that will deliver extra laptime performance.”

With the amount of power storage required, lithium ion batteries would have performed far worse, as well as generating unwelcome heat.

The TS030 can even operate in electric-only mode for short distances and was an eerie sight in pre-season testing, trundling up the pitlane on electric power before letting the engine kick in. “Just leaving the garage on the electric power is very futuristic,” says driver Alex Wurz.

“Then when you let the clutch go and the internal combustion engine kicks in, it is like an old friend has returned.”

This is not just a marketing exercise, says Murata: “We expect the knowledge we gain from our WEC program to contribute to hybrid road car development, but it is too soon to say positively that super-capacitors will be part of that technology transfer. The demands of a road car hybrid system are very different to motorsport in terms of energy recovery and braking distances, so the energy storage method is not necessarily interchangeable.” <

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C OAT IN G S

Zircotec coating being applied to a composite part. The company found a niche during F1â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blown-diffuser era

April-June 2012 |

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C OAT IN G S

Fast finish The demands of motorsport are pushing the properties of coatings ever harder, and suppliers are responding with more inventive solutions WORDS BY CHARLES ARMSTRONG-WILSON

051

Coatings is one area in which motorsport can be said to have run ahead of road car technology. With the extremes to which racing engines are pushed, manufacturers are constantly confronting a failure threshold that bars the way to greater performance.

Diamond-like coatings have found uses on a variety of highly loaded components, particularly on the valvetrain, which includes cam lobes and followers. But where do they go from here?

“I can’t talk about what I’m most excited about,” admits Dave Doerwald, product manager at Hauzer Techno Coating in the Netherlands, although he promises there is plenty to be excited about. The company works closely with universities in conjunction with customers and the information is necessarily privileged.

Traditionally, the greatest restriction on the use of coatings in engines is their lack of temperature resistance.

Beyond 250-300°C they oxidize, preventing them being used on cylinder bores or exhaust valve stems. However, they can tolerate the environment of piston rings and inlet valve stems.

The trick to improving this, according to André Hieke, segment head of automotive at Ionbond’s European Automotive Center in Venlo,

www.pmw-magazine.com | April-June 2012

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C OAT IN G S

Netherlands, is reducing the hydrogen content and adding silicon. But Hieke points out that it is important to work closely with the customer to match the qualities of the coating to the application. “The same components in different engines can have different load characteristics, so you have to tailor coatings in the right way to the application.”

Miba has a solution to the temperature problem that uses a different type of coating. “MoST is a modified molybdenum di-sulphide coating, but doped with titanium, which makes it much harder than usual MDS,” explains Andy Bloyce, a consultant to Miba. “It gives a much lower coefficient of friction than any carbon coating currently available.

Also it can be deposited at 150°C by plasma vacuum deposition, so it can be used on carburized steels and ball bearings without softening them.”

Manufacturers are also working on multilayer coatings that are better able to cope with higher temperatures and pressures. The layered approach is more tolerant of high temperatures and has better wear-resistance, although it is obviously more expensive to apply.

Surface finish is also an important factor when designing a coating to suit a particular application.

Sometimes it is better to have oil traps that will retain lubricant across the surface of sliding faces. In other cases it is better to have a smooth, polished surface for maximum face-to-face contact. This reduces the specific pressure, increasing the load capacity.

How coatings and lubricants interact is becoming a crucial area of development for coatings. “Adding

April-June 2012 |

“CURRENT OILS ARE DESIGNED TO WORK WITH STEEL-ON-STEEL, BUT THERE IS AN INTERACTION BETWEEN OIL AND COATING” DAVE DOERWALD, PRODUCT MANAGER, HAUZER TECHNO COATING

doping agents like silicon can improve the wetting qualities of components,” says Doerwald, “as well as improving their temperature resistance slightly.”

He reveals that the major car manufacturers are now working closely with oil companies to develop lubricants better able to work effectively with coatings.

“Current oils are designed to work with steel-on-steel but there is an interaction between the oil and the coating,” he explains of the current generation of lubricants. “Now all the major oil suppliers are working on the problem.” He expects the result to be a new generation of lubricants designed to accommodate the unique qualities of low-friction coatings and maximize their potential. “We want to build up a tribological layer,” explains Doerwald. He does wonder, however, whether in the future, coatings will be designed to suit the lubricants or the lubricants to suit the oil.

