F1 2018 TESTING SEASON KICKS OFF

MCLAREN’S SECRET WEAPON

Under the skin of F1’s most impressive new car
...but will the
wheels come off
with Renault?

PLUS MERCEDES V FERRARI

RISKY ‘MERC’
SUSPENSION? WHEELBASE
 F1 2018 TESTING SEASON KICKS OFF

HONE/LAT
MCLAREN’S SECRET WEAPON
Under the skin of F1’s most impressive new car
...but will the
wheels come off
with Renault?
MARCH 1 2018
UK £3.99

COVER IMAGES
PLUS MERCEDES V FERRARI
Mauger/LAT,
RISKY
SUSPENSION?
‘MERC’
WHEELBASE
Mercedes, Ferrari

F1 2018 KICKS OFF

16 All the new Formula 1 cars on track
18 Mercedes W09 technical focus
20 Have Merc’s rivals missed their chance?
24 Ferrari SF71H technical focus
26 Italian team’s plan to go one better
30 McLaren MCL33 technical focus
32 No more excuses for McLaren
34 Renault RS18 technical focus
36 F1’s sleeping giant awakens
40 Force India VJM11 technical focus
42 Toro Rosso STR13 technical focus

Can Renault boost

44 Sauber C37 technical focus

PIT+PADDOCK
4

Red Bull and McLaren?

F1 testing could indicate closer fight in ’18
6 Alonso already making waves at Toyota
8 Loeb impressed by Citroen after test
10 Fifth Column: Nigel Roebuck
12 In the paddock: Edd Straw
FORGET ABOUT THE HALO AND SOME OF THE 13 Feedback: your letters
other dubious aesthetics of current Formula 1 cars, what
will really make or break the 2018 season – as any other – RACE CENTRE
is how competitive the fight at the front is. 47 NASCAR Cup
Most would agree that last year was more interesting than
FEATURE
the three turbo-hybrid seasons before it, because Mercedes faced
48 Gordon Shedden’s big gamble
a strong challenge from Ferrari. And, for the first time under the
current regulations, a third team won races during the year thanks CLUB AUTOSPORT
to Red Bull’s impressive form in the final stages of the campaign. 63 Martin is latest star for British GT
We’re all hoping the battle at the sharp end will be even tighter 64 Rare Chevron set for celebration race
this year. Red Bull should be stronger, while McLaren and Renault 66 Mansell and Walker to open new centre
have the potential to join in at some point. Our technical expert 67 Club column: Robert Ladbrook
Gary Anderson is impressed with the MCL33 (see page 30), 68 The gap at the front of Ginetta Junior
despite Fernando Alonso ignominiously losing a wheel in Spain. FINISHING STRAIGHT
The key for all three teams, of course, will be the Renault engine. 70 What’s on this week
The French manufacturer has confirmed that it has started testing 72 From the archive: 1973 Monaco GP
with the intention of focusing on reliability, before turning things up 74 Introducing: Arthur Rougier
later on. That’s why the fact that Red Bull covered more laps than
any other team on the first day of testing at Barcelona on Monday AUTOSPORT SUBSCRIPTION OFFER
was more important than Daniel Ricciardo’s fastest time. 46 Six issues for £1 and a FREE Senna model
Only a fool would make firm predictions this early, but if Renault

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can get itself together in time, then we could have three or four
teams at the front. But that is still a very big if at the moment,
and the Mercedes challenge already looks ominously impressive.

ENGINEERING SUPPLEMENT
The motorsport life
of Richard Lloyd,
new columnists Mark
REMEMBERING
R I C H A R D L L OY D

Williams and Lucas di

T H E R E M A R K A B L E S TO RY O F
A M OTO R S P O R T P I O N E E R

Grassi, and a special

KEVIN TURNER EDITOR

unraced Italian
NEW COLUMNISTS
machine feature in
kevin.turner@autosport.com
MARK WILLIAMS LUCAS DI GRASSI

this month’s issue.

HOW TO WORK THE CASE FOR
WITH YOUR AN AUTOMATED
NGINEER
ENGINEER WARNING SYSTEM

@KRT917

MARCH 1 2018 3
PIT + PADDOCK NEWS DEBATE CONTROVERSY OPINION FEEDBACK
l
l
Vettel nicked
ahead of Bottas
on second day
FORMULA 1
Ferrari v Mercedes: the
FERRARI AND MERCEDES CONTINUED
2017 rivalry during the first two days of pre-
season testing at Barcelona, with Sebastian
Vettel topping the times as Autosport closed
for press on Tuesday afternoon.
The Ferrari driver put in a best of 1m19.673s
on Tuesday afternoon using the soft-compound
Pirellis to knock Valtteri Bottas’s medium-shod
Mercedes down to second. But with very low
track temperatures hampering running, the
l
competitive picture was far from well-formed.
Vettel’s time is 1.3s faster than the quickest
time set at the equivalent point in last year’s
first test. Despite the difficult conditions,
a combination of the smoother, resurfaced
Barcelona circuit and the increased downforce
levels proved that the pace of this year’s cars
will be a further improvement on 2017.
The low track temperatures made running
challenging, with some cars taking as many as
seven laps to build sufficient tyre temperature. In
order to get the tyres working well, drivers were
l
trying to build temperature while minimising
sliding – something that proved challenging for
some. This made it difficult to draw too many
conclusions about the performance of the cars.
“Watching from trackside you draw some
conclusions about how the cars are behaving,
whether they are responding as the drivers
want to, and three cars stood out to me,” said
Autosport technical expert Gary Anderson.
“The Ferrari again looks strong. Even on the
4 MARCH 1 2018
out-lap before the tyre temperature is there, it’s
doing what the driver wants and both drivers
were able to be consistent. The Red Bull also
looked good, as did the McLaren.”
The most dramatic incident in the first day
and three quarters came on the opening morning
when Fernando Alonso’s right-rear wheel came
loose in the final right-hander. He spun into
the gravel, with the wheel coming free from the
car – an embarrassing start to the McLaren-
Renault era for the team.
“This is a very, very small problem but very
graphic, very obvious,” said Alonso. “A car in the
gravel makes a big thing. There are six teams in
the garage with the door closed and the car in
pieces, but no-one sees it – there’s no picture
of that. There are a lot of teams with trouble,
big trouble, and for us with a wheelnut it
will make it the thing of the day.”
Alonso did return to the track to complete
significant mileage and the first two days
otherwise went well for McLaren. Stoffel
Vandoorne had set the third fastest time as
Autosport closed for press, although his lap
was set using the hypersoft tyres – the
newest and softest of Pirelli’s compounds.
Several other drivers had incidents during the
first two days. Force India development driver
Nikita Mazepin brought out the red flag on
Monday with an off, while both Vettel and
Sauber’s Charles Leclerc had spins on Tuesday.
Kevin Magnussen also had a trip through the

battle is still raging
gravel in his Haas. But there were relatively
few interruptions to running, with the cool
conditions and Monday late-afternoon rain
causing more trouble than the incidents did.
McLaren’s former engine partner, Honda,
began life with Toro Rosso in encouraging
fashion. On day one, Brendon Hartley completed
93 laps, with Pierre Gasly taking over on
Tuesday. “It was a really positive day,” said
Hartley, who finished the day two seconds off
the pace in eighth. “We had no issues at all.
We stopped early because
“The Ferrari
of the weather, almost icy
conditions out there. But
everything felt pretty good
straight out of the box. is strong. It’s
“Obviously we had a lot of
test items that we didn’t get doing what the
to complete because of the
weather but I think getting drivers want”
through 93 laps was a great
start. It was really, really positive, all things
directed towards Honda. No complaints so far
and we had a perfect day in terms of reliability.”
With Renault focused on engine reliability for
testing and the opening races across its three
teams, Red Bull had the most promising start
with its RB14 and its slim sidepods. With
significant downforce gains since last year,
the only real concern was that the performance
level of the engine was not as hoped while
Mercedes has made another step forward.
TEE/LAT
“It is a concern,” said Red Bull team principal
Christian Horner. “If the headline [power] figures
Mercedes have quoted [are real] then the gap will
only broaden. Reliability has been a big priority
for Renault over the winter.”
This was the first time that the halo was used
by all teams having been integrated into the cars,
in some cases at significant expense. Red Bull’s
Daniel Ricciardo was among those who conducted
a start-light visibility test, reporting no problems.
“It might sound silly, but I don’t notice it,”
said Ricciardo, who topped
the opening day of running.
“Getting in the car and
getting out obviously you do
[notice it], but on track it
seemed fine. I followed a
couple of cars today and it
seemed all right. We did
the starts, we thought to
see the start lights could
be difficult, but so far it seems fine.”
The weather forecast for the rest of the
test, which is due to finish today (Thursday),
suggested snow was possible and that an extra
day could be added. But with Williams and
Ferrari scheduled to run filming days on Friday
and Saturday respectively, it is understood that
any modification to the schedule, if it happened,
would likely impact the second and final
four-day test, which starts next Tuesday.
EDD STRAW
FORMULA 1
Red Bull
given engine
ultimatum
RED BULL WILL HAVE TO MAKE UP ITS MIND
by May over whether it wants to continue
with Renault engines next season.
Red Bull’s current contract with Renault
only covers the 2018 season, and the team is
keeping a close eye on how Honda performs
with sister team Toro Rosso. Red Bull boss
Christian Horner confirmed at the Barcelona
test that the team is keeping its options
open. “There are no preconceptions as
we head into the season,” he said.
But Renault is not willing to wait for
Red Bull to decide, and wants the team
to comply with Appendix 9 of the FIA’s F1
Sporting Regulations. That covers engine
supply in some detail, including the
obligation of manufacturers to supply a
minimum number of teams if required, and
details a May 15 deadline for the following
season’s supply deals to be confirmed, even
if last year’s McLaren-and-Toro Rosso swap
came some months later than that.
“We are not going to hang around
forever,” said Renault chief Cyril Abiteboul.
“I know what Christian is referring to when
he says that he has options. He’s absolutely
right. Like him I read contracts, and I know
the obligation we have towards the sport.
There will be a deadline for Red Bull Racing
to define what they want for the future. It’s
available, it’s in the sporting regulations.”
While Red Bull has been concerned about
Renault’s early-season focus on reliability
over power (see main story, left), over at
McLaren Fernando Alonso underlined after
the first day of testing at Barcelona that he
was much happier with his team’s engine
situation now he is working with Renault.
“Everything is running very smoothly and
quite good,” he said. “There are a few things
that we are trying to change and trying to
adapt, like every new car, but so far on the
engine side especially I’m extremely happy
and I think there is huge potential in the
McLaren-Renault team.”
ADAM COOPER
ANDRE/LAT
MARCH 1 2018 5
PIT + PADDOCK/NEWS AND ANALYSIS

WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP

Alonso settles
in with Toyota
WILLIAMS

FORMULA 1
While the Spanish star is getting his feet under the
table, the demoted Davidson seeks new challenges
ROWLAND GETS F1

F
ROLE AT WILLIAMS; ernando Alonso is already part of a WhatsApp group

RUSSELL AT MERC
with his new team-mates in Toyota’s World Endurance
Championship squad. Yet the Spaniard isn’t just settling
in quickly at the team with which he will contest the
WILLIAMS HAS GIVEN at Renault, but he 2018-19 WEC superseason; he’s bringing what
Oliver Rowland a ‘young felt Williams offered Sebastien Buemi is calling a “new vision”.
driver’ role for the 2018 the better chance of Buemi, who will share the #8 Toyota TS050 HYBRID
Formula 1 campaign. progression in the short with Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima, reckons the knowledge
Rowland, third in last term. “I had my role the two-time Formula 1 world champion brings to the
year’s Formula 2 points, with Renault and that team can only be of benefit as the Japanese manufacturer bids for a
will drive current F1 was on the table to first Le Mans 24 Hours victory.
machinery for the first continue,” he said. “But “Fernando has so much experience and brings different ideas, a different
time when he takes part with their driver line-up, approach,” says Buemi. “F1 has different hybrid technology, but they have
in the first in-season it’s a bit more stable for more money and more people, so they can go into the detail much more.”
test at Barcelona and the next two or three Alonso reckons understanding the twin-hybrid system of the TS050 has
will complete extensive years. Williams gave me been his biggest challenge since joining Toyota, with which he completed
work in the simulator. a bit more opportunity a second endurance simulation at the Algarve Circuit last week. “The
“I’m really pleased to move away and start four-wheel drive is the biggest difference,” he explains. “You rely on the
to be working with work with a team that systems, the front and rear motors. Here [at Algarve] in the last corner,
Williams,” said Rowland, was higher up in the a blind corner at night, you are flat-out. You need confidence, and this
who at 25 is older than standings last year. kind of thing requires a bit of time.
Williams race drivers “To be part of a Alonso says he’s learning a lot from “sharing the car with other drivers”
Lance Stroll and Sergey British team that has and can’t quite believe the atmosphere within the team. “From the first
Sirotkin. “I will be doing has such heritage is day everyone was very friendly with me,” he says. “The atmosphere is
a lot of work at the great. Hopefully I can so different, so friendly, so open and so nice.”
factory, and I will drive impress and earn myself That explains the WhatsApp group: “We are constantly chatting
at the Barcelona rookie a bigger role with the and taking pictures of the others who are cutting the track.”
test and then possibly team. I want to push The driver whose place Alonso has taken in the Toyota WEC line-up
more throughout the to get a race seat.” remains an integral part of the team. Anthony Davidson now has a
season depending on Meanwhile, Mercedes test-and-reserve role, and that will be his full focus up to Le Mans in June.
how that goes.” confirmed that reigning The 38-year-old Briton would be free to take up a drive in LMP2 or
Rowland, who GP3 champion George either of the GTE classes, but he has no plans to race at Le Mans this year.
was Renault’s F1 Russell and Sauber F1 “I’m a typical bloke in that I can only focus on one thing at a time, which is
development driver refugee Pascal Wehrlein making the Toyota as fast, reliable and user-friendly as possible,” he says.
last year, said talks with will share the team’s “I’m going to be busy with testing right up to the race, so I’m aiming to
Williams began before reserve-driver role. get myself into a racing situation later in the year.”
last season’s Abu Dhabi Wehrlein will not be The Petit Le Mans IMSA SportsCar Championship enduro at Road
Pirelli tyre test. But he on hand for Mercedes Atlanta, a race for which he took pole position on both his appearances
admitted a race seat was at every F1 race this with Peugeot in 2010-11, is on Davidson’s radar.
always a very long shot. season because the “I’ve got my eye on Petit, because that’s a race I’d like to win,” he says.
“At the end of last Norisring and Misano “Maybe if I can get to Petit that will open up new avenues for the big
season I was looking at DTM rounds clash with North American endurance races in 2019.”
different options and the French and Belgian GARY WATKINS
Williams was one of Grands Prix respectively.
them,” he said. “The Russell will be at
race seat was available both those races for his
at one point and we Formula 2 campaign.
were looking at that The Brit had been tipped
option, but it became to land a support role
clear that wasn’t going with Force India after
to happen. There were two FP1 outings with
more-high-profile the Mercedes customer
names in the running team at the end of
than me. I wouldn’t say I 2017, before it named
came that close to being Nicholas Latifi as its
a race driver with them.” reserve and test driver.
TOYOTA

Rowland said there LAWRENCE BARRETTO &

was the potential to stay SCOTT MITCHELL

6 MARCH 1 2018
 HAL RIDGE

Jordan finished
third at Lydden
WRX in 2014

BANKS/ WORLD RX MEDIA

JORDAN:
NEW TRACK
WILL BE A
Startline is on
wide runway,
WRX HIT
before asphalt
right-hander, BRITISH TOURING CAR
then onto the Championship star
dusty stuff Andrew Jordan is Britain’s
only podium finisher
in the World Rallycross
WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP
Championship, and the

Silverstone ready for RX litmus test

former British Rallycross
Supercar title winner has
an insight into what
makes a good venue.
IN TWO WEEKS’ TIME, THE NEW RALLYCROSS The Wing is in the background. People will be in no Silverstone is owned by
circuit at Silverstone will host its first competitive event. doubt about where it has taken place.” the British Racing Drivers’
The purpose-built track, which was completed in 2017, WRX coordinator Tim Whittington was vital to the Club, and it looked
has had chance to ‘bed in’ and will host the opening round process in bringing the series to the home of the British around for a member who
of this year’s British Rallycross Championship on March Grand Prix. “One of the key assets of having the Stowe had suitable rallycross
17. That will be the precursor to the World Rallycross Circuit area is that the rest of the venue can remain experience to help with
Championship blue-riband on May 26-27. unaffected,” says Whittington. “On the grand prix tracks the creation of the new
The 972-metre layout has been developed on the infield at Hockenheim and Barcelona we are compromised. While mixed-surface layout.
behind The Wing complex where the Stowe Circuit is. It it’s great to have these F1 tracks, access can be limited Jordan finished third
will be self-contained – one of the prime advantages of its because you are on what is, for the rest of the year, a at Lydden in 2014, and has
location. “The Silverstone F1 circuit is known for being race circuit. Things will be different at Silverstone. since taken part in three
fast and flowing and, although the rallycross track is much “Also, it means that in the future, bosses at Silverstone other rounds of WRX.
shorter, we wanted to include that culture and I think can add the rallycross track to its driving experiences and He had an input into the
we’ve done that,” says Silverstone managing director it can also be used for testing, which is something quite design tweaks of the track
Stuart Pringle, who was one of the prime movers behind rare in the UK. It’s an asset.” once the basic format
the WRX’s switch from Lydden Hill to Silverstone. For layout, Silverstone had to factor in a number of had been created.
Aside from the nature of the circuit, Pringle also wanted different considerations that are specific to the WRX. “I think it has a good
to make sure that the venue could put a clear stamp on “Because rallycross starts with five cars side by side, there mixture of corners, but it’s
the series, hence the jump in the middle of the track. is a minimum track width of 14.5 metres to begin with, one of the shorter tracks,”
“We wanted there to be a signature photographic image, and that stretches for 100 metres,” explains Whittington. says Jordan. “Some of
an iconic picture that photographers could get,” he says. “That means we had to have the startline on the straight the others that we go to
“We wanted a shot with the cars in the air with the behind The Wing paddock. It’s an old runway, and it was in Europe are what you
suspension fully extended, just like you used to see from the only part that could accommodate that necessity.” would call traditional
the 1000 Lakes Rally. We have created the jump so that The WRX also demands that at least 40% of the layout venues through the trees,
must be on a loose surface, but Silverstone has gone even but even then overtaking
Flying in front of the
further, upping that to 60%. is hard. On a new venue
Wing. This is the jump So the venue is ready for its first dry run – the British you can try hard to
round – ahead of the WRX event. And the March incorporate lots of
‘blooding’ of the circuit looks set to be a special occasion. interesting features to
Already Sebastien Loeb has been entered in his works make overtaking easier.
Peugeot 208 and Guerlain Chicherit in his Renault “No-one will know
Megane, with potentially more WRX regulars turning up exactly how it works until
to get in some sneaky pre-season practice. there is the first BRX
“It’s a double-edged sword opening the circuit with a meeting there. That’s the
higher-profile event like a British Rallycross meeting,” test. Given the work that
explains Whittington. “It’s a one-day event and the has gone on behind the
WORLD RX MEDIA

timetable is full-on. But, because it’s a packed programme scenes, it should be a

and a top-level championship, it will be a good test.” real hit with drivers.”
MATT JAMES MATT JAMES

MARCH 1 2018 7
PIT + PADDOCK/NEWS AND ANALYSIS

V8 STOCK CARS

GREEN AND
JARVIS JOIN
BRAZILIAN
V8 FIELD
BRITISH DTM STAR JAMIE
Green and Le Mans 24 Hours
podium finisher Oliver Jarvis
are among the influx of foreign
stars who will compete in next
week’s Brazilian V8 Stock Car
series opener at Interlagos.
Green (below) and Jarvis
WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

Loeb rates Citroen tweaks

will race the sister machines of
the Prati-Donaduzzi team in
the 60-minute mini-enduro on
March 10, in which each series

as he gears up for return

regular is joined by an one-off
guesting racer. While Green
will share with Julio Campos,
Jarvis slips in alongside
ex-Formula 1 racer and
latter-day V8 Stock Car TWO DAYS OF DRIVING IN THE SPANISH HILLS the engine was working well.”
ace Antonio Pizzonia. have convinced Sebastien Loeb that Citroen is on the Loeb admitted that his only concern for Mexico was
“I have to admit that I’m not right track with its C3 WRC. a lack of recent WRC experience. “It’s six years since
familiar with the championship The nine-time world champion was running the C3 in I competed on gravel in the WRC,” he said, “and six
other than knowing several Almeria ahead of his World Rally Championship return years since I was in Mexico. Citroen chose an old
Brazilian ex-F1 drivers race in Mexico next week. Loeb previously drove the car in a driver, so they know it can be complicated!”
in the series,” said Green. single-day test last September – the test that convinced Loeb also said he regretted that Citroen regular Craig
“I’m really happy to have been him the time had arrived to return to rallying. After Breen, whose C3 he will drive in Mexico, has to stand
invited as I think it will be a Mexico, he will compete in Corsica and Spain this season. down. The Irishman finished second in Sweden, but
good experience to have. I’ve Asked about progress with the Citroen, Loeb told now sits Mexico and Corsica out in favour of Loeb.
never been to Brazil before, let Autosport: “The car feels a bit easier to drive since I tested “It must be frustrating for him,” said Loeb. “He did
alone Interlagos! I’ve watched last year – the feeling for me was better. I didn’t make a really good rally in Sweden, but on the other side I don’t
the F1 race on TV for the last 20 any big changes; I was trying to adapt the car to my decide anything: Citroen propose me a few rallies, I’m
years though. I’m really looking driving, so there were some changes in the diffs and sorry that I take his car, but it’s like that.”
forward to a completely new suspension. The car felt quite good, easy to use and DAVID EVANS
world of motorsport.”
Jarvis added: “With such a
strong field of drivers it won’t
be easy, but with Pizzonia
I have a fantastic team-mate
to learn from. It will not only
be my first time driving a
Brazilian Stock Car, but also
my first time in Brazil.”
Several other international
stars have been confirmed,
including ex-F1 racers Felipe JEP/LAT
Massa and Roberto Merhi,
Formula E champion Lucas
di Grassi, BMW DTM driver
BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP
Augusto Farfus and Dutch aces

Boardman back in BTCC with MG

Nicky Catsburg and Jeroen
Bleekemolen. Felipe Nasr
and Nelson Piquet Jr are
also in the field as they
join the series full time. ONE-TIME BRITISH TOURING Since then, the Preston racer has to the series, but until now the right
JURGEN STIFTSCHRAUBE Car Championship race winner Tom driven in the World Touring Car deal has never come along.
Boardman is the first driver to sign Championship, and his last tin-top “The MG is a proven, race-winning
up to drive one of AmD Tuning’s outing was in the inaugural TCR car and I see no reason why we can’t
DTM

ex-Triple Eight Racing MG6 GT
machines this year.
The 34-year-old spent two years
in the BTCC in 2010 and ’11, and he
won a race in the second campaign
at Knockhill (above, left) with
his family Special Tuning team
in a SEAT Leon.
International Series in 2015.
“In recent months, I’d been looking
into the possibility of a programme
in TCR, but when the chance came
along to return to the BTCC in
the MG it was one I grabbed with
both hands,” said Boardman.
“I’ve always wanted to return
be challenging towards the front.”
l Aron Taylor-Smith, who drove
the MG for Triple Eight last year, is
moving into the Blancpain Sprint
Cup with Team Parker Racing. He
will share a Bentley Continental GT3
with Audi convert Josh Caygill.
MATT JAMES

8 MARCH 1 2018

BTCC The new Team Dynamics-built Honda Civic Type R, the FK8 model, began testing ahead of the British
Touring Car Championship this week. It broke cover at Parcmotor Castelloli in Spain, where the two-litre
turbocharged car was completed before it took to the track. Matt Neal and new recruit Dan Cammish
shared the driving duties. Several other BTCC teams were also present at the test. Photograph by JEP
GP3 SERIES
Hubert gets first blood in GP3
ANTHOINE HUBERT AND ART GRAND
Prix topped the times in the first GP3 pre-
season test of 2018 at Paul Ricard last week.
Frenchman Hubert (pictured) set the
overall best time during the second morning
session of the two-day test, in which wet
weather and cold temperatures affected the
running on both days. Ferrari Formula 1 junior
Callum Ilott was second quickest, 0.087s
adrift of his ART team-mate, and was
quickest on the final afternoon. Leonardo
Pulcini ended up third fastest overall for
Campos Racing, ahead of Nikita Mazepin
(ART), Tatiana Calderon (Jenzer Motorsport)
and Jake Hughes in the final ART-run car.
Pedro Piquet – who is yet to confirm a
GP3 race drive for 2018 – racked up 139 laps
for Trident, the most of any driver. He was
10th fastest overall, and two tours clear of
Hubert in the mileage charts.
Hughes, the fastest driver on the first
day, said the test was “in a word – positive.
We got through a lot and we tested a lot.
“Given the cold temperatures we had –
we were only getting like 10 degrees track
temperature – it was very difficult to switch
the tyres on,” the double GP3 race winner
continued. “A lot of drivers and teams were
up and down or struggling to be consistent. It
was just the case that if you could switch the
tyres on in a run or a session then you could
be very quick, especially in our case at ART,
and then if you couldn’t you were missing
at least half a second. I think it was just the
conditions for that test and I don’t imagine
it will be like that from now on.”
P48 SHEDDEN’S BIG GAMBLE
European Formula 3 converts Joey Mawson
and David Beckmann, plus Formula V8 3.5
refugee Diego Menchaca, were respectively
confirmed at Arden International, Jenzer and
Campos for the GP3 season just before the
test got under way. The next pre-season
test takes place at Jerez on March 14-15.
ALEX KALINAUCKAS
FERRARO/LAT
TOP TEST TIMES
DRIVER
1 Anthoine Hubert (ART)
2 Callum Ilott (ART)
3 Leonardo Pulcini (Campos)
4 Nikita Mazepin (ART)
5 Tatiana Calderon (Jenzer)
6 Jake Hughes (ART)
7 Alessio Lorandi (Trident)
8 Niko Kari (MP)
9 Simo Laaksonen (Campos)
10 Pedro Piquet (Trident)
IN THE HEADLINES
PALMER JOINS RADIO 5 LIVE TEAM
Ex-Renault Formula 1 driver Jolyon Palmer will be part of
the BBC’s F1 radio coverage this season. Palmer – who
was much praised for his GP2 expert role during the
series’ 2015 races on live TV – will join Jennie Gow and
Jack Nicholls in the BBC 5 Live F1 commentary team,
and feature on the BBC Sport website as an analyst.
CORONEL GETS BOUTSEN GINION HONDA
Evergreen tin-top racer Tom Coronel has secured a seat in
the World Touring Car Cup for 2018. The Dutchman has
joined Boutsen Ginion Racing to drive a Honda Civic Type
R, and lines up alongside Tiago Monteiro. Coronel, who
has competed in the old WTCC since 2005, has raced the
Belgian squad’s Honda machinery in TCR competition.
MICHELISZ’S TEAM TO RUN HYUNDAIS
The M1RA team of new Hyundai WTCR recruit Norbert
Michelisz has switched from Honda to the South Korean
manufacturer this season. M1RA won the TCR
International teams’ title last year with Michelisz’s
protege Attila Tassi (who finished as runner-up in the
drivers’ points) and Roberto Colciago. It is unclear which
series M1RA will run in, and it has yet to confirm drivers.
TECH3 DITCHES YAMAHA AFTER 18 YEARS
Top MotoGP privateer Tech3 is to end its 18-year
association with Yamaha for 2019, but the team has yet
to confirm which manufacturer it will align with. Tech3
will field Malaysian Moto2 graduate Hafizh Syahrin this
season alongside Johann Zarco as replacement for
the illness-stricken Jonas Folger.
CELIS MAKES MOVE TO INDY LIGHTS
Ex-Force India F1 reserve Alfonso Celis has switched to
Indy Lights for this season. The Mexican, who finished
third in World Series Formula V8 3.5 last year, has joined
Juncos Racing. Celis is making the step as he has adjusted
his horizons towards a career in the IndyCar Series.
EUROTECH GETS ‘WORKS’ ENGINES
British Touring Car Championship Honda independent
Eurotech Racing has switched to the same Neil Brown
Engineering-built powerplants as the factory Dynamics-
run squad for 2018. Eurotech, which will run Jack Goff,
Brett Smith and Matt Simpson, has made the change
after hitherto using the Swindon-tuned TOCA mill.
HAAS JUNIORS TEAM UP IN F2
Haas F1 juniors Santino Ferrucci and Arjun Maini will
team up in Formula 2 this season, both racing with
Italian team Trident. American Ferrucci (below) stays
on at the squad after stepping up from GP3 midway
TIME through last season. Indian Maini makes his category
1m48.674s debut after being a race winner in GP3 in 2017.
1m48.761s
1m49.051s
1m49.180s
1m49.209s
1m49.326s
1m49.434s
1m49.575s
PORTLOCK/LAT
1m49.643s
1m49.687s
MARCH 1 2018 9
FIFTH COLUMN/OPINION

NIGEL ROEBUCK
A saga without end
As many fans voice disquiet over this Formula 1 era, perhaps it’s
time for the rulemakers to properly lay down the law
@autosport

