Few other series can match it for grid diversity, with everything from modern-day GT3s to cars with more than two decades of competition history behind them, all battling it out in a variety of classes such as GT3, GTO, GTH, and GTC.

The National Motorsport Academy has been involved in the GT Cup since 2012, when project founder Kevin Riley first took part. In that time, Team NMA has entered both an ex-works Lotus Evora that has raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a Mosler MT900 which won the GTO title in 2018.

But what is Team NMA?

Run by director of motorsport Dr. Kieran Reeves, deputy director Wayne Gater, and experienced tutor Ed Sarling, Team NMA is the National Motorsport Academy’s way of delivering real-world racing experiences to students across a variety of experience; from those who are just starting their motorsport career, to those who are studying a master’s and looking to refine certain skills.

GT Cup is known for having a competitive yet incredibly friendly paddock, serving as a perfect environment for students. Ultimately, the Team NMA garage serves as a classroom where up to 10 students every race weekend can actively contribute to every facet of the team’s journey – from set-up and testing to data analysis and tuning, forming a symbiotic relationship between their education and racing.

At the start of every season, students are invited to register their interest in a race as close to their hometown as possible.

2023 was a mixed year for Team NMA, which raced in the United Kingdom’s GT Cup series for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. The season consisted of seven rounds with 4 races at each: two 25-minute ‘Sprint’ races and a pair of 50-minute ‘Pit-stop’ races.

Season Gets Under Way

The GT Cup campaign commenced with ambitious plans to race the NMA Mosler MT900. However, unforeseen challenges, including a cracked engine block and chassis repairs, resulted in that original plan being abandoned and the forging of a partnership with Rollcentre to use its Mosler. The first two rounds at Donington Park and Brands Hatch were hugely successful, and became a valuable learning experience for students, who actively participated in overcoming setbacks.

Ahead of the next few races, a major engine failure occurred in Rollcentre’s Mosler. This meant the team unfortunately missed rounds three and four at Snetterton and Oulton Park. Not knowing when the original Mosler would be back to full fitness, this precipitated a shift in focus on rebuilding a Lotus Evora which suffered major damage following a heavy crash in 2022.

For those who love a bit of history, our Evora is built from a spare parts package of the No. 65 Lotus Evora GTE that raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2011. That car is now owned by Kevin Riley and can be seen at Central Lotus Nottingham.

The major damage from the 2022 accident didn’t stop the team from putting in blood, sweat and tears to fully rebuild it within a matter of weeks. Testing sessions followed at Donington Park and a private airfield, allowing for fine-tuning ahead of round five at Silverstone. As expected for a brand-new car with barely any miles, Silverstone presented challenges, but it served as the perfect chance for our students to learn and apply those changes. The students’ dedication resulted in four class podiums; a fantastic start considering the Evora was just an engine block two months prior.

At Silverstone, the team also introduced a brand-new competition for NMA students: the ‘Tyre Licking Challenge’. This added a lighthearted, but competitive element to the overall student experience. The fastest student to scrub (or ‘Lick’!) a tyre after it had been on track got to keep it. The winners were Lewis Edwards (16m 20s) and Rohan Smith (14m 16.4s).

Following Silverstone, a six-week gap became a critical period to address some lingering issues.

Concluding the Campaign

With more testing, and a new group of students, the team approached round six at Donington Park with confidence in the Evora – which paid off, as we secured a pole in class on day one. This form continued as the car battled for a win in the first three races, but a mixture of bad luck and great driving from our competition led to three second places in a row.

Sadly, in the final race of the weekend, the wishbone in the front right tyre broke, ending our last hope for victory. However, this also led to one of the highlights of the season, as the tutors and students rallied together, fixed the wishbone, and got it back on track before the end of the race!

The season finale at Snetterton brought resolution to lingering issues, but power loss persisted. Our season ended prematurely during race two, when the Evora lost power and ground to a halt. Despite challenges, Team NMA secured podium finishes, concluding the season with a commendable third place in the GTO championship. A true testament from our tutors and students to be able to bounce back from no car mid-season to a high finish in the end-of-year standings.

During the season, we spoke to many students who raced with us, and asked them what they enjoyed about Team NMA. MSc Advanced Motorsport Engineering Student, Jayan Mistry, said: ‘I enjoyed studying Aerodynamics in the degree. This was my first opportunity to put that practice into a real-world scenario which was great for my future.’

International students also showed interest and joined the team. In the final three races of the season alone, there were students who joined from Canada, Serbia and Greece. Alexandros El-Magkout told us: ‘I came all the way from Athens, Greece just to experience a race weekend. It’s a really unique experience working with the Lotus Evora.’

