Formula One 2017 – Unveiling Time is Here

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Debi Roberts

Ahead of the Winter Testing dates in Barcelona (late February/early March) and the first race on the 26th March in Melbourne – the teams have been launching their 2017 cars.

Although some information about the 2017 cars already leaked in late January with the images of the Manor MRT07 – this is the first view of many of the new 2017 vehicles.

Williams teased a video preview of the FW40 late last week and this has been followed by Sauber (being the first to fully unveil their vehicle), Renault, Force India, Mercedes and today, McLaren and Ferrari revealing their 2017 challengers.

The new wider swept back front wing is the first noticeable element of all the new cars – the regulations mean that the cars are becoming wider again – as well as the front and rear wings. On top of that the tyres are 25% wider – this indicates an increase in downforce, increase in grip and we should see faster lap times as a result of this.

The wider tyres mean that teams will have likely had to focus, in part, on reducing the drag coefficient as much as they can. This also seems to have had an effect on the rear wings – with the end plates shaped and curving in towards the lower part of the vehicle.

Another returning feature, that had very much disappeared in recent designs, is the large fin on the engine – this tends to be used to control air flow to the rear wing in yaw airflow – this shows an expectation of higher apex speeds than recent years.

It will be interesting to see how different the cars look as they line up for the first practice session in Melbourne – as there are often significant changes from the unveiling vehicle.

Student gets ‘Drive of his Life’ for Placement Achievement

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Debi Roberts

Final Year BSc(Hons) Motorsport Technology student, Matthew Brill enjoyed the ‘drive of his life’ recently courtesy of his placement company.

Matthew undertook his year-long placement with Staffordshire University partners Slidesports Race Engineering, who currently undertake a wide variety of consultancy motorsport engineering projects alongside their racing commitments in the UK and internationally.

Matthew with the Pallex Slidesports Porsche Cayman GT4 in Hungary recently. Photo: M Jenkins

His excellent progress and commitment to the placement didn’t go unnoticed with Slidesports providing him with an end of placement experience to remember – tuition and solo laps in a race prepared Volkswagen Scirocco.

Team Principal Mark Jenkins said,

“Matthew came to us in September 2015 and he’s made himself an invaluable member of the team, he’s worked extremely hard all season and that’s why we arranged this experience for him. I’d be happy to do that again for any placement student that showed the same calibre Matthew did.”

Slidesports have worked in partnership with Staffordshire University for nearly a decade to provide ‘live’ work based learning experience to students on the Foundation Degree and BSc(Hons) Motorsport Technology awards.

Matthew following his solo laps in a race prepared Volkswagen Scirocco. Photo: M Jenkins

During Matthew’s placement year he has worked on an extensive range of cars including the Pallex Slidesports Porsche Cayman GT4, the Team BRIT Volkswagen Golf GTi and rally cars.

Matthew had very little mechanical experience prior to his placement, and feels he;

“gained an amazing amount of experience during the placement, allowing the classroom knowledge I’d gained to be put into practice.”

For more information on Staffordshire University Motorsport courses, click here, or contact enquiries@staffs.ac.uk or to contact Slidesports Race Engineering, info@slidesports.co.uk

App Happy? The rise of wireless technology in the Automotive Industry

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Debi Roberts

Recent news stories talk about hacking vulnerability found in the Nissan Leaf and Tesla vehicles. That potentially, a determined hacker could gain control of none critical vehicle systems. In the case of the Nissan Leaf – the air conditioning and other power draining systems – risking the driver becoming stranded. In addition, data about previous journeys could be accessed. Nissan responded by suspending the functions of this application. So how big is the risk from the huge rise of wireless and app technology in vehicles and what can be done about it?

Nissan’s Leaf was at the centre of a cybersecurity risk. Image source: bbc.co.uk

How does wireless/app technology work in vehicles currently?

Early in car technology allowed us to connect our phone into a Bluetooth or wired system so we could make/answer phone-calls hands free. However with increasing technology contained within the mobile phone – we’re now looking to access, sat nav and other information while driving, as well as looking to play our music from streaming services or our phone memory.

The NissanConnect in vehicle app is one of several by different manufacturers to connect their smartphones to their vehicles – this means that apps, features and other services can be used to personalize their vehicle – this might be turning the heater on in the vehicle to defrost it on a cold morning or more advanced features to provide music via a phone, sat nav to the car or information on fuel, hotels or other items of interest.

