Formula One Racing Car Technologies

SEMINAR REPORT
On

Formula One Racing car Technologies

Undertaken at

PESIT, Bangalore
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
In

Mechanical
Submitted by

Manish Sanil 1PI04ME050

Under the guidance of
Internal Guide Mr. Vinay C.Hedge Dept. of ME PESIT Bangalore HOD Dr. K. Narasimha Murthy Dept. of ME PESIT Bangalore

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 1

Formula One Racing Car Technologies PES INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BANGALORE 560085 JAN JUNE 2009

VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

PES Institute of Technology Bangalore

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the seminar titled

Formula One Racing Car Technologies

has been successfully completed by Manish Sanil 1PI04ME050 at PESIT, Bangalore

in partial fulfillment for the award of degree in Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 2

Formula One Racing Car Technologies Bachelor of Engineering in MECHANICAL Of Visweswaraiah Technological University during the session Jan June 2009

Internal Guide Mr. Vinay C.Hedge Dept. of ME PESIT

HOD Dr. K. Narasimha Murthy Dept. of ME PESIT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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Formula One Racing Car Technologies

The satisfaction and euphoria that accompany the successful completion of any task would be incomplete without the mention of the people who made it possible because it is the epitome of hard work, perseverance, undeterred missionary zeal, steadfast determination, unperturbed concentration, dedication and most of all encouraging guidance. So with gratitude I acknowledge all those whose guidance and encouragement served as a Beacon Light and crowned my effort with success.

I consider myself fortunate for having had Mr. Vinay C.Hedge as my internal guidance who provided valuable support and guidance to make this seminar a success.

Im grateful to the Head of Department, Mechanical, Dr. K. Narasimha Murthy for being a source of inspiration and support.

Last but not the least, the seminar would not have been a success without the support of parents and friends.

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Formula One Racing Car Technologies

Developments Throughout The History of Formula One Racing

F1 Origins:
The modern era of Formula One (F1) Grand Prix racing began in 1950, but the roots of F1 trace back to the pioneering road races in France in the 1890s. At the birth of racing, cars were upright and heavy, roads were tarred with sand or wood, reliability was problematic, drivers were accompanied by mechanics, and races usually on public roads from town to town were impossibly long by modern standards. The first proper motor race, staged way back in 1895, was that between the cities of Paris and Bordeaux and the distance between them was 1,200 km.

In 1908, the Targa Florio in Sicily saw the appearance of pits, shallow emplacements dug by the side of the track, where mechanics could labour with the detachable rims on early GP car tires. In 1914, the massive 4 liter Mercedes of Daimler-Benz dominated the French Grand Prix at Lyons 20 laps of a 23.3-mile circuit taking the first three places and introducing control of drivers by signal from the pits. After this, the Italian racing car manufacturers (like Bugatti and Fiat) dominated for more than a decade. But the great depression of 1930 led to lack of finances and henceforth, a lack of interest in car racing. In 1934, the balance of power in racing would begin to shift from Italy to Germany, with the emergence of factory teams from Auto Union (now Audi) and Mercedes-Benz, behind massive financial support from the Third Reich government on orders from Adolph Hitler. These powerful and beautiful German machines introduced aerodynamics into Grand Prix car design and ran on exotic, secret fuel brews.

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The Early Years

Motor racing after World War II initiated a new formula originally called Formula A but soon to be known as Formula 1 for cars of 1,500 cc supercharged and 4,500 cc unsupercharged. The minimum race distance was reduced from 500 km (311 miles) to 300 km (186 miles), allowing the Monace Grand Prix to be reintroduced after a two-year interval in 1950. The Federation Internationale de lAutomobile (FIA) announced plans for a World Championship at a meeting held that year.

The British Era

During the 60s and early 70s, a series of dominant British Grand Prix teams arrived, making British racing green the official color of F1 for more than a decade and ushering in an era of British F1 engineering excellence that extends to today. It all started in 1959-60 with the Cooper team using a 2,500 cc Coventry Climax engine and a revolutionary rear-engine design that captured back-to-back F1 titles for Jack Brabham with a combination of superb weight distribution and handling. Yet it was Colin Chapmans Team Lotus, pushed by his technical brilliance, which dominated the second decade of Formula One. The most important technical advancement was the monocoque (or one-piece) chassis, introduced with the Lotus 25 in 1962, which along with rear engines marked the second watershed technological change in Formula One.