For motorsport enthusiasts, the National Motorsport Academy offers a unique educational experience that you can’t get with any other educational institution. Becoming a student means you don’t just gain theoretical knowledge, but you also get the chance to put everything you have learnt into practice, in a no-pressure environment. The cherry on top? Working on an iconic Lotus Evora!

As the 2023 GT Cup season concludes, Team NMA emerges as a clear example of how education and motorsport can merge in a straightforward way. The experiences on the track, the obstacles overcome, and the victories attained linger in the minds of both students and racing enthusiasts, leaving a lasting impact on Team NMA’s educational mission.

In 2024, we have big plans to bring back the iconic Mosler MT900 and try to push on further in the GT Cup Championship!

The post Classroom on Wheels: National Motorsport Academy 2023 Roundup appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The technical working group will include F1 Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds, Formula E technical director Mark Grain and FIA Single Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis.

Its stated objective is to ‘monitor the progression and development’ of hydrogen fuel cells and battery systems, along with hydrogen technology as part of the paddock infrastructure.

The Extreme H off-road racing series is gearing up for its first season 2025 — replacing its electric Extreme E forebear also run by the Formula E organisation — and is aiming to become the first FIA World Championship for cars running with hydrogen fuel.

The FIA is developing the technical, sporting and safety regulations for Extreme H.

‘As the governing body for both the FIA Formula 1 World Championship and the upcoming FIA Extreme H Championship in 2025, we welcome this latest collaboration, said Tombazis.

‘The FIA Technical Department has experience and knowhow in the area of hydrogen technology which we will be bring to the Working Group along with sporting, safety and regulatory expertise.

‘As is currently the case across the entire FIA motorsport portfolio, we will take learnings from this collaboration for the benefit of our sport and mobility.’

Extreme H car builder Spark Racing Technology plans to complete the first shakedown of the new hydrogen-fuelled car before the end of this year, although the fuel cell has already been tested on a mule chassis. A comprehensive test programme is planned for 2024.

The car has been developed on learnings from the Odyssey 21, which has been used in the Extreme E series since 2021. This has included adopting a single-seat cockpit design to improve adjustability and driver safety.

Hydrogen technology has been given more attention by global motorsport bodies in recent years. Several manufacturers have taken part in ACO technical working group meetings related to the FIA World Endurance Championship’s planned adoption of hydrogen.

‘Our transition to Extreme H makes us the pioneers and first-ever testbed of hydrogen technology in motorsport – not only in our racing cars, but also transportation, infrastructure, refuelling processes and safety regulations,’ said Grain.

‘It’s a ground-breaking initiative and we look forward to collaborating with Formula 1 and Pat [Symonds] both technically and operationally, as we continue to champion new technologies and break boundaries on behalf of motorsport, with hydrogen at the forefront.’

The new hydrogen working group marks a first consideration of the technology for Formula 1, which has been using hybrid internal combustion engine drive since 2014. However, the formation of the working group does not necessarily mean that F1 has committed to making the hydrogen switch.

‘Our sport has a tradition of bringing new technologies to the forefront of public perception in incredibly short timescales,’ said Symonds.

‘We do this by being open-minded to all solutions and embracing cross-functional engineering.

‘With climate change mitigation at the forefront of everyone’s mind we are committed to promoting sustainability and therefore need to explore all areas of decarbonisation of the mobility sector. This must include sustainable liquid hydrocarbon fuels, electrification and hydrogen.

‘This Working Group enables a collaboration which will allow us to gain first-hand experience and contribute to the understanding and development of the many aspects of hydrogen propulsion that Extreme H will embrace.’

The post FIA Technical Working Group for Hydrogen Racing Established appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

How the FIA implements WRC safety measures:

Three-year evolution of the Extreme E car:

Brumos Racing’s Pikes Peak Porsche:

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For years, its cars have raced domestically at circuits like Suzuka, Motegi and Fuji, and European viewers have needed to set alarms at absurd times to see them in action. But that will change next year when a field of 10 adapted Super Formula cars, run by university teams, line up for the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL). The competition, which will take place at Yas Marina Circuit on April 28th, is aimed at furthering autonomous vehicle technology and raising public awareness through the medium of motorsport.

A2RL is run by ASPIRE, a branch of the Abu Dhabi government’s Advanced Technology Research Council. Big backing is evident, considering the $2.25 million prize pot that has attracted teams from around the world.

And, rather than using the cheaper and easier option of using some decommissioned single seater, ASPIRE went for the Dallara SF23 which only arrived in Super Formula this year. How did it come to pass that such a vehicle ended up in this situation, and how does it differ from the SF23s that can lap under 10 seconds off a Formula 1 car around Suzuka?

