Race Car Design

Product Information

The first is that the reduced tendency to stall might produce a car that is more predictable to drive. And the more predictable a car is, the greater the driver's confidence.

The manipulation of air around a car is the single biggest performance differentiator in F1 - and collectively the teams employ hundreds of people and spend many millions of pounds on refining it to find that crucial extra bit of speed. The development of new components are generally timed, such as to not cause any logistics problem. For example, in Formula 1, the development of a new bodywork is arranged so to not coincide with a ‘flyaway’ race (a race run outside of Europe). Generally, there are limitations on the number of parts that will receive new development, since the factory can manufacture a limited amount of parts. Hence, the engineers must weigh up the magnitude of the possible gain against the practical difficulty of achieving it. A decade ago, Saward was project manager on the Furai programme, creating the beautiful concept car that met a fiery end during a magazine test. There are hints of its swoopy lines, too, in the new DPi. The unsprung mass of the vehicle when in motion is both rotational (in the case of wheel assembly) and translational. It is the inherent inertias of these components which we need to watch out for. A high inertia requires relatively large amounts of energy transfer to accelerate and decelerate, affecting the response of the system. As you saw in the tyre dynamics article, grip levels increase with vertical loads, but the CoF falls, so in the end, this means that the grip gained by the outside wheels is less than the grip lost by the inside wheels – overall lateral acceleration suffers.

Engineering Considerations

One of those competitors, Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR), has designed and manufactured a moulded carbon fibre monocoque for its 2021 Formula Student car. According to OBR Team Leader Alejandro Garcia, the team believes, ‘Designing the monocoque from moulded carbon fibre will broaden the team members’ knowledge and develop versatile graduates who can excel in high-performance racing teams.’ OBR 2021 car foam moulds The Ferrari approach is more loaded in the middle of the wing and quite unloaded at the tips - on the wing, you can see that the highest point of the flaps is at their inside edge, and they slope downwards towards the outside of the car.

This churning, turbulent air is a bit like the wake you might see behind a boat, and it's a problem for aerodynamicists because it's difficult to generate downforce from. The messier the airflow, the harder it is for us to make it do what we want. For the car to perform at its optimum, it is important to have a good balance between how much the car pushes down on the front wheels, and how much it pushes down at the rear. I can't tell you my name, or where I work, because my team would not want me to be doing this. F1 is a secretive world. So let's just call me The Secret Aerodynamicist.

F1 Technical Gallery

During the detailed design, analytical tools are available to the designer. Useful programs may be made in-house requiring almost zero computational resources. This can be used to determine suspension geometry and stiffness; simples stress analysis and performance simulations. Designing your own vehicle, even if you don’t build it, can be a very rewarding experience. You’ll learn a lot about how cars work and if you do build it, you’ll be part of a select group of people who’ve taken on the challenge of building their dream. The way they have done this is to reduce the freedom to design parts that manipulate the airflow. This would have cost downforce at the front of the car, so they also made the front wings 20cm wider to make up for that. The design options available can cater anywhere from just a 'Side' view, all the way up to a complete all round design that includes both sides, front, rear and plan views to cover all possible perspectives of the vehicle livery design.

On the side view sketch, front and rear axle centrelines are drawn together with the ground line and the undertray line, thus defining the ground clearance of the car. On the top view, a rough estimation of the location of major components such as engine, gearbox, fuel, water and oil tanks, radiators, seats, and minor components, such as pedals, gear lever, pipes an throttle cable is made. Those names refer to the point on the front wing on which the most downforce is exerted, and consequently where the airflow is being directed. For racing cars, the objectives are much more oriented toward pure performance. The primary objectives of most race cars or performance cars are: Generally, on circuit racing cars, locating heavy powertrain components close to the centre of mass is standard practice to keep the yaw inertia as low as possible. The detailed design process includes constant solution proposal to specific problems and analysis of these solutions. These efforts should be run in parallel, since data from one is required to conclude the other. The proposal of new solutions might follow the engineering design process, which consists of the following steps:Many books are available concerning the design process itself. However, only a few have a thorough analysis of the steps involved in the process. Among these, I found these particularly useful: At this stage, the design team should look at the constraints imposed on the vehicle. The constraints are the practical limits within which the team should work on. The primary constraints should be the category technical and sports regulations. The designer must be completely aware of these rules and the limitations imposed by them. Also, it might be the case that costs and work force restrictions are imposed either by regulations, or by a limited budget. One good example is the 2-week shutdown that occurs in Formula 1, due to an agreement done by Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) intended to reduce the costs of running a competitive team. I am one of the people who does that. I am a senior aerodynamicist for an F1 team and I hope to try to explain to you some of the secrets behind F1 cars. How does the F1 car do this? Part of it is an engine that produces close to 1,000bhp. But the difference in lap time is mainly made up of the F1 car's cornering abilities. And the main reason for them is aerodynamics. To get started, OBR produced some preliminary designs as CAD models to generate essential data to meet design parameters, including mass and predicted stiffness. The team put initial design and research information into a criteria-based decision-making system called a Pugh matrix. That allowed the team to attribute numerical values to design elements and determine the best solution for its Formula Student car chassis — the result: moulded carbon fibre monocoque.

The inertia of the chassis is crucial in roll and pitch responses, and it’s also an essential influence in the yaw response of the chassis. The idea of considering the vehicle’s mass as concentrated at the CoM is an excellent assumption in many static cases. Still, it doesn’t account for the distribution of that mass within the chassis and dynamic instances. Once you choose the type of vehicle you’re interested in, it’s time to begin thinking about how your vehicle is going to look, perform and cost. Vision/Concept Two of the new Mazdas, which share a chassis with the Riley MkXXX LMP2, were joined on the grid for the Daytona 24 Hours at the end of January by three Cadillac DPi-V.Rs, which are built on Dallara LMP2 chassis.Almost every objective you can dream up will relate to performance, cost, safety or aesthetics. Regardless of how important you believe an objective to be, it should be included for your consideration as it is in the details that a good design becomes great. Sanctioning Body Regulations