IN 2017 MERCEDES PEOPLE CAME TO DESCRIBE
their car as ‘a diva’, and undoubtedly, by comparison with
those recently gone before, at some circuits its sweet spot
was hard to find. That said, it was a diva other drivers
would willingly have embraced, for if it won ‘only’ 12 races
(compared with 19 in 2016), it remained swift and reliable
enough to bring Mercedes yet another constructors’
championship, and Lewis Hamilton a fourth drivers’ title.
The team’s statistics through the four hybrid seasons
to date are staggering: 63 wins from 79 races, with 40 of
them going to Lewis.
Next up are Ferrari and
Red Bull, with eight “The aesthetics of an F1
that was my subject for last week’s column, so for now
let’s leave it to one side.
More fundamentally, several whom I met spoke of their
dissatisfaction with this entire era. For one thing, they think
the cars too big and heavy, and it’s difficult – given that the
2018 minimum weight limit is a numbing 733kg – to take
issue: as one put it, “Colin Chapman would be upset about
a transporter that weighed that much!” Indeed so, and
ditto such as Gordon Murray.
Then there are the engines – if they appreciate the sheer
cleverness of a 1.6-litre
power unit that produces
a thousand horsepower,

car are important to

apiece, so while we may
be lost in admiration for
what Mercedes have
achieved, all but rabid
Hamilton fans have those paying to watch”
grown weary of what has
come to feel like a saga without end. It’s akin to those early
years of the century when one set off to the airport every
fortnight in the virtual certainty of seeing yet another
victory for Michael Schumacher and Ferrari.
All in all, this is a thoroughly unsettled time in Formula 1,
and one with which many fans are struggling, as I was
reminded in conversations last week at Race Retro. What
did my own little ‘fan survey’ reveal? Well, for a start it
goes almost without saying that they hate the halo, but
MAUGER/LAT
and uses remarkably
little fuel doing it,
emotionally it leaves
them cold, and one
aficionado said he
thought the powers-that-
be ill-advised in bringing the old Minardi two-seater to
races, thus offering a reminder of how a V10 sounded.
“It’s almost,” he lamented, “as if we’re being taunted…”
God forbid, I said, anyone should ever sneak in a Matra.
Next, aerodynamics. As Niki Lauda, railing at the advent
of the halo, has pointed out, the aesthetics of a Formula 1
car are important to those paying to watch them, and they
really don’t care for bargeboards and the like – what
Bernie Ecclestone called, ‘These horrible-looking bits

SUTTON/LAT

How dare Ferrari …or Merc put

place the gifted embryonic superstar
Leclerc at Sauber… Ocon at Force India

10 MARCH 1 2018

Mercedes leading
has become a
racing certainty
and pieces they stick on all over the place…’ What they
hate most of all, though, is that these things have such a
deleterious effect on the racing, which in the end of course
matters to them more than anything else.
Any other business? Well, predictably they loathe the
engine penalties system, which repeatedly puts their
heroes – some of them, anyway – to the back of the grid,
through no fault of their own, and they think absurd the
decision to cut the driver’s engine allocation for a season
from four to three. This, of course, is supposedly in
the interests of reducing costs, but, as one engine man
recently pointed out, who knows how many millions
have been spent in achieving this extended life?
“They go on all the time about the need to cut costs,”
another fan said, “but Mercedes and Ferrari aren’t interested
in that, so it’ll never happen, will it?” I feared he was right,
recalling something Martin Brundle had said while we
were discussing Robert Kubica’s physical problems:
“Anthony Davidson does a lot of work on the Mercedes
simulator, and he says, ‘When they start giving me
instructions I need three hands, so how would anyone
cope with one and a half?’ I mentioned that to a Mercedes
man, and he said, ‘Yep, that’s right – and, what’s more,
our steering wheel is far more automated than most
teams, because we’ve got the budget to do it…’”
“Something else that really gets me,” my Race Retro
acquaintance went on, “is the way the big teams ‘place’
their favoured drivers in other teams, and other perhaps
more deserving lads never get a look in – it’s like a
DUNBAR/LAT
chessboard, isn’t it?” Again, although Claire Williams
recently informed us it was now ‘inappropriate’ to talk
about ‘pay drivers’, I could only agree.
On the subject of Liberty Media, the jury seems to be out,
although the fans – not all of them male – to whom I spoke
were not impressed by the recent announcement of a ban on
grid girls, feeling, apart from anything else, that Liberty
people might better focus on weightier matters, such as
improving the product. “At the grands prix,” someone said,
“by far the best racing is Formula 2, so there’s something
very wrong, isn’t there?” No argument there, either.
In the plus column, while Formula 1 fans yet know
little of Chase Carey and Sean Bratches, there seems
to be universal support for, and faith in, the third member
of the triumvirate, Ross Brawn, whose fundamental
opinions – quietly but firmly expressed – on how
Formula 1 should be appear unsurprisingly to resonate
with its dyed-in-the-wool supporters. “For example,”
one said, “I really like the fact that Ross sees DRS as
something that shouldn’t be necessary, and needs to
be done away with as soon as possible…”
No-one, though, was under any illusions about the
task before Brawn, his ideas requiring the green light from
both the teams and the FIA if they are to be realised for
2021, when major rule changes are due. All agreed, however,
that Ross and his colleagues must stick to their guns, and
say to the teams (including Mercedes and Ferrari), ‘This
is how the world championship is going to be – if you
wish to enter, you’ll be very welcome…’
MARCH 1 2018 11
PIT + PADDOCK/OPINION
The halo in the f lesh
Formula 1 teams are split 50/50 on their approach to halo integration
– and the most ‘successful’ result is surprisingly counter-intuitive
By Edd Straw, Digital Content Manager
@eddstrawF1
THE HALO IS HERE, AND WE’VE ALL GOT TO DEAL
with it. While the shrieking social-media denouncements
and the vows from ‘fans’ never to watch Formula 1 again
because of it go too far, it’s true that this is probably the
most fundamental prescribed change to the looks of a grand
prix car in history. The halo is an unsightly, unmissable
structure that must be bolted onto the car with only the
slenderest scope for modification and integration.
The halo remains an uncomfortable halfway house, slap-
bang in the middle of the spectrum between the extremes of
open and closed cockpit. It achieves its objective of protecting
drivers from the impact of a large object, such as a wheel
(McLaren’s Monday mishap, when the right-rear of Fernando
Alonso’s car came loose and then detached at the final corner,
pitching him into the gravel, is a reminder that the risk is
real), but only partially delivers on protecting against smaller
objects. It’s as if F1 decided to go closed-cockpit, but didn’t
quite have the balls to go through with it and ended up in an
apologetic limbo whereby it’s neither one nor the other.
But setting aside those
arguments, what’s the
reality of halo-era F1? “It’s an uncomfortable
halfway house between
The first sight we had
of the halo was on Kimi
Raikkonen’s Ferrari in
pre-season testing at
Barcelona two years ago. open and closed cockpit”
Since then, dummy haloes
have regularly cropped up during practice and test sessions,
and we’ve heard endless blathering about their impact. But
Monday’s opening day of pre-season testing was the real
first day of the halo, with 10 cars all circulating with the
cockpit-head-protection device not just fitted, but fully
integrated into the monocoque of the car.
Heading down to watch at Turns 1-3 on a very chilly
and increasingly damp afternoon at Barcelona was when the
reality hit. Every single car that went past, every single lap,
was behaloed. This experience produced one response that
was no surprise, and another that was quite unexpected.
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first.
As anticipated, it doesn’t take long for the halo just
to become part of the furniture of a grand prix car. It
neither induced nausea every time Marcus Ericsson’s
Sauber or Raikkonen’s Ferrari blasted past, nor triggered
a desire to turn your back on the track and stare wistfully
at the nearby hills because this marked the death of F1.
Nothing so melodramatic.
More surprising was the fact that the teams that had
12 MARCH 1 2018
made an effort to integrate the halo into their liveries
had actually had a counter-productive effect. Those who
have what could be called the ‘bare’ halo (in reality, just
the black-clad ones, such as the majority of the dummy
haloes we’ve seen over the past couple of years) actually
look better. This is extremely odd. F1 is divided on the
idea. Five teams – Ferrari, Force India, Sauber, Williams
and Toro Rosso – have painted their haloes to match their
liveries. The other five – Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren,
Haas and Renault – have stuck with the black halo.
Prior to this test, the former group seemed to have
the right idea, but that has now changed.
When watching trackside (and presumably this applies
to on television as well), the black halo seems to disappear
into the background noise. You don’t notice it and the
lines and shape of the grand prix car are preserved. It’s
logical really, because the halo looks so unnatural on an
F1 car, why wouldn’t you disown it visually?
But when a Ferrari goes past, you cannot miss the halo.
Painted in that familiar
scarlet, and with a
Cavallino Rampante on
the front, Ferrari has
made an effort. Parked
in the pitlane, it does
look better, but on track
it’s more grating.
Another problem is
that it makes identifying the driver yet more difficult. The
halo eliminates gains made from recent moves to make the
driver more recognisable through permanent numbers
and stronger on-car identification. Helmet colours are
a key part of a driver’s ‘brand’ and there is an argument
for integrating some form of identifier on the halo. Not
just a ‘one driver gets a halo that’s got a yellow flash on
it’, as with the cold and unemotive onboard camera, but
a colour scheme that matches that brand. Trouble is,
that would mean embracing the halo as part of the car.
The halo is here, and you will get used it to. Most of the
time, on half of the cars at least, it will be easy to ignore
and only be talked about if, or when, a wheel strikes one
at 150mph and a driver is saved. Then we’ll be glad of it.
Amid all that, F1 needs to find a better long-term solution.
For now, the lesson from the first pre-season test is
that we need to stop putting the halo front and centre
and let it fade into the background while we concentrate
on the real story of the fastest, most powerful and most
challenging grand prix cars we’ve seen in a long time.
FEEDBACK
Halo is an affront to
what F1 stands for
The topic of the year has already been
chosen. The halo. I think it’s an affront to
what F1 stands for, and that the sport has
lost sight of what appeals to the audience.
Safety is the big message in F1 right
now. Tracks are safer, the cars are safer
and everything that can be done to make
everything even more safe is being done.
Sadly, safety is boring. It doesn’t drive
the heart rate like F1 should. I want to see
drivers doing things I can’t do. I want to
see them take risks beyond what I would
accept. I want them to be heroes.
The inconvenient truth is that a lot of
people watch motorsport for the crashes.
Risk of injury and yes, death, adds to the
drama. If people know there’s no risk in
the first place, then it detracts from the
image of the participants. Can F1 afford to
become the homeopathy of motorsport?
It doesn’t make sense that diluting the
attraction of the sport will make it better.
As for the halo itself, F1 teams have so
many talented people, making so many
well-designed parts that often boggle the
mind in their complexity and ingenuity,
yet how can it be that fitting scaffolding
to the cockpit is acceptable? Despite what
the FIA spins, I’m not convinced they
seriously considered other options. If
you’re going overboard on cockpit safety,
the better option would be full enclosure.
If you’re worried about looks, it’s
preferable and if you’re worried about
safety, then it’s better for that too.
This is a pretty big PR disaster for F1.
H AV E YO UR S AY, GE T IN TO U C H
@
Autosport editorial
Autosport Media UK Ltd
1 Eton Street E-mail
Richmond autosport@
TW9 1AG autosport.com
It seems obvious no-one is happy about
it except Jean Todt and the device’s
manufacturers. I worry it’ll drive viewers
away and the circuits who are already
struggling will find it’s a lot worse.
Adam Wise
Leigh-on-Sea
Who’s hidden behind the halo?
Halo – can we have a change? The black,
white or red haloes shown on the initial
car launches reinforce the fact that
you cannot see the driver’s helmet.
Why not make each halo reflect
the driver’s helmet design? It is in the
same area as the helmet, so changing
the colours should not hinder the overall
graphic concept of the car. I know the
halo is skinny and not helmet-shaped,
but there must be a way to have a design
that a) lets us know who is in the car and
b) satisfies a designer in the aesthetics
of the car. Is it too much to ask?
I guess the drivers can now ignore
the rule on the number of changes of
helmet design a year, as no-one will
know they are doing it!
Gordon Pickwell
By email
Bernie sticks his oar in
I see good old Bernie has been stirring
again. He says Ferrari will quit F1 if
they don’t get terms to suit them and
start a rival series. Only if it suits them,
never mind anyone else! But who would
Twitter Facebook
twitter.com/ facebook.com/
autosport autosport
LETTERS/PIT + PADDOCK
S BLOXHAM/LAT
Would it help if the join Ferrari in a rival series unless
colours and design of they also had parity with whatever
a driver’s helmet were Ferrari expects to get?
echoed on the halo?
He also claims that F1 should go
electric. A series already exists, it’s called
Formula E. F1 is noise and excitement,
high speed and drama, not cars going
‘whoosh’ as they go by. I think it may
be time for Bernie to butt out!
Neil Davey
Newport, South Wales
Don’t peg back privateers
The news from the FIA and the ACO that
privateer LMP1s will be penalised if they
beat Toyota is deeply depressing. What is
the point if the regulators are effectively
decreeing that the one remaining factory
team must be allowed to win? Motorsport
thrives on competition, and, unlikely as
it may be, if a privateer constructor has
found some trick to go faster than
Toyota, so much the better.
Eliot Wilson
By email
C OR RE CTI O N
Terry Sanger contested the 1968 Targa Florio
in Terry Drury’s Ford GT40, and not the ’69
event in a works car, as claimed last week
(p63). Sanger also drove the car in the Monza,
Nurburgring and Spa 1000Km races in ’68.
MARCH 1 2018 13
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FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
SPECIAL
MERCEDES F1 W09

HONE/LAT
F1 2018 NEW
SUTTON

RENAULT RS18

HONE/LAT

HONE/LAT

TORO ROSSO STR13

SUTTON

16 MARCH 1 2018
 HONE/LAT
FERRARI SF71H RED BULL RB14

SUTTON
SUTTON

FORCE INDIA VJM11 WILLIAMS FW41

MAUGER/LAT

CAR SPECIAL All the new cars hit the track this week, so here they are: the class of 2018
MAUGER/LAT

SAUBER C37 McLAREN MCL33

HAAS VF-18

MARCH 1 2018 17
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
MERCEDES
Mercedes W09
Last season’s Mercedes might have been something of a ‘diva’ but it waltzed
away with both championships. Will its successor be even stronger?
By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert
1 DIFFUSER/FLOOR
L
ast year wasn’t easy for Mercedes – had Ferrari
not gone into meltdown the outcome might
have been different. But the team will have
learned a lot more from its struggles with
an occasionally recalcitrant package than
it would have done if it was completely
dominant. Now it can aim for the rare feat
of five consecutive championship doubles.
Mercedes had the car for the faster tracks in
’17, but Ferrari was on top at the slower ones. In the end, more
tracks suited Mercedes, evidenced by the fact that it scored 15
pole positions and 12 wins to Ferrari’s five poles and five wins,
so there was no need to start again from a clean sheet.
But Mercedes admits it was a little confused at times by the
behaviour of the 2017 car. From what I can see, the team has
optimised what it had last year and will head into the new
season with a better understanding of how to run it.
18 MARCH 1 2018
2 SIDEPODS
1
DIFFUSER/FLOOR
Other than the engine cover fin size
SUTTON
being reduced to comply with the new
regulations, the rear part of the car
looks very similar to last year’s.
The team has said that it will be
running with more rake this season – or
at least higher at the rear. Upon first
acquaintance with the car, I didn’t get
the impression that the rake angle was
very pronounced. In any case, it’s a slight
change in philosophy and the diffuser
will have had some treatment to allow
the team to accommodate this.
It’s tough for a team that has had the
success of Mercedes. When you’re at the
top of the ladder there are very few steps
left to take, so the return from research
and development decreases.
 5
BARGEBOARDS
The floor section of the bargeboards
looks like it is made up of multiple
‘boomerangs’ with swept up trailing
edges. The diffuser itself can only do
so much to accelerate the airflow
passing underneath the car, so the
initial preparation of the flow that
goes under the car is important in
determining how much downforce the
underfloor can generate.
The outer vertical vanes are similar
to last year’s – three elements, with the
rearmost one blending into a horizontal
vane running across the top of the
sidepod leading edge. The vertical
section of these components is there
to control the turbulent wake coming off
the front tyres. The upper horizontal
section is to reduce the lift that is created
by the airflow being accelerated over
the top of the sidepod leading edge.
The delta-shaped wing section
coming out from the side of the chassis
and sweeping rearward exists to realign
the wake coming off the front wing
trailing edge. It is this complicated
swept-back shape because it requires
a shadow plate at what is called the
step plane of the underfloor. The leading
edge of the wing is in line with the
leading edge of the first part of the
boomerang bargeboard floors.

BARGEBOARDS 5

4 FRONT WING

3 FRONT SUSPENSION

2 3
SIDEPODS
I’m not seeing any components in this area that
suggest Mercedes has done anything tricky with
the location of the side impact structures. To get a
reasonable gap between the trailing edge of the
front tyres and the leading edge of the sidepod,
Mercedes has retained the longish wheelbase.
The W08 was very good on the fast tracks last
year and there are more of them than slow ones.
The sidepods have a fairly high letterbox-style
inlet. This is wider than some of the previous cars
we have seen, with an undercut below that inlet.
The undercut continues right through the
sidepod to the Coke-bottle area, so the main
design philosophy here is to allow the Coke-bottle
area to pull airflow through that undercut from the
trailing edge of the bargeboards, which in turn pulls
airflow through from underneath the front of the
chassis and the trailing edge of the front wing.
MERCEDES
4
FRONT SUSPENSION FRONT WING
The front suspension retains the high outboard top wishbone The W09’s front wing has short
mounting position. This allows Mercedes to run a more horizontal mounting pillars and a narrow
wishbone configuration than if it was mounted inside the rim. This nose assembly, including the
lets Mercedes be a little more sympathetic to the tyres’ requirements cape underneath the nose. This
as far as suspension geometry is concerned. doesn’t look very different from
Mercedes has also put the steering track rod in line with the bottom the end of last season.
wishbone. To achieve this, the top and bottom outboard wishbone But the wing is a bolt-on
pivot points are well behind the centre of the wheel. At speed, it could component. If you believe there
mean the front tyre picks up the lateral load a little bit slower, allowing isn’t much more to come from
the rear tyre to induce its slip angle before the front loads up. it, there’s no need to hurry
By having the two front wishbones more horizontal and with the developments in this area.
track rod integrated at bottom wishbone height, and giving the Starting with a well-
combined unit a longer chord length, Mercedes can manage understood front-downforce-
the wake coming off the front wing that little bit better. producing package enables the
How the tyre loads up and how it optimises the tyre contact patch design team to concentrate on
at different steering angles (and hence speed) is a combination of what is coming along behind.
the castor and kingpin angle. It’s an interesting development, and This is certainly what Mercedes
quite unusual on the F1 grid, but will it work? will have done.

MARCH 1 2018 19
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
MERCEDES

Why Mercedes’
enemies will rue their
show of mercy
The Silver Arrows had their difficult days last season. Woe betide anyone
fooled into thinking that the same will happen again in 2018

By Ben Anderson, Grand Prix Editor

 ‘‘W
e have a motto in the
team that the difficult
days are the ones our
competitors regret,
because the painful
experiences make you
so much stronger. If
you keep calm and
analyse what happened,
and try to improve, it just adds to your strength and knowledge.”
This was Toto Wolff, speaking after his Mercedes Formula 1
team clinched its fourth consecutive constructors’ championship
crown at last year’s US Grand Prix. It’s a mantra that underpins
the way F1’s current top team operates – a forensic approach
to identifying weaknesses and obliterating them, leading the
opposition to rue the day they dared threaten the Silver
Arrows’ lofty status as grand prix racing’s dominant force.
Mercedes flirted closer to disaster in 2017 than at any other
time during its recent reign at the top of F1. Early struggles
under the newly enhanced aerodynamic regulations – rules
Wolff feels were designed with the express aim of dethroning
his team – presented an open goal for rivals to aim at. Ferrari
came within a few Sebastian Vettel errors and freak engine
failures of burying that chance, but Mercedes prevailed.
Last year’s Mercedes began the season around 10kg
overweight, thanks to the need to beef up aero parts that
had disintegrated in testing, while the W08 also developed
an unhealthy appetite for chewing through the softer range
of Pirelli’s new wider tyres, particularly the rears.
Mercedes hung on in the fight with Ferrari in the early races,
while steadily and diligently working to rectify these problems.
The team kicked on after the summer break, ultimately winning
both championships in reasonable comfort. But the journey to
get there was fraught with difficulty.
“Last year there were many cases where we had to make
compromises with the set-up,” says Valtteri Bottas, who turned
the first laps in the new W09 at a damp and cold Silverstone
on Thursday last week. “It was quite difficult to get it in the
right working range mechanically, and aerodynamically.
Hopefully now we have a more complete package that
is easier to set up to different conditions.”
ETHERINGTON/LAT
Tight packaging on new
car looks impressive
There was a certain element of ‘the Lewis Hamilton factor’ in
play as Mercedes staved off challenges from Ferrari and Red Bull
in the second half of 2017. Max Verstappen gave Hamilton a run
for his money during the championship run-in, but in truth last
year’s Merc was still the grid’s standout car – the fastest on the
greatest proportion of circuits, even if it caused its team severe
headaches on certain tyre compounds, on smooth track surfaces,
and through low-speed cornering challenges. Red Bull boss
Christian Horner has already voiced concern that improvements
to the Mercedes chassis for ’18, plus another round of substantial
engine development, could leave the rest of the field trailing.
“If you look at the sheer statistics, the car was the fastest
car, we had some amazing performances – Monza comes to
my mind – and we had tracks where we didn’t perform well
and we couldn’t understand the behaviour of the car,” Wolff
says. “We hope we keep the good character traits of the diva
– we all like divas! Sometimes she was a bit difficult to
understand, and this is the area where we worked the most
– trying to understand and preserve what we have in terms
of speed in the car and find more driveability.”
There was some talk during the off-season about whether
Mercedes might stray into Ferrari/Red Bull territory by
adopting a shorter wheelbase and setting the car at a higher
rear rideheight, to improve performance at its weakest circuits.
The team conducted suspension experiments during practice
for last year’s Brazilian GP, apparently with this in mind, but
things have ultimately moved in the opposite direction, with
Ferrari technical director Mattia Binotto confirming at the
concurrent launch of the Scuderia’s new car that Ferrari
has in fact adopted a longer wheelbase for 2018.
Mercedes has decided to stick rather than twist on its
own design, retaining the same wheelbase while running
only a slightly increased rake compared to 2017. “The long
wheelbase is something we decided very early on was an
asset to us, and I’m pretty sure we’re still right on that,”
explains Mercedes technical director James Allison.
“If you’re pretty sure the wheelbase is an asset, then
carrying it over is an absolute no-brainer.
“The rake of the car is just a thing you work on all the time.
It’s not so much you choose this path or that path – we try
to make the mechanical grip part of our suspension work
MARCH 1 2018 21
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
MERCEDES

nicely with the aerodynamic package, and where we have

ETHERINGTON/LAT

the broad peak of our best rear-downforce performance is

Bottas gives new Mercedes its
first run-out at Silverstone;
Wolff looks very happy
TURBO HYBRID WINS 2014-17
8 RED BULL
8 FERRARI
a little lower in rideheight than some other cars. The peak
rear downforce moves up a little bit for this year’s car, but
we certainly won’t be in the sort of rake territory that we
saw Red Bulls and co in last year.”
Mercedes has been working on rectifying the weaknesses
of its first stab at these current aerodynamic regulations since
“before Monaco last year”, according to Allison, and there is
already some quiet confidence that Mercedes will be more
competitive on the Monaco, Hungary, Singapore-style twisty
circuits that have been its Achilles’ heel in recent seasons.
“We could go from a race where we breezed off into the
distance and then two weeks later find ourselves on the back
foot and having a hard weekend,” Allison adds. “We had to look
very closely at what it was about – what was it about our car,
what was it about the sequence of corners, the challenge of
those circuits, that made it fly in one place and be a fight in the
next? That involved a lot of simulation, a lot of calculation, a lot
of improved fidelity of modelling, because our initial models just
gave us no clue. But the goad of losing drives you to understand
– to improve the modelling, to start to see patterns or physical
explanations that match the patterns we saw on the track.
“One of the things that was hard about last year’s car is that it
was confusing for the engineers and the drivers in the early part
of the season, because it seemed to be speaking to us to take a
DRIVER PTS
certain course of action with it, but if you followed those voices
it was a siren path that definitely dragged you onto the rocks!
l Lewis Hamilton 40 “Actually, we had to ignore a lot of what we thought were
l Nico Rosberg 20 the standard ways of race engineering a car and go off in pretty
much the opposite direction. Once we got a handle on that,
l Valtteri Bottas 3
our season became easier to execute, but we would like a set
of circumstances that are easier to interpret. Hopefully, we’ve
l Sebastian Vettel 8 understood enough to make the changes to make that a reality.”
Hamilton certainly seems satisfied with how intently
Mercedes has listened to the drivers’ concerns with last year’s
l Daniel Ricciardo 5 car and interpreted them into this year’s, describing how the
team’s particular struggles in high-downforce trim in Malaysia
l Max Verstappen 3
last season informed the design direction of the W09.
The addition of the weight of the halo could potentially
concern a team that struggled with weight for parts of last
MERCEDES 63 season, while the extra aggression of Pirelli’s softer tyre choices
for 2018 – “very fragile” and can only take “one or two laps”,

22 MARCH 1 2018
 ETHERINGTON/LAT
Diva-ish behaviour of
2017’s W08 caused set-up
headscratching at
specific circuits
ETHERINGTON/LAT
Allison, team manager according to Bottas – don’t automatically favour a team that
Ron Meadows and tends to be stronger on the harder compounds in the V6 era. But
Wolff confer at last those are details to be discovered and ironed out during winter
week’s debut of W09
testing, and Mercedes can still count on its trusty ace in the
hole – that all-powerful V6 hybrid engine that has consistently
set the standard in F1 since those rules were introduced.
The W09 features some impressively tight and tidy packaging
around the engine, with engine chief Andy Cowell describing
intense work undertaken at his facility in Brixworth to help
the Brackley aerodynamicists deliver what Allison calls a
“non-trivial amount of performance to the car”.
In a season when only three engines are permitted for each
driver, and the number of some associated ERS components
allowed have been halved – provoking howls of protest from
Renault customer teams Red Bull and McLaren about the rules
being anti-competitive – how well Mercedes does in achieving
greater durability without compromising performance could
prove decisive in the championship battle yet again.
“We focused on trying to increase the life of the hardware
without losing performance,” says Cowell, who calculates the
engines will each need to complete 40% greater distance than
last season. “We also wanted to change the packaging of the
power unit for the benefit of overall car performance. We’ve
been working very closely with our colleagues in Brackley,
S BLOXHAM/LAT
trying to understand the best overall integration in the chassis,
the transmission and the aerodynamic surfaces. We’ve also
been working on combustion efficiency and hardware friction
reduction, in partnership with Petronas. Pretty much all the
part numbers are new, but the designs are always an evolution
of what you’ve got previously. It’s still a V6 direct-injected,
100kg [fuel] an hour, 120kW MGU-K, but everything is
tweaked to be happier, high-life and tweaked to have
better efficiency throughout that life.”
When Cowell explains how his team attempted to meet those
targets, it becomes clear how that forensic approach to detail
runs through the core of the Mercedes operation and leads to the
sort of excellence, and thus dominance, we have seen in F1 over
the past four seasons. “What we don’t want to do is make things
bigger – we don’t want bearings that are bigger to survive the
distance; we don’t want to cool everything more to give us that
extra life,” Cowell adds. “It’s achieved by clever detail design,
different materials, different coatings, different manufacturing
processes, and understanding where you are today.
“This is the fifth year of these technical regulations and we’re
going into that extra-fine detail to find marginal gains. There’s
improved combustion efficiency, there’s improved friction, but
there’s far greater detail of the beast that we’ve been racing
with, and making sure the drawings focus on the tolerance that
matters, the manufacturing processes hit that consistently – and
we build consistently, test and operate consistently at the circuit.
“Every time we make a big change there’s always opportunity
to do things better, and what we’ve tried to do is accommodate
some reasonably large integration changes. But with our
simulation being better, what can we do to make the flow in
the exhaust pipes better? How do we make the cooling in the
cylinder heads better? If we’re making changes, let’s refine
all the good bits. You look at that and think, ‘It’s only two
milliseconds’, but you do it in 10 places and it’s 20 milliseconds.”
It’s this kind of collection of marginal improvements that add
up to one mightily impressive championship favourite. Wolff
contends that stable engine regulations will continue the sort of
performance convergence we saw between Mercedes, Ferrari and
Renault through 2017: “I expect 2018 to be a year where clearly
at least three of the current manufacturers – Renault, Ferrari
and Mercedes – are going to be on very equal performance” and
he says Mercedes is “taking everybody seriously at this stage”.
But if Mercedes has achieved its winter aim of making F1’s
fastest and most reliable car even more reliable, faster, and
easier to make fast on a greater number of circuits, Wolff’s
rivals could well be in for a long and chastening 12 months.
Mercedes has well and truly laid down the gauntlet again.
Time for the rest to respond.
MARCH 1 2018 23
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
FERRARI

Ferrari SF71H
Ferrari stepped up its challenge to Mercedes in 2017, but it needs to go further
and also fix the reliability problems that stymied its title chances last season

By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert

2 RADIATORS
1 WHEELBASE

1
WHEELBASE

F
The wheelbase looks a little
longer than 2017. That’s not the 2
or Ferrari to mount a real season-long wrong thing to do, and if I was RADIATORS
challenge to Mercedes for either Ferrari I would have added a bit
championship, it needs to be on top of the more – maybe not quite as much Ferrari has twin radiator inlets. One is
reliability problems that cost it last year. as Mercedes, but it gives some forward facing, which is by comparison
And it needs its drivers, especially Sebastian extra space to better manage the fairly small, and then another one is in
Vettel, not to be quite so hot-headed. airflow between the rear of the the top leading-edge surface of the
Ferrari also needs a car that’s a bit faster, front tyre and the sidepod sidepod. The undercut section of the
especially at the higher-speed tracks. At leading edge. Also, for the fast sidepod blends into the chassis side
the end of last year its average performance corners it makes the car that nicely, separating the airflow into what
over the season was still 0.178% down on Mercedes. That’s little bit more forgiving. is required for cooling and what is
a lot better than the 0.866% deficit of 2016, but to put up a Ferrari looks as if it’s running needed to produce downforce.
sustained attack across this year it needs to be nip and tuck a little more rake (higher rear You can see a similarity between
with Merc every race. Plus, there may just be another team ride-height) on the car. This is the Sauber and the Ferrari in this area.
or two joining the party, so it’s not just about Mercedes. not as much as we have seen Also, the vane on the top surface of the
Both Mercedes and Ferrari have stuck with their 2017 on the Red Bull, which does halo is very similar to both the Sauber
packaging philosophies, with a little bit of overlap. So it will exploit rake to the maximum. and the Toro Rosso.
be very interesting to see who has made the most progress.