Unlike road car applications, the cost of coating in motorsport is less of an issue. With mass production volumes, a few pence per component can exclude the process. However, as Bloyce points out, “If a component is produced from a raw material, of which 90% ends up as swarf, then the cost of a coating becomes trivial.”

Where do the experts see them being used next? According to Doerwald, the benefits are still to come from the valvetrain and piston pins. However, he points out their

www.pmw-magazine.com

Top left: Zircotec’s smooth-coated aero parts Above: Hauzer conducts research in partnership with universities

Below: Zircotec’s prototype manifold

unsuitability for crankshaft bearings: “DLC is just too hard, compared with the tin alloy currently used.”

Coatings are escaping the confines of the engine to deal with hostile environment issues in other parts of the car. Zircotec is a spin-off from the nuclear industry and has been popular in F1, providing a thermal barrier coating for exhaust manifolds reducing underbody temperatures due to heat soak. Yet managing director Terry Graham sees this demand increasing considerably with the arrival of the 2014-specification engines. “They will be wanting to keep the heat in the exhaust system so there is more energy there to drive the turbocharger and spool it up more quickly,” he says.

Graham says they are often asked about coating the interior of exhausts, but cautions that it is a difficult trick to pull off: “We’ve had some success and we are keen to take it to the next

stage. We can do straight pipes, but if you look at the complexity of an F1 manifold and those tight corners, it’s having the confidence that you’ve got the coating thickness the same along the length of pipe. That’s the stage we want to get to and we’ve got some ideas, but it’s time, effort, and cost.

The ideal would be to work with an F1 team and give them some form of exclusivity for a season.”

Working with F1 teams has already taken Zircotec’s products beyond use as solely thermal barrier applications.

Blown diffusers were exposing carbon panels to high temperature exhaust gases. Zircotec has a method for applying its ceramic coating to these parts at low temperatures that don’t damage the composite. However, its rough finish was compromising the airflow over these aerodynamically sensitive parts, and the company responded by producing a smooth surface coating that didn’t disturb the flow. However, that has developed into a finish that reduces the amount of pickup on the bodywork, helping to reduce aero fall-off during a race due to attached debris.

The company has also responded to the increasing use of carbon fiber for electronic containment. Carbon is strong and light, but offers little or no electrical screening from interference.

Zircotec has developed a lightweight aluminum coating that gives good screening qualities. <

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES

CLASSIC DESIGNS REBORN HRE Wheels has unveiled its 21st century interpretations of classic wheel designs, and debuted a bespoke wheel on an eye-catching new concept car at the Chicago Auto Show The creative team at HRE Performance Wheels understands that certain items share a timeless beauty that grows with age; for example, the original Gibson Les Paul Custom, a 1988 Ferrari F40, and the Leica M5 camera.

But while some designs merely grow older, others grow cooler. With that in mind, HRE unveiled its new Vintage Series in February, with three historic designs from the brand’s 34-year history completely re-engineered with modern, three-piece forged wheel technology for today’s sports and super cars.

“The process of recreating vintage designs that captured the style and essence of the originals was very exciting and challenging for all of us at HRE,” says HRE Wheels’ president, Alan Peltier. “These designs take us all back to the 1970s and 80s, when we were kids falling in love with exotics for the first time and truly becoming car lovers. We found inspiration in those original designs, but created wheels that

April-June 2012 |

The Italian-style, five-window 454 (top) and thick five-spoke 505 (above) are two of the new designs

“WE FOUND INSPIRATION IN THOSE ORIGINAL DESIGNS, BUT CREATED WHEELS THAT REFLECT THE HRE OF TODAY – WHEELS THAT ARE TRULY INSPIRED”

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reflect the HRE of today – wheels that are truly inspired.”

All three models available in HRE’s Vintage Series have been re-engineered with modern FEA analysis for maximum strength, machined from aerospace-grade forged alloy, and hand-finished to meet customers’ exact specifications. Models available include the 454 (classic Italian-style, five-window); the 501 (mesh lace); and the 505 (thick five-spoke) in 18-20in diameters.