Wings, Shunts and Ground Effects

Formula One technology developed at a furious pace in the 1970s and early 1980s, as F1 designers mastered the art of making airflow work to produce down force. The introduction of wings (or aero foils) was made mid-way during the 1968 season. Borrowed from Jim Halls revolutionary Can-Am Chaparral, wings allowed for the creation of down force, pinning cars to the track for greater traction and vastly increased cornering speed. Although the Cosworth engine was by now ubiquitous in F1, the Lotus 72 with its distinctive shovel nose and nose wings was significantly faster.

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Formula One Racing Car Technologies Ferrari returned to the forefront of F1 in 1975 with the flat-12 powered 312T and drivers Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni. Formula One cars now sported huge air boxes behind the cockpits to increase air flow to the engine, leading the way (after a short experiment with the famous six-wheel Tyrell P34, which was a front-runner throughout 1976) to the next major technical revolution in F1: ground effects. Formula One engineers, now referred to as designers, had been steadily working on aerodynamics for more than a decade. The zenith of the art may have been reached in 1978 with the ground effects Lotus 78/79. Ground effects turned the entire car into a large, inverted wing, using side skirts and underbody design to literally glue the car to the circuit. Mario Andretti who took the Lotus to the championship in 1978, explained that ground effects made the race car feel like its painted to the road. Despite their advances, ground effects had a problem, namely that slight miscalculations in set-up would render the ground-effect F1 car undriveable and wickedly unstable. The need to keep ground clearances extremely low led to rigidly sprung, rock-hard cars with virtually no ride height tolerance and little if any ability to handle bumps and curbs. Something really terrible, unnatural and unpredictable would happen if the airflow beneath the car were disrupted for one reason or another. Hence, due to these reasons and also in an effort to bring more driver control and skill to F1, ground effects first the skirts (along with six-wheeled and four-wheel drive cars) in 1981, and then underbody venture tunnels in 1983 were finally banned from Formula One car racing, which brought a premature end to an era.

The Turbo Era

The relatively brief reign of turbocharged engines in F1 witnesses some of the greatest raw horsepower ever unleashed on the famous circuits, coupled with personal rivalries among champions that continue to affect the sport even today. With the benefit of hindsight, one can now say confidently that ground effects were less important to the long-run development of F1 technology than turbo charging although both were introduced initially in the 1977 season, and both eventually banned. While Lotus was developing the groundeffect principle, Renault re-entered Formula One with the turbo RS01, driven by Jean-Pierre Jabouille. The first turbo was remarkably quick, although suffering from turbo lag under acceleration, but very unreliable, and it would be a year before the Renault finished a Grand Prix. The turning point came in 1980, a season in which Alan Jones and Team Williams achieved almost complete domination. While Ferrari had a terrible year, the Scuderia introduce their own turbocharged car at Imola, and Renault won at Interlagos, Kyalami and the Osterreichring. Although Cosworth-powered teams would win the championship in 1981 and 1982, Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 7

Formula One Racing Car Technologies Grand Prix was increasingly dominated by the turbos from 1981 onwards.

The turbo era really began to flower in 1983, when Piquet won his second World Championship by two points this time using a turbocharged BMW power plant and McLaren introduced the TAG-Porsche engine, driven to four chequered flags by runner-up Prost. But 1989 was the swan song for the turbo era, as normally aspirated engines were made mandatory by FIA at the beginning of the 1989 season.

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Aerodynamics
Theory
Aerodynamics is the study of airflow over and around an object, and thus an intrinsic consideration in racing car design. To be quick, a car has to be able to overcome drag (the resistance experienced as it travels forward) and it attempts to do this be presenting the smallest frontal area possible. However, that same car also needs to be able to go around corners and this presents a differing set of aerodynamic needs, namely downforce, which is the force harnessed from the airflow over a car that presses it down onto the track.

The simplest inventions are often the best, and never has the role of aerodynamics proved as dramatic as when aerofoil wings burst onto the Grand Prix scene in the late 1960s. These were added in an attempt to provide downforce that gave cars superior traction, and thus made them less likely to spin when being driven around a corner, enabling them to turn at greater speed.

The designers who applied aerofoil werent striking new ground, for the technique had long been harnessed in aviation. However, whereas aeroplanes use their wings to gain lift, the Formula 1 designers wanted the reverse, that is to say negative lift, also known as a downforce. This was attained by fitting an aeroplane wing shape upside down. Seen in profile (fig 2.1), an aerofoil leads with its fat edge, but differs from an aeroplane wing in that the trailing edge curves up to the rear, with the airflow over this helping to force the wing downwards.