24 MARCH 1 2018
 SIDEPODS 4
3 4
BARGEBOARDS
On the new Ferrari the bargeboards are
mounted quite well forward, whereas on
the Mercedes they are tucked in quite close
to the sidepod leading edge. These evolve
from a single-element component into three
elements at the top edge. This is to allow
them to work the inner surface of the
bargeboard harder in that area.
The lower edges are mounted on some
delta-style horizontal turning vanes going
from the teatray part of the floor to the
outer corner of the sidepods.
It’s very difficult to say who has pushed
the boat out furthest in the bargeboard area,
Mercedes or Ferrari. But I have to say that
I expected more from the Italian team,
because I don’t see this as a big step
forward from what it had last year.
BARGEBOARDS 3
SIDEPODS
I don’t see the sidepods
as a major step forward.
And like the bargeboards,
this is where you can
make significant
differences because
of the freedom in this
important area of
the regulations.
Below the driver’s-
feet area of the chassis
there is a three-element
vertical turning vane.
This picks up the airflow
underneath the raised
section of the chassis and
sets up a turning moment
to sweep it outwards.
FRONT WING 5
5
FRONT WING
Looking at the Ferrari’s front-wing assembly, it’s the de rigueur multi-
element design that all the cars have. Six or seven elements seems
to have become the norm, and the placing of the slot gaps between
each element is down to how an individual team views pitch sensitivity.
The add-on vanes on the forward-upper-outer corner are the first
ones that I can see make reasonable sense. Normally, they are vanes
of all different shapes, curves and sizes, but on the Ferrari they are fairly
uniform. The vanes are there to set up a turning moment on the airflow
that would normally hit the front tyre and then just send itself wherever
it fancied going. This is quite a neat little package of components.
The front-wing mounting pillars are three-dimensional, with two
vertical slot gaps. They are fairly invisible from the front view, but they
are there to pull more airflow between the FIA-defined central-wing
section and the bottom of the nose.
This flow then gets pulled through via the S-duct to the top of the
chassis. All this increases the mass flow underneath the chassis,
and the exit of the S-duct reduces the lift on the upper part of
the nose/chassis intersection.
MARCH 1 2018 25
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
FERRARI
Can Ferrari finally defeat
The often-erratic Italian team gave its principal rival a big
scare in 2017. Now it needs to build on that momentum
By Adam Cooper, Special Contributor
L
ast September’s Italian Grand Prix should have
been a joyous occasion for Scuderia Ferrari.
Not only was the company celebrating its
70th anniversary, enshrined in a special logo
on its two Formula 1 cars plus a display of
historic machinery, but for the first time
since 2012 a Maranello driver arrived at
Monza leading the world championship.
Furthermore, at the previous race the team
had confirmed (unusually early) that Sebastian Vettel had signed
up for three more years in rosso corsa, bringing vital stability to
the camp. The stage was set for something special.
Instead it turned into a weekend of frustration. The red cars
managed just seventh and eighth in a wet qualifying session,
and come the race Vettel had to settle for a distant third.
Lewis Hamilton not only won at Monza, he also seized the
championship lead as Mercedes put on a crushing display –
it was a scene more reminiscent of the silver ubiquity of 2014
through to ’16 than the ’17 season up to that point. “I think we
just screwed up,” rued company president Sergio Marchionne.
From there Ferrari unravelled very quickly. In Singapore both
its drivers crashed out on the first lap, in Malaysia turbo issues
26 MARCH 1 2018
meant Vettel had to start from the back, and in Japan a spark- Ferrari’s most recent
plug failure caused him to retire. In a matter of a few weekends, car launch emphasised
any hopes of a Ferrari title were gone. the theme of teamwork
For Ferrari and the ever-ravenous tifosi it’s now been 10
sporadically promising but ultimately disappointing seasons
since Kimi Raikkonen beat McLaren drivers Hamilton and
Fernando Alonso to the 2007 crown at the very last gasp, and
almost as long since Ferrari last claimed the constructors’ title.
A barren decade may seem less significant than the drought that
lasted from 1979 to 2000, but it’s been no less painful for all
involved. The success of the ‘dream-team’ era, when Michael
Schumacher won five titles in a row, is now a distant memory,
and all the key players from that time are long gone.
Can Ferrari finally turn things around in 2018 and beat
Mercedes – and indeed Red Bull and everyone else – to the
world championship? The answer has to be yes, but only if the
team gets everything absolutely right (in a way it didn’t last
year), and is able to capitalise on any mistakes by rivals.
For the first half of last season Ferrari was technically and
operationally slick. To take the next step it has to avoid the kind
of blunders that defined the second half, while continuing to
find the elusive marginal gains that yield improvement.
Mercedes?

SUTTON
It would have been easy for last year’s failure to lead to an
implosion and major changes, especially with the frustrated
Marchionne piling on pressure. But when you’re so close to
FERRARI’S DECADE OF INCONSISTENCY
getting it right, the priorities must be stability and a focus
on the details. That would be the strategy of the man who
masterminded Ferrari’s last period of great success. Since its 2008 constructors’ title followed up double championship success the year
“Mercedes are relentless, and Ferrari are catching up,” before, Ferrari has struggled to string two strong campaigns together
current F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn noted at the end of 2017.
“Mercedes are just a relentless machine. Ferrari put up a great 1st
challenge this season, a fantastic and exciting challenge, and CHAMPIONSHIP POSITION
made the championship for us. Because another year of 1
NUMBER OF WINS
domination for Mercedes would have been very tedious. 2nd
“They can take a lot of encouragement from this year, but
learn from it. Stability is so critical. I think if they can be strong,
maintain the stability, strengthen the organisation around the 3rd 8
edges, but not at the core, then they can move on.”
At last Thursday’s launch of the SF71H the emphasis was
5 5
very much on teamwork, a philosophy that team principal 4th
Maurizio Arrivabene has tried to foster while getting rid of 3 3
2
the blame culture that sometimes stifled creativity. 1 1
0 0
He was quick to pay tribute to his staff. That message 5th
was signposted visually by the employees neatly lined up in 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

MARCH 1 2018 27
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
FERRARI
formation behind him, wearing matching team gear, and with
Italian red, white and green also very much in evidence.
“When I look at this car I’m thinking about these guys you
see,” he said. “They’re all standing, for the respect for the brand,
for the company that they are working for, and for this car. And
I’m thinking about them, and the work of their colleagues.
“They were constructing piece after piece, intellectually or
manually, all this car, with passion, with commitment, with
a lot of effort. They were researching, they were developing,
they were caring about every single detail.
“And this is something that’s making the work of these
people in Maranello something special. Something special
because this car is made here, is made in our factory, is made in
Italy, and it’s a piece of excellence of our country. And this is the
emotion that I feel, every time that I’m going to see this car.”
It was stirring stuff. Was that patriotic reference a little dig
at Mercedes, whose car and power unit hail from the UK rather
than Stuttgart? Or just a reminder that, the drivers aside, Ferrari
currently has more of an Italian flavour than for many years?
Technical director Mattia Binotto stressed that while there is
continuity with the SF71H, the team has also worked hard to
address the weaknesses of its predecessor.
“The new car represents an evolution of last year’s car, which
was already a good project,” he explained. “We tried to retain the
strengths. The strengths I would say were first aggressiveness in
some of the concepts we designed, a car which was performing
very well on low-speed circuits. But as well we knew we had to
work on new areas of development.
“We have tried to develop the car to be strong and performing
on the high-speed circuits, but as well on reliability. What has
changed? The main difference is we have a slightly longer
wheelbase compared with last year. We have sidepods and
radiator ducts that are even more aggressive, more innovative,
28 MARCH 1 2018
S BLOXHAM/LAT
HONE/LAT
compared to what we had last year. Overall I think the entire The new Ferrari
team did a fantastic job with the packaging, to be very tight. aims to build on the
I think if you look at the body, it’s a very narrow body.” strengths of the 2017
car, but expect one
Ferrari did an impressive job of preparing for the major
thing not to change:
package of rules changes in 2017 – arguably a better job than Vettel (right) will be
Mercedes, given their relative form in the early races. There are ahead of Raikkonen
fewer novelties in this season’s package, but they still represent
opportunities for Ferrari to gain an advantage over its rivals.
Minimising the impact of the halo is one obvious area.
“The halo is a very visible element, and as well as that it
is very intrusive on the design,” said Binotto. “Adding it is not as
straightforward as it seems; it has affected the weight of the car,
the centre of gravity, the air into the engine scoop, and also the
airflow to the rear wing. So we put quite a lot of effort into
making sure everything is working properly.”
Powerplant reliability will be a key factor as all the engine
manufacturers deal with the rule that mandates three elements
for 21 races. Ferrari faced some reliability issues last year, and
how successfully the team has adapted to the even stricter
requirements of 2018 will have a big impact.
Performance has been converging over the hybrid era, but can
Ferrari maintain that form without risking grid penalties? And
given the new restrictions, can it still find that little bit of extra
Q3 power that has made a big difference for Mercedes?
The other big change is to the tyres, now that Pirelli is
following a more aggressive route and promising more pitstops.
Last year Ferrari often had an edge over Mercedes in terms of
getting the most out of the tyres, especially, as Binotto noted,
at slower tracks. How that translates into 2018 will remain an
open question even after testing.
“It’s the same for everyone,” said Vettel. “If everybody decides
to do one stop, it’s usually the fastest strategy. If everybody
decides to do a two-stop, it’s the fastest strategy. I think we’ve
 Arrivabene
remains at the

TEE/LAT
team’s reins

been working very hard on our pitstops to make sure that

they’re fast and reliable. The more stops you have, obviously
the more important they become.
“How much impact the tyres will have, I think we will only
find out once we go towards Australia, Bahrain, places that tend
to be hot. Winter testing is called winter testing for a reason.
I’m not sure how much information we’ll be able to take from
cold conditions and cold track temperatures.”
It’s not just about the package – the drivers also have to do
everything right. Vettel did an awesome job for most of last
year, but he continued to involve himself in expensive first-lap
incidents. His road-rage moment in Baku didn’t cost him the
title, but the aftermath was a distraction, he lost valuable points,
and at the time that took pressure off Mercedes. He can’t afford
to drop the ball like that again.
Naturally the world assumes that Ferrari sees Vettel as the
title chaser, but Raikkonen remains an important part of
the equation. He makes a huge contribution not just to the
overall development direction of the car, but also to its
configuration on any given race weekend.
He had some strong moments last year, but was largely
overshadowed. That scenario suited Ferrari in that Vettel was
getting the big results but, given how tight the title battle is
likely to be, the team needs its de facto second driver to be
up there taking points off rivals on a regular basis.
There’s a big change for Raikkonen this year as his race
engineer and close pal Dave Greenwood is moving to the World
Endurance Championship with Manor after the Barcelona tests.
Once the season starts he will be replaced by Carlo Santi.
Raikkonen places a lot of emphasis on the engineer relationship,
and while he knows Santi – who was previously the vehicle
engineer for the #7 car – it may take him time to adjust
DUNBAR/LAT

to having a different voice in his earpiece.

Then there’s the matter of his future. Given that Raikkonen
has a one-year deal, it’s widely assumed that Ferrari has Charles
Leclerc on standby for 2019 – assuming it doesn’t opt for, say,
a Daniel Ricciardo – and that this year will be Kimi’s last in F1.
Has Raikkonen already accepted that, and agreed it with the
team? Or will ongoing doubts and endless questioning about
2019 create some instability? If the latter, then it’s an issue
that Arrivabene will have to keep under control.
Inevitably the focus will be on Vettel, who (as you’d expect)
made all the right noises about what he saw of the car at the
launch. Now the team has to prove to him that it really has
found those marginal gains and addressed any weaknesses.
“For sure the amount of effort that has gone in, the attention
to detail in so many areas that I asked about, it’s impressive,”
he said. “The real magic happens underneath from what you
can see, but every little detail matters, every little component
SUTTON

can make a difference. I think this year’s car is a big step from
last year, so let’s see how it feels.”

MARCH 1 2018 29
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
McLAREN

McLaren MCL33
There’s no hiding place for the folks in Woking now that they’ve got the use
of Renault engines. And it looks like they could be set for a big step forward

By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert

1 FLOOR

2 BARGEBOARD
1 2
FLOOR BARGEBOARD

M
cLaren says that the MCL33
is an evolution of the 2017
chassis, and it does look very
well detailed in all the critical
downforce-producing areas.
On many occasions last
season, Fernando Alonso
stated that the McLaren
was the best chassis in
the pitlane. Now, he should have the power unit
to prove it in the form of the Renault.
Even when the overall package wasn’t up to the
level of Mercedes, Renault-powered Red Bull has still
managed to pull off a few wins in the V6 era. So assuming
that the French manufacturer has burned the midnight
oil on power-unit development over the winter, 2018
will offer no hiding place for McLaren.
McLaren has three small slots in the floor in front The bargeboard area
of the rear tyres, helping to seal the underfloor and and floor section
diffuser, but it also has two long slots down each side where the driver’s
of the floor. It’s the first team to do this. These will knees would be is
further help seal the underfloor from airflow just being very intricate, with
pulled underneath the car, reducing its performance. lots of open-ended
The diffuser and the detail of the rear of the car is slot gaps, each of
a critical area for overall performance, so I’m pretty which will be setting
sure McLaren will have as many trick bits in that area up small vortices
as it does on the rest of the car. From what I can see, that in turn will help
it’s done a first-class job. There are lots of bits in all the performance of
the right places, but only the team knows if it’s got the components further
best from them or if more development is required. downstream. It looks
I think with Renault power, McLaren is back on as though it has
the right path. The interesting thing will be how lots of elements to
high up the ladder it can start the season and, more optimise the airflow
importantly, where it stands compared to Red Bull to the leading edge
and the works Renault team as the season progresses. of the underfloor.

30 MARCH 1 2018
 6
ENGINE
It’s what is under the engine cover
that matters more than the shape
of the engine cover, and in this area
is contained all of McLaren’s hopes
for the season ahead.
Packaging the Renault power unit
efficiently will have been the major
task, and I’m sure the engineers at
both McLaren and Renault will
have done a first-class job.
The Renault turbo packaging is
not the same as the Honda, so there
is bound to be some difference. The
engine cover has been extended in
such a way as to cover parts of the rear
suspension that were previously visible
when McLaren ran Honda engines.
The engine cover will just wrap all the
internal requirements, creating the
minimum blockage for the rear wing.
The radiator inlets are fairly simple in
that they are high up and a letter-box
style. Internal airflow and cooling
efficiency is critical on these cars.
If less airflow is required for cooling,
it leaves more to create downforce.
The inlet is simple, with a fairly
small leading-edge radius, which
means airflow separation will be
well-defined and won’t alter too
dramatically with speed when
the radiator blockage builds up.

ENGINE 6

SIDEPODS 3 4 FRONT SUSPENSION

FRONT WING 5

3 4
SIDEPODS
The sidepod outer-corner vertical vanes are
similar to last year’s Renault, in that they
sweep rearwards. These are there to pick up
the front-tyre turbulent wake and reduce its
negative effect on the undercut of the sidepods.
This undercut is critical to the performance
of the bargeboards, as it’s the area that allows
the low pressure at the rear of the car to
influence what happens at the front.
Opening this area up, with the cooling
constraints required within the sidepod and
the cooling inlet, improves the aerodynamic
efficiency of just about everything.
On top of the sidepods there are six small
vertical-ish turning vanes pulling the airflow down
into the swept-down area of the sidepods and the
Coke-bottle area. Connecting up the low-pressure
area at the rear of the car to the front is vital.
FRONT SUSPENSION
The front suspension is again conventional,
with upper and lower wishbones and a
pushrod-operated inboard-suspension system.
There is no Mercedes-style trickery in this
area, other than that the steering trackrod
seems to be mounted inline or inside the lower
wishbone, which gets it out of the airflow.
5
FRONT WING
The concept is the now-standard multi-element
component, which goes in line with McLaren’s
stated aim of producing stable aerodynamics.
You need these slot gaps to control the
aerodynamic stall as the front wing gets lower to
the ground, but they are even more important in
instigating reattachment when the wing moves away
from the ground. These changes in aerodynamic
load need to be progressive, otherwise the driver
will be confused about available grip levels.
On the inside of the front-wing endplates is a
conglomeration of turning vanes. These set up
a turning moment on the airflow to help it go
around the outside of the front tyre.
The front-wing pillars are very long and, although
one component, they are split into four elements
with three slot gaps. These are there to pull more
airflow under the front of the chassis.

MARCH 1 2018 31
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
McLAREN

No more excuses
as McLaren sets its
sights for the top
After the disastrous Honda era, McLaren is looking in better shape with
Renault – but what can the team in orange really expect in 2018?

By Jonathan Noble, Special Contributor

 M
ore than any other team on the grid,
McLaren knows that in 2018 it has
no excuses if it underperforms on
track. For three years it has singled
out Honda’s down-on-power
engine as the biggest factor holding
the team back; switching to Renault
means it will be forced to look at
itself if it does not deliver now.
Perhaps predictably, rather than focusing on the pressure
created by this scenario, the team claims to be relishing the
opportunity to prove how good it is – and get results.
As chief technical officer (aero) Peter Prodromou said: “It’s
been difficult for us for the past three years not having someone
to measure yourself up against. So I think it’s a very positive
thing that we’ve got two first class teams [Red Bull and Renault]
to measure ourselves against. That is a very strong motivating
factor for everyone in the workforce.”
Such has been the hype surrounding McLaren’s switch to
Renault engines that it has been hard to gauge where the team’s
real aspirations lay. Indeed, McLaren’s management spoke over
the winter of its biggest challenge being to keep expectations
firmly in check, and to not get too carried away in thinking that
wins or a championship challenge are imminent prospects.
With a driver line-up as strong as Fernando Alonso and
Stoffel Vandoorne, plus a chassis that both drivers and team
rated highly, a big budget, and an engine that helped Red Bull
win races in 2017, everything is in place for a big step. But talk
coming out of the team is more cautious. “It’s about being
competitive, which we haven’t been the last three years,” says
executive director Zak Brown. “Being competitive is racing
at the front, qualifying at the front, getting on the podium.
“But we haven’t set a target that success looks like ‘x’ of these
and ‘y’ of those. If one team wins 21 races then you can still be
really competitive not having won. If six teams win races and
you are not one of them then that doesn’t look so good. So
I think it depends on what the competition does as well.”
While the move to Renault should yield dividends in terms
of power and reliability, it has not been without its challenges.
Chief among these was the late nature of the deal – concluded
in September, when the MCL33’s design was already quite
advanced. Integration of power unit and chassis is a key
driver of moving forward, so the change didn’t augur well for
optimisation. Despite the relatively late call, the team thinks
it hasn’t been too compromised by the changes needed to
incorporate the different architecture of the Renault engine,
having focused resources on that during autumn.
MAUGER/LAT
TEE/LAT
The different positioning of the turbo and intercooler on
the Renault required a lot of detailed changes to the air intake,
gearbox and rear suspension in particular. Whether the Renault
or Honda concept is better or worse for the car is a matter
for debate, but chassis tech chief Tim Goss is adamant that
swapping over has not meant McLaren needing to sacrifice
anything performance-wise.
“I don’t believe we have given up anything in terms of the
fundamental concepts and designs that we are heading for
with this year’s car,” says Goss.
It is on the chassis front that McLaren is especially confident.
Few doubt the good progress the team has made in recent years
with a new aero concept under Prodromou. But while there were
suggestions last year – not least from within the team itself –
that the McLaren chassis was among the best in the field, some
observers wondered if that claim was a step too far.
The theory about McLaren’s strength was based on its
cornering performance, but sceptics suggested that the team
was flattered at times by adopting an ultra-high-downforce
setting, which boosted its pace through corners and simply
exacerbated its speed deficit on the straight.
Goss defends the approach the team took, and refutes any
suggestion that the team was ‘showboating’ its chassis at
Honda’s expense as McLaren’s relationship with its engine
supplier took a turn for the terminal.
“We do an aero scan and work out where you want to pitch
yourself, and there is an optimum,” he says. “You can shuffle
yourself one way or another on the dip of the optimum and not
trade too much in lap time. But generally every circuit we were
aiming for optimum minimum lap time, and that would
configure what wing load we would take.”
McLaren’s senior tech figures do not go along with the view
that the chassis was the best, but believe there were inherent
strengths that give some level of confidence about the MCL33.
“We were comfortable with our chassis performance,” says
Prodromou. “We obviously have GPS traces that you can look
at, interpret and make some analysis of where you think you are.
I think in the main we had pretty good high-speed performance
and I think there was work to do in the low speed.”
Much of that progress still relies on what Renault is able
to do with its powerplant. The French car manufacturer
is confident that it has the potential to take solid steps
throughout the season, even if the priority from the start
of the campaign is putting reliability over performance.
Alonso is certainly bullish. He has talked of the “good times
coming”. Few doubt that – the real question is how soon
they arrive and how good they will be.
Alonso lost a
wheel early
during testing
MARCH 1 2018 33
 FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
RENAULT

Renault RS18
Renault’s latest challenger looks similar to the car that saw out its 2017 season
– is the French manufacturer being coy, or has it underdone its approach?

By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert

1 DIFFUSER

2 FLOOR

1 2
DIFFUSER FLOOR

T
he detail of what I can see so far on
the RS18 looks very similar to what
Renault had at the end of 2017.
Optimising what was probably the
fourth-fastest car of last year is one
thing, but taking a big step forward
to fight the leading teams is another.
Before giving a rounded opinion on
what Renault has produced, I would need
to see the definitive product and I’m not sure we have yet.
If this is it then there is a lot of room for improvement.
There’s nothing like the big changes in concept we’ve seen
Looking from the rear, there are no turning Surprisingly, Renault doesn’t
vanes in the diffuser area. The diffuser itself is have any louvres on the floor
just a maximum-exit-area box. I would expect surface in front of the rear tyre.
that this will all change and that Renault These louvres normally help
either hasn’t got the final spec of underfloor, control tyre squirt, where the
which will include the missing louvres, or that tyre displaces the airflow as
it’s just being a it rotates onto the ground.
smartarse. This By allowing the displaced
could just be a airflow from tyre rotation to
bit of an interim car influence the direction of the
to display its paint airflow on the upper surface
scheme and get of the floor, they also help seal
initial mileage, and the underfloor and diffuser
it could dramatically in this area. So this is pretty
RENAULT

from teams like Williams and Sauber. If Renault is going to change before important to the overall
deliver the kind of results we expect from a manufacturer the second test. performance of the underfloor.
team, then we are going to need to see more.

34 MARCH 1 2018
 SIDEPODS 3

FRONT SUSPENSION 4

FRONT WING 5

3 4
SIDEPODS
The radiator inlet is letterbox-shaped to allow an increased
undercut in the lower section of the sidepod, with the
lower side-impact structure housed in the underfloor
leading edge. The outer vertical tyre-wake controlling
vanes are very similar to last year and sweep rearwards
at the top. These components pick up the turbulent
wake from the front tyre and try to realign it to reduce its
negative effect on the sidepod undercut and floor sealing.
The sidepods themselves are a combination of the
upper surface sweeping down and the side surfaces
sweeping inwards, creating the Coke-bottle shape inside
the rear tyres. Getting as much mass flow through this
Coke-bottle area is crucial to the overall performance
of the diffuser and rear wing. But you need to be careful
that when the car is mid-corner and is subject to yaw
conditions that the Coke bottle doesn’t stall.
FRONT SUSPENSION
The front suspension is fairly
conventional, with upper and
lower A-frame wishbones and
a pushrod-operated inboard-
suspension system.
The bargeboard area is very
similar to last year. It’s always
difficult to see the finer detail
of these components and, in
reality, that detail is what makes
or breaks the performance.
But the Renault bargeboards
have the trailing-edge steps
that generate the vortices
going around the sidepods
and help seal the floor.
5 SUTTON
FRONT WING
This has probably the lowest number of elements we’ve seen
from the 2018 cars so far. But that’s not a bad thing as long as
the sensitivity and the airflow-separation characteristics are
under control. Also, as it’s a bolt-on item I’m pretty sure there
will be developments in place before testing finishes.
The front-wing mounts are fairly long, with a slot gap where
they join the nose. They then twist outwards to pull more
airflow through the centre section of the front wing and under
the nose is the now common S-duct, with its exit just in front
of the ‘t’ of Renault. Again, this duct is to help pull more airflow
through the centre section of the front wing, as maximising the
mass airflow presented to the leading edge of the bargeboards
allows them to work more efficiently.
There are also two turning vanes under the driver’s feet. This
is a sort of extension of the front-wing mounting vanes, to help
pull the airflow back out from under the front of the chassis.

MARCH 1 2018 35
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
RENAULT

A sleeping
giant awakens
Renault’s ever-expanding workforce is just one element
of how serious its ambitions are for the new season

By Jonathan Noble, Special Contributor

SUTTON/LAT
Strong driver

SUTTON/LAT
line-up key to
team’s targets

I
t’s fair to say that Renault is thinking big. In fact,
Formula 1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul is
quite proud that the French car manufacturer is
now grand prix racing’s fastest-growing team.
Its Enstone staff numbers have jumped from 470
when Renault took over in 2015 to an impressive
750. At its Viry engine base, the increase has been
from 430 to 550. Across both divisions, that’s
almost a 45% rise in just three years.
But it’s not just the numbers that signal Renault is a
team on the move. Its steady climb up the constructors’
championship standings, the addition of sponsors, and
the closing of the gap to the front of the grid are signs
of big momentum being built up.
For Nico Hulkenberg, the ambition for 2018 is clear. “I think
we need to improve the rate [of progress] this year as we’ve
done last year,” he says. “Last year we made very good gains
throughout the season. I think it’s our job to make sure we
do the same thing this year. If we’re able to do that, we have
very good chances to be the first team behind the top three.”
Past indicators guarantee nothing in Formula 1, and Renault
heads into the new campaign well aware that the difficult part
of its journey is still to come. It’s one thing turning around
a team that’s on its last legs and making it a respectable
midfield squad. It’s quite another converting a strong
operation into a crack unit that can take on – and beat –
the might of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
That is the task Renault has its sights set on achieving
within the next two to three years, and the ingredients look
to be in place for it to at least be able to take steps towards
that target over the 2018 campaign. With progress on a car
that showed itself to be the fourth best at times last year,
the addition of Carlos Sainz to ensure there are two top-
quality drivers able to deliver points each time out, plus
the benefits of that ever-increasing headcount, a better
package should be expected.
Abiteboul is positive about where things are right now,
and says that morale boosters such as grabbing sixth in the
constructors’ championship in Abu Dhabi last year have
also played their part in helping to push things along.
“It was really important to secure what we did in Abu
Dhabi, and the way we did it also, to get the morale lifted
and the energy and to gain confidence in ourselves,” he says.
“We know that there is so much to be done in a small
amount of time, and we need that extra bit of energy.
“The winter has been productive, but it’s not just the
work of the winter. We started really early in designing
the first concept of the 2018 car, and started also fairly
early on the engine, which is very much a carryover of
last year. But everything had to be better and more robust
in terms of reliability, which has been the main focus.”