We’ve also seen the use of black box telemetry within cars to monitor driving styles for insurance purposes and this will evolve further.

What is the future of this?

The black box telemetry reports to your insurance company and you can see a report on this data, but Hyundai’s newest system allows parents to monitor and restrict their teen driver’s speed, hours of operation and where it travels. It doesn’t prevent these things happening (yet, and there is a whole new debate there!) but it does alert the parent via text/email/app. The driver is also notified of this.

Moving on from this is the idea of a digital dashboard – already seen to some extent in vehicles and in motor sport with multi function trip computers – this can be seen in the partnership between Audi and NVIDIA – they have developed a fully digital dashboard. This will replace the instrument cluster, and fast processors ensure the frame and render rates are fast enough to display precisely. From this augmented reality and head-up displays are not too much of a step.

These all potentially lead to the biggest change of all, driver-less cars – we’re already seeing the car take control of some aspects of driving. From our initial developments in cruise control to adaptive cruise control and auto braking functions – this is likely to move to adaptive systems that can automatically steer to follow a car in front or keep a vehicle within a lane of traffic. This could develop into the vehicles communicating with each other to maintain smoother traffic flows.

The connected vehicle – communication between cars to ease congestion. Image source: wired.com

Where are the risks? Exploitation of loopholes?

Besides the obvious driver distraction element – which manufacturers claim to be avoiding through the clever use of voice activation and multi function dials – the largest risks are from security flaws within the systems.

The NissanConnect app’s vulnerability issues appear to stem from the level of identification checks it carried out. Those people who had never signed up for the app/an account were never at risk – however those who did, the system would look for the vehicle identification number (or VIN) for security – this loophole could allow an attacker to send commands to the vehicle via a web browser – leaking potentially confidential information such as the owner’s registered username and times and distances of journeys. When the app was unregistered – the car became safe from attack.

This shows that as the development of the connected car moves forward, the cyber-security side of the technology will become vitally important to. Only by focusing on all the aspects of safety and security around the connected vehicle can we work to avoid the dangers.

What can Formula 1 teach business leaders?

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Debi Roberts

The World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos, the event is attended by around 2,500 delegates, who mainly consist of world leaders and business people. Doesn’t seem like the first place you would expect to find two-time Formula One World Champion, Mika Hakkinen however, does it?

It took the Finn seven years competing in Formula One to win his first Grand Prix in Jerez, at the 1997 European Grand Prix, he went on to take the Drivers World Championships in 1998 and 1999.

In this BBC News Article by Emily Young, he credits his success, at least in part, to doctor and mentor, Aki Hintsa. He spoke at the forum about the role Dr Hintsa played in helping him sharpen his focus – suggesting that his concerns off the track, were affecting his potential. It is this ‘extra edge’ that interests the delegates though – how can they perform consistently better than their rivals?

“Operating three nights in a row on just five hours’ sleep is equivalent to driving a car drunk”

Dr Hintsa’s message, along with Mika and four time champion Sebastian Vettel, seems to be simple advice to follow – you can not function to your full potential without a good night’s sleep. The other messages, including avoiding alcohol and smartphones/computers before bed, are nothing new – but it’s surprising how few of us actually act on this advice.

Really, the message here is about looking after the whole, all parts of your life to perform better. Not just about working harder, but achieving better in the same amount of time.

Here we see top athletes advising business and world leaders on how to achieve their potential, this isn’t the only aspect of motorsport that can carry across in to the wider world though; technology, marketing, business processes can all feed across too. The skills that motorsport encourages are extremely transferable to the business world.

Justin Wilson – Obituary

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Debi Roberts

Just over a month ago we wrote about the sad death of Jules Bianchi – following his serious accident at Suzuka 9 months previously. Overnight came more bad news from the motorsport community, the loss of British racing driver Justin Wilson, aged 37.

Justin Wilson, who has passed away aged 37. Source: www.autoracing1.com

Justin Wilson, who has passed away aged 37. Source: Rob Chinn/www.autoracing1.com

Justin Wilson suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of flying debris from an accident involving race leader Sage Karam during the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway. Karam’s nose cone hit Wilson’s helmet and cockpit area as he passed the accident scene and Wilson immediately veered left towards the wall – seemingly unconscious. He was airlifted from the scene in a coma and passed away yesterday.

