F1 2014 Grid Guide

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Formula 1 2014 A new era begins for motor racing

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F1 2014 CONTENTS

CONTENTS 4

FORMULA 1 ENGINES We look at how engine designers and engine builders have coped with the new 1.6 litre V6 engines

10

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS With development the name of the game, we detail the framework in which the FIA is limiting costs

14

MCLAREN ECU McLaren introduced the standard ECU to the Formula 1 grid in 2013. We take a look at it in detail

18

ULTRASONIC FUEL FLOW Central to the Formula 1 regulations is the ultrasonic fuel flow sensor, embedded in the fuel tank. How does it work?

20

FORMULA 1 GEARBOXES Xtrac takes us through the changes to the gearbox in 2014, including the increase in the number of gears to eight

24

FORMULA 1 RULES Formula 1 changes, and how the teams are coping with a significant change in the rule book

32

FORMULA 1 TYRES Once the key to performance and the subject of debate, Pirelli has quietly introduced a who new range of tyres

36

FORMULA 1 CARS We take a look at the entire Formula 1 grid, detailing their testing performance and the technical partners

51

BEHIND THE SCENES A word from Cranfield University

DESIGN: Dave Oswald

SUB EDITOR: Stuart Goodwin

R

egardless of what happens in the opening races of the 2014 Formula 1 season, this is the start of an engineering revolution in Formula 1, the first step of a process that will benefit production cars in the future if the development path that could be followed is allowed.

The reduced reliance of the ‘safe’ option, the internal combustion engine, which has been the primary source of power for motorcars since the first horseless carriage in the 1800s, to energy recovery systems in a sport with such global appeal, is a massive gamble.

Gone, most likely, will be the reliability of the Formula 1 grid, which reached upwards of 90 per cent in recent years. Gone are the close races, decided by tyre performance and an ability to develop a car around the tyres (see the switch from 2013 tyres back to 2012 specification mid-season last year and Ferrari’s sudden reduction in performance). In its place is a fuel efficiency formula, and a huge effort to create energy systems that will last the race, and eventually, the season.

As detailed in this, Racecar Engineering’s digital Formula 1 edition, is no small feat. From the engine to the gearbox, ERS, tyres and aerodynamics, from ECU systems to fuel flow metering, the new regulations are not only a technical challenge, but also require Formula 1, and sports cars at Le Mans, to learn a whole new language.

This is an era for engineers to shine. The old V8s were developed from the first in 2006 to the last in 2013, but all under the guise of reliability. New technology was brought in to make the engines last, particularly as new regulations sought reliability under the guise of cost control.

Now, development has to be the name of the game. Those who have fallen in love with Formula 1 in the last few exciting years will lament a lack of reliability. Those who remember the early days of fuel regulated racing, the introduction of new technology including carbon chassis and sequential gearboxes and the lack of attention to detail that has become so important to Formula 1, will also remember the days of cars breaking down in races. Formula 1 needs to attract a new generation of fan who will appreciate the attention to detail, the technology, the ‘gadgets’ that make the cars work.

This is a new era of motor racing, and here at Racecar Engineering, we are looking forward to this year of racing with enthusiasm, regardless of how the early races pan out.

ANDREW COTTON, Editor

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 ENGINES

New power generation Radical rulebook changes bring turbocharging back to F1 and make hybrid systems much more potent – but fuel management will be particularly important

By SAM COLLINS

‘I

n my opinion, Formula 1 needs to have three elements – driver, chassis and engine,’ says Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner.

‘It’s important that they do not come out of balance. I think in recent years the engine has become less important, but it is about to take a big step forward’.

This season his team will run the new Renault RS34 ‘Energy F1’ power unit. It has been built to a fundamentally different rulebook, which sees the return of turbocharging and a massive increase in potency of the hybrid system on the car.

Engine life will be significantly increased and fuel consumption slashed by 35 per cent. But

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

while the rulebook for the power unit runs to eight pages, the core of it is much smaller.

‘There are two magic numbers in there,’ explains Renaultsport deputy managing director, Rob White. ‘They are the 100kg/h fuel flow limit, and a maximum fuel allocation of 100kg. Together it’s a massive fuel consumption challenge. They have preconditioned everything and will continue to do so, from design right the way down to how the car operates at the track.’

The introduction of an energy use-based formula such as this is supposed to increase the relevance of Formula 1 to production car design, and has proven popular with manufacturers – indeed Honda are returning

to F1 as a direct result of their introduction.

It is clear from White’s ‘magic numbers’ that if an engine was designed or set up to run at the maximum fuel flow rate for the duration of the event, it would run dry before the end of the race. But still, some races may be very marginal in terms of fuel mileage.

‘There are two sources of energy to propel the car – fuel in the tank and electrical energy in the energy store or battery,’ says Naoki Tokunaga, Renault’s technical director for new generation power units. ‘The use of the two types of energy needs an intelligent management, since the permissible fuel consumption in the race is 100kg, and the battery needs recharging to avoid it going flat.

“Everything that decreases fuel consumption increases power because of the flow limit”

‘The car performance is intended to be similar to 2013, so in fact the races will last more like 1hr 30min. Of course the circuit and car characteristics will not allow the cars to run at maximum power all around the lap.

On all circuits, it is predicted that the natural fuel consumption for the race distance will be close to the allowed 100kg, in some case just under, in some cases just over. If just over, then it will be necessary to decide how to use the available fuel.’

Of note is the fastest race of the season, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where the cars are at full throttle for 70 per cent of the lap. In 2012, the race distance was completed in 79 minutes which would, in theory, give a maximum average fuel flow of just under 76kg/h.

But at Monaco, the slowest course of the year, the race can take much longer due to having a far lower average speed. There, based on the 2012 event, the maximum average fuel flow rate is down to 56.6kg/h.

Singapore, one of the longest races of the year which often lasts two hours, has been highlighted by some as the most marginal race in terms of fuel mileage. There, based on a two hour-long race, the maximum average flow rate will be 50kg/h.

In 2012 that race was time-limited rather than distance-limited due to safety car periods. The flow rate is calculated by time rather than distance, so in these scenarios teams could have to adapt their fuel use strategies in real-time. Indeed, if a safety car is deployed or weather conditions alter, the energy use strategy will also have to change.

‘Everything we do to decrease the fuel consumption increases the power because of the flow limit,’ White adds. ‘Because of this we are all trying to make the power at the lowest possible RPM.’ This will have a significant impact on the aerodynamic design, meaning that teams will have to rethink how the car generates downforce. Notably this will fall due to the

effective ban on blown diffusers, the single exhaust exit location being tightly controlled.

‘There are lots of things that cause you to burn fuel and lots that give you lap time,’ explains former Lotus technical director James Allison. ‘When you design the cars for any year, you are trying to find the optimum combination of all of those things to make the fastest race time coupled with the best qualifying lap. It is certainly the case that you will have a different response in 2014 in terms of how dirty [in terms of drag] a downforce device you can use. But that doesn’t mean that you will see the cars just scissoring downforce off it compared to what you are used to.

‘There will certainly be opportunities. I suspect things like the front wing and the diffuser will follow similar paths to recent years, and the hunting ground will be how you cope with the low nose chassis and Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 ENGINES

how you integrate what is a very fierce cooling requirement into the chassis without haemorrhaging downforce.’

Qualifying should be very interesting. With no regulation on fuel load, teams can exceed the maximum average flow rate, which would in theory give the engines more power.

Indeed, in qualifying trim the power units should be more powerful than the 2013 spec V8 engines. Teams could also run a driverselectable map for overtaking or quick laps to make up time during a pit stop phase.

A further complexity is that the maximum fuel flow cannot be used below 10,000rpm.

‘The maximum power of the engine will be at around 10,500rpm, and above that the power curve will be relatively flat,’ says White. ‘But they wanted them to run faster, which is perceived as a good thing to improve the show. It’s about putting boundaries on the absurdity of the law of diminishing returns and stopping an arms race to get to places that are extremely unusual. It’s also about managing the risk. For a given power, the torque goes up inversely with the speed of the engine, so you would have very different transmissions. I hate to say it too, but it’s important to everybody that these things sound good. I think these will, but if there had been no such rule then we would have run at very, very low engine speeds.’

Of course the RS34 Energy F1 is more than just a small capacity V6 engine. It features a hybrid system far more potent than anything seen in grand prix racing before.

There’s a pair of motor generator units, one linked directly to the turbocharger (MGU-H) and the other acting in the same role as the current KERS motor (MGU-K).

‘The F1 cars for 2014 may be categorised as a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), which combines a conventional internal combustion engine with an electric propulsion system, rather than a full electric vehicle (EV),’ explains Tokunaga. ‘Like road-going HEVs, the battery in the F1 cars is relatively small sized. The relevant technical regulations mean that if the battery discharged the maximum permitted energy around the lap, the battery would go flat just after a couple of laps. In order to maintain “state of charge” of the battery, electrical energy management will be just as important as fuel management.

‘The energy management system ostensibly decides when and how much fuel to take out of the tank, and when and how much energy to take out or put back into the battery. The overall objective is to minimise the time going round a lap of the circuit for

Maximum fuel flow under the new rules is 100kg/h, and maximum fuel allocation is now 100kg

The RS34 features a pair of motor generator units – one linked to the turbocharger, and another acting much as the old KERS motor

a given energy budget. This might sound anything but road-relevant, but – essentially – this is the same problem as the road cars: minimising fuel consumption for a given travel in a given time. The input and output are just the other way around. The question then becomes where to deploy the energy in the lap. This season, KERS is used only a few places in a lap. But from 2014, all of the energy from fuel and battery is so precious that we will have to identify where deployment of the energy will be beneficial over the whole lap, and where saving will be least harmful for lap time. We call it “power scheduling”. This will be decided jointly between the chassis teams’ vehicle dynamics departments and Renaultsport F1 in Viry-Châtillon.’

This power scheduling – or energy flow – will be a key component in F1 in the future.

While it may be a struggle to explain it to the general public, it certainly has the potential to genuinely improve the on-track action.

‘Choosing the best split between the fuel-injected engine and electric motor to get the power out of the power unit will come down to where operation of these components is most efficient,’ says Tokunaga.

‘But again, SOC management presents a constraint to the usage of the electric propulsion. And the optimum solution will vary vastly from circuit to circuit, dependent on factors including percentage of wide open throttle, cornering speeds and aerodynamic configuration of the car.

‘There are quite a few components which will be directly or indirectly controlled by the energy management system – namely the internal combustion engine, the turbo, the ERS-K, ERS-H, battery and then the braking system. Each has their own requirement at any given time – for example the operating temperature limit. There can also be many different energy paths between those components.

“All the energy from fuel and battery is so precious that we have to identify where deployment of the energy will be beneficial over the whole lap” Formula 1 u Digital Edition

The new 1.6-litre power units are noticeably larger than the 2013 2.4-litre V8s due to the various additional subsystems required

As a result, the control algorithm can be quite complex to develop and manage. What is clear, however, is that at any given time, as much energy as possible – which would otherwise be wasted – will be recovered and put back into the car’s system.

It would not be an over-estimation to state that the F1 cars this year will probably be the most fuel and energy efficient machines on the road.’

The 2013 breed of cars all had the MGU located at the front of the engine, under the oil tank, where it acts on the crankshaft directly. At the launch of the RS34 at the 2013 Paris Air Show, it was immediately apparent that the MGU-K had been relocated from the front of the engine to the side of it. This is a notable difference, not only to the 2013 layout, but also to early renderings of the 2014 Mercedes power unit.

But White feels that the relocation is simply a case of moving the MGU back to its logical location.

‘It’s more a case of why was the V8 MGU mounted where it was? And the answer to that is simply because we had to graft it on – it wasn’t integrated from the beginning. There is a regulatory requirement – a legality box – that everything has to fit inside. There is a plane in front of the engine and a plane at the back of the engine with additional bits where the oil tank will be. We could have put the MGU on the front, but we chose not to.’

The MGU-K now sits underneath the exhaust manifold and drives the crank via a series of gears on the rear of the engine,

while the MGU-H is housed behind the turbocharger and is linked by a shaft. It sits between the cylinder heads.

Both MGUs are liquid-cooled direct current designs. In 2013 the Renault RS27 V8 was fitted with two different specifications – one developed independently by Williams, and the other used by everyone else.

The performance of the new MGUs and the whole hybrid system is substantially higher than the 2013 KERS used on the cars, and can be used in a variety of modes. ‘Both MGUs have a much higher duty cycle than current KERS by an order of magnitude,’ White explains. The 2013 KERS had a 60kW maximum, but on average it’s only a little over six, so it’s a very small duty cycle. This year the MGU-K has 120kW. Obviously we use all of the 4MJ allowed from the battery – that’s already 10 times more than we use today – and the energy that arrives direct from the MGU-H is unlimited, so that’s on top.’

The MGU-K’s position on the side of the engine highlights another key element of the new power units: thermal management.

‘These higher duty cycle MGUs need more cooling than the current units,’ adds White.

‘Where the MGU-K is there will be some radiant heat, but it is in our interests to keep as much heat as possible inside the exhausts so it can find its way to the turbine.’

The engine shown off in Paris was the real thing, but it was fitted with exhausts that were only indicative of the team-specific designs that will be run in reality. Each manifold is shrouded to prevent the escape of heat from the pipes,

with a carbon fibre outer skin. Carbon fibre is not known as being especially good at dealing with high temperatures, as the amount of scorched bodywork witnessed during the 2011 and 2012 seasons will attest. But there are some new high temperature composites on the market, such as the Pyromeral Systems range, which could have some role to play. On this White would not be drawn.

‘The exhausts you see on this engine are typical and representative rather than a definitive spec. They will be different on each car,’ he says. ‘They will have substantial insulation, but what is next to the exhaust pipe might not necessarily be carbon.

Keeping heat in is the priority.’

White also did not want to be drawn on exhaust materials too much, but did admit that they would be nickel-based alloys – materials such as Inconel – although they may have to deal with higher temperatures than the current designs.

Despite only having a 1.6-litre internal combustion engine at its heart, the new power units are noticeably larger than the old 2.4-litre V8s due to all of the additional subsystems. Integrating this complex powertrain into the notoriously compact rear end of a modern grand prix car has proven to be a major challenge for both engine suppliers and teams.

‘Exchanges between chassis and engine teams started at a very early time, before the regulations were fully defined,’ explains Renaultsport F1 director of programmes and customer support, Axel Plasse. ‘From that Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 ENGINES

“Is there ever a good time to introduce new technology?” stage, one of the key areas we needed to investigate was the packaging of the power unit. The 2013 V8 is 95kg, or 100kg if you add the weight of the MGU. This increases to 120kg when you include the ancillary parts, such as the radiators and other cooling devices. With the 2014 power unit, the V6 turbocharged engine will be a minimum of 145kg, plus 35kg for the battery. At 180kg, this is a 80 per cent increase over the current units, plus a further 20kg for the ancillaries such as the intercooler and other radiators.’

The additional weight is partly compensated for by an increase in the minimum weight of the overall vehicle to 685kg, and the weight applied on the front and rear wheels must not be less than 311kg and 366kg during qualifying, giving a window of just 8kg.

