Since 2022, cars in the UK’s top touring car series have been running with an electric motor that contributes to a 60bhp power boost when deployed by the driver. The technology was introduced to replace success ballast, as part of the series’ push to become more sustainable.

However, the BTCC will switch its sustainability focus to using fossil-free fuels to run the non-hybrid internal combustion engines. A statement from the series said dropping the hybrid system would make the cars ‘lighter and more dynamic’ with around 55kg taken out.

Haltermann Carless will provide its Hiperflo ECO102 R100 to all cars on the grid. The product is 100 per cent fossil fuel free and is derived from non-crude biological and synthetic sources. Carless is already providing a 20 per cent sustainable fuel to the BTCC, as part of an agreement running from 2022 to 2026.

As explored in the June issue of Racecar Engineering, the BTCC has been evaluating an upgrade to 100 per cent sustainable fuel for several months, providing blends for the engine builders to test.

Cosworth, which supplied the spec hybrid system, will remain involved in the championship through its provision of electronics and control systems equipment.

‘The introduction of 100 per cent fossil free sustainable fuel for 2025 shows that the BTCC remains committed to innovation in motorsport,’ said BTCC chief executive Alan Gow. ‘As the highest profile championship in the UK, this introduction is a significant and essential step in maintaining the competitiveness and excitement synonymous with the BTCC, but in a more sustainable and forward-thinking way.

‘The hybrid era was a great one for the BTCC. Six years ago, when we first announced hybrid, it was a technology still in its relative infancy within motorsport. We’ve successfully completed that programme – and really have no more to prove in that respect – whilst others have yet to catch up.

‘But, as we’ve now ticked that box we can move further forward with the introduction of the fossil-free sustainable fuel, whilst very importantly delivering the same performance parameters that made this year’s BTCC such a memorable one.

‘We don’t just sit still with the BTCC – we evolve, and we advance, as today’s announcement firmly underlines.’

The BTCC hybrid system provided a 15-second power boost to cars. Based on prior results, some drivers would have more laps of boost available than others, adding a strategic element to races. This year, the BTCC doubled the amount of boost available, from 30bhp to 60bhp. The increase came in the form of updates to the turbocharger, whilst the power output of the electric motor was kept the same because the low voltage, 48V battery could not be pushed any further.

The abandonment of hybrid power will come as a relief to teams that had been worried about the rising cost of leasing the system each season.

The BTCC has confirmed that the amount of power generated by the boost will remain the same next year, but it will all come from the turbo now the electric motor has been dropped. Additionally, teams will no longer be able to see when their competitors are using the turbo boost, to help promote less predictable racing.

The post BTCC Drops Hybrid Systems for 100 per cent Sustainable Fuel appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The long-rumoured agreement will see Toyota provide design, technical and manufacturing services to Haas. The F1 team’s announcement of the tie-up said that it would also ‘offer technical expertise and commercial benefits’ in return.

Toyota hopes the agreement will open a pathway for its young engineers and drivers to access F1. Toyota Gazoo Racing engineers and mechanics will take part in the team’s aerodynamic and track testing work. They will also help to design and manufacture carbon fibre parts.

Haas is a multinational F1 operation, with facilities in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. Its Italian design office in Maranello is tied to its status as a Ferrari power unit customer; Haas conducts its wind tunnel aero testing from Ferrari’s in-house facility. Its Banbury base in the UK houses its operational functions, such as vehicle performance management, control systems work, logistics and race support. Kannapolis in North Carolina is home to the team’s marketing, accounting and administration activities.

‘I’m hugely excited that Haas F1 Team and Toyota Gazoo Racing have come together to enter into this technical partnership,’ said Haas F1 team principal Ayao Komatsu. ‘To have a world leader in the automotive sector support and work alongside our organisation, while seeking to develop and accelerate their own technical and engineering expertise – it’s simply a partnership with obvious benefits on both sides.

‘The ability to tap into the resources and knowledge base available at Toyota Gazoo Racing, while benefiting from their technical and manufacturing processes, will be instrumental in our own development and our clear desire to further increase our competitiveness in Formula 1. In return we offer a platform for Toyota Gazoo Racing to fully utilise and subsequently advance their in-house engineering capabilities.’

Toyota ran a works F1 team from Cologne – now the site of factory WEC and WRC efforts – from 2002 to 2009. It remained involved in the championship after that as a background player, providing McLaren with access to its wind tunnel until the British team built a new one in-house last year. Haas will not use Toyota’s wind tunnel under the new partnership, with the team confirming it will continue to use Ferrari’s facility only.

‘We are pleased to announce that Haas F1 Team and Toyota Gazoo Racing have concluded a basic agreement to enter a technical partnership such as Haas vehicle development,’ said Tomoya Takahashi, president of Gazoo Racing Company. ‘We would like to express our gratitude to Mr. Gene Haas, Mr. Ayao Komatsu, Mr. Stefano Domenicali (CEO – Formula 1), Mr. Fred Vasseur (team principal – Scuderia Ferrari), and all our existing partners of the team for their exceptional cooperation and understanding in this collaboration.

‘By competing alongside Haas F1 Team at the pinnacle of motorsports, we aim to cultivate drivers, engineers, and mechanics while strengthening the capabilities of Haas F1 Team and Toyota Gazoo Racing, and we desire to contribute to motorsports and the automotive industry.’

Despite the new Toyota tie-up, Haas will remain a Ferrari power unit customer until the end of 2028, taking it through the transition into the new technical regulations which arrive after next year.

The post Haas F1 Team Enters Technical Partnership With Toyota appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

LMP3 cars race around the world, but their main territory is in the European Le Mans Series and Le Mans Cup, both run by the category’s governing body, the ACO. Over the years, LMP3 has become known for its soundtrack: a rumbling Nissan V8 engine built by ORECA. However, next year, the song will change as the ACO introduces a new V6 twin-turbocharged Toyota unit. ORECA is again building and supplying the next-generation engines, which produce more power but come with fresh challenges.

Why has LMP3 gone turbocharged?

You can discover the full story of LMP3’s major technical change in the November 2024 issue of Racecar Engineering magazine, AVAILABLE NOW!

But the short answer is that change was needed because LMP3’s current engine, the 5.6-litre Nissan VK56, is going out of production. ORECA has enough spare parts to service LMP3 cars that won’t be using the new turbo unit next year (essentially, every series except for the ELMS and Le Mans Cup – the Asian Le Mans Series will go turbo at the end of 2025). However, VK56 parts will be thin on the ground after that. Interestingly, there are even some cars running the original Nissan VK50, which the VK56 replaced in 2020, albeit in non-competitive track day settings with private owners.