According to ASPIRE executive director Tom McCarthy, there were strong links between some of the A2RL project’s technical partners and Italian constructor Dallara, which builds the SF23 chassis. It considered using the Dallara AV-21 (derived from the 2015 Indy Lights car) that has done well in the Indy Autonomous Challenge. But ASPIRE wanted to do something different and go further in terms of base car performance.

After productive discussions with Dallara, ASPIRE’s management went to Japan Racing Promotion, which holds proprietary rights to the SF23, and successfully attained usage of its car for the A2RL competition.

‘There was a huge act of faith from JRP and Dallara to allow us to take their beautiful Super Formula car and start the redesign that would be required for what we’re calling the Emirates Autonomous Vehicle 2024,’ McCarthy tells Racecar Engineering.

ASPIRE then gained other partners, such as Meccanica 42, which developed specific actuators for the autonomous vehicle, and Danisi Engineering which integrated the autonomous stack (consisting of sensors and cameras) into the chassis. Renowned Japanese squad Team LeMans also pitched in for the development process and Yokohama provided its confidential tyres. Brembo supplied the brakes, as it does in Super Formula.

All driverless SF23s will be built specifically for A2RL, rather than being converted from Super Formula spec.

The main difference between the SF23 and the A2RL car is, of course, the absence of a driver and the installation of an autonomous stack in their place. According to McCarthy, the AV apparatus is not much heavier than a cockpit with driver, while the stated total car weight is 20kg heavier than the SF23. The autonomous stack consists of:

• Seven Sony IMX728 cameras with 360deg coverage
• Four AF ProWave RADAR sensors
• Three Innovusion Falcon Kinetic FK1 LIDAR sensors
• A Neousys RGS-8805GC computer

The computer processes the data that the cameras and sensors record. Like any computer, it requires a high amount of cooling, so the car is fitted with an extra set of vents positioned in the nose. The A2RL car also lacks the Halo device that protects the driver’s head in a standard single seater, while the brake lights (unnecessary in an AV) have been replaced with rear-facing cameras. Otherwise, it looks very much like a standard SF23 that races in Japan.

Under the bodywork, the engine is different from what Super Formula teams use. Indianapolis-based 4 Pistons was contracted to develop a race-tuned version of a 2-liter, four-cylinder unit derived from the Honda Civic Type R. The front and rear suspension are both pushrod, like in Super Formula, and have adjustable dampers.

Because the A2RL autonomous stack consists of spec components, the competition is mainly about how teams synthesise, interpret and apply the data that is generated from the cameras and sensors.

Teams will use the same operating system, ROS 2, to work with the data but they will have the freedom to code the cars how they wish using their own software on the side. They are given an autonomous car that can perform all the basic functions, however it’s up to them how to make it go quickly. This relies not only on savvy coding knowledge, but also a sound understanding of how to set up a car mechanically.

‘The drivers are taken out, but the motorsport challenge isn’t,’ McCarthy insists.

‘We’re making sure that it doesn’t come around and there is this genius software programmer who doesn’t know a thing about motorsport and wins. That’s not going to happen.

‘The really demanding stuff for the teams is how well they can construct the element of the coding that we call the planning module. The planning module takes into account what challenges we give them on the track.’

These challenges are yet to be defined although McCarthy has plenty of ideas, from single-car time trials to multi-car races. The latter in particular gives A2RL a unique aspect over other attempts at autonomous motorsport like Roborace and Indy Challenge, although it will inevitably be difficult for many people to resonate with a driverless spectacle.

A2RL track testing is in its early stages. This week the development team was at Dubai Autodrome running a prototype Super Formula car with ex-Formula 1 and current Lamborghini LMDh driver Daniil Kvyat behind the wheel.

This was standard shakedown testing, to sort out the car’s mechanical characteristics and reliability. The plan for next week is to engage a second prototype with the autonomous stack functioning, having built it in Italy and shipped it to the UAE.

Bench testing of the stack has been done already. During the testing process, all of the data is fed back to the teams, enabling them to prepare in advance of getting their hands on the competition cars after winter.

‘We will freeze where we’re at, at the end of December,’ says McCarthy.

‘One of the real purposes of the testing is data collection. Each of the participating teams will be able to train their software on the simulator.

‘They will have the car performance data that we do in testing, and that will be continuously updated. Then, we will do the assembly of the competition cars in February, in the UAE.’

A2RL is assembling a team of mechanics and performance engineers who will be on-hand to teams leading up to and during the competition.

‘From the middle to the end of April, we have exclusive use of Yas Marina Circuit from 8am to midnight,’ adds McCarthy. ‘We have a run plan that each team will go through on each day.

‘The 28th of April will be a culmination of six weeks of team training and two weeks of intense practice.