MARCH 1 2018 37
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
RENAULT
First test is all about Indeed, Renault’s progress in terms of pace cannot be
ensuring everything isolated from the struggles it faced in getting its cars to the
works, says Abiteboul finish line in 2017. Nothing exposed the team’s growing pains
(below, right), so don’t
more than the reliability dramas that hurt its constructors’
pay attention to lap
times. Grabbing sixth
championship challenge. Although it was happy with its
in constructors’ points eventual sixth-placed finish, it well knows that a spot
last year in Abu Dhabi higher up the order went begging because it was not
(below, left) was big getting its car to the chequered flag often enough.
boost for team spirits Part of the explanation for those troubles lies with
young, inexperienced staff needing time to work together
to better understand the exceptional qualities that are
expected at all levels of F1. And maybe too in some areas
the team had pushed too hard for speed over durability.
Technical director Bob Bell is candid on how
Renault has totally reappraised its approach on this
front. “That [reliability] is a huge challenge, even more
so than performance development, and it’s the toughest
task we face,” he admits. “To improve reliability, we have
to accept nothing less than perfection. Anything that
ends up on the car needs to be designed and built to the
highest standard; checked and rechecked as fit for purpose.
“All the issues that blighted us last year need to be
eradicated by a fresh approach. It’s not something,
however, that you can flick on like a switch – you
need well-established processes in place.”
Infrastructure changes at its factory should help. A new
CFD supercomputer (to work in tandem with its updated
windtunnel) is now up and running, and there will also be
SUTTON/LAT
38 MARCH 1 2018
S BLOXHAM/LAT
a new gearbox dyno online before the start of the season.
On April 1, the FIA’s former F1 technical chief Marcin
Budkowski begins work at Enstone, having already got an
insight into Renault’s working culture at its Viry facility.
His signing was controversial (and his arrival delayed
following complaints from rivals) because of his in-depth
knowledge of what systems other teams have developed.
Abiteboul has been clear that Budkowski’s thoroughness
and insight will be a tremendous boost in helping to push
forward the team’s technical aspects.
“At the moment we are bringing to him a knowledge
and an understanding of the Renault group, of Viry, of our
structure and our processes,” Abiteboul explains. “Every
organisation has its own culture and its mindset and I think
he is gaining in understanding of that from Viry. And that
is all time that he will not have to lose, and be distracted
from what he has to do, when he is at Enstone.”
There seems to be a well-structured plan to Renault’s
ambitions for its engine in the season ahead. The dark days
of its early testing crisis in 2014 appear to be firmly in the
past, and there is bullish talk coming out of Viry about
how durable its ’18 powerplant will be.
“We have covered 11 times the mileage on the dyno that
we had covered at the same point last year, and we are
aiming to have 70,000km on the dyno by race one,
which is huge,” reveals Abiteboul. “It is something that
we have never done since the introduction of the V6.
“Frankly, I think we’ve done the best that we could. Our
S BLOXHAM/LAT

HONE/LAT
project management, ethos and discipline has been exemplary.
“But when we are on track, we will need to sign off a
number of things, and this is particularly the plan for the
first test – to make sure that there is no disconnect between
track and dyno. So don’t look at the lap time in test one,
because everything will be massively tuned down for
obvious reasons. But test two we want to run in a
more representative mode.”
Renault appears willing to sacrifice a bit of performance
at the start of the season to ensure that its first engine of
the year is 100% reliable. Performance steps are being
planned for engines two and three.
Abiteboul adds: “Our target is more or less to start
in Melbourne [the first race] with the same performance level
as we finished in Abu Dhabi [at the end of 2017], which is
actually quite a decent performance baseline.
“Then we want to make it much more reliable. And
make it in a way that we can extract the power in a consistent
and sustainable manner – and not have to turn down the
engine because of reliability or temperature concerns. That
is the baseline. Clearly power unit number two will be a step
and number three will be another step.”
‘Steps’ is very much the key word for Renault. There
won’t be any kind of dramatic leap forward like McLaren
is expecting to make for 2018, and the fact that things look
close behind the top three teams makes it impossible
to set a firm ambition for the year.
“We are going to have a field that is very competitive
and that is great news for Formula 1,” says Abiteboul.
“Obviously I want to be as far forward in the field as
possible. We all know that the last steps are the most
painful and the most difficult, but I do believe that we
have some reasonable chances.
“First and foremost, it is the first time that we will
have two cars and two drivers who can bring the car
hopefully in the points at every single race. That is
the target. And frankly I don’t know what McLaren,
Williams, Force India, Sauber, Haas or Toro Rosso
will do. We don’t know. There are lots of unknowns.
“I don’t want to make any predictions. I know what
we have done. I know what is coming for race one and
what is coming for the first half of the season and we
will have to take it from there.”
DEALING WITH THE McLAREN-RED BULL POLITICS
ONE OF THE MOST EAGERLY ANTICIPATED
rivalries in 2018 will be between McLaren
and Red Bull. The two teams have often
locked horns – be it over results, sponsors,
senior staff, or headlines – and that intensity
will be notched up another level now they
are powered by the same Renault engine.
It’s possible things could get extremely
political between the two as they bid to
come out on top of the Renault-powered
battle this year, and that may lead to some
big headaches for Renault management
if they get caught in the crossfire.
But for Alain Prost, an ambassador
and advisor for Renault’s F1 project,
the situation is not one that he’s
particularly concerned about.
“What we need to achieve is to
understand our progression – where we
are compared to the others, comparing to
what we had last year, for example,” he says.
“If we make a progression, that means we
understood where we were going and it will
Will Red Bull-
McLaren rivalry
boil over?
Huge mileage was
covered on dyno before
new car hit the track
be easier for the future. And for sure we
are going to see where we are compared
to Red Bull and McLaren, but we must
only take that as an experience.”
Prost isn’t worried by having Renault
go up against a team as big as McLaren
with an identical engine. He knows that
his squad isn’t yet in a position where it
can dream of the victories that both its
customers are targeting.
“I am sure a lot of people are going to
see where we are compared to McLaren.
But we don’t have the same structure yet.
We are still working on the construction,
and it is going to be different,” he explains.
“On the other side they have more pressure
than us. They keep saying that they have
the best chassis in F1, and it’s also good to
see where they are with the same engine.
“They have the pressure without us;
we will have the pressure more and more,
month after month, and year after year.
But for today, let’s wait and see.”
COATES/LAT
MARCH 1 2018 39
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
FORCE INDIA
Force India VJM11
Force India has evolved its car from the end of 2017, but
will that be enough to keep it ahead of resurgent rivals?
By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert
1 FRONT WING
F
orce India’s latest ‘Pink Panther’ is an evolution of 2017’s
package. For the past two years it has done a great job to
finish fourth in the constructors’ championship. But with
McLaren, Renault and Williams likely to improve, it could
be even tougher for it to maintain that level of success in
’18. This team has shown it has a decent understanding
of its car and how it works the tyres, which – combined
with a strong driver line-up and sensible strategies – has
allowed it to get a lot of good results. If that knowledge
of the car has carried over, I’m sure it’ll get the best out of the package.
It’s also taken an interesting approach to testing, saying the focus will be
on making sure the aerodynamics work as intended and ensuring the impact
of the halo is understood. This makes sense while the track surface settles
down, because doing mechanical set-up or vehicle-dynamics work could
prove misleading. Force India uses its head, and this is another example
– avoiding getting too excited and focusing on what it needs to do. All the
detail is there on this car; the only question is whether it all works together.
40 MARCH 1 2018
5 HALO
1
FRONT WING
The philosophy of the front-wing assembly is slightly different from that
of other teams. The part in front of the tyre is very much what you could
call a tyre ramp. All the flaps continue through there, but as it comes
towards the centre of the car it changes height fairly abruptly.
Other teams make this transition from one section to another more
progressively, so this is something different. You could call this a tyre
pod rather than an airflow-realignment device. The front-flap package
is not necessarily as big as that of other teams, and therefore it
doesn’t have such a big section wing.
If you look at the main plane, it’s quite a long chord on the outboard
end, so for me it’s a little bit of a strange package of componentry on
the front wing and isn’t following the trend many others have taken.
It’s the same with the nose and the distinctive nostrils – a different
philosophy. Only time on the stopwatch will tell if it’s right, but I’d
have preferred a shorter-chord main plane because that makes it
easier to control the pitch sensitivity. The front wing almost looks
like a 90%-scale version of the others, and if that were the case it
would be producing less downforce.

BARGEBOARDS
2 4
BARGEBOARDS
The bargeboard area is quite
sophisticated and it’s got all
the vortex-generation devices,
vertical and horizontal fins
you expect. The floor area in
front of the main floor looks
good too, but it’s about how
all of this works together
rather than the individual
bits, because the airflow
coming off one part affects
the others dramatically.
Setting up the airflow that
comes through under the front
of the chassis is all about trying
to get the highest-velocity
airflow possible introduced to
the sidepod leading edge.
SIDEPODS 3
2
3
SIDEPODS
The sidepods are very much
focused on the undercut
developing into the Coke-bottle
area. That area is allowing the
back of the car to influence the
front and scavenge the airflow
out from under the chassis.
Everything looks to be there.
SUTTON/LAT
DIFFUSER 4
5
SUTTON
DIFFUSER HALO
The diffuser is as wide as you can get it. It has On the halo, as the sides
the turning vanes on the outboard end, to try come round towards the
to get it to work with the low-pressure area back, there’s a bit of a
behind the rear tyres. This aspect is critical step where others have
and works in conjunction with the rear brake tried to sweep it down
ducts, which cool the brakes but also have a into the headrest. The
multitude of turning vanes. The combination integration of the two
of parts is all there – all they have to do is work. trailing-edge parts of the
halo is the one element
that doesn’t look like it’s
designed for these cars.
The car is a certain
shape, the halo’s a
certain shape, and they
don’t meet up well. The
front blends in nicely,
but the back part is not
very sophisticated.
MARCH 1 2018 41
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
TORO ROSSO

Toro Rosso STR1

The Italian team has had to get used to changing engine supplier in recent
seasons, and this year is no exception as it adapts to McLaren cast-off Honda

By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert

1 ENGINE COVER

2 DIFFUSER

1 2
ENGINE COVER DIFFUSER

W
The engine cover is mainly about minimising the The diffuser is a
cross-sectional area, and as part of a neat and tidy decent package, which
e’ve heard many times from package that’s been done well. You have to entice connects well to the rear
McLaren about how big a job the airflow to go in the direction that you think is tyres – that’s always
it is to integrate a different best. When you see those big aero rakes on the car, vitally important. With
engine package into the that’s measuring the airflow and direction and these cars, everyone
chassis. Well, Toro Rosso velocity away from the car body surface. That’s always looks to the
is a much smaller team and what influences the airflow on the bodywork and front, but you don’t
has had the same task in the you need to understand it to ensure it’s working push air around a car,
reverse direction by switching the way that you want it to. you pull it from behind.
from Renault to Honda. Toro Rosso is pretty happy with the Honda So, with the airflow
Toro Rosso has been unfortunate enough to have made engine. There’s a different set of pressures in this you have to start at the
such changes a lot recently, having used Renault engines in relationship compared to McLaren-Honda, so back of the car and work
2015, year-old Ferrari units in ’16, Renault again the year hopefully that’s helped. Most importantly, this your way forwards, as
after and now Honda for ’18! For a team with its modest doesn’t look like a car that’s been compromised that’s what’s pulling the
manpower and budget, there will be much else besides to package the engine – there are no bulky areas airflow back through the
that it cannot get on and do. or bulges that jump out at you as a problem. Coke bottle, undercut
But this is a tidy-looking car nonetheless. The STR13 STR has done a good job. Hopefully, the working sidepods, bargeboards
has joined the club of the current regulations by taking relationship with Honda stays positive and they can and even across the
some of the best ideas from both Mercedes and Ferrari, make real progress from this promising starting point. front-wing surfaces.
which naturally lead the way for everyone else.

42 MARCH 1 2018
13
3 HALO FRONT SUSPENSION & BARGEBOARDS 4

FRONT WING 5

S BLOXHAM/LAT
3 4 5
HALO FRONT SUSPENSION & BARGEBOARDS FRONT WING
The integration of the Toro Rosso has carried over the high-wishbone front suspension from 2017. The Toro Rosso front wing and nose
halo is good. It’s one of The general philosophy of the car is a development of the package it had assembly is the normal multi-element
the teams that has put last year, but adapted to trends set by Ferrari and Mercedes. device. There are some different ways of
a vane on the top with a In the bargeboard area, Toro Rosso has all the bits and pieces in the right doing things, and it’s always interesting
gap to try to tidy up the places. But that’s only a visual impression and it’s about getting them all to look at the inboard end of the flaps.
airflow behind it going to work together properly. That’s what makes a good F1 car, and it takes For some teams the flaps curve down,
to the airbox intake. A hundreds of hours of windtunnel and CFD work to know that. and there are some quite subtle changes,
round tube is not very with some having them straighter. When
good for airflow and you have a flap that’s fairly straight, you set
SUTTON/LAT

the teams are trying up a vortex at the end of it called the Y250
to clean things up. vortex, which pre-2017 was quite important;
I’m sure we’ll see but with the new regulations, it’s not so
some developments critical because there’s more room for the
there across the field, bargeboards to do their work behind.
although the rules don’t Toro Rosso swoops that part of the wing
allow you to do too down quite dramatically, cancelling out that
much. For example, you effect and separating the FIA-mandated
can’t put a long trailing neutral central section of the wing from
edge on it to make it the outboard part. Some teams have
into a wing section. done this, some haven’t.

MARCH 1 2018 43
FORMULA 1
LAUNCHES
SAUBER

Sauber C37
There’s only one way you can move from the back of the grid. And Sauber’s
new challenger hints that the team could make a big step forward in 2018

By Gary Anderson, Technical Expert

1 DIFFUSER

2 COKE BOTTLE
1 2
DIFFUSER COKE BOTTLE

S
The diffuser has some nice detail across The Coke-bottle area sweeps
its trailing edge. The twin turning vanes inside the rear tyre, allowing
auber has put itself on a completely help the diffuser think it is higher by the mass airflow that’s being
different level for the 2018 season. Its acting like a gurney flap. But I’m a little displaced by the rear tyre to
close association with Ferrari, combined surprised that the outer sides of the pass over the diffuser’s upper
with bringing the Alfa Romeo name back diffuser don’t connect very well to the surface. Getting the airflow to
to Formula 1, can only be a positive. low-pressure area behind the rear tyre. come through on the inside
The stronger association with Ferrari This area may change during testing, of the tyre improves the
means Sauber will have an up-to-date and I will be looking out for this at diffuser and rear-upper-wing
engine in terms of performance and Barcelona at the end of the month. performance, and it also reduces
technology. I’m sure Ferrari is not putting the overall drag of the car.
the Alfa name on the cars without being able influence its The detail and the small slots
technical direction. And driver-wise, Sauber can pick from on the floor’s top surface are also
the best of Ferrari’s young-driver programme, from which very important in improving the
the Prancing Horse needed to start promoting drivers. underfloor’s performance. The
For 2018, Sauber looks to have taken the next step. While I’m objective of all these is to reduce
sure there’s room for development, it has a good baseline. From the mass airflow that’s pulled
what we’ve seen so far, Sauber and Williams have both changed into the low-pressure area under
their car-concept philosophy. But the big question is, will they the car. The more this can be
get the best out of their new packages before the season starts? done, the better the performance
Let’s hope so, as we want much closer racing throughout the of the underfloor and diffuser.
field to bring that randomness in results we all crave.

44 MARCH 1 2018
 5
BARGEBOARDS
The bargeboards are a one-element
component varying in height, with a
sawtooth-style top edge to generate a
small vortex at each of the slots. These
vortices travel around the side of the car,
acting as a skirt to seal the underfloor.
The outer-corner sidepod vertical
elements are very three-dimensional.
BARGEBOARDS
3 HALO
3 4
HALO
There’s nice detail on the halo,
with the small slotted-gap trim
over the top of it. A round tube
like the halo is one of the worst
things for creating turbulence,
so anything that can be done
will help the airflow to the
airbox-intake area.
Again, lots of detail has gone
into this area, with the rollbar
structure separating the main
inlets and the cooling inlet more
of a horseshoe shape slightly
rearward of the rollbar leading
edge. Consistency of airflow into
these inlets maintains more
constant base pressure on the
turbo, which slightly reduces the
effort required from the exhaust
gases to create the boost needed.
This is small, but important.
They control and manage the turbulent
wake coming off the trailing edge of the
front tyre. But as the front wheels are
turned, this turbulent wake changes its
intensity dramatically. This area needs
to be optimised to work from the front
wheels pointing straight ahead to when
they are steered to around nine degrees.
5
FRONT WING
The front wing is a six-element
component with a very short-chord
first element. It’s this area of the front
wing that gets closest to the ground.
Having a short-chord initial element
means you have less of a loss of
downforce when the inevitable
airflow-separation problems kick in.
The nose and the front detail have
been influenced by what Force India ran
in 2017. The nostrils, as they were called,
are ducts that feed airflow through to
the inlet of the S-duct, and if one S-duct
is good then two must be better!
It looks like there are two exits on
the top surface of the nose, one just in
front of the Pirelli sticker and one just
behind it. The more airflow you can pull
through between the low nose section,
front-wing mounting pillars and the
mandatory FIA central front-wing
Otherwise, mid-corner that turbulent
wake will interfere with the vortices
coming off the bargeboards, reducing
their influence. This would mean that
the underfloor would lose performance
mid-corner, which is not a good situation.
Sauber has been influenced by last
year’s Ferrari’s sidepod leading edge.
4 FRONT WING
section, the better the function of the
bargeboards and, in turn, the underfloor.
Also, having the S-duct exit where
it’s positioned reduces the negative
lift that would normally be created
as the air accelerates over the top
of the nose and front of the chassis.
I’m also pleased to see that Sauber
has gone for the higher outboard
mounting for the top wishbone
It’s a very neat adaptation of the shorter
sidepods with the crash structure at mid
– or as low as possible – level, leading
them to require a twin cooling inlet.
The inlets are as high as possible, with
a well-sculptured sidepod undercut
section connecting to the Coke-bottle
area inside the rear tyre.
that Mercedes and Toro Rosso
pioneered in 2017. This allows it to
have a higher and more-horizontal
lower wishbone, which, while still
maintaining a half-sensible front-
suspension geometry, allows better
control over the wake coming at
the trailing edge of the front wing,
and helps to realign it to improve
underfloor performance.
MARCH 1 2018 45
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RACE CENTRE
THACKER NKP/LAT
Harvick hammers all in Ford 1-2-3
NASCAR CUP
ATLANTA (USA)
FEBRUARY 25
ROUND 2/36
DESPITE THE BEST EFFORTS OF THE
weather and problematic wheelguns,
Kevin Harvick was a dominant winner
in the first ‘real’ race of the Cup season.
After the outlier that always is the
Daytona 500, the Atlanta race was
billed as being the first chance for
the pack to shake out a genuine
competitive order for the year ahead.
The results were encouraging for Ford,
as Fusions swept the top three positions,
and disappointing for Chevrolet, with
just two Camaro ZL1s making the top 10
after taking the win at Daytona. The
results also went against another of the
pre-season’s biggest talking points: the
rise of the championship’s younger
drivers against the established stars.
Harvick has been something of an
Atlanta specialist in recent years and the
1.54-mile track, with its abrasive surface
that’s not been fully repaved in the past
two decades, was the scene of his first
series victory back in 2001. He led 292
of the 325 laps of the 2017 race before a
pitlane speeding penalty cost him dearly,
and the Stewart-Haas Racing driver again
had the car to beat this time around.
After winning Saturday’s Xfinity race, he
comfortably took the stage-one honours
in Sunday’s main event, which was
rain-delayed by two and a half hours.
But Harvick’s run to victory was
imperilled ahead of stage two as problems
with his crew’s new-for-2018 spec
wheelguns – an issue that twice afflicted
reigning champion Martin Truex Jr’s race
– meant he had to make an additional
stop, dropping him to 19th in the order.
That proved to be a temporary blip as
within 36 laps Harvick had risen back
through the field and retaken the lead.
The threat of returning rain further
put his victory hopes in danger late on
as, hoping to benefit from a weather
intervention cutting the race short,
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin and
Penske driver Joey Logano opted to make
one pitstop fewer than most of their
rivals. That approach brought them up
to third and fourth behind Harvick and
stage-two winner Brad Keselowski.
With 28 laps to go, Trevor Bayne’s
engine blew and the caution flags flew,
but Harvick stayed in control after
the restart and won ahead of Penske
star Keselowski by 2.690 seconds.
Harvick’s team-mate Clint Bowyer
completed the Ford 1-2-3 after
Harvick weathered making late progress up the order.
rain delays, errant Top Toyota runner Hamlin and Logano
wheelguns and a ended up fourth and sixth, sandwiching
late-race strategy Truex, who had come up from the tail
divergence to take
of the field following multiple failures to
his first win since
Texas last November clear NASCAR’s new technical-inspection
process ahead of qualifying on Friday.
Busch brothers Kyle and Kurt
took seventh and eighth ahead of
Kyle Larson in the best of the Camaros.
Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10,
with fellow high-profile rising stars
Ryan Blaney and Darrell Wallace Jr
12th and 32nd. Wallace was classified
six laps down after being blinded by
smoke and running into the back of
Ricky Stenhouse Jr – who finished
16th – in the closing laps.
“This is a racetrack that takes a
lot of experience, and there’s a lot of
things that you have to know about
your car and know about the racetrack
Spec wheelguns to get the car around,” said Harvick,
are a part of a bid before adding that he expects the
to lower costs younger drivers to be more competitive
at Las Vegas next time out.
RESULTS
1 Kevin Harvick (Ford Fusion) 325 laps in 3h29m54s;
2 Brad Keselowski (Ford) +2.690s; 3 Clint Bowyer (Ford);
4 Denny Hamlin (Toyota Camry); 5 Martin Truex Jr
(Toyota); 6 Joey Logano (Ford); 7 Kyle Busch (Toyota);
8 Kurt Busch (Ford); 9 Kyle Larson (Chevrolet Camaro
ZL1); 10 Chase Elliott (Chevy). Points 1 Harvick 75/
1 win; 2 Austin Dillon 70/1; 3 Logano 89; 4 Ryan Blaney
KINRADE NKP/LAT
83; 5 Hamlin 77; 6 Bowyer 74; 7 Truex 69; 8 Kurt Busch 68;
9 Paul Menard 66; 10 Aric Almirola 66; 11 Kyle Busch 61;
12 Keselowski 58; 13 Larson 54; 14 Darrell Wallace Jr 52;
15 Michael McDowell 52; 16 Ryan Newman 49.
MARCH 1 2018 47
 WTCR/GORDON SHEDDEN

Shedden’s
ALL-TIME BTCC RACE WINNERS SHEDDEN’S BTCC RECORD

POS DRIVER WINS ACHIEVEMENT STATS

1 Jason Plato 96 Wins 48

big
2 Matt Neal 61 Podiums 124
3 Andy Rouse 60 Poles 11
4 Gordon Shedden 48 Fastest laps 50
5 Colin Turkington 45 Points 3161

gamble
=6 Alain Menu 36 Laps raced 6067
=6 Yvan Muller 36 Races led 67
=6 James Thompson 36 Laps led 725

Why the triple British Touring

Car champion is stepping onto
the world stage in 2018

By Matt James
BTCC Correspondent

G
@MattJMNews

ordon Shedden is used to getting onto

a plane to go and enjoy his motorsport.
So, in that respect, his 2018 schedule
will not be much different. But in most
other regards, it will be a big change
for the Scotsman.
He has joined WRT to tackle the
inaugural FIA World Touring Car Cup
(WTCR). His campaign will get started
at Marrakech on April 8, the same day that the British Touring
Car Championship begins its season at Brands Hatch.
The BTCC has been Shedden’s home since 2006, and he has
conquered it three times. He lifted the title in ’12, ’15 and ’16,
but his campaign this year is a completely new departure.
Avenues opened up for Shedden after a one-off appearance
in Dubai last season in the final round of the TCR International
Series. He was drafted in to the WRT line-up to replace
Rob Huff, who was occupied in the World Touring Car
Championship round in Macau, and Shedden was immediately
on the pace in the Belgian squad’s Volkswagen Golf.
It was Huff himself who recommended his replacement, and
it has changed the career horizons for Shedden. He took pole
position and finished second and seventh in the two races,

‘Flash’ won third BTCC

title in 2016, and (right)
took pole on TCR debut
PHOTO 4
JEP/LAT

48 MARCH 1 2018
WTCR/GORDON SHEDDEN

while helping team-mate Jean-Karl Vernay to the title.

JEP/LAT
“It was pretty incredible really,” says Shedden. “After what
happened in Dubai, I had loads of phone calls from different
teams all interested in what I was going to do in 2018. I had
won three titles in the British Touring Car Championship
in the past and there was not a single call from anyone.
It goes to show you something…” Shedden answered all those
phone calls, but there was one from Audi that grabbed his
attention. The offer was to drive the new RS3 LMS in the
reworked WTCR. While works teams aren’t allowed under
the TCR rules, factory-blessed drivers are. “The other offers
didn’t quite tick all the boxes, but the WRT Audi deal did,”
explains the 39-year old. “When Audi call, you answer.”
Given Audi’s and WRT’s involvement (and success) in GT3,
such a move could also open up yet more possibilities in future.
But there was a problem. Shedden has been a full-time driver
with the Honda factory team in the BTCC since the Japanese team-mate so I had to be upfront about it. After many years in
manufacturer recommitted to the series in 2010. It had brought “He knew what the deal was and even said to me that if Honda Civics (above,
him all his domestic success, and he was a fundamental part of he had been offered something similar in his position and in 2010), Shedden will
drive an Audi RS3 LMS
that programme – which was fully expected to continue in ‘18. at my age, he would have taken it too. He said that he and
(top) this season
The Honda BTCC attack is run by Team Dynamics, and Team Dynamics would support me in whatever I decided
Shedden had formed a strong friendship bond with team-mate to do. That was pretty special of them.
and team co-owner Matt Neal, himself a three-time BTCC “It was a team I was very involved with. It went way beyond
champion. There was an awkward conversation to have… just being a driver: I felt I was part of the team, ingrained in
“This was all kicking off around the time of the Autosport it. That made the decision even harder, but I simply couldn’t
International show in the middle of January,” says Shedden. ignore the chance I had been given.”
“And I wouldn’t say that it was the case that I wanted to leave While Shedden, who is also the commercial director of
the BTCC. This opportunity just presented itself and I laid Knockhill circuit in Fife, now has a busy new challenge on
all the cards on the table to Matt. He is a friend as well as a his hands, he will miss the demands of the BTCC and

50 MARCH 1 2018

AUDI AG
knows that his performances will be used as a marker of
how good the championship and its drivers are.
Other drivers have gone on to international series from the
BTCC, but it has been hard for them to make a permanent
impression. UK graduate Huff achieved it by claiming the
WTCC title in 2012, but racers such as Colin Turkington, now
a two-time BTCC title winner, have failed to make the switch
permanently. Many people see the BTCC as a career cul-de-sac,
but Shedden can break down those perceptions with a strong
performance in the WTCR this season.
“I don’t know why that has been the case,” says Shedden. “I
think the BTCC can be underestimated by people looking in on it
and they think it’s ‘only’ a national championship. But they don’t
realise just how seriously competitive it is. I would say it has to
be up there as the most competitive tin-top series in the world.
Maybe it’s just the perception that people have got wrong.”
Shedden did his work to change those perceptions at the
end of last year, but a season-long deal is a whole different
prospect. Firstly, there will be a new team – and team-mate
in the form of Vernay – to get to know. Then there will be
the nine circuits, seven of which will be new to him.
Shedden thinks the alliance that he has already built with
team-mate Vernay will help him hit the ground running.
“Obviously, Jean-Karl has been at the team for a few years and
he knows how it operates and he knows the engineers,” says
Shedden. “But we have talked a lot over the winter and we get
on very well. He is a cracking driver but also a really nice guy as
well. Most of the team are French-speaking, based in Belgium,
but in Dubai last year they were speaking English a lot of the
FLASH’S FIVE BEST
BTCC MOMENTS
OULTON PARK MAY 14 2006
“It has to be the first victory at Oulton Park.
This was the start of my British Touring Car
Championship career and I really needed to prove
myself in the team. It was my big chance, and
J BLOXHAM/LAT
the win came early in the season – at the third
meeting. It helped me establish myself in
the team and it was a special day.”
EBREY
SNETTERTON AUGUST 7 2011
“It was the final race of the day and I had a loose front-left wing after contact early on.
They were black-flagging me, and we had a bit of back-and-forth over the pits-to-car
radio. The team told me I had to get rid of it somehow. I aimed for a stack of tyres on
the exit of Williams and clipped it perfectly. The bodywork came off, the black flag
was withdrawn and I finished seventh.”
ROCKINGHAM SEPTEMBER 23 2012
EBREY
“This was the save of my career! The race was
drenched and I was going into Turn 1 and the car
snapped. I was sideways for about 150 metres,
heading for the wall. I floored it, and even had
time to go down the gears to keep the revs up
and the front wheels spinning. I still went on
to win the race, and that was one of the
cornerstones of my title that season.”
BRANDS HATCH OCTOBER 11 2015
“After finishing 19th in the penultimate race of
the season, I had it all to do in the finale from
the 10th row. I just got my head down and
pushed as hard as I could. In that race, I was
either going to win the title or end up upside-
down on the tyre barrier. In the end, I made
EBREY
it to fourth and took my second title.”
EBREY
BRANDS HATCH OCTOBER 2 2016
“Given that I was 50 points down at the midpoint of the season, this was the conclusion
of a great season. And to pass my title rival Sam Tordoff on track in the last race was the
best way to win the championship. I certainly never make things easy for myself!”
MARCH 1 2018 51
WTCR/GORDON SHEDDEN

time. If there was the odd phrase during the team meetings
that was said in French, Jean-Karl would always translate it for
me and that made life much easier. I think we are going to have
a strong partnership and hopefully we can push each other on.”
The wraps were taken off the new RS3 LMS racer last week,
and it’s car that’s likely to stand out in the TCR crowd. It has
certainly whetted Shedden’s appetite for the year ahead,
although he will get limited running before the season kicks off
in Marrakech. “I’m very impressed with it,” he says. “I went to
Germany to see it in the flesh two weeks ago, and the level of
engineering that has gone into it is superb. I also think that it’s
great that it’s a saloon shape. Most of the others out there are
hatchbacks so the car will stand out. It has a nice silhouette.
“Not having so many test days shouldn’t be a problem,”
he adds. “The car has already been homologated, so it’s not
like coming to a circuit with a brand-new car like you
would do in the British Touring Car Championship.”
And the tracks and the new competition? Shedden will
be used to the three-races-per-weekend format of the
WTCR – but, as he says, “it will be a relief not to have to
haul 75kg of success ballast around with me, like I have

done in the UK” – but places like the Nurburgring
Nordschleife will be new experiences.
“I’ve raced at Zandvoort and Macau before, but a race track
is just a series of left and right-hand bends, right?” he half-
jokes. “The tracks are something I will enjoy. I’m not worried
by anyone who will be on the grid either. They are all good
drivers who have raced against each other a lot, and I’m the
new kid on the block. They know how each other works on
track and they are familiar with their driving styles, but they
don’t know how I work, so that will work in my favour, I hope.
“Also, most of them are coming from TC1 cars [as used in the
old WTCC] to TCR cars, so there’s a new formula for them to
PHOTO 4
learn. That makes it more of a level playing field for me. It Shedden leads James
would have been different if I was going into the TC1-spec cars. Nash and title-winning
team-mate Vernay in
I’m sure Tom Chilton, who finished third in the WTCC in 2017,
Dubai last November
can attest to just how tough the BTCC is these days.”
The new chapter in Shedden’s career will mark an interesting
development for him personally. For so long the benchmark of
the BTCC for speed, he will now be testing himself against
some of the best tin-top drivers on the planet. The world
is, almost literally, at his feet.