The ACO’s reasons for introducing a twin-turbo engine, rather than go like-for-like with a new naturally aspirated one, were financial and technical. The financial aspect was to keep costs as low as possible by using a production-based unit. A next-gen LMP3 powertrain costs €89,200 within the €299,000 price for a complete car. The technical aspect was that the ACO wanted to align LMP3 with current road car and motorsport technologies, as well as increase fuel and sound efficiency. ORECA successfully pitched for the LMP3 engine supply contract with the Toyota V35A, a twin-turbo engine found in several of the company’s road cars including the Lexus LS 500.

ORECA’s winning pitch

ORECA first held discussions with Nissan, considering their existing LMP3 partnership. However, none of the Japanese manufacturer’s off-the-shelf engines met the technical and timeline requirements of the LMP3 2025 project, which has a minimum duration of five years.

‘Most manufacturers are doing a V6 turbocharged engine, so there were several options,’ says Loïc Combemale, technical project director at ORECA. ‘We started to look at what the manufacturers could offer in terms of support and engine availability.’

‘We wanted to have a latest-generation engine with good efficiency, direct injection and twin-turbo. We went for this [Toyota engine] because, for us, it gives satisfaction in terms of performance and current technology. We found a very good cooperation with Toyota.’

ORECA has close ties with Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, having supported the running of its factory LMP1 programme. The French engineering firm used that prior relationship to start discussions about using a Toyota engine for LMP3. After preliminary talks, contact is now held between ORECA and Toyota’s road car engine division in Japan. All LMP3 engines are built at ORECA’s engine facility near Magny-Cours.

How does the LMP3 engine differ from the road?

Internally, the LMP3 engine is the same as the production unit, which produces 415bhp in the Lexus LS 500. In racing trim, it achieves 470bhp, marking a 15bhp increase on its Nissan V8 predecessor.

‘We made all the necessary modifications to be able to fit in a single seater or an LMP3 car,’ says Frédéric Eymere, design office chief at ORECA. ‘That means mainly the oil system has been drastically modified. The original engine is a wet sump engine. We had to swap to a dry sump system to be able to fit it, and to have the right height for the crankshaft axis regarding the reference plane of the car. We didn’t succeed exactly because we had to raise it by 4mm, but this was one of the targets.’

ORECA’s priority was to introduce a neatly integrated engine that would be easy to service and relatively cheap to run.

‘On the system, everything on this engine is quite integrated,’ confirms Eymere. ‘On the VK56, we had to move to a complete oil pump for the dry sump system, including the scavenge and pressure stages. On this engine, we decided to keep the pressure stage and to have only an additional pump for the scavenging. That was one of the big steps.’

Integrating the engine to each LMP3 chassis – which are licensed to be built by four manufacturers – provided another challenge. The next-gen cars from ADESS, Duqueine, Ginetta and Ligier will use the same chassis as the previous 2020-2024 generation.

‘As on all the modern engines, all the fixing points are made on purpose [for the road car],’ explains Eymere. ‘So it was very difficult to find areas on which you can fix it properly on the engine. On the front of the engine, there were many water and oil circuits, and even a turbocharger air circuit. This was something we had to deal with, and it was quite a challenge.’

How is the engine integrated with the chassis?

To address this challenge, ORECA built a bracket to integrate the engine and its cooling apparatus with the monocoque. Cooling has been a big topic in the switch to turbo, for the system is more complex and heavier than before. The Nissan VK56 was cooled by a water-cooling package, whereas the Toyota V35A has a similar set-up plus an intercooler to chill the air that has been compressed by the turbocharger before it enters the engine. In the V8 era, car manufacturers could bring their own radiators to cool the engine fluid, but the turbo unit now features an ORECA-supplied heat exchanger.

‘The first step was to remove everything which was not necessary for our [race] engine,’ says Eymere. ‘We then saw what space was available for the new fixing. We had to integrate all the water piping on the front. We also decided to integrate an oil cooler, contrary to the Nissan engine which had an oil radiator. We thought it was good for everybody, including the car manufacturers, to have everything integrated on the engine. So, we put an oil cooler directly on the bracket. It is quite a complicated part and includes many functions including the water and oil cooling systems.’

A key difference between the naturally aspirated V8 and the twin-turbo V6 is the presence of an integrated exhaust manifold on the latter.

‘It means the turbocharger is directly fitted on the cylinder head,’ explains Combemale. ‘To avoid having a too hot turbocharger, you are also cooling down the integrated exhaust manifold with the engine water. Before, you had a big exhaust manifold which was cooled by the ambient air under the bonnet. Now, I would say you are taking part of this heat through the water going inside the cylinder head. This is what makes the difference compared to the VK56.’

Why a bespoke turbocharger was needed

The racing version of the Toyota VA35 has done away with the production turbocharger in favour of a bespoke racing unit developed by Japanese turbo specialist IHI.

‘We were able to make the performance [target from the ACO], that was not the issue,’ stresses Combemale. ‘But to make life easier for everyone, especially the manufacturers, we tried to be as close as possible to the VK56 in terms of performance and usage.

‘In fact, one of our targets was to keep the same gear ratio [from a retained Xtrac gearbox]. For that, we had to move the power up a bit compared to what it was with the serial one. We were a bit close to the limit of the turbocharger. To be safe, reliable and closer to the VK56 curve, we made this change.’

How has LMP3 testing gone?

ORECA first put a production version of the new LMP3 engine on its static dyno test rig in September 2023. This enabled it to gather some baseline figures. It then built up the race engines, testing the new cooling system on its dynos (in a non-manufacturer specific layout) and delivered the first units in spring 2024. However, an issue that manifested through fickle gearshifts resulted in the engines being recalled, delaying the onset of track testing to July once an engine control software patch had been introduced. ORECA did a ‘complete review’ of the cooling and engine systems, according to Combemale.

‘At the beginning, the shifting was not the best possible,’ he admits. ‘But we are not able to do shifting on the dyno. We started with shifting from the VK56 and then you improve it for this engine. You do not have the same inertia.’

Eymere adds: ‘The mechanical braking of the engine is not the same, either. There was a feeling on the braking that the engine was pushing a bit. It is a turbocharged engine with big volumes of air and pressure, so managing the engine and airflow through it was important. We first had to understand what was happening and to find a way how to solve it. This behaviour was expected at the beginning. We made a first version of software that did not allow us to modify what we wanted, after those [real-world] results. So we had to work on this. It is part of the development work.’

