the car that mustbeat Mercedes and BMW

100 Pages·2017·33.91 MB·English

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May 2017 • Vol 27 No 5 • www.racecar-engineering.com • UK £5.95 • US $14.50
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All-new Audi RS5: the car that 5
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WEC cockpit safety Penske PC-23 NASCAR Aero
We reveal shocking results Stunning restoration of an Improving the racing and
of driver seating research iconic Indy 500 winner safety of US stock cars
02_Cuv_May-AC.indd 3 29/03/2017 13:37
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Untitled-45 1 23/01/2017 13:23
CONTENTS – MAY 2017 – Volume 27 Number 5
The deserts of South America present one of the toughest tests
for a competition car there is. Turn to page 40 to fi nd out how a top
Dakar operation like X-raid prepares its Mini for these conditions
COVER STORY TECHNICAL
12 Audi RS5
Up close and personal with Audi’s 55 The Consultant
stunning new DTM challenger From F1 regulations to dirt track suspension
59 Aerobytes
COLUMNS Part three in our BMW endurance racer aero study
63 OptimumG on chassis dynamics
5 Ricardo Divila
Yaw in focus in Racecar’s brand new series
How racecar colour schemes have changed with time
66 NASCAR aerodynamics
7 Mike Blanchet
How NASCAR is using aero to make better and safer racing
Why drivers should be allowed to keep their data secret
9 Peter Wright 74 CAD developments
We examine the leading trends in design simulation
Are this season’s F1 changes really for the better?
82 Additive manufacturing
FEATURES Behind the scenes with German AM wizard FIT
86 Danny Nowlan
18 Super GT Pt I
Why lap time simulation is still important
The state of play in Japan’s premier GT500 category
20 Super GT Pt II 91 Technical update
The technical disputes that are the talk of the F1 paddock
Why GT500’s little brother, GT300, is thinking big
24 WEC seat safety
BUSINESS & PEOPLE
How Toyota’s THUMS system is helping to tackle spinal injuries
34 Ligier JS P3 94 Business people
Under the skin of Onroak’s neat little LMP3 A tribute to racing legend John Surtees
40 Mini Countryman J60 98 Bump Stop
X-raid’s rugged Dakar racer laid bare
46 Penske PC-23 restoration
How an Indy icon was brought back to life
Subscribe to Racecar Engineering – fi nd the best off ers online
www.racecar-engineering.com
Contact us with your comments and views on Facebook.com/RacecarEngineering
MAY 2017 www.racecar-engineering.com 3
Contents_May_MBAC.indd 3 28/03/2017 14:05
Untitled-3 1 21/02/2017 11:46
STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA
Prism break
Did we lose something special when sponsors’ liveries replaced national colours?
Th e colour of any object depends on both of the FIA, had accepted colours for each nationality, a central role in the political life of the Netherlands
the physics of the object in its environment, this maintaining the original Gordon Bennett Cup since William I of Orange organized the Dutch revolt
and the characteristics of the perceiving colours, the German white seemingly morphing against Spanish rule, which after the 80 Years War
eye and brain. So objects can be said to have the into silver by the 1930s, as seen on the Mercedes led to an independent Dutch state. This orange was
colour of the light leaving their surfaces, which and Auto Union grand prix cars of the time. most recently used on the Spyker in F1.
normally depends on the spectrum of the incident The USA, had two variants, blue with white
’30s shades of silver
illumination and the reflectance properties of stripes – used by exponents such as AAR Eagle,
the surface, as well as, potentially, on the angles The Silver Arrows, as they became known, were Ford, Shelby, Scarab, Chevrolet – or white with blue
of illumination and viewing. silver basically because the cars had bare aluminium stripes, commonly known as Cunningham colours,
A spectrum is a condition that is not limited finishes, which gave birth to the legend that it but also used by Ford, NART, Shelby and Chaparral.
to a specific set of values but can vary, without had come about by stripping the paint to bring And I can still see the list in my 1977 copy of the
steps, across a continuum. The word was first used them down to the weight limit. This is probably FIA’s Yellow Book, despite it authorizing other
scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of apocryphal, as they were racing like that in 1932, colours for sponsors liveries from the spring of 1968,
colours in visible light after passing through a prism. and the limit did not come in until 1934. Some later South Africa’s Team Gunston being the first to sport
While most humans are trichromatic (having cars from Germany reverted now and then to white. sponsors colours at that year’s South African GP.
three types of colour receptors), many animals, Although some of the colours were rather The number of primary colours being limited,
known as tetrachromats, have four. These include arbitrarily assigned, others took cues from national combinations thereof were used on the latecomers,
some species of spiders, most marsupials, often as a basic plus a stripe, or body with
birds, reptiles, and many types of fish. different bonnet colour. Bulgaria was
We see a range of wavelengths from green and white, Cuba yellow and black,
about 390 to 700nm (nanometers). In terms Switzerland red and white, Czechoslovakia
of frequency, this corresponds to a band white and blue with white bonnet and
in the vicinity of 430 to 770THz, although stripes, Denmark silver-grey with the
birds and bees can see frequencies starting national flag on bonnet, Spain red and
from 300nm, well into the ultraviolet range. yellow, and so forth. Probably the most
Flowers can have ultraviolet markings, unusual colours were the ones given to
which are invisible to us, but they are very Jordan, a muted brown, and one I have not
useful for the birds and the bees. seen on any racecar, Egypt’s violet.
