Ricardo Divila: Straight talk

A selection of columns from Racecar Engineering magazine by the legendary motorsport designer and engineer

A tribute to Ricardo Divila (1945-2020) RICARDO DIVILA – A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Comms lesson

PIT CREW here was something quite extraordinary about Editor Ricardo Divila. A world-renowned engineer with Andrew Cotton @RacecarEd a career that spanned six decades, his racing Deputy editor life began washing the wheels of Juan Manuel Gemma Hatton @RacecarEngineer TFangio in his native Brazil and continued through all walks Chief sub editor of motor racing, most famously in F1 where he was involved Mike Pye Art editor in 286 Grand Prix to this year when he was set to oversee Barbara Stanley the Brazilian series, complete the design of his Technical consultant Peter Wright own ‘Formulina’, a cost-eff ective F4 and oversee the Contributors engineers employed at Bob Neville’s RJN squad in the GT Ricardo Divila World series. He never tired of taking on new projects and Photography James Moy only lamented that he didn’t have the time to do what he Managing director – sales and create wanted. He once decided that he needed a 36 hour watch as his Steve Ross Tel +44 (0) 20 7349 3730 Email [email protected] 24 hour clock wasn’t doing the job that he required from it. Sales director His CV included racing 99 Formula 3000 races, 47 in Formula Cameron Hay Tel +44 (0) 20 7349 3700 Email cameron.hay@ Nippon where his team and driver were champion for fi ve chelseamagazines.com consecutive years, 25 Indycar races including 2009 with Alex Advertisement manager Lauren Mills Tel +44 (0) 20 7349 3796 Tagliani at the Indy 500, 98 Formula 2 races and 45 in Formula 3. Email lauren.mills@ chelseamagazines.com He also did 97 races and was a team member on the Circulation manager Daniel Webb Paris Dakar fi ve times. However, the one thing missing from his CV Tel +44 (0) 20 7349 3710 Email daniel.webb@ that he wanted more than any other was an overall win at Le Mans. chelseamagazines.com In 31 attempts he won his class 16 times, and had fi ve second place Publisher Simon Temlett fi nishes and two further podium fi nishes. Other targets included Managing director Paul Dobson Editorial and advertising winning the Indy 500, the Dakar rally and competing in NASCAR. Racecar Engineering, Chelsea Magazine Company, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, What was also extraordinary was his ability to communicate that London, SW3 3TQ information in the written word. His columns were run past several Tel +44 (0) 20 7349 3700 Fax +44 (0) 20 7349 3701 of his contemporaries before we were able to publish them and he was Subscriptions quite proud of most of them. Some were written on a pit wall mid-race, Tel: +44 (0)1858 438443 Email: racecarengineering@ others from his offi ce in and some were from airport lounges. subscription.co.uk Online: www.subscription.co.uk/ He worried about the topics being fresh after nearly eight years, but chelsea/help never concerned himself that they would not be readable, or funny. That Post: Racecar Engineering, Subscriptions Department, Sovereign Park, Lathkill St, part of it just came naturally to him and it was always a pleasure to receive Market Harborough, Leicestershire, them, if for no other reason than they arrived on deadline day. I can only , LE16 9EF Subscription rates imagine that his computers are worn out to the point of destruction as UK (12 issues) £89 I often pictured them heaving a sigh of relief that another frenetic night ROW (12 issues) £100 [email protected] was over for them. Back Issues www.chelseamagazines.com/shop At Racecar Engineering we were honoured to have him as our News distribution columnist. Here Deputy Editor Gemma Hatton and I have brought Seymour International Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT together our favourite columns. He was a fan Tel +44 (0) 20 7429 4000 of open-source learning and so we put this Fax +44 (0) 20 7429 4001 Email [email protected] together purely for your enjoyment. We also Printed by William Gibbons have included his famous Bullshit Bingo for any Printed in ISSN No 0961-1096 race engineer who tired of the usual excuses USPS No 007-969 in post-session debrief. We will miss him, but are grateful for his incredible contributions to Racecar Engineering.

ANDREW COTTON Editor www.racecar-engineering.com

I imagine that his computers are worn to the point of destruction STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Where there’s hope… Our new columnist laments the old engineer and champions the new

n the course of the racing pointing out that the lambda with Carrol Shelby on the Cobras a huge amount of information, weekend at Monza I was sensors were miscalibrated, and to Stock with Holman and analysis and simulation into the booked into the legendary nobody is at fault as they are Moody to winning Indy with game, and the new generation IHotel Fossati at Canonica such sensitive items and prone to Gurney and endurance racing at of engineers brings to the track Lambro, which was the hotel fits of sulking. Fellow engineers Le Mans with the Fords. And he’s a plethora of shining tools. Yet to stay in if you were a racing will, of course, back such tech- still building parts for racecars, the essential one has always driver in the ’60s and ’70s. As speak as they recognise the at a youthful 91 years of age. A been there and remains – the you walk into the lobby, the walls usefulness of the ploy. legend in motor racing, and long curiosity about how things work, are covered with signed pictures Walk down a pit lane now may he wave. are built and used, and how it can of all the name drivers of that and you will see the peripatetic And one cannot move away be improved. period. A high percentage are engineer hunched over a laptop from this subject without tipping Delving into an interesting not with us any more – the cost (the breed is know to have one’s hat to the 24 Hours of Le mechanical (and increasingly of racing in those days – but it anxiety attacks when separated Mans-winning Audi’s engineer, electrical) concept from any set me thinking about the racing from said laptops), but it was not Lena Gade – a woman showing field always seems to turn up a crews that also stayed there, always like that. that the other half of mankind possible utilisation in a racecar, building and maintaining the cars and the great thing about the the celebrated drivers raced. technological advances of the Without the anonymous “Whatever happens, one must last century is that it happened in unrecorded builders, engineers all sectors. Even drivers are now and mechanics, none of the look and sound in control” computer literate and can spend drivers would have achieved more time on data plots than the what they did, and the same Whilst at Daniel Sexton (er, yes, non-PC, but one refuses engineers. I am flabbergasted. goes for racing nowadays. One Gurney’s AAR workshop in to use ‘personkind’. Age hath its Perhaps there is hope for can comment on them in a Santa Ana, I had the honour privileges) can do a better job humanity after all. detached way, despite being to see one of the icons of the than the usual suspects. Having just come to the a member of that class for far trade – Phil ‘Rem’ Remington, In short, one does not staggering realisation that my longer than is decent. And one the embodiment of the breed, at believe the new generation time is up, I leave you with also has a sense of humour, work. Rem designs, builds and is as skilled with its hands as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s quote, which explains the longevity. runs cars, and has done for a their predecessors, but that ‘Easy reading is damn hard The role of the racing very long time, from the dry also shows the evolution in the writing.’ Cheered by the thought engineer has evolved enormously running in the ’30s to technology. That CPU in the that if the dictionary is full of over the last century. Initially, an being with the Lance Reventlow laptop has revolutionised the words, one will just have to pick engineer, in the English definition F1 at Monaco, to working work environment and brought the right ones. of the word, was a person trained and skilled in the design, construction and use of engines or machines, or in any of various branches of engineering. If one runs a car, one can also throw in some unmentioned items such as child psychologist (useful for handling drivers), spin doctor (good for manufacturing excuses for lack of car’s performance) and, of course, adopting the Swan Posture – better explained as looking calm, serene and regal, despite the little feet paddling away like mad to sort out the problem without alarming the drivers – a very susceptible genus – team or team owners. Whatever happens, one must look and sound in control. The fact that one can shelter behind tech-speak helps enormously, as nobody will contest phrases Phil ‘Rem’ Remington worked on the Scarab Formula 1 car, and is still building parts for race cars today, aged 91

from June 2012 • www.racecar-engineering.com

REV22N6_Divila column-mpac.indd 5 30/04/2012 13:36 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Let battle commence An engineer’s eye view of the Le Mans experience

onday morning with Le Also sundry earnest meetings enabling crew to finish early and steering / cooling / tyre has a Mans hangover brings with team managers and drivers get the rest needed for the very problem spotted by driver or seen forward all the clichés (‘we want you to go fast, but long weekend, as warm-up starts on telemetry, or the vision of car Mfor a column title… don’t fall off, don’t hit the kerbs on the Saturday at 9am. in replay bouncing off a wall / ‘The longest night’, ‘A hard day’s and don’t hit other cars’); tyre Note the use of the Armco / other car means it will be night’ and, of course, ‘Good suppliers (‘we want softer /harder conjunction if here. Sometimes arriving back at pit soon. vibrations,’ if you were running a / longer lasting / more’); engine the overspill from having had a The erstwhile snoozing flat-crank V8. builders (‘we need more power shunt (us, this year) or engine mechanics leap to the pit lane, It doesn’t need superlatives / less fuel consumption / more blow up (also us, this year) galvanised, dragging balaclavas because it is what it is. Let the low-end torque), then endless will make Thursday night run helmets, gloves and goggles on, sprint racing single seaters have standard pit stop practices, plus into Friday morning and, in the while engineers huddle at the their two hours of racing and the esoteric ones, changing noses, ripeness of time, run into Saturday telemetry screen trying to fathom maximum 305km length, that’s bodywork and rear wings. morning, adding 48 further what needs to be done, or peering wimp’s stuff. Endurance racing is All this whizzes by very fast, hours to the 24 hours previously at the TV screens to ascertain what it says on the package – 24 and soon we find ourselves in budgeted. what body damage the car has. If hours, 5600km, and if it breaks or Wednesday’s practice session. The three-hour wait on the so, the gaggle of team VIPs and gets broken, it gets rebuilt damn This is when you find out if all the grid before the chariot has a sponsors get trampled in the rush fast and goes out again. to collect nose / splitter / spare I can wax lyrical about the tyres. Women and children first? sheer beauty of cars pounding “always, like fishermen’s tales, On the Titanic maybe, but not in a around, falling to bits, encounters racing pit. with other drivers, being rebuilt slightly exaggerated” In a remarkably short time in an astonishing short time and by the clock, but an eternity in launched again into the fray. If poring over data from previous chance to do a final run, coming perception, the car is out and you are lucky, the weather will be weeks’ test brings proper results though the pits to top up fuel calm reigns again. Rinse, repeat late Spring balmy, and the cherry or have reverse engineered the and send it around to grid to for ‘n’ hours and there we have on the cake, a full moon to light up car to unwittingly make it slower. stew for another 40 minutes, is it. The worst case is the lame the arena. Proceedings become even spent anxiously looking at clouds, duck car that gets repaired, drags If you are even luckier, your more earnest as the next session checking wind speeds and peering itself around for a while, then has chosen team will breeze through, involves qualifying all your at radar screens to see if rain another pit call, rather like the doing routine stops – fuel, fuel, drivers, plus trying to set a banker is coming. zombie that can’t be killed. In this fuel, fuel, tyre and driver – and time before it’s too dark in case The start at 3pm is a welcome case, having a stake in the back eventually arrive at the flag, a the weather turns sour for the relief to the crew. If all goes well, of the pits to plunge through its bit dirty and in an useful placing, Thursday qualifier. As a lap of Le it means they will have the first heart can be solace for the team. with crew members looking like Mans is worth 3m30s, it eats up break in a week to catch up with Wandering out behind the pits the Red Baron after a Fokker 55 minutes of your two hours sleep, eating and finally seeing to indulge in a tobacco addiction Dreidecker flight, wearing that just for that. the car operate as it should, as it and topping up the caffeine level faraway look one gets after a Qualifying ends at midnight, will then settle into the pattern mid-race gives the opportunity to 36-hour adrenaline burst. but then driver debriefs, job lists of doing 50-minute stints. And, see members of the opposition Sunday scrutineering is a and checking data takes you if all remains well, it will then be and exchange terse bits of hallowed tradition, held in the to 1.30am, so one’s sleeping pounced upon for a frenzied 50 information re: their problems so centre of town. The cars used to patterns take a beating, especially seconds whilst tyres are changed far – always, like fishermen’s tales, be driven on public roads to the with an 8am start for the second every four stints, windscreen slightly exaggerated. Parc des Jacobins, but today it day of qualifying. cleaned and car topped up with And so, beaten by column involves a somewhat inconvenient If you have prepared fuel for another stint. length, one must bid fond adieu, half day of lugging cars onto conveniently, all running gear, race The pattern is broken every condensing another year of no transporters. suspensions, engine and gearbox now and then by the sudden sleep, adrenaline overdosing Tuesday is a day spent to the have been pre-shaken down, and warning on radio that all is and far too many cigarettes soundtrack of grinders and bone will be fitted on the Friday break, not well, as engine / gearbox / and coffee, with little to show cutters chomping at carbon due for it except a car that took the to the teams finishing off spare A pit stop at Le Mans, and Divila (third from left) sees his plan come unstuck flag unclassified due to a major bodywork, (several sets of it, as mid-race rebuild and, finally, the punctured tyres on that special engine coughing up blood, four Le Mans gravel, other cars being kilos of weight lost (the silver attracted to one’s car, plus sleep- lining in the dark cloud) and still a deprived drivers not keeping it lactic acid hangover a week after. between the white lines will use Will I be back next year to do up most of what you prepared). it all again? Damn yes!

from August 2012

REV22N8_Ricardo Divila-mpAC.indd 5 02/07/2012 09:11 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA The generation game Data data everywhere, and not a thought to think…

he number of people and aero restrictions, the frangible and cars in the world is tyre policy and engine restrictions, Tincreasing, without an but only a churl would carp.) infrastructure to cope. With this in But even this is dependent mind, let’s start this month with on a growing, or at least stable, some random facts… viewing public. It works for other 1. The automobile is part sports like football, but motor of life. More than 1 billion cars racing, apart from F1, does not circulate, and trends suggest have the visceral pull of national that number will double by 2020. or regional totemism and athlete The European manufacturing character to keep the attention and servicing industry employs of the public. more than 12m people, 6% of the The other inconvenient truth working population. is that any form of motor racing In the US, it consists of 4.5%, is expensive, partly due to the or 8m jobs. Sixty million cars specialisation of the equipment, were added to the world fleet and the ancillary costs. Gone are in 2011, in the middle of a the days of driving your racing car worldwide recession. The to the track and having at it. majority of growth is in Asia, So all other racing is Latin America and Africa. withering on the vine apart 2. The average mileage of an for niches for the gentleman automobile worldwide has been driver in championships that decreasing in most first world have full paddocks and empty countries, despite the fact that The future of motor racing is to become unrecognisable due to social change grandstands. The proliferation 70% of all trips are made in cars. of single-make championships A recession and increasing fuel 6. This year, Nevada’s And point 6 means that, long in the name of cost reduction prices have their role to play, but Department of Motor Vehicles term, eventually driving will be or ROI for the sponsor (usually the trend is there, and shows a car issued the first licence for a a skill set that involves no fast a manufacturer) is equitable for saturation in the G20. self-driven car – a Toyota Prius driving on the limit. the competitors, but rather boring 3. More people now live in using Google’s experimental Motor racing caters to, and for the spectators, who have, not towns than in the countryside. In driverless technology, and this interests, a demographic which unsurprisingly, voted with their fact, since 2009 urban population week California allowed self- is ageing, and seems to be a remote controls. accounted for more than half of drive cars to circulate, with the peculiarly western cultural habit. There will still be a demand total global population, up from addendum saying it requires the The growth of it outside the OECD for what is a growing segment. 33% in 1960. department to adopt regulations does not match the population X-Games, drifting, monster-trucks. In the growing world, more cars covering driverless vehicles at and income growth it should have. WWF brought to the track, a come into circulation than roads least by January 2015. Formula 1 still has the rarity rather Circus Maximus approach to are built for them. I expect the 7. Due to points 2, 3, 4 and 5, value, and has the near monopoly motorsport. Extreme personalities, world will end not with a sigh or a we have a generation of of TV exposure, whereas in celebrities and the white and whimper, but with a traffic jam. individuals that prizes flexibility, entertainment you need a black hat guys so the crowd can 4. Urban planning has, since information, gadgets, a generation dramatic device: a narrative arc cheer and groan. Showbusiness, the 1930s, catered for cars, that prefers to have a social life, creating conflict and resolving it, catering to the ratings. but the trend today is towards and stay connected, that wants personalities (when not diluted Fear not for the future, infrastructure and mass transport, green transport and convenience, by the handlers that make most weep not for the past. The old bus and cycle lanes. The pool that doesn’t need cars as status young drivers cookie clones – only generation will still tell tales of of cars in America already symbols, that lives another life the world champions end up how it was in the golden age, outnumbers the licensed drivers, style, and to whom a car is just able to act out their characters.), and the new one will get on with and these drivers are from an another means of transport. They, traditions, minutiae of tactics their lives and interests, and increasingly old age group. like me, look at a one and a half and innovation (some artificial, there will still be, on some track 5. I was born in a world of ton lump of metal carrying 80kg of the current era of ‘great racing’ somewhere, a group of people 2.4bn people. Today we have flesh as waste. is down to artificial factors – DRS earnestly fiddling with batteries, 7.2bn. In 2030 we are predicted trying to go faster than the to have over 8bn. By the middle of “Racing outside F1 is withering opposition. (If the sole purpose the 21st century, it is estimated of life was to be rational, we that the urban population will on the vine, apart from niches would have banned golf years more than double, increasing from ago). It will be motor racing, but 2.5bn in 2009 to almost 5.2bn. for the gentleman driver” not as we knew it.

from December 2012 • www.racecar-engineering.com

Davila Dec-sgAC.indd 5 15/10/2012 10:40 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA It’s all a matter of time Massive in racing. See also: that which flies by as deadlines approach

ime has been described and calipers from Lockheed, add as that which avoids , stir. Voila! One F1 car… Teverything happening at Likewise, coming back to once (although sometimes I feel it the time theme, design and has failed, looking at my development are not the schedule), but it is also intrinsic punctuation at the end of the to motor racing. season, but a never-ending It is famously used to continuous affair, as in the Bard’s determine one’s grid position, words: ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, as in the result of qualifying and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty performance. It always amuses pace from day to day.’ me to see the report of a boring The driver’s side, however, race, when the pole-sitter is being reduced more and more disappears into the distance. by the reduction of testing time, What did you expect? in the name of the great god The smallest unit of time in Mammon, also known as money. this universe is 10-43 secs (Planck In all formulae, track time and time, equivalent to how long it tyres available make experience takes for a blonde to notice an a valuable commodity, and the unmarried billionaire). This arrival of new drivers from the is somewhat smaller than the yearly crop of youngsters leave units we use in racing, which them on the shores while the F1 are several orders of magnitude ship sails away, with the hoary bigger: one 1000th of a second Time is a fundamental part of daily life, and more importantly, racing usual crowd of veterans. As they (although NASCAR and Indy have are not culled by accidents, as now graduated to one 10,000th difference in performance, diverse form, F1 with wide noses, one Bernard Ecclestone once said, of a second, to cater for the but not so big as to cause the tea-tray wings, six wheels, short they will stay on as long as they closeness of racing. team manager to exclaim ‘O wheelbase, long wheelbase etc. produce acceptable lap times. So The unit used can be put aching time! O moments big as Fundamentally it was the much for the selection of the best. in perspective by noting the years!’ as Keats quoted in time on the bottom of the pit Time itself in racing is quite biblical three score and 10 years Hyperion: A Fragment. board being waved at the driver elastic, and in the preparation allotted to the life length can be If measured over the entire which defined the time he had and design phase seems to rush notated as 2.1 gigaseconds, and race distance of 300km, a one to achieve, and then the driver along to the point that it should the life of the universe can be put second difference is equivalent to did make a difference, or the cars have a large red note: ‘Warning – at 430 petaseconds (1015 sec). 0.0189 per cent in distance. If 10 were so bad that putting it on the dates in calendar are closer than Le Mans, on the other hand, only seconds behind, it is less than grid was a measure of how close they appear!’ lasts 86.4 kiloseconds. two-tenths of one per cent. to the edge he was prepared to But then those last couple It is famously used to denote Gives a different perspective go – to go faster than the number of laps before the flag when the advantage of one car to on winning, eh? Also in defining shown on said board. you are leading trickle along another, by giving the difference the difference between a good These parameters are so fixed with the speed of molasses at between the winner and second car and an also-ran, not that now, that cars usually line up side- sub-zero temperatures. Relativity place, but one could also give much, and certainly not enough by-side, being locked into their at its best. the difference in inches, or for the tifoso to elevate or performance levels, and the grid is Which explains why life in the metres, or centimetres. On a lap denigrate a given car. used more to judge between team fast-lane gets a bit confusing average of 205kph, a one second One of the things that amused mates performance, proof further sometimes. Something to do advantage is equivalent to 52m me in days of yore was to see the that the car is now more important with time slowing down with (although strictly speaking the lap times during qualifying for a than the driver. It demands a speed, as you whizz by different vehicle is probably faster on the GP, with times falling until the whole lot more research and time zones, that zombie feel straight past the finishing line, chequered flag, but at the sharp design, by an army of engineers, from continuous jet-lag, that say 270kph, wherefore the end of the grid cars would be and a supply chain far bigger than whoosh of deadlines flying by, the distance will be roughly 72.22 separated by a few hundredths. the halcyon days of one DFV, one postponing of essential tasks… recurring meters, but we won’t be This with cars in their most gearbox, a set of discs being a procrastinator is the belief pedantic about it.) that if something is done at A 10th at the start finish line “Planck time is equivalent to the last minute, means it can be is equivalent to 7.2m, slightly done in a minute, a bit like this more than a car length, which how long it takes for a blonde to column. Cheers. I must now be off puts a length of 3.6m for a 0.050s to reduce the blood level in the – a proper way of seeing the notice an unmarried billionaire” caffeine system.