‘In the best nature of science, it’s about collaboration and competition. In F1, each team is hermetically sealed. Here, every team will be working in a collaborative way.

‘They won’t be giving each other software, but there is a point where you work collaboratively to push the boundary. When you get to race day, that’s where you compete.’

McCarthy hopes that A2RL, with its combination of a Super Formula car and promises of ‘proper’ racing, will be a positive step for autonomous mobility in several ways. There is, of course, the potential for software advancement based on what the teams discover. But he also views the potential for the competition to win over members of the public who are sceptical about AV technology.

‘It brings about greater opportunity for consumers to say this could be safe,’ McCarthy suggests.

‘At the moment, we’re at Level 3 autonomy in cars. People are scared when we put in certain types of assists. They’re turning it off. It feels not as if they’re being helped, but as if they’re losing input. We’ve got to start bringing people along.

‘In the more general sense, people are scared of AI and what it does to them. We’re going to be using AI here, so we need to make sure that consumers are involved in the incorporation so they can see how it can be something that’s positive.’

McCarthy is adamant that ASPIRE isn’t trying to replace motorsport as we know it. Racing is appealing because it puts us fragile humans in control of extremely complex machines. Occasionally, the human loses control, which often makes it even more exciting. That thrill will be lost in autonomous racing, but McCarthy reckons there are other interesting things to gain, such as new engineering questions and answers, and a chance to feed into road-relevant technology.

‘We’re all very clear that nobody is replacing the motorsport of the driver, because who would want to do that?’ he suggests.

‘But what about developing something in parallel that is utilising extreme sports, with science in action?’

The post Turning a Super Formula Car into an Autonomous Racer appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

In a statement provided to Racecar Engineering, the global motorsport federation gave the background to the incident, which occurred during checks after Robert Shwartzman’s DS E-Tense FE23 stopped on track.

The fire occurred in a dedicated pit garage where the WAE Technologies battery pack had been taken for inspection by the supplier’s technicians.

The FIA confirmed that, during the manual examination, there was an ‘arc flash’ and sparking that resulted in a localised fire. An arch flash is the product of an electrical current travelling through the air and making contact with the ground or another conductor.

After the Valencia incident, one individual was sent to hospital for precautionary checks and later discharged without treatment.

‘During on-track testing, the automatic battery safety system was triggered in a race car causing the car to stop with the safety light illuminated,’ read the FIA statement.

‘Standard procedures followed, with the driver leaving the car once authorised by the FIA e-Safety Delegate and the rescue team and the car coming back immediately to the quarantine area.

‘Following full safety checks, the car was declared HV [high voltage] safe and proceeded back to the team garage where the battery was removed following further checks and transferred to the garage of the single-supplier of batteries for Formula E cars.

‘Later on, while being manually inspected by the battery single-supplier team, there was an arc flash and some sparking, that resulted in a localised fire. The emergency alarm system located in each of the garages was triggered, enabling the on-track Incident Response Team to act quickly and efficiently to contain the fire and minimise the damage caused.

‘One person was sent to hospital for precautionary checks and discharged without treatment.’

The rest of the opening day’s track activity and the entirety of the second day were called off as a precaution and to allow initial investigations to take place. Testing resumed on the afternoon of the final day after the FIA and WAE deemed that conditions were safe to continue.

The power output of all Formula E cars was limited to 300kW for the remainder of testing, although it is unclear if that approach will be maintained for the upcoming season. The Spark-built Gen3 vehicle, which is gearing up for its second campaign, is designed to have a maximum output of 350kW in qualifying and attack mode. Fast charging of the battery is being evaluated ahead of a potential introduction to races in 2024.

The statement continued: ‘The investigations and findings provided by the single-supplier of batteries for Formula E cars, and reviewed by the FIA confirm that use of the battery packs in line with the single-supplier’s recommendations and requirements are within acceptable safety tolerances for a motorsport environment and therefore acceptable for on-track activity to go ahead.’

‘The single-supplier of batteries for Formula E cars [WAE] has assessed available data for all batteries and confirmed that none of the batteries [at the test] present the same type of symptoms as the unit that failed.

‘The batteries are of the same specification as used in all twenty-two cars and sixteen races last season. In addition to the normal monitoring, and to mitigate risks, a series of additional safety measures have been introduced including reducing the power output to 300kW and investigating with immediate effect any potential issue or similar occurrence.’

Previous examples of fires in electric motorsport include the 2019 MotoE paddock blaze, in which the entire field of motorcycles burnt down after a short circuit ignited the batteries, and this year’s battery-related incident at Lydden Hill that destroyed Special ONE Racing Team’s fleet of RX1e cars and led to the FIA World Rallycross Championship suspending the class.

Racecar Engineering has contacted WAE for comment about the cause of the Valencia fire.