‘The power unit is much more integrated and central to design,’ says Plasse. ‘The turbo overlaps the gearbox so that it intrudes into the space where there was a clutch or a suspension part. The energy store is also much larger, which has an impact on chassis length, fuel volume and radiator position.’

Every time a major rule change is

introduced into F1, it has the tendancy of reshuffling the pack. The Red Bull team, for example, took advantage of the introduction of the last set of regulations in 2009 and dominated ever since. But that dominance could end in 2014. ‘At the start of the year there will be people who have got it right and people who have not,’ Horner admits. ‘The beginning of 2014 is just the beginning – it’s all about development through 2014 and 2015.

That’s where there will be a lot of competition between the engine manufacturers. We think that Renault has the right people to develop the engine and the engine manufacturers have the ability to react. But if it is two seconds a lap slower than the best engine, we are in the shit.’

But that ability to react is to be limited in 2014, due to a homologation process. ‘We will have to provide an engine before the start of the season and a legality dossier, and we will not be able to modify the spec of the engine during the homologation period. The scope of the homologation perimeter will be much bigger too, covering MGUs and energy storage.’

But with teams and engine suppliers still able to work on many areas outside that perimeter, things like the exhausts and

installation can be changed. So can the hoses, hydraulics, air intakes and other areas which can directly affect the engine’s performance and – most importantly – there will be far more freedom in the car’s electronic system than there is currently.

‘It’s not beyond the wit of man to imagine that there will be significant performance enhancements as we learn more about managing the life cycle of the power units,’ says White. ‘That’s not about changing the spec of the engine, but how we use it. Each engine that is built is done so to a unique build spec and there is scope to modify that.

We can request permission from the FIA to make changes, but only for certain reasons.’

The final challenge for some teams is financial. The new power units are very expensive, and with some teams already struggling with costs, it is a new challenge.

Horner, however, is not overly concerned about it. ‘With any change in regulations, the price only ever goes up,’ he says. ‘Hopefully the costs can be contained. But we do know that for the independent teams it’s a big ask at a difficult time. But, is there ever a good time to introduce new technology?’

DYNO DRAMAS The development of the turbo engine has had some unexpected side effects for the staff at Renaultsport F1, with Rob White among a number of employees who lost their car parking places at the firm’s factory on the outskirts of Paris.

‘Fundamentally the big thing we are looking for is thermal efficiency, and the way that will come is from combustion development. The big meat of that is understanding the combustion system, and the interactions between the combustion system and the supercharging system.

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

‘You can do a lot of this on single cylinder research engines, but the tricky thing with this is that you can’t have a representative turbocharger driven from the engine, so you have to provide the charge air and compress it separately from the engine, which created one of the spin-off projects for us in this engine’s development. The first big spend on this programme for us was an upgrade to our mono cylinder test facility, which involved digging a swimming pool-sized hole in our

car park in order to install a compressor and air conditioning system underground in order to supply the single cylinder engine with combustion air in the right range of temperature and pressure. We had to do it in the car park as we had no more space in the building or on the roof. For a few weeks I had to park further away than normal, but now my car is parked directly above the compressor for the single cylinder engine!’

But as it has since transpired, some of the data from Renault’s new subterranean dyno facility has not been quite as accurate as it might have hoped. A spate of failures in preseason testing revealed that the RS34 has a much higher cooling demand than the other designs seen at that point.

‘We believed our initial configuration was a robust start point for track use but it has not proved to be the case,’ White admitted after a very difficult test session in Jerez. ‘We have done substantial dyno running in a similar configuration with few issues. We now know that the differences between dyno and car are bigger than we expected, with the consequence that our initial impressions were incomplete and imperfect. Our intention was to run the car – we are very frustrated to face this litany of issues that we should have ironed out on the dyno and which have deprived us of a precious learning opportunity.’

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F1 2014 ENGINES

Re-start your engines

The detail of the rulebook in relation to the powertrain– marking the first major changes in over six years – looks set to provide a huge shot in the arm for top-level racing

By SAM COLLINS

G

rand prix racing is finally coming in from the cold. For many years the specification of Formula 1 engines had been frozen, and aside from some changes to improve reliability, a 2007 2.4-litre V8 engine was much the same as a 2013 2.4-litre V8 engine.

In an attempt to control costs, the FIA decided that it would, in essence, ban engine development. All engines had to be homologated and modifications were strictly policed. The engine-builders could only find performance gains from the peripheral parts like the exhaust and the lubricants – the specifications of the internal components, head and block were frozen.

But in 2014, Formula 1 is facing its biggest shake-up in years, with a new rulebook being introduced. Focused on innovative new hybrid powertrains, the regulations give a much wider range of technical freedoms, not least because the new 1.6-litre V6 engines are turbocharged.

The concept of the power units was first discussed in Racecar Engineering pages way back in 2007 (RCE V17 N5) and brought up-todate more recently (see V22 N12 and V23 N8), but one thing that took a while to become clear was the level of development that would be allowed on these new power units.

Many people believed that because all of the engines that were used in F1 were 2.4-litre V8s and had a frozen spec that they were all the same, but that simply wasn’t the case.

This is something that Rob White, deputy managing director (technical) of Renaultsport F1 is at pains to point out. ‘People assume because the old engines are fixed that they are essentially all the same,’ he says. ‘But if you put the four engines racing last season alongside each other and take them apart, they were not the same. They didn’t behave the same in the car and there was nothing in the regulations to say that they should do.

It is wrong to assume that because each engine is of relatively stable spec that all four engines have similar spec.’

The 2014 Mercedes F1 V6 hybrid turbo

Indeed, for example it is known from both driver and engineer feedback that the Renault had more flexibility in terms of mapping and it allowed teams to run a lot hotter with water and oil compared to the Cosworth CA. For 2014, a return to fully open development was deemed to be an unrealistic option, which would essentially turn into an arms race judged on the power of the chequebook. But a degree of technical development would still be required. So how best to curb the seemingly inevitable battle of the bank balances, while still allowing at least some engineering creativity?

The solution that the FIA has decided upon is very interesting indeed. It uses a system of development points, or tokens, to restrict the amount of development allowed, but not the areas of development. At the end of February 2014, the engine manufacturers wanting to take part in that year’s series will

have to supply a complete power unit and a homologation dossier to the FIA. ‘After you supply that dossier and the power unit, the spec is fixed and the bottom line is that there can be no change to the spec without the prior approval of the FIA,’ says White. ‘But that does not mean that the specification is locked in for the entire homologation period, which runs up to 2020.

‘There is this list of changes that are allowed annually and so there is a table of engine functions and what is proposed is that there is a limited amount of change permitted each year. The table divides the power unit into functional blocks, and we are not allowed to change every functional block for the purposes of performance or fuel consumption development each year.

But we may modify a subset of them, and the size of the subset of the power unit that may be changed year-on-year reduces as time goes on.

“After you supply the homologation dossier and the power unit to the FIA, there can be no change to the spec without their prior approval” Formula 1 u Digital Edition

2014 TECHNICAL REGULATIONS: ANNUAL F1 POWER UNIT HOMOLOGATION TABLE Function

Function details

Upper/lower crankcase

Cylinder bore spacing, deck height, bank stagger

2

Upper/lower crankcase

All dimensions including cylinder bore position relative to legality volume, water core

3

Cylinder head

Except modifications linked to subsequent modifications

2

Combustion

All parts of parts defining combustion. Included: ports, piston crown, combustion chamber, valves geometry, timing, lift, injector nozzle, coils, spark plug. Excluded: valves position

3

Valves axis position

Includes angle but excludes axial displacement

2

Valves drive

From valve to camshaft lobe. Position and geometry. Exhaust and inlet. Including valve return function inside the head

2

Valve drive – camshafts

From camshaft lobe to gear train. Geometry except lift profile.

Includes damping systems linked to camshaft. Exhaust and inlet

1

Valve drive

Gear train down to crankshaft gear included. Position and geometry. Includes dampers

2

Covers

Covers closing the areas in contact with engine oil cam covers, cam-timing covers

1

Crankshaft

Crank throw, main bearing journal diameter, rod bearing journal diameter

2

Crankshaft

Except crank throw, main bearing journal diameter, rod bearing journal diameter. Includes crankshaft bearings

2

Con rods

Including small and big end bearings

2

Pistons

Including bearings and pin. Excluding crown

2

Air valve system Ancillaries drive Oil pressure pumps Oil scavenge systems Oil recuperation Engine water pumps Injection system

Weight

Inlet system

Trumpets and associated parts and actuators

1

Inlet system

Throttles and associated parts and actuators

1

Pressure charging

From compressor inlet to compressor outlet

2

Pressure charging

From turbine inlet to turbine outlet

2

Pressure charging

From engine exhaust flanges to turbine inlet

1

Pressure charging

External actuators linked to pressure charging

1

Electrical system

Engine-mounted electrical components (eg wiring loom within legality volume, sensors, alternator). Excluding actuators, ignition coils and spark plugs

1

Ignition system

Ignition coils, driver box

1

Lubrication

All parts in which circulates oil under pressure (oil pump gears, channels, piping, jets) and not mentioned elsewhere in the table

1

Friction coatings

1 Complete. All internals including bearings, casing

2

Position, transmission

2

Power electronics

1

Complete. All internals including bearings, casing

2

Position, transmission

2

Power electronics

1

ERS

Wiring loom

1

ES

Cells (article 5.4.3)

2

ES

BMS

2

ERS – cooling/lubrication

Cooling/lubrication systems (including ES jackets, pipes, pumps, actuators)

1

MGU-K MGU-K

For 2019 + 2020

1

Sliding or rotating seals

MGU-K

For 2018

fuel hose, fuel rail, fuel injectors, accumulators). Excluding injector nozzle

1

MGU-H

For 2017

(Above) temperature 1 stickers have been From ancillary to power source. Includes position of the ancillariesintroduced 3 for 2014, as far as drive is concerned which read1 the max Including filter. Excluding internal if no impact on body temperature Any scavenging system 1 reached by the tyre1 tread while Oil/air separator, oil tank, catch tank they’re being Include power unit mounted water pipes 1 pre-heated by teams in PU mounted fuel system components (eg high pressure 2 their blankets Plenum and associated actuators. Excluding pressure charging, trumpets and throttle associated parts and actuators

MGU-H

For 2016

Including compressor, air pressure regulation devices

Inlet system

MGU-H

For 2015

“The 2014 tyres are just as different to their predecessors as the 2014 cars”

For 2015

For 2016

For 2017

For 2018

For 2019

For 2020

Total of weighted items

66

66

66

66

66

66

Total of weighted modifiable items

61

51

51

43

3

3

Quota of total weighted items allowed for modifications

32

25

20

15

3

3

% of modifications allowed vs. complete weighted PU

48

38

30

23

5

5

Total of frozen items

5

15

15

23

63

63

% PU being frozen

8

23

23

35

95

95

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 ENGINES

“The game will become working out which areas of development will be the ones to provide you the best return on investment”

Renault’s 2014 engine, first revealed in June 2013

‘It becomes quite structured in the development programmes in future years.

Everyone is very conscious of the sheer scope of the technology in these new power units, and therefore it is a case of trying to seek a balance between the unreasonable and in many ways undesirable solution, which would have to be a completely fixed spec right from the beginning. It would be incredibly difficult to imagine fixing the spec of something that is not yet mature, but equally we are all conscious that it is not sustainable to have parallel programmes developing whole new engines, turbos, electrical systems every year.

That can get out of hand.’

In simple terms, engine manufacturers are allowed to introduce a number of upgrades for the power unit each year.

Every subsystem has been given a weighting between 1 and 3, and the engine manufacturers are allowed a specific number of points to modify each season.

So at the start of the 2015 season, the total weighting of all the modifiable components added together equals 61 points. As an example, the combustion area of the power unit including the ports, piston crown, combustion chamber, valve geometry, Formula 1 u Digital Edition

timing, lift, injector nozzle, coils and sparking plug is worth three points, while the pistons alone (excluding the crown) are worth two points and the cam covers one point.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The engine manufacturers are only allowed to modify components which add up to 32 points at the start of 2015. That reduces down to 25 points in 2016, 20 in 2017 and 15 in 2018. In line with that reduction in points, the amount of areas of the power unit that can be modified reduces too. In 2015, 48 per cent of the power unit is available for upgrade, but by the 2019 season that will drop to just 5 per cent. In reality this means that at the end of the 2014 season everything but the cylinder bore spacing, deck height, bank stagger, crank throw, main bearing journal diameter, rod bearing journal diameter, and the air valve system is open to change. But by 2019 the only things that can be changed will be the pressure charging system from engine exhaust flanges to the turbine inlet, and the engine’s electrical system.

This means that the engine manufacturers are rather like an impoverished student in the supermarket trying to do their weekly shop – they want more than they can

possibly spend. ‘You have to choose what development work you deploy in the race engines,’ says White. ‘Obviously there are different ways to skin a cat. You can decide to do all the development work anyway and decide to deploy the things that pay off most, or you can try to be a bit cuter and allocate resources to things that are more promising and try to extract more performance from the things that you work on.

‘In real-life you will do a bit of both – you will do some overbooking in the development activity on the grounds that some things will fall by the wayside. There will always be more ideas than you can afford in the modification budget, so the game will become working out which are the ones that give the best return on investment. It is a way of limiting the quantity of development and therefore the resources necessary, and reducing the opportunity to just blitz the thing with money and create a new arms race.’

This will all create a fascinating situation, especially going into the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 seasons, as engine manufacturers try to develop the power units. ‘They are not yet mature designs, and with the best will in the world, you won’t get everything done that you would like to or think that you should,’ says White. ‘This is going to oblige us to make some pretty hard choices. There will be some changes where there are a couple of options, both jockeying for position in the list for the last or first development token – there we will have to decide which ones make the cut. We might all think that we need a new battery every year. If having a new battery every year is an important development item, then the points associated with batteries will be burned every year, and the rest of the development programme will be compromised accordingly.’

As time passes toward 2018, the amount of frozen components increases, and in this period engine development people will feel their scope is somewhat limited. But that freeze between 2018 and 2020 serves a purpose. ‘The principle is that two years before the end of the rules cycle, we arrive in a situation analogous to the V8 where the spec is fully frozen,’ says White. ‘The thinking there is that during the two-year period, the engineering resources can be applied to the creation of the development of the following family of engines.’

What that future family of engines will bring is not clear, but one thing is certain – it will be very, very different to what we’ve seen in Formula 1 prior to 2014.

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F1 2014 McLAREN TAG-320 ECU

All under control

– the TAG-320 ECU Long in development, McLaren’s new unit is an integral part of the 2014 powertrains

By SAM COLLINS

W

hile Formula 1 teams have had to wait until 2014 to run the new 1.6-litre V6 engines, one crucial element of the powertrain made its race debut 12 months earlier, when McLaren Electronic Systems replaced the TAG-310B FIA-mandated single ECU with a new, more powerful unit, called the TAG-320.

‘The main difference between the two is processing power,’ explained Peter van Manen, managing director of McLaren Electronic Systems. ‘The TAG-320 has probably about a factor of five more in the unit. There is a different balance of inputs and outputs which is really just catering for the fact that in 2014, when we go over to the V6 turbocharged engine with the energy recovery systems, there is a different balance of sensors and actuators that you need.’