The man replacing a triple champ

DAN CAMMISH HAS SOME BIG
shoes to fill. Team Dynamics
co-owner Matt Neal has picked
the double Porsche Carrera Cup
GB champion to race alongside
him in the new Honda Civic Type
Rs in this year’s British Touring
Car Championship.
From the moment Gordon
Shedden decided to part ways
with the team, Neal said that he
wanted a driver who would be
ready to win from the outset as
Honda chases the Manufacturer/
Constructors titles, which it lost
to Team BMW last year, and aims
to regain the Teams title, which
Cammish won 32
it handed over to WSR.
Cammish, 28, has decided to
switch his focus from sportscar
racing and join Team Dynamics.
“It’s a dream opportunity,”
explains the Leeds man. “Team
Dynamics is one of the very top
teams in the BTCC and this is a
works drive: these options don’t
come around every day. The
GT dream is OK, but the driver
market is flooded with guys who
have come out of GP2 or GP3
– they bring budget too. There
are so many guys out there and
getting a break is tough.”
So Cammish, a former British
JEP/LAT
Formula Ford champion, has
opted to join the tin-top beat. He
will be racing a front-wheel-drive
car for the first time in his career,
but thinks he will be up to speed
by the time the season kicks off
at Brands Hatch on April 8.
“Also, I’m with one of the
more experienced teams out
there, so there will be data to
pick over, and I have Matt Neal
alongside me too,” points out
Cammish. “What he doesn’t
know about the BTCC isn’t
worth knowing.
“Look at what [2017
champion] Ash Sutton did too:
he was used to racing rear-wheel
drive, jumped into front-wheel
drive with Renault Clios and
then the MG BTCC car and was a
winner, and then went back to
rear-wheel drive last year and
took the title in the Subaru
Levorg. It can be done.
“Sure, there will be pressure,
but when isn’t there in racing?
That is the sort of situation I
enjoy, and I have everything
there in front of me to make

JEP/LAT

races in Carrera Cup GB the right kind of impression

on the series.”

52 MARCH 1 2018
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 HRDC PROUDLY CELEBRATES
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 MARKETPLACE
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 MARKETPLACE
DRIVES AVAILABLE MEMORABILIA

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61
 MOTORSPORT JOBS

RED BULL RACING ARE RECRUITING

Want to advertise a motorsport job? We have a number of vacancies at Red Bull Racing.
If you are recruiting in motorsport and
R0000386 – TRAVELLING DRIVETRAIN &
wish to advertise with Autosport in SUBASSEMBLY TECHNICIAN
print and online please contact We are looking to recruit an energetic, diligent, hard-working and
James.robinson@motorsport.com passionate Technician to work in our Drivetrain – Subassembly department
at race or test events and in the Factory. Working within the Assembly
or call Group, reporting to the DTSA Team Leader, you will be responsible for
0203 405 8105 building mechanical assemblies from the wide array this department
encompasses. The successful candidate will need to have some knowledge
and experience of F1™. Subassembly and gearbox experience would be
an advantage.

For all current vacancies advertised R0000388 – MODEL MAKER

please visit our website (WIND TUNNEL ROTATING NIGHT SHIFT)
MOTORSPORT JOBS

www.autosport.com We have an exciting opportunity for a Model Maker to join our

Aerodynamics department. You will join our highly skilled team, working
at our wind tunnel facility in Bedford on a rotating pattern of two weeks
on day shift followed by four weeks of night shifts.

R0000389 – JUNIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

We are looking for a very talented Graphic Designer to join our creative
The Safety Department of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA)
team in the Milton Keynes office. The individual should be highly
in Geneva is seeking to fill the position of: committed, motivated and capable of using their own initiative.
Safety Engineer
R0000391 – AERODYNAMICS DEVELOPMENT
The successful candidate will develop and implement safety regulations TEAM LEADER
for application in all FIA Championships.
We have an exciting opportunity for a talented, experienced
He/she will also liaise with equipment manufacturers, laboratories and car
manufacturers in order to develop and implement new safety enhancements, Aerodynamicist to lead one of our development teams. Reporting to the
work closely with the FIA Technical Department and the FIA research bodies Principal Aerodynamicist, you will be leading a team that is responsible for
in order to best introduce these changes, and take part in meetings of the
related FIA Commissions.
concept design, tunnel test and other forms of research of all aerodynamic
data for future developments.
This position require candidates with a strong mechanical engineering
background and 5-10 years’ experience of project management in the
motor racing industry.
THESE ROLES WILL CLOSE ON SUNDAY 18TH MARCH 2018
We are seeking a highly motivated, flexible and innovative individual, with To find out more about these vacancies and to apply please visit
disciplined time management and planning.
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The candidates will need to be team players, with excellent communication
skills and a highly analytical approach.

The position is based in Geneva (Switzerland); fluency in English is

required, and a good knowledge of French is an advantage.

Please send CVs and Cover Letters via our website:

https://careers.fia.com

62
CLUB AUTOSPORT
NATIONAL RACING
Jetstream
team is new
to British GT
BRITISH GT
Maxime Martin to British GT with Aston
EX-DTM RACER MAXIME MARTIN
will make it five Aston Martin factory
World Endurance Championship drivers
in British GT this year, after signing
up to partner reigning GT Cup
champion Graham Davidson.
Martin and Davidson will share a
single Vantage GT3 entered by the same
Jetstream Motorsport team that ran
Davidson’s McLaren MP4-12C GT3 to
the GT Cup crown. The team built its
business running Nobles and has also
fielded cars in the Time Attack series.
Belgian Martin, 31, had been a fixture
of BMW’s factory DTM team in recent
years before switching allegiance to
become an AMR driver for the WEC
this term. He follows fellow Aston
Martin works drivers Jonny Adam,
Darren Turner, Marco Sorensen and
Nicki Thiim into British GT. Since the
WEC has switched to a multi-year
superseason, drivers have become
available for national championships,
l HISTORICS l HILLCLIMB
and there are no clashes between the
WEC and British GT.
“I definitely like the English circuits
because they are proper old-style tracks,”
said Martin, who is relishing competing
in the UK. “It will be funny to see we’ll
[the Aston works drivers] all be in
different cars and competing against
each other. I think it will be good for
the series to have so many Aston
Martins, especially in the British
championship. I’m looking forward
to being the fifth AMR driver and
trying to beat the British guys.”
Martin has raced the GT3 Vantage
before, in an International GT Open
race at Barcelona in 2012. He will also
compete in the model in the Blancpain
Sprint Cup this year with R-Motorsport.
Davidson, 32, began racing in 2013 in
Scotland, and has since been a regular
in club competition at the wheel of his
converted Noble race car before moving
on to his title-winning McLaren.
l TRACK TESTS l FEATURES
Martin is
new to most
UK tracks
DREW GIBSON PHOTOGRAPHY / NICK DUNGAN
“It’s a big year for me because British
GT will be a huge step up for me and
for the team, but we feel ready for it,”
said Davidson. “The Aston is an
ex-Motorbase Performance car. We
opted for that because the Vantage is
an older model and the parts are easier
to source and cheaper, but it’s still
really competitive in British GT.
“Having a driver of Maxime’s calibre
will undoubtedly help to extract the
maximum from the package. I think
I’ll learn a huge amount from him and
I couldn’t ask for a better mentor for
my first British GT season.”
Of Davidson, Martin added: “I don’t
know him personally, but I’m looking
forward to racing with him. He did
a really good job in the championship
he raced in last year.”
Martin will be unable to test the car at
the series’ media day at Donington next
month owing to existing commitments.
Ross Gunn will substitute for that event.
MARCH 1 2018 63
CLUB AUTOSPORT/NEWS

MAWP+SPORT
Westie Mitchell will
race Chevron B8 with
sons Ben and Sam

HISTORICS

Rare Chevron set for celebration race

A RARE CHEVRON B8 IS SET TO COMPETE
in the 50th-anniversary celebration race for the
model at the Oulton Park Gold Cup, driven by
Westie Mitchell and his sons Sam and Ben.
The car, which is the only left-hand-drive
example of a B8 and has an exclusively
continental race heritage, was among the stars
of last weekend’s annual Race Retro show at
Stoneleigh Park near Kenilworth.
Now with just its fourth owner in 50 years,
CH/DBE/39 was built on the first chassis frame
fabricated by Arch Motors in 1968. German
BMW touring car graduate Nikolaus Killenberg
contested three Nurburgring 1000Km events and
one Monza 1000Km before Dutchman Kees
Kwinkelenberg bought it.
Kwinkelenberg put the car into storage in 1973
and sold it to Leo Kemmer 30 years later.
“I’m restoring the Chevron sympathetically,
trying to retain as many period details at
possible,” said Mitchell. “It’s a long way from race
ready, but when the Historic Sports Car Club
invited the car to be on its stand, Race Retro
became my first target. Now we are aiming for
the B8 50th Anniversary race at the Oulton Park
Gold Cup in August, but I’ve committed to the
Formula Junior Baltic Tour [Latvia, Lituania and
Sweden] with my De Tomaso, so time is short.”
Sam Mitchell added: “Dad wants us to share
the car with him that weekend. We’re looking
forward to that and hopefully he has it singing
on all cylinders by then.”
Ben and Sam Mitchell both raced Merlyn
Mk20s in the HSCC’s Historic Formula Ford
Championship last season. Sam finished fourth
in the points with a race win at Brands Hatch.
Ben only completed one weekend, also at
Brands, in which he finished third and seventh.
Both drivers are looking for backing to return to
Historic Formula Ford this season. “The HSCC
Formula Ford is a lot of fun and probably one
of the most competitive club motorsport
championships you can do,” said Sam.
l The 1990 British Touring Car Championship-
winning Ford Sierra Rs500 that was auctioned at
Race Retro fetched £182,250. The ex-Robb Gravett
car was bought by a major collector.

MINI CHALLENGE

Tanner to make comeback in JCW Mini

FORMER SCOTTISH MINI COOPER
Cup frontrunner Joe Tanner
will return to racing this year,
competing in the Mini Challenge
with the Jamsport squad.
Tanner (left) was runner-up in
the Scottish Cooper class in 2013,
’14 and ’15, but has not raced
regularly since then, due to
stepping back to build his
helmet-painting business.
The 34-year old, who was
Scottish Formula Ford champion
in 2005, will now handle a JCW for
Jamsport. The team is planning a
multi-car attack, having already
signed Ford Fiesta Junior
champion Jack Davidson.
“It’s a big year for me as I don’t
think there’s a better series in the
UK outside of touring cars than
the Mini JCWs,” said Tanner. “I’ve
never driven one, but I know it’ll
be a huge step up in power and
grip over the Scottish cars.”
He will be joined in the series
by Jordan Collard, who is aiming
to win the Rookie Cup.
Collard, son of BMW works
British Touring Car racer Rob,
finished eighth in last year’s
Ginetta Junior standings. He joins
2015 Mini Challenge champion
Charlie Butler-Henderson and
Rob Smith in the Mini UK team.
“There’s lots to learn, but it’s
a great car – every time I get out
of it I have a huge grin on my
face,” said Collard.
“I’m going from rear-wheel
drive to front-wheel drive,
and from road tyres to slicks.
There’s so much to get my head
around, and the level of the
championship is very high.”

64 MARCH 1 2018
 Day had first run in
Audi at Donington IN BRIEF
Park recently

JEP/LAT
BRITCAR

Ex-Austin Audi for Britcar Sprint

FORMER GINETTA JUNIOR RACER ALEX
Day will contest the Britcar Sprint series
this season in an ex-British Touring Car
Championship Audi.
Day, 18, has previously raced in Ginetta
Junior, finishing 14th in 2015, but only took
part in a single round in ’16. He will race in
Britcar alongside his father Robert.
Day was coached in Ginettas by BTCC
racer Rob Austin, whose team ran a pair of
Audi A4s in the BTCC until 2015.
SCOTTISH MOTOR RACING CLUB
“I still have one of the A4s in my
workshop,” said Austin. “But Alex will be in
the other. We’ve done quite a bit of work to
the car too – it’s different from when it
rolled out of the BTCC paddock.
“We have been able to beef up some of
the GPRM-supplied parts that the car had
to run with in British Touring Cars.
“Stepping into a BTCC car is a big leap
for Alex, but I went to his first test in the
A4 recently and he did really well.”
CALDWELL JOINS PREMA FOR F4 BIDS
British Formula 4 racer Olli Caldwell has joined Prema
Powerteam for his first full season of single-seater
racing in the German and Italian championships.
Caldwell (above) raced in Europe as well as British
F4 after turning 15 last June. Prema fielded Juri Vips
and Marcus Armstrong to the German and Italian
titles respectively in 2017.
LIVINGSTON TO HISTORIC FF1600
Seventeen-year-old Pierre Livingston is joining the
Historic FF1600 fray this season in a SpeedSport
Classic Team Merlyn Mk20. “He’s going to be quick,”

Four SMRC series to visit Anglesey
FOUR OF THE SCOTTISH
Motor Racing Club’s series will
visit Anglesey this May as part
of the club’s largest away
event in recent seasons.
The Scottish Legends, Mini
Cooper Cup, BMW and Fiesta/
Hot Hatch championships will
all visit the Welsh circuit as
part of a British Automobile
Racing Club meeting on May
Scottish Legends
will again team up
with national field
26/27. In the past, series have
had away rounds individually
rather than all together.
The Scottish Legends will
join up with the National
series, as it did successfully
last year. The Minis will have
two standalone races, while
the BMWs and Fiesta/Hot
Hatches will share a grid.
“Everyone seems to be
looking forward to it,” said
club competitions director
Steve Burns. “We canvassed
the drivers, and the Legends
drivers wanted to go anyway
because they enjoyed the
event last year. We did a driver
survey for the Minis to see
where they wanted to go away
and the majority preferred
Anglesey so that fitted in well.”
BOURNE
said SpeedSport boss Mike O’Brien following a 70-lap
first test on Silverstone’s Stowe Circuit last Sunday.
Livingston plans selected outings after his A-Level
exams, then a full championship tilt in 2019.
O’BRIEN COULD JOIN FORMULA JUNIOR
Michael O’Brien, runner-up in Historic Formula Ford
last year, could contest selected Formula Junior events
in a Lotus 22 this season alongside his McLaren British
GT programme. His family’s Speedsport Promotions
team has acquired the car raced in 1963 by Finn
Leo Mattila, and subsequently in 1000cc F3.
CRYSTAL PALACE SPRINT CANCELLED
The Sevenoaks and District Motor Club has announced
that the Crystal Palace Sprint will not take place this
year. In a statement, the club said: “We have tried to
get all the elements together after Live Entertainments
pulled out [as promoter] just before Christmas.
Unfortunately, we were unable to secure all the
necessary provisions an event like this demands within
a practicable timescale and an acceptable budget.”

GREAT BRITISH SPORTS CARS DESIGN

Great British Sports Cars – which grew out of defunct
kit car manufacturer Robin Hood Engineering in 2006
– showed a race version (below) of its popular GBS
FIESTAS
Zero model at Race Retro. The chassis, with integral

Glover to return after hefty crash rollcage, is designed to take a range of Ford engines
and features billet aluminium uprights.

FIESTA CHAMPIONSHIP PODIUM FINISHER
Tim Glover will return to the series this
year after his 2017 season ended early
with a big crash at Cadwell Park.
Glover will campaign a Class C Fiesta ST
prepared by Daniels Motorsport. He had
switched to a Class D Zetec S last year,
twice finishing second in class at the Brands
“I think I’ve done enough racing for it not
to affect me,” Glover said of the accident. “It
was good to have a few months out and
regroup, but the lure of getting back into it
is too much. I had a look at a few different
series but I don’t think there’s a better
front-wheel-drive, club-level tin-tops
championship than the Fiestas.
MAWP+SPORT

Hatch opener. But the car was written off “I want to push myself against the very
in qualifying next time out at Cadwell after best club drivers. I felt that the ST class
barrel-rolling in a 100mph accident. is the best to do that in.”

MARCH 1 2018 65
CLUB AUTOSPORT/NEWS

PRESCOTT HILLCLIMB

1
HILLCLIMB
RECORD
HOLDERS TO
PRESCOTT
EIGHTY YEARS OF THE
Prescott hillclimb course
will be celebrated with a
special event on Saturday
July 14, featuring a reunion
of “more than 20” former
hill record holders.
Around 150 cars will
participate in the event,
which takes in a round
of the Aldon Pre-’72
Championship. It will also
2 3 4 feature a class for Bugattis.
The hill was first used for
hillclimbing on May 15,
1938, and has been
operated since by the
Bugatti Owners’ Club.
Stuart Webster, general
manager at Prescott, said:
“It will be an event to
POMEROY TROPHY The Lotus Elan of Simon Smith (1) won the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s annual Pomeroy Trophy at Silverstone last celebrate the 80-year
weekend. Other winners in a typically eclectic field (3) were the Frazer Nash Super Sports of Simon Blakeney-Edwards (2), who won history of Prescott involving
the Densham Trophy, and Andrew Howe-Davies’ SCAT racer (4) of 1911, which was victorious in the Pomeroy Edwardian Trophy. Cars as many hill record holders
compete in a time trial, and are tested on braking, acceleration and the ability to carry VSCC suitcases. Photographs by Jeff Bloxham as possible. We’ve got more
than 20 planning to come.”
When an extended
version of the hill was
opened in 1960, growing
THRUXTON 50TH ANNIVERSARY
from the original 880

Walker, Mansell to Thruxton

yards to 1128 yards, David
Boshier-Jones was the first
record holder and he is
planning to attend. Also
NIGEL MANSELL AND MURRAY WALKER WILL Mansell said: “I remember Thruxton very fondly from expected are hillclimb
open the new Thruxton hospitality centre as part my early racing days, as a very fast, demanding circuit grandees including David
of the venue’s 50th anniversary meeting. where I enjoyed several exciting and successful races.” Franklin, Martin Bolsover,
The £2million new Thruxton Centre is the latest The June meeting will feature a demonstration Martyn Griffiths, David
milestone in the circuit’s modernisation programme from the 1983 Williams FW08C Formula 1 car, while Grace and Alister Douglas-
and will be opened by Walker and Mansell on June 3. Mansell’s ’92 title-winning FW14B will be on display. Osborn. Multiple British
“I’ve been commentating at Thruxton since the The meeting will also include a number of races run hillclimb champion Scott
early 1950s, notably at motorcycle races, the great under the auspices of the Historic Sports Car Club, Moran will also be there.
Formula 2 events and the thrilling British Touring including the Historic Formula Ford Championship, Some significant cars
Car Championship,” said Walker. “I love its friendly a 40-minute Guards trophy race and a Formula Libre will be on display, and all
atmosphere and am honoured to join my mate Nigel race for up to two-litre single-seaters. Super Touring the record holders will
for the opening of this superb new building.” cars of the 1990s will also compete. climb into cars for a parade.

CTCRC BLUE OVAL SALOON SERIES

Breck will race

Breck swaps Civic for five-litre Capri monstrous

Ford Capri

TIN TOP RACER ALAN BRECK
will compete in a Ford Capri
powered by a five-litre
Mustang engine in 2018,
having switched from a
Honda Civic.
He plans to contest the
from Herne Bay was at
Lydden Hill earlier this month
to try the car for the first time.
Breck, 47, said: “It’s
absolutely awesome to
drive – a real monster. It’s
certainly a step up from the
racing boots for trainers
with a wider sole so that he
could heel-and-toe properly.
Breck’s first meeting in
the Capri will be Silverstone’s
CTCRC’s event on March 24-25.
l The regulations have

Classic Touring Car Racing Civic Type R I raced last year.” been released for the 50th
Club’s Blue Oval Saloon Series At the start of the day Breck anniversary celebration of the
as well as some Classic Sports was crunching the gears when Ford Escort at Brands Hatch
DUNLOP

Car Club events. changing down, but he solved on September 23. They are
The structural engineer the problem by swapping his available at hscc.org.uk.

66 MARCH 1 2018

Boom or bust?
The influx of star names into British GT promises a great spectacle,
but the effect on the series’ long-term health may not be so positive
By Robert Ladbrook, Special Contributor
@LaddersMN
WELL, IT CERTAINLY IS SHAPING UP TO BE A
‘super season’ after all, and I’m not just referring to the
World Endurance Championship.
This year’s British GT Championship looks like it will
be an absolute cracker. I’ve covered the series for a decade
and I can safely say I’ve never seen an entry list harbouring
the quality and strength in depth that’s evident this year.
Five Aston Martin factory drivers will do double duty
this year in both British GT and the WEC. The reason for
this is twofold. Firstly, the WEC’s decision to switch to
its 13-month superseason calendar – to incorporate two
editions of the Le Mans 24 Hours into a single world
championship – means there are only five rounds in
2018. That leaves a lot of top-quality drivers hanging
around, and what better place to put them than one
of the longest-established national GT championships?
British GT’s Pro-Am format is also perfect for factory
drivers needing extra mileage. It allows AMR to place
its stars alongside a funded amateur driver. And this has
the benefit of boosting
the championship profile
while also allowing the “When one class becomes
unsustainable, the lower
drivers in question to
stay sharp at a fraction
of the cost to the factory
that running, say, a Pro
team in the Blancpain
one steps up to fill the gap”
categories would.
Add to that the fact that the venerable Vantage GT3 is due
to be replaced at the end of this year by a new turbocharged
model. The Vantage has won more races and more titles in
Britain than anywhere else, and AMR factory team Prodrive
already attends each round with parts and technical support
for its customers. Hence the very compelling reason AMR
had to choose British GT and attempt to go all out to give
the Vantage one final hurrah.
Surely it’s win-win for all concerned? Hopefully it is, but
these are still dangerous times for GT3 racing in Britain, and
let’s hope this is not one last hurrah for the class as a whole.
Last year the grid slumped to 10 cars at Donington Park
and, even though the quality this season is extremely high,
numbers are still likely to be down in the mid-teens.
While this host of star names – and it’s not just confined
to Aston Martins: we also have McLaren factory ace Rob Bell
and Mercedes man Yelmer Buurman among many great series
regulars – is fantastic for interest in the series, it can also be
incredibly intimidating for any potential newcomers. At a time
when British GT3 needs to be shouting about its accessibility
OPINION/CLUB AUTOSPORT
to try to attract more teams and drivers, presenting the
image that in order to be competitive an amateur driver
is now essentially forced to splash out for a proven
factory-backed team-mate isn’t ideal.
I’ve seen it already this year. We’ve had teams signing
promising Bronze-Silver-graded Pro-Am partnerships,
only for the Silver driver to be changed once the entry list
became ever-more populated by factory-associated Gold
and Platinum-graded names.
That’s not a good thing for either the future of the
championship or the future of GT3. In the short term,
British GT is set to boast one of the best fields it has
ever had, but with the downside that we could be on
the verge of a dangerous arms race that could potentially
do more damage than good.
Regardless of the GT3 division, GT4 is again booming.
And I’ve long had the opinion that even if GT3 did go
under, GT4 is now a ready-made headline replacement.
Back when the class started 10 years ago, it was no
comparison to the
fire-breathing, dramatic
GT3s that drew in the
crowds. But look how
things have changed.
A quick glance
down this year’s
entry shows McLaren,
Aston Martin, Mercedes,
Jaguar, BMW, Nissan, and of course the venerable Ginettas.
GT racing is cyclical. When one class becomes financially
unsustainable, the lower one steps up to fill the void.
Remember when GT1 faltered and GT2 became the answer?
Then when GT2 went pop, GT3 was ready and waiting.
It’s the same situation now, and GT4 has come a long way
from the eclectic little collection of KTMs and Ginettas it used
to be. It now has prestigious brands, and many models that are
true scaled-down GT3 cars anyway. And there are some really
great up-and-coming drivers involved as more and more rising
stars switch their attentions from single-seaters and towards
GT4, where opportunities are readily available.
From a fan perspective, you’re still watching a McLaren,
regardless of how big its rear wing is. Plus, if the racing is
close and competitive, would you even notice the lack of those
extra fins or the couple of extra horses that go with a GT3?
It’s going to be a big year for British GT, one that will
potentially alter its landscape forever. But, whatever
the future, let’s just enjoy what will undoubtedly be
a superb spectacle this season.
MARCH 1 2018 67
 Is Ginetta Junior
facing an unlucky year?
With two of its most successful teams absent, the category faces a gap
at the top of its pecking order – and it’s not clear who will fill it

By Stephen Lickorish, Special Contributor

T
@sdlickorish

hirteen – it’s
considered to be
an unlucky number
for some. It’s also
the total, at the
time of writing,
of confirmed
Ginetta Junior
entries for this
year. Since the first round is still a month
away, that’s a decent if not stellar number
for the series to boast at this stage. In fact,
it’s the highest of the five British Touring
Car Championship support series.
But looking beyond that headline
figure, 13 could have less advantageous
auguries for Ginetta Junior. Of those 13,
six – virtually half – are competing with
the same team: Elite Motorsport.
Elite has fielded even more than that in
the past. It ran an incredible eight cars in
the Winter Series at the end of last term,
but now Ginetta has restricted teams to
running no more than six.
“We’ve brought that in to prevent
any one team gaining an unfair advantage
by having too many cars,” explains Ginetta
motorsport manager Ash Gallagher.
“Six was chosen because, in our
experience, teams have been able to
comfortably run six cars.”
The reason for Elite’s current position
of pre-eminence is simple. The series is
currently undergoing major changes in
its team line-up, and two of the most
successful squads in the category’s history
won’t be participating this year.
It’s certainly no surprise that JHR
Developments is not on the grid,
following the scandal the team was
embroiled in last year. Ginetta banned
the team from competing in any of its
The Ginetta Junior grid series while JHR’s conduct was
will look very different investigated, following earlier accusations
without entries from of engine tampering that were thrown
JHR Developments
out by the National Court. Probably
and HHC Motorsport
more significant is the absence of HHC
Motorsport – the standard bearer in
the series for the past five years.
HHC has decided to prioritise its
commitments further up the racing ladder
as it expands into Europe. With the two
top teams out – and Douglas Motorsport
considering withdrawing too – it’s
no wonder that Elite boss Eddie Ives
describes 2018 as the start of a new era.
But Gallagher remains unconcerned.
“It’s always been the way with the top
teams,” he says. “When I started running
it, Hillspeed were at the front of the
championship along with TJ Motorsport
and Tollbar and there was no HHC or JHR.
Then those guys retired or moved on, and

