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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post New FIA Formula 3 Car Unveiled for 2025 Debut appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post The Challenges of Racing on a Brand-New Track Surface appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Haas Plots Further VF-24 Upgrade for United States GP appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

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

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

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

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

Sport from design

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

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

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

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

What is structurally efficient design?

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

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

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

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

Stiffness quandary

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

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

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

Compliance target

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chasing efficiency

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

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

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

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

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

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

Material choice

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

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

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

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

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

Stress and strain

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nature’s gift

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

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

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

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

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

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

Validation time

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the future holds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Tech Explained: Structurally Efficient Design appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

McLaren’s Formula 1 charge:

NASCAR develops electric prototype:

Aussies blitz Formula Student UK:

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Brake fluid transfers the force of a driver pressing the brake pedal through to the callipers, which reduce the speed of each wheel. When the driver hits the pedal, pistons in the master cylinder compress, releasing brake fluid under pressure towards the braking system. There are several characteristics whose properties a motorsport brake fluid must sustain over a wide temperature range to ensure the brakes give consistent, predictable feedback to the driver. The main ones are boiling point, compressibility, lubricity and viscosity.

Halo By Orthene, a UK-based racecar brake fluid manufacturer that supplied this year’s LMP2 winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has helped to explain how these characteristics can be managed.

High boiling point

Brake fluid needs to have a high boiling point, otherwise it will result in vapour lock, which causes the callipers to no longer respond to the driver’s action due to the presence of a gas in the brake system. This could potentially result in a high-speed accident due to lack of deceleration.

Most racing brake fluids have a dry boiling point of at least 300degC, but there is scope to go higher. For example, Halo P1 has a dry boiling point of 341degC. This ensures the fluid can handle the high brake temperatures, which have increased across several series in recent years with the addition of heavy electric and hybrid powertrains that add stress to the brakes. Research continues regarding racecar brake fluids that can exceed the current maximums. Halo’s parent company, Orthene, once set the boiling point record at 320degC but that has since increased by more than 20degC with the P1 product.

‘I think there is potential to develop it quite substantially,’ says Daniel Stafford, chief development chemist at Halo By Orthene. ‘Cars are getting heavier, but drivers still need good pedal feel regardless of powertrain. We will have a second-generation product that will undoubtedly have a higher boiling point. But the main focus is actually on maintaining low compressibility, across the operating envelope rather than a super high boiling point.’

A higher compressibility of the brake fluid results in a spongey feel to the brakes, which is undesired in motorsport because the driver wants a firm, predictable feel of the pedal with limited travel. Inconsistency of feel can lead to less consistent lap times or mistakes. Low compressibility is an inherent property of all hydraulic fluids including the brake variety. However, compressibility increases as brakes get hotter. Halo’s Fade Resistant Technology makes the P1 brake fluid highly polar, meaning its molecules avoid sharing the same space and are therefore more resistant to compression.

Halo P1 has registered less than 8mm of piston travel at 293degC, compared with 14mm at the same temperature for another leading brand on the market.

Lubricity and viscosity

High lubricity is required to prevent wear of the braking system’s mechanical parts. Additives are implemented to ensure the fluid maintains its optimal lubricity at high temperature. Motorsport brake fluid also needs to have low viscosity, meaning the liquid needs to be kept thin. This enables it to flow smoothly through the system. Halo P1 has a kinematic viscosity of 1400 centistokes (cSt) at -40degC and 2.63cSt at 100degC.

‘With the GT3s and Hypercars, for example, there are a lot of electronic assists in the brakes now,’ says Stafford. ‘Lubricity and viscosity are playing a more important role. It’s a juggling act: you want high temperature resistance, but you want low viscosity and high lubricity.

‘We’re starting to have to juggle the performance of the products as the systems get more developed. Especially with hybrids, because you’re having to integrate electronically the braking system with the regenerative system of the motor. When you have a lot of electronic assistance working together, that puts demands on the brake system and brake fluid.’

Brake fluid is made from chemical combinations. Halo P1 is made from a type of combination called an ester, specifically containing boric acid and glycol ether. Other types are available, such as non-hygroscopic (non-water absorbing) ones based on silicone, however those are deemed to have lower lubricity than a fluid derived from a methyl borate ester such as Halo P1. A brake fluid that is hygroscopic allows water into the system, reducing compressibility over time, however motorsport brake lines are highly developed to prevent water getting into the fluid.