Justin Wilson was born and grew up near Sheffield, he began racing karts in 1987 before moving into Formula Vauxhall with Paul Stewart Racing (Paul being the son of Scottish racer Jackie Stewart). International attention came when he won the inaugural Formula Palmer Audi championship.

He was one of the finalists in 1998 for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award – Jenson Button was the winner that year, Justin’s brother Stefan won the award himself in 2007. In 1999, he joined the FIA International Formula 3000 championship, wining the title in 2001.

He then spent a year driving in the Telefonica World Series by Nissan and tested for the Minardi Formula One team – however his height (6ft 4in) meant he was not able to race the 2002 car. He however signed for the team in 2003, when the car was designed around his frame. Although the car wasn’t the fastest, Wilson performed well against highly experienced teammate Jos Verstappen. For the last five races of that season he replaced Antonio Pizzonia at Jaguar Racing scoring a championship point at the 2003 United States Grand Prix.

Justin Wilson in the 2003 Jaguar Racing F1 car. Source: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/

For the 2004 season he moved the the American Champ Car World Series, also taking part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Dome-Jude S101. He won his first Champ Car race in 2005 at Toronto. In 2008, the Champ Car series and the Indy Racing League merged to form the IndyCar series. He took his maiden win in the new series at Detroit that year. During this time he also found time to compete in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona several times – winning the event with his co-drivers in 2012. A single race appearance in Formula E at Moscow and a handful of V8 Supercar races show a versatile racer willing to try his skill at any event.

Justin Wilson in the Andretti Autosport IndyCar. Source: LAT Photographic

Mark Glendenning writing for Racer refers to a man who;

“…commanded universal respect and affection from his peers for his speed and racecraft inside the car, and intelligence and generosity outside of it.”

Away from racing Wilson was a passionate supporter of the causes close to his heart, including promoting awareness and understanding of dyslexia – himself being a sufferer. He is survived by his wife Julia and two daughters, Jane and Jessica.

At this time it’s too early to say the impact this latest high profile death will have on the motorsport family, we’re all still in shock, especially those of us who knew well or had spent time with Justin, however as a community – even knowing that our sport is dangerous – we need to look as the recent accidents to see if there are lessons to be learnt, steps to be taken, design changes to be made – and, most importantly, how to keep those competing in the sport we love, people who have become family and friends, as safe as possible.

Quote Source: Racer Magazine: Justin Wilson 1978 – 2015

F1 Radio Restrictions – Discussion

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Debi Roberts

Came across this article the other day, in it Mark Hughes, Grand Prix editor for Motorsport Magazine talks about the mid-season rule change that is coming to Formula One from Spa onwards. We’re in for a month long break between races with the Belgian Grand Prix occurring on the 23rd August.

So what change is actually occurring? Well from the Belgian race weekend, there can be no radio communication to the driver about clutch settings once he has left the garage on the way to the grid – that’s it, that’s all. The driver’s engineer can no longer advise on the clutch bite point based on any dummy launch that has taken place – it becomes the job of the driver to work this out.

Radio and Data from the pitwall and beyond influences the race strategy.

Okay, as Mark Hughes says himself, it’s a start – it’s something that should introduce some variation in the quality of individual starts and hopefully increase the spread of possible outcomes – but is it enough? Should we work on making sure drivers are the ones in control of their races, not engineers? Will this make our racing less predictable? Will it bring back the excitement that is sometimes lacking in many of the races?

As an engineer, our job is to control as many aspects of the race situation as we can, we’re seeking consistency, the best outcome possible each time… essentially, perfection. Leaving anything we can control to chance, it’s not usually in our nature. The driver behind the wheel is one of the biggest variables we have – and anything we can do to control that variable – well, it’s one less thing we need to worry about…

This chase for perfection often takes away the outside spectacle – something we can forget when in the bubble of competition. So, what is the answer? Do we ban all but emergency communication via pit radio, what data do we restrict? Where do we draw the line?

Mark Hughes proposes a ‘radical idea’, letting the drivers take control of race strategies;

“Some would be better at it than others. Which would give engineers nightmares – because the theoretical optimised outcome could be so easily thrown away. Perfect.”