On the high-tech front, HRE also recently added three completely new designs to its Monoblok wheel line, featuring ultra-lightweight, precisionmachined spoke geometry available with a sophisticated conical face. The new Monoblok P40SC line uses the same forged alloy single-block construction as the P40S, but new forging and machining processes developed by the California-based luxury wheel brand allow HRE to create stronger, lighter, more aggressively styled Monoblok

wheels, thanks to technology born on the windswept hairpins of Pike’s Peak and the chicanes of the world’s fastest road courses. The new P40SC line is available as the P40SC mesh, P43SC multispoke, and P45SC five-spoke in 19 and 20in diameters, with widths ranging from 8 to 13in, and a wide variety of custom offsets.

While many consider HRE wheels bespoke thanks to their crafted-to-order nature, a truly unique set of wheels was debuted at the Chicago Auto Show on a racing-inspired Kia concept car. After months of top-secret sessions with Kia’s design team, HRE produced the HRE-K1, a 19in forged Monoblok designed for Kia’s latest turbocharged, all-wheel-drive, race-ready concept car – the Track’ster.

I-Beam spokes and lightening pockets were built into the design to maximize strength and minimize weight, as a lightweight wheel can improve driving dynamics. Kia’s HRE-K1 design was then programmed into a five-axis robotically controlled CNC Mill, which machined the final shape of the wheels out of the forged blocks of aluminum, in much the same way as a sculptor chisels an image from a block of marble.

Finally, the wheels were treated to a hand-applied, brushed finish and custom colors, before being shipped to Kia for final fitment.

From the latest auto show concepts, to cutting-edge racing wheels, to rolling artwork that fuses modern tech with vintage style, HRE continues to push the boundaries of what an automotive manufacturer can achieve, and 2012 promises to have more big developments in store for the San Diego company. <

Contact Alex Sittel, managing director HRE GmbH Tel: +49 711 490 39939; Email: alexs@hrewheels.com; Web: www.hrewheels.com

001

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES

RECORD PARTICIPATION There was a new record international attendance at the 2011 PRI Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, USA. The 2012 edition of the event will be held November 29-December 1 The latest advances in racing technology from 1,037 companies were on display at the 24th Annual PRI Trade Show in December 2011, serving as the chief attraction for 38,000 buyers from throughout the USA, and 72 countries (a new record in international attendance).

“From an engineering standpoint, it’s the who’s who of products here, so it gives you a vast variety of products you can evaluate for your racing program,” said Mark Bringle, of Joe Gibbs Racing, Huntersville, North Carolina.

“We’re here at the PRI Trade Show because almost every jobber and company we do business with is here, and we’re here to check out the new technology,” said Ed Pink of Ed Pink Racing Engines.

“The PRI Trade Show is fantastic… I’ve already met with three or four new suppliers, and ordered two new pieces of equipment,” added Leon Patton from Patton Racing Engines out of Hemet, California.

Views of the 2011 show floor (top) and Professional Motorsport World Circuit Owners and Operators Convention (above)

“IT’S THE WHO’S WHO OF PRODUCTS HERE. IT GIVES YOU A VAST VARIETY OF PRODUCTS YOU CAN EVALUATE FOR YOUR RACING PROGRAM”

Suppliers reaped the benefits of PRI’s business-to-business trade show environment.

“We’ve been very, very busy. We haven’t even had an opportunity to walk the show because we’ve been too busy,” said Dale Aldo, of Mopar Motorsports, Auburn Hills, Michigan.

“It’s a very strong show. It has a great legacy,” said Cam Benty, of B&M Racing & Performance, Chatsworth, California.

The PRI Trade Show took place December 1-3, 2011, in Orlando, Florida. While the 700,000 square feet of technical innovation in the PRI Trade Show is the main draw for racing professionals, there are also more than 35 seminars, major conferences, industry social gatherings, and more during what has become known as Race Industry Week.