‘With Halo P1, that borate ester is bespoke to the product,’ explains Stafford. ‘We design and manufacture that chemical to get the high performance. You have to refine the components as high as you can. Any impurities will degrade the performance. So, to have the highest boiling point and lowest compressibility, you have to start with very pure ingredients.

‘We do that with our product, refining our ingredients first on an level. Most raw materials for brake fluids are about 90 per cent pure. We purify up to 99 per cent, which is as much as we practically can. That’s what gives the higher performance.’

Unlike the road

Racecar brake fluids are different from road car ones because they need to perform under different conditions and stresses. Everyday road car brakes won’t get anywhere near the temperature of racecar brakes, due to lower speeds and friction forces. This explains why racecar brake fluids need to retain their chemical properties at over 300degC, compared with road fluids which top out towards 260degC. The minimum operating temperature for a racecar brake fluid is around 100degC, which is enough to cover a high-performing vehicle in low ambient conditions. Road fluids, meanwhile, have a starter operating temperature of below freezing, although Halo has tested its racing products to -80degC to ensure a wide range.

‘Generally, all brake fluids have a low compressibility,’ says Stafford. ‘On the road, it’s important for modulation, but racecars take it to an extreme. The idea of a racing brake fluid is that the compressibility should remain relatively constant no matter what the temperature is.’

Additionally, road brake fluids are designed to last for multiple years, whereas racing ones are replaced at each event, so longevity is less of a concern than performance. At an endurance race like Le Mans, brake fluid gets topped up during pit stops.

Le Mans victory

This year’s Le Mans edition saw United Autosports prevail in the all-ORECA LMP2 class, winning by 18.651 seconds (a margin that equated to 0.062 seconds per lap). When such a tight margin determines such a prestigious result, it’s important that all aspects of the car perform at their peak through all stages of the race. United was using Halo P1, having been an early adopter of the new product this year. Having a brake fluid that maintains its key properties is essential at Le Mans because the track has several long straights on which the brakes cool off, followed by tight corners that demand high exertion.

‘You have longer pit stops in endurance racing where the car is stationary for one or two minutes,’ says Mike Biscoe, Halo By Orthene chief marketing officer. ‘It gets a massive amount of heat soak, goes back out onto the track and, very often, the driver will lose the brakes in the first few laps until that heat soak dissipates and they get the feel back. United Autosports reported back to us that they didn’t have that problem. They still had enough bite in the brakes to get back on it aggressively, as soon as they’re out the pits.’

It is hard to quantify exactly how much of United’s narrow winning margin came down to the brake fluid it was using. However, its contribution is likely considering how slight the difference was between first and second. It was close enough that a brake fluid less capable of dealing with the wide temperature range of a 24-hour race may not have facilitated such an edge.

The post Tech Explained: Racing Brake Fluid appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

Central to simulator testing is the simulator driver, who is typically a professional racer in their own right. Despite not being regular faces at grand prix events, they have a significant part to play in what transpires at the track. So, what does the life of an F1 simulator driver entail? We asked the Aston Martin F1 team’s Nick Yelloly, who has been virtually testing F1 cars for a decade, to find out.

How much time does the job demand?

Yelloly has been an F1 simulator driver since 2014, working for three iterations of the same team lineage: Force India, Racing Point and Aston Martin. Seven or eight years ago, he would carry out more than 70 days a year, although the number has reduced slightly since.

‘When I was racing in Carrera Cup or Supercup in Germany, I had much more spare time for it than I do nowadays,’ says the Brit. ‘Nowadays I’ll do 40 to 50 days a year.’

That is still a lot when you consider that Yelloly is also a BMW factory driver, this year competing in the nine-round IMSA SportsCar Championship and various high-profile GT races. That leads to around 20 days per year at the BMW M Motorsport simulator in Munich, in addition to track testing responsibilities. When everything is put together, it is rare for him to have more than two or three days at home during the European racing season.

Yelloly’s racing programme with BMW has priority over his F1 simulator role, but he still needs to be flexible in case Aston Martin gives him a late call-up. The F1 team has several simulator drivers to choose from in addition to main drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, such as reserve drivers Felipe Drugovich and Stoffel Vandoorne, or Aston Martin F1 junior Jak Crawford. This means there is some flexibility depending on schedules.

‘I am very flexible when I’m at home and will, at the drop of the hat, be able to go into the simulator and test things,’ says Yelloly. ‘If I’m free on a race weekend, I’ll do race support. For Hungary, we had a few new parts, and I was there until almost 2am. That tends to happen when we have new parts, because we need to extend test sessions more often. Generally, I’ll try to fit in one or two sessions a week.’