However, engineers are always faced with a trade-off between maximum downforce and minimum drag, and its something that varies from circuit to circuit. The need for downforce is at its greatest at circuits with many corners, such as Monaco, and the need is least at those with the longest straights such as Monza. However Monza circuit is now replaced by a different circuit this year.

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Formula One Racing Car Technologies

Lotus boss, Colin Chapman, took matters a stage further by mounting the rear aerofoil onto the rear suspension of his cars, making the harnessing of downforce all the more effective, as it produced 180 kg of extra downforce, which is the equivalent of more than two adult males. So, it wasnt surprising that suspension has to be toughened up after a number of breakages.

The slick tires arrived in 1971, with their superior grip meaning that less downforce was required, giving the designers yet another variable to accommodate. Typically, it was Chapman who came up with the next breakthrough in 1977. Although he didnt invent ground effect a concept that created a vacuum under the cars that sucked them down to the track and provided extra downforce without extra drag he was the one to introduce it to Formula 1.

Chapman and his design team found that by putting side pods onto the car (fig 2.2) and shaping their undersides like aerofoil, then sealing the side pod edges to the track surface with moveable skirts, and thus preventing air flowing in from the sides, this would produce an area of low pressure by accelerating the air through a venture at the rear. Sucked down by this low pressure, a car would experience a huge amount of extra downforce, which saw the Lotus 78 setting new standards in aerodynamic efficiency.

Mario Andretti used a Lotus 79 a car developed from the 78 that he often described as being painted to the road to dominate the 1978 World Championship. By 1980, the downforce generated had blossomed to the equivalent of double the cars weight. On top of this gain, the faster the cars were driven, the greater amount of downforce their ground effect found them. With downforce increasing as the square of speed, if a cars speed doubles, then its downforce quadruples. Put another way, a Formula 1 car could run through a tunnel upside down, held to the roof of the tunnel (fig 2.3), thanks to its inverted wings holding it there.

Then ground effects were banned for 1983 and a rule was introduced stating that all cars should have flat bottoms, again altering the emphasis on front and rear wings. So, as Formula 1 entered the 21st century, the Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 10

Formula One Racing Car Technologies designers were poised at their computers dreaming up ways in which they can change their aerofoil to achieve more for less. That is to say more downforce for less drag, the eternal quest for aerodynamicists.

To calculate the aerodynamic drag force on an object ,the following formula can be used: F=1/2*C*D*A*V^2 Where : F Aerodynamic Drag Force C Co- efficient of Drag D Density of Air A Frontal Area V Velocity of Object

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Airflow in F1 Cars

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2.3 Front wings:

2.2.1 Designing:
The difference between Ferrari and McLaren is so remarkable, that one may raise some question about the aerodynamics. It is very remarkable that in comparison some cars chose to have a raised nose cone while others a lowered nose cone. Ferrari is one of the example which choose to keep a lowered nose cone. Heres an explanation. McLaren for example had raised the nose corn. All the changes to the F1 nose parts are due to the regulation change about the front wing, which is placed 5cm higher above the ground .with it ,there has been lost a lot of downforce on the front wheels .Although it might seems very strange that McLaren raised the nose corn for this ,but it makes a lot of sense .As most teams heightened up the nose corn ,it is the most striking ,also because Newey can be seen as a reference .The reason for it is the air flowing under the nose .Of course ,the upper air flowing over the nose generates now less downforce ,but Newey certainly thought it wouldnt have a very high impact on itself. So the air under the nose is pushed(over the front wing) or pulled(for air coming under the front wing) to higher levels. As the air has a lot more room under the nose in the center of the car , it can be directed to the sidepods smoothly ,it causes a lot less resistance. This can be seen in fig 2.4.. Ferrari on the contrary(fig 2.5) have opted for a completed other tactic . They did not feel maintaining the front wing efficiency as a priority ,although downforce on the front wheel is very important .So the most appropriate solution is the lower nose cone .Exactly what Ferrari did, though with some changes. Thanks to the low nose top ,much air that would not have any effect of the front wheel is very important .So the most appropriate solution is the lower nose cone .Exactly what Ferrari did through with some changes .Thanks to the low nose top ,much air that would not have any affect of the frontwing is now flowing over the nose ,with a lot of downforce as result. The underside of the nose, which seemed to be the most difficult problem with other teams, is solved with a curve. Passing the front wing, and going 30 cm further ,the nose cone at that height could also be the one of a high nose .Once air has passed under the low nose top ,it can be pushed up by the front wing ,without an obstacle. Once the airflow has passed this stadium, lots of downforce has been generated, and the air is guided to the sidepods exactly the same way as with high nose cones. This might be the ingenious design of Ferrari, in which all other teams failed.