from January 2013 • www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila-SGAC.indd 5 01/11/2012 11:45 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Byte-sized motorsport Data has come a long way in recent times. If only programming had too…

rom the multi-discipline were not used again until the from today’s bloatware. Architects CFD and FEA programs can be Cambrian explosion of 1960s by Chaparral and Ford, draw detailed plans before a run concurrently with MP3 and Fdifferent car designs at engine manufacturers that brought brick is laid or a nail is hammered. MPEG files so ouy can multitask to the start of motor racing, things computers to racing in . Programmers and software the sound of Boccherini, Led Zep settled down in the 1920s, and The first computer I used at engineers often don’t. Can this be or Billie Holiday. it seemed that we had would university filled a whole room, and why houses seldom collapse and The first time I was working continue keeping the old ways, my allotted time was 15 minutes programs often crash? with CFD, Nissan’s Technical artisans (garagistes) toiling away a week, presenting my programs The ability of today’s Centre had a liquid-cooled Cray-2 but with a fixed paradigm of cars. on a Hollerith punched card for computers to do something due capable of 1.9 GFLOPS. With four The DOHC four cylinder Peugeot input of program and data, direct to its enormous capabilities does central processors and 256 million engine taken to Indianapolis in descendant of the Jacquard loom not mean you have to resort to 64-bit words of random access 1912 was the base parameter card. The myriad vacuum valves crude Frankensteinian monster memory, a clock period – the time for racing engines for decades were a welcome heating source patched programming. Leonardo needed for one computational afterwards. Granted, there in winter night runs, although Pisano Bigollo – aka Fibonacci cycle – of 4.1 nanoseconds to do was a world war and a world we didn’t have as many as the – responsible for bringing the the calcs, and a Hitachi S800 for depression, a period where the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in post-processing. Put an aerofoil only evolution came from major Europe through the publication in profile in it at 6pm and it would manufacturers being used to flex 1202 of his Liber Abaci, is probably chug along Navier-Stokering it till nationalistic muscles or technical spinning in his grave at high RPMs, the next day, rendering voxel by breakthroughs trickling down from having rid Europe of having to do voxel. But first you had to hand- aviation, bridled by limited finance calculations in Roman numbers, mesh the grid in 3D, which would and a tradition of handicapping only to have all that work undone take considerably more time. derived from horse racing via through sloppy programming. In 1992 Benetton was Brooklands. A pastoral scene, Never mind, rant over. a pioneer user of CFD in F1, which would have made you My first F1 car was partly using FLUENT to analyse a worry about the threat of Morris designed on a computer, a HP- front wing, for example, with dancing in the paddock if the 9825, with a mammoth 24kb of a mesh of 100,000. Today 1 information technology revolution RAM, with the 12kb expansion billion cell meshes or more are hadn’t arrived. pack, a 16 character LED readout, possible. Sauber’s custom-built From Vaucanson’s first and the programs were stored on Albert2 supercomputer, with automata, the most notable Alan Turing, indirectly responsible for several cassettes, ‘chained’ for 512 Intel Xeon 5160 dual core being the Digesting Duck, to any PC problem you’re having today running. On it I could calculate a processors, was able to do Jacquard and his descendants, Ada 3D geometry program in roughly 12,288,000,000,000 calculations Lovelace and Babbage to today celebrated 1946 ENIAC – the first nine minutes. I had to write my per second. Given Moore’s law, it has been a long trip, the urgency fully Turing-complete computer own programmes, as it didn’t will accelerate as Chronos doles of war prompting the first electric that used 17,468 vacuum tubes come with any, and there were no out time on the hardware side, computers to realise Alan Turing’s and consumed 150kw of power. programmes to be bought. and the FIA limitation of CFD in F1 vision of a Universal Machine. It had a speed of one thousand With its accompanying daisy will do the same for the software. The programming used within times that of electro-mechanical wheel printer and A4-sized It is much better to be that primitive, 5kb universe – machines, which was unmatched mechanical plotter it cost uninformed than ill-informed as less memory than is allocated by mechanical computers. £23,000, or roughly the price of Keith Duckworth said, so all this to displaying a single icon on a Punch it wrong, have a a new, fully equipped Mercedes morass of data is only pertinent computer screen today – broke the hanging ‘goto’ or have an infinite Benz SLC roadster. Today you if the calibration and range of distinction between numbers that loop in it, and it meant waiting can buy something several sensors are correct. mean things and numbers that do till the following week. This orders of magnitude more With the amount of hype things. Since then, computers have encouraged tight programming, powerful for the equivalent of 60 around Big Data it’s easy to forget been in an Alice in Wonderland clean flowcharts and a maniacal packs of cigarettes or 180 cups that we’re just in the first inning. mode, growing on the inside and dedication to machine code, of espresso coffee – in my case More than three exabytes of new shrinking on the outside. Neumann akin to religion. Parsimony with one month’s consumption. data are created each day, and and Shannon expanded the commands reached a Scots You can even buy dedicated market research firm IDC estimates operation principles and hardware level, which made for elegant motorsports programs, which that 1,200 exabytes of data will into a redoubtable tool. programming, something absent together with CAD, stress analysis, be generated this year alone. Professor Eberan-Eberhorst I expect the world will end helped to develop a special on- My first F1 car was partly not with a sigh or a whimper, board recording instrument that but with an algorithm, but before plotted parameters such as car designed on a computer with a that I expect to participate in speed, engine speed, shifting and the WTC, World (Alan) Turing breaking points. These techniques mammoth 24kb of RAM Car Championship.

from June 2013 • www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila June-SGAC.indd 5 25/04/2013 14:20 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Handling the driver Dealing with the car itself is one thing, but then there’s the person inside it…

s Shaw said: ‘it is dangerous to tell us what was happening And they all have their To be fair, they can be to be sincere, unless you beyond the confines of the particular bumblebee in the right sometimes. After having Aare also stupid.’ Wilde, pitlane. Their comments and the bonnet, or maybe bats in the struggled to setup a Lotus 69 meanwhile, called sincerity fatal. stopwatch, plus comments from belfry, which flutter out when F2 for all the sessions at Crystal So here we go fearlessly into the photographers about the they are not on pole. One world Palace in the dim mists of the the jungle, to discuss talking shenanigans they had witnessed champion was an embarrassment last century, with Emerson to drivers, causing widespread on the track, were the tools of to his mechanics, as the inevitable Fittipaldi’s complaints in full ‘jet outrage in that tribe and I fully the trade, which were scrutinised trip to the rig to check the turbine mode’ (high pitch whine), expect to brave the backlash. deeply, as boar’s entrails in Roman dampers was so regular they I was astounded to see the green If you, gentle reader, happen times, to piece together a dimly lit eventually would take the striped yellow projectile come up to belong to that afflicted genus, view of the cars performance. dampers off, then lurk behind the through the field to win. A Racing Driver, you can call the Before the days of data-logging Koni truck having a cigarette for As Emmo stopped the car offices of Racecar Engineering, veracity and good analysis by the the appropriate length of time, below the podium, he took off his whose switchboard has the driver, plus the TV replays, they coming back to say all was well. helmet and enthused ‘this is the recorded message: ’After the tone, were priceless nuggets. Some best car I have ever driven, let’s please leave your IQ or your blood information on reality is useful. The do a meticulous set-down – this is pressure, whichever is higher,’ in rest was funny when it came out. how I need it for the next race.’ anticipation of this. Pointing out grass in the Strong praise indeed, seldom Please state your objection to rad intakes while driver swears heard. Normally, driver’s comment any comments below by saying he kept it between the white is more of the order of ‘despite ‘I beg to differ’ and stating why, lines. Querying the driver about the [insert problem here] with the if you can be that articulate, bent wishbones, hearing his car, only my impressive driving although one thinks not. protestations about taking care talent, huge guts and unstinting On the other hand drivers of the car until the weekly racing perseverance got me the win.’ usually do not read engineering comic came out and had a photo of Only in a less articulate fashion. magazines, being otherwise your car three feet in the air cutting Upon standing up, the whole occupied using Twitter, whose across the kerbs at the . floor of the monocoque unzipped concise 140 character format is Even today it is hilarious to itself, having done most of the still far too big in their limited counter a driver’s rant about the race with the head rivets world view to expand their uselessness of ‘that piece of Data logging thankfully reduces the ground off by the too low ride thoughts, comparing their lap shit car’ with a calm word in the reliance on hiring truthful drivers height, making the bracing time at track X or discussing the headphone ‘you are on pole’ and function of said sheet diminish feasibility or not of taking corner Y witness the backpedalling: ‘well, it’s Knowing your driver can considerably, consequently ‘flat’, so I may pass unscathed. not so bad. But I did drive my balls help unravel this Rosetta stone softening the chassis torsionally, No man is a hero to his valet, off.’ And to be even more forbearing of meaning, understanding the not a bad thing in that bumpy so drivers tend to be dismissed by and not say ‘that’s your job, chap’. nuances of words and looks that say track. It had precariously stayed engineers as the troglodytes who It brings to mind the mattress ‘I ran out of talent’ rather than ‘I ran together as the driver’s weight malevolently and wilfully damage sketch in Monty Python, where out of road’. Mechanics all have their was evenly distributed all over their steeds, and who will come some drivers will state ‘it’s as own tales of psy-war techniques, the vestigial rivets. out with another gem to encrust different as chalk and cheese’, such as clattering spanners at the But the humorous truth is into that magnificent compendium, when you know you have made back of the car, while doing sweet when in the yearly kart race where The Racing Driver’s Book of a microscopic adjustment to the FA, then having the driver go out those frustrated racing drivers, Excuses, now up to volume XXVII. car, if only to do something, as and post his best time of the day, the engineers and mechanics, The phrase ‘we make them, they you have three minutes to the convinced that the car had improved. have it out with other teams, break them’ is embossed on the end of the session, no more ideas It applies to testing also, where inevitably post-qualifying or race, escutcheon of every race engineer, and the car is still handling like one has witnessed a driver saying, one hears the time-worn excuses on whose heraldic shield (quartered a pregnant sow. Others will ‘It is better’ about a favoured spouting from the erstwhile with azure slide rule rampant and mention as an afterthought ‘it mod, even if a tenth faster, while sneerer’s lips: ‘I was on the fast tincture gules computer couchant) oversteers a bit’, while in the the red face, heavy breathing, lap when I got held up by traffic’ are found the well-worn phrases headphones the mechanics bring popeyed dilated pupils and sweaty or ‘he had a better engine/chassis/ ‘let me look at the data’, ‘you want to your attention the fact that the balaclava showed the truth in tyres, I would have creamed him.’ it when?’ and the central ‘we need rack stops are bent. unmistaken body language. Sound familiar? more time in the wind tunnel.’ The Indeed all of us have the engineer’s view of the equivalent Mechanics would clatter spanners, logical switch on the side of the heraldic banner for drivers is ‘we did head that gets flipped to ‘off’ dumb first. We do dumb best.’ doing sweet FA, and then the when we put the helmet on, prior In the early days of racing, to red-mist mode on the track. engineers relied upon drivers driver would post their best time But it’s only once a year.

from October 2013 • www.racecar-engineering.com STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA picks at the ready Racing on is ridiculous, unpredictable and therefore utterly exhilarating

eraclitus mentioned pulling, , endurance and spikes churning the glassy cardioid cams that governed that you could never racing, off-road racing, Pikes Peak surface, generating plumes of the rate and angle of rear steer Hstep into the same and as grown-up pursuits, slush and through insane was a simple plate with the twice, the water having as most have the knob on 11 or wheelspin, fi nally managing to groove channelling a pin on a moved on, and perhaps you too even 12. Wretched excess has its scrabble enough traction to shoot simple rack, but had an infi nite are not the person you were attractions, after all it does touch forwards into the next straight. number of options depending on previously. The Andros trophy the reptilian brain more. Cars face off in gaggles the car response, condition of the ice racing cars had the same ‘Excess on occasion is of six, knocking two out each track and the number of spikes problem, as the churning of the exhilarating,’ said William heat, in a short four lap barging left on your tyres. initially immaculate ice from Somerset Maugham. ‘It prevents competition, almost balletic in Poring over the data was the fi rst six-car heat would turn moderation from acquiring the the side-by-side sliding through always an interesting exercise of the venue into a rutted, slushy deadening effect of a habit.’ corners, occasionally bouncing looking into the heart of chaos. gauntlet between the snowdrifts, I swear I saw a Mandelbrot sometimes changing lap to lap. fractal when doing a yaw vs There are overdriven front wheel speed plot. wheels, locked differentials – Regardless of the chosen way all three of them – as the four- forward, the fi rst task is always wheel drive, four-wheel steer to use the ice pick to chip away at spiked tyres scrabbles for grip the clogged mass of ice and slush on ice, a surface not particularly packing the fenders, suspension renowned for its grip level. and every bit of bodywork. You have to make sure your Thermal underwear, gloves, side windows didn’t mist up as thick boots and the succour of they are more useful than the hot mulled wine with cloves windscreen in this crabwise way and raclette in the hostility unit of locomotion where cars are eased the frozen feeling, and generally travelling sideways. the adrenaline of getting the car This fi ts in perfectly with out for the next inexorable heat the ‘growing old is mandatory; warmed the cockles of the heart. growing up is optional’ ethos. Cornering, ice racing-style. Pit tech in mittens next to three-bar fi re, just out of shot The 24 hours of Chamonix It reminds me of a question was the ultimate wretched Alexander Hamilton once asked: ‘Moderation is a fatal thing. off snow-banks, drivers using the excess, the heats going on ‘Has it not been found that Nothing succeeds like excess,’ four wheels, throttle, 430Nm of all day, with the added bonus momentary passions… have a offered Oscar Wilde. torque and brakes to coax the that engineers, mechanics and more active and imperious control The Andros trophy car missile around the track. assorted innocent bystanders over human conduct than general certainly succeeds in that. Finish your heat, take the would be the passengers or remote considerations of 450hp does not seem excessive, car back to the tent through the required in this event. policy, utility, or justice?’ Yes, that but when it is coupled with snow, and plunge into changing It was a magic rollercoaster fact has been found. It has been a lightweight plastic body, the settings for the next heat as ride which gave the spectator the found time and time again. The minimalist spaceframe chassis, track conditions always change, opportunity to watch close-up lesson of it, nevertheless, eludes four-wheel drive through 3.5j ruts being dug into the original the driver’s antics trying to keep us almost as rapidly. 10/66-16 Michelin XM + S TL pristine billiard table of ice. At the car vaguely going in the right We know that we are C50 spiked tyres in a icy winding some events the ice would be direction at maximum speed, creatures of the passions, but track it does smell of overkill. worn down to the original asphalt feet tap dancing on the two stop we pretend that it would be The fastest way around a or concrete, just right for plucking and go pedals. It reminds me of possible to erase those passions hairpin on ice is actually to fl ick the studs out of the tyre, or down : ‘If God had meant and become creatures of pure the car 180 degrees by using to the now muddy, slushy earth if for us to walk, why did he give us reason. The racing circus tries the four-wheel steer, in which on an apposite ski slope. feet that fi t car pedals?’ to act serious and focused, the rears turn in the opposite Should the engineers change The driver would twirl the but the bottom line is that the direction from the fronts, the amount of overdrive to the steering wheel continuously, sheer insanity of running F1s at enter the hairpin backwards, front wheels? The cam governing almost always managing to Monaco, or thundering through engine screaming at full revs amount of rear lock to front? The carom off the snow banks and the desert in off-road racers is accelerating even faster down the main attraction. Racing tries to act serious and the next chute. Screaming with The fi rst sign of maturity is pleasure was not unknown, while the discovery that the volume focused, but the sheer insanity an idiotic grin was a constant knob also turns to the left. That throughout. Creatures of pure instantly disqualifi es F1, tractor is always the main attraction reason my arse.

from November 2013 • www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila Nov-SGAC.indd 5 23/09/2013 11:34 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA The black art of rubber Non-linear, non-isotropic, heat and load sensitive, no wonder engineers do not like tyres

xion was expelled from Olympus and blasted Natural rubber consists of polymers of the then generates more temperature which increases with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to organic compound isoprene. Forms of polyisoprene pressure in a self reinforcing loop.) Ibind Ixion to a winged, fiery wheel that was used as natural rubbers are classified as elastomers. The other difficult characteristic of tyres is that always spinning. This is either traction control Rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex given all these variables, and the fact that it is failure, or too hard a compound… from trees (collecting the sap by tapping). damped only by the hysteresis of the rubber, trying ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, Natural rubber is used extensively in many to spring and damp the car is made very difficult To talk of many things: applications and products. In most of its useful as the loads from the chassis will obligatorily Of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax forms, it has a large stretch ratio and high resilience, go through the tyre...unless you have got your Of cabbages and kings and is extremely waterproof. This comes in useful springing and ride height very wrong. Skating on And why the sea is boiling hot to make the contact patch ‘cog’ into small asperities the bottom of the chassis reduces your grip level And whether pigs have wings.’ in the track, and enable considerably. The subject this month is the most effective a more than unity The use of different Tyres nowadays are not so racing product of all – rubber. Getting a car to go coefficient of friction. much on the edge as in the two seconds a lap faster is a difficult and expensive The stretch, resilience compounds on each days of “gumball” qualifiers, proposition, whereas you can bolt three seconds a and waterproofing is that lasted just one lap if the lap very easily with a different set of tyres. also essential in another corner of the car is compounding was right. The The quote ‘I don’t care what it is as long as application for latex, the driver had to do the out lap round and black’ alludes to the fact that the black humble condom, which not unknown… slowly so as not to overheat the is only there because of the carbon black added is used in quite stressful compound right up to the last to avoid ultraviolet light degradation of the latex conditions (well, at least if corner, before getting on it. and the elastomer used in racing tyres, which can you are doing it right). Knowing how to use contain little natural rubber as tapped from a tree. The natural shape your qualifying tyre given Of all the ingredients on a car, this is the most a canvas bag wants to those conditions is not easy, elusive one, and one engineers do not like much. It assume is a circular shape as having the opportunity is non-linear, non-isotropic, heat and load sensitive. (as old tyres used to be) to test one lap tyres came The base components used to be a natural very the racing tyre is a fat few and far between. With green element, the sap from the Hevea brasiliensis cylinder, albeit not to Pier Luigi Martini at tree, cured and vulcanised and applied over a the dimensions we have we capitalised on that, as woven canvas bag. seen in the past, but only having tested over 200 sets of Natural rubber is still a component of tyres but because of regulations. qualifiers for Pirelli gave us the synthetic rubber is made by the polymerisation To keep this shape, opportunity to put Minardi of petroleum-based precursors called monomers. and to deflect laterally on the front row at Phoenix, The most prevalent synthetic rubbers are and vertically at the right alongside Senna in the styrene-butadiene rubbers (SBR) derived from the amount for maximum McLaren. Pier Luigi was simply copolymerisation of styrene and 1.3-butadiene. contact patch, is an art Tyres are difficult enough to engineer as it is. able to use 100% of the tyres’ Other synthetic rubbers are prepared from in itself, that depends on Sometimes, a sit down and think approach is best capabilities. isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene), chloroprene weft and weave of cloth The softness of the tyre (2-chloro-1,3-butadiene), and isobutylene (in this case composed of Kevlar, rayon, aramids rubber is varied by changes in the proportions of (methylpropene) with a small percentage or steel), the way sidewalls are built, the stiffeners ingredients added to the rubber – carbon, sulphur of isoprene for cross-linking. These can be and bead construction, and the effect of the belt in and oil. They also are compounded to have distinct copolymerised to produce products with a range of radial tyres, crossplies being rare nowadays. operating temperature windows. physical, mechanical, and chemical properties. Did The whole shebang being a pneumatic device, Chosing your carcass and compound, when one mention chemistry is one’s weak point? the stiffness or deflection value of the carcass several are available, can be an intricate process, This is where the black magic of compounders will depend on the pressure of the air, or more depending on the track temperature, your drivers’ comes in, and gives you the grip levels you are commonly nitrogen that fills it, which in turn driving style, car setup, how “green” or rubbered up looking for. As usual, there is no free lunch, and depends on the temperature of the gas. The input is the track, and atmospheric conditions. balancing grip, rapid warm-up and durability of energy going into the tyre also varies whether it On one memorable test in Malaysia running for is a tricky act. Synthetic cis-polyisoprene and is braking, accelerating or cornering. a week with 20 Formula Nippon cars and testing natural cis-polyisoprene are derived from different Some championships forbid the use of tyre 600 sets of tyres produced a track so rubbered precursors by different chemical pathways. The heaters. There is a fine art of choosing the right up we were running four seconds faster than monomers can be produced pure and the addition initial pressure, so the right pressures are in tyres at ever before and the cars had no vices – rubber on of impurities or additives can be controlled by the right lap for qualifying, or the pressure does not rubber brought levels of grip hitherto unknown. design to give optimal properties. Polymerisation of increase too much during the race, which can lead Oh happy days. pure monomers can be controlled to give a desired to a runaway build up (increased pressure reduces This above all: to thine own contact proportion of cis and trans double bonds. footprint, which then increases unit load, which patch be true.