What does a simulator test consist of?

No two simulator sessions are the same, but there are certain types of session that reoccur during an F1 season.

‘It’s very dependent,’ says Yelloly. ‘You’ll have typical car performance days, sometimes you’ll have tyre development days, purely for correlation. Other times you’ll be doing pre-event work to get the basic set-ups ironed out for the race drivers before they come in. So, it’s broken up into three or four types of session.’

A standard car performance engineering session will focus on trying out new parts that have been modelled for the car. If they work as intended or bring lap time gains in the simulator, they are taken through into production.

‘Typically, it will be about trying new parts that they create in their software and modelling before we go and put them in the wind tunnel, or even CFD, to see if directionally that is correct or not,’ says Yelloly. ‘We can see if it’s bringing the tools or drivability that we may have been lacking, and creating load in the areas that we need. In F1, you need as much load as you can get without the drag. It’s quite a fine trade-off, and some configurations work better at some tracks than others. A lot of different aero and ride height scans are done between races, depending on track grip level and downforce expectations.’

Aston Martin has a core team running the simulator, supported by a larger group of staff in the performance engineering department who can request items that can be tested and signed off before going onto the real car.

How does a sim driver contribute on race weekends?

The personnel at the track constitute only a portion of an F1 team’s staff count during an F1 grand prix. An army of engineers will be watching along at the factory, processing data and returning their findings. There will also be a simulator team in constant communication with the track squad, trying out set-up options that can’t be completed in the limited practice time available.

These race weekend simulator sessions are more intense than your standard engineering or tyre runs, for there is the added pressure of an event schedule to follow. Unsociable working areas can be expected for those at base, especially if it’s a flyaway race in a remote time zone.

‘We will do some pre-emptive set-up work to predict what they may ask for at the track,’ says Yelloly. ‘Sometimes, it isn’t the direction they want to go, but it could give them extra information on ways not to go for Free Practice 2. The main running that we try and dial in, at least for performance, will be one of the first couple of runs in FP2, because that’s when most teams tend to do their performance running.

‘We’ll start working on correlation, making sure grip levels are correct, and ride height and downforce levels are aligned. Once we’ve done that, we will listen in to debriefs, driver comments and engineer thoughts. There are so many different departments in Formula 1 that it’s quite a sizeable debrief length. As that’s happening, we will start to get test requests from the track. I like to think of it as them using us as an extended test session, for stuff they couldn’t get done in FP2 or ideas they have. Each direction they would like to try, they will send to us, and we give our feedback on yes or no, in terms of balance, feeling, drivability, general lap time consistency, and whether it’s more of a qualifying set-up or race style.’

The number of requests sent to the simulator team sometimes enters double digits across the two Aston Martin AMR24s. These can cover a wide range of topics spanning aerodynamics and mechanical matters. After testing an item or set-up option, the simulator team will relay their findings to the track team.

‘At that point, they either say it’s fine, or they can send more options if they are looking into more specific areas,’ says Yelloly, who acknowledges that pressure is high on the simulator team in these scenarios.

‘It can be quite tough,’ he adds. ‘We are structured in time limits, as to when they get their test requests across. After that, we usually don’t get out of the simulator until we’re done. At Hungary, it was three or four hours constantly doing laps. No matter what time it gets to, you’re going to struggle! Luckily the 24-hour race weekends that I’ve done plenty of seem to help with that.’

As professional racers, all simulator drivers are physically fit, but that doesn’t mean it’s not tough.

‘In a simulator you haven’t got adrenaline, which keeps you going in a racecar,’ notes Yelloly. ‘So you have to just be able to run on fumes, which you do at the end of a 24-hour race. I actually think my simulator work in the early days probably helped me with my endurance career, to start with. And then it’s helped full circle.’

Does a sim driver need a particular driving style?

Adaptability is the key word. F1 race drivers usually conduct several hours of simulator testing to prepare for a grand prix, yet there is still a need for dedicated sim drivers to go through the full mountain of items that a team needs to test. Simulator drivers must be able to mimic the driving style of the race drivers, to ensure their findings about a particular part or set-up will correlate with the real-world experience. If they can’t mimic those very detailed, individual actions, there is a danger their feedback could lead the trackside engineers down the wrong path.