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

When McLaren embarked on the project to supply a spec ECU to Formula 1, it teamed up with two other firms to deliver the TAG-310 – Freescale Semiconductor on the hardware side and Microsoft for the software.

But the TAG-320 is more of a McLaren project.

‘Microsoft is not involved in the standard ECU from 2013, although all of the garage-based systems run on the Microsoft platform, and we clearly still have a very strong link with them,’ said van Manen. ‘Freescale is still the supplier of most of the microprocessors we use in our racing equipment.’

The TAG-320 has been in development for a long time, and development was made rather more tricky by uncertainty surrounding the specifications of the new power units and when they would be implemented. Initially the plans were for an inline four, but political wranglings saw the final 1.6-litre V6 concept adopted.

‘The development of a control unit is not something that happens overnight, particularly one like this that is quite complex – it is an 18-month to two-year development,’ said van Manen. ‘We started it quite early because there was a lot of uncertainty about the new engines and when they would be coming in, so I guess the biggest challenge in the early days was to keep abreast of where the engine regs were going. Once it was settled we just got into the hard graft of things that just need doing – all of the application software reads across from the existing unit. But what sits underneath that, the basic input, output, the low level software, has to be quite different to cater for the different hardware platform and the different processors. There are a lot more moving parts in a control unit than you think when you just pick up a black box.’

Indeed, the software that would be a key element of the new ECU would have to be

“The development of a control unit is not something that happens overnight”

versatile enough to handle the demands of the 2013 V8s as well as the 2014 V6s.

‘Software is never finished, but it’s there and it is running,’ says van Manen. ‘We are tidying up some loose ends on that, and the ECUs started to be shipped to the teams early in the year. The first software releases were in spring and early summer, but there is work right through the year, so it will be ready in time for when the cars are ready to test. It will run on the V8s for a whole season and it will also run on the 2014 engines and cars.

‘The application software which is controlling the engine and gearbox this year will move directly on to the new ECU. Then there will be new software to accommodate the new engines in 2014.

The number of inputs that the ECU can handle is very large but it is not limitless – the number of sensors you can have is ultimately determined by the number of pins you have in the connector. In that respect, the number of sensors on the cars will be pretty similar to what we have at the moment in race trim: 120 to 130 sensors.

There are additional sensors which teams run on a Friday at a Grand Prix in Free Practice 1 – some go in via the main unit and some via serial bus/CAN links.’

While the level of inputs and outputs is similar, one reason that the ECU has so much more processing power is the introduction of direct injection into Formula 1. ‘There is nothing simple about direct injection! What I can say about it is

that it is more of an issue and a challenge for the engine maker as he has to design the combustion chamber to get the right level of fuel mixing,’ said Van Manen. ‘In terms of the ECU, the main thing is that your injection times are much shorter so you need a higher level of precision for injection timing and that in itself puts a demand on processing power.

‘The other thing with direct injection is that engines are far more prone to detonation, so knock control – which historically has not been in Formula 1 – will come in. With direct injection, if you get detonation you can damage the engine very quickly. There are real challenges with doing direct injection, but it is the right way to go as it is more efficient and it is the way that engines are going in the automotive sector. On top of that, the powertrain is a lot more complex than a V8 in a lot of ways. That means that the control of the powertrain is a lot more complex in many ways but there are a lot of things that do not need to change, such as the gearbox controls.’

Both hardware and software have to be versatile enough to cope with the fact that the FIA has opened up a number of areas of the technical regulations to allow teams and engine builders to develop bespoke solutions.

‘Currently the standard electronic system comprises of a number of units,’ said van Manen. ‘There’s the master unit, a power box which distributes power to the various sensors and has the ignition and the injection

drivers, the dash display, hub units to deal with all of the sensors around the wheels, a lap trigger receiver, and finally a piece of electronics which deals with the steering wheel controls.’

‘In 2013, all of those companion units will stay on the car, with the master unit swapped for the TAG-320. But in 2014 only the master unit, steering wheel electronics, and dashboard display will be mandatory components – all of the companion units will be free. The teams and engine-makers can decide what interface units they want for their injectors, ignition coils, electric motors, and things like that.’

One reason for this freeing up of the spec components is to allow the teams to develop the new power units and the strategies themselves. ‘It is the biggest difference for

The TAG-320 ECU has to be versatile enough to cope with V8 engines in 2013, and V6s direct injection turbos, and hybrid systems, in 2014 Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 McLAREN TAG-320 ECU

The current ECU is ‘one size fits all’, but teams will be able to use software to develop the new module, although the FIA still has control over driver aids

us between 2013 and 2014,’ admitted van Manen. ‘With the current standard ECU, it’s a single version of software for everyone, and although the teams can change the setup of data and maps within the unit, they cannot have any special software which is individual to them. What we move into is that the core of the system is still a standard ECU that allows the FIA to maintain control over things like driver aids, but it is a bit more open in that teams can use an element of software in the development.’

These control strategies will be crucial for the teams as they balance the twin motor generator units and the single turbocharger in real world situations, such as battling for positions with DRS and qualifying laps.

But these torque management tools could conceivably open up the door to traction control and other banned aids. The TAG-320,

however, has been designed in such a way that the use of such aids can be prevented.

‘The new powertrain is about managing both torque and energy, so to be able to do that there is an element of torque management which will come down to the engine-makers and teams,’ said van Manen.

‘There is a control over what inputs and actuators are seen by those applications that the engine-makers and teams create.

This is the basis of how the FIA will maintain control. The little bit of magic in the new master unit is the way in which the different memory areas in the processor are protected so that we can ringfence different areas of the processor from each other, which means that you can have all of these different applications running on the same silicone but still maintain the control by the FIA. The essence of the standard ECU remains the

same, but we have released a bit of freedom to the teams and engine manufacturers.’

While the new ECU has been specifically developed for use in Formula 1, van Manen stated that it will also be used in other areas.

‘It is a little bit specialised in terms of other racing categories (with the exception of LMP1 sportscars) – it has more processing than most series need. It supports most of the powertrain and the telemetry feed. It is quite a powerful beast for other racing categories, but I see where it will probably start to be used is as a development platform for other automotive applications.

‘In the automotive world there is a push towards hybrids and energy recovery, this whole issue of managing torque and energy.

A lot of the things we are able to do in the TAG-320 are as relevant to pre-production and prototyping in road cars as they are to F1.’

“A lot of the things we are able to do in the TAG-320 are as relevant to pre-production and prototyping in road cars as they are to F1” Formula 1 u Digital Edition

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F1 2014 FUEL FLOW SENSOR

Heightened sensors

The future of Formula 1 and World Endurance Championship performance management lies in the accuracy of the fuel flow sensor

By ANDREW COTTON

A

critical part of the new direction for Formula 1 and the World Endurance Championship comes in the form of the fuel flow sensor.

Incredible accuracy is needed to measure the flow of gasoline and diesel in two of the premier world championship events. There is so much on the line for the teams involved that it is critical to get it right. Indeed, the sensor could even become a performance equaliser throughout motorsport, should the sensors become more affordable.

‘For high level competition with a small amount of sensors, we can produce the sensors, make a selection, double-check them in order to be sure that they are OK, and deliver them,’ says Fabrice Lom, head of powertrain at the FIA. ‘It is controlled, but this process is expensive. If you go to lower

Formula 1 u Digital Special

level of competition, Formula 3, for example, you will have 100 cars around the world, managed by the ASNs, not by the FIA. It won’t be possible to apply the same selection of sensors and to ensure all the checks are done. Moreover, it is a lower cost formula and they can’t afford the price of this selection and checks in addition to the price of the sensor itself, which won’t be cost-effective, at least for the first years.

‘I therefore don’t think we are close to putting them on the lower categories, but it is an aim. With the air restrictor, as airflow is limited, to get the performance you try to burn more fuel into the engine, so it is not pushing you towards more efficient engines.

To use a fuel flow meter to limit performance pushes you to improve efficiency, and that is a target of the FIA.’

British company Gill Sensors has invested heavily in the development of an ultrasonic sensor that fits all the necessary criteria.

Bar one. ‘[With the WEC] there are two fuels involved, the Shell E10, and the LM24 diesel, predominantly for Audi,’ said a Gill spokesperson. ‘The other fuel that will be used is essentially the F1 variants which will come from different manufacturers, but are blended to a minimum 5.75 per cent ethanol content.

Our technology has been developed to provide error figures not greater than plus or minus 0.25 per cent, and we have used E10 as the reference fuel. In all the gasoline-based fuels that we have used – from straight pump fuel to E10, biobutanol and many iso-based single molecule fuels that have equivalent density and performance spec as a performance fuel but are safer to use in a laboratory – we have

mologated

MEASUREMENT

demonstrated to the FIA that we have achieved 52% of meters are within their accuracy figures, and± 0.1% haveaccuracy exceeded that of reading in many areas, averaging to0.25% a maximum 92% of meters are within ± accuracy error of of reading 0.15 per cent in many cases. ement Range ‘The +/-ultrasonic 8000ml/min attenuation through diesel easurement[for Ratethe 1kHz internal Audi R18measurement sports car]rateis more complex at 100Hz, filteringof (1) the due toCAN theoutputs density and With viscosity It isC: 5kPa@2000ml/min, therefore much more difficult to essure Loss medium.

ISOPAR 16kPa@4000ml/ min. get a good clean ultrasound signal through LM24 Diesel: 75kPa@8000ml/min. All at 25°C The fuel flow sensor is so sensitive that it can detect the liquid, unlike gasoline fuels. We focused on injector pulses, which could give an indication of the a software development programme to filter RATURE MEASUREMENT start of an engine misfire out the “noise” effects that this causes, with ement Type 2 x PT-1000 immersed sensors at fuel inlet very positive results. and outlet CAN COMMUNICATIONS ‘One of the biggest challenges is that you of its 2014 car. It is not that the sensor is too Design Standard ISO 11898-2 (High Speed Applications) are making an accurate measurement over big, more that three are stipulated by the RICAL Message Format 2.0A (11 bit identifier) a wide range of– temperature.

In F1, the fuel regulations. With three sensors, and three Voltage 4.75VDC 22.0VDC Baud Rate temperature could be anything from 10degC connectors, the size1Mbit/sec of the overall package is Current <100 mA @12-17VDC Base Message ID says Audi.

0x190 to 0x193 <180mA @4.75-5.5VDC to 60degC, and you need to be sure that for significant, Fit’ Message IDs 0x190the to 0x193 22k Voltage Protection -38V can ensure the same ‘Multiple Taking any givenReverse flowpolarity rate, you into account parameters that (5) 0x194 to 0x197 5k6 Over voltage 58V flow rateNoparameter – and the density of 0x198 to 0x19Bcreates 1k8 (6) initially packaging up to three sensors surge clamping the fuel and viscosity of the fuel will change CAN seemed Termination None application, but has a straightforward CTION with temperature. Much of our work over ended with both a new and adapted solution the last 12 months hasPin been to develop the MECHANICAL for Stäubli’s motorsports series of connectors. nction Connector Numbers pply (+) algorithms in the sensor to compensate for MassThe solutions will give 240g dry the teams a reliable, N High 1 (CANH1) those changes in temperature. That has been Fuel Volume safe, ergonomic11ml and efficient solution when N Low 1 (CANL1) quite a challenge in the petroleum fuels, and Wetted installing sensors.

Materials or (7) removing Aluminiumthe alloyflow anodised to ISO 10074 & ISO 7599 PTFE, PEEK, Seal elastomer not connecta much bigger challenge in diesel because ‘We have achieved all the requirements, not connect FPM Viton A of the components that are in the diesel, and Seal Elastomer that the sensor has to be within the weight -485 (A) Connector Deutsch ASDD006-09-PD-FI-952K the ultrasound pulse through the medium. Meterrestriction for the FIA, all the pressure ratings -485 (B) Mating Connector Deutsch ASDD606-09-SD-FI-952K ‘Pressure drop has been another one that are necessary, and we have moved from N ID select resistor Fuel Compatibility Petroleum, Diesel, Bio Fuels, that we have worked hard on to achieve the an analogue and CAN-based system to a ASDD006-09-PD-FI-952K Race Fuels ( LM24 Petroleum, LM24 Diesel, ound (-) F1 Petroleum accuracy and minimal pressure drop, which purely CAN-based system Blends) for FIA,’ said the 2000kPa operating, 6000kPa survival (8) meant some clever mechanical design work Fuel Pressure spokesperson. ‘It50kPa hastogone from development GURATION INTERFACE availability is subject to calibration procedure. and a lot of CFD modelling to model the fluid (1) Output sensors to twin connectors, to a single e Type RS-485 Half-Duplex (2-Wire) with Limited by some electronic part ratings. All internal materials in contact with fuel dynamicsnetworking. in conjunction the ultrasound (2) are connector.

Encrypted. with No termination. rated at 110°C. Deutsch have worked to produce a (3) See manufacture’s specificationthat for electrical connector properties.

Of course it is very difficult to find specific connector can be fullyrating. submersible ONMENTAL (4) Design Standard. fluid dynamic information. None of the fuel (5) “Multiple for usFit”for this project with is a congigurable feature whichthe allowsunderstanding meters to be dynamically Temperature -40°C to +85°C allocated a CAN base ID through the use of different resistor values across Pin 8 and 9. manufacturers routinely tests its fuel for how that F1 is going to adopt this technology.’

(6) Resistor: maximum 3V applied, typically fitted within the mating connector. ng Temperature -20°C to +85°C (2) it performs ultrasonically, so we have had approved systemfuelisconnector/union. requested to be (7) InternalThe materials in flow path excluding mental Protection IP68, 300kPa for 2 hours in water (8) Cavitation andachieve entrained gasa can cause meter damage and spuriousof measurement to pioneer all that workconnector) in all these able to repeatable accuracy plus (excluding electrical (3) (4)different results, this must be avoided by appropriate system design and flow meter operation. fuels. Then or minus 0.25 per cent, the most accurate Notyou rated have to match that to a set Specifications are subject change notice. regardless of whether of mechanical parameters with(3)minimal ever seentoin thewithout sport, l Pressure Rating 300kPa (excluding connector) pressure None. drop,Notand a good turbulent flow the engine runs on diesel or gasoline, or the c Safety Rating IS rated by design. path. You don’t want the fuel to go through different fuels used in Formula 1. the sensor in a laminate format – you want ‘Regulations are on one hand based on turbulence as it is much easier and more consumption per lap, or for the race in F1,’ reliable if it is in a turbulent state as it passes says Lom. ‘This could have been done after through the sensor. The last part of the the race, by measuring how much goes in puzzle is that all the materials that you use in at the start and how much is left at the end, the design and manufacture are compatible and in LMP1 by how much is filled into the with all these different fuels.’ tank at each stop, but this is complicated Working with Stäubli, a custom dry break and not very accurate. Regulations are based system has been developed for the WEC on instantaneous flow, constant maximum cars, which will run the sensors outside the flow in LMP1, and a maximum flow function fuel cell. In Formula 1, the sensors will be of revs in F1. This is why inboard equipment submerged in the fuel cell. able to measure flow live is needed.