It’s one way to introduce an extra dimension, and possibly, more excitement to Formula One – though, it’s not the only possible method – it’s definitely worthy of thought and discussion.

F1 Driver Jules Bianchi dies

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Debi Roberts

Today the Motorsport world awoke to the news that Formula One driver, Jules Bianchi had passed away during the night following his serious accident at the Suzuka circuit, during the Japanese Grand Prix on the 5th October 2014. He was just 25 years old.

He had remained in a coma since suffering severe head injuries when his Marussia F1 car (the team now known as Manor F1) struck a recovery vehicle during the rain-hit race. He suffered a diffuse axonal injury as a result of his helmet becoming lodged underneath the tractor crane when his car left the track and slid underneath it. This type of injury is caused by a severe blow to the head, with damage caused as the brain moves within the skull. It is a serious injury which very often has fatal or life changing consequences – as seen in Bianchi’s case.

Jules is the first active F1 driver to have been killed due to injuries suffered during a race since Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger both passed away in tragic circumstances during the weekend of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, 21 years ago. Maria de Villota died in October 2013, 14 months after life changing injuries caused by crashing while involved in straight-line testing for Marussia. Three more drivers, John Dawson-Damer, Friedrich “Fritz” Glatz and Denis Welch, have been killed while driving historic Formula One cars during this time.

Coming from a racing family, Jules was the second member of his family to have competed in Formula One, his great-Uncle Lucien having started 17 Grand Prix races, with his best result a third in the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix – however they would never have had a chance to swop stories – tragically Lucien was killed when his Alfa Romeo T33 crashed during Le Mans testing the year after his Monaco success.

While each of us has our own memories of Jules Bianchi, it is Tony DiZinno, NBC Sports Motorsports Talk reporter who sums the wider sense of loss up perfectly in his article;

“Death in racing is always a hard thing to swallow, no matter the driver or individual involved, no matter the age.

Yet it’s when drivers are taken before they have the opportunity to reach the zenith of their potential that the hurt cuts deeper.”

“Motorsport is Dangerous” – whether we work in the industry, or are just an interested spectator, we can’t fail to see the signs that repeat this incessantly; around the circuit, on websites, programmes, tickets… The list of locations is endless. Perhaps we tell ourselves that it’s no longer as dangerous as it once was, the death filled years of the past (1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s) are long gone but whatever we say, tragic accidents can and do still occur.

We owe it to the list of 50 or so drivers killed during F1 weekends or behind the wheel of F1 cars, and to the many, many more killed in other forms of automotive racing, to do all we can to keep our drivers, team members, officials, volunteers and spectators as safe as we possibly can. Perhaps then, we can stop adding to a list of names, the drivers who have never been able to show us what they can truely achieve on the track. Today we mourn the lost of one more bright star of Motorsport – all of those involved in Motorsport hold his family and friends in their thoughts at this sad time.

Tyre Contact Patches in CFD

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Debi Roberts

Interesting article by TotalSim on the modelling of loaded tyres in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.

It’s important to bear in mind that the round tyre we think of as being attached to the four corners of our vehicle (or the front and rear of our motorbike) is anything but round in reality.

To quote Jan Prins, technical specialist at Jaguar Land Rover (as he is quoted by Blundell and Harty, 2015);

“When people say that tyres are round and black, I tell them they have the black bit right. Mostly”

Tyre deformation occurs under any form of load – perhaps the most basic example to consider is a vehicle sitting stationary on a flat patch of tarmac – even then the tyre is not perfectly round. It forms a contact patch with the road as it deforms at the base of the tyre.

Clearly, the situation becomes more complicated as additional forces are placed upon the vehicle during a dynamic, moving situation. This coming before we even consider whether the tyre itself is inflated to the correct pressure.

Sounds more like we’re looking at the vehicle dynamics rather than the aerodynamics so far, right?! You might think so – but the shape of the tyre, the movement of the vehicle under load and the dynamics of the vehicle has a huge impact on the aerodynamics – just as the mass of the vehicle, engine specification and placement do. All these various aspects of the vehicle are linked and connected.

So check out their article and consider how that might effect the simulation results.

Reference: Blundell, M and Harty, D (2015); The Multibody Systems Approach to Vehicle Dynamics: Second Edition. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.

Automotive Engineering

Automotive Engineering at Staffordshire University

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