‘It’s something that I learnt to do quite early on,’ says Yelloly. ‘Even the different gear usages: some people may attack the corners more and not worry about the exit much, and vice versa. Also, different lines and corner radii that each driver takes, I have to adapt to them. How I do it, is I go about my normal driving, and then I’ll ask if this is the correct [approach] to Alonso or Stroll. [The engineer] will give me feedback – “you need to carry in more speed or turn in a bit later” – and I’ll be able to fix it and mimic what they were doing. When you first start copying someone else, it’s a bit unusual and different. But now I’m at the stage where it’s relatively comfortable. Having worked with them for a few years, you know how to go about it.’

Do they ever get to drive a real F1 car?

Yes, and Yelloly has done. In fact, it’s necessary for the driver’s understanding between what is being experienced at the track, and what he feels during his many hours in the sim. This is especially important when F1 goes through technical regulation overhauls, as it did between the 2021 and 2022 seasons and will do again in 2026.

‘[A real-world test] usually tends to occur once there’s been a rule change,’ says Yelloly. ‘The first time I drove was in 2016, then it was 2019 when we had the bigger tyres and more downforce. And again, a few weeks ago in a PR day, they had me driving the ground effect car, just to have an idea of how it feels inside the cockpit and how it reacts. We also have bigger rims now than when I last drove an F1 car.’

How accurate are current F1 simulators?

The lack of real-world F1 testing nowadays has placed heavy emphasis on teams purchasing and developing the most accurate simulator possible. It is one of those unseen battlegrounds away from the track: investing in simulators is worth it because a better simulator should give more precise feedback on car characteristics that translate to good engineering decisions.

The term ‘latency’ is often used to describe simulator performance. This is the delay between something happening in the virtual environment and the driver being able to recognise that it is happening. Top-of-the-range simulators today boast latency of around 3-5 milliseconds.

‘Every simulator will have some subtle form of latency, whether that’s from the platform or tyre model behaviour,’ explains Yelloly. ‘When we had our current simulator installed, we did a lot of work on trying to minimise that and getting the car feel correct, in terms of how it slides, what type of slide it is and how fast the car or tyre recovers. Then, [F1] changed the style of the car to ground effect and a different tyre. So, we had to do a different step to make this closer again, which we’ve managed to do.’

Yelloly has driven multiple high-grade simulators, including the F1 rigs at Mercedes and Williams, and says the current Aston Martin one is at ‘a very good level’. The team has a new sim on the horizon, as it gradually equips its state-of-the-art new factory at Silverstone.

‘We have a great simulator team at Aston Martin that are constantly trying to improve things and looking for the next step forward, whether it’s immersion or how the simulator moves,’ says Yelloly. ‘There are so many different modelling, software and hardware tools that you can use to gain all these little feelings for the drivers. It’s cool and exciting to be a part of.’

How involved is the sim driver in a team’s season?

Although simulator drivers rarely attend F1 races – Yelloly says he’s only been two or three times – that doesn’t mean they are detached from the team’s progress throughout a campaign. It’s not simply a case of the driver being given parts to blindly test before the engineers take their feedback and squirrel away to make changes for the real car.

‘I feel quite involved, if I’m honest,’ says Yelloly. ‘I’m definitely not a face at the circuit. But, if I go in on the Monday, I will have usually worked the Friday, so I will know what items we were trying to get correct into qualifying. I’ll then have quite detailed reports when I’m back at the factory on how things went, driver comments, and how we went about trying to fix them from an engineering point of view.

‘Then, we will correlate the Saturday and Sunday, usually on the Monday, to make sure we are fully up to speed on what we are doing. And then we will try to progress to the next circuit…’

In the world of F1 where teams are constantly developing upgrades to improve performance, there is never a shortage of work on the simulator side. It is a vital process to validate the bright ideas from engineers before they are applied at the track.

Header image courtesy of Mercedes

The post Inside the Role of an F1 Simulator Driver appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The British company, which acquired Avon’s residual stock after the brand was shut down, purchased the existing Camac Pneus production site located on the banks of the Ave river and is undergoing a major refurbishment to turn it into a ‘new European centre of tyre manufacturing excellence’.

The site, situated between the cities Porto and Braga, will enable Nova to resume production of new Avon Motorsport products and develop new racing tyres for the future.

Over 200 trucks have been used to transfer the tyre manufacturing equipment from Avon’s previous headquarters in Melksham, UK, to the new site in Portugal. The Melksham site was auctioned off by Avon’s parent company, Goodyear, in February but the buyer remains undisclosed. Nova was set up by former Avon employees and has launched a recruitment drive for its European manufacturing programme.