However, Audi complained that the size ‘One of the big issues is that in LMP1 we of the sensor compromised the work that it have one competitor with petrol, and one has had already undertaken in the monocoque diesel – it’s complicated to make it repetitive

y

and accurate between them. The second thing is the different fuels in Formula 1. In F1, every engine manufacturer has its own fuel.’

So accurate and sensitive is Gill’s system, it’s possible to use the recorded fuel flow data to detect injector pulses, which could give an indication of the start of a misfire.

‘You have a fuel inlet port, and an outlet port,’ added Gill’s spokesperson. ‘The fuel is then diverted inside the housing, and channelled through a flow tube which sits in the flow body. The flow tube itself has a smaller aperture that runs through the centre of the tube. At either end you have ultrasonic transducers, which send an ultrasound signal down the centre of the flow tube bore. They are positioned in the fuel flow line, so have to be compatible with the fuel and the pressure.

The sensor is designed to be located in the low-pressure side of the fuel system at approximately 6 bar.

‘As fuel passes through the sensor, one transducer sends an ultrasound signal through to the opposing transducer, and because we know the physical distance between the opposing faces of the transducers, we can determine the time of flight. We record that time, and then we switch off that transducer and send a pulse from the receiving transducer in return. We do this 2000 times per second. Once we have both of those readings, we take one from the other, and knowing the distance and the density of the fuel we can calculate the flow rate, and therefore the mass flow rate. There is a lot of maths that goes on in there.

‘We can use the speed of sound in a number of other ways. As a result of having that number, we can use it technically to do a fuel fingerprint. Because we know what the speed should be, if that number falls outside that boundary, we can then say that maybe the team is not using the fuel it is supposed to be.’

Security is something that the team at Gill has taken seriously, commissioning former Formula 1 engine manufacturers to conduct cheat tests, and trying to identify the problems ahead of introduction into the car.

‘Together with our partners, we have commissioned two independent cheating studies, and approached former F1 engine builders who have compiled reports and we have presented them to the FIA,’ says the spokesperson. ‘The FIA is focused on fairness and ensuring whatever system is finally adopted is considered fair to all the competitors and end users irrespective of fuel type.’

“Using a fuel flow meter to limit performance pushes you to improve efficiency, which is a target of the FIA” Formula 1 u Digital Special

F1 2014 TRANSMISSIONS

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

Changing gears With so much focus on the new F1 engines, a transmission rule change has slipped through almost unnoticed. But it has created opportunities – and headaches – for manufacturers

By SAM COLLINS

I

n recent times, there has – fairly understandably – been much discussion regarding the new generation F1 power units. These mate 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 engines with a very potent pair of energy recovery systems and, coupled with a fuel flow restriction, place the emphasis firmly on efficiency. But little has been written about the impact of the new regulations on the transmission of the cars. Perhaps this can explained by the fact that the technical regulations feature few changes to the gearbox rules. A small increase in the maximum number of gear ratios is allowed to a maximum of eight. All other details in the regulations relating to transmission remain the same, so at first glance the gearboxes do seem not to be the most interesting part of the new cars. But this is far from the case.

F1 gearboxes have had a fairly fixed design in recent years, with the overall layout remaining much the same. ‘In a typical 2013 transmission, you have the gear cluster driving through a bevel gear to turn the drive through 90 degrees, and then you have a spur final drive driving to the active hydraulic differential,’ says Moore. ‘This configuration is pretty well established and it is all about the aero requirements, allowing the back of the car and the gearbox to be very narrow. At the rear of the unit we have the differential that we can roll around higher or lower to get the gearbox longer or shorter. It appeared in the mid-1990s and has been with us since, and in general terms there is no reason for that configuration to change for 2014. The aero requirements are similar and we still need a very narrow gearbox at the back of the car.’

increased to five races. In 2014, the gearboxes have to last six races, 3300km and the only maintenance allowed is an oil change.

‘3300km is quite a long way,’ says Moore.

‘To put it into context, the 2013 Le Mans 24 hours winner covered 4750km. ‘We are looking at F1 gearboxes not being a huge amount off what is required to race at Le Mans. It’s a demanding target. The latest sporting regs will allow teams to physically change the gear ratios and dog rings up to five times during the 2014 season as a “soft entry” into the new arduous requirements, which probably means that they’ll need to last between three or four races. But once we are into 2015, these parts will have to last the full six.’

Crucially, the same eight gear ratio pairs are fixed for the entire season, so at the first race the teams will nominate the eight ratios

“We are looking at F1 gearboxes not being a huge amount off what is required to race at Le Mans. It’s a demanding target” ‘On the face of it, it looks like a relatively unexciting rule change that doesn’t give much opportunity in terms of innovation or doing anything differently beyond designing another gear into the gearbox,’ says Adrian Moore, technical director at Xtrac.

‘But despite the changes in the technical regulations being quite small, the end result is quite significant in terms of the gearbox.’

One difference is the change in KERS regulations, doubling the power output of the MGU-K and increasing the amount of time it can be used per lap. ‘That makes a change to the duty cycle and power that is transmitted through the gearbox,’ adds Moore.

‘It in turn significantly changes the size and configuration of what gearbox we will use. The new rules and new demands mean that we have to design a completely different gearbox.

It’s a fundamentally different application now, with increased torque and reduced RPM. The engine regulations also include the fuel mass limit and fuel flow limit, which makes efficiency one of the key objectives, and that is just as relevant to the gearbox.’

However, this does not mean that the overall gearbox remains the same, and even without the change in the demand from the power unit, the 2014 sporting regulations give teams and gearbox manufacturers a new set of headaches.

‘In 2013 the gearboxes had to be sealed for five races, and we counted that as 2750km,’ says Moore. ‘In that time the gearbox was completely sealed, except for at certain times at race meetings when teams were allowed to open the gearbox under supervision of the FIA. This allowed them to change the dog rings and gear ratios to suit the particular circuit. So at Monaco and Monza you would of course run completely different gear ratios.’

The 2013 technical regs also limited the number of ratio pairs teams could use to 30, which they had to nominate before the first race of the season. From these, the teams had to cover all of the circuits. Before 2010, teams used 70 or 80 ratios through the season and would change them frequently. In 2010 a four-race gearbox rule was also introduced, and that had to run 2200km. In 2011 that was

calculated from the engine’s crankshaft to the driveshafts and they will have to use those ratios for the entire season. Monaco, Monza, Spa, Singapore…all using the same eight gears. This means that at Monaco the cars are unlikely to use the top two gear ratios, as they will be designed to cope with the expected 325-330kph (without KERS or DRS) top speeds at Spa and Monza, while Monaco only has a top speed of 280kph. The ratios themselves will also now have to last 3300km. Again for 2014 there is a “soft entry” into this regulation with the teams allowed once only during the year to select an alternative set of eight ratios if they desire.

‘One of the reasons for this change is to try to reduce the cost of building and running a Formula 1 car,’ says Moore. ‘So by restricting the number of gear ratios there is less redundancy of parts, less stock is needed, people buy fewer gears, so it’s good in terms of the overall cost of running the car.’

Unsurprisingly, this has led to a significant change in the design of the ratios themselves.

Xtrac has conducted extensive FEA work as Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 TRANSMISSIONS

Redacted internals from the Xtrac gearbox, which will be used in the 2014 F1 season

well as metallurgy to calculate the minimum size of each ratio, something that it did not have to do as much under previous regulations. ‘In 2008, regulations were introduced that said that the gears had to be at least 12mm thick and that they could be no lighter than 600g,’ says Moore. ‘That weight limit was reasonably high and quite easy for us to achieve, in fact we ended up designing gears that were heavier than they needed to be, and we were adding material to get to the minimum weight. The gear centre distance – the space from the centre of the two shafts – could be no less than 85mm. It was quite a restrictive rulebook, and before that we had a lot more freedom with the centre distance, gear face width and weights. So we had gears that were down to 8-9mm width.

SUPER STEEL Xtrac’s new XM033 steel could be a crucial link for some teams struggling to cope with the increased demands of the new power unit, and with rumours of failing input shafts rife in the paddock, the new material could be just what the teams need. It is an ultra high strength (2000MPa) shaft and gear steel, which offers improved bearing properties due to its higher alloy content.

XM033 offers the advantage of high core strength for shafts, but also improved bearing properties for integrated rolling contact surfaces. Due to the balance of alloying elements, properties of surface hardness (>700Hv), core strength (2000MPa) and elevated tempering temperature (300degC) means that the alloy is ideally suited for arduous applications such as cross-shafts, integral bearing drive and clutch-shafts and highly stressed gears.

The result is a readily carburisable material able to simultaneously exhibit bearing properties and high core strength. This material is readily suited to driveshafts with integral bearings, now becoming popular in many motorsport applications.

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

The regulations were changed to try to reduce costs and limit development. For 2014, all of those restrictions remain in place but analysis has shown us that the gears will have to be bigger – over 12mm typically. The machining on the 2014 gears is more elaborate in an attempt to get them back down to the 600g limit, whereas we had to add mass in the past. We have also increased the gear centre distance to around 100mm, and while the regulation still says it has to be a minimum of 85mm, with the increased duty cycle you would have to have a very wide gear.’

While the ratios themselves have to be made of steel, the regs do not specify which steel they must be made from, and here Xtrac has made a major step forward.

‘We have four different Xtrac developed steels that we use normally,’ says Moore.

‘Going back 10-15 years we had our typical high specification gear steel XVAR1 – it’s a vacuum remelted steel, a very clean material with a tensile strength of around 1300MPa. Several years ago we started a development programme to develop the gear steel to find one that particularly suited the strength and pitting requirements we need for a gear. A gear has a slightly strange loading environment – you have a rolling and sliding contact as well as a need to have strength and ductility to give good bending reserves.’

Xtrac partnered with Corus (now part of Tata Steel) to develop specific new materials with better impact resistance, machinability and carburising qualities.

Corus offered to adjust the standard chemistry of its Hy-Tuf product, improving its chemical tolerances and cleanness. The resulting XM0 range materials enabled Xtrac to make narrower gears that can run at higher temperatures, requiring smaller oil coolers, improving the aerodynamics of the vehicle.

‘As a result of that work, we introduced XM023 – a higher core strength material – and that’s proven very useful in a number of F1 applications, sportscars and MotoGP,’ says Moore. ‘It’s a very good steel. Most of the commercially available coatings have a very high application temperature somewhere between 300-350degC, but the problem with applying that to a carburised gear steel is that you soften the base steel. So XM023 has a temperature capability of 200degC, but if you heat it to 350degC to put a coating on it, the gear hardness will reduce. So you end up with a gear that is not optimised. We worked with the coatings suppliers to develop low temperature coatings which can be applied without any detriment to the gear steel, but those low temperature coatings tended to have a compromised performance.

‘So we introduced XM031 at the start of 2013 – another new steel with a different chemical composition. It can handle 350degC without any reduction in hardness.

We can develop specific coatings for higher temperature applications and that’s been done for the 2014 F1 and 2014 LMP1 products. Going forward we have XM033, another new steel with enhanced properties.’

The shafts in the gearbox will be significantly repositioned compared to every gearbox since 2006. This is due to a change in the regulations relating to engine design. The 2.4-litre V8 engines of 2006-2013 had to have a crankshaft centre line height 58mm above the reference plane. In 2014 the crankshaft must be 90mm above that line. ‘It defines the internals,’ says Moore.

Overall the new transmissions will be bigger, heavier and longer lasting. ‘There is a reasonable change of size, mass and position of the gearbox in the back of the car which will have knock-on effects in terms of packaging and suspension,’ Moore says.

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F1 2014 RULEBOOK

Unravelling

the regs The new rulebook has produced innovation and controversy across the board, but meeting the new demands has caused headaches for engineers

By SAM COLLINS

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s became abundantly and immediately clear at the first official test in Jerez, in engineering terms, Formula 1 is facing what may be its toughest ever year. The arrival of new twin hybrid power units with a 1.6-litre direct injection turbocharged engine at their core, coupled with a completely rewritten rulebook, has changed the game significantly. ‘It’s been a massive job to accommodate all the changes to the power unit – it’s the biggest change I’ve witnessed in the sport since I started in 1990,’ says Force India technical director Andy Green. ‘On top of that, if you add the development that comes with it during the season, it’s going to take some managing.’

Despite this, the most discussed rule change is one of the more minor details in the technical regulations governing the car’s dimensions. For 2014, the cars have to be fitted with a nose tip which is no more than 185mm high, a substantial reduction over the high noses of recent years.

The FIA had hoped that this would bring back the low nose look of the 1990s and improve safety, but the result in testing was rather more unsightly, with many teams having rather prominent front sections. The chassis around the driver’s legs and feet is now significantly lower, due to a regulated drop in maximum height at the front bulkhead, introduced for the same reason.

These ‘finger’ or ‘brewer’s droop’ noses have been universally criticised, even by those who designed them. ‘It is not a strictly technical matter, as we all design a car that

gives the best performance, regardless of the styling,’ says Red Bull’s Adrian Newey. ‘But I think that the shape of the cars is all part of the excitement of Formula 1, and it is a shame that they are unattractive and that the rules have forced ugly solutions.’

The noses are a crucial part of the car’s structural design, as they also form the front impact structures, but despite the wide range of shapes on display – from the rather more elegant-looking Mercedes and McLaren designs to the extreme twin structure Lotus – it seems that this is not an area of great aerodynamic importance.

‘There is a different nose on every car, and there is not too much similarity between any of them,’ says Ferrari technical director James Allison. ‘The nose rules allow quite a lot of geometrical freedom, so of course you explore that. There are such big variations between the cars because is it is not that much of a sensitive area. There are lots of solutions that work.’

SAFETY CONCERNS

It seems fairly clear that the rule-makers at the FIA had not realised that the nose regulations would make the cars quite so ugly, and according to some there have been some other unintended consequences. The nose tips now sit lower than the the rear crash structure found on all of the cars, and Newey among others has raised fears that this could lead to cars being lifted up by one another.

‘The regulation on the noses was introduced following some research by the FIA, which suggests that it reduces the

chances of the cars being launched, like the accident Mark Webber had at Valencia a few years ago,’ says Newey. ‘I must admit I am concerned that the opposite may happen and that cars will “submarine”. If the following car hits the back of the one in front square on, it will go underneath it and the driver will end up with the rear crash structure in his face – which is a much worse scenario.

‘There are some accidents we have seen over the years that make you wonder if a low nose would have made it worse, not better. Like all of these things, it might be worse in some scenarios, but it may help in others. I don’t think the low noses will stop cars launching in all scenarios either. If the following car hits the rotating rear wheel, it will get launched regardless, like Patrese and Berger at Estoril in 1992 or the two Minardis at Monza the following season – they were low nose cars that got completely launched.

For me the low noses have introduced more dangers than they have cured.’

Beneath the nose sits a region which is less obviously different, but far more important in aerodynamic terms. The rule changes here are fairly simple, limited to a slightly stiffer front splitter (tea tray) and a narrower front wing.