The post FIA Gives Background to Formula E Pre-Season Battery Fire appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

Having seen Red Bull take a second successive constructors’ title with this season’s peerless RB19, Mercedes rolled out an upgrade that could inform the look of the W14’s successor.

It was encouraging, then, that Hamilton crossed the line within three seconds of race winner Max Verstappen and issued praise for the update package, despite being subsequently disqualified.

Mercedes put the DQ down to a combination of factors, but insisted the updates were not one of them. Technical director James Allison described the weekend as a ‘cast iron vote of confidence’ in the team’s aerodynamic direction, noting that the setup and track bumpiness impacted underfloor wear. This was exacerbated by Austin being a sprint race weekend which forced setup decisions to be locked in much earlier than during a normal Grand Prix.

Mercedes’ changes between Qatar and Austin were headlined by a redesigned floor. At surface level, this was observable in the shape of the floor’s leading edge. The outer flank of this frontal edge was higher than before, altering the airflow to the diffuser for greater downforce. The effect of modifications to the cambered parts of the edge wing were measured using the analogue, but far from ineffective, method of attaching green woollen tufts.

Hamilton later said the upgrades increased his confidence behind the wheel of the W14, which is hugely important on a medium to high-downforce track like Austin.

In the first season of the current ground effect regulations, Mercedes worked on the W13 until the end of the 2022 season. This contributed to it sticking with its troublesome zero-sidepod philosophy for this year, until a major update at Monaco brought it closer in line with other designs on the grid.

Without the option of building a second car around a new chassis, it appears to have gradually morphed the W14 into a springboard for next year’s design. Mercedes’ experimentation of 2024 aero options with a handful of races to go means the team is positioning itself to be a competitive force from the outset, rather than playing catch up.

After the Austin race, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: ‘This is a circuit where only a few races ago we wouldn’t have performed well because of the fast, sweeping corners.

‘The upgrade seems to have made the car happier in those areas and it is working well. Directionally, it’s a very good sign.’

Mercedes also expects to be strong at the next two races in Mexico and Brazil, while the new Las Vegas street circuit presents an unknown quantity.

‘We’ve got Mexico first – high altitude, thin air – where the asphalt is quite different to the ones we’ve just been at,’ said Allison.

‘As long as we can keep the car cool there in thin air, I think we’ll be pretty decent. [Brazil is] a track where all the things we’ve just plonked on the car should pay good dividends for us at the Interlagos track.

‘Vegas is going to be a bit of an adventure, something of a journey into the unknown. [It’s] a new track, so loads of opportunity to screw up there, but also opportunity to do well if you do your homework well and prepare nicely.

‘The particular challenge of Vegas is going to be temperature. It’s the desert, it’s a night-time race. The track and air temperature is going to be way colder than anything we’ve been used to running an F1 car at in recent seasons.’

With three races still to go, Mercedes has the chance to validate its upgrades in different conditions, giving an even better idea of the direction its 2024 underfloor could take.

The post Upgrades Offer Mercedes Glimmer of Hope for Next Season appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The ACO and GreenGT’s Mission H24 project first bore fruit in 2018 with the launch of the LMP2HG prototype, which turned demonstration laps and utilised hydrogen refuelling technology. It also appeared in two rounds of the Le Mans Cup series, sharing the track with LMP2s, LMP3s and GT3s but racing alone in the Innovative class.

Lessons from the LMP2HG fed into the H24, also based on an ADESS LMP3 chassis, which was introduced in 2021 and sported upgraded transmission and braking systems among other updates. The H24 also ran in the Le Mans Cup but always at the rear of the pack.

However, the third-generation Mission H24 concept, the name of which is open to public suggestion, is designed to push the boundaries of hydrogen powertrain performance with the goal of matching GT3 machinery that will start racing at Le Mans next year.

Power comes from electrochemical reactions in the stack of Symbio hydrogen cells that convert the fuel’s chemical energy into electricity, as well as heat and water by-products.

The car will have two Plastic Omnium fuel tanks each capable of storing 3.9kg of hydrogen at 700bars of pressure for a total weight of approximately 100kg. The intention is for this to last around 25 to 30 minutes in racing conditions, compared with the 40- and 50-minute stints that LMP2s and Hypercars typically do at Le Mans.

TotalEnergies is working with the ACO to develop the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure required for Le Mans. Under the Mission H24 project, the French company developed the world’s first mobile hydrogen refuelling station to be used at racetracks.

Power delivery at the rear wheels has been refined from two electric motors to a single electric motor, shedding 18kg since the H24. The future prototype will have a maximum output of 650 kW, higher than today’s Hypercars, while the motor will have a power density of 20 kW/kg.