‘The creation of Nova Motorsport’s new European centre of tyre manufacturing excellence represents a crucial strategic step for the imminent resumption of production of legendary Avon Motorsport tyre products,’ said Nova Motorsport chief technical officer, Mike Lynch.

‘Integrating Nova Motorsport’s engineering and design resources into the Camac facility has significantly enhanced the site’s manufacturing capabilities. The upgraded labs and NDT (Non-Destructive Testing) facilities will elevate product quality and performance, significantly benefiting both Avon Motorsport and existing Camac products.’

Nova plans to start production of its historic and rallycross Avon tyres in early August, using track and in-house rig testing as part of the process. The company has stated that it is ‘on track’ to start full-scale production of the Avon CR6ZZ, Avon ACB9, Nova autocross and some rallycross products in the fourth quarter of this year. Other tyres, such as the Avon ACB10, Avon hill climb products and several historic competition ranges, will be manufactured in early 2025.

‘The hard work and rapid advancements made by the Nova Motorsport and Camac teams bear testament to our determination to establish a world-leading centre of tyre manufacturing excellence in Europe, supported by our Global Technical Centre and HQ in Holt, England,’ said James Weekley, Nova Motorsport Commercial Director.

‘However, this is only the beginning of the Nova Motorsport journey. Our next goal is to produce the first Avon Motorsport products in Portugal, marking a new chapter in our commitment to delivering high-performance tyres for the motorsport industry, and we remain firmly on track to achieve that.’

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TC Lite will consist of two tiers – TCL4 and TCL5 – whose cars will be built to the same parameters as existing Rally4 and Rally5 machinery. This could open the door for manufacturers to build one car that that is easily adaptable for both circuit and rallying applications, saving on the need for separate development programmes. Current Rally4 cars include the Peugeot 208, Ford Fiesta, Opel Corsa and Renault Clio.

The main Rally4 and Rally5 regulations will remain unchanged, but an appendix will detail the modifications that can make a car eligible for each stage of TC Lite. The new two-part touring car platform will sit beneath TCR in the global touring car hierarchy.

The FIA has stated that adaptations for TC Lite will be ‘kept to a minimum’ for cost control reasons, while competitors will be provided a ‘level playing field’ that has not yet been fully defined. The minimum weight of cars will be adjusted to factor in the removal of specialist rally equipment such as spare wheels, handheld fire extinguishers and other tools.

TC Lite cars will require the use of safety netting around the driver. The co-driver’s seat may be retained or replaced with equivalent ballast. Cars will use slick racing tyres, rather than the treaded tyres required for rallying.

‘Introducing a pyramid structure to touring car racing is something that has been our aim for quite a while,’ said FIA Touring Car Commission president Alan Gow. ‘TCR is a proven customer racing platform that works well both in national-level series and in world-level touring car racing. However, we have been missing an accessible entry-level platform. The introduction of the TC Lite ruleset fills that gap.

‘Having the very same cars in rallying and touring car racing has plenty of benefits – it is cost-effective, sustainable, provides the competitors with a level playing field and creates opportunities for more available seat time. At the same time, the manufacturers and their customer racing programmes will be able to grow their business as the market of these cars will naturally broaden.’

TCL4 will sit above TCL5 in the touring car pyramid. The quicker cars will have a power-to-weight ratio of approximately 5.1kg/bhp while the TCL5s will produce around 6kg/bhp. Both categories permit both naturally aspirated and turbocharged engines. TCL4 will allow up to 2-litre NA and 1.3-litre turbos, while TCL5 cars will be 1.6-litre NA and 1.3-litre turbo. Both types of car will shift through a sequential gearbox.

‘The bottom tiers of the FIA Rally Pyramid have proven to be excellent entry-level classes in rallying, therefore broadening the use of these cars and making them compatible with circuit racing makes a lot of sense,’ said FIA Road Sport president Andrew Wheatley. ‘This is a bit like in the group N days when you would sometimes see the same front-wheel-drive cars taking part in different disciplines.

‘This is also good news for drivers at the early stages of their careers who, to develop their skills, look for as much time behind the wheel as possible. Having one car eligible for different types of events offers exactly that. A universal technical platform like this one also has the potential to draw new people to motor sport and – long term – should contribute to increased motor sport participation globally.’

In addition to sharing regulations with Rally5, the TCL5 touring car platform will be open to Rally5-kit cars. This enables National Sporting Authorities to approve cars that have been developed by local tuners. According to the FIA, this will ‘broaden the market’ by allowing local importers to promote certain car models in their domestic market.

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