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Comparison of different F1 Cars

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2.3 Rear wings:

About a third of the cars total downforce can come from the rear wing assembly. The rear wings are the ones that are varied the most from track to track. As the rear wings of the car create the most drag the teams tailor the rear aerodynamic load to suit a particular track configuration. As air flow over the wing, it is disturbed by the shape, causing a drag force. Although this force is usually less than the lift or downforce, it can seriously limit top speed and causes the engine to use more fuel to get the car through the air. From the year 2009, the FIA regulations have changed concerning the rear wing. What FIA wanted was to reduce the wake and aerodynamic sensitivity of the car and to increase the ability of overtaking and slipstreaming. The solution is by using a High, Squat rear wing. Looking at the cars from only 5 years ago, the also had only 3 or even less flaps. The only effect that might come with this regulation change is at high downforce circuits, there will be a little more air resistance to produce the same downforce and overtaking would be much easier. Perhaps the most interesting change, however, is the introduction of moveable aerodynamics, with the driver now able to make limited adjustments to the front wing from the cockpit during a race. However, the rear wings can be changed after each race according to the situation and within the specifications mentioned in F1 regulations. Fig 2.6 and 2.7 shows cars using different wings for different circuits.

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ENGINES &TRANSMISSION
2.1 Engines
The formula one (F1) engine is the most complex part of the whole car. With an amazing horsepower production and about 1000 moving parts, this sort of engine makes the greatest cost on a F1 car. Incredible revolutions of about 17,000 rpm and extreme high temperatures make it very hard to make that engine reliable. This table shows current FIA limitations concerning an engine.

Only 4-stroke engines with reciprocating pistons are permitted. Engine capacity must not exceed 2400 cc. Crankshaft rotational speed must not exceed 18,000rpm All engines must have 8 cylinders arranged in a 90 V configuration and the normal section of each cylinder must be circular. Supercharging is forbidden. Engines must have two inlet and two exhaust valves per cylinder..

At the moment, all engines have 10 cylinders and they produce about 750 to 850 bhp. These are made from forged aluminium alloy, and they must have no more than four valves per cylinder. Some other parts are made from ceramics because of their very light weight and because they are very strong in the direction they need to be. This very low weight ratio is important to reduce the fuel consumption and increase the engine performance. The 1998 Mercedes-Benz engine was possibly one of the most revolutionary engines ever built. Ford started this year by producing an engine that weighted at least 25kg less than any other engine. The stiffness of the engine is also very important because its the only connection with the rear wheels and the chassis. The engine must be able to take the huge cornering loads and aerodynamic forces from the large rear wing. The picture in the next page (fig 3.1) shows the Mercedes-Benz engine built by Ilmor engineering and the latest Renault engine. Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 17

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Renault RS 27 Engine

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What makes these engines different from all others??

There are many differences between racing and road car engines that contribute to the large power difference. F1 engines are designed to revolve at much higher speed than the road units. These extreme high revolutions make it impossible for this kind of engine to work as long as a normal car engine. An increase of 50% on revs does not necessarily mean an increase of power with 50%. From a certain point, e.g. 16,500 revs/min, The internal friction is that high that engine power doesnt increase with a higher rev and even maybe decreases. That shows the importance of the materials that are used. An increase of revs means an increase of internal resistance of material within the engine. Lesser the weight of these materials, lesser would be the power used only for the movement of engine parts. Exotic materials such as ceramics may be used to reduce the weight and strength of the engine. Because of the very high cost of the materials like these ceramics and carbon fiber, they are not used in usual cars. Most usual car engines are made from steel or aluminium. Another deciding point trying to reach a maximum of power out of an engine is the exhaust. The minor change of length or form of an exhaust can influence the horsepower drastically. Exhaust are important to remove the waste gases from the engine. The faster these gases are moved away from the engine, the faster some kind of vacuum comes in the engine and the more air is sucked into it. This causes a faster cool down or more power from the engine with the same fuel consumption. Automatic changed length of height from the exhaust could make so quite a big power advance. Unfortunately, these types of advanced exhausts are completely forbidden by the FIA. Just above the drivers head there is a large opening that supplies the engine with air. It is commonly thought that the purpose of this is to ram air into the engine like a supercharger, but the airbox does the opposite. Between the air-box and the engine there is a carbon-fibre duct that gradually widens out as it approaches the engine. As the volume increases, it makes the air flow slow down, raising the pressure pressure of the air which pushes it into the engine. The shape of this must be carefully designed to both fill all cylinders equally and not harm the exterior aerodynamics of the engine cover.