68 MARCH 1 2018

now they [HHC] are moving on to other
things too. It’s just a cycle really – but
I can see without those teams on the
grid it will look very different.”
Elite is now the only race-winning
squad from 2017 to have confirmed it
is competing again this year, so no wonder
the team is attracting significant numbers.
But while Ives was encouraged by the
handling of the JHR situation last term,
he is saddened by HHC’s departure.
“We had the JHR stuff last year and
I think it’s good for the championship
what happened there,” he says. “It’s
frustrating that HHC are leaving – when
I joined Ginetta Junior they were always
the benchmark you were comparing
yourself with. So it’s a bit of a shame.”
In HHC’s place, a number of teams
are returning or joining the series,
including Total Control Racing and WDE
Motorsport, squads that have achieved
success in the Renault UK Clio Cup.
Ives still believes the championship
is in good shape. “It’s good to see it’s
attracting new teams – but I don’t think
it [which teams are competing] really
affects the drivers as they will want to
come through the series anyway,” he
says. “We were in the right place at
the right time – we’ve done it for
a few years and have done well.”
Gallagher adds: “Drivers see it like
they have got to go with the established
team. But new teams means drivers
coming in from different areas and
teams that have different contacts. I
don’t think this year will be any less
exciting in terms of the racing.”
WDE is exactly the sort of team that
Ginetta Junior needs to fill the void. And
team boss Wayne Eason certainly believes
there is a gap at the top of the series.
“I think it’s similar to Clios – I don’t
think we’ve got a good enough batch of
teams in the paddock,” he says. “Which is
why I see it [Ginetta Junior] as a good
SERIES INSIGHT/CLUB AUTOSPORT
GINETTA JUNIOR ENTRY LIST
DRIVER TEAM
Adam Smalley Elite Motorsport
Greg Johnson Elite Motorsport
Fin Green Elite Motorsport
Jonny Wilkinson Elite Motorsport*
Louis Foster Elite Motorsport*
James Hedley Elite Motorsport*
Luke Browning Richardson Racing
James Taylor Richardson Racing*
Emily Linscott Richardson Racing*
Ruben Del Sarte TCR
Patrick Kibble TCR*
Jamie Osborne WDE Motorsport*
Tom Emson privateer*
* Rookie drivers
opportunity for us. I think it’s exciting.
You’ve got the guys from Westbourne
looking at it too and that gives confidence
for us that they’re interested.
“We want to do it the right way and
not have hundreds of drivers to start with.
We’d like another driver, because two
always helps, and then build from there.”
But it’s not just on the team roster that
the series is experiencing a big change.
The driver line-up will be quite different
too. Of the 13 signed up so far, only five
contested the full season in 2017. And
between them, they achieved just one
podium, scored by last year’s Winter
Series champion Adam Smalley. While
he enters the season as the undoubted
Elite Motorsport, now favourite, it’s not immediately clear
one of the top teams in who his main rivals will be.
the series, is running No driver has ever claimed the title in
six cars this year
their first season of the category but, if a
driver is likely to challenge for the crown
in their sophomore campaign, you would
still expect them to have already achieved
the odd podium. So it’s reasonable to
conclude that there is a gap at the front
in terms of drivers, not just teams.
It’s unfortunate that all of these factors
have combined at the same time. It seems
Ginetta Junior will need some good
fortune soon – perhaps if the drivers
can make their own luck?
MARCH 1 2018 69
W H AT ’ S O N
FINISHING STRAIGHT
When F1
designed
diversity
THE 1970S WAS A BEAUTIFUL
decade for Formula 1, during which,
seemingly paradoxically, homogeneity
spawned diversity. The ubiquity of
the Ford/Cosworth DFV engine and
Hewland gearbox – off-the-shelf
hardware that was relatively cheap and
second to none in performance – led to
a proliferation of teams. Some of them
used second-hand cars bought from
works teams, but the majority turned
constructor – because they could.
Those were the days when an
Autosport preview to a grand prix
provided previously undiscovered
nuggets as to whom the field would
comprise on the coming weekend.
Readers would genuinely not know
until newsagents opened on Thursdays
whether ‘McLarens [sic] will run a third
car for Giacomelli’, or if Nelson Piquet
was slated to do an F1 race on Sunday
before dashing back to Mallory Park or
somewhere on a Bank Holiday Monday
to race his Ralt RT1 in Formula 3.
That’s why Formula 1 Car by Car 1970-
79, produced by Evro Publishing and
written by former Autosport publisher
Peter Higham, is so appealing. It’s the
second instalment in Higham’s decade-
70 MARCH 1 2018
by-decade trawl through the highways The start of the ’72 round, with nine expected by the end of
and byways of F1, but you can bet it will South African Grand the year, like it was a spooky presaging
Prix shows off the
be by far the most colourful, eclectic… of Team Hard’s modus operandi in
grid’s differing design
and downright eccentric. philosophies (above), modern-day tin-top racing.
Unlike the single-year ‘biographies’ of while the image below In fact, no more than five BRMs ever
F1 by Mark Hughes, in which the trends shows one BRM team appeared, and such was the shambles of
of the time are re-examined with the but two chassis on the team – save Jean-Pierre Beltoise’s
track at the ’72 Italian
benefit of the knowledge we have today, Grand Prix as Ganley
astonishing Monaco win – that a two-
Higham’s method is to delve into the (22) and Beltoise car effort probably would have been
nooks and crannies mostly of period do battle. more advisable.
reportage – in Autosport, Motorsport The treat here is seeing colour photos
(Motoring) News, Autocourse and Motor of all the driver/car combinations – in
Sport, while using the phenomenal LAT
archive. The result is a series of gems
hitherto lost in the mists of time.
Take Jacky Ickx’s reasons for
switching his personal sponsorship for
1972 from Kent to Marlboro “not for the
money, but because I think it is a better
cigarette”. Or, to continue the Marlboro
theme, BRM’s assertion for the same
year that it would enter a minimum of
six cars for each world championship
READ
AUTOSPORT
ON THE
MOVE
DOWNLOAD IT
NOW FROM
autosport.com
the case of BRM in 1972, that means
Beltoise, Howden Ganley and Peter
Gethin in both P160 and P180 models,
Bill Brack and Brian Redman in P180,
Alex Soler-Roig and Jackie Oliver in
P160, and Reine Wisell and Helmut
Marko (yes, that one) in P160 and P153.
That’s 14 driver/car combinations
for one team in a single season of F1
(and that’s not counting the non-
championship races).
Each team is given a technical
and driver line-up summary, plus
sponsorship where relevant, but to
this writer it’s not the Lotuses, Ferraris,
Tyrrells etc of this flared-trousered
retro world that are this book’s main
appeal. Instead, it’s the obscure, such
as the Connew, the concurrent Tecno
projects, the Trojan and the Kauhsen –
not to mention the beautiful Kojima –
or the stories of everyone to have tried
to qualify for a GP in the ill-starred
HOT ON THE WEB THIS WEEK
SOME RULES IN F1 NEVER CHANGE
Search for Best Of: Unofficial Rules Of F1
We’ve now seen all of 2018’s new cars on track, and
had to employ the Richter scale to measure the levels
of halo-rage, so as an alternative upcoming-season
appetite-whetter Formula 1’s official channel offers
this round-up of grand prix racing’s unofficial rules.
NEXT WEEK
F1 TESTING REPORT
All the stories from the
first pre-season test
DUNBAR/LAT
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
MOTORSPORT
FORMULA E Australia
Rd 4/10 March 3-4
Mexico City, Mexico TV Live Motorsport.tv,
March 3 Saturday, Sunday 0430
TV Live 5Spike,
Saturday 2130. NASCAR CUP
Eurosport 2, Saturday 2145 Rd 3/36
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS March 4
Rd 1/16 TV Live Premier Sports,
Adelaide, South Australia, Sunday 2000
RAM Brabham privateer team of 1976. FORMULA E MEXICO
Every driver/car model that started a
world championship race is pictured. If
we’re going to nitpick in any way about
this £50 tome, it’s that non-qualifying
combinations don’t make the cut. It
would be great, for example, to see Loris
Kessel’s Apollon of 1977 – a rebodied
old Williams from the days before
Williams cars were any good – or the
Chequered Flag Brabham, twice non-
qualified by Ian Ashley at the end of ’74.
But it’s a worthy effort and deserving
of investigation. Even if you’re too
young to have been around during that
era, remember the cliche frequently
propounded by old fogies that “you
could’ve painted all the cars white and
still distinguish which was which”.
Then look at this weird, wonderful and
sometimes outlandish collection of
STALEY/LAT
weaponry and realise that’s true.
MARCUS SIMMONS
MARCH 1 2018 71
FROM THE
ARCHIV E
Niki Lauda qualified
his BRM P160E an
impressive sixth for
the 1973 Monaco
Grand Prix, and ran
as high as third before
gearbox trouble forced
him out on lap 25. This
race also marked the
grand prix debut, for
Hesketh Racing, of
Lauda’s future title
rival James Hunt
(March-Cosworth 731).

latimages.com
@latimages
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 REMEMBERING
R I C H A R D L L OY D
T H E R E M A R K A B L E S TO RY O F
A M OTO R S P O R T P I O N E E R

NEW COLUM NISTS

MARK WILLIAMS LUCAS DI GRASSI

HOW TO WORK THE CASE FOR
WITH YOUR AN AUTOMATED
ENGINEER
NGINEER WARNING SYSTEM

AUTOSPORT ENGINEERING
REMEMBERING A
M OTO R S P O RT P I O N E E R
t would no doubt amuse
I
Richard Lloyd greatly to
discover that a tribute to
him would be running in
Autosport’s Engineering
supplement. You see, Lloyd
– who was killed in a plane crash in March
2008 – was not an engineer and never professed
to be one, having come into motorsport from a
background in music production and PR.
So why the engineering connection?
It’s simple. Lloyd was a pioneer, in the
true sense of the word, who compensated
for the performance disadvantage his
privateer Porsche 956 faced against
the works cars in the World Sportscar
Championship by getting creative
on aero and even commissioning a
honeycomb monocoque to accept the
existing engine-and-gearbox package.
The spirit of ingenuity he fostered
allowed those around him to thrive
and enjoy their racing – Jonathan
Palmer goes as far as comparing
the team atmosphere to 1970s
playboys Hesketh – and the
queue of famous faces that
responded to pay tribute
is telling of the huge
void he left behind.
Although he was a
C O N T E N TS
ABBOTT/LAT
Lloyd was the key
figure behind Bentley’s
winning return to Le Mans
0 4 N EWS
Industry update The latest developments
in the world of motorsport engineering
0 6 EXPE RT VI EW
How to work with your engineer Resident
columnist Mark Williams shares his top tips
1 0 DR IVI N G CHAN G E
Automated warning systems Formula E
champion Lucas di Grassi presents the case
KARLA GOWLETT
1 2 R I C HAR D LLOYD
Remembering a pioneer We pay tribute
to one of motorsport’s big movers
2 0 LO LA
Something in the wind Why a windtunnel
could hold the key to the marque’s comeback
2 2 MAH I N D RA
Formula E success story How the Indian
squad is beating FE’s big boys on merit
true sportscar fan at heart, if Lloyd were
S I G MA G P
still around today, you could picture him 2 8
taking a keen interest in the manufacturer Unraced revolutionary The little-known
revolution sweeping Formula E at present. tale of Pininfarina’s pioneering F1 car
Porsche and Mercedes are the latest names
confirmed to join Renault, Audi, BMW and 3 2 B I O M ETR I CS
Jaguar, yet, as Scott Mitchell explains on page Signalling the future The F1 innovation that
22, the team that’s doing the best job is plucky few people are talking about could save lives
Indian squad Mahindra. From the eighth best
team in season one, it has developed at an 3 4 B E AN E N G I N E E R
impressive rate to become one of the leading Christian Dick Speedworks BTCC boss
contenders this term, with Felix Rosenqvist explains how you can make it as an engineer
currently sitting second in the points.
One who won’t be enjoying the team’s rise
is Audi’s Lucas di Grassi, who has endured
a tough start to his title defence. But he’s
not been sitting around feeling sorry for
himself. In the first of a regular series of
columns, Driving Change, he outlines his
EBREY/LAT
vision for an automated cockpit-warning
system. I’m sure it will provoke debate!
SUB-EDITORS Peter Hodges, Marcus Simmons
CONTRIBUTORS Mark Williams, Lucas di Grassi,
Kevin Turner, Scott Mitchell, Tom Errington,
Phillip Horton, Matt James
JAMES NEWBOLD
ENGINEERING ART EDITOR Lynsey Elliott
EDITOR SENIOR DESIGNER Michael Cavalli
james.newbold@autosport.com ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Don Rupal
@james_newbold email don.rupal@motorsport.com
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 0 3
 JEP/LAT
P O R S C H E AN D AU D I I N EV C O L L A B O R A T I O N
Working closely on Premium Platform Electric road-car project
reduces development costs for former LMP1 rivals

Volkswagen Group sister brands Audi and Porsche
are working closely to advance the rate of electric
vehicles entering the market in a newly created
joint architecture, with the first vehicles produced
under the collaboration expected by 2021.
Called Premium Platform Electric (PPE), the project
currently has around 550 employees from Audi and
300 from Porsche working two days per week alongside
their existing commitments, with more set to be added
to their number. Audi is taking the lead on two of the
planned three models, with Porsche overseeing the third.
Porsche, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary
this year, will invest more than €6 billion in
electromobility by 2022, focusing on both
plug-in hybrids and purely electric models.
“If we had to cope with the challenges ahead on
our own, the costs would be around 30% higher,”
says Porsche CEO Oliver Blume. “In order for
electromobility to succeed, more and more
factors have to be in sync. These especially
include attractive products with long ranges,
short charging times, and high customer value.
If we can offer this, the market will accelerate.”
Both manufacturers are currently working on their
first all-electric production models. Audi’s e-tron and
Porsche’s Mission E concepts will be commercially
available in the next 18 months.
It is unclear how the collaboration will impact upon
the motorsport activities of the German premium
brands ahead of Porsche’s entry to Formula E from
the 2020-21 season. Porsche and Audi are the two
most successful manufacturers in the history of the
Le Mans 24 Hours, with Porsche securing a record-
breaking 19th win last year before withdrawing from
the World Endurance Championship to join former
LMP1 sparring partner Audi in FE.

SILVERSTONE TECHNOLOGY to applications in different sectors and would be among

CLUSTER HOSTS CONFERENCE
The Silverstone Technology Cluster (STC) hosted its
first annual conference in January, with Heathrow
Airport and chemical giant DowDuPont among
the visitors invited to learn about the Cluster’s
engineering capabilities.
STC members with strong motorsport links
including RML, Delta Motorsport, KW Special
Projects and TotalSim attended the conference
to showcase how their skills could be applied
those to benefit from any resulting partnerships.
Nearly 40 companies operating within motorsport
are now part of the Cluster, based at Silverstone Park.
CEO Pim van Baarsen said: “Just 12 months after
the STC was launched, our very first annual conference
has proven that the Cluster is really working in terms of
being able to promote the capabilities of the companies.
“We have been delighted with the presentations and
the feedback. It is clear that some very exciting new
relationships will be formed as a result.”

0 4 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com


COSWO RTH WE I G H I N G U P
I N DYCAR E N G I N E PR OJ ECT
Renowned engine specialist Cosworth is interested
in becoming a power-unit supplier in IndyCar and is
currently in talks with the series.
IndyCar is actively trying to add a third manufacturer
alongside Honda and Chevrolet, with the two existing
companies supporting the series’ push.
Cosworth has not supplied an engine in top-line US
open-wheel racing since the demise of Champ Car in
2008 (above), although its electronics arm recently
signed a four-year deal to supply steering wheels
for the revised Dallara IR12.
M IA B U S I N ESS EXC E LLE N C E
AWAR D FO R PR O D R IVE
Prodrive scooped the top prize at the annual Motorsport
Industry Association (MIA) Business Excellence Awards
in January, as the company won Business of the Year.
The Banbury-based operation, which employs more
than 500 people, ran the Aston Martin Racing team to
victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2017 and took the
300th race or rally win of its operational history in the
World Endurance Championship at Austin in Texas.
Prodrive chief operating officer Tim Colchester (above,
right) said: “2017 was a very successful year for us, not
only in terms of how we performed on the track, but how
we performed commercially too. Receiving this accolade
from your peers in the British motorsport industry is as
important as winning on the race track or rally stage.”
Among the other category winners were specialist
component manufacturer Titan, which received the
MIA Small Business of the Year Award, World Rally
champion M-Sport (Team of the Year), McLaren Applied
Technologies (Technology & Innovation Award), the
RML Group (New Markets Award), Goodridge (Export
Achievement Award) and the National College for
Motorsport (Service to the Industry Award).
Bruce Wood, Cosworth’s managing director of
powertrains, told Autosport that talks with IndyCar
had taken place, but said the company would need
support from an OEM to fund the project.
“We have a fantastic motor-racing heritage and
Cosworth is keen to go top-flight racing again with
the right OEM partner,” he said. “We’re constantly
in talks with people in IndyCar. You can do it very
economically, compared to other categories.”
IndyCar president of competitions and operations
Jay Frye has stated that a third manufacturer would
have to make its plans clear by the summer of 2018
to join as early as ’20.
TR I PLE E I G HT PARTN E R S
WITH WI RTH R ES EAR C H
Triple Eight Race Engineering and Wirth Research
are working together to develop the next-
generation Holden Commodore that will race in
the Australian Supercar championship next year.
The involvement of Nick Wirth’s consultancy
on the Holden, which will feature a new V6
twin-turbocharged engine and aerodynamic
modifications, marks the first time computational
fluid dynamics has been used in Supercars.
It also marks Wirth’s first exploits in touring car
racing, having previously developed the Acura
ARX-01 LMP2 car and Honda’s IndyCar aerokit.
Triple Eight managing director Roland Dane
said: “Our relationship with Wirth Research has
proved to be an invaluable aspect of the next-gen
Commodore development and has brought us
industry-leading levels of expertise. Geographical
factors, such as the time difference between
Brisbane and the UK, haven’t been an issue at
all and Wirth Research’s support has gone
above and beyond expectations.”
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 0
N E WS
IN BRIEF
B RAB HAM’S N EW C HAPTE R
One of motorsport’s most famous names
is set to return in 2018, after the new
Brabham Automotive project was
announced in February. Ex-grand prix driver
David Brabham will lead the project, which
will be officially launched in May. The news
comes after the crowd-funded ‘Project
Brabham’ failed to gain an entry for the
World Endurance Championship in 2016.
R I CAR D O I N U N I T I E- U P
Engineering consultancy Ricardo will
collaborate with the Centre for Automotive
& Power System Engineering (CAPSE) at the
University of South Wales on battery systems
research and development . CAPSE director
Jonathan Williams said: “Ricardo will bring
valuable industrial experience of the
development of electric-vehicle systems,
and we look forward to working with them.”
AS I 2019 DATE C O N F I R M E D
Autosport International will return to the
NEC in Birmingham next year on January
10-13. The show welcomed 95,000
motorsport fans through its doors in
2018, an increase of 12% over last year.
G I N ETTA SCHOOL SU PPORT
British sportscar manufacturer Ginetta will
support a team of five students (below) from
St Peter’s School in York in the upcoming F1
in Schools competition. The students will
design and build a vehicle to race against
other schools from around the world.
Ginetta boss Lawrence Tomlinson said:
“Getting young people excited about
engineering and all the career options it offers
them through platforms like F1 in Schools is
vital for the industry’s future prosperity.”
5
 E X P E R T V I E W
M A R K W I L L I A M S
H O W TO W O R K W I T H
YO U R E N G I N E E R
The ex-McLaren Formula 1 engineer explains what drivers
should and should not do to help improve their car
o now you have a race
S
engineer. Great, they can
sort out your car and make
it perfect! In principle that
is correct, but not without
a lot of help from the
driver. So what should you do?
Basic race engineering isn’t difficult: fit
the right tyres at the right pressures at the
right time, make sure it doesn’t run out of
fuel or finish the race underweight.
The more difficult bit is trying to achieve
a desirable balance. The difference between
getting the basics right and doing a first-class
job is huge. The harder you both work at it,
the more successful you will be.
Remember, race engineers do not make
cars faster. The pace of the car was set the
moment it left the factory. A race car will
achieve a lap time based on its mass, power
and downforce. In fact, a good simulation
0 6 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com
will predict this quite accurately. It won’t go
quicker unless you find more power or more
aerodynamic efficiency or reduce its weight.
Before you arrive at the circuit, the
simulation will tell you the optimum level
of downforce to run for the anticipated level
of grip. The race-engineering challenge is to
achieve the car’s true level of pace and not
make the car slower than this.
You start by assuming low circuit grip.
The first session of an event or the first run
of a test is generally of limited value, as the
grip is so low that finding a good balance is
difficult and quite often it can send you in
the wrong direction.
Use this session to check everything is
working properly and get your tyre pressures
right. Towards the end of the session, as
the track cleans up, you’ll be able to start
tuning the set-up in terms of trying to
achieve that utopian balance.
ETHERINGTON/LAT
RULE 1
M AK E YO U R F E E D BACK C O N CI S E
I’ve been lucky to work with more drivers than
I have time to list. All my early race engineering
experience was with foreign drivers with limited
English, so communication wasn’t easy.
Doing Formula 3000 with Lola Motorsports in
1986, our driver Pascal Fabre didn’t speak much
English and we didn’t have driver-crew radios.
In qualifying at Silverstone, I stood in front of
the car converting survirage (oversteer) and
sousvirage (understeer) – which sound alike when
shouted through a driver’s visor – into charades,
then pointing to the front wing, the sky and the
pitlane. He pointed up, so he got two holes of
front wing, went out and put it on pole.
I would often dream of engineering a fellow
English speaker, where no stone would be left
unturned. That was until I worked with a few
and realised what a major advantage that lack
of communication had been! It forces the driver
to be concise and prioritise their requirements.
The encyclopaedia of car handling isn’t going
to cut it in the middle of practice or qualifying
because I don’t have the bandwidth or time
to process all that metre-by-metre balance
information. Save it for the post-session debrief,
when I will have plenty of time to study it.
During the session, keep it simple. At the end of
each run, quickly figure out where you are losing
 E X P E R T V I E W

COATES/LAT
the most time and From left: Lewis If race engineering was as simple as I wrote where the ball won’t bounce until it’s hot and
try to prioritise what Hamilton and at the beginning of this piece, life would be you can’t hit it properly until it bounces.
you want fixed; keep chief race engineer logical and easy. Unfortunately, it rarely is. Lack of tyre temperature means you can’t
Andrew Shovlin
it to a couple of things. The job is often about engineering around lean on the car and that means you can’t
celebrate at Spa;
If you are satisfied the car’s shortfalls and deficiencies. generate tyre temperature. That’s why the key
giving precise
with the handling feedback and If all the information you had was genuine, aspect of race engineering is getting a good
in certain corners, prioritising the main this would allow logical progress to be made, balance, and following the track evolution
mention that too as issues can avoid but often poor information makes it more and weather (wind direction) to maintain it.
it helps the engineer delays; patience confusing. Probably the most common piece of I prefer to start my cold pressures on the
to figure out a plan. with tyres is key misinformation is that aeromap you were given, high side to try to guarantee that I’m always
extrapolated from too few data points and having bleeding the pressure down rather than adding.
RULE 2 little resemblance to the actual aero-balance shift It also means the car has some support on its
AVOI D TH E T R A P S with ride-height, pitch and yaw. One of the main first run. If you do have to add air, my rule of
Probably the most common trap you will challenges of the job is engineering around these thumb is add half what you need to achieve
encounter is the ‘understeer trap’. You come issues, applying various sticking plasters that are your target. Try to adjust your cold pressures
in and complain about understeer, so the often counterintuitive. Then there are mechanical so you expect to perform a uniform bleed on
mechanical balance is moved rearwards shortfalls that are usually related to component all four tyres – it makes mistakes less likely.
and maybe some front wing is added. You go stiffness, or rather the lack of it. This can be
out and come back complaining that it’s worse. anything from chassis stiffness to toe stiffness.
Fundamentally, this car is unstable on
corner entry. You are having to wait until RULE 3
the rear feels secure before turning in. When B EWA R E O F TH E T YR E S
you finally do, it’s so late you’ve missed the Tyres are your only contact with the ground,
apex and are probably way over the top of so be patient and don’t attempt any set-up
the front tyre. Hence your main comment changes until the pressures have stabilised
being one of too much understeer, no to target. Tyre pressures have a huge impact
mention that you are terrified to turn into on the balance and feel of your car. Getting
S BLOXHAM/LAT

the corner! Always remember to focus on the temperature right is the next important
the primary balance issue, not the secondary thing, but you have less direct control over
one caused by the primary one. this. It’s like playing squash on a cold court

autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 0 7

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RULE 4
M AK E S M A LL C H A N G E S
Don’t expect every change to be a miracle cure
for your balance issues. Sometimes engineers
just have to get another data point to work from.
Your relationship should be good enough for
your engineer to be frank about this. After all,
there are quite often multiple solutions. This
is why F1 teams run their driver-in-the-loop
simulator between sessions to feed back to the
engineering team their recommended solutions.
Simulation can be a huge help, but remember
it’s not perfect. At the end of the day, your
engineer is responsible for engineering a
physical car, not an imperfect model.
It seems obvious, but the closer the car is to
a good balance, the smaller the set-up changes
need to be. If the engineer makes sweeping
package changes the driver has to relearn the
car. That’s one for the test day or simulator,
not pre-race practices. In my opinion, the
car would have to be undriveable before you
consider this, so avoid being talked into it at
all costs because knowing the limitations of
the car you have can be better than learning
COATES/LAT
E X P E R T V I E W
a whole new car that Above: Williams extension to a test day? Start on time; how hard
may still be terrible. engineered can it be? The same applies to meetings. People
If it’s that bad, Coulthard don’t like to be kept waiting – it’s disruptive.
check that the set-up at McLaren;
below:
has been correctly RULE 6
punctuality
implemented. You’d D O N’ T G ET CA R R I E D AWAY BY DATA
is a virtue at
be surprised how team meetings When I started, the only pieces of data were
often set-up mistakes tie-wraps on the damper shafts (no kerbing
happen, even in F1. And on this lap please!) and the tell-tale on the rev
if the change you’ve just counter. The driver would tell you the revs
made doesn’t deliver, go back. Don’t carry he was pulling to help set ratios and see where
forward a non-performance-enhancing change. the set-up gains had been found – that was it.
In the late 1980s, I remember testing Pi
RULE 5 Research’s prototype datalogger with founder
B E P U NCTUAL Tony Purnell at Pembrey. Suddenly the world of
When your engineer says the pitlane opens at race engineering had changed forever. Now, each
0900, they really mean the car will leave the outing of the car generates megabytes of data to
garage for its installation lap then. So you need to digest. But in spite of the huge amount of data
be in the car by 0855 all ready to go, not finishing that is downloaded from the car at the end of
a coffee at the back of the garage. The team has each run, the most often-used chart is the driver
worked very hard to prepare that car and you overlay. That’s the driver’s tool – stick with that
owe it to them to be ready to do your bit. Don’t and leave your engineer to do the deep-dive stuff
keep them waiting – track time is precious, when you’ve gone for dinner. Drivers drive and
especially if the installation lap identifies an geeks do data. Keep it that way.
issue. And how many times have you sought an
RULE 7
LO OK AF T E R YO U R E N G I N E E R
I’ve always thought that race engineers are a
bit like doctors – bedside manner is key to
making you feel there is hope and it’ll be fine
come qualifying. This requires trust. The best
driver/engineer relationships are when they
are good mates and can talk about the car
anywhere and any time, openly and honestly.
There will always be tough times when you
can’t seem to get the car working, but this is
when you learn the most. Just stay calm and
be logical, keep everyone in the loop and dig
your way out. A fellow designer/race engineer
once told me: “The only thing you learn when
you are winning is how to smile.” ■
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 0 9
 D R I V I N G C H A N G E
L U CA S D I G R A S S I
T H E CAS E F O R
A N AU TO M AT E D
WA R N I N G SYS T E M
Lucas di Grassi is best known
for his on-track exploits, but the
reigning Formula E champion
and ex-Formula 1 driver has a
keen engineering mind as well.
In this first instalment of his new
Autosport Engineering column, he
outlines his idea to bring racing’s
primitive driver-warning systems
into the 21st century, and help buy
back time that could be crucial
in avoiding serious accidents
1 0 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com
hese days it’s so cheap and
T
easy to get the position of
the car and what it is doing
on track, in every category
from karting to Formula 1,
that an automated driver
warning system would be very easy to
implement. It’s almost like using big data –
making a race car an ‘Internet of Things’ device
to make races safer by building big sets of data
and an algorithm to analyse them – to work
out what is normal on any given lap of a
race track and what isn’t.
This kind of system would be especially
useful in races that are not at a professional
level like F1 or Formula E, where the tracks
are designed by the FIA and the marshals
are instructed more professionally. In other
categories, you have a much more complex
situation because normally the marshals are
volunteers and the race director is semi-
professional. You rely on these people to inform
the driver about what’s happening. This has a
cost, plus a downside in the form of delay; and
as a driver, you are operating within what the
AUDI
COATES/LAT
marshal or race director sees at a given moment
– and a person can’t have full concentration
for hours in a row.
My point is that we should be using this data,
the connectivity within the cars, the telemetry
system, to send and receive information on
what the cars are doing. With GPS, you can
know the speed of the car and its position. With
the accelerometer, you can know how quickly
it decelerates. You can even compare previous
data; take that lap by a driver and correlate it
with what the same driver did earlier. Then,
if it’s slower for some reason, you know
something is happening – that the car has
a problem – and you can inform the driver
behind straight away that a car is slowing down.
If a car touches a wall and generates a
spike of g-force, the algorithm can send that
information to the cars behind to say, ‘Look,
that car has crashed’. That way, as soon as
you’re approaching the corner you know it’s
a caution – you could have a light in the cockpit
or on the steering-wheel that works the same
as when marshals bring out the yellow flags or
double-waved yellows when there’s an incident.
The only difference is the system can react
without the interference of humans.
In doing so, you don’t have the time delay
and it isn’t expensive to operate – in club racing
it could be a solution to reduce cost and improve
safety. Of course, I’m not talking about a system
that brakes the car automatically or stops the
car completely by itself – it should still be up
to the driver to decide what they have to do.
It’s just to inform the driver automatically
about what’s happening on track.
The pile-up in the GT race at Macau last
year was unavoidable because it happened too
quickly, and there wasn’t time for anyone close
to the initial contact to react. You can’t even
see the marshals’ flags on that corner – it’s a
super-narrow part of the circuit where you are
focused on the car in front, so it takes too long
 D R I V I N G C H A N G E

L U CAS D I G R AS S I
C V H I G H L I G H TS
Age 33
2017-18 Formula E with Audi Sport Abt
2016-17 Formula E champion with
Abt Audi Sport (2 wins,
7 podiums, 3 poles)
2016 2nd in World Endurance
Championship with Audi
(2 wins, 6 podiums, 3 poles)
2015-16 2nd in FE with Abt Audi Sport
(3 wins, 7 podiums)
2015 4th in WEC with Audi (1 podium)
2014-15 3rd in FE with Abt Audi Sport
(1 win, 6 podiums)
2014 4th in WEC with Audi (4 podiums)
2013 Selected Audi LMP1 entries:
3rd in Le Mans 24 Hours
2nd in Sebring 12 Hours
2012 Third on Audi LMP1 debut
2010 Formula 1 with Virgin Racing
to realise if there is a Left: Di Grassi’s 2006-09 GP2 (5 wins, 21 podiums, 1 pole)
problem on the road return to Macau 2005 Macau Grand Prix winner with
ahead. But for the guys last year was all Manor, 3rd in Euro F3 (1 win,
behind, an automatic too brief thanks to 6 podiums, 2 poles)
a multi-car shunt;
system would have
above: automated
given more time and
in-car systems
might have helped could complement
two or three not marshals in the
crash at the back. event of an incident
That’s an example of a
crash that couldn’t be
avoided but could have been made less serious.
Another crash that has become, sadly, iconic
is what happened with Billy Monger, when a car
stopped on the racing line in front of him in a
position where he was unsighted. He couldn’t
avoid it and crashed into him. That’s the sort
of situation where a slow car on track would
have immediately triggered a white light in the
cockpit of the cars behind. That doesn’t mean
he would have avoided the car, but at least he
would have been informed that there was a car
ahead that was travelling at a reduced speed.
And it might do that with another driver in the
future. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it’s
an extra tool to get back precious seconds that
could make a huge difference. It doesn’t have
to be a light, it could be a series of beeps –
something that offers a different sound
into the driver’s ear, any sensory input.
It is exactly the same as the existing system
with marshals waving flags, but instead of
being subjected to human interpretation –
‘that car has spun, that car has crashed, I’m
going to put a flag out’ – it’s just analysing data
from the car and as soon as there is something
irregular, the system sends a notification to
the driver. Maybe in the future it could be
completely automated.
In the meantime we should still have a
race director, and of course we should still
have marshals. But we can complement that
AUDI

with technology. ■

autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 1 1

 R E M E M B E R I N G
R I C H A R D L L OY D
1 0 Y E A R S O N

Paying tribute to a motorsport pioneer and deal-maker,

who made a big contribution prior to his premature death in 2008
BY JA M E S N E W B O L D

t’s the dawn of a new age for era was just starting to build momentum and then repeated the trick with Porsche’s longer-

I
international sportscar racing.
One manufacturer stands head
and shoulders above the rest
in the top class, and decides to
capitalise on its hegemony by
setting up a customer programme. All goes to
plan at first, until one of the customers turns
up with extensive modifications and begins
upstaging the works team at its own game…
No, you haven’t missed a new chapter in the
history of the World Endurance Championship.
Instead, rewind 35 years to 1983, when the world
sportscar championship’s celebrated Group C
Porsche’s 956 was the car to have. One of the
first customer examples was bought by Richard
Lloyd’s giant-killing GTI Engineering operation,
which turned the accepted model of what it
meant to be a customer team on its head.
When the chips are down, successful people
can adapt to the hand they are dealt, and Lloyd
was a man who never knew when he was beaten.
Rarely on a level playing field with the works
Rothmans cars, he sought to make up the
difference with innovative bodywork revisions
and subsequently took the step of building
a new monocoque, rebadged as a 956 GTI,
wheelbase 962. Three wins in eight seasons may
not sound like much, but it was the inventive
manner in which Lloyd’s crew went about its
racing that won him many admirers.
His death in a plane crash in March 2008 –
which also claimed ex-British Touring Car racer
David Leslie, data engineer Chris Allarton and
two pilots – robbed the motorsport community
of a shining light, an entrepreneurial figure who
had orchestrated Bentley’s return to Le Mans
and achieved success in touring cars both as an
owner and a driver during a career spanning 40
years. Survived by wife Philippa and daughters