Widening the operating range of the motor enables a single unit to be used. A 400kW lithium battery, 12kg lighter than the H24’s equivalent, will recover the car’s braking energy and provide some power to the motor.

German constructor ADESS will continue to provide the chassis for the third-generation hydrogen prototype. The cockpit will be centrally positioned with the cell stack, fuel tanks and motor all situated behind the driver. Render images show the windscreen extending far along the front of the car, with cooling vents on either side.

A maximum weight of 1300kg is targeted, removing 150kg from the weight of the H24. Hypercars are not allowed to be under 1030kg but their final weight is usually higher depending on Balance of Performance.

The general design of the hydrogen prototype is expected to be finalised by March, potentially enabling a mock-up to be ready for presentation at next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

All-important power unit bench testing is then projected to begin from October 2024, followed by the car assembly and maiden shakedown in early 2025.

‘Thanks to MissionH24, hydrogen technology has stood out in the competition world,’ said project technical director Bassel Aslan.

‘Now the time has come to prove that this technology can offer an alternative to fossil fuels with the same efficiency and zero CO2 emission.

‘This new car will be for those involved the real symbol of the future of motorsport in line with the energy transition.’

Mission H24’s third-generation car will continue the trend of testing hydrogen fuel cell technology, although the ACO has opened its future hydrogen racing class up to vehicles powered by hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engines.

The ACO, which organises Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship, is one of the key players in the adoption of hydrogen technology in motorsport. Its aim of introducing a new class in the coming years gained momentum when Toyota revealed a hydrogen fuel cell prototype concept at this year’s 100th anniversary Le Mans edition.

However, the ACO could be pipped to the post in terms of introducing a competitive hydrogen racing class if the FIA Extreme H Championship makes an on-time 2025 debut.

‘After introducing hydrogen to the racetrack, MissionH24 is now entering a new phase: bringing hydrogen to competitive racing,’ said ACO President Pierre Fillon.

‘This new prototype clearly intends to rival the other forms of energy in the field. Hydrogen technology is safe, reliable and can perform.

‘The ambition is now to provide the first zero-emission winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.’

The post New Concept Brings Hydrogen One Step Closer to Le Mans appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The Italian company has exclusively supplied the F1 grid since 2011 and has worked through the sport’s recent technical evolutions including the shift to 1.6-litre hybrid power units and the adoption 18-inch tyres coinciding with the ground effect regulations last year.

Pirelli staved off opposition from Bridgestone, which was looking to return to F1 having last been involved during the 2010 season.

‘Since returning to the sport in 2011 Pirelli has been an invaluable partner, supporting Formula 1 through new generations of technology and technical regulations and delivering tyres to enable fantastic racing for our fans,” said Formula 1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali.

The post F1 Extends Pirelli’s Exclusive Tyre Supply Deal appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

The implementation of hydrogen fuel in motorsport is accelerating as Extreme H, an off-road series from the organisers of Extreme E and Formula E, prepares to make its debut in 2025.

A recent announcement stated plans for Extreme H to become the first hydrogen off-road FIA World Championship in season two, marking a huge milestone for zero and low-emission technology in racing.

Extreme H will introduce a new bespoke off-road car, developed with some of the key partners from Extreme E including constructor Spark Racing Technology and battery supplier WAE Technologies.

Several characteristics of the Extreme H vehicle, which is gearing up for its first off-road test later this year, draw on lessons learned from the all-electric Odyssey 21.

‘At the beginning, when we started talking about the H car, we thought it would be just an evolution of the E,’ Spark motorsport director Pierre Prunin tells Racecar Engineering.

‘But we wanted to improve everything.’

Many of those improvements are based on redressing fundamental design elements of the Odyssey 21, such as its two-seater configuration.

According to Prunin, this is a hangover from a preliminary brief that Extreme E events would be held with two people sharing the cockpit: one navigating and the other driving towards checkpoints, Dakar Rally-style.

The organisers eventually opted for a standard qualifying and race format where the male and female driver pairings would take turns behind the wheel without a navigation partner.

‘That’s why the car has two seats,’ says Prunin. ‘And it explains why we ended up with a non-adjustable seat.’

As a central positioned single-seat car, Spark hopes the Extreme H will address the Odyssey 21’s inherent limitations and open the door to greater adjustability.

‘The seat, wheels and pedals are very adjustable,’ says Prunin. ‘It will have adjustable pedals that will improve massively the comfort, feeling and safety of the drivers because we know how the car will be used [from the start].’

Driver comfort blends into driver safety and the Extreme H car is being developed with standard-setting measures for hydrogen racing in mind.

The championship’s FIA blessing means that the global motorsport body is working hand-in-hand with Extreme H on crash testing and safety features.