Race Industry Week 2011 offered a wealth of knowledge for racing professionals from diverse segments of motorsports. Special events

055

included the Advanced Engineering Technology Conference (AETC); Claude Rouelle’s Optimum G Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Seminar; the Professional Motorsport Circuit Owners and Operators Convention; the International Council of Motorsport Sciences (ICMS) Annual Congress; the PRI Industry Roundtable; and an EFI University Training Course on EFI in Racing Applications.

“I see the Professional Motorsport Circuit Owners Convention as a huge tool. I find it very useful – getting together with your peers in the industry,” said Gill Campbell, CEO of Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca.

Engine builder Ted Papuga of Opel Engineering in Streamwood, Illinois, described the AETC: “I learned from everybody. They used language that I understood, while also speaking in a way that was very informative. I’ve been to the conference every year that it has been in Orlando, and people always want to know what it was like and who was there.”

“The ICMS-PRI marriage is a huge success. Our people really enjoyed the show and being able to attend both,” said Jon Potter, ICMS. “The 2011 Congress was extremely successful. After tabulation, we rated 3.78 out of 4 in meeting our objectives. That will keep you on the Dean’s List!”

Race safety experts from 10 countries came to Orlando for the annual Congress of the ICMS. It is a prestigious race safety organization, comprised of surgeons, doctors, medical professionals, sanctioning body and race track emergency personnel, and motorsport engineers. <

Contact Performance Racing Industry Tel: +1 949 499 5413; Fax: +1 949 499 0410; Email: mail@performanceracing.com; Web: www.performanceracing.com

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Figure 2: Before and after morphing into ‘Ugly Nose’ configuration with RBF Morph

HIGHER-SPEED CFD The latest engineering simulation software from ANSYS is making it easier for motorsport aerodynamicists to trial more options, faster, in the pursuit of optimal performance The recent launch of ANSYS 14.0 engineering simulation software brought exciting new functionality and gains in high-performance computing.

Prior to this release, ANSYS tools already achieved excellent linear scalability on computer clusters to around 2,000 compute cores; that is, 2,000 cores could complete a CFD calculation in 1/2,000th the time required on a single core. As the number of cores increased from that point, efficiency was seen to diminish. ANSYS 14.0 shows linear scalability up to 3,000 cores on a number of test cases, including an open-wheeled race car containing 130 million computational cells (Figure 1).

As CFD case sizes have increased from tens to hundreds of millions of cells, simulation file sizes have increased to tens of gigabytes of data per simulation.

Furthermore, demanding F1 teams have identified the process’s bottleneck to be the time needed for software to read and write these files (file i/o).

ANSYS developers have worked hard to address this issue, with the time taken to write data on a massive 750-million cell model being reduced from over an hour in previous versions, to only five

April-June 2012 |

Figure 1: Linear scalability on a large open-wheel race car CFD calculation in ANSYS FLUENT 14

“RBF MORPH IS AN INGENIOUS MORPHING TOOL THAT ALLOWS ENGINEERS TO MOLD THE GEOMETRY LIKE CLAY TO VERY HIGH PRECISION”

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minutes using ‘parallel file i/o’ in more recent versions of the code.

With such high CFD solver speeds, the onus falls on the aerodynamicist to ‘feed the furnace’ with as many car designs as possible as he strives to find optimal performance.

The bottleneck here is the design and creating the computational grid, which can take many hours. ANSYS software has now addressed this issue by placing a unique morphing tool – called RBF Morph – into the hands of CFD engineers. It is the brainchild of Marco Biancolini of the University of Rome.

RBF Morph is an ingenious morphing tool that sits inside the

CFD solver and allows engineers to mold the geometry like clay to very high precision. The technology can be used during parallel computations on high-performance computing clusters to parametrically alter the geometry (for example, change wing angles, wheel steer, car ride heights) quickly and efficiently with no need for regridding the geometry or expensive file i/o.

The only problem at this point is that the realm of possibilities becomes too great for the CFD aerodynamicist! How does he know which combination of design tweaks will lead to an overall increased efficiency of the aerodynamic package?

ANSYS has the answer with its automatic optimization tool – ANSYS DesignXplorer. Given a set of input parameters, such as wing angle of attack, DesignXplorer automatically creates a design of experiments to efficiently explore the whole design space and then find the optimal design from the simulation outputs using a range of statistical tools.