1 2 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com


Sophie, Amy and Chloe, Richard Lloyd’s is a
story that is unlikely to be repeated.
“It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that
was just about the last time where somebody
could buy a complete car from the factory,
develop it and beat the factory,” says friend
and automotive stylist Peter Stevens, a fixture
on the pitwall throughout Lloyd’s Group C days.
“It’s something that you can’t imagine today,
whether it’s because of regulations or impetus.
But it wasn’t because we had loads of money,
because absolutely Richard didn’t. Everything
was very carefully thought out, he wasn’t
cavalier with the expectation of money for the
following year in the way that some teams were.
There were no fancy hotels and all that stuff.”
Formerly a music producer for Decca Records
and with a background in PR, Lloyd’s eye was
never far from the publicity value, never more
so than when he persuaded Stirling Moss out of
retirement in 1980 to race one of his Audi 80s
in the British Saloon Car Championship. But
he was also a prolific talent-spotter who offered
Formula 1 refugees Jan Lammers and Mauro Baldi
a platform to earn factory seats with Jaguar and
Mercedes respectively, gave sportscar debuts to
Jonathan Palmer and Damon Hill, and plucked
Guy Smith from obscurity to become a Le Mans
winner with Bentley in 2003.
He was a man who made things happen and
was, as Palmer puts it, a man of “vision, dreams,
enthusiasm and ambition”, all while maintaining
the utmost integrity and manners.
“Richard was a very keen spotter of young
talent, no doubt because it could put a quick
driver in his car but probably because it was
cheap as well!” Palmer says.
“He often struggled financially, but was
always really ambitious – he had dreams
and he made them happen. Richard was
R I C H A R D L L OY D
“Richard was very
exciting to be with;
things were always
moving forward”
Clockwise from left:
Lloyd was a handy
racer; his affiliation
with the Golf GTI
spawned titles in
British Saloons;
guitarist John Oates
was among his many
music-industry friends
very exciting to be with, things were always
moving forward and he was somebody who
you just wanted to do your best for because
you knew he was so committed – he was
always pushing the boundaries.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
A handy racer himself, Lloyd was prolific in the
BSCC in the 1970s and drove a Chevrolet Camaro
Z28 to seven outright victories in ’74-75 before
notching up a hat-trick of class titles between
’77-79 in a near-standard Volkswagen Golf GTI,
taking second overall in ’78. At this time, the
Golf was barely established in the UK, but
Lloyd’s exploits did much to change that.
“He called around with a Golf GTI road car
that he’d just bought and he said, ‘Do you think
this might make a racing car?’” remembers
Stevens. “We went out for a tear around along
the North Circular and thought it could be
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 1 3
“ It was like somebody
buying an LMP1 Audi
in today’s world!”
From left: Palmer and
Lammers won Brands
1000Km in 1984 with
unusual front wing;
Lloyd enjoys a well-
earned refreshment
after finishing second
at Le Mans in ’85
fun, so the two of us went to see a VW garage
near Northampton and said, ‘Could we keep it
here and could you loan us some mechanics?’
For the first few races, it had a rollcage and a
seat in it and that was all.”
From those humble beginnings, Lloyd decided
to set up on his own and opened a workshop
selling GTI tuning parts, which gradually
morphed into a race team. His success on track
resulted in a deal to run two Audi 80 GLEs for
1980, where he was joined in a second car by
Moss. The year was largely a disappointment
– Stevens recalls that the car was “a bit
mysterious” to Moss, whose obsession with
tyre pressures made little difference on a basic
front-wheel-drive car – and Lloyd moved on
to the world sportscar championship for ’81
to run a Porsche 924 GTR.
“We did a lot of work on it, some of which
really bugged Porsche,” says Stevens. “It had
these funny triple-jointed driveshafts at the
Palmer was a
regular in Lloyd’s
cars during the ’80s
1 4 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com
back, so we did a very simple manoeuvre
of moving the gearbox, which meant the
driveshafts were level and we could run the
car much lower. The fellows at Porsche said,
‘It won’t last a lap’, and then they wanted to
have a look underneath to see why they did!
“We had an interesting relationship with
Jurgen Barth [head of Porsche’s motorsport
division] from that time, which went right
through the 956 and 962 as well.”
One of Lloyd’s early customers back at
the tuning shop was then-British Formula 3
Championship leader Palmer. The pair got
talking about racing together and won their class
in the 1981 Tourist Trophy, marking the start of
a lengthy relationship throughout the Group C
era that Palmer regards as the most impactful
of his driving career, both in terms of success
and enjoyment. “It was a small-family-team
atmosphere,” says Palmer. “We all used to meet
in the evenings at Richard’s house in Barnes
at Lonsdale Road, where his wife Philippa
would feed us drinks and sandwiches as
we brainstormed through the night.
“I still remember at the end of 1982 when
Richard announced that he’d bought a 956 –
we couldn’t believe it. It was like somebody
buying an LMP1 Audi in today’s world.”
M A K I N G WAV E S I N G R O U P C
The team didn’t have to wait long for silverware,
although a raft of updates for the works
Rothmans Porsches after their shock defeat
by Joest Racing at Monza – including more-
powerful engines and improved front suspension
– meant third was often the best GTI could hope
for. Lammers and Thierry Boutsen did just that
on the team’s second outing at Silverstone,
matched next time out at the farewell race for
the old Nurburgring with reigning F1 champion
Keke Rosberg joining Lammers and Palmer.
Lammers achieved notoriety when he clashed
with pre-race favourite Jacky Ickx at Le Mans,
but the team showed its true potential when
Palmer took pole for the European Championship
round at Mugello, only for an engine vibration to
cost the car he shared with Derek Bell and rally
star Henri Toivonen a shot at victory.
GTI Engineering took a big step forward in
becoming a regular frontrunner for 1984 and
ran second early on at Monza before suspension
problems struck. Lammers and Palmer went
even better at Silverstone, leading the Rothmans
Porsches comfortably before a broken oil line
dropped them to fifth. But that poor luck
changed at Brands Hatch. As the event didn’t
count for Manufacturers points, the works cars
were sent ahead to the next round at Mosport,
but it’s doubtful they would have had an answer
for the Canon-liveried car anyway.
The key was an ungainly wing bolted onto the
nose section to improve downforce, tallied with
minor alterations to the rear diffuser – all
completely legal under the Group C regulations
– that meant Lammers and Palmer could achieve
strong lap times while running less turbo boost
and therefore using less fuel. Credit for the device,
originally a rear wing from an F3 car, is debated,
but there could be no debating the outcome.
Palmer took pole position, within a tenth of
the time that had put him 23rd on the grid for
that year’s British Grand Prix, and converted
it into a stunning victory despite losing fifth
gear in the final hour. At the next round at Spa,
most of the privateer cars were sporting their
own variations of the wing.
“It was an amazing time when, through our
ideas and energy and being prepared to be
entrepreneurial, we had a car that was half a
second quicker than anything else,” Palmer says.
“It was a small team of ambitious, motivated,
hugely enthusiastic people that worked hard,

partied hard and enjoyed ourselves. It was almost
like a Hesketh story in a way, passionately
following a dream of trying to be successful
and doing a pretty good job against the
Goliaths of the factory teams.”
T H E P O R S C H E T H AT
WAS N ’ T A P O R S C H E
GTI Engineering was now a proven winner, but
Lloyd recognised the team would have to make
changes if it was to sustain its success.
“Porsche never put the 956 in a rolling-road
windtunnel, which is one of the reasons why
the car suffered from that terrible porpoising,”
says Stevens. “There were things that we knew
weren’t good with the regular car, like the fact
that the front bulkhead was a single skin of
aluminium. Jan discovered at Monza that it
didn’t matter how hard you hit the brake pedal,
you couldn’t lock the wheels, so we got him to
stamp on the pedal back at the workshop and
found the bulkhead was bending.”
After some persuasion from Palmer, Lloyd
took the plunge and commissioned Nigel Stroud
to design a new honeycomb monocoque that was
both lighter and more structurally rigid than
the standard car. “Jonathan wrote a list of all the
things that were wrong with the 956 [below] and
when you read it, you think, ‘What a horrible
car!’” says Stroud, who went on to design the
1991 Le Mans-winning Mazda 787B.
“Richard was a racer too, he wanted to go
faster and have more success, but it took him
a bit of time to commit. Every time Richard
saw anything that involved money, he cringed
because he could see it racking up and
becoming an expensive exercise.
“I think he was a bit peeved at paying all the
prices for spares from Porsche when you could
cast and machine a lot of it yourself for that sort
of money – why go and buy a pair of uprights
that you know you don’t like the geometry of?
R I C H A R D L L OY D
We redesigned the thing to our own spec.”
The 956 GTI special, complete with heavily
revised front suspension, rounded out the year
with second at Imola and third at Sandown.
“Certainly it was stiffer and in many ways
it handled stiffer; it wasn’t always a clear-cut
advantage, but it was stronger,” says Palmer.
Lammers remained at the team, now known
as Richard Lloyd Racing, for the early part of 1985
but left to sign for Jaguar on the eve of Le Mans.
James Weaver was called up at late notice
alongside Palmer and Lloyd – who was making
a rare appearance at the wheel of his own car –
and they finished second, four laps ahead of the
best of the works Porsches. With veteran team
manager Keith Greene calling the shots from the
pitwall, the 956 GTI enjoyed a tight battle with
the winning Joest Porsche until midnight, when
minor brake problems cost the team three laps.
The winning margin? Three laps…
“If it hadn’t been for that, I think we
From left: Palmer
identifies areas of
improvement for
the 956; oil-line
failure denied
likely win at
Silverstone in ’84
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 1 5
would have had a very good chance to win,” says when my brother came to visit me and said, 962 for 1987, but it was no longer enough to beat
Palmer. “Finishing second there was certainly ‘Have you heard about Bellof? He’s just been the works Porsches as the TWR Jaguars and
one of my career highlights, particularly killed’. I didn’t feel as sorry for myself then.” Sauber-Mercedes – both winners in ’86 – began
knowing it really could have been a win – to flex their muscles. Dave Price joined as team
you can’t absolutely say that of course, P R I VAT E E R S FA L L O N manager, but for RLR it would only get harder.
but we had no other problems.” HARD TIMES “It was always a massive struggle finding
Thereafter Lloyd turned his attentions to GTI Engineering missed Brands Hatch and money,” says team co-owner Hugh Padgham, a
organising the team and finding sponsorship, regrouped for 1986 with sponsorship from Liqui music producer who was introduced to Lloyd
but Stevens insists he was a better driver Moly and two new drivers: Baldi and Bob Wollek. by Hall & Oates guitarist John Oates. “I just felt
than he is credited for. The Lancia refugees gave Lloyd a second WSC that we were going backwards. We were running
“He had a very refined touch in any race car – victory at Brands, while Baldi and Klaus on about a million quid a year then, and if
in the wet he was as good as anybody,” he says. Niedzwiedz recovered from an opening-lap spin somebody crashed the car that really dented our
“With the 924 we did Daytona and it absolutely to finish second at a soaking wet Nurburgring. budget. It was really living from hand to mouth.”
fell down with rain so much that at one point With Brun taking the Teams title, ’86 was a good Palmer had kept in touch with Lloyd during
they stopped the race, and Richard got the year for the privateers, but times were changing. his recovery from injury, and a switch from the
car up to sixth overall. With the 956 rendered obsolete by new safety Zakspeed F1 team – which had refused to let him
“In the elbows-out aggressive stuff, someone regulations, Stroud designed a GTI special of the drive sportscars again – to Tyrrell for 1987
like Mauro Baldi would muscle it around quicker
than Richard would care to do, but Richard
believed that you had to finish and that way The tide had turned against
you might do better than if you went off. privateers by ’90, but Reuter
“He realised that there were people who were (right) took third in Canada
faster than him and if you did well, you would
get the money for next year, but the stepping
back was fine actually. Some people will tell you
that Canon asked him to, but that’s not the case.”
From that highest of highs came one of the
team’s lowest moments at Spa, a weekend forever
remembered for Stefan Bellof’s fatal accident in a
standard Brun Motorsport 956. During practice,
Palmer had a right-front tyre deflate at Pouhon
and the resultant impact was significant enough
for the gear lever to hit him in the eye and leave
him trapped in the cockpit with a broken leg.
But without the GTI’s honeycomb, the outcome
would likely have been even more severe.
“It probably saved my life,” admits Palmer.
“It was certainly the biggest shunt I’ve ever
had. I got an air ambulance back the next day
to London and I spent a month recovering in
hospital. I was feeling very sorry for myself

1 6 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com


“Power-wise we were
mainly down to the
other privateers, but it
was a good challenge”
Left: Baldi and
Wollek took Lloyd’s
second Group C
win, also at Brands,
in ’86; right: Biela
leads the pack at
Oulton Park on his
way to ’96 BTCC title
opened the door for a return to the RLR fold.
He won the Norisring double-header alongside
Baldi (who also finished second at Brands with
Johnny Dumfries), but it would prove to be
Lloyd’s last Group C victory.
A single fourth place in each of 1988 and ’89
– by which time Baldi and Price had left to join
Mercedes – was a sign of the times, and by ’90
the 962 GTI was becoming long in the tooth.
But Lloyd’s team continued to punch above its
weight, with future ITC champion Manuel
Reuter scoring the only podium for a Porsche
all season while driving solo at Montreal.
The 1989 Le Mans winner with Mercedes,
Reuter was introduced to Lloyd by Rosberg after
it was decided the then-28-year-old was too old
for the Silver Arrows’ famed junior team. Reuter
MURENBEELD/LAT
fondly recalls Lloyd’s “special British sense of
humour” and describes 1990 as a year of
“efficiency in all areas” as the team continued
to extract aerodynamic performance gains on a
limited budget. “I think Richard was the first one
to cover the rear wheels,” says Reuter. “At this
time you had only a limited amount of fuel for
the races, qualifying was free, so we tried always
to get the best possible race trim and to fine-
tune the package with this amount of fuel.
“From the engine side, the important ones
from Porsche’s point of view were Joest, Kremer
and Brun also – the German ones – so power-
wise we were mainly down to the other privateer
teams, but it was a good challenge and we
finished third in Montreal. This was the
maximum that we could reach.”
Lloyd’s brave fight to keep the ship afloat
was finally ended when WSC promoter Bernie
Ecclestone canned the established turbo formula
in favour of a new 3.5-litre normally aspirated
rules package for 1991, but his efforts hadn’t
been lost on rival teams.
“Years later when I was talking to guys from
Joest, they were mystified at how we managed
to beat them or be right behind them when we
didn’t have the same kit as them,” says Stevens.
“They were always funded by the factory with
the next step beyond us. Luckily we didn’t know
that, or we might not have tried so hard!”
BTCC R ESU RG E NCE AN D
A R ETU R N TO LE MANS
GTI Engineering also bit the dust when rising
insurance costs made the Golf GTI much less
desirable and the bottom fell out of the market,
so Lloyd set up an automotive-trim business and
raced in the Porsche 924 championship, winning
the title in 1993. But, true to form, he wasn’t
away for long, and returned to his roots in the
British Touring Car Championship – now
R I C H A R D L L OY D
enjoying a Super Touring boom – for the
’96 season with a new Audi Sport UK team
running factory-blessed A4 quattros.
Lloyd hired former Footwork F1 team manager
John Wickham after Wickham’s toe-in-the-water
exercise with Nissan’s failed four-wheel-drive
Primera project, while 1991 DTM champion Frank
Biela was appointed to lead the driving strength.
Armed with four-wheel drive, the combination
proved unstoppable and, despite being saddled
with draconian weight penalties, Biela won eight
times on his way to the drivers’ title, while Audi
romped to the manufacturers’ crown, with Lloyd
proudly watching behind the scenes.
“In those days Richard Lloyd was a big name
– he had done a lot of things and I knew this guy
had been successful in motorsport,” says Biela.
“He was this typical British gentleman; it was
very nice to work with him.”
Biela was runner-up in 1997 but, when 4WD
was banned the following year, Audi promptly
refocused its efforts on sportscars for ’99.
After much contemplation, Audi head of
motorsport Wolfgang Ullrich commissioned
Lloyd’s squad to run a closed-cockpit coupe,
designed and built at RTN in Norfolk by Peter
Elleray and Tony Southgate, in addition to the
open-top roadster developed at Ingolstadt and
entered by Audi Sport Team Joest.
But compared to its open-top cousin – the
R8R, which had finished third on its debut at
Sebring – Elleray’s R8C received the green light
too late, and a lack of testing prior to Le Mans
to rectify a fundamental handling instability,
coupled with an unreliable gearbox, meant it
was on a hiding to nothing.
Wickham remembers the R8C as “a good-
looking car, but not particularly fast – I wouldn’t
say a bit of a dog, but it wasn’t particularly good!”
The #10 entry shared by Weaver, Andy Wallace
and Perry McCarthy only just made the grid
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 1 7
 DOLE/LAT
after Wallace lost a door in pre-qualifying –
without a spare, it had to be retrieved by a
marshal and taped up – but neither car made an
impression on race day, with repeated gearbox
failures forcing both to retire by sunrise. The
coupe was swiftly canned, but Lloyd refused
to throw in the towel.
POLITICS OVE RSHADOW
BENTLEY TRIUMPH
While Wickham headed to the States to run
a Johansson-Matthews Racing Reynard in the
American Le Mans Series for Stefan Johansson
and young Brit Guy Smith – using Lloyd’s newly
renamed Apex Motorsport crew during the
two European ventures at Silverstone and the
ROSE/LAT
Nurburgring – Lloyd continued to work with
Elleray on a GTP prototype concept that could
take the fight to the Audi R8 (derived from the
R8R), which had swept aside allcomers in 2000.
When Bentley confirmed its long-awaited
return to Le Mans for 2001, it was with Lloyd
at the helm and Wickham overseeing the
day-to-day, as he had in the BTCC. Impressed
with the unheralded Smith, Wickham put his
name forward to Lloyd, who promptly slotted
the Yorkshireman into the lead EXP Speed 8
alongside 1990 winner Martin Brundle and
’98 victor Stephane Ortelli. Lloyd had similarly
‘mentored’ Renault Clio and Ford Fiesta
champion John Bintcliffe into the Audi Sport UK
BTCC team in 1996 alongside Biela.
“It was quite a big risk for Richard – he took
a chance on me and if it wasn’t for him giving
me that break, I certainly wouldn’t have had
the career that I’ve had,” says Smith. “He easily
could have said, ‘We want an experienced driver,
we’re not going to take a rookie’, but he had
the foresight to take a gamble and luckily
that gamble paid off.”
Wickham regarded Lloyd as an “excellent
networker”, which proved especially useful in
the search for an engine. Fortunately, help was
at hand from Bentley’s main competitor.
“I said to him, ‘I heard you have a Le Mans car’;
he said, ‘Yes but I have no engine,’” remembers
Audi chief of engine design and development
Ulrich Baretzky. “I said, ‘Maybe I can help you’,
Finding an engine for the EXP
Speed 8, pictured at Snetterton
test, initially proved a struggle

and Richard grinned and said, ‘We have to be
very careful politically’. I said, ‘Yes Richard,
we have to find a clever way to sort it out –
it will be you who will sort the politics out!’”
Using his links with Audi chairman of the
board Franz-Josef Paefgen, Lloyd secured a deal
to replace the Cosworth test units with the
3.6-litre V8 turbo engine from the R8, and
was rewarded with a third-place finish for
the second car of Andy Wallace, Butch
Leitzinger and Eric van de Poele.
“Particularly the first two years when Richard
was involved in the programme, it was primarily
British guys working on it,” says Smith. “Richard
brought everybody on board; he was the glue
that pulled it all together.
“Bentley hadn’t been racing for 70 years, the
whole programme was completely brand new
and he had to make it work. We were doing a
lot of testing but we were only doing one race
a year, so we had one race to nail it. Under the
circumstances we did fantastically well – the
first two years it wasn’t a winning car, but it still
proved to be competitive and that was basically
down to Richard. He wasn’t someone to shout
and boost his own ego – he just got about his
business and did a great job.”
Bentley downsized to a single-car entry
for 2002, finishing fourth, ahead of an all-out
assault in ’03 with a new Speed 8 complete
with bespoke four-litre engine, but internal
politicking within the VW Group meant that
what should have been Lloyd’s finest hour
was overshadowed. With the R8s now in
the hands of privateers, Joest took over the
victorious #7 car driven by Smith, Tom
Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello, while
Lloyd was ushered out of the picture.
“He was pitching to set up an Audi facility
designing and running cars in the UK, which
was basically seen as competition to Ullrich,”
says Wickham. “He had decided that he would
EBREY/LAT
push hard with Paefgen, but Richard pushed
maybe a little too hard to persuade them,
and that didn’t go down too well.
“At the end of 2002 going into ’03, it was
agreed that it would be a completely new car
and the whole operation took a step up with
assistance from Audi, with Joest crewing one
car. Richard was very wary of this whole new
relationship, and I had a call from Audi early
in the year asking me to take over the team.
Richard would take a step back, although we
were still using the same people, his people.
“He didn’t want to make too many waves,
so we carried on through 2003 on that basis
and he was at Le Mans, but Audi asked that
he didn’t even wear team uniform. It was
a strange relationship.”
With Bentley’s marketing aims achieved,
the project was not renewed for 2004 and Lloyd
once again returned to the drawing board.
Plans to run another manufacturer project at
Le Mans did not come to fruition, but things
looked to have turned a corner with the Jaguar
XKR-S project that he was developing for the
FIA GT3 Championship when he set off on the
fateful trip to Nogaro. Without its patron, Apex
Motorsport existed in a state of flux, before
it was officially folded in ’14.
LEGACY OF A PION E E R
Lloyd’s popularity was widespread across
motorsport and, 10 years on, his loss is still
keenly felt by those who knew him well.
“There is hardly a day that I don’t think
about him,” says Padgham, who remained close
to Lloyd after GTI Engineering folded. “He
was terribly well liked and respected. He was
such a lovely person and a gentle soul – if
anything he was possibly too nice for the
shark’s pool that motor racing is.”
Engine guru Baretzky, who worked closely with
Lloyd on the BTCC effort, remembers him as “an
R I C H A R D L L OY D
“Richard brought
everybody on board;
he was the glue that
pulled it all together”
From left: Wickham
worked closely with
Lloyd on the Audi
and Bentley projects;
the R8C was a flop in
’99; Lloyd’s Jaguar
project was gaining
momentum at the
time of his death
honest, straightforward man” who honoured
commitments to his staff and investors.
“He always tried to keep a reasonable balance
between his possibilities and his dreams so it
didn’t crash the project – that was a speciality
of his,” says Baretzky. “He was very modest, and
always being in a cheap hotel to save the money
to buy parts – that’s how racing should be.”
“He cared about motorsport and he understood
it – the commercial side, the technology side,
the drivers; he had a broad understanding and
he was a good communicator,” adds Palmer.
“He got on with people – I think he would have
been a very good president of the BRDC.”
High praise indeed, but the legacy of Lloyd
extends beyond the manner in which he treated
his colleagues and employees. He was a big-
picture man, yet had an eye for detail that was
second to none, which showed not only in his
high-profile successes, but also in his privateer
Group C days. “At a time when other drivers
couldn’t be bothered, he got the drivers to
write all the things that they thought might be
improved or things that worked really well, after
practice, qualifying and after the race,” says
Stevens. “Jonathan Palmer was very good at
that and so was James Weaver. It was good
because it became the practice of documenting
everything and learning from it.”
Lloyd made painstaking notes in A4 notebooks
he carried around with him, and was frequently
seen wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with the
words ‘Pursuit of Perfection’. His fastidiousness
could at times be frustrating, but was all part
of what made him such a formidable force.
“Richard used to love a remark of Bruce
McLaren’s that ‘racing cars should always be
being worked on’, because the way you make
progress is constantly having new ideas,” adds
Stevens. “If it’s sitting around the garage
and the guy is just polishing it, then you’re
not trying hard enough.” ■
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 1 9
 L O L A
N OT J U ST A N A M E
F R O M T H E PAST
It may not have produced a new car for several years,
but the famous British firm is still involved in
motorsport and is looking to do even more
BY K E V I N
ola is one of Britain’s
L
most famous racing-car
constructors and has scored
countless successes in a
variety of categories around
the world, but it is also seen
by some as being of the past. That’s perhaps
unsurprising as in 2012, Lola Group Holdings
Limited placed two of its subsidiaries into
administration: Lola Composites Limited
was sold and now continues to trade as
Forward Composites Limited; while Lola Cars
International Limited didn’t find a buyer
and ceased trading. But that wasn’t the
end of Lola’s motorsport involvement.
The commercially available Technology
Centre – owned and operated by Wind Tunnel
Developments Limited – continued, and
remains one of the most advanced facilities in
the world. Multimatic Motorsports recently
used it for its 2018 Daytona Prototype
International Mazda RT24-P project, and
there have been many other manufacturers
through the facility in the past five years.
Key to the site is the windtunnel, originally
built as an aerospace facility by BAE Systems,
with which BAE was involved in such cutting-
2 0 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com
T U R N E R
edge projects as TSR2, Concorde and the
Eurofighter. Lola bought it and transferred it
to the current Huntingdon site in pieces before
commencing a multi-million-pound conversion
into an automotive tunnel.
New control systems and the rolling road
were among the changes to make it suitable
for motorsport and automotive applications,
putting Lola’s facility on a par with the best
available to F1 teams in terms of its capability.
The tunnel was part of Martin Birrane’s
initial investment to revive Lola when he
bought founder Eric Broadley’s ailing
concern in 1997. “When I took Lola over
it was on life support and I had to do
something major,” recalls Birrane. “The
windtunnel, seven-post rig and Technology
Centre was part of that investment. I put
a huge amount of effort and investment
in and it all came together really well.”
Chris Saunders, formerly of Williams,
Red Bull and McLaren, led the design work
on the 50% tunnel and is still involved today.
Birrane’s investment continued over the years
and extra elements have been added.
The Lola Technology Centre serviced Lola
Cars and other clients during the 2000s.
 L O L A’ S W I N DT U N N E L

“We’ve not had

ALECK/LAT
anything out of
the tunnel that’s
not worked on
the race track”

It played a key part in From left: Lola is would be too expensive to build a facility this
the development of its ready for another big way now, as different construction methods
own B98/10 sports- sportscar project; with thinner-gauge materials tend to be used.
prototype, which was Birrane saved Lola On that basis, the Lola windtunnel has certain
and is now ready
the first in a line of advantages over more-recent installations.
to sell; Lola has
successful Le Mans As well as its excellent correlation – “We’ve
expanded into other
machines, culminating areas – this is a scale not had anything out of the tunnel that’s not
in the Lola-Aston model of a thruster worked on the track,” reckons Saunders – the
Martin B09/60 that for the Hybrid Air windtunnel is capable of excellent repeatability.
won the Le Mans Vehicle; Current In general, that’s because of the quality of the
Series title in 2009. facility helped measurement systems, but another plus is that
Other successes Lola dominate so many factors are tightly controlled during
included Lola’s Champ in Champ Car the run. It also has a turntable, so models can be
Car programme, which put at various yaw angles to simulate cornering
ultimately took back and crosswinds, another attribute not all F1
control of the category from Reynard. Many windtunnels can offer.
others, such as Bentley’s Le Mans project, MG’s There’s also a seven-post vehicle-dynamic
ZS British Touring Car, A1GP, F3 and Formula test rig, so chassis and suspension settings
Nippon were also developed in the facility. can be worked on. The Technology Centre
Lola also got as far as initial designs and a is not just about aerodynamics.
windtunnel model for then- FIA president Max Perhaps unsurprisingly, companies outside
Mosley’s low-cost F1 concept at the end of the of motorsport have seen the benefits and used
last decade. Saunders adds that “half the F1 the LTC, including Scania Trucks, Airbus
grid have been here over the years and, when and manufacturers of military drones.
the facility opened in 1999, Toyota commenced But Birrane believes the facility should do
its F1 development contracting for 50% of the even more, so it is now for sale and, if the right
tunnel time for its first two and a half years”. buyer comes along, he believes that could lead
By 2012, Lola Cars was in trouble again, but to a return of the Lola name to race tracks.
the LTC remained a strong asset. “We couldn’t “We want to increase its profile, as people
support the car-making anymore, we’d been don’t know we’re still operating,” says
through a tsunami of economic issues,” says Birrane, who still owns the Lola brand and
Birrane. “People couldn’t afford to go racing the intellectual property. “We would like to
and were going to spec cars. It was a feature create more awareness in people’s minds.”
of the economic problems and Lola was “The tunnel served Lola well, and we
costing my other businesses. believe there is an opportunity for a Formula 1
“I’ve visited other windtunnels, and we or sportscar team to buy the facility and
have one of the best-constructed in the use it successfully. We would like to get a
industry. I set out to build the best one manufacturer to take it on as it’s ready and
for Lola, and that’s why we get such good fully prepared for some exciting projects.
tunnel-to-track correlation.” “The Lola brand name could be available if
Part of this is due to the original civil someone wanted to buy the Technology Centre
engineering and sizeable foundations, which along with the name. It is important to me that
have a huge steel frame and concrete piled 10 the Lola legacy lives on in motorsport, and I
metres into the ground. Saunders believes it want to ensure it continues in the right hands.” ■

autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 2 1

 T H E S E C R E TS
B E H I N D M A H I N D R A’ S
From midfield anonymity in season one, the Indian squad has risen
to become the top powertrain manufacturer in Formula E
s Formula E welcomes big
A
name after big name into
the electric single-seater-
racing fold, it continues
to build towards one of
motorsport’s greatest-ever
fights. Jaguar, Renault (soon to be Nissan)
and Audi are already in, as is Citroen sister
brand DS. BMW is coming properly next
season, Porsche and Mercedes the year after.
Arguing over who has the early edge is a
fascinating exercise because everybody can make
a case for being the favourite. Renault e.dams has
been the frontrunner since FE’s powertrain war
began in 2015-16 and has serious electric-vehicle
knowledge from its Renault and Nissan road-car
ranges. Jaguar is pouring resources at FE and
using a Williams Advanced Engineering tie-up.
Audi has been unreliable this season with its
first attempt at an all-electric package, but
its pace is second to none and LMP1-hybrid
successes in the recent past show it knows how
to master complex tech. Mercedes’ Formula 1
record speaks for itself, ditto Porsche after
dethroning Audi at the Le Mans 24 Hours
2 2 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com
BY S C OT T M I TC H E L L
and in the World Endurance Championship.
So, which manufacturer is stealing a march?
Which manufacturer is perfectly toeing that
fine line between a potent electric racing car
and an efficient one? Which manufacturer
is, right now, the benchmark for that special
blend of quality tech and top-level race team?
It’s Mahindra. Who? Yes, Mahindra. The
enormous Indian manufacturer that is not
really known to Europeans beyond a Moto3
motorcycle racing team.
The beautiful thing about FE is that nobody
has the answer just yet, so no manufacturer
has picked up the ball and run away with it.
It’s a complex-technology formula married to
racing’s most fundamental principles, then
thrown onto bumpy, mostly unraced street
circuits. That makes it easy for either big
manufacturers, teams or drivers to get caught
out, or for an unfancied operation to nip ahead
because it’s done a better job across the board.
Right now, Mahindra is the best of the
powertrain manufacturers. And that’s not just
opinion: though its star driver Felix Rosenqvist
trails Renault customer-team driver Jean-Eric
FERRARO/LAT
R I S E
Vergne in the points, and Vergne’s Techeetah
squad leads the teams’ fight, Mahindra is the
best of those in charge of its own components.
“I think it’s very refreshing because
motorsport has a lot of deep roots, traditions,
and especially those manufacturers that you
were talking about and some others,” says
Rosenqvist. “You know they’ve always been
doing things one way, it’s the same people
involved – it’s like, it’s all been made so
many times. With Mahindra we’re sort of
breaking new ground every race we go to.”
Mahindra has come a long way from
an inaugural season that could politely be
described as ‘imperfect’. Despite being run
by Carlin, as slick a racing operation as you’ll
likely find outside F1, Mahindra finished eighth
in the teams’ championship and racked up
more non-scores than any team except the
woeful Trulli operation. Ahead of season two
it split with Carlin, took on more engineering
responsibility and brought in Adrian Campos’s
team to run its M2ELECTROs. Team principal
Dilbagh Gill describes it as “structuring
ourselves towards being a small start-up
“It was clear that we
were going to make
mistakes that were
then corrected”
Clockwise from
left: Senna had a
tough time in season
one; current team-
mates Heidfeld and
Rosenqvist have a
good relationship;
Rosenqvist leads
from pole in Montreal;
the Super Swede
celebrates in Berlin
 M A H I N D R A’ S R I S E
S BLOXHAM/LAT/FORMULA E

LUNDIN/LAT/FORMULA E

technology company, rather than a race team”.