Despite those teething issues, which were spotted during a shakedown of the Ligier JS P325, the four car manufacturers had collectively racked up almost 8000km on track by mid-September. They have prioritised running in hot conditions to validate the cooling system. Homologation is next on the agenda, although timing is tight because cars need to crash test again due to the increased car weight caused by the new engine and cooling system. Once that has been ticked off, cars will be delivered to customers ready for racing next year, ushering in the start of LMP3’s turbocharged era.

To see how the car manufacturers have been gearing up for LMP3’s turbo switch, check out the November issue of Racecar Engineering. Subscribe today!

The post V8 Farewell: LMP3 is Entering a New Turbocharged Era appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

In February this year, the van conquered Mount Panorama in Australia, breaking three lap records (fastest electric vehicle, fastest commercial vehicle and fastest closed-wheel vehicle) with a 1m56.32s lap time. Next, it raced to the top of Goodwood’s famous hillclimb course in 43.98s, winning the 2024 Festival of Speed shootout by over two seconds.

So how has Ford transformed its Pro E-Transit Custom van into a 2000bhp+ hillclimb monster?

Ford has been developing its SuperVan promotional vehicle concept since 1971. The first iteration, SuperVan 1, was a crude affair, combining a Ford GT40 chassis and its mid-mounted, 5.0-litre Ford V8 engine, with the factory steel bodywork of a Mk1 Transit van.

In 1984, SuperVan 2 came along, this time built using the chassis from a Ford C100 Group C car and a Cosworth DFL engine, all hidden under a glass fibre representation of a Mk2 Transit, with added aerodynamic enhancements.

A decade later, to promote the Mk3 Transit, SuperVan 2 was converted into SuperVan 3, this time using a 3.5-litre Cosworth HB V8 and a reduced scale silhouette body.

2022 then marked a new era in SuperVan history, with the first electric version, the Ford Pro Electric SuperVan 4.0, unveiled at Goodwood. Ford Performance collaborated with Austrian electric racing specialist, STARD, to deliver a 2000+bhp powertrain capable of accelerating the E-Transit Custom-inspired SuperVan from 0 to 100km/h (62mph) in under two seconds. This one stretched the likeness to a regular Transit van to nominal, at best.

Following the success of SuperVan 4.0 at Goodwood, Ford wanted to face the ultimate hillclimb test: Pikes Peak, but this was to prove a whole new challenge.

Pikes Peak is arguably the most fascinating race event for drivers and engineers alike. The start line sits 2800m above sea level with ambient temperatures typically around 20degC. The twisty, mountainous, 20km circuit winds its way up the highest summit of the southern Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to a peak 4300m above sea level, where temperatures are near zero.

At this altitude, the density of air is only 0.72kg/m³, compared to 1.2kg/m³ at the start line. This not only reduces the aerodynamic forces acting on the car, but also the available cooling as well. Consequently, SuperVan 4.0 needed to be re-designed if it was going to top the timings, paving the way for SuperVan 4.2.

Unsurprisingly, a Transit van is not the optimal size, shape or weight for setting record breaking lap times, on any circuit or track. To compensate for this, the powertrain needed to maximise power output and the aerodynamics needed to squeeze every ounce out of the available downforce.

‘The powertrain and the aerodynamics package are the main factors that compensate for the huge mass, frontal area and all the other disadvantages of choosing a Transit as a base package,’ says Michael Sakowicz, CEO at STARD. ‘That’s why we worked so hard to design a compact package that delivered high power density.

‘I’m not aware of many other BEVs that achieve such a high power output for such a small battery, so we’re pretty proud of that. This, together with the aero kit developed by Ford Performance, who did a great job, is how we’ve managed to achieve such impressive records with a van.’

At the heart of SuperVan 4.2’s powertrain lies a bespoke, 50kWh battery made up of ultra-high performance lithium polymer (Li-Polymer) NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) pouch cells housed in a carbon fibre case. To help the battery operate within its optimum temperature window, particularly with the low density air at the top of Pikes Peak, cooling was a priority from the start.

‘The battery is liquid cooled with an oil-based fluid that runs in a separate cooling circuit,’ continues Sakowicz. ‘Cooling is very challenging for Pikes Peak because of the thin air, but I would say 50 per cent of a good cooling system is determined by the layout you choose.

‘The layout of the battery, motors and inverters, as well as how these units are packaged together, is very important. They must match the desired voltage range, as well as the continuous and peak power performance, and then those parameters can be tuned for each specific use case.’

The battery provides power to four six-phase motors, with two on the front axle and two on the rear, each capable of a peak power of 400kW. The front and rear axles are not mechanically connected, but instead have a conventional motorsport differential with a two-stage, single-speed gear. The torque is not distributed between the front and rear axles, but is controlled across each axle by a vehicle control unit (VCU) with STARD- developed software.

Interestingly, the power-to-weight ratio of the powertrain can be specifically optimised for each event by adjusting the number of motors in operation. For Pikes Peak, SuperVan 4.2 only used one of the front motors, for a total of three, while at Goodwood and other events, STARD opted for the full complement of four.

‘Because SuperVan 4.2 was primarily designed for Pikes Peak, its high downforce aero package means we are producing much more downforce at lower speeds [at Goodwood],’ notes Sakowicz. ‘This, combined with the four-motor set up, gives us a huge amount of torque at the front. In fact, we’re actually running a very long ratio because we have so much front torque available that we can achieve a straight line of torque until top speed. Whereas for the rear we use mixed ratios because, in this set up, we have a lot more traction due to the dynamic shift from the axle loads.’

The inverters are IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) technology and share the same cooling circuit as the motors.

‘We developed the motors and inverters together with a specialist partner, which are cooled with a water glycol fluid,’ continues Sakowicz. ‘We also integrated rotor cooling, so both the rotor and stator of the motors are cooled as well.

‘The battery, motor and inverter cooling circuits all use air-to-fluid radiators. So, located at the front of the car is the cooling radiator for the battery, with the radiator for the motor and inverter circuit behind, as this operates at a higher temperature.’

To generate enough grip all the way up the perilous climb, the aerodynamics package needs to produce as much downforce as possible. Of course, with downforce also comes drag. This is less of an issue towards the top of Pikes Peak as the thin air results in lower drag, but at the start line where the air density is more typical, a great deal of energy is required to overcome the high drag of the high downforce package and accelerate the SuperVan. This was another reason why the powertrain needed to have such a high power density.

‘We are running close to Formula 1 levels of downforce, but with a 1700kg vehicle, compared to the minimum weight of an F1 car, which is 796kg,’ highlights Sakowicz. ‘More than 50 per cent of that downforce is on the front axle, and at sea level at 200km/h [124mph] we have about 2200kg of downforce in total.’