from NOVEMBER 2014 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila Nov HGAC.indd 5 23/09/2014 11:39 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA A symphony is no joke The sound of a full grid at the start still stuns even the most jaded spectator

aving previously covered the topic of smells Hasty drivers departing suddenly, before you goddamn, that was a close one, hoo-wee, nearly in the paddock, we can apply ourselves to unplugged, fostered the habit of always talking creamed the wall, go, go, go, shit, need more boost, Hthe next sense, sound. My editor’s steadfast with one hand on the plug to forestall being how many laps to pit? Arghh he’s closing, he’s refusal to print my stillborn column on taste in the dragged off down the pit-lane by your ears… closing, hah, that showed him, bet he needs an paddock still hurts…and will leave a sense out of Also holding a pen, your clipboard and a overall change now…’ the compendium. stopwatch, you acquired skills that would enable The limitation of transmitter power enforced The cars are, of course, the lead singers in this you to find a job as a juggler when retiring from by the licensing authorities also restricts your symphony, bellowing lustily from the diaphragm racing. The ear-cans also gave a modicum of radio-range on some tracks, despite the forest of of their engines. Obviously engine capacity also protection to crew, previously exposed to noise high-rising telescopic antennae at the back of the influences the note and volume, the deep rumble that produced an early degradation of hearing pits, sometimes doubling as flag-poles, giving a of American V8s are like summer thunderstorms ability but only in a dead zone where you cannot approaching, but at a more frenzied pace, and restricted range of our Race crew are deafer hear or speak, places like the the high-pitch screaming of the 1-litre F3 in days ability to discern sound Nordschleife and Le Mans of yore sounded like rabid piccolos swarming in from 20Hz to 20000 Hz. in the right ear from being the obvious culprits. groups. Even the whistle and pop of blow-off valves V8s were Or opportunities to ignore on turbos was a musical passage, and crackling of slap in the middle of being on the pit wall messages... lean mixtures on over-run accompanied with gouts the typical adult female The first lap of any session of flame a staccato beat to preceding the wail as range from 165 to 255Hz, at clockwise circuits is dedicated to having a radio power came on for NA engines. The near 15000bhp or at least that is my check from driver at every of a full grid today is not as impressive as previous excuse when I miss what corner exit to determine the years, but the crescendo of sounds at the start will my wife is saying (don’t coverage you have. Before the excite the most jaded listener. try this at home, chaps, heavy enforcement we now Engine note is music to any aficionado’s ears, trust me, it doesn’t work.) have on broadcast frequencies with the possible exception of the Mazda rotary There is a whole and power I worked with a engine cars at Le Mans, and elsewhere. That generation of racing French team that had a 1000W thing screamed loudly, and after two hours of crew who is deafer on transmitter, so our track-chat racing had the crew of every other car in the race the right ear, from being was probably eaves-dropped praying for them to break down. After 12 hours on the pit-wall in mostly by the Antarctic weather of feeling that your tympanic membranes were clockwise circuits while stations. There was no chance having icepicks pounded into them there was Matra V12s wailed by, of a dead spot... a distinctly murderous tinge to your thoughts. plus the rumbling gaggle The drop-out can be This could also be the reason the ACO eventually of Cossies, BRM and annoying; also the cut as the banned rotary engines, a move that was heartily Ferrari V12s and boxers relay kicks in can truncate applauded by the whole paddock. Endurance playing the high notes... the transmission, forcing the racing, with different classes and engine types, is a Proper radio Music to her ears? demonstrates speaker to wait until he hears full opera, with basses, baritones, tenors, contraltos communications brought old-fashioned noise-reduction techniques the click that means he is on and sopranos, while single-seaters tend to the a new medium in which air – good for engineers, as it Gregorian chant of Benedictine monks. to hear drivers’ excuses, sometimes while they were lets them engage brain before opening mouth, and The clunk of gears being engaged in a dog-box, in the throes of having a whoopsie moment and is why they always sound calm and in control. the whine of straight-cut gears and the chirp of greatly improved the noise-to-signal ratio. Well, The delay in voice-actuated microphones tyres leaving pits, commentators on the track at least for the sounds, the drivers’ words being as drivers sometimes used is the reason Hiro sound system, the juddering clunk and momentary vague as usual…Shannon-Hartley’s information Matsushita earned the nickname ’King Hiro’ from locking of tyres that tells you how much the limited theorem not taking that in account. , who was complaining about slip diff is working and what type it is when cars Keeping your silence is a mark of the road- Hiro when baulked lapping him. The radio circuit are being pushed around by the crews, down to hardened engineer, only asking for illumination cut off the first syllable of the first word when he the clink of tools, plaintive cries for coffee and the on important subjects when it cannot be gleaned said ‘F*cking Hiro!’ buzzing of neon lights during all-nighters are all from telemetry (if you have it…), and forbearing to Different nationalities have different radio- part of the aural tapestry of racing. micro-managing the driver. Raikonnen’s ‘Leave me modes, but English is a good, clear language to cut The now-delayed ban on radio communication alone, I know what I’m doing’, at the Abu Dhabi GP through the hiss and crackle of radio transmission. with the driver from the pits can be also conflated is an iconic moment, demonstrating this foible. One has never been able to understand the into sound. With the passage of time we went from Some drivers are taciturn, others chatterboxes. difference between sousvirage and survirage or screaming into the front of the helmet, easy when I once had a driver (who will remain unnamed for dessus and dessous, after all. open helmets were the norm, to having plug-in obvious reasons), while in Champ cars who gave In the end it boils down to this: ‘The single intercoms (with coily-leads) that added an extra a running description as he was racing, along biggest problem in communication is the illusion danger to being in the pit-lane. the lines of ‘just behind him, will try, ah, oops, that it has taken place.’ – George Bernard Shaw.

from DECEMBER 2014 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila Dec HGACNEW.indd 5 27/10/2014 17:25 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Panel games Using instruments to gauge your engine’s performance can be an imperfect science

he ancient Etruscan divination by looking good pedigree in racing, the majestic rpm counter the petrol leak to innocuous drops in case the into the entrails of animals (haruspicy) was sitting on the dashboard being the guiding light bellows that actuated the needle giving fuel T supposed to give intimations of what the for the exploitation of the engine and the assorted pressure ruptured, at the small cost of a lag in future would bring. In the same vein instruments pressure and temperature satellites guarding the reporting the pressure. show what state your engine, gearbox and tyres reliability of said engine ensuring the operating The lack of reliability of the analog instruments are in, and slowly dropping oil pressure or climbing limits were respected. left them to be omitted, leaving only the revcounter water or oil temp gauges can reveal the future of Quantum physics changed this by going as a guide, and a big red light for oil pressure, that particular thrashing machine. solid state. Electronics changed the view behind basically so the driver could switch the engine off Weights and measures were among the earliest the wheel, to the point drivers are now drowned before extraneous bits of metal came out of the tools invented by man, useful for building dwellings in information, most of it digital. We are analog side, and caused the car to stop with an ‘electrical of an appropriate shape, making clothing and animals, very good at failure’ as Ermano Cuoghi bartering measurable portions of food or materials. perceiving information A red light just meant explained at Alfa: ‘The electrical Parts of the body and natural surroundings were by shape, numbers failure was caused when the mustered as measuring instruments. being difficult to grasp you could switch off conrod came out the side of Length was first measured with the forearm, quickly. A bar or a needle the block cut the ignition wires.’ hand, or finger and time was measured by the that can be discerned before the damage All other signal lamps were periods of the sun, moon, planets and stars, as by positional reference really redundant, green not noted in the Bible and early Babylonian records. is hard-wired into our became expensive really necessary as all was well, Filling containers such as gourds or clay vessels brains; a digit has to be yellows in sprint races meant with plant seeds that were then counted gave the interpreted by the cortex. you had to pit, so race over, and measure of volumes. With the development of We have other senses red only useful to avoid even scales as a means for weighing, seeds and stones which are underused, the more expensive damage. served as standards. The carat, still used as a mass coupling of sound into the Endurance racing had other unit for gems, is derived from the carob seed. driver’s earpieces can be needs, as nursing a car till the We will not go into the relative merits of metric useful by giving a bleep end of the stint allowed it to be or imperial systems, as they at least uniformized when the revs are ripe repaired for the continuation. measurements over great areas of the world and for a gear change, taking But now even 24-hour races imperial measures gave us the inch, hand, chain, away the need to have the are run as sprints. yards, the rod, the pole or perch, the furlong and shift lights in the visual Cameras pointing the impressively named slug for air density. The fact field, same for wheel lock backwards at the highest that they are subdivided in 12ths, 64ths and other warnings, bipping up in point of the tail eliminate the strange units is a heritage of conventions that date intensity with percentage blind spots caused by the from Assyrian or Babylonian times. Metric is a bit of slip, and having left and high wheel arches and thick easier to calculate, escalating in orders of tens. right earpieces for front or pillars required to withstand As a side note I find it intriguing that the need rear locking. We are analog animals – and even in the the crash tests, plus having a for a single worldwide coordinated measurement Ken Tyrrell once digital age this can be catered for self dimming function for laser system was recognized over 300 years ago. Gabriel remarked that the use blasts from the headlights Mouton, vicar of St Paul’s Church in Lyons and an of instruments on his car was a waste of weight, as of following cars at night. These cameras can also astronomer, proposed in 1670 a comprehensive ‘Schechter couldn’t see them and Depailler didn’t have tracking arrows that change colour with decimal measurement system based on the length understand them.’ approaching cars and which side they will be of one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth. One has found that sometimes the instrument overtaking, using motion-sensing software. Tyre Mouton also proposed the swing length of panel or dashboard (another leftover from the past, pressure monitoring systems are essential to know a pendulum with a frequency of one beat per as most of the instruments and lights are on the when you have a slow puncture, as it can keep the second as the unit of length. The beginning of steering wheel, the visual field in most racing cars driver from arriving at Mulsanne, oblivious of any mechanical power with steam intensified another being restricted to it) tend to be laden with too much problem as the tyre is centrifuged to maintain its requirement to monitor the optimal functioning of information, just because we can do it. With the shape, but collapsing as you go into the corner. the contraption and warn of the danger values for advent of telemetry in the major formulas most of The advent of new energy recuperating boiler pressure and other portents of doom. the supervising of the engine, gearbox and running systems, plus fuel flow limits increases the Since society abandoned walking en masse ancillaries is done at the pits, with no need for the workload exponentially, all these parameters being for riding in upholstered comfort atop a metal driver to monitor it. Some of the analog instruments monitored, and the conclusions fed to the driver by box harnessed to a series of small explosions, were a liability, as piping fuel and oil directly to the radio, and some of it by the instruments on board, the requirements to monitor it brought more instrument in the cockpit gave the possibility being with the data being analysed, then fed back. instruments, specially in racing when they were sprayed by fuel or oil if you had an instrument failure. A good example that earlier racing was pushed to the limits, and often over. The practice of fitting a hypodermic needle different and could be classified under the Veglia, Jaeger, VDO, Smiths are names with a inline before the gauge itself helped by restricting motto: Ignorance Is Bliss.

from FEBRUARY 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila Feb 2015 HGAC.indd 5 18/12/2014 14:13 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA ‘He who can, does’ Can the motoring press learn from its past to secure its future?

n average we sneeze 125 times a year. the cars and in-depth coverage of most systems maybe more than before, but the internet has This in not to be sneezed at. This is “the and equipment. And the racing correspondents made access to the information that much easier. Ouselessly precise fact” — it’s what you gave an awful lot of coverage to what these cars The demise of print has been decried for more doodle when you need to fill a page but have were doing on track. Presumably other engineers than two decades now, but new ways of financing nothing important to say if you are writing for also had their appetite whetted for competition publications still seems to be in a state of flux – the press with an impending deadline. engineering also. The general drift of the world presumably in the long-term everything will be This in turn reminds me of Shaw, George being what it is, the fourth estate now seems to accessible in the cloud and a universal system will Bernard of that ilk, who said: “He who can, does. He focus on celebrity and motor-racing coverage is no evolve eventually. who cannot, teaches,” in Man and Superman (1903). different, with too many pages dedicated to what So a resounding cheer to a publication that When one uses this quotation, one usually adds drivers are up to, and team politics. covers most forms of motor racing with articles that “And those who know fuck-all write about it.” The yellow page journalism that has taken are specifically geared to the technical side. There is Stating this credo over the years has not over print has obviously left its paw marks on the a big demand out there and the lack of information endeared me to the motoring hacks coming out of the racing teams is either, especially when I mention Reading the situations vacant pages understandable – nobody wants to give that, as their tools are knowledge away any clues that would give an inch and a good working proficiency with provided a valuable insight into what to their competitors, thus making it very the English language, some of them difficult to find out what is current. fell somewhat short of the mark. was going on in the racing world Finding myself in the awkward Chequered history position now of being a visiting Mind you, we are not looking at the past professor at Cranfield University with rose-tinted glasses either. The bane and writing about racing, I stand of most correspondents at magazines is self-incriminated despite plaintive eking out their monthly stipend through negation. So let’s cast a look on what doing driver PR and management. I can is on offer in the motoring press. remember one case of a scribe writing Racecar Engineering has given press releases working for a major me a bully pulpit so I can rant about tobacco company and I found that his my pet themes, but now, on the work would detract a bit from the race 25th anniversary of its existence, I report. It got to the point where, having can shower it with plaudits, for on been at the race myself but having the general motoring horizon it is trouble recognising the description of it, I one of few dedicated engineering began to lose my trust in the reporting. magazines which focuses on the The old cliché of “Never let the truth race engineering side. stand in the way of a good story” was further skewed in the blatant pushing Shifting emphasis of the drivers employing the hack along In the last century, and I am talking the lines of “so and so had a brilliant about the middle of it, I learnt an race, displaying amazing car control and awful lot about the design and Racecar Engineering’s editorial team hard at work, yesterday press-on qualities to a brilliant fourth technicalities of racing cars by place. John Doe won the race.” reading the American stalwarts; “Road and Track”, racing press. The formula could be one designed File that one under conflict of interest. “Sports Car Graphic”, “Car and Driver”, “Motor Trend” to generate more stories and some of them, if they Rant over, one can just hope that racing does and interestingly enough “Hot Rod Magazine”. were published on a website, would be considered not get dragged down by the current festering in On the European side it was “Auto Italiana” , click-bait. The traditional staid motor press just F1 and continues to garner a new audience, some “QuattroRuote” and “L’Automobile”, but best of all goes on and on about the current crop of offerings of whom can be captured to come to work in it. was the English press – most of the racing cars from the manufacturers, which could conceivably We need new technologies and working were built there, so I read with interest “Autosport” be of interest to a prospective buyer sizing up the methods so that the sport ends up being the and the indefectible “Motoring News”. Reading market, but with a truncated coverage of racing. ultimate engineering challenge, producing a well the situations vacant pages in both titles provided Different demographics have different needs I engineered missile with tight schedules that is used a valuable insight into what was going on in the guess, but I digress. in direct combat with other people doing the same. racing world, but for about a decade now it seems The content is obviously geared to a new public, No marketing, no perception skewing and to be mostly about wind tunnel technicians, wind but is it really working? There was a captive market with only a stopwatch (er, timing beam and tunnel model makers and CFD specialists. for F1 fans who were not necessarily entertained transponders) to judge the performance. They all had lavishly-illustrated articles on the by the technical nitty-gritty, but looking at the Happy 25th Racecar Engineering, long may technical side of racing, with cutaway drawings of websites online there is good technical coverage, you continue to fly the flag.

from MAY 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Clear crystal balls Black swans, grey cignets and a hissing goose - Formula 1 in the spotlight

onald Rumsfeld once remarked that competition driven people for whom the ends in this case one speaks of ‘principle’ as the noun ‘stuff happens’. Sometimes stuff does not justifies the means, the perfume of celebrity in a denoting either a rule or standard, especially of Dhappen. And non-events can be significant, celebrity-driven world, egos that need 18-wheeler good behaviour, or the collectivity of moral or such as the fact that the hound in “The Hound of transportation, a financial economic crisis arriving ethical standards or judgments. Steady on now you the Baskervilles” did not bark. on a predictable cycle (a penny farthing?) and card say. Such vitriolic contempt goes way beyond the In the same Rumsfeldian style, knowing things carrying financial predators, who make Stalin’s call. An expression of wry surprise might have been that will not take place is as useful as knowing scorched earth policy look bland. Scorched earth more dignified, maybe even justified. what will. Although some non-events will remain is a military strategy where every asset that is used Such behaviour will be rather thin on the unknown, others are known, and the following or can be used by the enemy are targeted, and in ground these days given the plundering and decades will have loads of them – not having a racing this means other formulae. And, merchant scalping of customers who have other choices for German GP is one of them. banks are renowned for their benevolence (note their couch spectating, and we will not even speak The Roman poet Juvenal (Decimus Junius the irony knob is turned to 11 here). Circumstance of the skinning that follows getting three-day Juvenalis) lived in the late first and early second makes strange bedfellows, but cosying up to capital tickets for a GP. The getting lost in the wilderness centuries AD. Like his friend Martial, Juvenal wrote without a coherent perception of reality. One does satire, a particularly Roman genre of poetry that not know the answer, but the crowd seems to be used sarcasm and irony to express moral outrage. The clouds with the giving its verdict on the actual state of affairs Juvenal’s Satires, a collection of 16 poems written in dactylic hexameter – the traditional meter of silver linings seem to be What happens next? epic poetry used by Homer, Virgil and Ovid – are Ever since an excitable man named John blasted regarded as among the best examples of the form shaping up to create the his acolytes with some of the most stunning from antiquity. One could not, even in the wildest apocalyptic revelations committed to text, flights of fancy, envisage reaching those heights, perfect storm predicting the future has remained a lively and but that should not stop one from at least trying. popular human pastime. Thankfully, those who In a like vein there has been a big kerfuffle followed this jumpy prophet were careful to about F1 grids and the quality of the spectacle. temper their words. “Prediction is very difficult, Remember folks, it’s sold as show business so, in especially if it’s about the future”, quoth Niels other words, it is “much ado about something”, Bohr, while H.G. Wells prefaced his influential horribly misquoting the great Bard. ‘Anticipations’ as “imperfect and very hypothetical”. One will do the same, but at least in terms of The curious decline of F1 the warrant for a priori dismissal, it is a null set. Napoleon wanted his marshals to be lucky above As revenues diminish and the decimation of all else, and there can hardly be a luckier man teams continues, investors will move over to easier than Bernard Charles Ecclestone, who had the pickings, obeying the dictum “In a breakfast the timing and the vision to see that TV revenues chicken (investors) is involved, the pig (teams) is and the welding of disparate racing teams into committed.” Sorry, pigs, the bacon was delicious. a sales package could turn into a money making Predicting the future is not as hard as it seems, machine. And his vision resulted in the first alliance although black swans are hard to judge Quoth W. B. Yeats= of mass-sports and TV. Arbitrage has always been Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; more profitable than production, especially when investors requires one to heed the old advice that Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, you turn it into a trade-marked monopoly and “when supping with the devil you need to bring a The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere fiercely defend your fief, but things don’t seem long spoon”. The ceremony of innocence is drowned. to be running well lately. In fact, the clouds with The erstwhile de-facto owners of F1 have The best lack all conviction, while the worst the silver linings seem to be shaping up to create made a solid return on their investment, but their Are full of passionate intensity. the perfect storm and there are questions in the subtlety did not reach the sophistication expressed paddock about the helmsman’s ability to surmount by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finances The ceremony of innocence died in the mid- the white-capped shoals ahead on present form. of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of 1980s and we are now in hard pragmatic times, but How did we get here? King Louis XIV. He always declared that “the art of having a sport run for profit demeans the nature of Perfect storms are supposed to be Black taxation consisted in so plucking the goose as to it. Whiter the direction and form? Swans – the disproportionate role of high-profile, obtain the largest amount of feathers with the “And what rough beast, its hour come round at hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond least possible amount of hissing”. There is a lot last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” the realm of normal expectations in history, of hissing going on and the F1 goose is well and And when the golden hissing goose finally dies science, finance, and technology. At the most we truly plucked. all and sundry will indulge in seeing how things can call this a Grey Signet. It’s all fairly predictable, Like philosophers, who say “we know it’s went wrong, which bad turns were taken, whose especially when the ingredients in the mix have possible in practice, we just don’t know if possible character defects came into play and who was, an expensive commodity (racing cars and teams), in principle”, one would acquiesce, noting that ultimately, to blame for the failure.