This contrasts significantly to Extreme E, where the FIA only became deeply involved after the inaugural 2021 season had got under way.

‘We have completely changed the chassis philosophy because we have had to pass some very stringent crash tests from the FIA,’ Prunin notes.

‘They are from another planet if you compare to what they are on standard cars. It’s actually multiplying by 10 the loads on some chassis components. We had to rethink completely the architecture of the chassis for that purpose.

‘We did, and still do, some simulations. We will have to do crash tests which we didn’t have to do for Extreme E because they are considered traditional rally cars and we just had to follow some design rules.

‘Here, we have to crash test to prove that we can protect the reservoir and fuel cell adequately. That’s a massive change. It’s a complete chassis change.’

The battery layout is another area in which Spark can benefit from having a clean design slate for Extreme H, with the knowledge of how Extreme E panned out.

McLaren Applied Technologies was initially supposed to provide the full electric powertrain for the Odyssey 21, but the deal fell apart and WAE was brought in to quickly develop a bespoke 54 kWh battery. Helix, meanwhile, joined as the spec motor and inverter supplier.

Rather than being a double-layer design like in Extreme E, the battery for the hydrogen car will lie flat underneath the spec hydrogen fuel cell. It is set to be about 1.2 metres long, narrow enough to keep away from the crash structure, and have a cooling plate as its lid.

‘The car architecture was defined already,’ reflects Prunin. ‘It was built around a cubical Formula E battery.

‘Had we started from scratch, knowing we would do a bespoke battery, it would have been a floor battery for a lower centre of gravity and easing of the packaging elements.

‘We have a really vertical motor/gearbox, which is not good for centre of gravity. Having the battery on the floor lowers the centre of gravity.’

Spark is also looking to make the Extreme H car more durable than its predecessor, especially to deal with landing from big jumps. Torque cuts were introduced during the first Extreme E season to ease pressure on the driveshaft after several examples were broken in testing.

Prunin envisages the Extreme H car having around 25 per cent more torque than the Odyssey 21.

‘We will also increase the inertia of the car,’ he says. ‘It will stabilise the car over small bumps and jumps.

‘Typically, we are going to beef up massively the transmission and driveshaft so that we can reduce the amount of torque cuts that we are doing.

‘In this way, we can give a bit more freedom to drivers and they can control the pitch of the car more when they are jumping.

‘We take the occasion of a new car to do all the modifications that are too expensive or not reasonable to do when you have an existing car.’

Due to the Extreme H chassis being in development, an Odyssey 21 was used as a test mule earlier this year to try out some of the nascent hydrogen powertrain components.

Most of the testing so far has taken place virtually and on dyno rigs, except for a few brief runs with the mule in a car park. The first off-road test of the new Extreme H prototype – a huge landmark for the programme – is expected to take place before Christmas.

‘Real development work will start at the beginning of next year with heavy running,’ says Prunin. ‘The first six months will be a lot of running and validation for everything.

‘The complexity of a hydrogen fuel cell car is huge compared to an electric car.

‘I think we are multiplying the complexity by five. It’s actually a hybrid car. It’s both electric and you are adding the hydrogen power. It’s very complex.’

Performance-wise, Spark wants the as-yet-unnamed Extreme H to at least equal its all-electric predecessor, which is designed to produce a top-end power output of 400 kW (around 550 bhp) and can launch from 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds.

Drawing on the lessons learned from the Odyssey 21 project, Spark and Extreme H are laying the foundations for a historic step in the development of hydrogen-fuelled motorsport.

> To find out more about the technical evolutions of the Odyssey 21 Extreme E car, be sure to check out the November issue of Racecar Engineering magazine. Available soon!

The post Inside Spark’s Development of the Upcoming Extreme H Car appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

Race strategy in IndyCar is like no other motorsport series on the planet. The variety of tracks, along with the number of tyres and the compact race weekend schedule makes tyre degradation impossible to predict. Teams also need to manage fuel consumption, pit windows and full course yellows – all with smaller teams and more competitive grids than the likes of Formula 1.

Types of track

However, the biggest headache for strategists is the type of track IndyCar races on. There are three types of circuit on the IndyCar calendar:

• Ovals – short ovals and superspeedways (which are more than two miles long)
• Road courses – permanent tracks which feature both right and left turns
• Street courses – made up of closed-off public roads or airport runways

This diverse range of circuits means that lap times can vary from 23 seconds on an oval, to 1 minute 45 seconds on a road course. Consequently, the time lost in the pits relative to the average lap time varies significantly at each track. This not only plays a major role in determining pit windows, but also changes the effect of pitting under a full course yellow. Therefore, the optimum race strategy is completely different depending on whether you are racing at an oval or a road/street course.