‘The front wing in the centre is very similar in its philosophy, as we still have the FIA central section and the vortex that comes from it,’ says Toro Rosso technical director James Key. ‘But the endplates are now right in the centre of the tyre. If you look at 2008, the endplates channelled airflow inside the front wheels – inwash – and from 2009 to

“It is a shame that the cars are unattractive and that the rules have forced ugly solutions”

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F1 2014 RULEBOOK

The new regulations based around the nose of the Formula 1 cars have been controversial and have led to a raft of significantly different designs. The regulations themselves have come under scrutiny as the noses are so low that designers fear that they will ‘submarine’ under cars, and launch them

2013 it became clear that as much outwash as possible was good. Now it’s right in the middle and the question we are all asking is: do you go one way, the other, or do you try to encourage both? It’s very complicated, and these areas are very much up for development – we will see a lot of change through the year.

‘The whole area around the brake duct is also substantially different in aerodynamic terms, even though it may not look like it.

Yes, losing the beam wing at the rear of the car is significant, but fundamentally it’s just a loss of load. The front wing and lower chassis, however, is surprisingly different.’

The airflow in that area in the car feeds the cooling ducts in the sidepods, and cooling is one of the biggest challenges with the new power units. Some claim that they require as much as 125 per cent more cooling than the 2.4-litre V8s used up until 2013.

‘Cooling has been the biggest challenge,’ says Green. ‘Most of last summer was

“Cooling has been the biggest challenge.

Most of last summer was taken up trying to understand the cooling requirements of the power unit” Formula 1 u Digital Edition

taken up trying to understand the cooling requirements of the power unit, and how best to optimise it in the chassis. There’s a lot more to cool and you are weighing up the performance of the power unit vs the performance of the chassis and aerodynamics, and trying to hit the optimum on each one of them. We’ve had to develop a completely new toolset to examine, analyse and optimise it.’

It is apparent when looking at the cars that the three different power units have very different cooling demands. While the Renault-engined cars have tended towards significantly more cooling than the 2013 designs from the same teams, all of them are accompanied by the acrid smell of burning carbon fibre and electrical insulation.

‘You have to make up for the amount of additional cooling devices that you have had to put on the car in some way,’ says Key. ‘It’s hard to compare to 2013 because the heat rejection from the engine is obviously less, as it is much smaller. But you have the charge cooling which is an added

complication, and then you have the turbo, which adds heat to the mix, and then with the ERS cooling there is a significant increase.

While there is not a huge amount more demand on air to the coolers, you have a lot more cooling circuits.’

Meanwhile, the Mercedes teams also seem to have somewhat increased cooling, but the Ferrari cars appear to have less than 2013 designs.

‘Our engine department have been aggressive and bent over backwards on the chassis side to produce an engine that can be packaged tightly and cooled with radiators that are not too big,’ says Allison. ‘Our car has quite a neat bodywork package and the radiators are quite small. The engines are incredibly busy compared to the V8s, and the Ferrari has been rather exquisitely packaged.

It’s very neat and small.’

While the thermal management of the power units is a challenge, the teams seem to feel that the overall challenges of the layout are more difficult to overcome, especially in terms of overall vehicle weight.

Force India in particular has struggled to get down to the 690kg weight limit. This is largely because the power units on their own are significantly heavier than the old V8s, and when the additional subsystems required to operate them are added – such as the aforementioned cooling circuits – the weight goes up even more.

‘Getting to the weight limit is a big challenge, and we have had to work really hard to get it under control,’ says Key. ‘I think we should be OK with our car.

The problem is that the regulations have evolved a lot over the last 12 months, but the weight was agreed early on. If we re-did it all again, we would probably look at doing something different in terms of rules, and it will probably change in 2015. Once you have managed to get to the weight limit, only then can you can start to look at CofG height and weight distribution. It’s proved quite tough to hit the weight limit.’

The technical regulations also restrict the front-to-rear weight distribution, and the

“Electromagnetic interference is most common where there are big currents that change rapidly” Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 RULEBOOK Packaging the power unit is a challenge, not least due to its high cooling demands and high weight. The units proved to be unreliable in testing, leaving many teams struggling to even get their cars to run on track

weight applied to the front and rear wheels must not be less than 314kg and 369kg respectively. ’You don’t really want the fixed weight distribution regulation at a time like this, but it is there and you have to respect it,’ adds Key. ‘You have to design around the window and make sure you are in it. You do not just want to be at one end of it either, so you may tweak your front wheel centre line a bit and look at all of the masses in the car and move it about as you develop. If we didn’t have that rule, it would all be a bit different.’

But it is not just housing the weight within the car that is giving the designers headaches – it is also the issue of packaging the power unit components in a way that allows them to operate correctly. This is especially true in terms of the battery, which must by regulation be mounted in the monocoque underneath the fuel cell. With a 35 per cent reduction in fuel consumption year on year, the large battery pack takes up much of the volume left from the reduced tank size. ‘It has been bloody complicated for

us to get it in the car,’ says Key. ‘The battery and fuel cell determine the chassis length, but you make up for that with the smaller engine size. The thing that has more impact overall is the bell housing and gearbox casing being designed to accept turbos. That’s more influential on the wheelbase, and for us we are marginally longer than in 2013.’

The actual internal combustion layout creates some packaging issues for the teams too, knocking on to other areas of the car’s design. ‘The turbo is mounted very low on the rear of the engine,’ says Key. ‘It means that your rear suspension is really tightly packaged in there now. You have to go around this large lump of turbo, and that means we have to use some kind of bell housing, not a one-piece gearbox casing.’

Once the power unit is actually installed, the teams then have to get them to actually run. And as was made very clear from the first pre-season test in Jerez, this is far from an easy task. ‘The biggest challenge of these cars is the electrical side,’ adds Newey. ‘It’s hugely

complicated, and crosses several disciplines.

When you look at hybrid production cars, they have years of development before they hit the market. They are not really designed to be taken apart – they are almost sealed for life. The F1 environment is very different to that. Unlike previous years, with a KERS problem you could carry on. Now if you have one, it means you have to park it at the side of the road.’ Indeed, battery problems saw the Renault-powered cars all sidelined for a significant amount of time at the first test.

One of the reasons for this could be related to electromagnetic interference created by the high voltage system on the car. ‘The important thing is to recognise that everywhere there is electricity, there is the possibility of interference between one current source and another,’ says Rob White, deputy managing director (technical) of Renaultsport. ‘The physics of it is quite simple, and the electromagnetic interference is most common where there are big currents that change rapidly.

“Getting to the weight limit is a big challenge, and we have had to work really hard to get under it. It’s proved quite tough” LOW BATTERY

T

he power unit energy store has become something of a focus for many teams, not least Red Bull Racing. Chief technical officer Adrian Newey is unhappy that he has been forced to mount the battery pack in front of the engine, rather than behind it as he did with all of his previous hybrid F1 cars.

‘It’s a shame that we chose to have the batteries and KERS components around the bell housing on our previous cars, and could not carry that over,’ he says. ‘It allowed us to put the weight at the rear of the car and get the layout we wanted in terms of engine position and wheelbase. This has now been removed and the battery now has to be in front of the engine and under the fuel tank. I think that is a shame, and the only freedom beyond that is whether you carry the KERS control unit in the fuel tank as well or under the radiator ducts.

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

‘It was done on safety grounds, but I’m not sure how putting a battery under the fuel tank is safer than putting it under the engine. Putting the battery under the fuel tank is uncharted territory. Remember, Boeing had an absolute nightmare with the batteries on the Dreamliner – it grounded the planes. These batteries can suffer thermal runaway through impacts, and other causes that are difficult to predict. Once they go into that, then it is very difficult to control that fire – frankly it’s a case of putting it in the pit lane and watching it burn.

‘I don’t think it is a driver safety concern, but overall it is a danger. The voltages are also very high and large DC voltages are very dangerous.

So for the whole pit lane, the safety aspect is a very big challenge with these cars.

‘Another big challenge here is the supply chain. As soon as you work with outside

manufacturers, battery suppliers and electric motor manufacturers, you realise that they don’t work to motorsport lead times. They don’t work in days and weeks, they work in months and years, so it’s not a problem you can get out of quickly.’

Because of the complexity of the power units and the reliability concerns, it seems certain that at least the early portion of the coming season will be dominated by the power units. ‘In those early races it will be an engine formula, because those engines are relatively under-developed compared to what we have been used to,’ adds Newey. ‘But as the formula evolves and the engine manufacturers iron out the wrinkles, it will go back to being a combination of chassis and engine.

‘I can’t see that there are any favourites this year. It’s so new and so open that all bets are off.’

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F1 2014 RULEBOOK

The cooling system on the cars is proving to be a major packaging issue. Here on the

‘The currents in and out of the MGUs are big and change rapidly. In the power electronics to control the MGUs, there are high frequency switching circuits, and the switching action from one polarity to the other can create the conditions for induced electrical currents. When you change the current rapidly in a wire, the wire next to it will see a change in magnetic flux and a current induced in it. If you have a big power cable next to a small signal wire, the induced noise can be the equal or bigger to the signal it is supposed to transmit, which will cause trouble for the whole thing. The sensors by their nature are sensitive, low voltage, low current devices, and any sensor or sensor wire next to a big, rapidly changing current source will be at risk of sending a false signal.

‘It’s a lot about the harnessing and shielding – it’s something that has to be resolved as part of the commissioning of the car. It’s a bit a case of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps – if the signal going into the control system is not clean then the control system cannot respond correctly.’

So, with so many new variables to contend with, and disrupted testing for several teams, the 2014 season opener in Australia looks set to be particularly intriguing.

Caterham CT05, two heat exchangers are visible, as is the lower side impact structure

ZIRCOTEC HEAT SHIELDING

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ith the biggest rule changes in F1 for a generation set for 2014, rules that include new small capacity power units, the return of the turbo and expanded energy recovery systems, F1 teams face a multitude of potential heat management issues that will affect reliability and safety.

As an experienced supplier to the Formula One teams for over 18 years, Zircotec had anticipated an increase in business, recruiting new staff and investing in new equipment ahead of the season start.

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

With so many different interpretations on different areas of the cars, Zircotec’s ThermoHold® for Composites offers surface protection for composite materials wherever it is required, reducing the operating temperature of the composite significantly even when operating in hot environments. In case of radiant heat, Zircotec offers a derivative of this coating with a heat reflective surface for additional protection. Material thicknesses can be tightly controlled by Zircotec to work around customer specified parameters from just 50µm to 300µm, ensuring that even in very small spaces, the coating does not negatively impact weight control and overall packaging needs.

Zircotec’s coating technologies go way beyond heat management; in recent times it has been providing solutions for powertrain, KERS and even aero applications. For the latter it offers a range of products starting with the ThermoHold® Smooth coating, developed to minimise airflow disruption, right

through to its ThermoSlik™ derivative that repels debris from sticking to aero-critical surfaces. This ability to keep surfaces clear of debris presents a lightweight, subtle solution that not only prevents material delamination but also adds a little aero performance, crucial as teams try to claw this back in 2014.

ZircoFlex® is well known to the F1 teams for its ability to offer versatility and wide ranging protection wherever it is needed.

With limited testing, the flexible aluminium backed heatshield can be applied in minutes, between scheduled running to manage heat in specific areas such as KERS, composite parts, fuel systems and electronics. This quick and simple solution can help to ensure cars are kept running during testing. At Jerez, we saw examples of ZircoFlex® around exhaust exits, applied to various bodywork parts and fitted to wiring looms.

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F1 2014 TYRES

Treading carefully After a troubled 2013 season, Pirelli is confident that its new crop of tyres will perform

By SAM COLLINS

L

ike no previous season, tyres dominated F1 in 2013. The characteristics and performance of the Pirelli rubber, how it interacted with the cars – not to mention a spate of mid-race tyre failures – meant that they were often the only story in town. Off the track, meanwhile, the Italian company made waves with threats to quit and illegal tests. Eventually, a midseason reversion to the 2013 tyres drastically changed the performance of some cars.

In contrast, relatively little has been discussed in the media about the 2014 Pirelli

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tyres, with most talk dominated by the new power units. However, they are likely to be just as crucial as they were in 2013, especially considering that this is the fourth brand new range of F1 tyres in as many years from Pirelli.

The new tyres have been introduced as a result of the new F1 regulations, which present a completely different set of vehicle dynamics. All the 2014 slick tyres have a new construction and new slightly harder compounds, with slightly increased weight.

The front tyres have a new profile, while the rear profile remains largely unaltered.

The wet tyre has a new tread pattern and a different compound. Pirelli has developed its new 2014 tyre range using simulation technology and data supplied by teams, as well as real on-track testing results. On top of new compounds and new constructions, each rear tyre now weighs 250g more and each front tyre 200g more than last year.

The full wet tyre has a new rear tread pattern in order to reduce aquaplaning by increasing how much water can be dispersed at full speed – now up to 65 litres per second

(Above) temperature stickers have been introduced for 2014, which read the max temperature reached by the tyre tread while they’re being pre-heated by teams in their blankets

“The 2014 tyres are just as different to their predecessors as the 2014 cars” from 60 litres per second previously. It also has a new compound that is able to work well in damp and/or drying conditions, in order to increase the crossover point to the intermediate tyre.

So with all new construction and compounds as well as revised profiles, it could be assumed that Pirelli would need to conduct extensive testing. But that was not the case, with no real 2014 power unit data available, Pirelli’s testing for 2014 was limited to using a mix of 2013 cars and older models, including its own 2011 Renault. ‘The 2014

tyres are just as different to their predecessors as the 2014 cars, with the majority of our preparation work having been carried out by using advanced data simulation, as well as real on-track testing,’ Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director told Racecar Engineering at the 2013 Monaco Grand Prix, just after Pirelli had conducted a test with the 2013 Mercedes in Barcelona. But as any engineer will tell you – data in equals data out, and it is clear that accurate data on torque and power was not forthcoming. ‘You need to take into account that the change is so dramatic that

if you ask the teams what the cars will be like next year you will have 11 different answers.

It is not quite guesswork – we know that the power delivery will be very different and that the aero loads will be dramatically different, and we have some simulation data of how the new engines will be, but the reality is that it may prove to be even more severe than expected, even if we say that we are going to be very cautious we would still like to be able to test a new solution during the early part of the season. We don’t want to test on a 2013 car. It would be pointless as the new cars will be so different.’

Keeping the tyres intact with the power delivery characteristics was also a major concern for Pirelli, with the 2014 cars expected to slide more, due to having much lower downforce levels as well as having increased wheelspin due to the characteristics of the new power units.

‘There are certain aspects of what we can do to reduce running temperatures of the tyre and to make sure that we still have grip, otherwise they will be wheelspinning too much,’ says Hembery. ‘It will be a learning curve for the drivers and I am sure that the teams will be working hard on their vertical torque curves at the moment.’

Controlling the running temperatures of the tyres is a critical area of interest for Pirelli’s engineers, and the firm believes that many of its 2013 problems were due to teams using the tyres in ways that they did not recommend. To combat this in 2014, however, it has investigated the introduction of temperature stickers on the tyres. These stickers read the maximum temperature reached by the tyre tread while the tyres are being pre-heated by the teams in their tyre blankets. Pirelli prescribes a maximum temperature of 110degC (230degF), which should not be exceeded at any point before the tyre takes to the track.