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3.2 Transmission
An amazing engine may be one thing, but how do you put all the power on the ground without wasting it by wheel spin is another. The transmission is made the same way and with the same principle as a normal transmission but there are some capital differences. The weight for example, the height from the ground and the size are the most logical. But thinking that a transmission can be as hot as 1000C when the power is brought to the wheels at the start of each race is certainly very important for the engineers. Each team builds their own gearbox, either independently or in partnership with companies such as X-track. The regulations state the cars must have at least 4 and no more than 7 forward gears as well as a reverse gear. Most cars have 6 forward gears, some having a 7-speed gearbox. Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) systems are not allowed and cars may have no more than two driven wheels. Transmissions may not feature traction control systems, nor devices that help the driver to hold the clutch at a specific point to aid getaway at the start of the race. Because the gearbox carries together with the engine the whole rear car weight, it has to be very solid and strong, and so it is normally made from fully-stressed magnesium or new since 1998, introduced by Stewart and Arrows, from carbon fibre, which is much lighter. Gear cogs or ratios must be made of steel and are used only for one race, and are replaced regularly during the weekend to prevent failure, as they are subjected to very high degrees of stress. The gearbox is linked directly to the clutch, made from carbon fibre. Two manufacturers, AP racing and Sachs produce F1 clutches, which must be able to tolerate temperatures as 500 degrees. The clutch is electro-dynamically operated and can weigh as little as 1.5 kg. A computer, taking between 20-40 milliseconds, controls each gear change. The drivers do not manually use the clutch apart from moving off from standstill, and when changing up the gears, they simply press a lever behind the wheel to move to the next ratio.

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Renault Gear Box

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OTHER IMPORTANT PARTS

Air Inlet:
As many may have seen on television, there is a little air inlet at the inside of the front wheels. Well little is sometimes not the exact description, because it differs a lot from one team to another. McLaren, for example, have a very big specimen, and Ferrari can actually cool the brakes with a lot less air.

It is very hard to say how this difference in need of air for the brakes occurs, but seemingly, the Ferrari team is a step further in evolution compared to the others.

Brakes :
When it comes to the business of slowing down, Formula One cars are surprisingly closely related to their road-going cousins. Indeed as ABS anti-skid systems have been banned from Formula One racing, most modern road cars can lay claim to having considerably cleverer retardation.

The principle of braking is simple: slowing an object by removing kinetic energy from it. Formula One cars have disc brakes (like most road-cars) with rotating discs (attached to the wheels) being squeezed between two brake pads by the action of a hydraulic calliper. This turns a car's momentum into large amounts of heat and light - note the way Formula One brake discs glow yellow hot as shown in fig.

The technical regulations also require that each car has a twin-circuit hydraulic braking system with two separate reservoirs for the front and rear wheels. This ensures that, even in the event of one complete circuit failure, braking should still be available through the second circuit. The amount of braking power going to the front and rear circuits can be 'biased' by a control in the cockpit, allowing a driver to stabilize handling or take account of falling fuel load. Power brakes and anti-lock braking systems (ABS) are not allowed. The use of liquid to cool the brakes is forbidden.