from JUNE 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Skirting the issue F1’s era was not without its problems, as our columnist remembers

round effects was the Pandora’s box would shift the aero balance even further forward. of vehicle dynamics, turbulent flow, near-sonic of motor racing, for the exploitation of The eventual solution of suppressing front wings speeds at the venturi throat, all coupled with Gdepression under a racing car changed the was one of the fixes if your CP was too far forwards, boundary layer detachment and suspension and paradigm of design forever. Despite all the King’s while drilling hole-saw cuts in the skirts to shift said tyre frequencies. horses and all the King’s men, and all the regulations CP backwards was another way. The sequence would go something like this: that the FIA and other sundry racing organisations The introduction of polypropylene skirts increased speed would compress the suspension have thrown at it, it embodies the cliche: once rubbing away at the ground evolved into different and tyres, closing the venturi and accelerating the things have been seen, they cannot be unseen. density sheets, flexi at the hinge-points, then air passing underneath, which would increase the The Lotus 78 was the first ground effect car that stiffer near the ground. The next steps were more downforce, further closing the gap. Eventually really worked, and it was sealing the leak from the complex, and the introduction of sliding skirts the amount of downforce would be drastically gap between bodywork and ground that was the morphed into quite complex spring-loaded slabs reduced due to choking of the throat, it going sonic bingo idea. The skirts used for this actually started as of honeycomb composites with ceramic skids to or detaching from the undersurface. This in turn some brushes closing the gap between the sidepod make them last longer than the easily worn poly would make the car rebound on tyres and springs, and ground, massively increasing the depression skirts, plus the introduction of side rollers to keep opening up the gap, and re-establishing the flow caused by a nice application of Daniel Bernoulli’s stiction from jamming them in a leaky position, and thus the downforce. principle. Fluid dynamics states that for an inviscid because the loads on skirts were rapidly increasing Where your CP was would give either flow an increase in the speed of the fluid occurs as the cars improved. porpoising, with the entire car moving up and simultaneously with a decrease in pressure or a Many drivers did not like the cornering on rails down, or the even more disconcerting, galloping, decrease in its potential energy. behaviour this downforce gave, plus the fact that, where it not only moved in the heave mode, but counter-intuitively, the faster you went the car felt also in the pitch mode. Bernoulli’s principle less on the edge, it being planted by the higher In its worst manifestations this would give It can be derived from the principle of conservation downforce provided by increased speed. It was drivers a rough ride as they bounced from of energy. This states that, in a steady flow, the sum bump-stop to droop-stop. As once of all forms of energy in a fluid along a streamline Putting more rear wing complained to me when describing it: ‘It’s difficult is the same at all points on that streamline. This aiming at the apex when the helmet is shuttling up requires that the sum of kinetic energy, potential on to counter high speed and down and one only gets a stroboscopic view energy and internal energy remains constant. of the track.’ The initial early attempts to control Thus an increase in the speed of the fluid – oversteer could actually this by springing or damping did not get very far implying an increase in both its dynamic pressure as the main culprit was the tyre, bouncing at its and kinetic energy – occurs with a simultaneous increase oversteer 4.5Hz characteristic frequency. The only way to get decrease in (the sum of) its static pressure, potential away from it was to work away on the venturi and

energy and internal energy. If the fluid is flowing out XPB associated aero gubbins to avoid the downforce of a reservoir, the sum of all forms of energy is the loss, even to the extent of reducing total downforce, same on all streamlines because in a reservoir the as a more controlled downforce was preferred to energy per unit volume is the same everywhere. the ‘ride ’em cowboy’ mode. Bernoulli’s principle can also be derived directly from Newton’s Second law. If a small Ground rules volume of fluid is flowing horizontally from a region The increase of cornering speeds brought on of high pressure to a region of low pressure, then by all this pushed the powers-that-be to ban it there is more pressure behind than in front. This all, bringing in the flat bottom that plagues all gives a net force on the volume, accelerating it Formula 1 embraced ground effect after the Lotus forms of racing now. The subsequent unintended along the streamline. 79 dominated in 1978. It was then banned in 1983 consequences from the lift caused by big, flat The first iterations of ground effects had to slabs of surface area when in a wrong incidence climb the steep mountain of getting the CP (centre also not too comforting to know that when that is with us to this day. But ground effect know-how of pressure) in the right place and making sidepods downforce was not there your intention of keeping in the racing world has far outstripped anything strong enough to take the loads. It was all a rather it between the white lines was a forlorn hope. the aviation industry has produced in that area. hit-or-miss affair, with a whole new paradigm It got to the point that some cars had rods The complexity of modelling tyres for scale wind being hammered out race by race as the new ideas mounted on the front end of the skirts, protruding tunnels and the evolution of CFD for simulation were explored. One example of the conundrums though the bodywork to give drivers fair derived from that need. we were facing was the inversion of known facts. warning that his skirt was up, thus avoiding the So why not commemorate Bernoulli’s Putting more rear wing on to counter high speed embarrassment of coming off the road due to lack achievement by bringing back ground effects? It oversteer could actually increase the oversteer, as of grip. Yet ground effect also made the cars look could rid F1 cars of their baroque wing arrays, they the underwing suction from the rear wing would easy to drive. So much for showmanship. would be less affected by the leading car’s wake, increase the depression at the trailing edge of the Another side effect of the downforce was and provide more crush structure on the sides underwing and, if your CP was slightly forward, the dreaded porpoising. This describes the effect with bigger sidepods. Sounds good to me …

from OCTOBER 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_Oct_MBAC.indd 5 24/08/2015 11:41 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Alternative realities Our columnist ponders the age-old issue of simulation versus reality

he ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrestled algorithms. So the tool is to use our knowledge of mathematical physics (including the first version of with reality, and posed the interesting physics and maths to create an experimental world what is now known as Stokes’ theorem). Between Texample of reality perceived being by the where we can change the parameters and see them they nailed FEA and CFD, the Navier-Stoke shadow cast on the wall of the cave by the light of what differing results we would have with different equations being the cornerstone of CFD and the flickering fire. True reality would be only grasped inputs. It can be run as a computer simulation to Navier’s work the basis of FEA. by leaving the cave and seeing the real world. One reproduce behaviour of a system. The simulation The first paper on three-dimensional modelling interpretation of the allegory of the cave is about uses an abstract model to simulate the system. was published by John Hess and AMO Smith of human ignorance and a people who are unable They’ve become a useful part of mathematical Douglas Aircraft in 1967. This method discretized or unwilling to seek truth and wisdom. But there modelling of many natural systems in physics, the surface of the geometry with panels, giving was another philosopher that looked at the world astrophysics, climatology, chemistry and biology; rise to this class of programs being called Panel another way, Aristotle, Plato’s chief disciple. and human systems in economics, psychology, Methods. Their method itself was simplified, in that Against Plato’s belief in mysterious entities social science and engineering. it did not include lifting flows and hence was mainly called Forms, available only to the intellect and When laying out a car, it is interesting to play applied to ship hulls and aircraft fuselages. whose presence provides the foundation for all around with wheelbases, track widths, weight material beings, Aristotle eschewed the Forms for distribution, cg height, roll centres, aero distribution, Lap time simulation an empiricism that begins with particular material as many parameters as we want, with the added Back to LTS, Cornell university was doing work beings as the most real beings and then proceeds bonus of highlighting, via result, the sensitivity in the late ’60s, but now on computers, and we toward generalisations, not unlike the inductive of each input for the result. That in itself already probably had the first LTS in F1 in 1977, run on a method scientists employ today. highlights the areas that will give the most returns. 12kB HP 9821… a lap could be simulated in roughly So you can espouse the idealism of Plato or the For motor racing, apart from lap times, there two hours as the simple bicycle model was run. It empiricism of Aristotle. Plato asks: ‘How do you want are several other areas of interest for simulation; was a great boon for design choices, as the major your world to be?’ Aristotle, on the other hand, characteristics could be optimised. asks: ‘How do you fit into the world that already The trap in some simulation The trap in some simulation is the wrong exists?’ The two philosophies have repeated assumption of weights or inputs. Francis themselves through Western history, waxing is the wrong assumption of Bacon warned us of this in Of Simulation and and waning and remaining in tension with each Dissimulation, 1597 ‘… therefore a general other to the present day. weights or inputs custom of simulation (which is this last degree) is a vice, using either of a natural Back to reality falseness or fearfulness.’ In engineering, reality will be the driving force The simplification of some assumptions behind decisions. One cannot wish for a result can be fiddled in the general simulation by without taking in account the laws of physics the very useful fudge-factors embedded in and what we observe. Simulating what most LTS to make them fit the track data. Too happens can be done for a variety of useful liberal a use of the fudge knob might turn reasons, for example cost, time, or the need to the whole exercise into a mere Disneyland be able to tweak one variable at a time. simulacra, as quoted by Jean Baudrillard (the It is not a new idea, being used from time high priest of postmodernism). His key ideas immemorial to think out what would be the include two that are often used in discussing result of a particular action or combination of postmodernism in the arts: ‘simulation’ and

factors in the light of the knowledge you have; XPB ‘the hyperreal’. The hyperreal is ‘more real used in politics, economics, and generally in Is this motorsport’s version of Plato’s cave? Modern simulators than real’: something fake and artificial comes any situation where the outcome is simulated get fairly close to reality but lap time simulations can be fudged to be more definitive of the real than reality in your mind before engaging in any action. itself. Examples include high fashion (which is Armies have war games, either in the field or on race strategy, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and more beautiful than beauty), the news (sound bites paper, the algorithms developed to weight the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), for instance. determine outcomes of political contests), and inputs, disposition and number of resources. There was once a Frenchman and an Irishman: then there’s Disneyland. Simulations can also be a mathematical model Claude-Louis Navier and Sir George Gabriel Stokes. A ‘simulation’ is a copy or imitation that constructed according to empirical evidence. Navier formulated the general theory of elasticity in substitutes for reality. There we have it. There is so Lap time simulation is one of the interesting a mathematically usable form in 1821, and in 1826 much more to be written about all this, but I will uses of it. The first LTS I am aware of was created at he established the elastic modulus as a property abstain from simulacra and head for a real coffee Mercedes Benz in 1954 to hand calculate sectors of materials independent of the second moment now, unless we exist as in the thesis set out in a 2003 of a track before summing them up for a complete of area. Navier is therefore often considered to be paper by Nick Bostrom, in which he argues that the lap time once the laborious process was finished. the founder of modern structural analysis. Stokes simulated reality scenario is correct, and that the The advent of computers made life a lot easier, made seminal contributions to fluid dynamics world that we see around us is very likely merely computers being rather good at churning through (including the Navier–Stokes equations), optics, and a computer simulation.

from NOVEMBER 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_Nov_MBAC.indd 5 21/09/2015 11:36 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA The rules of the game While rules are natural and necessary they often have unplanned consequences

he Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, Mechanical sports pose a particularly difficult everyone will play by the rules, but also because Duke of Lauenburg, was supposed to have case for the rule makers. In the first place they try what is logical today is not necessarily valid Tsaid: ‘The less the people know about to maintain an equal playing field (see what I did tomorrow, as circumstances change. In the worst how sausages and laws are made, the better they there? Sport permeates our consciousness) for cases the law does not understand the problem, or sleep in the night.’ In this he was alluding to the all competitors, exemplified by the general rule does not take into account human nature. often Machiavellian way things are discussed and in all sports that we are not all equal despite the The one-child rule in China is a prime example negotiated when laws are being made, and it also declaration of human rights. Splitting boxing, say, in of how rules can skew society, bringing in long-term applies to the commissions of most racing series different classes of weights, much as we can classify changes difficult to correct. that elaborate the rules, technical and sporting. engine capacity for cars, or having equivalence The wholesale condemnation of Formula 1 Rules are brought into just about every formulas for NA and supercharged engines. today is but the working out of rules that were human interaction, for disparate reasons. In brought in to correct and direct the sport to a business, in society, even in warfare, there are Balancing act particular vision, not necessarily the only one that ways and means defined about how to behave, In a second instance we can direct a particular could exist, but as soon as we are constrained by catering to the innate sense of fairness that seems enterprise towards a goal, say by limiting the trying to keep it equally pleasing to the participants to be part of our psyche. use of a particular fuel or technology, much as and spectators, the differing needs or reasons to do Any sporting endeavour, given that it is a governments do with taxation, where they it are in instant conflict. fundamentally artificial construct, to mimic real life, nudge a societal behaviour or consumption It must be paid for, either by sponsors or the either as a sublimation of our hunting instincts or pattern to a desired paradigm. public, and the choice of bringing manufacturers in as a simulacra of real life for educational or training Handicapping has been used in horse racing, by appealing to their marketing needs in the case of purposes, also has rules. but even more extensively in the Balance of engine rules has the fallout of not pleasing because Performance (BoP) to enable disparate cars from of the sound of the engine not being germane to Game theory different manufacturers to race in the expectation an engineering problem, but directly related to the Most animals residing on the upper reaches of the of close results. The real performance of individual reasons the public watches, amongst others. food pyramid indulge in play: young tigers, lions, dogs and cats, rehearsing In this eternal battle my money Noise for words and honing their hunting skills in The limiting of aero to restrict car anticipation of adult life. In them, will always be on the engineers performance is the result of trying to and in humans, it can also be used keep cornering forces down and not to bind the group and train them in surpass the safety capability of given working collectively. race tracks, but it brings in complex We understand this interaction, and interactions between competing cars the saying that ‘the Battle of Waterloo that limits the possibility of overtaking was won on the playing fields of Eton’ due to the impossibility of starting a reflects that. We constrain the game straight further behind. to how the participants behave, what And so forth, in a myriad welter they can use and in what environment of unexpected results. Just to look they will exercise the sport. It would There are few sports that have quite as many rules as ours; but do they solve upon the front wing arrays on a modern not surprise me if one day we will have problems or simply create issues which then leads to even more rule making? F1 shows to what degree of bizarre a particular set of regulations that results it can lead to. Efficient? Yes, define exactly how we should proceed in the case cars would never permit them to be raced together but only in the constraints of today’s particular of pushing a peanut with our nose to the top of without one of the car reaching the Darwinian regulations, not necessarily the best possible in Mount Everest. Just about everything else has been summit of victory by being the most capable under an unconstrained environment. codified, for an intrinsic social reason. the given track conditions. So we can postulate that rules will never be The problem is that in sports that are not static Success ballast is another way of bringing the best solution to any game, just the result of just the natural acquisition of technology subverts down the performance of the winning car in line the need to balance a moving target. The downside the whole process, leading to the whack-a-mole with other competitors. This does not comply is the Parkinsonian growth of articles restricting, churning of rules to contain the continual evolution with good engineering practice, as it artificially or banning, of items or concepts, and the even of equipment. And in this eternal battle my money constrains your efficiency, but is rendered palatable more complex ‘clarification’ of sporting rules. will always be on the engineers. by at least producing a stage on which to compete. The recent recrudescence of ‘track limits’ has This does not only apply to motorsport, it is also No Balance of Performance, no championship, or in taken on a hilarious bent, one would think that it in tennis, pole-vaulting, ping-pong or any other the worst case scenario, single-make races. is self-evident and does not need four hundred pastime. Basic athletics have not changed much; the The examples of different fuel taxation and words to define. marathon or wrestling being pretty much the same emission controls today are but the result of laws ‘Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of as when first done, but even the evolution of foot that were implemented. The consequences are human disagreement lies in the use of noises for wear in the first case has been enhanced. sometimes unexpected, not least because not words,’ as Alfred Korzybski once said.

from DECEMBER 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_Dec_MBAC.indd 5 23/10/2015 11:51 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA The only way is ethics In the final analysis whether you cheat or not is your decision. Choose wisely …

he way different senses blend to create your not growing, unless the owners allow more of the be subjected to some legal constraints and could consciousness is known as the ‘hard problem’ profits to trickle down to teams. This is currently be pursued for any transgressions, but rather on its Tin neuroscience. Thus what you see, hear and the battleground between teams, governing body cuisine and excellent weather. infer from the life around you is said to colour your and the franchise holder. Standing back from the As far as engineers are concerned all this attitude and behaviour. environment lest the pixels obscure the picture, it happens in the swirl above them. They are more So it would not be illogical to conclude that work all seems reminiscent of the libertarian ethos in concerned about solving the day-to-day problems. environments will ipso facto have some defining Silicon Valley, ‘get mine’, walled off from reality due But I should not anaesthetise your ethical judgment characteristics created by the thought processes to hermetic environment – much as in racing, but on how you play the rules, never mind blatant and culture of the participants. Diversity in a work also playing for big stakes. cheating of bigger capacity engines or being environment breeds ideas by the interchange of ‘Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion,’ said underweight. The ultimate behaviour of the team different cultures or ways of life, but one thing Julius Caesar. In this vein one could bring in the principal and management tends to give the flavour that stands out is that we are all theoretically whole structure of the FIA under scrutiny for the of the team, so it behoves on them to be ethical in working to the same rules. all parameters of their activities. As I have And when anyone says `theoretically,’ Ethics does not inform you about stated before, in racing (as in life) there is no they really mean `not really’, for different condition as being half a virgin. You either departments are working to different the stresses in a wishbone are or you aren’t. Likewise, even if uncaught agendas. The design department is trying for cheating, you’re a cheat. to get the different inter-related systems Ethics has not always governed working harmoniously to produce a quick engineering, one will just mention lead car, and motor racing’s always glorified the additives to petrol, CFCs and nuclear ethos of the unfair advantage. weapons. Engineering students would seem to be imbued by work ethic rather than Slippery slope ethics, it not being part of the curriculum, I subscribe to this, by having development and the sheer quantity of skills to be learned breakouts in new concepts and to use in today’s high technology domain, interpretation, which is close to gaming in constant change; as Noam Chomsky the system…but it is a slippery slope. stated: If you’re teaching today what you Engineering can be exempt from cheating were teaching five years ago, either the

by adhering to the rules, but it does not XPB field is dead or you are. It conspires to mean the companies that pursue the sport, In motorsport the temptation to bend the rules can be hard to resist; create characters versed in hi-tech but with by their undue influence on how they are but engineers should base their decisions on ethics as well as maths low culture. Contrary to the humanities framed, do not manipulate the rules. students, those who are active in causes and The board that decides if they will invest way the commercial rights were sold off, but this is feeling for people at universities, valuable skills for in racing will defer to marketing more than now compounded by the FIA also owning part of their future jobs as waiters, baristas or civil servants, engineering despite the mantra of ‘showing the Formula 1, supposedly in the interest of financing say advertising or marketing at best, McDonald’s at technological prowess of the company’. its safety push. That seems to me to fail the most worst, not to mention the absolute pit of the amoral The repercussions in the business world of elementary check for objectivity and impartiality, press (Racecar not included, of course, Ed). bad corporate behaviour; such as the major not to mention principles. Motor manufacturers manipulation of the emissions in EPA tests, will being embedded in this matrix of behaviour Machine-centric be with us for a long time. The general public is and mores are beginning to reflect this, with the Being less interested in people and more in awakening to the fact that the whole manipulation corollary of it seeping into motorsport. Who pays machines does not mean you have Asperger’s, but of government and justice by corporations buying the piper is always relevant. it helps. Ethics as a way of life does not inform you government through financing campaigns and the The Competition Directorate of the European what stresses are in a wishbone or what is the mass subsequent nomination of Supreme Court justices Commission is now looking at the operating flow through a radiator, and is not functionally does have consequences; need one mention the principles of F1 at the behest of two of the smaller more useful than calculus or programming, and as effects of ‘Citizens United’ in US politics? teams to ascertain the legality of methods in light of far as one can see does not impinge on behaviour; And of the special interest groups that are EC rules on competition. It is not the first time; there witness the current pickle of a major manufacturer, gaming the government, business stands out first was a similar review of FOM and the FIA in 1999. where expediency and corporate culture led to and foremost. Who can forget the mantra GM This brought forced changes in the way things some rather unpleasant consequences. president and chief executive Charles E Wilson was were done then. At the same time, there was Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher of misquoted on: ‘What’s good for General Motors is the hurried setting up of the FIA headquarters antiquity, stated in The Nicomachean Ethics: good for the country’, justifying its procedures. in , long known as the base for any ‘Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.’ So The sharing of the cake slices for those who have endeavour that likes transparency and oversight you self-govern, guided by your in-built virtue, not an F1 racing franchise is definitely a zero sum game … surely this had nothing to do with the fact that fallible ones formulated by the society you live in, and the fighting can get more savage as the pot is if you are based in any of the EC countries you can variable from culture to culture.