The upgraded aerodynamic package features a new carbon fibre front splitter and monster rear wing. Centre ducts in the floor help channel air from the bottom and guide it towards the rear and over the rear axle.

‘The frontal area of this van is around two to three times bigger than a typical GT car, so we had to find ways around that with an efficient aerodynamics package that is very different to other cars,’ explains Sakowicz. ‘This made packaging a challenge, particularly the rear axle, which is extremely tight, as the unit is quite powerful and so needs some space, but the diffuser is located on the bottom with ducting above.

‘Other areas, however, were relatively easy to package due to the van’s large size. For example, because the bonnet is so high, the driver needs to sit higher up to have a clear line of sight, so that lends nicely to locating the battery packs underneath the driver.’

The combination of high downforce, extreme power and significant weight of SuperVan 4.2 generates loads at the wheels that seriously punishes the tyres.

‘We are quite limited by the tyres,’ admits Romain Dumas, five-time Pikes Peak and two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner. ‘With the weight and the downforce, we could run with much bigger tyres, but nobody makes them. So we have had to use 18in Pirellis based on GT tyres. We could probably go even faster if we had more bespoke tyres.’

‘It’s not just the tyres that we are pushing to the limits,’ agrees Sakowicz. ‘We are loading the wheels, steering, suspension and brakes much more than any other car. It’s very different to any other vehicle we’ve worked on and has caused us a lot of headaches. We’ve had to adapt systems that have been tested and validated in much lighter, less powerful vehicles and really take them to their limits, so that has been a big challenge as well.’

So, what is this 2000bhp creation like to drive around some of the world’s most exciting circuits?

‘It’s more or less like driving a Dakar car, but with a lot more power and a lot faster,’ says Dumas. ‘The most difficult thing is to drive and brake with the weight because, due to the high centre of gravity, there is quite a lot of roll. Particularly as the battery is underneath you, which is good for weight distribution, but it means you sit quite high, so as soon as you steer there is this rolling response from the weight. Grip from the front axle is very good though, it is just as sharp as a conventional racecar.’

Piloting the SuperVan up Pikes Peak, Mount Panorama and the narrow hill at Goodwood required three very different styles of driving.

‘Goodwood is not at all for this car. It’s far too wide for this hillclimb, so this is probably the event that I was furthest from the limit,’ says Dumas. ‘Bathurst, on the other hand, was where I was pushing the most because we knew the lap time of the [modified GT3] Mercedes that we wanted to beat.

‘I mean firstly, we were never expecting to compete against them because we were expecting to go much slower but, when we saw their time, I was determined to go again.

‘The best thing about the SuperVan, compared to the Mercedes, was our top speed. We were going more than 300km/h [186 mph],’ smiles Dumas. ‘Travelling at that speed, with all the elevation at Bathurst, at the crest was the most challenging in terms of intensity. Particularly as we had some issues with the power steering system because we were so much faster than expected.’

‘Pikes Peak is a different challenge again because you cannot go 100 per cent as you only have one chance,’ continues Dumas. ‘So, even if you do a good run, you know you could improve here or there. It’s very difficult to be on the limit the whole time when you only get one lap.

‘You also have the issues with battery cooling. People have the attitude that electric cars have such an obvious advantage at Pikes Peak because you are not losing performance [from the engine due to the change in altitude]. This is completely true, but people often forget that batteries are heavy and need to be kept cool. So, although you don’t lose power going up the hill, you have to limit the top speed because you are never quite sure if you’re going to finish the run, or if the battery is going to overheat. It was the same with the [Volkswagen] ID.R.

‘At the end of the day, the concept is really fun,’ concludes Dumas. ‘If you strip the car out, it really is a racecar with a tube-frame chassis, wishbones, uprights and everything. But for the marketing side it needs to look like a Transit, which is why it is so big and heavy. It is a bit rustic, I would say. Daniel Ricardo drove it in Melbourne last year and he was a bit scared!’

‘It is incredibly quick,’ concludes Sakowicz. ‘At Goodwood, we’re competing against cars like the Subaru Project Midnight, which is the best you can build on the base of that vehicle. While at Pikes Peak, we smashed the Open class record, and in Bathurst set a closed-wheel vehicle lap record against unrestricted GT3s with Formula 1-style DRS. So we are a lot faster than some incredible racecars – with a van!

‘Overall, we’re really proud of how reliably it works, and also how adaptive it is,’ continues Sakowicz. ‘Normally, these one-off projects are designed for one specific challenge, but SuperVan 4.2 is so versatile that it can achieve phenomenal performance from drag strips to hillclimbs, and even rally stages.’

Gemma Hatton is the founder and director of Fluencial, which specialises in producing technical content for the engineering, automotive and motorsport industries

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Newey will join the Silverstone-based outfit on 1 March 2025 after his departure from the Red Bull Technology Group. The Briton has recently shifted his focus from Red Bull’s F1 programme to its RB17 hypercar project that he has been heavily involved in.

Newey’s title will be managing technical partner of Aston Martin F1 team. He will also become a shareholder in the business.

He will join a leadership structure that currently consists of executive chairman Lawrence Stroll, team principal Mike Krack, technical director Dan Fallows and incoming CEO Andy Cowell. Aston Martin also recently signed Ferrari’s technical leader Enrico Cardile in the new role of chief technical officer.

Newey brings to Aston Martin a wealth of experience in F1, having started out with March in the late 1980s. He then moved up the grid, taking at Williams and McLaren, before joining a nascent Red Bull team in 2006. Newey-designed cars during his 19 years at Red Bull achieved seven drivers’ and six constructors’ championship titles, and 188 race wins.

‘It’s the biggest story since the Aston Martin name returned to the sport and another demonstration of our ambition to build a Formula One team capable of fighting for world championships,’ said Stroll. ‘As soon as Adrian became available, we knew we had to make it happen.

‘Our initial conversations confirmed that there was a shared desire to collaborate in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Adrian is a racer and one of the most competitive people I have ever met. When he saw what we have built at Silverstone – our incredible AMR Technology Campus, the talented group of people we have assembled and the latest wind tunnel in the sport – he quickly understood what we are trying to achieve.’

Newey’s signing marks the latest step in a push from Aston Martin to strengthen its technical leadership and push for F1 race wins and titles. The team finished fifth in last season’s constructors’ standings and has struggled to keep up with Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes this year.

Newey said during a press conference that he was ‘flattered’ to have ‘a lot of approaches from various teams’ once his departure from Red Bull became public in May.

‘I felt as if I needed a new challenge,’ he added. ‘Towards the end of April, I decided I needed to do something different. I spent a lot of time with Mandy, my wife, discussing what’s next. Do we go off and sail around the world or do something different – America’s Cup or whatever? So we took a bit of time out.