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F1 2014 TYRES

The FIA will ensure that this limit is respected, together with the minimum tyre pressures when leaving the pits, and maximum camber levels on the track.

But there is still a significant lack of tyre data, not just for Pirelli but also for many of the teams. The total testing distance completed so far this year – combining Jerez and both Bahrain tests – is 7099 laps and 36,974km. This time last year, the teams had completed 10,902 laps and 49,942km of pre-season testing (Jerez and two Barcelona tests 2013 combined).

The second day of pre-season testing was designated a wet weather test session after showers left a damp track and half of the circuit was artificially soaked, but at that time many cars, including Marussia, Lotus and, notably Red Bull, were unable to run, leaving them, and Pirelli, with very little data on the wet and intermediate tyres. ‘The emphasis was not on tyres, instead the teams were simply trying to get an understanding of this radical new set of regulations and to put the first kilometres on to their cars,’ said Hembery.

‘With so much to understand about the

XPB

“Our testing data so far indicates that the 2014 tyres are more consistent and durable than their predecessors”

new power units and aerodynamic rules, the teams aimed simply to increase their knowledge about the cars.’

In addition to that, at both Jerez and the first Bahrain test, special ‘winter’ tyres were used by many teams. ‘Last year, the teams lost some pre-season running due to excessively cold conditions in Spain,’ says Hembery. ‘We even saw some ice on the track at one point.

In order to combat this, we have developed a winter version of the hard compound. This will be used for testing only and it is designed to work effectively even in cold conditions. The teams were able to learn more about tyres over the four days in Bahrain than they could

in Jerez, thanks to increased running time and optimal weather conditions. Although the teams are still at a comparatively early point on the development curve with their new cars, testing data so far indicates that the 2014 tyres are more consistent and durable than their predecessors. As a result, we are also seeing fewer “marbles” on the circuit – one of our objectives at the start of this season.’

At the opening races of the season, many of the teams that have struggled for reliability in testing will be devoting a lot of time to understanding the tyres. It seems likely that whoever leads in this race will be at the head of the points table.

‘Pre-season testing has shown just what a big challenge these new rules are for everybody, but from the running we have seen we’re still expecting between two to three pit stops per car in Melbourne, although we’ll be able to make some more exact predictions after we see the cars run in free practice,’ concluded Hembery.

‘The first race of the season is always unpredictable – but this will be the case more than ever in 2014.’

PIRELLI 2014 COMPOUNDS P Zero Orange hard The toughest tyre of the range is designed for circuits that are often characterised by high ambient temperatures, putting the highest energy loadings through the tyres with fast corners or abrasive surfaces. The compound takes longer to warm up, but offers maximum durability – which frequently means that it plays a key role in race strategy.

This is a high working range compound.

Like all the 2014 tyres, this is a brand new compound with a new construction to meet the requirements of the latest cars, with increased torque, extra energy recovery systems, but reduced aerodynamics.

P Zero White medium Theoretically this is the most perfectly balanced of all the tyres, with an ideal compromise between performance and durability. As a result, it is very versatile, but often comes into its own on circuits that tend towards high speeds and energy loadings.

This is a low working range compound. As is the case with all the 2014 tyres, there is a new profile at the front to take into account the altered vehicle dynamics and improve handling.

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P Zero Yellow soft This is one of the most frequently used tyres in the range, striking a very good balance between performance and durability, with the accent on performance. It is still biased towards speed rather than long distances, but is nonetheless capable of providing a competitive advantage both at the beginning of the race on full fuel and when used as a ‘sprint’ tyre at the end. This is a high working range compound. All the compounds are generally slightly harder than their equivalents last year, in order to deliver the same performance despite the extra forces placed on the tyres.

P Zero Red supersoft The softest compound in the range is ideal for slow and twisty circuits, especially in cold weather, when maximum mechanical grip is needed. The supersoft benefits from an extremely rapid warmup time, which makes it ideal in qualifying as well, but the flipside to that important characteristic is of course increased degradation. This is a low working range compound. One of the key evolutions this year has been optimisation of the footprint pressure and temperature distribution.

This presents a more even contact with the asphalt, improving grip and handling.

Cinturato Green intermediate The intermediates are the most versatile of the rain tyres, dispersing approximately 25 litres of water per second at full speed. They can be used on a wet as well as a drying track. It is a new concept for this year, with a number of the development aspects also transferred to the full wet tyre.

Cinturato Blue wet The full wets can disperse up to 65 litres of water per second at full speed (up from 60 litres last year) making them the most effective solution for heavy rain. The latest evolution of the Cinturato Blue means that it is also effective on a drying track, with increased durability. The full wet tyre has a new compound and a redesigned rear tread pattern to further reduce aquaplaning. The result? Increased driveability in a wide variety of conditions.

The difference?

The performance differences in Bahrain between the compounds were approximately as follows: the supersoft (red) is around 0.7s per lap faster than the soft (yellow), the soft is around 1.2s per lap quicker than the medium (white), and the medium is around 1.3s per lap quicker than the hard (orange). These gaps should come down considerably as the cars evolve.

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7/1/11 12:00:01 PM

F1 2014 THE GRID FEATURE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; TITLE

The new cars As the new breed of Formula 1 entries prepare to take to the track for potentially the most unpredictable season ever, hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s those all-important technical details

By SAM COLLINS

Marine Engineering Formula 1 u Digital Edition u Digital Supplement

Formula 1 u Digital Edition Marine Engineering u Digital Supplement

F1 2014 THE GRID

MERCEDES-BENZ W05 Power unit 106A TECH SPEC Chassis construction Monocoque carbon fibre and honeycomb composite structure Front suspension Carbon fibre wishbone and pushrod activated torsion springs and rockers Rear suspension Carbon fibre wishbone and pushrod activated torsion springs and rockers Transmission Eight speed forward, one reverse unit with carbon fibre maincase Clutch Carbon plate Dampers Penske Wheels Advanti forged magnesium Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Brembo carbon/carbon discs and pads with rear brake-by-wire Steering Power-assisted rack and pinion Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Cockpit Removable driver’s seat made of anatomically formed carbon composite, Sabelt six-point driver safety harness, HANS system Engine Mercedes-Benz PU106A hybrid ICE capacity 1.6 litres, six cylinders, 90deg bank angle, 24 valves Max rpm ICE 15,000rpm max fuel flow rate 100 kg/hour (above 10,500 rpm) Fuel injection High-pressure direct injection (max 500 bar, one injector/cylinder), Pressure charging: single-stage compressor and exhaust turbine on a common shaft max rpm exhaust turbine 125,000rpm ERS Mercedes AMG HPP Dimensions Overall length: 4800mm Overall height: 950mm Overall width: 1800mm

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he Mercedes was the first 2014 F1 car to run in pre-season testing. It accumulated the most laps and had the best reliability.

‘This is by far the most complicated car we’ve ever built and the level of detail is incredible,’ said technical director Paddy Lowe. ‘It has been very well engineered on both the power unit and chassis side.’

‘Our preparation for the season was also strong, with plenty of lab work and a filming day at Silverstone before the first test.

While it was a far less positive story in terms of reliability on that day, it allowed us to overcome some of the initial hazards with the new package, which was certainly useful in terms of hitting the ground running in Jerez. We’re happy with our progress so far, but testing can always be better. There were a few gaps here and there and we had some really tough days.

‘A good example of this was the final session in Bahrain, where we discovered a gearbox problem at around 04:00 and eventually joined the action just before lunch, highlighting just how complicated these new cars are.

The drivers have both been

happy with the car so far, but it’s a relative level of performance that you need. No matter how strong the car looks, what ultimately matters is how it performs relative to the competition. What we’ve seen during the winter looks encouraging, but we’ve also seen plenty of other strong contenders out there and the picture could easily change before we get to Melbourne. There are a lot of good teams on this grid who can response well to challenges.

We could well see a few surprises, so we’ve got to keep working hard on every front to ensure that we are competitive.’

The initial engineering conversations between the teams at Brackley and Brixworth around both the regulations and potential solutions date back to late 2010.

Since mid-2011, when the rules for the new V6 hybrid power unit were officially published, MercedesBenz claims that it has taken a fully integrated approach to every major performance decision with a clearsighted focus on maximising overall car performance.

The power unit has been designed for optimum installation in the F1 W05 chassis. This new

car is the product of an aggressive development philosophy targeted at optimising the packaging of new on-car systems, such as the increased cooling demands of the power unit, in order to give the team´s aerodynamic group maximum freedom to respond to a significantly different regulatory framework.

The Mercedes nose is perhaps the most conventional looking of all of the 2014 cars.

But in fact it is one of the most interesting. Instead of the pointed anatomical noses seen on many other cars, the Mercedes crash structure is entirely contained in the main part of the nose. That crash structure is U-shaped and is blended into the front wing supports – a neat and perhaps controversial layout.

‘We’re only in the very early stages of the year,’ said Lowe, ‘so people will be bringing upgrades which you’ll certainly want to keep an eye on. Anything you see sticking out into the airflow around a Formula 1 car is going to affect aerodynamics – and usually in a positive way.’

Mercedes starts the 2014 season as the bookies’ favourite.

MCLAREN MP4-29 Power unit 106A TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre incorporating driver cockpit controls and fuel cell Front suspension Carbon fibre wishbone and pushrod suspension elements operating inboard torsion bar and damper system Rear suspension Carbon fibre wishbone and pushrod suspension elements operating inboard torsion bar and damper system Transmission Carbon fibre composite case, epicyclic differential with multi plate limited slip clutch Clutch Carbon/carbon hand operated Wheels Enkei Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Akebono calipers cylinders Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Cooling system Aluminium oil, water and gearbox radiators

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cLaren revealed images of its 2014 car just before the start of the Jerez pre-season test, and the car remains without a full livery. In a statement the team said: ‘We have responded to the disappointment of our 2013 season by pragmatically framing our approach to the technical challenge. The new MP4-29 is a sensible and calculated response to the new regulations.

But it is very much a frozen snapshot of the design team’s steep development curve, and, as such, is a machine that will potentially undergo more technical change throughout a single season than any other car in McLaren’s long and illustrious history.

‘The challenge for 2014 is to build-in both performance and reliability – something that can no longer be taken for granted given

the steep technical challenges ahead. It is also a time of transition.

Our final season with our engine partner, Mercedes-Benz, will be our 20th together, before we begin an exciting new journey with Honda from 2015.’

McLaren already has Japanese links, being the only team on the grid to use Akebono brakes.

That firm’s dedicated team of F1 engineers and specialists have developed an electronic brakeby-wire (BBW) rear brake control system to aid the braking effort at the rear, negating the need for the driver to constantly alter the brake bias, and therefore contributing in preventing rear lock-up. It is thought to be somewhat more advanced than other BBW systems in F1.

McLaren has opted to abandon the Ferrari-style front pullrod suspension layout it used on its

2013 car. At the launch, the rear suspension drew some some interest due to the length of the suspension arms, but overall the design appeared to be a relatively conventional pullrod layout. That all changed, however, when the car arrived in Jerez for the first test fitted with what has been dubbed ‘mushroom’ suspension.

The rear part of the wishbones have a kind of dog-leg in them fitted with what appear to be large aerofoils, with flat plates at the trailing edge. It’s quite clear that the primary purpose of them is not mechanical and this could lead to a protest at one of the early races, as many believe they constitute a movable aerodynamic device.

The full story on the ‘mushrooms’ can be found in the April 2014 edition of Racecar Engineering.

Engine Mercedes-Benz PU106A Hybrid , Internal Combustion Engine: Capacity 1.6 litres, Cylinders Six, Bank angle 90, No of valves 24, Max rpm ICE 15,000 rpm, Max fuel flow rate 100 kg/hour (above 10,500 rpm) Fuel injection High-pressure direct injection (max 500 bar, one injector/cylinder), Pressure charging Single-stage compressor and exhaust turbine on a common shaft, Max rpm exhaust turbine 125,000 rpm ERS MGU-K maximum speed 50,000rpm, max power 120kW, max energy recovery 2MJ/lap, max energy deployment 4MJ/lap MGU-H Maximum speed 125,000rpm, max power unlimited, max energy recovery unlimited, max energy deployment unlimited. Energy store Lithium-ion battery Lubricants and fluids Mobilith SHC Radio Kenwood

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

F1 2014 THE GRID

FORCE INDIA VJM07 Power unit 106A TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre composite monocoque with Zylon side anti-intrusion panels Front suspension Aluminium alloy uprights with carbon fibre composite wishbones, trackrod and pushrod. Inboard-mounted torsion springs, dampers and anti-roll bar assembly Rear suspension Aluminium alloy uprights with carbon fibre composite wishbones, trackrod and pushrod. Inboard-mounted torsion springs, dampers and anti-roll bar assembly Transmission Mercedes AMG F1 8-speed semiautomatic with seamless shift Dampers Penske Wheels Motegi Racing forged wheels to team specification Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system AP Racing Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Lubricants Petronas Engine Mercedes-Benz PU106A Hybrid , Internal Combustion Engine: Capacity 1.6 litres, Cylinders Six, Bank angle 90, No of valves 24, Max rpm ICE 15,000 rpm, Max fuel flow rate 100 kg/hour (above 10,500 rpm) Fuel injection High-pressure direct injection (max 500 bar, one injector/cylinder), Pressure charging Single-stage compressor and exhaust turbine on a common shaft, Max rpm exhaust turbine 125,000 rpm ERS Mercedes AMG HPP

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orce India was the first team to reveal an image of its full 2014 F1 car.

What it showed was a surprisingly evolutionary design, with many features carrying over directly from the 2013 car. ‘It doesn’t look hugely different, but it is,’ says Andy Green, Force India technical director. ‘Almost every single part is a new design, from the front wing right back to the diffuser.

Its genetics still lie in the 2013 car, but we’ve had to achieve the same results in a slightly different way. From the nose backwards it looks quite similar. It’s a little bit fatter for the increased cooling requirements, but we hope to trim that out during the early part of the season. To be competitive we have to develop and because there are so many areas that need significantly refining, optimising the performance of this car is going to be a big challenge.’

The image reveals little about the design of the nose, other than it is clearly much lower than that of the VJM06, but that is dictated by the regulations. However, Green is open that the nose fitted to the car in the image and that it will use in

testing and the early races is not the final specification version.

‘Our nose is a launch spec and later we will have an updated front end of the car, which potentially is quite different. We had to take quite a pragmatic view of it and say we’ve got to go testing so we’ve got to get a car out of the door. As much as we want to push the boundaries of the impact structure, because we know how important they are for the whole car, we don’t have the resources to push it to the limit in our first iteration, so we need a banker. The nose that is on the launch car is a banker.’

This means that the VJM07 will be re-submitted for its crash tests at the Cranfield Impact Centre at some point in the early stages of the season.

The Mercedes-powered car has run strongly in testing and the AMG HPP engine department has sent former Lola Cars chief designer Julian Cooper to help Green to integrate the power unit. ‘It’s been a massive job to accommodate all the changes to the power unit – it’s the biggest change I’ve witnessed in the sport since I started in 1990,’ Green

explains. ‘On top of that, if you add the development that comes with it during the season, it’s going to take some managing. From the first time the car runs it will be continual development as we gather data, understand where the car sits relative to our models, refine it, and go back to the track again.