from FEBRUARY 2016 www.racecar-engineering.com STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Taking the nuts to Brazil Recalling a time when getting to an event was as much an adventure as the race itself

orty-six years ago there was an expedition between a couple of mountain ranges ensured that of the night, which entailed many driver changes as to the darkest parts of the South American the race, held in February, would be in a 42degC, each of us cracked under the pressure. Fcontinent by a band of intrepid Brits, doing 100 per cent humidity environment. The inevitable fi nally happened. With Ian Ashley all the things people did in the comics such as Cars overheated, drivers overheated and even at the wheel the rest of us awoke as we spun off into The Eagle. It wasn’t meant to be that way, but the I – a local brought up in this sort of climate – was 5ft high prairie grass, which seemed to stretch for combination of the idea of sending a gaggle of Brit struggling a bit, as I had spent the European winter miles. Where was the road? Headlights masked by racers on a ‘Temporada’ in Brazil with in the UK, losing my acclimatisation. But the sizzling the grass left only one solution. Whilst one was left a sprinkling of South American drivers for local weather did not deter the crowds, and there was a at the car blowing the horn at regular intervals, so interest, sponsored by Ford of Brazil and British sizeable audience of 35,000 spectators for the start he could be found again, all others fanned out in United Airways, coupled with the sheer size of the of the event – not bad for a Formula Ford race. four directions until one stumbled upon the road. sub-continent, made for some interesting moments. After that fi rst race the adventure began in The fuel stops in the middle of nowhere, at Emerson Fittipaldi had won the pumps where one wound the handle to Formula Ford Championship by May 1969, The rest of us awoke as we spun fuel up in places where you also had horses in his fi rst year in the UK, and both UK F3 tied to the railings, also enlivened the rest championships by the end of it. TV company off into 5ft high prairie grass of the trip to Recife. Once there one gorged Rede Globo and Ford thought it would be a oneself on fresh lobsters, the local delicacy, good idea to contact John Webb, then owner until it was time to fl y on to Fortaleza. of and a Formula Ford race Meanwhile, as the last third of the route was organiser, to corral a suitable representative on dirt roads, the transporters struggled group of Formula Ford stalwarts and through, having to drive the equivalent of capitalise on this. British winter being what the distance from London to Cairo … it is, it was not too diffi cult to fi nd a group of racers and mechanics happy to escape from Behind bars the snow, while the good prize money on The mayor of Fortaleza, who had paid part off er might have helped a little, too. of the costs to bring this circus to his town, was suspicious of all the boisterous young Brazilian blend gringos living it up in a tropical beach town As well as Emerson Fittipaldi some other with no sign of their racing cars turning future notable drivers took part in the series, up by Saturday night. So he decided to many of whom would go on to make an take Webb into custody. The arrival of the impact on the sport at a higher level in other That’s quite a crowd for a Formula Ford race; many were attracted to transporters early Sunday morning, race roles, too, such as ; Vern Interlagos by the presence of Brazil’s new hero Emerson Fittipaldi day, solved that problem, but as the multi- Schuppan; Ian Ashley; and Tony Lanfranchi, lingual personage I had meanwhile been as well as the winner of the fi rst ever Formula earnest, and the run down to Curitiba with the pressed into getting some of our band out of jail, Ford race, Ray Allen. These were also joined by trailers in tow produced a list of wide-eyed tales – as they had been sampling the rather downmarket the best drivers from Brazil. a few of the Jeepsters even turned up with bullet fl eshpots and in true Brits abroad fashion, raising Webb had a naive view of the Brazilian road holes in them. As Brazil was still in the grip of a considerable trouble as they did so. network, and came up with an optimistic calendar military dictatorship, the borders between states The trip back was less troubled as we were all for this race; starting at Rio on 1 February 1970, had checkpoints with armed military police, who road-hardened by then, and by another miracle driving the Jeepsters provided by Ford (it had taken did not take kindly to an unruly mob of Brits driving the transporters managed to get to Rio by the over Willys in Brazil) with trailers carrying the cars through at warp speed ignoring the barriers. next Saturday morning. Another good race in Rio, to Curitiba to race on the 8th after a 840km tow, followed by the fi nal in Sao Paulo, with a massive then loading the racing cars on to car transporters Jeep thrills crowd, and the Torneio being won by Emerson, to do the 3308km to Fortaleza (more on this later) The interesting part of the Temporada was really which kept the spectators happy, meant the series for the 15th, whilst the drivers and crews drove the the slog up to Fortaleza. The teams had a somewhat was seen as a success. Then the cars were delivered Jeepsters and trailers to Rio, before driving to Recife, easy ride, driving up to Rio with empty trailers, to the port and shipped back to the UK. and then Flying to Fortaleza. dropping them off at the track, then driving up The return of the Jeepsters was chaotic. They After the race in Fortaleza they would then be to Recife 2305km away. The Rio-Bahia road went were parked higgledy-pigledy on kerbs around driven back to Rio to race on the 22nd and on to through several states, and one unforgettable the hotel, though one was in a fountain in the Sao Paulo for the fi nal race on March 1. Much to the stretch consisted of a dead straight line for 500km, nearby park, and several were missing altogether, surprise of me and the other locals, nobody in the uphill and downhill through uninhabited scrubland, their keys dropped off at hotel reception. A Ford organising group raised the least question about the most of this at night. Headlights being what they Galaxy loaned to the organisers had also somehow timing and distances involved in this schedule. were in those days, this was a nerve-wracking fl at disappeared in the melee. All of which attested to The fi rst race was in Rio de Janeiro, on the local out driving exercise, all the while the man at the the fact that a good time was had by all. track at Jacarepagua. The fact that the circuit was in wheel expecting the inevitable corner to loom out Racing is not what it used to be …

from APRIL 2016 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_April_MBAC.indd 5 29/02/2016 08:31 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Beetle mania How a twin-engine VW took the fight to pukka Le Mans cars in Brazil back in 1970

have always been fascinated by extreme racing per hp, if we could produce two engines in time. weighed in at 417kg all-up, with some interesting cars, probably a sign of that inner six-year-old. Meanwhile, using the same Goodyear Blue Streak design short cuts. And when I say design, I mean INot for me the humdrum, run-of-the-mill spec tyres mounted on alloy wheels as the opposition the local churrascaria (cooked meat) napkins on racer, and probably the spectators think likewise, if meant handling would not be too compromised, which it was sketched during lunch breaks. we look at what captures their imagination. even though we would keep the original front As we were running ethanol (which also helped Let us wind the time machine back to 1970. trailing link suspension and rear swing-axles. cool the engine) with a Stoichiometric air-to-fuel Emerson Fittipaldi had just captured the British How to get down to weight? Building a ratio of 9.1 compared to the gasoline opposition Formula 3 championship and was back in Brazil. spaceframe chassis would take too long, so a quick with 14.7 to one we had to carry 60 per cent Meanwhile, at the Fitti team an 2-litre check of a VW Beetle platform bereft of metal more fuel than them; a headache when it came 4-cylinder engined sports-prototype was being bodywork showed it at 180kgs. Putting two 74.5kg to locating the resulting 160-litre fuel tank. The built, with the intention of it being solution was to make the passenger seat ready for the 1000km race in Rio Its appearance at the test caused a an aluminium tank to that size, satisfying at the end of the year. the two-seater regulations So far, so good, until the castings lot of mirth in opposing teams and centring the mass – with the slight didn’t arrive in time and, worst of all, inconvenience of subjecting the race due to the opening of import driver to the barbecue treatment if anything restrictions, suddenly the entry list went amiss. We were a bit blasé about the was populated with some fearsome safety back in those days. beasts. One Alfa Romeo T33, two Lola T70s and a Ford GT40. Putting Jokeswagen on one’s extreme thinking hat a Having tested the car in secret at Interlagos solution was found. It was easier we were staggered at the results, as it than it first appeared to be, coming fulfilled all the predictions calculated. down to power-to-weight ratio. Hmmm, physics works … Bringing out the trusty Faber- Its appearance at the first test caused Casell log-log slide rule we threw a lot of mirth in the opposing teams, until in the parameters. Location: they saw the car run, and then the final grid

Jacarepagua in Rio. KARL LUDWIGSEN positions then silenced them completely. Characteristics: twisty short straight It had two engines and a huge air scoop, and was quicker than Lola T70s and The Beetle was second fastest, albeit two venue, low top speed, so drag a a GT40 at Jacarepagua – the Fittipaldi VW Beetle was a very special creation and a half seconds behind in second order issue. Opposition: the Alfa, but not bad, considering it was the Ford GT40, 908kg and 440bhp; Alfa T33/2, engines mid-ships meant that we could slice the first run in anger and ew were only on the 3.2-litre 580kg and 270bhp; Lola T70, 869kg and 438bhp. platform just behind the driver and lay them on two version, which produced a measly 320bhp, rather Respective power to weight ratios: Ford, 2.227, 4-inch tubes. Bingo! There was another 80kg off than the 4.4, which would have been more potent. Alfa Romeo, 2.148, Lola, 1.984. the weight, and it left the rear looking like a classic Worries about handling proved groundless, it 1930s racing car twin tube chassis. sticking to the track like the proverbial waste matter Here be Herbies The engines were connected by a rubber donut to a blanket, aided and abetted by the very low CG Looking around the workshop there were several off the locally built Alfa Romeo 2000, with a rather and the massive tyres. It also proved that sprung to VW 1600 flat-four engines in racing trim, with about dubious flange bolted on to the back of the front unsprung weight ratio can be ignored sometimes. 160bhp and sporting two twin-Weber 40 DCOE engine and on to the bored out bolt-holes off the What could not be ignored was the fact that carburettors. There were also fibreglass hoods and fan pulley on the nose of the rear engine. The entire the torque produced by 3.3 litres was a wee bit doors (Fittipaldi produced parts for racing Beetles) fan/shroud unit was thrown away and, given that above what the RSK gearbox could cope with, and one experimental version bored out to 2.2 litres, we were sitting the driver practically on the floor and promptly stripped first gear during practice. of unknown horsepower as the local dyno only to lower the centre of gravity, we used the ensuing This problem was solved by the elegant overnight measured up to 200bhp and had pegged. There was head-room to do a false roof that doubled as a duct engineering solution of eliminating first gear, and also a Porsche RSK Spyder 5-speed gearbox, that we to ram air into the engine and cool the cylinders. running with the subsequent 4-speed box. had used in the earlier Fitti-Porsche prototype racer. The intake was simple. Lean back the windshield In the race the Beetle was out-dragged at the Whipping the slide-ruler into frenzy came up and you have the worlds biggest racing scoop. start due to a very long first gear (well, second with the solution, inspired by an issue of Hot Rod really) but swiftly clawed its way back to second, magazine featuring Tommy Ivo’s twin-engined Beetle juice improving its lap time to equal the Alfa. This romp and taking into account the fact that we We moulded the body straight off a production was sadly foreshortened when the bolts on the had five weeks to build and prepare for the race. beetle, as thin as it could go. First try produced a nose of the crank was sheared off around mid-race Two engines at 160bhp gave weight required of rather flexible translucent 17kg fibreglass body that distance. But quoting Usain Bolt ‘If I get to be a 420kg for an interesting 1.312 ratio. And the double grew to 22kg when fitted with all the necessary legend, I’ve achieved my goal.’ 2.2-litre version an even more appealing 1.05kg gubbins and then painted. The resulting beast The Twin Beetle did this in spades …

from DECEMBER 2016 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_Dec_MBAC.indd 5 24/10/2016 09:06 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Game of thrones One man’s global quest to find the ultimate in race circuit conveniences

onsidering the time spent in paddocks, it is a legend, as attested by the wide grin when you as far as we know. The worst case was also a not surprising that a fundamental part of mention it to the old lags, but the Interlagos one grievous infringement of The Hague Human Rights Cracecraft is to locate and inspect the track’s was the equivalent of the Tzar Bomba, the biggest Convention, with the forbidding ‘Madame Pisse’ conveniences as soon as you have finished the first thermonuclear device ever exploded. barring the entrance of many toilets in France and job of collecting the garage keys. After the not-so-innocent bystanders had Belgium, demanding money for the opportunity of Most tracks have now caught up with the 20th backed off to a safe distance and the fuse was duly solving a pressing natural need. century, and in Japan even the 21st, and most F1 lit, we had our flabber thoroughly gasted when after Resourceful teams sped up the process by level tracks now have toilets in each and every pit. a deep, dull boom the ceiling of the convenience paying a block-booking fee for the whole team But for a very long time toilets really lived up to the levitated about five feet, all four walls promptly for the duration of the event. English epithet, bogs. So much so that any hard- collapsed outwards, bricks whizzing away like But the Brits had a particular problem with core racer developed an iron bladder and granite shrapnel, and the levitating roof then decided that this procedure, probably because of lack of toilet bowels, knowing that when one left the hotel bodily it would return to earth again with a resounding training Continental style, where all have been functions would be locked-down until the return, crash onto the resulting rubble. indoctrinated to pay for clean, well-maintained and in the case of the all so common all-nighters It is interesting to note how Brits could look so conveniences, or to nonchalantly relieve themselves that could mean a couple of days’ abstinence. guilelessly innocent when questions about this against any close wall or bush. incident were being asked. The next year we were all The most contentious place was at Spa Faecal matters pleasantly surprised to see the new comparatively Francorchamps, which eventually culminated with That’s something easier said than done at a mass showdown of the rebellious British some tracks, notoriously in Mexico, where teams lining up outside ‘Les Toilettes’ and Montezuma’s revenge regularly afflicts the hosing all the walls, despite their prude gringos. One incident noted in the motoring attitude about these matters. press at Mexico was the alleged hijacking of the toilet paper by Sr just Portaloo sunset before Nigel Mansell was due to use it, a fine Tracks in towns, like Pau, Monaco and a lot deployment of psychological warfare. of American races had the modern plastic Also in Mexico, one of my drivers posted one-piece portable toilets. This also seems an impressive lap time in practice, but to have been a magnet for the crews before the team could congratulate him bearing duct tape, as it seemed to provide on the exploit he came in prematurely and at least one occurrence per race of hapless immediately he screeched into the pits leapt drivers and other team members being

out of the car and legged it to the nearest XPB taped up inside them. toilet. Having had supper with him the Bog standard: the diversity and quality of race circuit toilets around the The only chance of escaping was to previous evening, the reason was apparent. world has always been a major topic of conversation in the paddock implore any passer-by to untape the unit, Another well-known story is the Cadwell it being swiftly learnt that trying to batter Park flood in ’76, when the toilets overflowed on to palatial surroundings we had, so this rather heavy the door open was prone to make the Portaloo fall the track, causing the race leaders to spin off. One of hint was apparently taken. on its side, with all that entailed. the drivers is reputed to have said ‘I was pissed off!’ But lest we think that this was a feature only One also has to mention the alternative at the The most notorious example of a bog were the in non-European contexts, there were equivalent Paris-Dakar rallies, where rather than an enclosed toilets at Interlagos, which ceased to be during an swamps in many a track in Europe, too. foetid bog, you had an entire desert at your disposal early grand prix when a commando unit led by the at the nightly bivouacs – preferably downwind from intrepid chief mechanic at Lotus, Bob ‘The Vicar’ LM pee where you would be erecting your tent. Dance, used an acetylene bomb to show the teams’ When Le Mans had the old garages, with no The downside, of course, was a blatant example (all of them) displeasure at having to cater to their electricity allowed in the pits and your average of ‘the tragedy of the commons’ where a goodly needs in this dank, door-less dimly lit Hades. spectator leaning over the roof balconies flicking amount of the participants seemed to be utterly The fact that you had to perch precariously the ashes of their cigarettes over the refuelling unfastidious and would neglect to bring a shovel on the seat-less cracked porcelain bowl was cars just below them (probably just to thumb their to the site chosen, resulting in a faecal minefield if probably the reason why there was a surplus of, noses at health and safety), apart from the smell you were not in the vanguard of the users. A useful how can we state delicately, human waste, all of petrol sloshing about from the milk churn and spur to press on and arrive early. over the floor, walls, bowls and anything vaguely funnel refuelling kit, you could always identify But I did manage to score one for technology associated with the place. The ceiling was probably the labyrinthine passageway behind the pit by when testing a pair of infrared goggles intended to clear of it, but there lurked enormous half-seen the ammonia stench of uric acid and urea as see bikers in the dust-clouds when in the pack, and tropical insects, possibly poisonous, definitely everybody seemed to relieve themselves in the discovering they were very useful in navigating unpleasant. The Vicar’s acetylene bombs are still dark. Although, luckily, only the liquid component, the turdfield at the bivouac at night. The toilets overflowed on to the track, causing the race leaders to spin off

from AUGUST 2017 www.racecar-engineering.com STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Hyper inflation Are the makers of mega-money hypercars too fixated on those really big numbers?

egular as clockwork, manufacturers come for radars to increment the state revenue, call it or creating manufacturing methods to be more up with another supercar, some just show indirect taxation, the concept of a car that can go reactive, downsized and ecological. Rcars to pump up the image, but some as over 200mph is frankly ridiculous, and not many I have ranted on for years about the incongruity production cars. Some of those actually jump into hypercar buyers even regularly take them to a track of using a two-metre wide, four-metre long, ton-and another group, the hypercars, like the 1479bhp at day to exploit even part of their performance. a-quarter of metal object to transport 80kg of me 6700rpm, peak torque 1600Nm, from 2000rpm all Engineers can be forgiven for these cars, around. For more than ample performance this will the way to 6000rpm, Chiron, with a limited perhaps, as part of their motivation is to improve have to have something in the region of 300bhp, top speed of 261mph, and a projected production the breed. But it is time to admit that improving the giving a power to weight ratio of 5kg per HP. run of 100 cars. Apart from the performance figures, breed does not mean more horsepower or more it also ticks the really essential big number: $3.38m. speed, but rather more efficiency, more usefulness, Hyper-active A well know syndrome in teenage boys is the and better energy consumption? Let us take a small run down memory lane. What word-exempt conversation they tend to indulge in, That there will be a market for a couple of is accepted as the first car was the Benz Patent with a sprinkling of numbers and of course letters, thousand supercars or hypercars is clear, given the Motorwagen of 1886, with a 560W (0.75hp) 954cc exemplified in this sample: ‘Ah, the 3000YZ 3-litre world’s fleet of approximately 1.3bn cars, but it does engine and an empty weight of 265kg, giving a triple-turbo; zero to a 100 in 3.5 seconds, DOHC not need the slavish hyping of it by the motoring power to weight ratio of 353.3kg/hp. It could easily desmodromic cams, 500bhp, paddleshift, rheostatic press. And this applies also to more mundane cars. be outperformed by a horse. dampers, active differential beast.’ Why would you need an 8-speed 600bhp 4WD Okay, as we progressed we then went from a To be answered with: ‘The 114 W16 can Audi RS6 station wagon? Considering that it will 1908 Ford Model T 2.9-litre flex-fuel, at 27kg/hp, to beat it easily, 600bhp DIN double manifold today’s base saloon of around 150hp with a flux-capacitor with nuclear mega tonnage power to weight ratio of 8.8kg/hp. capability and a state of the art air conditioner, The high-performance car could be capable of 48,000 BTUs of heat extraction. And exemplified in 1984 by the Ferrari Testarossa, holographic mirrors. Can’t beat those.’ with 390bhp and P/W ratio of 3.86kg/hp, or in 2007 with a Porsche 911GT2 with Figures of speech 523bhp and 2.75kg/hp. Today’s La Ferrari These conversations do not only involve cars, with 950bhp clocks in at a P/W of 1.66kg/hp, they also apply to stereo equipment, planes just slightly worse than a 1936 Supermarine and of course, weapons. I am not immune Spitfire with a P/W ratio of 1.57. We will have to this either, but at least it is part of the to go a bit further to reach the highs of a job description. But sanity should return to Boeing 747 (0.548kg/hp), but we’re not too the populace at large and principally to the far away from the first of Audi’s diesel Le motoring press, who act as porn merchants to The Bugatti Chiron costs $3.38m, yet a 300kg 0.4-litre car could Mans winners, the 2006 R10 TDI at 1.43. this syndrome. It is time to acknowledge that be a more attractive solution. And drives a Smart But what we need is a measure of usable this sort of performance is not really usable performance, and as such we need to parse anywhere, save dedicated high-speed test ovals. spend most of its life trundling around small towns in the other factors, such as what speed we really One company car I used was a or cities, or at best in the suburbs on the school need to go, what fuel consumption and pollution Diablo. It had more blind spots than Stevie Wonder, run, it does smell a bit of overkill. It’s a nice car, yes, is acceptable, and what the car is to be used for, a clunky gearbox, pedals that required truck driver but not really pertinent to real life. But it is a mega plus what it will cost to scrap and maintain. We muscles, an air conditioner that couldn’t cope with car to drop into a conversation in a pub, or for do not need a bling advertiser and bird puller, the half-acre of glass so you would in summer, getting one-up on your neighbour. women are much more sensible than that. while it was impossible to pay Autostrada tolls We can build sane cars easily. It will weigh more without opening the door and getting out. Handy Murray than a bare bones early 20th century cycle car, but So why do they exist? Well, we can class them in Probably the premier designer of my generation, given the materials we have now, putatively 50 per the jewellery category, like watches, where you can Gordon Murray, has said: ‘I’ve driven a Smart car cent efficient ICE engines, one can design and build find examples like the Graff Diamonds Hallucination for the last 13 years.’ After designing F1 cars that a 300kg carbon aluminium 0.4-litre engine 100bhp at $55m; the Breguet Marie-Antoinette Grande won the world championship, producing the car that will outperform all the iconic sportcars Complication Pocket Watch at $30m; or the Richard McLaren F1 supercar that won Le Mans at its first we had drooled over in our teens (or later for the Mille RM 56-02 Sapphire Tourbillon at a mere $2m. attempt, we can assume he knows cars, be it for the incurably car-struck) and reduce pollution, use less The high price tag is the reason to buy it. road or race track, and he loves driving and all that space and accelerate very quickly. But engineering is not supposed to be a goes with it. So he’s worth listening to. The sole drawback is having to share the wallet advertiser, and we can tell the time on our And where is Gordon Murray now? Well, if you road with Ms Doe taking the kids to school in the smartphone these days. And considering that what are in the business, you should know he is still 3-tonne, 9ft high Toyota Tyrannosaurus SUV. I do used to be the open road is now a hunting ground very active indeed, be it with designing town cars, love cars, honest, guv, but some sanity please. Improving the breed does not mean more horsepower or more speed

from NOVEMBER 2017 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBAC.indd 5 25/09/2017 08:39 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA The fast and the curious Our columnist recalls the racing legends he’s known during 60 years in the sport