At ANSYS 14.0, the coupling of RBF Morph with DesignXplorer opens up the possibility to do fully parametric, automatic optimization of fully detailed F1 cars with the highest fidelity CFD code on the market. <

Contact Andy Wade, senior technical services engineer, ANSYS UK Tel: +44 114 281 8888; Email: andy.wade@ansys.com; Web: www.ansys.com

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES

057

Left: Two professional racing drivers use Racelogic’s Circuit Tools analysis software to compare track data

PRO VERSUS PRO Two professional racing drivers have used Racelogic’s videoenhanced GPS datalogging systems to find lap-time gains in the most unlikely of places You’re driving a Porsche GT3 RSR at 168mph around the banking of Daytona International Speedway. You’re approaching the chicane. When do you brake? And how hard?

On a recent test day alongside a two-times Porsche Supercup Champion, racing driver Nigel Greensall realized that his technique was very different and that it was possible to gain time in an unexpected way.

Daytona is famed for its 31° banked corners, enabling NASCARs to approach 200mph.

The ‘bus stop’, halfway along the back straight on the 24-hour circuit configuration, is often overlooked by drivers, who see it as a standard two-corner chicane. Nigel Greensall compared data captured using a Racelogic video-enhanced datalogger with another pro driver to see if he gained time using a different approach.

Even the best drivers in the world compare their data with team-mates in order to go log faster laptimes. For example,

Above: Porsche 911 GT3s in action at Daytona. Right: The section of track being analyzed in the video and data comparison (top)

“STEERING RIGHT TOWARD A CONCRETE WALL AT 168MPH, WHILE LOOKING TO A LEFT TURN AHEAD, TAKES SOME GETTING USED TO”

Mark Webber famously used Sebastian Vettel’s data in order to find 0.5 seconds in sector two at Abu Dhabi while he was fighting for the F1 World Championship.

For the most accurate comparison, the two drivers drove the same 2011 Porsche GT3 RSR Grand-Am-spec race car. The GPS and video data showed no difference in the driving lines or sector times around the circuit, except for the bus-stop chicane. This seemingly insignificant section enabled Greensall to gain 0.3

seconds. How? Let’s take it from the approach…

As shown by the comparison video and data (left; Nigel Greensall is on the left, with the red border), both drivers have the same speed at the end of the banked straight. However Greensall is closer to the wall, which opens up his entry into the left-hander.

As you can see from the screenshot, both drivers are traveling at 168mph as they approach the bus stop. The speed-trace graph below the screenshots and the delta-t graph below that (showing difference in lap times as the drivers progress around the circuit) show almost identical performance until this point.

The only difference now is in track position – Greensall is edging the car closer to the wall.

This opens up his entry to the left-hander and enables him to carry more speed. Steering right toward a concrete wall at 168mph, while looking to a left turn ahead, takes some getting used to, but track position is the key to speed.

Drivers might think they are making full use of the entire width, but it is important to review the video and data to see if this is really the case.

To read the full article, giving an insight into how a ‘100-70-30’ trail-braking technique can be used to maximize apex speed, go to www.VideoVBOX.co.uk/ebook. <

Contact Racelogic Tel: +44 1280 823803; Email: vbox@racelogic.co.uk; Web: www.videovbox.com

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES ROUND-UP

Fatigue-life calculation software Now it is possible to accurately predict fatigue life by aligning loading with analysis, using a new and unique solution for accurate in-situ load measurement.

Historically, predicting fatigue life has been challenging because even simple structures undergo complex loading, and small errors in loading knowledge can lead to large errors in fatigue life prediction. However, with fe-safe/True-Load, a new product from Safe Technology Ltd, the unknowns in loading are eliminated.

Safe Technology has partnered with Wolf Star Technologies, an expert in loading calculation and FEA model correlation, to provide this solution for accurate in-situ load measurement.

The software uses the data from a handful of strain gauges to understand the structural response of the entire structure. This type of

‘Hangman’ fixture instrumented and mounted on motorcycle (left); Correlation plot of measured strain vs. FEA strain (0.037% RMS error)

knowledge is critical to understanding the loading environment on structures, and performing accurate fatigue calculations.