Types of tyres

To suit the demands of each circuit, Firestone have had to develop a plethora of different tyre constructions and compounds, giving the engineers lots of tyres to try and figure out.

There are essentially five types of tyres, based on their construction:

• Street course tyres
• Road course tyres
• Indy 500 tyres
• Superspeedway tyres
• Short oval tyres

Then there are two compounds, the primary (black) harder compound and the alternate (red) softer compound. On ovals, teams are only allowed to use the primary compound, however, due to the forces generated on ovals, each corner of the car requires a slightly different tyre compound or construction. On street/road courses teams can choose from the primary and alternate compounds as well as one wet tyre.

‘Firestone does tweak the tyres each year as well,’ highlights David Faustino, Lead Race Engineer at Team Penske. ‘Typically they are trying to tweak the balance between the primary and alternate tyre to get some crossover degradation. But it’s enough of a change which means going into a race weekend, it’s not always obvious how the tyres are going to behave relative to last year.’

Full course yellows

The biggest variable that is outside of the teams’ control is yellow flags and full course yellows. Unlike other series, if a full course yellow comes out during a race, the pit lane closes. A pace car is then released which picks up the race leader and the other cars bunch up behind. Once the pack is formed, the pit lane opens, giving cars the opportunity to pit before the race goes green.

If a car passes the Pit Commitment Line after a yellow, the driver cannot complete a full pitstop (but can repair damage or refuel for two seconds), and has to drive through the pitlane, ending up at the back of the pack. They can then complete a full pitstop when the pit lane opens again.

The strategic difference between ovals and road/street courses

‘A lot of our strategy comes down to how IndyCar handles full course yellows,’ explains Eric Cowdin, Race Engineer at Chip Ganassi Racing. ‘On road and street courses you want to pit towards the front of the pit window, because if a yellow comes out and you haven’t pitted, you have to wait until the pitlane opens again, by which time the pack has completely bunched up.’

‘Typically, cars that have completed a pit cycle before a full course yellow will have a track position advantage,’ highlights Faustino. ‘This is because the leaders will then pit under yellow and will cycle to the back of the cars that have stayed out, assuming they have enough fuel to complete the same number of stops overall. With the point structure in IndyCar you usually see the field split 50/50, so in a 26 car field, if you are the leader and haven’t pitted before a yellow, you could end up 13^th, which is a substantial hit,’ Faustino continues. ‘So usually cars will stop early and take the risk of having to fuel save for the rest of the race, in the hope that they will get lucky with a yellow where they can then conserve fuel.’

However, on ovals it’s a different story. Pitstops are initially dictated by fuel consumption and a normal pitstop can put a driver two or three laps down compared to the rest of the field. Therefore, by pitting under a full course yellow on an oval, once the pack has bunched up, a driver can complete a pitstop and re-join the track on the same lap – without going several laps down. So, if a yellow falls during a driver’s fuel window, then it is effectively a ‘free’ pitstop.

‘The strategy for ovals is the opposite to road courses. You want to run as long as you dare to try and catch that yellow,’ says Cowdin. ‘But then you also have to consider fuel and tyre degradation. There’s no point staying out 10 laps longer on older tyres if your rival is going considerably faster than you on a new set, because when you do pit, you will come out several places behind them.’

Race strategy software

With full course yellows capable of completely turning a team’s race strategy on its head, engineers need to be alert to this threat and have access to all the necessary information to respond quickly and accurately. However, unlike the live strategy software we see on the screens of Formula 1 and WEC pitwalls, most IndyCar teams use standard timing data alongside their own strategy tools.

However, teams such as Arrow McLaren SP invested in new race strategy software from SBG, called RaceWatch. This is a live prediction tool which synchronises track data such as live timing, race control messages and weather updates with car data including telemetry, GPS and onboard video. The algorithms within RaceWatch then process and analyse this incoming data using statistical models which can predict the probability of an overtake, a driver’s pace during a session and the latest values of tyre degradation.

Our aim is to help engineers bring all the data they need into one place,’ highlights Mike Caulfield, Senior Motorsport Product Specialist at SBG and former Strategy Engineer at Mercedes and Haas F1 teams. ‘This avoids them having to manage several spreadsheets and manually move data to populate tools. Instead, RaceWatch automatically picks up all the necessary data streams and updates the models simultaneously,’ Caulfield continues.

‘Strategy software should never tell you what decision to make,’ says Caulfield. ‘In RaceWatch, we try to model the scenarios as best we can and provide all the relevant information in a clear and concise way so that teams can understand the options available to them and the level of risk associated with each. It is then up to the team to decide whether to take that risk or not.’

> To read the full article on IndyCar race strategy, check out the October 2022 issue

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