‘Cooling has been the biggest challenge – most of last summer was taken up trying to understand the cooling requirements of the power unit, and how best to optimise it in the chassis. There’s a lot more to cool and you are weighing up the performance of the power unit versus the performance of the chassis and aerodynamics, and trying to hit the optimum on each one of them.

We’ve had to develop a completely new tool set to examine, analyse and optimise it. We won’t get a real answer on how far out we were until we start running and then we’ll refine the tools again and have another go at it. I expect quite a big re-definition of the cooling system later in the season once we’ve gathered all the data from the winter testing and the first couple of races.’

WILLIAMS FW36 Power unit 106A TECH SPEC Chassis construction Monocoque construction laminated from carbon epoxy and honeycomb surpassing FIA impact and strength requirements Front suspension Double wishbone, pushrod activated springs and anti-roll bar Rear suspension Double wishbone, pullrod activated springs and anti-roll bar Transmission Williams eight speed seamless sequential semi-automatic shift plus reverse gear, gear selection electrohydraulically actuated Clutch Carbon multi-plate Dampers Williams Wheels RAYS forged magnesium Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system AP six piston front and four piston rear calipers with carbon discs and pads

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astest in the pre-season tests at Bahrain, the Williams FW36 is one of the most technologicallyadvanced Formula 1 cars produced by the British team. It is the culmination of more than two years research and development by the team’s technical departments in Grove and it incorporates the power unit from the team’s new partner, Mercedes-Benz.

‘There’s a lot more technology on the cars this year,’ says Williams chief technical officer Pat Symonds.

‘We’ve had turbocharged engines in F1 before. What’s different this time is that it is much more than just an engine change – it is a completely different system. We’ve gone from a slightly hybridised normally aspirated engine to a fullyintegrated hybrid power unit with novel technology at its heart.’

To meet the challenges of the new power unit, Williams signed the deal with Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains midway through last season.

The team received the first CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data for the power unit at the end of May, at which point the detailed

design of the FW36 could begin to be finalised. ‘This is the first time that Williams has worked with Mercedes in F1 and we’ve been very impressed,’ says Symonds. ‘Their professionalism and commitment have been notable and we’re as confident as we can be that the power unit will be competitive.’

The design phase of the FW36 was completed by midSeptember, by which time the team had found solutions to the major challenges presented by the regulations. Cooling, weight, a new gearbox and aerodynamic changes are just some of the areas of focus. ‘Overall the cars will need more cooling this year,’ says Symonds. ‘The demands on water and oil cooling may be slightly diminished, but the ERS system is significantly more powerful and hence needs more cooling. We also have to cool the charge air from the turbocharger compressor which requires a substantial intercooler.’

The FW36’s gearbox ran on the dyno for the first time at the beginning of November, before running with the full power unit several weeks later. It’s the first eight-speed gearbox in Williams’

history and notably larger than the unit used on other recent Williams designs. This is a result of the regulations which force the transmissions to last much longer, have a wider operational window and as a result of the V6 engines having a higher crankshaft height they sit much higher in the car.

‘We finished the gearbox relatively early,’ says Symonds.

‘It’s completed a lot of running on the test rig and at Mercedes HPP in Brixworth, but you can’t take reliability for granted. It’s a completely new ’box and it has to cope with a lot more torque than was the case with the V8.’

The weight of the car, when combined with the FIA’s ever more stringent crash tests, has been another challenge of the 2014 rules. But the FW36 was one of the first cars to pass its crash tests prior to Christmas. ‘The build of the new car has gone remarkably smoothly,’ says Symonds. ‘But it’s been a challenge to get the car down to the weight limit. It’s been achievable, but it hasn’t been easy because the new power unit is heavier than the outgoing V8.’

Steering Williams power-assisted rack and pinion Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Cooling system Aluminium oil, water and gearbox radiators Cockpit Six point driver safety harness with 75mm shoulder straps and HANS system, removable anatomically formed carbon fibre seat Engine Mercedes-Benz PU106A hybrid ICE capacity 1.6 litres, six cylinders, 90deg bank angle, 24 valves Max rpm ICE 15,000rpm max fuel flow rate 100 kg/hour (above 10,500 rpm) Fuel injection High-pressure direct injection (max 500 bar, one injector/cylinder), Pressure charging: single-stage compressor and exhaust turbine on a common shaft max rpm exhaust turbine 125,000rpm ERS Mercedes AMG HPP Dimensions Overall length: 5000mm Overall height: 950mm Overall width: 1800mm

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F1 2014 THE GRID

FERRARI F14-T (665) Power unit Ferrari 059/3 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre and honeycomb composite structure Suspension Independent suspension pull rod activated torsion bar springs front and rear Transmission Semi-automatic sequential and electronically controlled gearbox with quick shift Wheels OZ Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Brembo ventilated carbon-fibre disc brakes front and rear, and brake by wire rear brakes Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Cooling system Aluminium oil, water and gearbox radiators Engine Ferrari 059/3 1.6 litre six cylinder single turbo. V6 90 degree. Bore 80mm, stroke 53mm, 4 valves per cylinder, 500 bar-direct injection ERS Battery energy per lap 4MJ, MGU-K power 120kW, MGU-K max revs 50,000rpm, MGU-H max revs 125,000rpm

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he Ferrari F14-T was named by fans in an online vote, but it’s known internally as 665.

Normally it takes Ferrari around a year to design a new F1 car, but the 2014 version began life more than two years ago. There is clear influence of earlier Ferrari designs – the obvious areas of continuity are the pullrod front and rear suspension. However, beyond this superficial similarity there is little to connect the 2014 car to its predecessors.

It has been suggested that the Ferrari 059/3 produces less power than the Mercedes unit, but it has also been suggested that this provides it with various advantages in terms of packaging and overall efficiency.

‘Our engine department have been aggressive and bent over backwards for us on the chassis side to produce an engine that can be packaged tightly and can be cooled with radiators that are not too big,’ explains James Allison, Ferrari technical director, who has also seen the Renault RS34 data so can make a direct comparison.

Ferrari may have to change the design of the turbo housing after a query over its compliance with the technical regulations was raised.

The rule in question was 5.18.5, a late addition to the 2014 Formula 1 technical regulations, which states: ‘Measures must be taken to ensure that in the event of failure of the turbine wheel, any resulting significant debris is contained within the car.’ Two of the three engine manufacturers have apparently taken one approach, while Ferrari feels that it has met the regulation via a different method.

‘Our car has quite a neat bodywork package and the radiators are quite small – that’s a result of what the engine guys have done,’ says Allison.

‘The engines are incredibly busy compared to the V8s, and the Ferrari has been rather exquisitely packaged – it’s very neat.’

Given that more cooling allows more horsepower, but damages downforce generation, it was necessary for the Italian team to decide very carefully on the correct level of overall cooling for the car to render the best

lap time compromise between horsepower and downforce.

Having chosen the correct overall level of cooling to supply, packaging the resultant cooler elements and managing the correct airflow to them is something which has absorbed design time to ensure that the F14- T is able to retain the sharply tapered bodywork that allows efficient extraction of downforce.

The braking system has been redesigned to adapt the car to the change in the regulations.

This has involved ensuring greater capacity on the front axle, while working with Brembo to reduce the size of the hydraulic caliper at the rear to compensate for the greater braking effort that is supplied by the ERS motor.

The most striking design feature of the F14-T is the nose shape.

Like all teams, Ferrari has had to develop a low nose design of car while keeping the chassis as high as possible for aerodynamic reasons.

Ferrari’s solution is curious in that it seems to restrict airflow under the nose rather than allow it (such as on the Lotus E22).

SAUBER C33 Power unit Ferrari 059/3 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre monocoque Front suspension Upper and lower wishbones, inboard springs and dampers activated by pushrods (Sachs Race Engineering) Rear suspension Upper and lower wishbones, inboard springs and dampers activated by pullrods (Sachs Race Engineering) Transmission Ferrari 8-speed quick shift carbon gearbox, longitudinally mounted, carbon-fibre clutch Wheels OZ Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Six-piston brake calipers (Brembo), carbon fibre pads and discs (Brembo) Steering Sauber F1 Team Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit

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ith uncertainty about the impact of the new rules, the Ferrari-powered Sauber C33 was designed to be as flexible as possible to allow the Swiss engineers to react to any design trend that emerges. Perhaps the most visually striking element of the Sauber C33-Ferrari is the very low, snout-like nose. The front wing pylon’s attachments on the nose have been moved out as far as possible allowed by the regulations to channel as much air as possible under the car.

The front suspension concept has changed little, with its springs and dampers again pushrodactuated. However, the changes to the regulations regarding the chassis profile have called for some detail adjustments.

The side crash elements have had a significant influence on the form of the sidepods, which is clearly visible in the design of the car. The cooling air intakes are slightly larger than those of last

Engine Ferrari 059/3 1.6 litre six cylinder single turbo. V6 90 degree. Bore 80mm, stroke 53mm, 4 valves per cylinder, 500 bar-direct injection

year’s car because the cooling requirements of the power unit and ancillaries have increased considerably. For the same reason, the vertically mounted radiators are now significantly larger. Again, the engineers have built a degree of flexibility into their design to allow scope to react should requirements shift in one or other direction.

The concept for the rear of the Sauber C33-Ferrari also includes a degree of adaptability, so that the engineers can make adjustments to this area of the car in response to varying conditions. The exhaust tailpipe is positioned centrally between two pylons, which connect the rear wing to the rear impact structure as is the case with all of the Ferrari-engined cars.

‘The radical changes to the technical regulations for 2014 mean that it’s even harder than usual to make predictions for the new season,’ explained chief designer Eric Gandelin. ‘We know what kind of package we’ve put together here, and we are happy with what

we achieved, but it is difficult to foresee what shape our rivals are in. The earliest opportunity to gain an impression of where the teams are in relation to one another was during testing. The path we have followed with the design of the Sauber C33-Ferrari allows us maximum flexibility, so that we can react quickly. It is also clear that reliability will be an important factor in the first few races in particular. So this is an area which we have given very high priority.’

The Sauber F1 Team began at the Jerez test with a roll-out version of the car. While it was fully functional, it lacked a number of performance parts, which were later introduced for the two tests in Bahrain. Eric Gandelin explained: ‘On the one hand this gives us time to maximise the development of these performance relevant parts, and on the other hand we could run the car during the first test and check all the systems, which we feel is crucial, considering all the technical changes.’

ERS Battery energy per lap 4MJ, MGU-K power 120kW, MGU-K max revs 50,000rpm, MGU-H max revs 125,000rpm Dimensions Overall length: 5300mm Overall height: 950mm Overall width: 1800mm Track Front 1460mm Rear 1416mm

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F1 2014 THE GRID

MARUSSIA MR03 Power unit Ferrari 059/3 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre composite Front suspension Carbon-fibre wishbone and pushrod suspension elements operating inboard torsion bar and damper system Rear suspension Carbon-fibre wishbone and pushrod suspension elements operating inboard torsion bar and damper system Wheels BBS Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Carbon/carbon discs and pads with rear brake-by-wire system, AP Racing Steering Marussia F1 Team-desiged hydraulic PAS Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems MAT SECU TAG 320/Scuderia Ferrari Seatbelts Sabelt Engine Ferrari 059/3 1.6 litre six cylinder single turbo. V6 90 degree. Bore 80mm, stroke 53mm, 4 valves per cylinder, 500 bar-direct injection ERS Battery energy per lap 4MJ, MGU-K power 120kW, MGU-K max revs 50,000rpm, MGU-H max revs 125,000rpm Dimensions and weight Overall width: 1800mm Wheelbase: 3700mm Radio Riedel

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he MR03 is the Marussia F1 team’s design response to the dramatic and far-reaching technical regulation changes of 2014, the most significant of which is the departure of the normally-aspirated engines which have prevailed in the sport since 1988, in favour of a new, more road-relevant powertrain system, underpinned by a 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 power-unit.

The process of conceiving the MR03 began in early 2012 when a small 2014-focused design group initiated the very first chassis layouts. Twelve months on, as the 2014 technical regulations began to take shape, an exciting new powertrain partnership was forged with Scuderia Ferrari and the design process gained greater traction, in parallel with the 2013 season and development of the MR02.

The extent of evolution between the 2013 and 2014 cars can best be characterised by the fact that – of the 11,212 components that made up the MR02 – only a handful of assemblies have been carried over to the MR03. The result, as chief designer John McQuilliam highlights, is the team’s ‘best-ever optimisation of performance versus innovation versus design integrity’.

‘Through the course of 2012,’ he says, ‘we analysed every single element of the car – from the tip of the nose to the trailing edge of the rear wing – knowing just how radically different the MR03 would be under such sweeping technical regulations. We have benefitted enormously from the stability of our design teams, with the same personnel beginning – and now concluding – the process over a 24-month period. I think we can feel justifiably proud of the way we have

responded to such a significant challenge and the quality of car we have arrived at with the MR03. The car has been manufactured and finished to a very high standard, while achieving our most significant weight-saving targets to date and, importantly, with a crucial eye towards maintaining our excellent record of reliability.

‘Without doubt, the greatest design challenge has been in terms of cooling, yet this is one of a few areas where we are not only very pleased with the design response, but also the degree of innovation we have achieved with our solution. All-new front and rear suspension layouts are a product of the new aerodynamic regulations, placing greater emphasis on mechanical performance, with the mechanical systems now having far greater real road relevance.’

SOLUTIONS MADE OF PASSION At Kaiser we manufacture the Racecarchassis, -engine and -gearbox components our customers require within the shortest possible and agreed production time. We manufacture prototypes and small batches for the top end of motorsport, aerospace and the automotive industry.

• suspensionwishbones and rods (incl. carbon) • torsion bars incl. scragging and antiroll bars • rockers, hubs, spacers, nuts • shockabsorbers (incl. rotary-dampers) • steeringhousings • steeringracks and pinions • steeringcolumns, quick releases and paddles • hydraulics • brakecalipers and -cylinders • chassis parts in metal and carbon • engine valvetrain • conrods • crankcases • cylinderheads • pumpbodies, gears and shafts • clutch components • gearbox-cases • gearbox-internals • gearbox-hydraulics • turbo components • energy recovery system and e-motor components • and many more ...

Kaiser Werkzeugbau GmbH Gewerbegebiet Helferskirchen 56244 Helferskirchen · Germany Tel. +49 2626 9243-0 · Fax +49 2626 9243-20 www.kaiser-wzb.de · kontakt@kaiser-wzb.de

F1 2014 THE GRID

RED BULL RB10 Power unit Renault RS34 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Composite monocoque structural designed and built in-house Front suspension Aluminium alloy uprights, carboncomposite double wishbone with springs and anti-roll bar Rear suspension Aluminium alloy uprights, carboncomposite double wishbone with springs and anti-roll bar Transmission Eight speed longitudinal gearbox mounted with hydraulic system for power shift and clutch operation Dampers Multimatic Wheels OZ Racing Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Brembo calipers, frictional material; carbon/carbon composite discs and pads Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems MESL Standard Electronic Control Unit Engine Renault Energy F1-2014, 1.6 litre 90 degree 6-cylinder. Max rpm 15,000, 24 valves. Cylinder block in aluminium Fuel Total

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ed Bull Racing suffered badly with unreliability in the opening tests. The RB10 design has many design concepts carried over from the dominant RB9 of 2013 and that seems to be its achilles heel.