ith the racing season now at an end, all generally known was his ability to swallow a triple- from friends back in Brazil, so when he turned up in the championships decided, we are in to decker creme caramel in one go, as I once witnessed Europe he was a fixture at the Formula 1 shop, also Wthe build and testing seasons for 2018. at a winter test at Paul Ricard, when we were fooling sharing our pits when doing the Formula Ford 2000 But it’s also a time to look back. Because, for me, around at the cafeteria as the track was too icy to European Championship, an F1 preliminary. the end of the 2017 season marked a fairly major run the cars. The ‘Hill Challenge’, as it was known, I did not have any racing driver as a hero, milestone in my life, as my first race was the Sao consisted in piling up three creme caramels on top but I respected them for their work. Ayrton was Paulo Grand Prix, on 7 December 1957. of each other and proceeding to swallow it in one really an exception, though. I saw some amazing Sixty years in racing has brought a huge cast go, without using hands. The added challenge was performances in Formula 1, but the signs were there of characters into my life, of the sort one does not that once you had managed the ‘double caramel’ it from the very start. At Hockenheim in FF2000 he usually meet in a conventional existence, racing was odds on that as you leant to ingest the triple, set pole in the wet, by eight seconds! That’s right, being a high risk, high intensity sport, and like a someone would then mash your face in the plate. eight seconds …Then he stood by the pit wall as the circus – after which it is named – also highly mobile. others thrashed around. When they came to within Racing does give us larger than life people, then. The joker two seconds of his time, he shrugged, got back in Here I shall speak about those drivers who have Several drivers came close to this culinary Holy Grail, the car and opened the gap to three seconds. At gone. Sadly, there are too many in this list, as the but the rules maintained that you had to swallow Zeltweg, on the old layout, after starting from pole, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s were dangerous years (speaking all of it, just aspirating them and then spraying the when he came along alone on to the pit straight we about the years I was present, here). spectators while laughing did not count. all thought there was a massive pile-up somewhere, XPB only to see the rest come buzzing by when The maestro he had disappeared over the brow of My list starts with , the hill. An awesome driver, 110 per cent nicknamed El Chueco (the bowlegged committed in all senses, and I have worked one), and my first race. He won, and we with some extraordinary drivers, so I know would meet several times afterwards when this judgement is correct. he came to Brazil in the late ’60s, doing some laps with a two-stroke, front-wheel- The parrot drive DKW saloon racer, decently fast and was a very big personality. showing his versatility right up to a last During testing at Interlagos before the meeting at Vallelunga during an F2 race. Formula 1 race one year we ended up We would dine at the local trattoria in the doing the Monty Python parrot sketch evening. Fangio was a gentle, racing- over the PA, as it was one of our staples, passionate person, with a squeaky voice together with the genial scribe Alan Henry, and the mild demeanour of someone Our man Divila says fellow Brazilian (pictured at Monaco and then egged on by him I ended up who did not have to prove anything – five in 1987) was the most committed driver, in every sense, he has known training the sellers at the track world championships with four different to go around the pits, crying ‘albatross’. manufacturers did all the talking for him. An enormously witty man with a lovely sense But sadly we never did manage to get them to Then there was ; a lovely man, of humour, Hill provided one of the high-points in say ‘stormy petrel on a stick’. enormously talented with magical car control. We the South American Formula 2 Temporada series at Clay Regazzoni had a good run in F1, and after did Formula 2 and Formula 1 together. His main Cordoba by grabbing a microphone and then doing the Longbeach crash that left him paraplegic he defect was not being a very good test driver, as his the commentary on a porn film that was being still participated in the Paris-Dakar with a specially natural talent just erased any twitchy handling. The projected on the back of the grandstand by some adapted car. Despite the fatigue he suffered, the only way to see if a car had improved was taking a bored members of one of the teams as we were suppers at bivouacs gossiping about our mutual note that it was less tail-out than on the previous waiting for the racecars to arrive. friends in Formula 1 were always entertaining. run. You could spend all day changing things at the I, and probably most of the racers present, do There were so many others, too, such as track and not find much out as he did the same lap- not remember much of the film or the voice-over as , Carlos Pace, Jochen Rindt, Francois times. Eventually we settled on a working procedure we were rolling on the ground with tears of laughter Cevert, Pedro Rodriguez, , Bob Wollek, where his team mate, Emerson Fittipaldi, would in our eyes. It must have been awesome, especially , most team-mates or friends, set up the car – and then get a bit miffed as Ronnie delivered in his dry, droll way. and mostly both, but 60 years is a long time to went a couple of tenths faster. And then there was Ayrton Senna. He was pack with memories and one page in Racecar had already collected several already known by the Brazilian contingent in is sadly not enough space. There is, as always in records by the time I met him, but one which is not Europe, as we had heard about his karting prowess our sport, far too much to tell.

Fangio did not have to prove anything – five world championships with four different manufacturers did all the talking for him

from FEBRUARY 2018 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBAC.indd 5 21/12/2017 13:04 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Wacky races Looking back on some of motor racing’s oddest pit stops and strangest finishes

any racing stories become legends, true or Jo Siffert; and the first and last privateer to win a But pit stops can be caused by more painful, not. Some happened a long time before I Formula 1 grand prix as an entrant. He also took the personal reasons. Reportedly had to Mwas there, so I cannot confirm them, but first rear-engined F1 victory at the Argentine GP pit when his crotch-straps were causing problems here are a few that have stuck in the memory. with Moss and the Cooper-Climax in 1958, the first during one GP, but the stop was longer than could Vittorio Jano was Alfa Romeo’s chief engineer. and only four-wheel-drive win with the Ferguson be expected due to an argument by the mechanics He was of Hungarian descent, having been baptised P99 in 1961 (a non-championship race) and scored a about who would actually fumble around Eddie’s Viktor Janos. He was a civilised man who enjoyed total of nine world championship wins. nether parts to adjust belts and alleviate the pain. life, and he was responsible for many iconic cars. During pit stops, communication between At Alfa Romeo his first design was the 8-cylinder Pitting wits driver and engineer depends on understanding in-line P2 grand prix car. He also produced the P3 A captivating character, who confided to me at the the problem. When (the famed model, which later was raced with great success by first Long Beach F1 GP of being chuffed to find he honorary Irish driver, AKA ‘Jack O’Malley’) had to Enzo Ferrari when he began in 1933. had the same stateroom on the Queen Mary liner speak with who was engineering his car, Jano resigned from Alfa Romeo at the end of that he had once always used when crossing to the solution for Bruno’s lack of English and Robin’s 1937 and moved to . Among his designs at the US; the liner being now moored permanently lack of Italian was to speak in Latin, Robin having Lancia was the grand prix D50 for 1954, but after the as a floating hotel. In his passport he described had a classic education and Bruno having studied death of Alberto Ascari and the Le Mans disaster, his profession as ‘gentleman’, and informally as a seminarist for the priesthood, probably the both in 1955, Lancia left GP racing and Ferrari took he described himself as ‘self-unemployed’. He only time in history Latin has been used in racing. over the programme, inheriting Jano. never had a formal contract with Moss, deeming Presumably understeer was ‘infra-directionis’. Jano’s contribution to Ferrari was fundamental. a handshake adequate. For Le Mans, Walker With the encouragement of Enzo’s son, Crossing the line Dino, Jano’s V6 and V8 engines pushed But not only pit stops are crucial to finishing the older Lampredi and Colombo engines races. You also have to cross the line. In aside, in racing. After Dino’s death, 1919 Andre Boillot won the , Jano’s Dino V6 became the basis for the doing the 420km distance of the Madonie company’s first mid-engined road car, the course, running around Sicily. Arriving at 1966 206 Dino. His V6 and V8 displaced the finishing line Boillot found the straight Ferrari’s V12 focus and their descendants completely swamped by spectators continue to be used to this day. obliging him to brake and lock up, resulting in a spin just before the line. Both driver Lunch control and riding mechanic got out and pushed But it’s another unsung Jano innovation the car backwards over it, but being afraid that I would like to discuss here: the pit Vittorio Jano is well-known for the creation of the Alfa Romeo P3 but it wouldn’t count as a win, they pulled the stop lunch. For the first Belgian GP at Spa, he was also responsible for grand prix racing’s first pit stop for lunch car back over the line, turned it around, and in 1925, Alfa had such a superiority for the then crossed it front-first. race Jano had a table installed in the pits so he and would dress accordingly, doing the 8pm stint in At Avus in , one time, a mixed grid the mechanics could sit down and have something an impeccable pin-striped dark suit and tie, and Formula 2 and Formula 3 race had the finishing to eat and drink as the race progressed. donning an informal Prince of Wales check for the line in the braking area for a chicane. Autosport Legend has it that its two drivers, Antonio Ascari Sunday morning stint. Towards the end of the 1939 described the race as ‘specially chaotic’, not least (father of Alberto Ascari) and Giuseppe Campari, race the crew flagged him in because they were because the drivers sussed out that the way to get were so far ahead during the race that they got out down to the last bottle of champagne, and they places and win on the last lap was to go full bore of their cars during the pit stops and sat at the table knew he wouldn’t want to miss that. ‘Oh absolutely, past the line and crash after taking the flag. Peter to have a quick bite to eat. Ascari won and Campari quite right,’ was his comment, helping to finish the Westbury did exactly that, picking up three places, was second. It must be added that by race-end bottle then getting back out to finish the race ninth. duly crashing, but still the winner. there were no other finishers, so it’s quite possible it After the race he drove the car back to Blighty, with had done the same, but got happened, as the competition had disappeared. the champers reserve topped up, of course. the number of race laps mixed up, crashing on the Another racing moment that produced an Liquids were also involved at the Monza 1000km penultimate lap when trying this tactic. Quester unusual pit stop happened to Rob Walker during sportscar race in 1992, when one of the Spice cars was also the protagonist of another unusual finish, the 1939 Le Mans 24 hour race. Walker was the heir came in to the pits with an overheating gearbox. also at Avus, rolling his DTM BMW car and taking to the Johnnie Walker whisky fortune and a bon The only cool liquids available in the pits were the flag upside down. For the next race, just in case, vivant, later a team owner, running Stirling Moss, several cans of Coca-Cola, which were then duly the mechanics had a huge ‘This side up’ sticker Graham Hill, Tony Brooks, Ricardo Rodriguez and poured over the offending box to cool it down. with an arrow affixed to the dash. At Le Mans the crew flagged Rob Walker in, because they were down to their last bottle of champagne and they knew he wouldn’t want to miss that

from APRIL 2018 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBAC.indd 5 15/02/2018 07:04 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

The inconvenient truth

Why you should not believe everything you’re told at the race track

ost truth society, which is the current is proof enough of the low level of that, but in engineering, the laws of physics being what they paradigm, both in the and the the 21st century, all their actions are followed by are. Wishful thinking simply will not keep a bridge PUK, and is rapidly gaining ground around umpteen GoPros, GPS and multiple channels that up or generate more grip on a racecar. the world, is actually nothing new in motor racing, record every creak, twitch and groan of the car, Facts, on the contrary, are contingent rather where both the racing teams and the drivers not gearbox engine and tyres. Yet they still come in than necessary. That is, facts could be otherwise. so much indulge in it as wallow in it. and tell porkie pies about what goes on. They are a body of knowledge that is accepted at a Teams do it when they sell a seat to the driver Engineers nowadays are like the Old Testament given time, but they can be modified in the light of or the livery to a sponsor. Promises of hitherto God, seeing all and forgiving nothing. They new knowledge. For example, in the 1500s it was a unheard of performance from the racecar and might not necessarily say so to the offender’s given that the earth was the centre of the universe, team is the stock in trade of these dream sellers. face, but opprobrium can drip corrosively from but subsequent examination of the details For, let’s face it, it is not easy to prise multiples of the engineering reports. Engineers also tend to proved otherwise. But at the time there were all million dollars, euros or pounds from anybody by have higher literary skills than drivers, so properly sorts of work-arounds that fitted the theory and just giving them the facts. phrased scathing judgements can just whizz over gave some sort of predictability to astronomical Drawing offices also extrapolate the the drivers’ heads unnoticed. calculations, thus ‘validating’ the ‘facts’. simulations and wind tunnel analysis to Himalayan The writer Joseph Conrad was a sceptic who levels. All this is well understood in the business, Alternative facts believed that the human world was fuelled by and falls squarely into the cognitive dissonance My pet peeve is the drivers that will corner you illusions. We can actually be fairly sure of this – bin. Let’s call it Olympic (insert synonym for lying after the session and play over and over again just examine what you thought a decade ago here) and move on to other examples. the on-board recording video to prove whatever and what you think now. If you haven’t changed deranged excuse they have for not performing your views quite a bit then either you are Test of truth or why they have clouted another car, the Armco uninformed or just not very perceptive. Of course, there are the other, more Just in case engineers are now sitting premeditated, varieties. Like winter back and basking in the warm glow of testing, where denser, crisper cool air ‘I told you so’, they should also consider will pump up the horsepower and their habit of having a pet assumption produce more downforce, which will and then cherry picking the data to fit flatter the racecar’s performance. Much it. Nobody is immune to this, and I will softer tyre compounds can be run assume my own faults here. without melting and all the parties involved are rather complicit in this. True lies The leading teams are prevaricating It takes a lot of will power to actually in a rather different fashion, running detach oneself from the subject and say, with boost turned down, or with really be objective. Peer pressure, the full tanks, or the harder compound, time stress of coming up with a solution or with aero trimmed down to lessen before the next session and the need performance – hiding the potential to to soothe your driver, that very fragile lull other teams as to their effectiveness. The shady world of winter testing, where sometimes not everything animal, can lead you to cry ‘Eureka, there So the two varieties converge, the is quite as clear-cut as the stopwatch and the data seem to suggest is the problem!’, come up with a credible lipstick on a pig to entice prospective measure and have it blur into the haze sponsors to sign on the dotted line, hand in hand or any other wayward object – I have never had of changed track conditions, driver motivation or with the luscious hottie wearing loose cardigans, a driver actually say the Armco has jumped out that old reliable chestnut, the tyre pressures or glasses and hair pulled up in a bun to camouflage and bit him, but probably only because even they temperatures were not correct, so it cannot be her appeal. By now these ploys are so well known realize that this is stretching ‘post-truth’ just a little absolutely refuted in hindsight. That said, the other and blatant that one would assume the intended too far. You can only push the envelope so far teams are going through the same process, and victims must be aware, and that they accept the before it becomes ludicrous, except if you are a will be doing similar things. act of mendacity for reasons of their own. politician or, say, the President. Technically you could say it is not intentional, All is fair in love, war and sponsorship hunting, The 18th century philosopher David Hume thus it is not actually a lie as such, just what’s but to reach really mega heights of deceit you argued that facts belonged in a separate category become known recently as an ‘alternative must turn to the drivers. I have often been scathing from ‘necessary truths’. It is necessarily true, for fact’, clearing engineers from the charge of about their IQ levels, as just the fact that they will example, that all the angles of a triangle add intentionality. But remember, truth (or physics) strap themselves into the contraptions they race up to two right angles. This is fundamental to will always win out. Good luck with that. Race engineers should also consider their habit of having a pet assumption and then cherry picking the data to fit it

from DECEMBER 2018 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHAC.indd 5 22/10/2018 12:00 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

An open and shut case

Should Formula 1 do the sensible thing and enclose the racecar’s wheels?

or a moment I would like you to think of Common sense, then, would see wheels being Admittedly, regulating the downforce tutus. That’s right, those frilly, abbreviated faired-in in F1, with streamlining and efficiency the obtainable by a bigger plan area could be tricky, Fballet skirts. They are more about image main goal. It’s not that we haven’t seen it before, bringing back the problem of increased cornering than necessity but are integral to the public’s Mercedes debuted the iconic W196 in 1954 at speeds and all that comes with it. A bigger plan perception of the art form. In fact, a collector of the at Reims. The car sported area could also bring on what has often been an such things once paid a whopping $94,800 for the the aerodynamic closed-wheel aluminium ‘Type issue with prototype racecars over the years – the one Margot Fonteyn wore in Swan . Monza’ streamlined body for the high-speed track. cars flipping when the air gets under them. Why would tutus be of interest to Racecar Juan Fangio and claimed a one–two readers? Well, think of how cars finish, and posted the fastest lap. Paradigm shift have exposed wheels and an open cockpits, However, the same body was to be used only three Bearing all the above in mind, why do we still race obeying Keke Rosberg’s definition: ‘Toilets have more times: at Silverstone, Monza, and Monza open wheel cars? Is it for the sake of tradition? doors, a racing car you get in from the top’. There again in 1955. One problem with the design Or branding? The absolute minimum, with no are reasons for an open cockpit, but why the was the difficulty of judging the overhangs and required ancillaries such as doors or windshield exposed wheels? It is certainly not for aiding the cars could be seen considerably ‘modified’ wipers, consists of wheels, brakes, engine, gearbox performance – those four cylinders sticking out after bashing cones, bales and other trackside in a minimal body that also ticks the box of produce massive amounts of drag – rather they are impediments, not forgetting other cars, too. ‘ultra-specialised, no ancillaries, the ultimate a sort of carry over from the early days of racing. speed tool.’ However, the less-than-optimal aero As we know, early cars were a crude Solution enclosed drives designers to go to smaller and smaller extrapolation of a wagon, but with an internal So here is my solution: let’s have Formula 1 with details to ratchet up the CL values. combustion engine rather than horses giving closed cockpits (thus eliminating the Halo) and When it gets as elaborate as that, the question the motive power. Of course, sharing the road faired-in wheels in the interest of aerodynamics, about simply fairing-in wheels seems apt again. with the then dominant form of transport and safety and also to act as drops for my eyeballs, However, it would require a massive paradigm haulage had its hazards and passengers change and could be countered with were often splattered with mud, and the argument that we already have worse, so mudguards appeared to make something close to that anyway, with car travel a less soiling experience. the Le Mans prototypes. Naturally, of course, the new-fangled Enclosed wheels would also contraptions ended up being raced. At enable closer racing as in touring car first this took the form of great town- championships, where getting up to-town contests. However, concerns close and personal is part of the game. for public safety led to the races being The shape would have the possibility staged at closed circuits. Competitors to be nearer to the styling cues of the would drive their car to the track and manufacturers’ road products giving take off anything that had weight or them the incentive to flock to the could fall off, which also improved the formula. Oh, wait. Similar to hypercars vehicle’s aerodynamics. for LMPs; how did that work out? Faired-in wheels are par for the course in LMP1. Could the safety and Perhaps we should abandon this Open all hours aesthetics of F1 cars be improved if they had closed bodywork too? little foray into ‘what could have been’ But when it comes to single seater then and simply accept things for the racing in the here and now, open wheels actually which are almost bleeding from looking at the way they are. After all, poet, playwright and have a number of drawbacks. The main one garishly decorated machines running around famous wit Oscar Wilde once said that fashion is that when two cars run close together their grand prix tracks nowadays. Whatever happened was ‘a form of ugliness so intolerable that we wheels may touch. Today’s tyres obey a simple to racing’s aesthetic sensibilities? have to alter it every six months.’ law – that the back of a rotating wheel moves Now, before you lot take umbrage and shoot So it may be a sense of romanticism, but up from the ground and the front moves down. a plethora of missives, tweets or good old letters some things are just so iconic to a sport or an art So, the connection of high-grip surfaces moving to the reader columns of The Daily Telegraph or form that no one would want to change them, in opposite directions can catapult cars into the Racecar, signed ‘Outraged of Milton Keynes’, or regardless of how anachronistic, unnecessary, or air. It was the possibility of high-velocity vehicles ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’, please note that even plain silly they may appear. being thrown into crowds of spectators that led to my modest proposal is reasonable and logical. The tutu will probably always be associated protective fencing. Furthermore, while L/D values Anyway, just think of all that added surface area for with ballet and the same seems to go for open end up being high, drag figures are risible. advertising. Ugh! On second thoughts … wheels on single seater racing cars. Why exposed wheels? It is certainly not for aiding performance, those four cylinders sticking out produce massive amounts of drag

from JANUARY 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_BMMBGHAC.indd 5 19/11/2018 14:08 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Don’t look back in anger

Why do racecars still use such old fashioned technology to provide a rear view?

ay Harroun, an engineer born in 1879 The knee-jerk reaction from the organisers was It proved so useful and practical that it turned who was nicknamed the ‘Little Professor’, to specify that the LMP2s had to have moveable into a no-brainer for all racecars built by Nismo Rmaintained he only really raced so as to mirrors to shift the focus from the overtaking and since then. The added bonus was the auto-dim observe his designs being tested in the field. blinding LMP1s, but it only made things worse; the feature for the Suzuka 1000km race, which ended In 1911, for the inaugural -mile vibration moved on to new heights of blur. Okay, in darkness. Audi brought its version out to much race, of the entire 40-car field his yellow Marmon part of it was inadequate mountings to damp or fanfare in 2012, much to my amusement, as we – AKA the Wasp – was the only car to have just restrain the housings, plus they were mandated to had used that solution for 14 years by then. one person on board. All the others had a riding be bigger; so more aero turbulence and drag. It was also a primary item on the Deltawing for mechanic, a bit of a tradition from the previous Despite changing the mounts, shapes and Le Mans in 2012, a clean, mirror-less design with a years of racing on open roads where the early actuating mechanisms after the test day they still camera mounted high on the rear fin relaying an racing machinery, pretty much all prototypes, were vibrated, so they eventually solved the problem unobstructed rear view to the cockpit screens. We prone to mechanical failure or punctures a long laterally by presenting the cars at scrutineering, were definitely annoyed when not only did the way from any assistance. Incidentally, ACO insist on having the old style in 1912 the riding mechanics were mirrors but, adding insult to injury, required by the rules and were then demanded that the car run LMP2 mandatory until 1922, and then size mirrors even when running in returned again in 1930 until 1937. the Garage 56, with supposedly unlimited rules. This added eight Time to reflect per cent more drag, considerably For that first Indy 500 the Wasp also slowing the car in a straight line. featured a rear-view mirror, one of the first times such a device had Looking ahead been used – this was inspired by There is now software that has a solution to traffic management motion sensors that can put a Harroun had seen on a horse-drawn coloured arrow pointing to the side taxi some years earlier when he had of the car an opponent is coming worked as a chauffeur in Chicago. up to pass. It flashes faster if the In winning that first Indianapolis overtaker is closing up fast and