‘I felt I have been lucky enough to have achieved what I aspired to from the age of 10 or 12, which was simply to be a designer in motor racing. I can honestly say everything else has been a bonus, having achieved that straight out of uni. I never, of course, expected anything like what I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with. You have to be honest with yourself and keep yourself fresh. I felt I needed a new challenge.’

Newey added that discussions with Stroll, and the Aston Martin team’s leadership structure, persuaded him to make his ultimate choice. He was given a tour of the outfit’s new F1 headquarters at Silverstone in June.

‘Lawrence’s passion, commitment and enthusiasm is very endearing and persuasive,’ said Newey. ‘If you go back 20 years, when team principals were owners of the teams… in this modern era, Lawrence is unique in being the only properly active team owner. That’s a different feeling, when you have someone like Lawrence involved like that. It’s an old-school model. To have a chance to be a shareholder and a partner is something that hasn’t been offered to me before. It became a very natural choice.’

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Designed to give young drivers a platform to climb the single seater ladder, it includes updated safety features and similar styling to current-generation Formula 1 and Formula 2 machinery.

The car, which has been developed around a Dallara carbon monocoque, will be powered by a six-cylinder, 3.4-litre naturally aspirated Mecachrome engine producing around 380hp at 8000rpm. It uses a six-gear longitudinal gearbox from 3MO, instead of the Hewland unit found in the latest FIA Formula 2 car that was launched last year. The paddle shift is driven by a Marelli electro-hydraulic command.

Marelli is also supplying the vehicle control unit, which has been carried over from F2. The car is compatible with virtual safety car (VSC) systems and features a drag reduction system (DRS) to aid overtaking on straights.

The championship is planning to run its new car on 100 per cent sustainable fuel from Aramco. New 16-inch Pirelli tyres will be used, with three compounds available.

The car completed 2000km in testing before its unveiling at the Italian Grand Prix. The first shakedown was undertaken at Varano in Italy by Tatiana Calderon, as was the case for the current F2 machine. Formula 3 teams will receive their first car before the end of the year and then receive a further two cars in January. The 2025 FIA Formula 3 season begins at Albert Park in Australia on March 14-16.

‘The 2025 F3 car has been designed to provide exciting racing, with a lot of overtaking opportunities,’ said FIA F3 CEO Bruno Michel. ‘We have also worked to ensure this new car fits all types of drivers, taking into account the FIA’s requirements regarding the steering effort. With this in mind, we have enhanced our car’s driveability and comfort to further ensure the new generation car is more inclusive.’

The new FIA Formula 3 car will be valid for three seasons, up to and including 2027. It sits one year behind F2, which last year introduced a new car that will be valid until the end of 2026.

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The resurfacing, part of a recently-completed €21 million (US$23,400) facility upgrade project, paved the full 5.739km lap in fresh asphalt. Many drivers have been vocal about the replacement of kerbs that helped give Monza an ‘old-school’ feel, but the new track surface is also playing a key part in the weekend. Before the Italian GP, F1 tyre supplier Pirelli predicted (based on a July track inspection) that track temperatures could reach 50degC in sunny conditions. This is because the new, black surface reflects more light from the sun as heat than its predecessor. The track surface smoothness causes more grip. Both of these factors increase degradation, defined as the deterioration of a tyre’s performance over time due to the impact of heat on the rubber.

Pirelli’s temperature estimation turned out to be true, as the track surface in Practice 1 – just after lunch on a glorious Friday – hovered between 49.6 and 51.9degC. In second practice, held between 5 and 6pm, the range was 41.6 to 48degC.

Central to the degradation challenge is that the new track surface generates graining. Graining occurs when the inner part of the tyre (the carcass) is colder than the outer surface of the tyre. This imbalance creates movement in the rubber that prompts small pieces to detach and stick to the surface, forming irregularities that reduce grip and contribute to rapid tyre degradation. Graining often occurs in cold conditions, but can also appear on a new track surface.

‘The adhesive grip is quite high, so the tarmac is grippy, said Pirelli’s chief F1 engineer Simone Berra. ‘But, on the other hand, the tarmac is very smooth. The mechanical grip of the tyre is not that high. That [imbalance] is why we are generating this level of graining. The adhesive grip is okay, but the hysteresis grip is not high.’

According to Berra, graining will inevitably occur after a couple of laps. Teams can try to delay it until slightly later in the stint, but they will all face it at some point at Monza. The low-downforce nature of the track doesn’t help because any aerodynamic load changes to ease pressure on the tyres will sacrifice too much crucial speed. At other tracks, graining occurred either on the front or rear axle, enabling teams to manage their tyres accordingly. However, at Monza, the graining has been present at both ends. It is a difficult balancing act.

‘If you are suffering from understeer and generating graining on the front axle because you are protecting the rear, you are using the rear axle to rotate the car,’ said Berra. ‘But then you are generating graining on the rear axle. It is very difficult on this circuit, compared to others, to find a good compromise to protect one axle [so that] it’s fine. At Spa, we had high graining on Friday in practice. But, in the end, it was just on the front axle. The teams worked a lot to protect the front axle, and it ended up, on Sunday, being a good race without graining being an issue and a one-stop [strategy] was possible.’

The new track surface will influence how teams approach their tyre strategy during Sunday’s 53-lap race. They are still expected to favour the one-stop approach, rather than pitting twice to spend less time on more degraded rubber. They will probably only shift to a two-stop if the graining doesn’t improve as the track evolves over the weekend.

Pirelli has brought the same compounds to Monza as last year: the C3, C4 and C5. These are the hardest tyres in its slick range. The C3 (softest) and C4 (medium) compounds were used extensively on Friday, with teams preferring to save their harder tyres for the race. The pace difference (or delta) between C3 and C4 in practice was around half a second, correlating to Pirelli’s simulation.

‘We are seeing high levels of degradation compared to 2023,’ said Berra. ‘At the moment, we are not thinking about going to a two-stop race. Even the teams are not thinking about it. They are keeping two hard compounds for the race; they want to be safe in case degradation values are higher, or there is a safety car, and they can exploit this window to pit and put a new set [on]. I think the degradation level and thermal management of the tyre will be the key to complete the race on a one-stop.’

While the Monza track surface is fresh for now, its characteristics will soon change, for new asphalt usually evolves very quickly. Since F1 is the first major series to race at Monza (and there had only been a few GT car tests before the GP) high evolution was expected in practice. Pirelli observed a high rate during FP1 and some stabilisation in FP2.