FERRARO/LAT/FORMULA E

“It was clear that we were going to make

mistakes that were then corrected,” he says.
“The key to that is to bring in people who
have had good experiences. We’ve been
successful in helping the service providers to
work together; we are all working in the same
direction and that makes a big difference.”
A key weapon in that “service-provider”
arsenal has been a small company based in
Oxfordshire: Rockfort Engineering. Rockfort
is led by electrical and electronic engineering
graduate Angus Lyon, who was recruited by
Mahindra to be its head of powertrain. Lyon is
a veteran of Formula 1 and LMP1 competition,
a man fuelled by the prospect of a technological
challenge, so FE fits him and his company –
which specialises in systems and software
design – like a glove.
“Mahindra is a very forward-looking company
and provides good backing and support to
our efforts,” says Lyon, who worked at BAR
and Lotus before founding Rockfort in 2013.
“They’re extremely enthusiastic about and
recognise the merits of keeping the team
a tight-knit, well-oiled machine with
very good people in it.”
Lyon’s off-track responsibilities include
being in charge of the overall architecture
of the powertrain, “through from wiring to
all software systems as well as quite a lot of
simulation work, to being part of the team
researching and identifying the technologies
and layouts for the coming seasons”. That put
him right at the centre of Mahindra’s move
into becoming a powertrain manufacturer
for 2015-16 and beyond.
Mainly prompted by a short lead time,
Mahindra’s first attempt at a powertrain was
basic – an adapted four-speed version of both
the spec FE car’s Hewland gearbox and the
McLaren motor. But it worked. Mahindra rose
to fifth in the teams’ championship with Nick
Heidfeld and Bruno Senna driving, and scored
points in all but one race (when the injured
Heidfeld was replaced by rookie Oliver Rowland).
To take the next step, Mahindra needs to
think bigger. “I don’t have any past motorsport

autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 2 3

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MAUGER/LAT/FORMULA E
experience in terms of management,” says Gill.
“I’ve been a manager for a lot of other people,
so I try to go back to my experience in my other
industries and how to best manage the resources
and build a team of strong performers. Everybody
in this company has to be smarter than me.”
What better person to tick that box than Lyon,
someone who has worked with turbocharged V6
hybrids in F1 with Manor and helped develop
an all-electric Le Mans Prototype for Drayson
Racing Technology? Small adaptations of
fundamentally spec components wouldn’t do
for Mahindra’s second powertrain, so Lyon’s
job – aided by Rockfort’s expertise – was to
help Mahindra move away from simply bolting
together a series of off-the-shelf parts, without
making the mistake of taking on in-house
manufacturing and development.
That led to Mahindra moving from McLaren
“They recognise the
merits of keeping the
team a tight-knit,
well-oiled machine”
Clockwise from top left:
Gill has led the team’s
upward trajectory;
Campos took over the
operational running in
season two; Rosenqvist
battled through to win in
Morocco; Lyon (centre)
has been instrumental in
powertrain development
motors to Magneti Marelli and Hewland
gearbox to an Xtrac unit, and what could be
termed the first proper Mahindra powertrain
was thus introduced in 2016-17. Lyon called
it a “very different set-up” and boy, was it
justified. Mahindra finished third in the teams’
championship with a first-ever win, in Berlin,
scored by new signing Rosenqvist. Mahindra
finished just 53 points behind the title-winning
Renault team, while Rosenqvist – who scored
the joint-highest number of poles (three),
alongside Abt Audi driver and eventual
champion Lucas di Grassi – stole third in
the drivers’ championship at the final race.
One of the key strengths was the team’s
improvement over the course of the season,
pointing to two things. First, it had genuinely
learned from its season-one error of letting
development slip. Second, its simulation
S BLOXHAM/LAT/FORMULA E
M A H I N D R A’ S R I S E
MAUGER/LAT/FORMULA E
STALEY/LAT/FORMULA E
tools and process – which Rockfort is a key
part of – were working well.
Still, the story was unfinished. With its first
poles and race win in the bag, Mahindra turned
its attention to the big prize: Gill declared the
title was its “big, fat, hairy, audacious goal”
for the 2017-18 season. Unsurprisingly given
the team’s upwards trajectory, it’s in the mix
to achieve that: Rosenqvist inherited a victory
in race two in Hong Kong, then won again in
Marrakech. That win in Morocco was probably
Mahindra’s crowning glory: a proper victory
earned with supreme race management, and a
testament to the work put in behind the scenes.
After that, a recovery from 14th to fourth in
Santiago leaves Rosenqvist five points from the
summit after four of 12 races; Mahindra lies
two points from the top of the teams’ tree.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time in the
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 2 5
 11078

ABTA No.Y6300

S BLOXHAM/LAT/FORMULA E
M A H I N D R A’ S
N OT- S O - S E C R E T W E A P O N
N I C K H E I D F E L D
A NOT-VERY-FUNNY AND NOT-WIDELY-KNOWN
joke in the Formula E paddock, concocted by
this writer, goes something like this: if Nick
Heidfeld (above) goes as many races in FE
without winning as he had to in Formula 1,
then the electric series will have a brilliant life.  race tracks isn’t possible and the powertrains are
That observation is rooted in Heidfeld’s
spectacular Nico Prost-inflicted final-corner
crash in the very first FE race, which sent
Heidfeld spiralling into the catch-fencing and
cost him victory (though fortunately nothing
more). Since then the serious-but-affable
German has put the record straight to some
degree, climbing onto the podium eight times
– but never higher than the bottom step.  and go for it, then deal with the consequences.  quickly become the present – dropping the
Heidfeld’s inaugural FE campaign was with
Venturi, but he joined Mahindra for season
two. It’s no coincidence that Mahindra’s rise
has run parallel to Heidfeld’s time with the
team. He has been credited by Mahindra boss
Dilbagh Gill and team-mate Felix Rosenqvist
for the team’s progress this season, with his
experience and feedback crucial in the Indian-
owned operation’s steady development.
“He brings so much knowledge,” Gill says,
and that’s a key part of the equation. Heidfeld, a
veteran of 183 grands prix, is a potent weapon for
an FE team to have. The cost-saving measures the
championship employs mean 15 pre-season test
days. In this time, the team must validate
powertrain design, experiment with software
and also, crucially, work on the car set-up –
particularly the rear suspension, over which
teams have freedom. Any time lost is crucial
because FE’s inner-city ethos means testing at
homologated long before the start of the season.
What you end pre-season testing with is
pretty much what you have for the entire
campaign, give or take software adjustments.
This is reinforced by the one-day format
employed for most events, which means a
compact schedule and little time between
sessions: you need to pick a direction quickly
This means that a steady, experienced
driver like Heidfeld keeps Mahindra focused
on what matters. His feedback is reliable and
sharp, and he is extremely motivated. Perhaps
steady is unfair – Heidfeld is a real driving force,
joking in his second season in the team that he
was already annoying people by always asking
for more. Such is the way of a driver who spent
so long in the confines of F1…
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for me to work with
Nick, it couldn’t be better,” says Rosenqvist, the
more-high-profile star of Mahindra’s rise. “He has
incredible experience, develops the car a lot and
knows the limit between pushing people all the
time and not being happy with what you have.”
M A H I N D R A’ S R I S E
workshop and you see the hours they put
in, which is impressive,” says Rosenqvist.
“There was this fear that Audi would be
blowing everyone away, everyone was talking
them up a lot before the season and naturally
you become a bit wary. You obviously push
your own guys to be like, ‘Let’s put in the
second gear because people are pushing now.’”
Despite the considerable success already,
perhaps that final Rosenqvist point is what’s
most impressive about Mahindra. It would be
very easy for a successful underdog to get carried
away by present successes, and take an eye
off the immensely challenging future that will
ball like it did in the first season.
Rockfort will continue to be an important part
of that: its expertise in batteries and electronic
control systems has already been well utilised,
but its understanding in areas such as brake-
by-wire has remained untapped. This could
be another string to Mahindra’s bow soon,
for brake-by-wire is set to be introduced
into FE for the first time next season.
To say Mahindra is simply an underdog
defiantly succeeding in the face of racing’s
biggest names would do it a disservice. It’s
more than that. Mahindra is a proper race team
that’s beating established manufacturers time
and time again. And it’s doing so on merit. ■
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 2 7
 P I N I N FA R I N A’ S
U N R AC E D R E VO L U T I O N A RY
An unloved F1 project caught the eye during a recent visit to the Italian design specialist.
Although it never raced, the Sigma was a glimpse into a better, safer future
BY TO M E R R I N G TO N

osting futuristic hypercars comprehensive, a quick glance around to the the slipstreaming spectacular at Monza a year

H
born of collaborations with
Alfa Romeo and Ferrari, as
well as iconic cars of the
Italian heavyweights from
the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s to
celebrate its 80th anniversary, Pininfarina’s
museum highlights all the best work of a
design powerhouse. Oddly, right at the back,
it’s also home to a bizarre Formula 1 car. Ask
around, and few can tell you much about it.
While the biographies of its road cars are
side of its exposed V12 tells an observer its
name, ‘Sigma’, but little else. As it transpires,
several of the advances the Sigma brought were
well ahead of their time, to the point that some
safety innovations did not appear in F1 until the
1970s. Odd, considering it came in the context
of F1’s long-running battle with, or more
accurately against, safety in the ’60s.
That period resonates with an extract from
Jackie Stewart’s autobiography, and it’s not
the famous Nurburgring victory of 1968,
later or the highs and lows of his Tyrrell days.
It’s his crash at Spa in ’66.
Caught out by a pool of water at 170mph, his
BRM hit a telegraph pole and landed upside down
in a ditch with a ruptured fuel tank. Amazingly,
Stewart was unharmed, having been a spark
away from being stuck in a car on fire in a period
of F1 that was incompetent in its attempts to
prevent such calamities. It was a turning point
for the Scot, who afterwards campaigned
vociferously to improve safety measures.

Pininfarina used the unraced Sigma

F1 project as the inspiration for
its new hydrogen-powered H2

One year later at the Monaco Grand Prix,
Lorenzo Bandini was not so lucky after his
Ferrari crashed at the chicane and burst into
flames. Bandini died in hospital three days
later as a result of the burns he suffered
while trapped underneath the car.
It was another needless fatality, and there
would be one for every eight races in the 1960s.
While Stewart continued his campaign, an
unlikely source in Italy decided to do something
about it. It probably wasn’t Ferrari, but it
certainly utilised a relationship with the F1
P I N I N FA R I N A
heavyweight. Instead, it was renowned design
house Pininfarina that took on F1’s safety issues.
So Ferrari came to Pininfarina’s Turin base in
1968, allegedly at the behest of il Commendatore
Enzo, who had had enough of F1’s lack of safety.
And it came in pieces, in the form of the 312 F1
car. Pininfarina was given its 400bhp V12, the
bare chassis, a five-speed gearbox, a pedal and
four wheels. Pininfarina was essentially given
a Tamiya model kit and told to build an F1 car.
Considering that Pininfarina did not have a
single employee with F1 experience, it was as
S I G M A
From left: Sigma
combined futuristic
design with safety
features that were
ahead of their time
if Ferrari had lent back over and pinched the
manual too. Now it had to build a car that would
redefine safety standards going into the 1970s.
How much the FIA and rival teams knew
of this is disputed by various people involved
in the project, but what is clear is that Swiss
magazine Revue Automobile was central to
the project and involved throughout.
Paolo Martin, who became known for
designing the Ferrari Modulo concept car, was
tasked with the design and build of the Sigma.
It was his first and only ‘racing’ experience.
“I had never seen an F1 race before,” says
Martin. “I invented everything. For me, it was
a real test to perform at their best in which
personal and company pride was at stake.”
Martin disputes any claims of help with
the project outside of Teo Page, tasked with
putting together Martin’s designs, but the
project was overseen by Sergio Pininfarina,
Revue Automobile’s Robert Braunschweig and
journalist/racing driver Paul Frere, as well as Dr
Ernst Fiala from Berlin’s Polytechnic University.
“This team started working on the Ferrari
base in 1968 and they made a safety concept
car, the Sigma,” explains Sergio’s son, Paolo.
“It comes from the ‘S’, the Greek S, for safety.”
The origin of the car’s name is one of the
simpler facts to determine in a story that’s
never fully been told outside of Martin’s own
book – which is only one, contested, viewpoint.
But what is clear is that Pininfarina’s innovation,
at that period, was well in advance of its time.
“[With] the features of the Sigma Grand Prix,
I counted five important things,” says
Pininfarina. “Actually, I’m not sure if all
these things were really put 100% in F1.”
Some of its ideas, consigned to history, were
clever. The Sigma’s bright green-and-white
livery was fluorescent to help rivals see it in low
visibility, an idea not picked up by F1. And there
was a rear light to help identify cars in the fog.
But the key advance, particularly in the
context of the 1960s, was the system to
contain the spread of fire. Graviner, an English
engineering company that specialised in such
systems for aviation and nautical applications,
developed a process using sprinklers that
reacted to crashes and included warning
lights for the driver if a fire started.
Combined with bodywork that allowed for
greater absorption and dissipation of energy
in a crash, it was a remarkable upgrade on the
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 2 9

flimsy contemporary F1 cars that prioritised
performance over safety. The Sigma even
included a ‘survival space’, an early attempt
at the now standard survival cell.
“What was most important was the side-
impact absorption with energy dissipation and
fuel tanks [that were] self-extinguishing; this
was the most important item because it is why
Bandini died,” explains Pininfarina. “The tanks
were separated by the body, they were not near
the frame, but separated in space to absorb the
shock. This was an improvement, I don’t think
the real F1 cars adopted 100% this patent, but
they were modified following that direction.
“Niki Lauda’s accident was on August 1 1976,
seven years later [from the Sigma’s birth], again
in a fire. The fuel tanks [of the ’70s] were not
so safe, but safer than the ’60s.”
The Sigma’s focus was certainly fixed on
ensuring that crashes did not escalate, but it also
included a rear wing that married Pininfarina’s
obsession with “lines” and aerodynamics with
The Sigma was massively
overweight and fell outside
contemporary regulations
P I N I N FA R I N A
the goal of stopping an Above, left:
F1 car from rolling over Bandini’s fatal
and trapping its occupant. crash at Monaco
Nineteen years before road was catalyst
for change.
cars were mandated to use
Above, right:
seatbelts in Italy, the Sigma
Pininfarina built
had a seven-point safety a survival cell
harness to minimise into donated
injuries in a crash. 312 chassis
Martin believes that
several features were
adopted in motorsport as a consequence in the
1970s: “The idea of the safety with the helmet
[the Sigma’s harness included better protection
for a driver’s head], the external tanks and the
fire-fighting system were used.”
Those “five important things” that Pininfarina
mentioned were not the only part of the Sigma’s
legacy. The design boss says the car was
discussed by drivers in period (Pininfarina
spoke to Emerson Fittipaldi when the pair met
last year to discuss a hypercar collaboration
bearing the two-time F1 world champion’s name).
“It [the Sigma] was a strong effort by a group
of competent people, and it very much got the
attention of the drivers,” says Pininfarina.
“There was a safety campaign led by Jackie
Stewart, there was a safety committee with the
drivers. I know this as I met Emerson Fittipaldi
in person, he told me the [Sigma] is fantastic
and that they remember the project.
“They had considered it very much because
there was a lot of sentiment and sensibility
about the safety issue, and so they made the
committee about safety, because F1 in the
1960s and early ’70s was really unsafe.”
The Sigma being talked about in drivers’
meetings was about as close as Pininfarina
would get to an F1 track, outside of the
company’s name being emblazoned on the
skirts of Niki Lauda’s Ferrari between 1975
and ’77, as it was not even remotely close
to contemporary F1 regulations.
“It was absolutely not legal, being out of all the
regulations of the time,” confirms Martin. “It’s
one of the few things all of the Sigma’s key players
agree on, along with one lingering regret…”
“I regret a little bit that the car is very close
S I G M A
to [being able to] run,” adds Pininfarina.
“The project is solid and the powertrain and
the electronics are not so complicated, so even
to a good mechanic who knows F1 of the 1970s,
I think it could run. It is possible.
“The car is more of a space object on four
wheels; that’s more linked to the Ferrari team,
it’s got the engine, the chassis and so on.”
Martin says: “The Sigma has never been
driven. Ferrari was not interested in the project.”
Instead, it has lived in the museum as a
byproduct of another age, as Pininfarina moved
its attention to assisting Ferrari’s F1 programme
in the 1970s. The company is proud of its small
role in Lauda’s titles, after Pininfarina and
Ferrari personnel worked together in the
“It’s more of a space
object on four wheels”
company’s windtunnel in Turin.
As far as Pininfarina himself is concerned,
the car has a legacy in the modern era: the
company’s new hydrogen-powered racing car,
the H2, which it hopes will inspire the next
chapter of motorsport.
“We took some inspiration with the H2,
which is a completely different story,” he says.
“We took inspiration for racing of the future,
that is new and very advanced.
“We made it in white, with the same colour
as the Sigma to celebrate at the Geneva Show
and celebrate the collaboration with our Swiss
friends at Revue Automobile in the 1960s.
“I think the [Sigma] will become more popular
in the future. It’s a very intelligent car and a
positive for the future. The world changes all
the time, but it is important to remember that
Pininfarina has always been attracted by the
work of racing. The Sigma Grand Prix is a
maestro in the story of racing.”
Shame, then, that so few will see it tucked
away among a collection of road cars, and
even fewer know its story. ■
autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 3 1
 TEE/LAT

ETHERINGTON/LAT
B I O M E T R I C G L OV E S
S I G NALLI N G TH E F UTU R E

The halo has been one of the major talking points of the
off-season, but there’s another new safety innovation
on the scene that has gone under the radar
BY P H I L L I P H O R TO N

ormula 1’s relentless safety

F
drive has prioritised head
protection in recent years,
with the controversial
halo capturing most of
the attention for its visual
impact. Yet tucked away in a driver’s hands is
a device that could prove just as important, as
biometric gloves are rolled out in F1 for 2018.
Inside each driver’s gloves this year
will be a 3mm-thick sensor and 23g device
measuring vital signs that is capable of
sending information over a 500-metre radius.
The gloves are the brainchild of Formula 1’s
deputy medical delegate Dr Ian Roberts and
medical car driver Alan van der Merwe,
co-founders of Signal Biometrics.
Van der Merwe has been piloting the
medical car at grands prix for almost a
decade, taking up the position after a racing
career that culminated in the 2003 British F3
title and a test role at BAR-Honda. With the
FIA striving to improve access to the correct
medical information, van der Merwe and
Roberts took it upon themselves to pioneer
the product that will feature in 2018.
“We’ve seen for the past five or six years a
demand from the FIA to do some kind of driver
monitoring from a safety and rescue point of
view,” explains van der Merwe. “And in those five
or six years we saw a lot of proposals from all
sorts of companies, big and small, a lot of them
nice ideas, exotic things like tattooed sensors,
but we’re actually going to be some of the
primary end users of whatever is implemented.”
Deciding some of the concepts put forward
were “either too complex or too expensive”,
van der Merwe and Roberts decided to move
ahead with one of their own, which has passed
the FIA’s fire safety tests and was trialled
successfully at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
With support from the FIA and the Global
Institute, data measuring for safety purposes
has been enhanced in recent years, as seen by
the introduction of in-ear accelerometers that
record head movement in high-speed impacts.
However, Signal Biometrics ultimately opted
for the hand, pointing to superior reliability

3 2 AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING autosport.com

 S I G N A L B I O M E T R I C S
DUNBAR/LAT

TEE/LAT
From left: Lewis
Hamilton is retrieved
by the medical car after
an off at Hockenheim
in 2014; van der Merwe
and Roberts created
the biometric glove
concept; innovation
will aid medical crews
in cases such as Sainz’s
’15 crash in Russia

and more accurate feedback.
“The ear is a tempting site to do everything;
for performance monitoring we think it’s a good
site,” says van der Merwe. “[In accidents] 99%
of the time the driver is absolutely fine, but less
than once a season Ian and I find somebody that
is in real need of medical care, so we wanted to
make something that works not 99% of the
time, but for that one rare case where the
driver has had a large impact.”
In such instances, van der Merwe explains,
“the helmet and the headrest and other safety
systems have done their job, but our [in-ear]
sensor has either been destroyed or knocked
out of their ear. That’s how we chose the
hand – we wanted to make something
that was going to be easily located.
“In the event of an accident, we believe
that this is the best site to start with because
– and this is purely anecdotal evidence as we
don’t record these kinds of things, although
we’ll probably start – we know the gloves are
always where they should be when we get to
a driver. We can’t say the same for earpieces
and other things on other parts of the body.”
The glove will measure pulse oximetry –
the oxygen in the blood – which while not a
game changer in data recording, will at least
have a positive influence when responding to
those fortunately-rare serious accidents in F1.
Van der Merwe cites Carlos Sainz Jr’s 2015
Russian Grand Prix practice crash as the primary
case study. Sainz impacted the wall head-on at
153km/h, with the first layer of barriers coming
to a rest on top of him. In the immediate
aftermath, his precise condition was unknown.
“It’s another piece of information that’ll allow
you to make decisions based on data, rather than
just instinct or experience,” says van der Merwe.
“When we got there, we had to make a decision
either to work very quickly but with a high risk
– number one to Carlos and number two to the
rescue workers, as there’s a few hundred kilos of
plastic TecPro barriers balanced on the car – or
if you’re confident the driver is absolutely fine
under there, you’ll take your time and work
methodically rather than just pulling the car
out and risk injuring a perfectly fine driver.”
The real-time data gathered from Signal’s
biometric gloves will initially remain exclusive to
the FIA, although teams can download the data
upon the driver’s return to the garage, enabling
them to make performance-based assessments.
The glove will also trickle down into other
FIA-sanctioned series in the future, with van
der Merwe stressing that “bang for your buck”
was an important factor in the development
process, since teams are covering the cost of the
device. That development process is ongoing,
with the ever-evolving motorsport environment
demanding continuous gains and understanding.
“Things will get smaller, that’s just the
nature of technology,” says van der Merwe
on the current research. “We already have
a version that will be available later and is
already smaller. Weight is a big thing, and
currently the device comes in at 23g, which
for a monitor that is essentially a clinical
monitor is extremely light, but for F1 teams
if you could make it 0g, that’s the target!”
The past 20 years have resulted in
monumental strides in safety advancements
in F1, to the point where the FIA is searching
for “tiny incremental improvements”, as van
der Merwe puts it. But in having another sensor
that can make decisions data-driven rather
than instinct-based, the push for safety has
taken another step in the right direction. ■

B I O M E T R I C F O R E R U N N E R S : AV L R AC I N G

WHILE SIGNAL’S BIOMETRIC to the driver’s upper body thus improving speed of
BARTKOWIAK/LAT

gloves will feature in Formula 1
this year, driver monitoring for
both medical and performance
assessment has been around for
several years in different forms.
Austrian company AVL RACING
has manufactured its patented
real-time driver condition-
monitoring system since 2013,
enabling physical and mental
wellbeing to be tracked.
The 70g device is attached
by three electrodes and
allows the pulse, heart-rate
variability, functionality of
the nervous system and
driver’s pulse-breathing
quotient to be observed.
Much like the Signal
Biometrics glove, data can
be accessed in the event of
an accident, allowing a quicker
and more accurate evaluation
of the driver’s condition and
treatment and prognosis.
AVL RACING’s device also
means that any abnormalities in
racing situations are picked up –
such as a spike in heart rate –
enabling specific incidents to be
analysed, giving drivers a larger
scope for self-improvement.
Among the drivers to use
the system is Formula 3 racer
Ferdinand Habsburg (left), who
is an ambassador for AVL RACING.

autosport.com AU TOSPOR T E NGINEERING 3 3

 H O W TO
B E A N AC E
E N G I N E E R

Speedworks Motorsport boss

Christian Dick shares his tips
BY M AT T JA M E S

inning the British Touring Car

W
Championship’s Independents
Trophy with Tom Ingram
in 2017 marked the latest
staging post in Speedworks
Motorsport’s upward
trajectory. Since joining the BTCC in 2011, team
boss Christian Dick has overseen the growth of
the operation, which has engineering at its heart.
Experienced engineer Geoff Kingston guided
Ingram to his four overall wins last season.
And while Kingston has now left the team, Dick
has promoted from within. Thirty-year-old

Spencer Aldridge will step up as Speedworks
and Ingram go for overall honours with
their Toyota Avensis in 2018.
Dick says that any aspiring engineer
should take a leaf from Aldridge’s book
if they want to succeed.
“Spencer has been with me since he was at
school,” he says. “He has had a long-standing
commitment to the sport, and he is interested
in every aspect of it. From working in the
fabrications shop, checking the nuts and bolts or
even stripping down the dampers and rebuilding
them, he knows how to do everything. He has a
ground-up knowledge of the car and worked with
Geoff last season. He is ready for the step up.”
As Dick explains, passion is a valuable quality,
and Aldridge’s interest in all aspects of the car
and its operation has helped him to reach
the position he now holds.
“Back in the days of Super Touring, there
would be gearbox engineers, damper engineers,
suspension engineers and all sorts – that doesn’t
happen these days, so engineers need to have a
broad knowledge across everything,” he says.
While there is limited scope for myriad
engineers within a series like the British Touring
Car Championship, with its limited budgets,
there are two differing roles that are vital
for a crew to be successful.
“In the modern BTCC, the top guys will all
have a race engineer and a data engineer too,”
says Dick. “The data engineer will monitor all
of the channels coming from the car, will be
looking for any anomalies and also interprets
what the driver wants. For example, if a driver is
trying to decide between taking a corner in third
EBREY/LAT
or fourth gear, the data engineer will go through
the traces and tell the driver exactly what is best.
If you asked a race engineer to do that, they
simply wouldn’t have the time to do all the tasks
they need to, so there is a split role there.”
Dick says that one of the vital skills for
any engineer – data or otherwise – is the
ability to communicate and relate to the
driver. The strength of this relationship
can make or break a season.
“The length of the relationship can help that
process,” says Dick, a successful driver in his
own right. “I am lucky in that I was a driver and
I have engineered too, so I can sit in on meetings
and have an input. The longer you are together,
the more these things can become intuitive.” ■

Independents champion Ingram

hopes to launch a challenge TO P T I P S
for the overall crown
F O R E N G I N E E R S

■ Start at the bottom ■ Work with other

and work your way members of the team
through aspects to build up a clear
of running the car picture of how the
to learn as much car is working
as possible ■ Try to build a
■ Learn to long-term relationship
communicate to get the best results
what you know ■ Stay as motivated
in a clear and
EBREY/LAT

and as hungry as
simple way the driver

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