Racecars are usually painted, or more Note that the convention was based
usually now wrapped, in a palette of colours on the original Gordon Bennett Cup rules,
B
covering our visible range. But in the past XP being that the colour was attributed by the
they had quite well defined hues which French racecars, such as this 1920s era Bugatti Type 59, always team’s nationality, not the car’s or driver’s,
depended on the country they represented. raced in blue before the advent of major sponsorship in motorsport thus Team NART Ferrari F1 running at the
1967 US GP in white and blue.
Hue and cry
colours, like the ‘bleu de France’, which is a colour
The colour of money
This all started out when Count Eliot Zborowsky traditionally used to represent France, and has been
suggested that each national team competing used in the heraldry of the French monarchy since Commercial sponsorship eventually took over the
in the 1900 Gordon Bennett Cup be allotted a at least the 12th century. Any team representing previous mono- or bi-chromatic bodyworks and
distinguishing colour; France getting blue, Germany the nation, be it in football, ping-pong or any other to be fair it has brought some now iconic liveries,
white, Belgium yellow. Britain came to the Cup in sport is colloquially know there as ‘Les Bleus’, even if such as the JPS Lotus, with its black and gold, and
1902, and could not use its usual red, white or blue, they are not using the blue livery. the McLaren Marlboro white and red. The national
as they had previously been allotted, and so it chose Similarly Argentina’s blue and yellow, Brazil’s colour tradition still remains in some liveries,
to paint its Napier in olive green. pale yellow and green, Australia’s green and gold, as though; note the silver on the Mercedes F1 car.
The following year, when the cup was held in used on Brabhams, were official national colours. But I still hanker after the days when cars
Ireland, this morphed into Shamrock green, which Japan was assigned white with a red circle, were monochromatic-ish, when often ill-advised
came down in various shades through the years. identical to the national flag that has been used combinations did not obscure the true lines, the
Italy adopted its classic racing red only from 1907, since 1854, when during the Tokugawa shogunate, ’90s being the worst time for the multiple paint
when a FIAT won the Peking-Paris in that shade. We Japanese ships were ordered to hoist the Hinomaru buckets thrown over the racecar syndrome.
can also see here that real racing from those days to distinguish themselves from foreign ships. This Design convergence being what it is, maybe
was not the short sprints GPs are today. Probably was seen on the first Honda F1 car in 1964. today’s F1 liveries at least enable you to differentiate
something to do with limited attention spans. The Netherlands was given orange, historically which car you are looking at, for I suspect if they
By the ’20s the Association Internationale des the colour of the Huis van Oranje-Nassau, a branch were all of a single colour they would be very
Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR), the forerunner of the German House of Nassau, which has played difficult to separate nowadays.
Jordan was given a most unusual national colour, a muted brown
MAY 2017 www.racecar-engineering.com 5
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TTV RACING FP BL MAY17.indd 1 30/03/2017 09:14
SIDETRACK – MIKE BLANCHET
Data protection
Should drivers be allowed to keep their fast-lap secrets from their team mates?
It’s fair to say Lewis Hamilton is known for making form of this involves car set-up; aero, suspension, engineering can’t design and make something
comments that are sometimes controversial, ride heights, tyre pressures and for some time now that can last a race – even a 24 hour one – without
frequently confusing and sometimes downright engine and transmission modes. As a way of rapidly constant nursing then we’ve gone a bit wrong
irritating, but happily it’s also true that the real racer obtaining feedback and general direction at the somewhere. Okay, with complex power units on
that he is generally shines through. track, this makes sense and benefits both drivers. board now I can relent a little and let some of the
A recently expressed opinion of Hamilton’s However, when it comes to revealing turn-in techys keep their monitoring jobs; I admit that
struck home with me and encapsulated much points, lines, throttle/brake control, carrying speed few things are more disappointing than to see a
of the issues surrounding modern motor racing. into and through corners and other subtleties of good battle spoiled by a failure in one of the cars,
Referring to his objection against data-sharing the driver’s art, it is maybe a different matter. thankfully much more rare nowadays.