‘We didn’t have much pick-up, which is clear sign that the track can improve and evolve, become more grippy, for the next sessions,’ added Berra. ‘I think the evolution will continue throughout the next few days, especially during the race. For example, I would expect the second stint to be easier to manage than the first stint.

‘The teams cannot really work to improve the graining. They just have to wait a bit for the track evolution and improvement on track conditions. We do think they can improve a bit for Sunday. I don’t think it will disappear completely like it did at Spa.

‘You can make a difference if you are able to manage the tyres better [than others], especially with this level of graining. Here, in the past, it was easier to manage just the thermal deg [because] the graining, in general, was very low.’

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Alex Albon’s qualifying result was expunged after the FIA found his car’s floor body to ‘lie outside the regulatory volume’ mentioned in Article 3.5.1a of the technical regulations. That line in the regulations identifies a floor body reference volume, which consists of several measurements that are further defined in Point 5 of the rulebook appendix.

Williams didn’t dispute the accuracy of the FIA measurement system at Zandvoort and accepted its sanction, but pointed out that its own measurement system produced a different result.

Ahead of this weekend’s Italian GP at Monza, Vowles explained what Williams did next, both to ensure the car was legal for the race at Zandvoort, and to maintain compliance for subsequent F1 rounds. For the former, Williams removed the surplus floor body material from Albon’s car with 400-grit sandpaper to ensure it could race on Sunday. Albon went on to finish 14th after starting from the back row, but the British-Thai driver reckoned he could have finished in the points without his qualifying DQ.

‘[The] investigation still ongoing, which tells you how complex the problem is,’ said Vowles. ‘We have two sign-off methods at the factory. The first is in a jig, fundamentally, that is replicating the legal floor width. It fits within that. In other words, it is legal to the width of the jig. The second is on-car, in the factory, which was completed on Tuesday. Both of those checks revealed that the car was effectively legal.’

To double check the width ahead of the Italian GP at Monza, Williams conducted one further measurement on Thursday that showed the car as being ‘slightly over’ the FIA’s limit.

‘By slightly over, I mean decimals of a millimetre,’ added Vowles. ‘However, we did two things. You are always adjusting the floor to make sure it is aerodynamically in the correct region. I personally believe that one of those adjustments put the floor into a region where it was slightly more illegal than that. That pushed us over the limit.

‘With these situations, you’re always trying to get things to about zero. You don’t want to be under by two millimetres. It’s not important everywhere on the floor, but there are a few regions where it is important.’

According to Vowles, the rear section of the floor where the width was beyond FIA limits is not one of those more important areas. The floors on current F1 cars are responsible for producing downforce through ground effect, as air is accelerated through Venturi tunnels carved into the bottom of the car.

‘[It] is not important aerodynamically whatsoever at all,’ claimed Vowles. ‘We could have easily been under that. What it ultimately comes down to is we didn’t do a good enough job scanning and replicating the exact procedures the FIA do. When you’re talking about decimals of a millimetre, it doesn’t [take] much to move you out of that position.’

The Dutch GP was a tumultuous event on the other side of the Williams F1 garage too, as Logan Sargeant crashed heavily in third practice. The impact with the left-side metal barrier, after the American put his car’s right wheels on wet grass, caused a fire that destroyed some components. Sargeant was then dropped from the team on Tuesday and replaced by Williams junior Franco Colapinto, although Vowles was adamant the crash did not influence the timing of his decision.

The accident was, however, damaging because Williams had brought a substantial upgrade package to the Dutch GP, which included the new floor geometry.

‘If you have attrition or an accident that happens when the update kit is about four races old, you can write it off to a certain extent because you can replace it with new,’ said Vowles. ‘When it happens about 200km in, that’s painful. [It is] the most painful time for the team to have attrition – it hurts.

‘We have an amount planned into the budget. Where it’s more hindered me, is we have more updates coming and we’re now spending time building componentry that I wish we wouldn’t at this point in time. [It is] distracting us away from the future.

Albon described the Dutch GP package as the first half of a two-pronged attack towards the end of the season.

‘In terms of balance, not really anything to say,’ he commented. ‘Just a bit more load. All the numbers came back positive. They were up, so that’s nice. I think we’re more in the mix with the midfield. It’s still close and we would need a bit more to get in front of everyone.

‘This is part of a double package, so we’re waiting for a second part of it a bit later into the season, and hopefully that will just tie up some of the balance problems, because we’re not just missing load, we’re missing a bit of balance as well.’

The post How Williams Responded to Albon’s Zandvoort Qualifying DQ appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

While the development is set to inform the engineering direction for next year’s car, it is unlikely to be the same kind of upgrade as in 2023, when the American-owned team radically changed its concept to an outwash aerodynamic solution. Haas picked up the wooden spoon in last season’s standings; its change of direction for round 19 at Austin arguably came too late to have a substantial impact on its campaign.

One of the priorities for new team principal, Ayao Komatsu, when he replaced Guenther Steiner at the start of this year was to bring more upgrades to the track sooner. The idea behind this approach was to give Haas a better chance at keeping pace with its rivals in the bottom half of the table.

‘I would say that’s something we still need to work quite hard on,’ Komatsu said at pre-season testing, referring to Haas’ pace of producing new parts. ‘I don’t think our lead time is one of the best in the field.’

A quicker rate of progress for the team, which spreads its operations between Banbury in the United Kingdom and Maranello in Italy, was achieved this season. It rolled out a suite of five performance-related updates to round five in China. That was topped up with front and rear end changes for Imola, before another comprehensive package arrived in time for round 12 at Silverstone.

‘After [Monza], you have Baku and Singapore,’ said Komatsu. ‘It doesn’t make sense to bring a package to them, and after that, it’s Austin. That coincides pretty well with the shutdown as well. After we’ve finalised the Austin package, we are free [to focus on] 2025.’

When asked what Haas’ priorities are for the Austin package, Komatsu pointed towards the team’s most recent major technical change for the British GP in July.

There, Haas introduced seven performance-related adjustments, including a new floor designed to increase the ground effect suction that keeps the car planted through corners. The sidepod inlet was given a longer upper lip to facilitate cleaner airflow to the rear, which in turn required the sidepod to protrude further rearward. During the Silverstone race, Nico Hülkenberg finished sixth to equal Haas’ best result of the season, matching his position at the previous round in Austria.

‘It’s similar to Silverstone,’ said Komatsu of the planned Austin upgrade. ‘We worked on the floor and bodywork and found performance. Those assumptions of what we expected in the wind tunnel [and] CFD [testing] that materialised at Silverstone… [it will be] continuation of that, and a couple of other areas which we find interesting. That is the next stage.’