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Brake Blocks Of Both Ferrari & McLaren

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Brakes Glowing Yellow Hot

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Exhaust pipes:
Design: The objective of the engine designer is to create a negative pressure at the exhaust valve during the overlap period when both exhaust and intake valves are open. To do this he designs an exhaust system that resonates at a particular RPM, and uses the pressure waves reflected by the ends of the pipes to modify the time history of the pressure at the exhaust valve. By coupling two or more of the cylinders exhaust primary pipes together, interaction between the pulses created by each cylinder modifies the pressure characteristics at any given RPM. The ends of each primary pipes are brought together in a collector, such that their ends are close enough together to interact, and the tail pipe(s) from a secondary resonant system. At the same time , the designer will choose intake lengths to form another resonant system, which also interact with the exhaust system. When two or more cylinders exhaust pipes are coupled, the firing order of the engine becomes significant, and the firing order of the engine becomes significant, and the firing order of V-10s are chosen as a compromise between exhaust tuning and the torsional dynamics of the crankshaft. The frequency of an exhaust pipe is set by its length. The shorter the pipe, the higher the frequency. As engine RPM has risen over the years, the length of the exhaust pipes for a given engine configuration has shortened drastically. To accomplish an as much as possible ideal exhaust, some very different factors have to be compared and calculated. Some of these very important factors are the exhaust and intake geometry, valve timing, exhaust gas temperature, velocity, and RPM, which affect the characteristics. Talking of characteristics, an exhaust system can only be optimized for one certain RPM. The length of the exhaust pipe affects as well the maximum RPM and suppleness of the engine in lower RPM. The exhaust is therefore a compromise between engine power in lieu of higher RPM.

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Radiator Outlet:
Another remarkable appearance was re-invented by McLaren. The chimneys or funnels in front of the rear wheels do not put out engine exhaust gases, but rather hot radiator air. Some other teams have copied this novelty. The principle behind this is actually very simple. On one hand, the throttle doent specify the air passing through the radiators, but it depends on the car speed. Increasing the throttle makes the engine suck more air into it, and thus generates more exhaust gases. Radiators are only provided by air flowing in, due to the movement of the car. So the effect of engine exhausts is just that little faster on downforce in acceleration than with radiator air. On the other hand, it is very interesting to blow out this hot air as soon as possible, because it heats up the inside of the car. Keeping the air longer under the bonnet will increase the engine temperature.

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TYRES
A modern Formula One car is a technical masterpiece. But considering the development effort invested in aerodynamics, composite construction and engines it is easy to forget that tyres are still a race cars biggest single performance variable. A Formula One tyre is designed to last for, at most, 200 kilometres and - like everything else on a the car - is constructed to be as light and strong as possible. That means an underlying nylon and polyester structure in a complicated weave pattern designed to withstand far larger forces than road car tyres. The racing tyre is constructed from very soft rubber compounds which offer the best possible grip against the texture of the racetrack, but wear very quickly in the process. If you look at a typical track you will see that, just off the racing line, a large amount of rubber debris gathers (known to the drivers as 'marbles'). All racing tyres work best at relatively high temperatures. For example, the dry 'grooved' tyres used up until very recently were typically designed to function at between 90 degrees Celsius and 110 degrees Celsius. Grooved tyres replaced slick tyres in 1998 with technical specifications as described in the diagram. These were used until this year when slick tyres came into play again.

5.1 The 2009 FIA rules concerning tyre types

The same driver may not use more than a total of 40 dry-weather tyres and twenty-eight wet-weather tyres throughout the entire duration of the Event. For qualifying practice, warm up and the race each driver may use no more than 40 tyres (fourteen front and fourteen rear). All dry-weather tires must incorporate circumferential grooves square to the wheel axis and around the entire circumference of the contact surface of each tyre. All wet-weather tires must,when new, have a contact area, which does not exceed 280 cm2 when fitted to the front of the car and 440 cm2 when fitted to the rear. Contact areas will be measured over any square section of the tire which is normal to and symmetrical about the tire center line and which measures 200 mm x 200 mm when fitted to the front of the car and 250 mm x 250 mm when fitted to the rear. For the Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 28

Formula One Racing Car Technologies purposes of establishing conformity, only void areas, which are greater than 2.5 mm in depth, will be considered. All tyres must be used as supplied by the manufacturer, any modification or treatment such as cutting, grooving or the application of solvents or softeners is prohibited. This applies to dry, intermediate and wet-weather tyres. If, in the opinion of the appointed tyre supplier and FIA technical delegate, the nominated tyre specification proves to be technically unsuitable, the stewards may authorise the use of additional tyres to a different specification. If, in the interests of maintaining current levels of circuit safety, the FIA deems it necessary to reduce tyre grip, it shall introduce such rules as the tyre supplier may advise or, in the absence of advice which achieves the FIA's objectives, specify the maximum permissible contact areas for front and rear tyres. Tyre specifications will be determined by the FIA no later than 1 September of the previous season. Once determined in this way, the specification of the tyres will not be changed during the Championship season without the agreement of all competing teams.