between team-mates, he made the observation During my own modest racing career, before But what’s wrong with a mandated reduction
that this can make it too easy for new drivers even basic data-acquisition had become the norm, in the number and type of sensors that can be
to come into F1 and quickly be up to speed. I I certainly observed other drivers’ lines etc, on and installed on a car in its entirety, allowing only
particularly appreciated Lewis’ additional points. off circuit. On at least one occasion it definitely potentially highly damaging, hazardous or race-
‘For example, when we’re driving we’re picking helped me to a last-lap race win (thanks always, stopping faults to be detected and acted upon
out braking points, bumps, tyre rubber marks on rain-master Jacky Ickx), but this is rather different from the garage? Permit only a small number of
the track, all these different things to help get you from studying in-depth data on screen or print-out. additional dedicated channels, meaning that teams
through the corner quickest. You’ve got to find the In Moto GP in 2010, there was a Donald will have to decide their priorities of use. Data-
limit yourself, that’s the whole challenge of being Trump-style ‘Mexican wall’ between Valentino Rossi sharing between drivers might then no longer
a racing driver,’ he said. be an issue if the engineers want this
Maybe it reassured me that at least limited amount of data-logging and
some things in race driving haven’t acquisition capability for more critical,
changed, that it hasn’t been totally analysis and activation purposes.
reduced to a kind of robotics.
Feelosophy
Share issue There will be the additional knock-
On a less subjective level, this matter on effect that most racers, excepting
of data-sharing between drivers does engineers, want to see happen – more
offer food for thought. Whether it’s F1, of the control of the racecar reverting
Indycar, LMP, GT or whatever, one might to driver skill and courage. I have yet
argue that professional drivers are paid to see or hear anything other than
employees and as such should carry out exhilaration from modern drivers who
the team’s bidding, the aim of which is to experience racing cars of the past and
achieve the best result – for the team. the visceral feel of them, so absent from
On the other hand, like any craftsman, current breeds of machinery in which
B
a driver works hard to learn the skills P that direct physical and tactile contact
X
of his or her trade. This has often been Lewis Hamilton thinks data sharing between team-mates makes it too easy with all that is going on in chassis and
gained over years spent clawing a way for some to get up to speed: ‘You’ve got to find the limit yourself,’ he says engine is lacking. There is always great
up the racing ladder. Put yourself in respect for those who raced these
this position and it is not hard to understand the and Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, as their machines and – apart from the issue of safety – a
reluctance in giving this personal intellectual relationship broke down completely. However, it significant air of envy is clearly detectable.
property away to somebody who, after all, is is virtually impossible now with the degree of As in many other human activities, we have
focused on trying to beat you. In endurance data-logging and analysis going on for a driver let technology take away as much, if not more,
racing, with two or three drivers per car, you would or a rider to prevent cross-over, as it is the than it gives. A bit more driving by the seat of the
perhaps find it easier to accept data-sharing if it engineers who hold sway over the data. pants, bending car and track to your will and talent
succeeds in speeding-up co-drivers and bringing and you to the challenges that they present, is a
Information overload
about a better race result. However, there will hell of a lot more satisfying than the equivalent of
always be some trick relevant to car, circuit or For a long time I have grouched about the excess of painting by numbers, which high-level racing has
conditions that a driver will want to keep back – information-gathering and analysis that commonly to an uncomfortable extent become.
who doesn’t want to be the fastest? takes place in many forms of racing. I have even Hopefully, in F1 at least, this trend may be about
I guess one should pause and more closely called for the banning of all telemetry, taking to be stopped, even reversed. One hopes so.
break down the term ‘data-sharing’. The traditional the pragmatic view that if modern science and Let’s get the feeling back into race driving.
Bending car and track to your will and talent, and you to the challenges that
they present, is a lot more satisfying than the equivalent of painting by numbers
MAY 2017 www.racecar-engineering.com 7
Blanchet_MBAC.indd 7 27/03/2017 10:04
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WRITE LINE – PETER WRIGHT
Grip it up and start again
There’s change aplenty in Formula 1 this season – but will it be for the better?