The fe-safe/True-Load software offers accurate in-situ load calculation with typical strain gauge correlation to within 2% of measured values. Complex structures can go from strain gauge measurement to FEA fatigue

results with unparalleled accuracy in a matter of minutes.

The product will be of benefit to those who know very little about their loadings but want to perform accurate fatigue-life calculations, as well as those who already run advanced testing programs but want to improve their efficiency and reduce testing costs.

The technology is ideal for

any components that see environmental loads such as chassis, suspensions, and frames in automotive applications. <

Contact Safe Technology Limited Tel: +44 114 268 6444; Email: info@safetechnology.com; Web: www.safetechnology.com

005

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Effective new coating Racing teams seeking lightweight protection against the effects of heat and wear are increasingly turning toward coatings as an easy-to-package and durable solution to more cumbersome and less effective heatshields.

In F1 and sportscar racing, coatings specialist Zircotec is developing bespoke coatings to solve heat, wear, corrosion, friction, and even aero issues.

Its latest coating, ThermoSlik, not only protects composites from heat, but, crucially for aero surfaces, also prevents the build-up of debris.

“Ensuring clean aerofree surfaces is essential in F1 today,” says Zircotec’s managing director Terry Graham. “In both F1 and sportscars, aerodynamicists have been troubled by the build-up of debris, notably

April-June 2012 |

Zircotec’s flexible heat shield, ZircoFlex, has also found favor with the teams, with many carrying rolls of the ceramic backed aluminum foil to solve heat issues during the race weekend.

“ZircoFlex can reduce surface temperatures by 85%, yet is just 0.85mm thick in its three-layer form,” concludes Graham. “It’s a great way to ensure reliability is achieved, even when far away from the factory.” <

rubber marbles on aero surfaces. It offers a lightweight, subtle solution that not only prevents delamination, but also adds a little aero performance.”

The coating is the latest in a stream of innovations that have seen ThermoHold ‘designed

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into’ the car, rather than being used as a solution to a problem.

“Engineers now understand the benefit – be it the life of the part, thermal protection, or weight – of applying one of our ThermoHold products,” adds Graham.

Contact Zircotec Tel: +44 1235 546050; Email: enquiries@zircotec.com Web: www.zircotec.com

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059

www.pmw-magazine.com Professional Motorsport World and its sister title Professional Motorsport Circuit are available online, with news and exclusive-to-web content for people in the business of going motor racing

Mobile inspection and repair Wherever you are in the world, Advanced Composite Repairs can provide you with specialist repair and inspection solutions.

The company’s high-quality inspections and repairs are achieved through a focused commitment to effectively meeting customer’s needs with a wide range of advanced technologies and tailor-made solutions. To deliver these solutions, a flexible approach is essential to the way clients’ needs are addressed.

At the heart of Advanced Composite Repairs are its people; well-trained employees with a strong sense of responsibility, who thrive on the challenge of working independently. Ten years of experience, coupled with extensive training and certification, allow staff to carry out composite inspections and repairs professionally and quickly.

Advanced Composite Repairs’ mobile repair and inspection trailer can be deployed at any location anywhere in the world, including at the racetrack or at a customer’s workshop.

The trailer, fully equipped with autoclave, large oven, hotbonders, and inspection station, can be set up in 30 minutes. Additional flooring, lighting, and shelters enable the workspace to be covered or expanded. Services include mold building, part manufacturing, part fitting, and modification, together with composite repairs, inspections, and metal alloy crack-testing. <

Log on now for...

Latest industry news | Recruitment Blogs | Supply contracts | Photos and videos Exclusive features | Links and diary dates

Contact Advanced Composite Repairs; Tel: +31 648354612; Email: info@advancedcompositerepairs.com; Web: advancedcompositerepairs.com

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Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading automotive testing, evaluation and quality engineering trade fair

June 12, 13 and 14, 2012 Stuttgart Messe, Stuttgart, Germany

AUTOMOTIVE TESTING EXPO EUrOPE 2012 Abinger House, Church Street, Dorking, Surrey, rH4 1DF, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1306 743744 Fax: +44 (0) 1306 877411 email: expo@ukipme.com

www.testing-expo.com

PRODUCTS & SERVICES ROUND-UP

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High-performance, adaptable camera The new S-VIT F3 camera from AOS Technologies offers in-demand specs including: up to 700fps at HDTV-image resolution (720p); up to 2,100fps at 512 x 512; and a maximum frame rate of 6,000fps at 270 x 270. The powerful, yet easy-to-operate, control software is compatible with third-party control networks and allows users to download image data directly in popular data formats such as MPEG4. The S-VIT F3 includes features of earlier S-VIT cameras, including shockresistance up to 100G, built-in battery for best image protection, and a compact design with a small footprint to fit into tight spaces.