The FIA Technical Delegate, at the end of each race, will monitor wear of the tyres to ensure that, after use, at least 50 percent of the length of each groove in every dry-weather tyre is evident unless the absence of the groove is due to, solely abnormal wear caused by damage to the car.

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Different types of Tyres & Specification

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Slick Tyres

FUELS
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Requirement of the fuel:

1. The fuel used in Formula One cars should be petrol as this term is generally understood. 2. The fuel should be predominantly composed of compounds normally found in commercial fuels and use of specific power-boosting chemical compounds is prohibited. 3. The fuels formulated to achieve one or more of the following objectives will be prohibited: a. b. c. Fuels needed to meet advanced passenger car designs. Fuels formulated to minimize overall emissions. Fuels suitable to be offered to the commercial market with some special feature permitting greater efficiency, better drivability or economy to the user. d. Fuels developed through advances in refinery techniques and suitable for trial by the general public. 4. Any petrol which appears to have been formulated in order to subvert the purpose of this regulation will be deemed to be outside it. 5. The total concentration of each hydrocarbon group in the total fuel sample (defined by carbon number and hydrocarbon type), must not exceed the limits given in the table below:-

T. no. 6.1
% m/n Paraffins Naphthenes Olefins Aromatics C4 10 5 C5 30 5 20 C6 25 10 20 1. 2 Maximum 15 40 45 50 60 45 10 C7 25 10 15 35 C8 55 10 10 35 C9+ 20 10 10 30 Unallocated -

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Formula One Racing Car Technologies For the purposes of this table, a gas chromatographic technique should be employed which can classify hydrocarbons in the total fuel sample such that all those identified are allocated to the appropriate cell of the table. Hydrocarbons present at concentrations below 0.5% by mass which cannot be allocated to a particular cell may be ignored. However, the sum of all unallocated hydrocarbons must not exceed 10.0% by mass of the total fuel sample. 6. The only oxygenates permitted are: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. Methanol (MeOH) Ethanol (EtOH) Iso-propyl alcohol (IPA) Iso-butyl alcohol (IBA) Methyl tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Ethyl tertiary Butyl Ether (ETBE) Tertiary Amyl Methyl Ether (TAME) Di-Isopropyl Ether (DIPE) n-Propyl Alcohol (NPA) Tertiary Butyl Alcohol (TBA) nButyl Alcohol (NBA) Secondary Butyl Alcohol (SBA) 7. Only ambient air may be mixed with the fuel as an oxidant. 8. Manganese based additives are not permitted. 9. All competitors must be in possession of a Material Safety Data Sheet for each type of petrol used. This sheet must be made out in accordance with EC Directive 93/112/EEC and all information contained therein strictly adhered to. 10. No fuel may be used in an Event without prior written approval of the FIA. 11. The only fuel permitted is petrol having the following characteristics:

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T. no. 6.2 Property RON MON Oxygen Nitrogen Benzene RVP Lead Density at 15C Oxidation stability Existent gum Sulphur Copper corrosion Electrical conductivity %m/m %m/m %v/v hPa g/l Kg/m3 minutes Mg/100ml Mg/kg rating pS/m 200 725.0 360 5.0 50 Cl 350 Units Min 95.0 85.0 2.7 0.2 1.0 600 0.005 780.0 Max 102.0 Test Method ASTM D 2699-86 ASTM D 2700-86 Elemental Analysis ASTM D 3228 EN 238 ASTM D 323 ASTM D 3237 ASTM D 4052 ASTM D 525 EN 24246 EN-ISO/DIS 14596 ISO 2160 ASTM D 2624

12. Distillation characteristics: the fuel used in the formula 1 cars should have the distillation properties as tabulated below:T. no. 6.3 At E70C %v/v 15.0 50. 0 At E100C %v/v 46.0 70. 0 At E150C At E180C Final Boiling Point Residue %v/v %v/v C %v/v 75.0 85.0 215 2.0 ISO 3405 ISO 3405 ISO 3405 ISO 3405 ISO3405 ISO 3405

The fuel will be accepted or rejected according to ASTM D3244 with a confidence limit of 95%. Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 34

Formula One Racing Car Technologies 13. The proportions of aromatics, olefins and di-olefins, within total petrol sample, should comply with those detailed below: T. no. 6.4 Units Aromatics Olefins Total di-olefins %v/v %v/v %m/m Min 0* 0 0 Max 35* 18* 1 Test Method ASTM D1319 ASTM D 1319 GCMS

*Values when corrected for fuel oxygenate content. 14. In addition, the fuel must contain no substance which is capable of exothermic reaction in the absence of external oxygen.