One of the problem areas for Haas this year has been speed through medium-speed corners, although Komatsu pointed out that certain slow-speed corners can also be a thorn in its side when certain variables are at play.

The team is yet to find out what is causing its lack of pace through the medium-speed turns.

‘We clearly improved high-speed,’ said Komatsu. ‘There are some parts of the car that suggest why high-speed correlation wasn’t great before. We improved [that, however] medium is still poor. I personally don’t have an explanation. In low speed, we are at least competitive. But you can look at Zandvoort: [at] Turn 9 and Turn 10, everybody was complaining because of the wind and track surface. But I think we suffered more compared to the others.

‘So, it’s not just in medium-speed corners where we are poor. In certain slow-speed corners, with certain characteristics, we are poor as well. There are many areas that we need to understand. I don’t pretend to understand everything. But we are working on that.’

It doesn’t necessarily bode well for the next two races on the streets of Baku and Singapore, where there are several 90-degree corners to contend with. However, Haas is hoping that the Austin upgrades can put it in a better position for the run-in. It currently sits seventh in the championship standings on 27 points, seven behind RB.

Regarding this weekend’s Italian GP, held at the fast Monza track, Komatsu suggested that Haas has a better chance than in previous years considering its increased focus on low-downforce capabilities for the VF-24. On last year’s visit to Monza, Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen finished one lap down in 17^th and 18^th.

‘It’s very difficult to predict how competitive or uncompetitive you are going to be at each event,’ Komatsu acknowledged. ‘At Spa, I didn’t think we were going to be that uncompetitive [finishing 14^th and 18^th]. At Zandvoort, we clearly underperformed in qualifying and didn’t get much out of the car.

‘Here [at a] low-downforce track… it’s always [been] a bit difficult because we never had a competitive low-downforce package. This year we have a reasonable low-downforce package, but the new [track] surfaces and changes to the kerbs, how we get on top of it, is a big unknown.

‘I still think we can fight close to the points; that’s always our target. But it’s very difficult to predict accurately.’

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The initial motivations for our ancestors were driven by the desire to facilitate meeting needs for provision of food, water and shelter – the fundamental requirements of survival. Shaping a hammer from a stone core, or using plant materials to build a shelter, were some of humanity’s earliest design enterprises.

With the perfection of concepts like the lever and pulley bolstering agricultural productivity, mechanisms such as the windmill soon emerged, enabling more complex functions to be considered and sparking an industrial revolution.

The evolutionary process of design flows such that innovations lead to innovations and, once basic needs are met, further experimentation is driven by some level of enjoyment gained from tapping into our innate desire and curiosity to keep exploring, optimising and doing better. This is what we know today as the pursuit of excellence.

For example, the imagination of the first wheel led to the innovation of the horse-drawn carriage, which, in relatively short time, led to the innovation of the motor car.

Sport from design

Following that glide path, it’s not difficult to see how humans, enjoying the comfort of plentiful food and warm houses, began to create sport out of design. This led to the development of hugely complex mechanisms like Formula 1 cars, made of thousands of components, each one of them a specialised evolution of a basic function, acutely focused on a specific objective.

The addition of sport to design activity is a significant point. With competition in the mix, the quality of a design is considered with a new scrutiny because an edge is gained by designing better than your opposition. This leads to some unique specialisations.

In any high-performance design, each innovation is undertaken with a focus on improving the previous function by a certain metric. When the designs are intended to bear loads, the metrics are strength, stiffness and weight.

With this, we enter the world of structurally efficient design.

What is structurally efficient design?

In motorsport, we need components to be strong enough to withstand their intended use without permanent, plastic deformation or damage. We need parts to be stiff and not flex excessively during operation.

The catch is we also need them to be light, because every excess gramme of weight carries a performance penalty, primarily in the form of a lap time increase.

Stiffness is a consideration that attracts focus in motorsport for very particular reasons. Testament to this is the suspension system, where excess deformation in the control arms or steering rack caused by high g lateral and longitudinal loading will dynamically alter the wheel’s camber and toe.

After spending many hours running countless simulations to dial in your kinematics, it would be tragic to have it ruined by an overly compliant suspension.

Stiffness quandary

If we design a part to be strong enough, it likely won’t be stiff enough. Conversely, make a part stiff enough without care to detail and it will be overly strong and too heavy.

To begin to untangle this problem, we need targets. Most structural parts will carry some compliance constraint, defined by their respective attribute group. This gives us a starting point to approach the design process.

Damian Harty, former CAE team leader at Prodrive and founder of Future Vehicle Systems, had the following thoughts to share on his approach: ‘In our suspension target definition, I used to ask what’s the smallest adjustment to the geometry we can make that the driver can measure? This was about one tenth of a degree for toe and a quarter, or half a degree for camber. So, that defined our compliance target under the maximal lateral loading we’d expect during a season.’

Compliance target

The first task to defining a compliance target into something useable is to have a sound understanding of the environment the part will be operating in, in terms of forces and moments in each degree of freedom.

In motorsport, unexpected loading events are almost a given, so must be accounted for. Defining nominal loading is straightforward enough, but in something like a suspension system or chassis structure we must also account for crashes, contact with another competitor, kerb strikes or other events that introduce abnormal loading into our components. The standard deviation of loading is therefore relatively high.

‘In our WRC project, we used to design the cars to withstand a vertical load of 11g, but we also wanted to be clear on what would break if we exceeded that, and what would happen as a result,’ recalls Harty. ‘By the time we were at those loads, the tyres were contacting the inner wheel well, and the armoured belly was in contact with the ground. The car could survive that, but seeing as much as 11g generally means the driver has done something quite wrong.’

Defining these upper limits is still very much a human process, where judgement, experience and data are part of the decision making. The idea is to design such that we have a reasonable confidence that we won’t see failure, even during abnormal events.

This is a sound philosophy, but can look quite different in its implementation across different component types.

Heavily loaded powertrain components, such as connecting rods, crankshafts and, to a lesser extent, gearbox and driveshaft components, all must withstand very high peak loads. However, as the combustion process is reasonably repeatable, the standard deviation of these loads is way less than that of wheel loads.

Chasing efficiency

The objective is to achieve high stiffness while using the minimum amount of material possible. This is where the ‘efficient’ element of structural design comes into focus.

Structurally efficient design is an extremely interesting domain. It can be distilled into the following considerations: 1) robust material selection; 2) design that mitigates localised stress concentrations in the part with filleted edges and no abrupt section changes; 3) optimisation of the stress distribution through the part; 4) consideration of the section modulus to maximise bending stiffness relative to the volume of material used.

Clearly, then, the choice of material for a component is a meticulous process.