The S-VIT F3 offers inputand output control lines for a simple integration to larger camera systems. The camera is compatible with other high-speed cameras, while specially designed accessories such as lens cages increase the value of the camera even further.

Full-scale car crash tests, sled tests, and rollover tests are good examples of applications where the S-VIT F3 proves its performance, reliability, and flexibility on a daily basis.

And despite its features set and performance, plus its ‘Swiss made’ precision, the S-VIT F3 comes at a highly competitive price. <

Contact AOS Technologies AG Tel: +41 56 483 34 88; Email: info@aostechnologies.com; Web: www.aostechnologies.com

008

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Engineered coatings specialist There are various reasons for applying coatings to engine parts, including heat management, lubricity, corrosion protection, and surface finish. The key is to choose the right coating for the desired outcome.

Dry-film lubricants, which can be MoS2, WS2, graphite, or PTFE-based, are formulated to provide inter-surface lubricity, thus reducing friction, galling, and wear. Dry-film lubricants can be used on piston skirts, engine bearings, valve springs, rocker arms, pushrods, cams, and journals.

These coatings provide additional protection to liquid lubrication, often coming into play when oil pressure is lost or for dry start-ups.

Dry-film lubricants do not directly increase horsepower, as the primary coefficient of friction is oil-dependent.

However, they will reduce temperatures, allowing thinner oil to be used, thus increasing power. Coatings containing MoS2 also hold oil on the

to remain unchanged. This coating system is applied using impingement forces, so upon application, the WS2 becomes an integral part of the substrate material. The typical coating thickness is selflimiting to approximately 0.5µm. This thermally stable lubrication system is also virtually chemically inert and has a coefficient of friction of 0.03.

E/M Coating Services is a specialist in the development and application of highly engineered coatings, and can help customers choose the right coating to meet all their design needs. <

Contact surface, which increases oil retention under high loading, thus reducing wear and temperature.

Modern WS2 coatings such as Microseal 300 can provide

these lubricating properties, without the requirement for a resin binder, thus allowing operating temperatures to be increased and component dimensions

James Cooke, technical service manager, E/M Coating Services Email: james.cooke@cwst.com ; Web: www.cwst.co.uk

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062

PRODUCTS & SERVICES ROUND-UP

F3 tire supplier Cooper Tires has been working closely with Formula 3 teams for three decades, developing the best specification tires to suit the demands of the series. This season will mark the third consecutive year that Cooper has acted as the title sponsor for British F3.

Acting as more than just a tire supplier, Cooper provides funding toward supporting the championship and helps to attract some of the best young drivers in the world.

As an important feeder series to Formula 1, the

pinnacle of global motorsport, many of the young up-andcoming stars of the future are learning their trade on Cooper rubber â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Jenson Button went directly from British F3 to F1, and the three most recent British F3 champions have secured jobs in Formula 1 as a result.

With the tires providing the only contact between the car and the road, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a vital learning process Moreover, understanding how the technology behind the tire can help them find the ultimate lap-times on race day,

and how to tweak set-up to maximize the effect of their rubber, is an important lesson to learn for any driver wishing to make the jump into F1, where looking after your tires can often mean the difference between winning a race and finishing in the midfield.

Teams and drivers alike want a single dry-weather compound for all races and test sessions throughout the year, whether testing in winter or racing in the height of summer, so that they have a consistent base on which to improve.