Here we go again! The anticipation is higher let alone an equal car, such as Hamilton versus internal combustion, 4-stroke engine is the Finnish
than usual this year, stoked by the promise Rosberg last year, on the same tyre strategy. Wartsila 31, a 520-litre, V-16 turbo diesel producing
of more exciting racing and more dramatic If downforce is increased along with drag, the 9760kW (13,000ps) at 750rpm and 52 per cent
cars. And yet, as the new cars have appeared – and wake of the car ahead is almost inevitably going to thermal efficiency, which is made for ships.
they really do look better proportioned – we have become more ‘disturbing’. If X per cent energy is lost Has HPP bust this record? Probably not. F1 does
two wise, experienced engineers making deflating at any given position in the wake, then the higher not regulate the specific energy of the permitted
comments, even before they turned a wheel: the downforce of the following car, the bigger the fuels, preferring to tightly control the constituent
Adrian Newey: ‘I don’t know, it’s a very loss of vertical load on the tyres. Hardly a recipe hydrocarbons. It is very likely that Petronas,
subjective thing, but being brutally honest I think for easier overtaking. By the time the cars return to working closely with HPP, has maximised the
kind of trying to introduce the illusion of speed Europe in May we shall know, if not sooner. specific energy within the regulations, and thus,
by having swept front wing, swept sidepod Apart from the plethora of, oh-so-vulnerable without knowing the actual figures, we cannot
front and swept rear wing endplate is kind calculate the real thermal efficiency. It is
of just a bit Wacky Races.’ Patrick Head: ‘If unlikely that the chemists found a legal
anybody was thinking of these rules with 20 per cent increase in specific energy,
the aim of closing the field up then they’ve and that the 1000ps figure is therefore
got rocks in their head.’ probably wrong. For sure, HPP and
Not such a good start. But what is Petronas’ chemists have worked tirelessly
the reality, as revealed by eight days of on efficiency, as it is the mechanism by
pre-season testing? For 2017, the cars are which more power is produced under
longer, wider, bigger-winged, bigger-tyred, the current powertrain regulations, with
and have freed up key aero areas such the additional advantage of avoiding
as the front wing and sidepods. But they dissipating excess wasted energy via
are heavier and only have the same rate radiators, thus providing advantages for
of fuel burn as 2016, although they can the aerodynamics as well.
B
use five per cent more fuel during a race. P
X
Woking’s woes
They are inevitably faster. However, speed Formula 1’s Barcelona tests can only tell us so much and a clearer picture
through the corners, better braking, and will not really emerge until the new cars go head to head in the grands prix What is clear is that, of the competing
better traction, while delighting the drivers, engine manufacturers, Ferrari is getting
benefits who else? Will a faster, more physically turning vanes, slots and widgets that make up the closest to Mercedes although we won’t know how
demanding F1 car be more spectacular? More to wings and body of the current Formula 1 car, the close until the opening races of the season. What is
the point, will it allow closer, less predictable racing thing that has caught my attention is the comment also remarkable is Ferrari’s new approach to testing
and, whisper it, overtaking. I see no reasons why it that HPP’s Mercedes engine is approaching 1000ps. and communication, as displayed in Barcelona. It
should, and several why it will not. Let us examine that more closely. appears to have undergone a character transplant
A year ago, Andy Cowell, managing director over the winter, and is now looking like the most
Passing comment
of HPP, indicated that the 2016 engine was professional of the UK teams.
If, and that is a big if, it is precisely known what approaching 50 per cent thermal efficiency. Based As for McLaren Honda, I refer readers to
effect on drag, downforce and centre of pressure on the gasoline specific energy figure used by the the paragraph I wrote in my 2015 Formula 1
the car ahead has on the following car as a FIA-regulated WEC fuel (F1 does not specify this review: ‘The Honda organisation today is very
function of the distance between the cars, then it parameter), this translated into 840ps without different from the one that dominated F1 with
is relatively straightforward to make a simulation drawing energy from the battery. A figure of Williams and McLaren in the late 1980s and early
of the overtaking manoeuvre for any given corner 1000ps would mean that the thermal efficiency 1990s. Mechanical ingenuity allied to high RPM,
and following straight. It is also straightforward to had been raised to 63 per cent! developed by a well resourced, dedicated racing
model what advantage in tyre performance, or aero R&D department, with support from the highest
Record breaker?
downforce, drag, power, weight etc., the following levels in the company were the foundations of
car needs to execute an overtaking manoeuvre It is not clear whether the quoted figure related to its earlier successes. The experienced racers have
by the braking point at the end of the following the maximum power available at the flywheel and retired and been replaced by managers who
straight, for all types of corner. The physical included energy drawn from the batteries to top up appear to believe that F1 can be run just like any
advantage needed can then be translated into a the contribution from the MGU-K to the maximum other R&D programme. To have two cars on the
lap time advantage; currently this is of the order of of 120kW. This would account for a maximum back row of the grid in the 17th race of the year
1.5s/lap, depending on the circuit. No car of a lesser addition of around 30kW or 40ps; 960ps would is really unacceptable progress for a partnership
performance advantage will be able to overtake, be 60.5 per cent efficient. The world’s best purely with the history of McLaren-Honda. Something is
Will a faster, more physically demanding Formula 1 car really be more
spectacular? More to the point, will it allow closer, less predictable racing?
MAY 2017 www.racecar-engineering.com 9
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