Stiffness at the material level is often evaluated through what is called the
specific modulus. This relates the part’s stiffness (Young’s modulus) to its density. Interestingly, the most commonly used high-performance engineering materials – aluminium, steel and titanium alloys – all have a similar stiffness modulus.

This means for a given weight, they are all just about as stiff as each other. There are no advantages to be gained there, apparently. So, the appropriate material choice isn’t immediately obvious without further consideration.

Evaluating strength with respect to density is another way to filter the good from the bad. Here, specific strength is our metric. A higher specific strength means less material is needed for a given part strength, so initially we want materials to have both high specific strength and specific modulus.

Material choice

The high strength of titanium alloys like Ti-6AL-4V is attractive, but it loses out to steel grades such as AISI 4340 on specific modulus. An aluminium alloy such as 7075-T6, on the other hand, performs well in stiffness and strength, comparable to both steel and titanium, but falls short in fatigue resistance, elongation and toughness. This means it bends less before failing and can withstand fewer loading cycles.

Carbon fibre stands out above metal alloys for some of these metrics, so can be a strong choice for applications where loading modes are well understood and relatively simple. However, unlike metal alloys, which are isotropic and exhibit the same strength in all directions, anisotropic composites like carbon fibre have mechanical properties that vary with loading direction.

This makes a material challenging to apply in complex loading scenarios, and its low elongation and toughness means failure is often catastrophic when yield is exceeded.

Special mention here should be given to some of the more exotic alloys, such as Al-Li (aluminium-lithium), Al-Be (aluminium-beryllium) and MMC (metal matrix composites), all of which offer some very attractive properties, but are generally tightly controlled by regulations due to their huge expense (or, in Al-Be’s case, outright banned because of its toxicity).

It’s not hard to see how complex the matrix of considerations is to pick the right material for a job.

Stress and strain

The loading experienced up to yield stress can be simplified as the linear strain region, where the relationship between stress and strain is approximately linear. With continued strain, it enters the realm of plastic deformation, where the relationship between stress and strain becomes highly non-linear.

These distinct properties form a lineation in material behaviour, and we ideally want our upper design load to sit right at that transition of linear to nonlinear response.

Materials and their stress / strain responses are fascinating, but component design is the realm where it all starts to become a little more tangible.

Joining our components together to form the structure is clearly the most pressing concern and, while packaging and kinematic constraints will certainly dictate some of the final form, there is a huge amount to be said for craftsmanship.

One wonders if the fact that pretty, aesthetically pleasing structural designs are often the most efficient load bearing shapes is purely a coincidence, or an innate feeling we all have for good and sound design.

Sharp edges give rise to sharp stress gradients, so fillets and smooth edges and transitions are a designer’s best friend. That’s elementary, but further refinement requires a trained eye, and a particular inspiration.

Nature’s gift

The field of biomimetics recognises that nature has some truly spectacular engineering solutions. Bones of animals feature trabecular tissue, which is specifically present to increase the stiffness and strength of bones without largely impacting the mass.

Bones also provide a brilliant observation of maximising a geometric property called the section modulus, which provides a metric of a form’s ability to resist bending stress.

A high section modulus is achieved by placing material away from the neutral axis, where the bending stress is zero, raising the moment of inertia and, in turn, the stiffness for a given quantity of material.

Applying this to motorsport engineering is the reason we have larger diameter tubes in roll cages, and why aluminium parts are generally larger section than an equivalent steel part. A great practical demonstration of the effect of an increased section modulus can be found in the steering rack.

A steering rack can be simplified as a bar inside a tube, supported in two places. The bar (rack) has teeth cut into it to allow the pinion gear to move it back and forth as the steering column rotates.

‘As the suspension articulates, there is an appreciable bending moment on it that makes the rack flex vertically, in a meaningful way,’ explains Harty. ‘When we were looking at compliance on the BMW Mini Countryman project [at Prodrive], we rotated the rack to give us the stiffer side of the bar working against the bending moment. It worked really well, and just seemed so obvious when we looked at the model.’

Validation time

With such time and focus on achieving structurally efficient design, painstakingly selecting the correct alloys and designing elegant part geometries, we of course need methods of validating the resulting component.

In earlier times, performing structural analysis was a slow process, but it has now been revolutionised by simulation and computing power.

Finite element analysis (FEA) tools, for example, have advanced leaps and bounds in both ease of use and integration into the design process. They use mathematical models of material behaviour and, in the linear strain range at least, provide quick, relatively simple and accurate predictions of how a material will behave.

Results from the FEA are fed back to the designer in very short time to allow modification of the design based on stress concentrations and overloaded areas. This iterative approach to design has been in practice for decades and, while there have been efficiency improvements to workflows and methodologies, the basic principles have remained static.

Additionally, 3D printing and metal sintering techniques have allowed some very interesting and previously unachievable geometries to be developed.

Validation revolves around gathering physical data from real-world testing to correlate the FEA to observations on prototype parts from tests in a lab setting on test rigs or running the part on a real vehicle on an accelerated durability test. By validating FEA predictions with empirical data, engineers can identify discrepancies and refine their models to improve accuracy. This iterative process ensures the final design meets performance targets, ultimately leading to more reliable and robust components.

What the future holds

The future of structurally efficient design in the motorsport environment will be significantly influenced by advancements in materials science and manufacturing techniques. Part of this revolution will be through emerging technologies such as metamaterials and nanomaterials.

Metamaterials are engineered materials, which exhibit properties not found in naturally occurring substances. They have been an area of intense research, partially unlocked through improvements in additive manufacturing technology such as selective laser melting (SLM), which allows for the creation of complex, periodic structures with extremely high precision.

Similarly, nanomaterials are making waves. By reducing the grain size of materials like titanium and aluminium, researchers have significantly increased their yield strengths. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), when integrated into composites like carbon fibre (CFRP), improve stress distribution and provide substantial benefits in terms of fatigue resistance and crack mitigation.

These cutting-edge materials share the common goal of enhancing the strength and stiffness of components while, at the same time, minimising weight. Although there are still challenges to overcome, the future looks promising.

The pursuit of structurally efficient design is a dynamic and evolving field. From the historical advancements in basic mechanical principles to the sophisticated integration of modern materials and computational techniques, the journey is a remarkable one.

Continuous improvements in material science, coupled with advancements in simulation and optimisation algorithms, promises a future where designs are not only lighter and stronger but also more adaptable and resilient. If there are benefits to be found, we can be sure motorsport will find them.

Jahee Campbell-Brennan is the director of Wavey Dynamics, a consultancy specialising in vehicle dynamics, race engineering, powertrain and aerodynamics across the motorsport and automotive sectors

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