Each F3 team gets a pre-determined number of slick, dry-weather Cooper tires that can be used throughout the year in testing and race meetings; the number of wet tires is unrestricted. Drivers are limited to two sets of slicks per race event, so that they learn to look after their tires. <

Contact Cooper Tires Tel: +44 1225 703101; Web: www.coopertire.co.uk

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INDEX TO ADVERTISERS Advanced Composite Repairs ................................................................31

PCO AG .....................................................................................................31

AEROCOM Metals Limited ......................................................................39

Professional MotorSport World Expo 2012..................................... 19, 20

AOS Technologies AG ..............................................................................14

Professional Motorsport World Online Reader Enquiry Service ....2, 64

Automotive Testing Expo Europe 2012 ..................................................60

Racelogic ...................................................................................................5

Bahrain International Circuit ......................................Inside Front Cover Breuer Technical Development .............................................................49 Cooper Tire Europe Ltd ..........................................................................27 Dynamic Metals Ltd ..................................................................................9

Reiger Suspension BV...............................................................................9 Safe Technologies Limited .....................................................................14 TAG Heuer Professional Timing ................................Outside Back Cover

HRE GmbH .................................................................... Inside Back Cover

Vehicle Dynamics Expo 2012 ............................................................45, 63

Ionbond AG ............................................................................................. 53

www.pmw-magazine.com......................................................................59

Metal Improvement Company ................................................................49

ZF Sachs Race Engineering GmbH.........................................................35

MIS Motorsport Ltd ...................................................................................3

ZIROTEC Ltd ............................................................................................39

April-June 2012 |

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012 STUT TGAR T ME SSE, VEHI GERM CLE ANY IS EU DYNA R M OP IC EXHI BITIO E’S ONL S EXPO Y CAR N AND DEDICA TRADE TR TE ENG UCK CHA D TO VEHI INEERIN SSIS G CLE DYNA AND MICS

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064

I REMEMBER…

…controversy at the Indianapolis 500 J. C. Agajanian originally had A. J. Watson build the Watson Roadster for Lloyd Ruby, and he raced it in 1960.

Tony Bettenhausen helped me get the ride the following year. I brought my own mechanic, Johnny Pouelsen, and was the Rookie of the Year in ‘61. If there was any race I should’ve won it was ‘62. I was long gone, then the brake pedal went to the floor.

At the start of 1963, I went to the tire tests, and that taught me a lot. I was able to slide the car and do things you normally wouldn’t get to do. We were a little concerned about the rear-engined [Lotus] cars of Jimmy Clark and Dan Gurney.

They were set up to run on one pit stop and I had to make three. At the time, you had to look at the big picture with what was happening in England. Gas was expensive, and they had to develop more efficient cars. We wanted more power, bigger cars,

bigger engines. All that caught up at Indy and was a reflection of the times.

I never did race with Jimmy side by side.

I was long gone in the race, then the oil tank cracked. [Controversially, Jones was not shown a black fl ag for the leaking oil.]

When it first happened, oil hit my left rear tire and I slid sideways. I slowed down and Jimmy started gaining. He got within four or five seconds. Finally it quit leaking and I picked up speed. In fact, one of my next-to-last laps was my fastest all day.

Eddie Sachs spun in the race. The next day he jumped all over me at the Autolite lunch, saying that he spun in my oil. I said, “Jeez, you were losing a wheel. That what’s made you spin.” “No, man,” he said, “I spun in your oil.” I told him he was full of crap and should bust him in the mouth.

He said go ahead. So I let him have it and knocked him on his ass!

I didn’t know J. C. was arguing with the officials about throwing a black fl ag. I wouldn’t have stopped anyway. But the controversy did tarnish my win. Frankly, I should’ve won four or five times in the seven years I ran there. Rookie and second year I could’ve won. Third year I did. Fourth year I was leading with the same roadster but it caught fire in the pits. In ‘65 I finished second to Jimmy Clark. I was running second in ‘66 in a car I built. Then in ‘67 I drove the STP turbine car and was long gone until the bearing failure.

Looking back, I guess I wasn’t always a smart driver. I knew how to go fast, I just didn’t know how to go long enough. Like with the turbine. It had so much torque, and what hurt it was the hard acceleration out of the pits. If I’d just taken it a little easier coming out of the pits, I would have won hands down. < PARNELLI JONES SPOKE TO MIKE MAGDA

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