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COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
Introduction:
In motor racing there is a simplistic viewpoint, which says that if you wish to go quicker get a better engine, better tires or a better driver. The influence of aerodynamics has not made this maxim totally redundant given that the aerodynamic forces effectively produce more grip from the tires, and could add that a better race engineer to optimize the package is next desirable feature. Accepting that the package is somewhat fixed at the average race weekend we are left with two focal points to go quicker: a better driver and a better race engineer. When one looks at the impact of computers at the racetrack they have been a notable aid to measuring whats happening in minute detail, this certainly helps the modern race engineer to some extent but does little to help the driver (except perhaps to make him more honest!). If one focuses in at the racetrack activity there is a strong argument that there is a need for innovation so that in the next decade tools evolve actually improve the performance of the driver and the race engineer in a direct way.

Information in racing:
Information technology in the office environment encompasses a plethora of tools and data sources. These are increasingly being improved to aid communication and coordination in the workplace. In much the same way, information technology is having a similar impact at the racetrack. The diagram 7.1 encompasses the sort of structure upon which such a racing I.T. system will be based. At the center is a presentation package of software, which presents results graphically, or statistically in a manner that allows the engineers to easily relate events to the track positions and driver actions. Pis V6 software is popularly used to perform this function at present. This displays data not only as logged as the result of simple calculation (for example roll or pitch) but also as predicted from a stimulation model, providing an easy means to compare and contrast the measured with the predicted. To run good simulation routines a great deal of data is required, in fact all of the things known about the race car mentioned earlier on. The interface between this data and the simulation routines will be a data base manger that defines the Set up of the car. This Set up manager needs a good user interface, because it must be very easy for non-computer types to use and thereby record the configuration of the car. To give an example: the team decides to change shock absorbers and bump rubbers. The mechanics Department of Mechanical Engineering Page 36

Formula One Racing Car Technologies get on with the work while the race engineer simply pulls the appropriate pieces out of an inventory of parts on his computer and places them into the set up sheet that describes the car for the next outing. That is all that is necessary. The test results that characterize the shock absorber and bump rubbers chosen are automatically loaded up by the information system and the engineer can immediately try running the simulation without further to do. In the same way the engineering descriptions for all test results (wind tunnel, engine power curves, tire surface plots, etc) is also defined underneath the setup sheet. The setup sheet may simply show that the car is running anti-drive suspension 21b.

Driver Improvement:
There is one facet of racing that is ripe for real advancement through computer lead innovation; improving the driver. In Europe, and increasingly in the States, drivers start out in Karting. Once a driver progresses from Karts to full size race cars there is an abrupt change. The (constructive) criticism dries up, the driver is either brilliant or hopeless, and the focus of the team discussion tends to be on engineering setup. The reason is simply that the information to help the driver become better at the job is not there and they must figure it out for themselves. Given the gain possible from a faster driver, it would appear well worthwhile to try to train a particular driver to do a better job. This is a subject of great focus at Pi Research and in 1998 a first step tool was tried out in the club motor-sports market. It took the form of some clever, though simplistic, analysis of the data typically collected by a Pi system (fig 7.2). The end result was a graph that shows balance against speed on a lap-by-lap or whole outing basis. Use this for a day and almost immediately one almost loses interest in the other data presentations available. It becomes apparent rather quickly how much the driver can influence the handling of the vehicle by his style. If one has a young, moldable driver one can improve the handling, the lap times and general consistency just by using this tool to help the driver iron out actions that slow the performance of the car.

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Conclusion
As Formula One racing enters the new era, the focus has now shifted from achievement of high speed and acceleration levels to enhancement of driver safety. The sports governing body, FIA has already taken measured steps to slow down the car, and also reduce inclination towards the technologies so that races can be won merely on the basis of drivers skills. This being easily the most money-generating sport, every year more and more teams are attempting to get into it in spite of the high initial costs involved. Thus the global appeal for this sport is enormous, with the sport now having spread its tentacles from Europe to almost every nook and corner of the world including India. With the introduction of newer technologies like traction control and semi-automatic gearboxes, along with the use of diffusers and slick tyres, the sport has become more attractive than ever.

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