500, Harroun actually had a secret, XPB changes colour from green to red. It which he related over 50 years later, The trick mirrors on the 2018 Ferrari were as hi-tech as these parts can be, wouldn’t pick up vampires, for as we in 1967. His innovative mirror had but should reflective glass really have a place on a modern Formula 1 car? all know, they cast no reflection, even reassured his rivals that the racing electronic, but all else is signalled. would still be safe, despite him being alone in then siliconing the mirrors in for practice and the So, when these days we can have cameras the car. But the race track at the speedway was race. No more adjustable mirrors but no more guiding us into our parking slot, why not have a jarring, bumpy ride; it was, after all, made of vibration either, or at least back to the usual. the same sensing and warning about traffic and bricks. ‘To tell you the truth, on the brick surface, I Now, over a century after Harroun’s innovation, dispense entirely with 1911 technology; those couldn’t see a damn thing in it,’ Harroun said of the we still use mirrors to see behind racing cars. Why? draggy, vibrating, limited mirrors? mirror. ‘And no one knew it but me.’ Or why not go the whole hog and throw away This is actually similar to what we still have Mirror finish the dodgy mirrors and affix a full width OLED today. Some rear view mirrors vibrate so much In 1998 I was involved in running a Nissan GT500 screen to the Halo, electronically enhanced to that the driver can only see something moving car in Japan, and one of the corollaries of having a highlight approaching racecars. It can even solve behind him, but not very clearly. And then there firewall blocking off the 100 litre fuel tanks behind arguments when cars clash, just by recording all is night racing and the problems that that can the driver was having a small Perspex aperture that is seen on the screens. present. The ultimate was Audi’s new laser lights for the central mirror that didn’t give us a wide If you don’t like the Halos there’s another with an estimated zillion candlepower fitted to the enough field of view out the back of the car. alternative, go further and have the view projected R18. It was so bright that drivers being overtaken The solution was to fit a rear view camera directly on the driver’s retina from a projector were complaining about being blinded. They lost to replace the mirror, and a screen on the dash, on the helmet. Or what about having enough perception of the depth of field, their cockpits easily done as one of the team sponsors, which cheap smartphone derived cameras and having a filled with such light from the frantically flashing was a Nissan subsidiary, was a pioneer in the 360-degree view around the racecar? following Audis. Even the trackside marshals were manufacture of rear cameras for parking, now a We have the technology, software and getting suntanned in the night stints! standard fixture on medium range cars. hardware. But maybe not the will. When these days we can have cameras guiding us into parking slots, why not have the same sort of thing instead of mirrors on racecars?

from FEBRUARY 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHAC.indd 5 17/12/2018 16:39 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Dose of truth

The hidden dangers of 1970s Formula 1 and what they teach us about consequences

he law of consequences tends to permeate been busy, but they always found time for the The point is, we know the consequences of existence. Nevertheless, foreseeing it will surplus left over by the drivers, and particularly the over-using antibiotics, and we should also know Tnot transport us into Nirvana. Still, being Brits seemed to go hog-wild when abroad, with by now the consequences of having the car discriminating in my extra-track behaviour, I have the expected consequences. Beer was also often manufacturers lead the rule making process, or never had any STDs. However, I am an expert in involved. Not only did I have to take them along having a conglomerate operating a racing series clap clinics, especially Brazilian ones. to the clinic, I usually had to extract them from for profit, but being apart from it. In fact, every time I went to a particular one, jail after their nightclub forays in dodgy places located close to the usual hotel for the F1 circus ended in the usual argument about the bill and Bang for buck racing at Interlagos, the receptionist would the arrival of the local Bobbies. Much like testosterone fuelled lads, they cannot welcome me with a smile and ask: ‘Ah, Mr Ricardo! The Brazilian strain of the bug was particularly help but to revert to their core instincts, and don’t And what have you brought in this time?’ This was fierce, a Godzilla-like creature that would shrug even have the excuse of too many beers. But times because, being a local and speaking the language, off one hundred thousand units of penicillin have changed, in racing as in society. After all, I got used to having team members, and not only without batting an eyelid, as they had been there was a time that when herpes and chlamydia from my own team, sidle up discretely and say naturally selected by the locals, unfettered by any were diagnosed it was considered rather extreme, furtively: ‘Ah, I seem to have a problem.’ At which regulations, self medicating and gulping down a whereas today it would be preferred to HIV, much point I knew what was coming. couple of million units routinely, just in case. as the procurement of sponsors and increase of public ownership for racing are but Prude awakening symptoms of the underlying malaise, Britain in the 1970s was considered rather than the sport striking the (by the British, anyway) to be the right balance between technology country that had the most liberated and entertainment. attitude to sex in Europe. The truth All this can be factored in in was that it was a buttoned up, any long-term forecasting, and be prudish and rather old fashioned catered for or blocked, depending country that had not yet recovered on your views and position. They are from the Victorian Anglican ethos. not important, as the only thing one On the Continent, however, can prepare for is one of the pieces liberality in these matters was of the puzzle one has to assemble. A influenced by the Catholic work- probably apocryphal cautionary tale around of having your sins pardoned I like concerns Europe in the mid ’30s, every Sunday by rather dubious when a thoughtful gentleman looked entreats to go and sin no more. This Race rubber: condom maker Durex had a famous sponsorship deal with the around at the prevailing political can be proven by the fact that no team in the 1970s – some might say it suited Formula 1 at that time mood and implications, subsequently politician in Europe has been brought moving to a tropical paradise, far down by indulging in the fleshy pursuits. Evolution being what it is, any surviving bug could away from the chaos he foresaw in Europe. The Brazil operated on the principle that ‘there only be destroyed by napalm, flame-throwers and problem was, the tropical paradise he envisaged is no sin south of the equator’, plus the weather a bevy of bell, book and candle waving exorcists, was on an island in the Pacific, called Guadalcanal encouraged everyone to be skimpily dressed, if you were lucky, as many of the cohort which – the scene of much fighting in 1942-43. which led to other temptations. had not spoken to me found out on returning to All the changes discussed in regulations and Anyone who has struggled to simultaneously the UK, when they had to keep going back to the lobbying by concerned parties will have huge unclothe himself or herself in the freezing back doctor for something that had turned chronic. consequences to what racing will be like in future seat of a car in England and try to indulge in years, but one is prepared to wager that it will not exchanging bodily fluids understands the problem. Clapped out be what the participants expect. Some decisions But back then race tracks were rife with ripe Out of delicacy, no names will be mentioned will suit the prevailing conditions and be hailed as young things hunting racing drivers, as they were here, even though it was a long time ago. You extremely wise and clairvoyant, after the fact. somehow the embodiment of derring-do, and the know who you are, chaps, and your loving spouse, Meanwhile, I have stocked up with popcorn drivers usually unattached, too. James Hunt would proximate family, friends and employer will never and settled down to await the outcome. I don’t not be very PC in the era of ‘me too’. have to know the sordid details if you use a small, know if I am going to like the result, but there Before I’m accused of being a misogynist here, brown envelope stuffed with high denomination, will be some interesting changes, so deal with remember I am merely describing what went on, unmarked bills addressed to the RRD Benevolent it, even if it does entail going to the doctor later not necessarily endorsing it. The teams might have Fund for Expensive Toys. But I digress. to sort out the worst outcomes. Back then race tracks were rife with ripe young things hunting racing drivers, as they were somehow the embodiment of derring-do

from MARCH 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHACBS.indd 5 29/01/2019 09:27 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Lost in translation

Why a good grasp of foreign languages is a very useful tool for the race engineer

nglish has become the lingua franca of the often had to interject the caveat ‘What he really people to think critically about the government, world, something probably related to the means is (explanation)’ when I could see the or even to contemplate that they might be Espread of the British Empire, then with the looming misunderstanding. It could become rather impoverished or oppressed, by reducing the American move to hegemony in a polarised post- contentious later if it involved money. number of words to reduce the thoughts of the war world. In racing there is no escaping English, There were even more awkward moments person. In other words ‘we shape our tools then as the sport’s official language, too. when doing direct translation when the they shape us’. Language is a tool. Even the FIA, a French-heavy ruling body, interlocutor didn’t speak English at all. He rambled bowed to this in writing the technical and sporting on for a couple of minutes, me doing a question Speaking in tongues regulations for racing in English – those used for in a short burst, getting the compact answer, then Technical meetings at the FIA were even more final arbitration – due to the number of British F1 speaking for several minutes to convey the same entertaining on the endurance side, as most teams, who brought all their lobbying efforts to information. This, of course, left the Anglophones of the participants used the common English bear to ensure this was the case. thinking that I was either making things up or not to adjudicate and decide where to go to in Up until then I had successfully used my translating everything, and the others confused at future rules, but were then using a second knowledge of the French version to open up the shortness of the answer they heard in English language otherwise. Hearing the muttered loopholes to be exploited, and some years ago it compared to their translation. discussions in French, Italian or German of the was most entertaining to see Peter Warr and John The whole issue is the reason for the European relevant representatives on the sidelines when Surtees at a Brazilian GP scrutineering, purple epithet ‘Perfidious Albion’, resulting from all the debating a point could be surreal. faced and frothing at the mouth after We will not even go into the attempts protesting one of my interpretations and to translate the proceedings into being told: ‘The French version is final’. Japanese for my erstwhile employer. The use of the word ‘Hai’ (Yes) in Japanese Talk the torque does not mean agreement, not even ‘I During my early days in Japan, when I was understand’, but merely ‘I have heard’. still trying to learn the language, the team Having acquired 11 languages of thought I actually did understand it well, different roots; English from my mother, for I could follow any technical discussion Portuguese from the environment (Brazil) quite easily, as all the jargon terms were in and Czech, this gave a good base for English. After all, when the subject of car other Anglo-Saxon, Slav and Romance handling is being discussed the phrase languages, plus nine years of Latin at ‘Chotto understeer, tabun front camber school led to an ease in learning them. matawa katai rear bar yoku narimasu,’ is Motor racing is very good at communicating clearly when it needs I had thought that comprehension was practically self-explanatory, if you grasp to, but in a global sport the language barrier can cause problems a given, until a completely non-western the basics of vehicle dynamics. language thought process derailed my English does have several advantages, too; treaties and business deals done in the past, both cortex. It’s more complicated than we think. like German it is concise and to the point, for no sides having proclaimed their bona fides, but Ludwig Wittgenstein’s dictum ‘if a lion could known historical reason, it just is. As proof, look tripping over the perceived meaning. talk, we should not be able to understand him’, at the FIA Regulations themselves, the English Likewise the Brits view all other nationalities means that the language games of lions are too version being several pages shorter than the darkly, muttering that they ‘don’t do whatever different from our own to permit understanding. French, and more concrete in its definitions. they have agreed to’, when really it is just different There is something in this theory. When trying to describe a permitted action ways of understanding words or phrases. It could This will lead to different interpretations; after English is quite precise, whereas in the Romance conceivably have led to the dreaded ‘B’ word that is all, we see the same thing even in the thought languages you have to put fences around the convulsing the UK now, but we will not go there. patterns of common language speakers of definition stating ‘X is not permitted, neither is Y different political leanings. Throw in words with or Z. And no, neither is W’, to corral the thrust of Bad language different linguistic roots and it will be chaos. the regulation. The phrase ‘anything not explicitly The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity Taking all this into consideration – plus the authorised is forbidden’ is a stop to that problem, holds that the structure of a language affects its fact that we don’t even have a common electrical and sounds awkward in English, but makes speakers’ world view or cognition. It hasn’t been plug all over the world, each nation having its own complete sense in the looser languages. formally adopted, but we can see its thrust in preferred version – I cannot help but postulate Having often been in meetings with French, examples like Orwell’s Newspeak in the seminal that Shakespeare’s ‘confusion hath made it’s Italian, Brazilian and Spanish native speakers who novel, 1984. It is where not having the words, and masterpiece’ will continue to flourish, and not also spoke English in a discussion with a Brit, I thus the concepts, would make it impossible for only in the world of motor racing. The phrase ‘anything not explicitly authorised is forbidden’ sounds awkward in English, but makes complete sense in some other languages

from JUNE 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHAC.indd 5 18/04/2019 14:21 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Car noir

Remembering some of the most truly magnificent racecar failures

hen you like films, enjoy the story eventually drove it was the Italian driver Gabriele Returning to base, it was found in the wind telling, good acting, pace and having Tarquini, who was a whole two spans bigger, and tunnel that the model’s flat bottom was made out Wa keen eye for the details, you will had to go on a crash diet just to fit in. of a too thin ally plate, changing its shape and progress to enjoying films so bad they are The best laid schemes o’ mice and men, gang aft making the tunnel L/D very good. With the added unmissable. In the same vein, bad cars, by showing agley, it is said, and in this occasion things went bonus it would flex and keep the CP stable, per their flaws, make us understand the deeper agley indeed. The worse scenario outcome was set cent migration to front with pitch was a stunning complexity of crafting good ones. up when the March 88B we were also running in two per cent, a fifth of the usual. The 1989 Eurobrun F1 could be an example. F3000 turned up for the first race at Jerez. It had The time spent chasing the solution for a Let us examine it. In part, the team were ex- thus far performed brilliantly testing at Misano. major flaw in the current breadwinner for the Alfa Romeo Racing, and results in 1988 were We had a head start on most of the other team meant I could not spend much time on the reasonable. Eleventh in the Hungarian GP, on the March clients by building up the first example and F1 project, and it was farmed out to a consulting grid several times. But when part of the team left in taking it back to base, in Italy, on Christmas Eve, studio to be detailed and parts subcontracted. 1988 and the budget was cut, they were in trouble. being ready to test by January 2. All the testing The good thing was that after some major work Its best result during the 1989 season was not meant it was faster on the smooth sweeping circuit on the F3000, not only aero but also stiffening qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix. I say best as than all the Italian F1 teams, bar Ferrari, shaking the lower engine mounts, plus using the flex floor for the rest of the season the team did not even down before going to Hockenheim. concept on the car itself, judiciously leaving the pre-qualify. It is the only car ever entered in an F1 It seemed at that point we had a good car. flat bottom stay wires slack so it bowed at the season to never qualify for a single race. edges to produce more downforce, led to The truly magnificent, though, Innovative ideas don’t its first win four races later. are the failures that succeeded only necessarily translate The con was that the F1 project because they were actually built. The Star into good racecars evolution showed that subcontracting Hunter, built in Brazil by a visionary, if was a major mistake. The first tub misguided, racer had some elements that arrived with most of the skins having should have made it a winner. Big block delaminated from the honeycomb. The Corvette engine from the ‘no gearbox casting was porous and lacked substitute for cubic inches’ school, check. material in critical suspension pick-up Spaceframe, check. Mid-ship engine, areas and the steering column had been check. Power-to-weight ratio more than re-drawn with a 10mm titanium shaft – adequate, that’s another check. light, but with a very torsionally flexible The fly in the ointment was the driving linkage. After hitting the lock stops, you position, over slung over the front axle. could still turn the steering wheel another It must have been akin to driving a bad- half turn. Let’s call it fuzzy yaw response. tempered VW Kombi on steroids. It was I did forewarn several of the an exemplary answer to the question, ‘What can So off to Jerez for the first race of the season prospective drivers of the cock ups, entreating possibly go wrong?’ But it did have some ideas that feeling smug. The malaise set in at the first session them to avoid sitting in it with the engine on, lest were at least related – in a third cousin sort of way when the drivers would come in wide-eyed and their stay on earth be foreshortened, but after it – to sane engineering practice. palid, complaining they could not even take the was bought by Life and fitted with a long sweeper flat in top as usual over the bump, with a distinctive layout, I washed my hands of it. The meaning of Life lest they become part of the scenery. It did actually pre-qualify for a race, sort of. At To stoop to the absolute bottom of the food Scrabbling around the back of the time sheets least, the cars ahead couldn’t make it and it was chain, we have to crawl over to Life. Yet even was not the place we had envisaged. Hastily called up as a reserve. Next session it blew the then there was one redeeming feature. They wheeling out the previous year’s car showed the engine coming out of the pits. bought the chassis and suspension from the First new car was four seconds off the pace, and the It turned up at several further races, showing Racing Team, where I had drawn the layout, aero track bump seemed to have healed itself. a perseverance only equalled by British Prime and geometry for a Cosworth kit-car. Ministers pushing unpopular motions… However, as I had bailed out and was then Winging it If the purpose of the exercise was to bring the working for Ligier, to ensure I did not end up The diagnosis of a rather unsettling shift of CP with team to the public eye, it succeeded, now being connected to this project I brought an injunction pitch and detaching boundary layer was addressed the most notorious example of ‘it seemed like a to stop my name being associated with it, lest it between sessions by cutting the rear diffuser good idea at the time’, and classed as the worst F1 became an albatross forever around my neck. upsweep by half and fabricating a new support car of all time, despite some stout opposition. Designed around the then current First drivers, for the front wing, elevating it a couple of inches So next time you feel like pontificating on the and Marco Apicella, both classable to avoid having on-off front downforce due to results of a racing team, remember you might not as ‘petite’, it was a small car. The driver who ground proximity. Talk about winging it. know all the facts behind it. The most notorious example of ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’

from JULY 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

REV29N7 05 Divila-mpacGH.indd 5 28/05/2019 14:32 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Right as rain There is more than one way to predict the weather before or during a race

nowing what the weather will do is a big loss if the tyre choice turned out to be wrong, as and useful in strategy as you could come in full part of race preparation and strategy. your main contenders would have to pit, just like chat till the yellow line then brake straight into the KJust dry is easy; temperature and track you, leaving both even. This used to lead to a game pits, with no pit-limiter nonsense to lose time. rubbering-up and knowing your compounds and of chicken right up to the five-minute board, to We had the last laugh, though. During the degradation, all fairly predictable. avoid being caught out, waiting for the first one to race Peugeot engineers and weather bods were Full wet, ditto, but with the added problem crack, wings going up and down together with the crowding around the equipment trying to see of aquaplaning, when the water film between car having two wets on one side and two drys on when the rain would come, not noticing the rubber and surface can actually lift the rubber from the other, so as to only have to change two tyres mechanics jumping up and down in front of the contact reducing your grip level enormously. The when the final decision was made. pits shouting to call the car in as it was already antidote to this are sculpted tyres with grooves bucketing down on the pit straight. Never depend to channel the water away and maintain rubber Pours for thought too much on equipment lads, use common sense, contact. These full wet tyres are the most effective It worked very well most of the time, but at one virtuality is always beaten by real observation. solution for heavy rain. The grooves can evacuate Spa race it cost us the championship when the Another memorable Le Mans vignette was 85 litres of water per second per tyre at 300km/h. driver cracked, despite being briefed on the tactic, when I was running the Courage 3-litre Nissan- On an average track that is around 25,000 litres when overtaken by a car that wasn’t in the running engined C52, backing up the works 3.5-litre R390s. of water per lap, or to put it another way, half the for the championship. We were ahead of the other The sight of raindrops on one of the trackside volume of an 2,500,000-litre Olympic swimming contenders, but coming in to the pits at Spa, with cameras on the pit monitor enabled a quick call pool displaced during a grand prix per car, to ‘pit in’ while it was still dry on the pit and we won’t even get into the intricacies straight to fit wets, with a very confused of intermediates, designed to transition driver quizzically asking ‘Are you sure?’. from wet to dry conditions. But this enabled us to leapfrog the entire Knowing – or more accurately, field, and most importantly the works guessing using data – what the R390s, as they had to do a full lap on drys conditions are going to be is part and on a wet track, whilst we were on wets. parcel of strategy, long range forecasting I’m still chuffed about that call. giving you an idea of the possible weather conditions for the race weekend Rain of terror and of which set-up to start on. The worst rain incident I recall was at Fine grain prediction is not that Interlagos, for the Copa Brasil back in the precise yet, knowing exactly when the ’70s on a steaming hot overcast day when rain will start and how much there will be It’s not just driver skill that’s tested in a wet race, an engineer’s there was an unusual grey, mist-like wall is still in the lap of the gods. judgement needs to be spot on while luck will also play its part on the opposite straight just at the start of the race. Excited drivers later described Just add water the longest pitlane of the year, it dropped us their view of the incident: a sudden tropical storm Back in the day there were workarounds. For behind. Those points sealed the championship that had every single car running into a zero example, for the BTCC we had observers stationed positions; we were second, one point behind. visibility monsoon that none had recognised until around the surroundings of the track, all around it, Rain also brings out the skill of the driver, as slap-bang into it, and then spinning off both sides so the call to what tyre to choose on the grid was keeping the car balanced with little adhesion of the track, luckily without hitting one another. decided by knowing what the wind-speed was highlights the driver’s sensibility and has given us It had started raining so hard that tyres in the and then the phone-call from the observer upwind the recognised regenmeisters. I will just mention pits were floating away and we could not see more to tell you whether it had started to rain. It gave Senna’s first lap at Donington in 1993 here. than a couple of metres ahead of us. We could us a win at Silverstone when we started, counter- On the pit side the rain has provided some hear, though, one hesitant engine noise; a Lola 220 intuitively, on wets on a dry track, but we had the hilarious moments. At Pescarolo we had managed Cosworth, the only car that came around, driven edge as we knew it was going to bucket down to bring in the French weather service, having by Emerson Fittipaldi, slipping and sliding the halfway through the first lap. a monitor in the pits for rain checking around waves on slicks. Superlative car control. With single seaters it was a matter of using the circuit, it being notorious for having local Fittipaldi did something similar at Silverstone game strategy, with the cars on jacks on the grid, rain in parts of the track due to its length. When in the 1975 , when the entire field and observing the opposition in the championship Peugeot came to Le Mans it took over the radar went off at Club corner, except Emmo, who had stakes. The best strategy was to run the same monitors from us, and the service, factories having stopped for wet tyres the lap before, and was the choice as your main competitors, on the reasoning precedence over privateers, and to add insult to only car on the lead lap after the red flag. There that going for the same tyre would minimise the injury also the first two pits, ours from the year dot is a silver lining in every (rain) cloud. We started on wets on a dry track, but we had the edge as we knew it was going to bucket down halfway through the first lap

from SEPTEMBER 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHAC.indd 5 19/07/2019 17:46 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Spinning off How PR has infiltrated nearly every aspect of the motorsport and automotive worlds

ommunication has always had its pitfalls, a well-known essay on Politics and the English own agendas, usually by complaining about dependent as it is on noises accepted as Language, reflecting his great concern about their material or unfair penalties. A classic quote: Cways of passing on thoughts to others, how deliberately misleading language is used to ‘Despite the (insert problem here) with the car, plus the miracle of squiggly lines that crystallise conceal disagreeable political facts. only my impressive driving talent, huge guts and them on stone, parchment, paper or screen. Just unstinting perseverance got me the win. For sure.’ ponder how those squiggles can take you into the Going public At least they were speaking their own mind, mind of someone you have never met and has Today we can see the lesson was well learnt. before the clamping down of the PR machine, been dead for a couple of centuries. Spooky. One of the world’s fastest growing industries is turning them into programmed clones. They were Humanity owes a great debt to it, more public relations. It is achieving growth through more amusing and genuine back then. than animals, which have a limited vocabulary, stealth; this is all the more surprising because this If you deal with a race driver now it will even expressing themselves by non-verbal cues. We can industry’s very purpose is communication. influence your own words, you will spin it to at also use these shortcuts by, say, flipping the bird The 2015 World Public Relations Report, which least keep up their morale when you are in 20th at someone or frowning. A raised eyebrow while covered the industry’s larger companies, shows place on the grid. ‘It was good that we tried that listening to someone can convey a whole mind- that the industry grew by seven per cent in 2014, tweak, we have learnt that it doesn’t work.’ A set, not to mention eye rolling. following on from an 11 per cent growth in benign spin to keep the driver motivated. Steven Pinker, a linguistics professor, claims 2013. There has in fact been an almost unbroken Engineering publications tend to be immune that human language is different from animal pattern of growth despite setbacks that inflicted to most of this, as this is not a grey area subject communication not just in scope, but in kind. Most considerable damage on other sectors. where nuances can be twisted to the party line. important, it is hierarchical and nested in Physics tend to keep to rules that are not structure. A trained bonobo chimpanzee liable to be subverted; pigs still can’t fly, no can obey commands such as ‘give water to matter the PR spin put on such a story. Cynthia’, but has no better than a random But there remains the caveat that chance when told to ‘give water and banana tendentious reporting of technical subjects to Cynthia’. Meanwhile, a two-year-old child can try to drive consensus towards a tested alongside quickly understands that given goal. This is not an accident. Shall two nouns can make up a noun phrase, we mention the previous diesel/petrol pasted as a direct object into a verb phrase, equivalence in the LMP1 rules? which in turn is part of a sentence. This Being cynical, there seems to be the ‘recursive’ structure is key to syntax. same agenda on the future direction of