The car spent most of the time sat in the garage during pre-season testing, suffering from overheating problems as well as general reliability issues.

However, Red Bull has admitted that Renault is not fully to blame for the car’s limited mileage. ‘It was, you could argue, a result of aggressive packaging, but we felt that we needed to take a few risks to try to get a good package that would minimise the aerodynamic damage of this very large cooling requirement,’ Adrian Newey told the press. He later raised the characteristics of

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

the Renault engine itself as part of the issue. ‘The Renault seems to have a particularly large cooling requirement. Everybody of the three engine manufacturers will have a different target for how hot their charge air is going back into the plenum and Renault have given us a fairly challenging target. It has all sorts of advantages if we can get there, but it is not easy to achieve.’

However, Renaultsport has revealed that there is something of an issue with one of the subsystems of the RS34, namely the turbocharger.

‘I am more confident with the ERS than the V6 turbo,’ said a Renault spokesperson. ‘We have more to do on the V6 turbo. I am confident with the component we have got. There could be a few tweaks around, but it is not due to

the spirit of the technology that we are going to have a problem. It is going to be fixing, not changing the full concept/design of the car. We are still to get the most out of what we have got now. To be completely fair, we still have a lot of work to do and there is plenty to come.’

The 2014 F1 sporting regulations were quietly amended shortly before the start of the new season to allow modifications to the power units on the grounds of cost, safety or reliability, but notably not for performance. Renault will almost certainly take advantage of this, but the other two suppliers – Ferrari and Mercedes – have to agree any changes.

Certainly, reliability is still an issue for the Renault-powered cars with only the Caterham seemingly able to complete long runs in testing.

TORO ROSSO STR9 Power unit Renault RS34 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon monocoque structure Front suspension Upper and lower carbon wishbones, pushrod, torsion bar springs, central damper and anti-roll bars Rear suspension Upper and lower carbon wishbones, pullrod, torsion bar springs, central damper and anti-roll bars Transmission Scuderia Toro Rosso aluminium alloy 8-speed sequential hydraulically actuated supplied by Red Bull Technology Clutch AP Racing, pull-type Dampers Penske/Multimatic Wheels Apptech, Magnesium alloy Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13

T

he Toro Rosso STR9 is the team’s first design developed under the stewardship of Englishman James Key, who joined the team in 2012.

‘The aero side was by far our biggest priority, as we wanted to put that department into a much more current and competitive shape,’ says Key. ‘Over the past 12 months, we’ve been working on increasing the size of the aerodynamics department. It’s grown significantly, and we now have many new people with very relevant F1 experience. We have more people joining us this year too, so I would describe it as a work in progress, but the group is developing very well and becoming increasingly close to the blueprint that we have in mind of what an aero department of a team of this size and budget needs to be.

‘We’re still getting there, but it’s certainly heading in the right direction. It’s been a big project, helped by the arrival of a new head of aerodynamics in Bicester – Brendan Gilhome – last June, while we worked on 2014 without neglecting the task of making the most of the 2013 car as well. It’s still going on, but it’s developing very

Brake system Brembo pads and discs, brake by wire

much in the direction it needs to be right now and we’re making good progress.’

One of the most commonly held myths in the F1 paddock is that Scuderia Toro Rosso is just a satellite team to Infiniti Red Bull Racing, an incorrect assumption that dates back to the first couple of years of the team’s existence, when the rules were different.

Today, with the exception of very few components, such as the gearbox internals and the engine, the cars are entirely designed and manufactured in-house. This year’s switch to Renault power, as used by Infiniti Red Bull Racing, means that – once again – the two teams can enjoy some technical synergies. ‘It makes sense, given that fundamentally we are under the same ownership, to have the same power unit as Red Bull, particularly with the arrival of such a complicated new set of regulations,’ continues Key. ‘Immediately, there’s a synergy there because we are using the same power unit, we’ve been able to join with Red Bull Technology in using their gearbox internals. They have a well-engineered solution to 2014 regulations for these components, so again, it makes

sense for us to join with them in using those common internals while running the same powertrain.

Otherwise, obviously, the rest of the car is entirely an STR design.’

The car’s chief designer Luca Furbatto added: ‘The cooling side has been a massive challenge for us as we have also had to deal with the added factor of changing our engine supplier. In 2014, the hybrid proportion is much more significant and therefore it generates more heat, that needs to be cooled too.

Using a turbocharger also means the engine requires intercoolers, which we haven’t had on F1 cars since the mid-80s. Certainly, the radiator layout plays an important role in the overall car layout and we had a few moving targets during the design phase, which means we ended up sizing 17 different layouts for cooling on STR9 and eventually committing to just one!

‘In doing so we relied on the work of several departments within Scuderia Toro Rosso and we have invested heavily in doing dyno testing and core measurements to ensure that we are as optimised as possible in terms of cooling. I am sure that activities related to cooling refinements will continue over the course of this season.’

Steering Scuderia Toro Roso Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder with Scuderia Toro Rosso internals Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Cooling system Scuderia Toro Rosso for radiators, heat exchangers, intercoolers Cockpit Seatbelts: OMP/Sabelt Engine Renault Energy F1-2014, 1.6 litre 90 degree 6-cylinder. Max rpm 15,000, 24 valves. Cylinder block in aluminium

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F1 2014 THE GRID

CATERHAM CT05 Power unit Renault RS34 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre, mostly epoxy resin Front suspension Twin non-parallel wishbone, pullrod actuated Rear suspension Twin non-parallel wishbone, pullrod actuated Transmission Red Bull technology Clutch AP Racing Dampers Caterham, Penske Racing Shocks Wheels OZ Magnesium alloy Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system Brembo carbon/carbon Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Cooling system Caterham - Aluminium alloy fabrication Cockpit Seat belts: Schroth Racing Driver’s seat: Caterham Carbon fibre shell Engine Renault Energy F1-2014, 1.6 litre 90 degree 6-cylinder. Max rpm 15,000, 24 valves. Cylinder block in aluminium Dimensions and weight Front track: 1800mm (max) Rear track: 1800mm (max) Wheelbase: More than 3000mm Length: More than 5000mm Height: 950mm Radio Riedel Fuel provider Total Lubricants provider Elf

Formula 1 u Digital Edition

T

his is a crucial year for the Caterham F1 Team. At the end of 2012 season, the team opted against developing a new car for the 2013 season and put all of its resources into the 2014 design.

The car made its public debut during the first day of F1 testing at the Jerez circuit in Spain, and is called the Caterham CT05. Logically the car should be named the CT04, after the CT01 (2012 F1), CT02 (road car) and CT03 (the 2013 version of the CT01). But Asian superstition prevented it being called CT04. ‘We are a team with Asian ownership respecting a cultural belief across Asia, and the number four is seen as negative,’ explained a team spokesman.

‘What you see is not actually the first nose configuration we looked at – we tried something different that is actually on another car,’ said Caterham technical director Mark Smith. ‘But we wanted to try to achieve something that would pass the crash tests easily.

So the nosecone we have is very straightforward. It is kind of a safe solution, a banker.’

But while the nose is visually very distinctive, it seems that

it is not an area that is all that important in aerodynamic terms, and instead the real focus is the area alongside and below the nose.

Here Caterham have made a real change in philosophy and have followed the lead set by Ferrari in adopting pullrod actuated dampers on the front suspension. When McLaren took the same approach in 2013, it claimed it was simply for aerodynamic reasons, but Caterham has found that there are mechanical gains as well.

‘Because the front on the chassis had to be lower by regulation, we thought it was worth having a look at doing it,’ said Smith. ‘In aerodynamic terms we found that it is not significantly better or worse to do pushrod or pullrod, though the latter is marginally favourable, particularly with respect to the way you treat the air around the front brake ducts.

The layout has a slightly better motion ratio and there is a small improvement in terms of getting a lower centre of gravity.’

The Caterham was designed with a much larger cooling package than other Renault RS34 cars, a deliberate move by the team.

‘My brief was that we should not

be in a position where the cooling was marginal at these first four races,’ said Smith. ‘Obviously there are different demands at different circuits. But we do not want to be cutting holes in the bodywork when we get to Bahrain.

We are conservative by intent, and with the data we have got in terms of heat rejection from Renault and analysis in CFD, plus wind tunnel in terms of mass flow rate through the ducts, we believe we should be able to cool and have a little bit of a margin left.’

The difference is obvious when looking at the cars – the Caterham has very large and open sidepods, with a small additional channel in the left duct feeding cooling wire directly to internal components, while the main heat exchanger and intercooler sit at the rear of the main ducts.

Thermal management technology is also clear to see, with a ceramic coating on the rear parts of the exhaust while the manifolds leading from the cylinder heads to the turbocharger are shielded in a special thermal jacket. The more heat that can be kept inside the exhaust system, the more efficient the turbocharger and MGU-H.

LOTUS E22 Power unit Renault RS34 TECH SPEC Chassis construction Carbon fibre with aluminium honeycomb monocoque Front suspension Double wishbone, push-rod actuated torsion bar springs and dampers, anti-roll bar Rear suspension Double wishbone, pull-rod actuated torsion bar springs and dampers, anti-roll bar Transmission Paddle operated 8-speed semiautomatic Clutch Carbon multi-plate Tyres Pirelli Fronts: 245/660-13 Rears: 325/660-13 Brake system carbon ceramic discs all round Fuel system ATL Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder Electronic systems FIA SECU standard electronic control unit Engine Renault Energy F1-2014, 1.6 litre 90 degree 6-cylinder. Max rpm 15,000, 24 valves. Cylinder block in aluminium Dimensions and weight Overall length: 5088mm Overall height: 950mm, Overall width: 1800mm

W

hen the Lotus E22 was revealed in the form of a low resolution, low detail rendering on Twitter, it took many by surprise. While most teams have a single, low ‘anteater’ nose, the Lotus has a pair of tusks. This approach is not unprecedented – the Audi R15+ LMP1 had twin front impact structures.

Other technical directors have said, off the record, that they think the Lotus design is actually illegal, as they feel the rules say that the cars should only have a single impact structure. However, that is only implied in the regulations, and the rules do not actually say you cannot have twin structures.

Indeed, Caterham is developing its own version which is thought to have a wing mounted between the two structures.

The FIA has issued a technical directive to all teams asking them to prove the safety of their noses, not just pass the mandatory crash test. Teams now have to supply the FIA with details of the design and construction of the noses, specifically: ‘the cross-sectional areas of the nose, taken vertically and normal the car centre line, at points 50mm, 150mm and 300mm back from the tip of the nose itself.

The same cross-sections as above showing the construction of the parts in the relevant sections.’

If any are deemed unsafe, the car could be banned until a new design is installed.

The Renault-powered car missed the first test, and did not perform too well in the two tests that it did take part in.

‘The biggest problems are how the chassis works with the power

unit and how the energy recovery system works,’ said technical director Nick Chester. ‘So there are some inconsistencies there which are making it very difficult for the driver to predict what he is going to get when he arrives at the corner. So the system is not doing exactly the same thing every time and that is disturbing the driver and losing us a lot of time.’

Racecar Engineering understands from sources within the team that the E22 has a very clever mechanism for transmitting torque from the power unit to the transmission, which offers much greater performance than others seen by some team suppliers.

The Lotus is the only Renaultpowered car not to feature major transmission parts from Red Bull.

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TEMPLE TRIVIA

Changing gears

Cranfield University provides services to Formula 1 teams, from crash testing to personnel

By CLIVE TEMPLE

C

ranfield University has a long and successful track record of partnering with motorsport and high performance engineering companies. Many of the University’s alumni are to be found working in motorsport, including Pat Symonds, Ciaron Pilbeam, Christian Loriaux, Craig Wilson, Daniele Casanova, Mark Temple and James Vowles.

Visiting Professor Adrian Reynard heads up the Cranfield Motorsport Advisory Panel, which supports the University and its students. Aside from the MSc Advanced Motorsport Engineering, the postgraduateonly university has key facilities which underpin the work of Cranfield’s clientfocused staff. These include the FIA certified Cranfield Impact Centre, Cranfield Motorsport Simulation, wind tunnels, vehicle dynamics rigs including moment of inertia, and the dedicated off-road vehicle development centre with tyre testing, characterisation and modelling capability.

Key specialisms include:

• Structural integrity evaluation • Vehicle light-weighting, novel materials and composites

• Simulation including the supply of race car simulator technology to F1 and NASCAR

• Active and passive aerodynamics and • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) • Energy recovery systems and energy efficiency

• Carbon reduction and environmental impact including low carbon vehicles

• Powertrain development and refinement • High temperature surface engineering and coatings

• Precision and ultra precision engineering • Metrology • Tyre modelling and characterisation • Vehicle dynamics including circuit offroad • Reliability engineering and condition monitoring

• Welding and joining • The motorsport business cluster

Designing advanced structures using next generation lightweight materials is challenging, due to short development timescales and the financial investment.

In reducing inherent structural weight, it is essential not to compromise safety, as structural integrity and designing for crashworthiness become key design drivers.

Challenges include understanding how a structure or material performs over its life cycle when subject to a range of static and dynamic loading, rate dependent material behaviour, and testing. Cranfield possesses a strong, applied understanding and proven track record in relation to component/sub structure/full-scale testing and simulation, coupon level material characterisation and simulation, Finite Element Analysis and Meshless Methods, material model development (including plasticity/damage), modelling structures under extreme loading, numerical methods development and application, and structural analysis.

IN THE APRIL ISSUE OF RACECAR ENGINEERING Racecar Engineering

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Peter Wright offers his analysis of preseason Formula 1 testing Mike Coughlan’s move from Formula 1 to NASCAR and the transfer of technology Cosworth explains how to keep on top of temperatures and pressures

regulations Volvo S60 R F1 2014

Plus • Volvo’s V8 Supercar • Rebuilding the Ross Brawn-designed Jaguar XJR-14 • Ricardo Divila explains how sports car racing’s Equivalence of Technolgy will work

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Wing fundamentals The basic principles of setting up frontal aero

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TMG brings the beneďŹ ts of its experience in the highperformance world of motorsport to the wider automotive testing and development industry.

From high-tech simulation and calculation techniques to a diverse range of R&D testing options, TMG can deliver performance, efďŹ ciency and value to a variety of projects.

With expertise in the area of hardware-in-the-loop testing and advanced development processes, TMG is a pioneer in research and development.

The 30,000m² facility in Cologne, Germany covers engine, chassis and component testing via virtual and real-world testing solutions, with highly-qualifed, experienced engineers on hand to optimise every project.

As an award-winning service supplier to the automotive industry and beyond, TMG already provides bespoke solutions to several worldrenowned external companies as well as cutting-edge research for Toyota Motor Corporation.

Toyota Allee 7, Cologne, 50858, Germany | +49 2234 1823 0 | contact@toyota-motorsport.com

www.toyota-motorsport.com