XPB energy used in racing, which is but a small Talk the torque being interviewed at a DTM event. Top-level subset of the struggle going on in politics A second claim is that language is innate, race drivers are trained in all aspects of PR work these days over environmental effects. The environment not merely an extension of general human will be the major influencer on the entire intelligence. This is a moot point, given that the According to the Global Public Relations transportation field and thus the motor industry, huge quantity of phrases that can be spoken seem Agencies Market Report, revenues of international on which racing relies for its existence. to fall into a distinctly self-serving style. PR companies reached a record $14bn last year, This also means there are many language cases. but this figure is just the tip of the because Break bias Engineers and nerds talk techno-speak, with weird it does not include earnings from the much So inform yourself about the whole issue, thinking sub tribes with their own jargon: electronic bods, broader range of non-international companies. about long-term outcomes, and above all check programme coders, strategists. These are new Welcome to post-truth and alternative facts. what the agendas are. This applies particularly to peaks of semantics, but sometimes literate lows There are more PR people than journalists the motoring press. Remember that while it does of the mangling of syntax laden with polysyllabic now. Fact. Just look at politics everywhere. And have a duty to be objective, gaining access to the words. They are a sign of someone striving to be impartial journalists are the exception, not the rule, news sources can mean cosying up to them. And lyric and knowledgeable, but coming across as driven by the advertiser list of any publication. the building up of a driving icon by extravagant verbose, with a tinge of nouveau lexical invention. Infotainment and advertorials admit to the praise and accolades all too often seems to be a In racing we had one of the prime exponents medium, but usually in a tiny font at the top. prelude to then destroying them in the search for of this trait. Ronspeak was named after former In racing in the old days there would be the circulation. After all that will generate interest. McLaren boss , there were even usual Q&A with a team principal, who knew what But technical matters are not well served by lexicons for it and an on-line translator. he wanted to convey, and not surprisingly, for his spin, nor are the users of the technology. The best George Orwell put it well: ‘Never use a long own benefit. But the one the readers wanted to advice is to read Racecar Engineering, where word where a short one will do.’ Orwell also wrote hear from was the driver. They would push their engineering and physics still hold sway. Inform yourself about the whole issue, thinking about long term outcomes, and above all check what the agendas are

from NOVEMBER 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHACBS.indd 5 23/09/2019 15:08 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Tour of duty In 1972 getting cars to an event could be as much of an adventure as the race itself

ne of my previous columns (April, V29N4) the owner to let us borrow a jack. Backing the Qualifying did not go too badly, apart from was about the fact that come hell or high transporter into the garage was not easy, it cleared having one damaged car that had been bitten by Owater the cars and kit always arrive at the entrance by only a couple of inches. Then the a kerb, a usual result of pounding around a street the track, and I hinted that there were many more garage owner’s jack blew its gasket as it was not track. I don’t remember where we were on the grid stories to be told. So here we go again with a story designed to lift the weight. Luckily, this was after – but by then the only goal was to get the cars in from the start of the 1972 racing season that even the spare had been slid over the wheel studs. We the race and have a shower, eat and sleep. after all these years stands out in the memory. quickly tightened the nuts and left before the I had moved up to Formula 2 with a team for owner noticed and motored on to street race Kerbed enthusiasm both Emerson and Wilson Fittipaldi and we had venue Pau, in the south of France. Race day dawned with most of the wets re-drilled, sourced our pristine white-painted Bedford Duple Arriving at Pau we headed directly to the but we didn’t need them as it turned out to be transporter from one B Ecclestone, who had a car paddock to fi nish off the cars in the pouring rain, dry. If memory serves me right Wilson’s car ended dealership in London and was also then the new with tarpaulins pulled over the cars and us. There up with a lack of directional precision, all the team owner. The Duple had been the were no garages there and all the trucks were wheel bearings developing a huge amount of play Brabham F1 transporter and was a converted bus spread out under the trees at the park. The work as the pre-load had obviously been skipped at fi tted with luxurious reclining aircraft seats in the continued throughout the night, with the added Lotus when throwing them out to the team – the front section and air con, the back being standard operating procedure of the builders the workshop and where the cars went. at that time was to deliver the cars as a unit just for ease of shipping, the teams Blunder bus themselves doing proper race prep. The It was all part of a package including one of dry track had put a higher load on the the Lotus 69s Bernie had run in F2; which wheels, loosening them, and the car was Emerson would drive alongside a new retired after hitting kerbs and exhibiting 69 we had for Wilson. I duly caught the an alarming weave everywhere. train to London and turned up at Bernie’s Emerson’s car retired while in second dealership to collect the transporter, place when the fi re extinguisher’s electric having to wait around practically all day connector short-circuited and cut all until the cheque cleared – Ecclestone the electrics due to corrosion within it, a not being the sort of character to release consequence of the deck cargo trip. We anything without seeing the money fi rst. had re-done almost all the looms because In due course I drove up to our Norfolk of corrosion but in the mountain of work workshop, had a shower and proceeded, The Lotus 69 Formula 2 cars and the converted Bedford coach that one slipped the net. with Wilson’s half built 69 now also in the transporter pictured in a paddock later in the 1972 season It was not an auspicious start to the transporter, to Cosworth to collect the year, but fi nally getting back to the hotel engines, using the time waiting for them to come task of having to ream-out all the wheel holes on after loading the transporter meant an hour-long off the dyno to trim the brand new bodywork. the three sets of rims and four new sets of dry rims shower then down to the restaurant to have a Engines collected – still warm from the dyno – as the wheel pegs were bigger than the holes and proper meal. The food was delicious, but the end it was then a run down to Dover, where we started none fi tted. Oh, and the reamers were the wrong of the meal’s warm glow after dessert and coff ee fi tting the power units while waiting to board size so the solution was to use a drill with some was spoiled by the news, not mentioned until the ferry. It was then that we found out that one sand paper to get the pegs to fi t. On 140 holes … then, that Emerson and Wilson thought we should of our cars was not quite as advertised, having Considering the fi rst couple of sessions were immediately leave, that evening, to Nurburgring to returned from Bogota, Columbia (where it had really shakedown runs for both our cars, retiring test on the Tuesday to sort out the cars and make last raced) as deck cargo. So all the magnesium to the hotel was not an option, as the job list was sure we were ready for the following race. uprights had a corroded fur-coat, while the reaching telephone book dimensions. Our food I come from an English family, but I had grown aluminium bits that where unpainted were pitted, consisted of sandwiches and endless waffl es with up in Brazil speaking English at home. I thought with a coating of sea-salt over every nook and cream from the booths in the park. I had very good English, but that night I learned cranny. That was a bit more work than expected. The reclining seats in the transporter came several new English words I had not encountered Once the other side of the Channel we then in very handy for cat-naps, usually after cross- before when the one Brit we had working at the had a burst tyre; that led to another unpleasant threading a nut or discovering a new leak when team threw a huge wobbly. discovery, the fact that the jack was missing. The hoses had not been fi tted properly on the third But all that was a pale prelude to the epic last solution was to fi nd a garage in the one-horse day without sleep – this added to a week of fl at- trip of the year. But you’ll have to wait a bit for French town we were close to, and convince out 15-hour days building the cars and travelling. that story – it will be in a forthcoming issue. Once the other side of the Channel a tyre on the transporter burst, which led to another unpleasant discovery, the fact that the jack was missing

from DECEMBER 2019 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHAC.indd 5 21/10/2019 11:38 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA

Pass notes The dark art of getting into the paddock without the right credentials

ne of the things that are part of the racing this ferrying came in useful in other places too. scene are the passes to get into the track. Practically all tracks on the continent in fact. OThere are many diff erent types of these And it was often needed, too, as there was – paddock and pit passes, brassards, wrist ribbons always someone in the team who left their pass at and diff erentiated hot pass, paddock passes with the hotel or in the toolbox, usually one of the new pit-lane, grid or track access. And then there are car lads not yet settled into the essentials of race week. passes; a source of never-ending bickering, the pit crew always grumbling about getting the farthest Ruff justice parking from the pits, as the more convenient ones Germany could be a bit tricky though as this was were nicked by drivers and marketing, of course. probably the only place where the gate checkers Let us establish that team passes are allocated had dogs with them. On one memorable occasion, for the year and delivered by the series organiser. having some young ladies with us who had been By necessity they are of a limited number and quite friendly the previous evening, the seemingly are part of a lot of horse-trading between good idea, at the time, of just bluffi ng our way into manufacturers and the organiser as to the the paddock by just having the crowd at the front amount available. Nowadays they are individually of the rent-a-car (it carrying considerably more numbered hard passes, shaped like a credit card, than the fi ve persons that it had been designed with barcodes and identity photographs. In F1 they for) wave their passes and drive straight through Plastic fantastic. These colourful rectangles are have travelling turnstiles where they are scanned the gate without stopping came a cropper. among the most precious items in F1 these days to let you through, recording when it came in and The lead checker obviously was a stickler for being useless for another entry without having documents, for with one bound he leapt onto the crime, given the number of people in the paddock, been checked out. Not much scope for smuggling front bumper of the car and grabbed hold of the but no action was taken, for the counterfeit passes extra people in these days, then. windscreen wipers, hanging on for dear life as we were impossible to spot compared to the real It was not always so. Home races brought in the careened into the parking lot. Slowing down and ones. Even marketing got into the act, duly extra pressure for bringing in friends and family, then engaging reverse allowed the offi cial to jump demanding their share. It was also obvious to not to mention all the passes for the factory bods. off . We merrily disappeared backwards into the FOCA, and it was not entirely unrelated that new It is remarkable how many friends you found you parking lot and sneaked to the pits, where we had triangular shaped passes with embossed writing had, especially just before the home GP, when the to duck and dive for the whole day when spotting surfaced a couple of grands prix down the line. week before you would get a fl urry of calls from a determined posse of offi cials, with the snarling So, it was then back to the usual tricks. Xerox people you hadn’t heard from for months. ‘Could dogs, huge German shepherds, coming past machines did sterling work copying the car you just possibly get some passes,’ they would the pit area regularly looking for the verdammt passes, and later producing fake hard cards was casually drop into the conversation. hooligans. We survived uncaptured, but it was quite widespread when printer quality improved Marketing had a routine of snagging the race touch and go. The off ending car was abandoned in – racing teams are quite inventive when under team passes after they had got to the pits, on the the parking lot, to be collected the next morning, stress. But Formula 1 passes are a bit dangerous theory that pit-marshals would not stop someone as we were sure it was staked out by offi cials. to scam, previously one did not want to face in team gear carrying tyres or parts of the car. The British GP was the scene for one of the ’s opprobrium, but with the new Drivers had their passes lifted early on, too, as they biggest counterfeiting scams one year. The original management it could be even more hazardous. wouldn’t be checked if famous enough, specially if card passes had recently been changed into a After all, money is involved. turning up in a driving suit and carrying a helmet. plastic tag, with ‘FOCA’ in relief characters, in a bland white. The mistake was issuing them to the Sticky end Wild ouest teams a couple of weeks early. Meanwhile, attaching your car pass to the At Le Mans the local teams had the ‘cattle truck’, Of course, the impending GP brought to the windscreen in such a fashion that you can detach with some strategically placed big items of fore the usual dearth of passes for the factory it without it falling to bits due to the pre-cut slots bodywork camoufl aging the mob standing behind personnel, and something would have to be done to avoid exactly this scam is a fi ne art. The secret? it. Anyone watching the van beside the pits would about it. Passing through the ‘clag-shop’, as the Rub the adhesive side of it over your clothes, it will think it was a portal into another dimension as fi breglass department was known, one had to turn collect enough lint so it will still stick, but will be it disgorged a sizeable crowd. I am sure the pit- a blind eye to the intense activity going on, with easily removable for use on another car. marshals turned a blind eye to the proceedings, as rows of moulds lined up to be fi lled with white These days, having been through the hassles this was repeated for nearly a decade. resin. A full assembly line process, minting passes. of supplying passes, most grizzled racers will avoid The British GP version involved space in the At the GP it rapidly became apparent that asking for passes for a race they’re not working boot of cars coming in. The expertise acquired in several other teams had taken the same route into at. Because they don’t want to cause trouble. Xerox machines did sterling work copying the car passes, and producing fake hard cards was quite widespread when printer quality improved

from JANUARY 2020 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila_MBGHAC.indd 5 25/11/2019 10:46 STRAIGHT TALK – RICARDO DIVILA Je ne regrette rien Three decades of life in the fast lane have left their mark – it’s been one hell of a ride

e Mans is a mistress that I have been monocoques with aluminium honeycomb challenging tasks done in exiguous time frames, visiting for 32 years or 11,684 days, which panels before mutating into today’s carbon- where you learn to depend on your team-mates. L is a sizeable chunk of the 25,581 days, 15 composite honeycomb structures. Optical intuition I took to heart Sextus Propertius’ exhortation “Let hours, 0 minutes that I have been on this planet. aerodynamics morphed into using cutting edge each man pass his days in that wherein his skill is During that period the gap that separates Europe ground-effect wind-tunnels and CFD to produce greatest”, thus probably depriving the world of and the Americas has widened by 80.23cm thanks absurd levels of grunt. Engines that were at the another second-rate driver and drifted instead into to Tectonic plate movement and the earth has pointy-edge of ICE technology have evolved from racing car design and my real love, aviation. travelled 30 billion kilometres around the sun. lumps that had a specific output, 108.26bhp per Without really knowing how it happened, apart Coincidentally the Le Mans test day on May litre, into today’s 375bhp per litre units, using 30 from enjoying every moment of the trip, I passed 30 will be the day I achieve my biblical three score per cent less fuel. from being a promising young designer into a and ten, hitting my sell-by date and voiding all It also gave me an opportunity to travel the grizzled veteran. Tempus fugit… manufacturers warranties. Hence this column. world and visit a slew of racing tracks, 162 at The first intimations of mortality were when During this period I must admit to spending far the last count, meeting interesting people from racing at Pau, quite a few years ago, and finding the too much time in racing team garages grid of the historic sportscar workshops and pits, but quoting Oscar It amuses me to think there are few race was almost entirely made Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde “One day up of cars of I had worked your life will flash before your eyes. Make people in a racing paddock nowadays on, although, of course, there sure it’s worth watching,” and boy has it were a few exceptions. been so – I’ve loved being able to play that can true a Borrani wire wheel The fact that presidents with everything from karts to F1. and prime ministers are also When I was 12 I began working on now routinely younger than a fMaserati 250F, chassis #2322, which me does not quench the idea now resides in a private collection that I am but a youngster – it’s after being raced for a while in South just a shame that the mirror America, part of the time as a ‘Mecanica contradicts this idea every Continental’, in which the thoroughbred time I shave. Italian machinery had an American V8 Doing a rapid appraisal of transplanted in the interest of easier the past decades just spurs maintenance, what with being a me on to make use of the next long way away. decade to work on even more interesting projects, do more A road well travelled weekly races and find new My first race with it was the Sao Paulo mechanical, logistical and GP of 1957, where we finished fourth. tactical problems to solve. One Juan Manuel Fangio won the race Continue to question and he also collected several world everything, learn something championships, proving throughout his Stonehenge and Divila – two ancient monuments that are still going strong in 2015 and answer nothing, as career that the old adage was true – form Euripides once said. is temporary, but class is permanent. all nationalities and walks of life along the way. Go motor racing? Yes young engineers, it will It amuses me to think there are few people There is a vast panoply of different characters break your heart when you lose, but the satisfaction in a racing paddock nowadays that can true a attracted to fast machines, the people who build, engendered when all the concepts work, all the Borrani wire wheel, one of my duties at the time. maintain, sponsor and design fast cars. Plus, the parts fit and you bring your steed home at the The Maserati also had a new-fangled Plexiglas drivers themselves are interesting creatures – the top of the pile are priceless. It will accelerate your windshield, and setting it up consisted of changing successful ones, the gifted but unlucky ones and growth, give you a new measure of just what you the tyre pressures and setting the float levels on even the run-of-the-mill ones, all individuals, and are really capable of and will spur you on to new the Weber Doppio Corpo carburetors, with any thus subject to all the foibles that define humanity. efforts. It will also give you a random walk through other handling foibles being corrected by the Drivers show an endearing lack of restraint with the thickets of chance, the kind of uncertainty that driver’s steering and foot pedal artistry. the spraying of champagne to mark their territory might interest a guy named Werner Heisenberg. I have seen what was a nice game for budding or spoils, or at a deeper level the ejaculate of Once you get an adrenaline addiction and start enthusiasts and engineers turn into a mainstream orgasm. Incidentally, the first known example of it enjoying walking on the edge of the precipice, the occupation and entertainment for millions, and has the bottle preserved just by the coffee machine rest of your life will seem boring. incidentally turn into a major revenue stream for at AAR where I spent too much time this winter Otto von Bismarck once said that fools learn those loathsome investment bankers. building another complex mechanical toy. from their own mistakes, whereas wise men learn The cars themselves evolved from the pre-war The other gift from the sport was the enduring from the mistakes of others. ladder-frame chassis to space frames to aluminium friendships forged when thrust into difficult and No, je ne regrette rien….

from JULY 2015 www.racecar-engineering.com

Divila July stAC.indd 5 22/05/2015 10:34 STRAIGHT TALK

With Russell Spence on the British Formula 3 grid at Donington in 1985 as they challenged for the title

The job with Working with Fittipaldi (left) Nissan to the end did not yield Ricardo Divila good hair enjoyed his work with the young drivers as well as the established old hands. He was never too old to learn something

Ricardo Divila took work seriously but always found room to play as well. Here we publish his driver complaint Bingo for race engineers all over the world, with our compliments

To subscribe to Racecar Engineering, go to www.racecar-engineering.com/subscribe or email [email protected] telephone +44 (0) 1795 419837

• Racecar Engineering, incorporating Cars & Car Conversions and Rallysport, is published 12 times per annum and is available on subscription. Although due care has been taken to ensure that the content of this publication is accurate and up-to-date, the publisher can accept no liability for errors and omissions. Unless otherwise stated, this publication has not tested products or services that are described herein, and their inclusion does not imply any form of endorsement. By accepting advertisements in this publication, the publisher does not warrant their accuracy, nor accept responsibility for their contents. The publisher welcomes unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations but can accept no liability for their safe return. © 2020 Chelsea Magazine Company. All rights reserved. • Reproduction (in whole or in part) of any text, photograph or illustration contained in this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Racecar Engineering (USPS 007-969) is published 12 times per year by Chelsea Magazine Company in England. www.racecar-engineering.com MAY 2020