The church bells were ringing in Maranello again today with Ferrari's victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix. The quiet sobbing sound you're hearing in the background is Fernando Alonso continuing to regret his career choices. Sebastian Vettel's win snaps one of Ferrari's longest Formula 1 winless streaks in recent memory, and places Vettel only three points behind Lewis Hamilton. Granted, we're only in the second race of the season, but Ferrari has made some incredible gains over the off season, going from a team struggling for podiums, to a possible early title contender.
This could also set us up for a very exciting Formula 1 season. The great Formula 1 seasons have been defined as duels between two drivers, Hunt versus Lauda, Senna versus Prost, Schumacher versus Hakkinen, and so on and so forth. These are the seasons everyone remembers because the races become one-on-one duels between larger then life drivers, and everyone else on the track better get out of the way if they know what's good for them. Or at least that's how we remember it. We had a little bit of that kind of dueling last year between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Still, Hamilton and Rosberg both drive for Mercedes, so even though Mercedes let the two go racing rather then issue team orders, you know they weren't going at each other full force because the number one mission was to bring home a win for Mercedes. A duel between Hamilton and Vettel would have no such restrictions. It would be the Formula 1 equivalent of a knife fight in a telephone booth, and it would make for an amazing season to watch.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Saturday, March 28, 2015
WEC LMP1-H Preseason Rankings
The WEC LMP1-H teams have been doing private testing for some time now. With the exception of Nissan, who has been surprisingly open about their car's development, I think it might be easier to break into NORAD then it is to to find hard testing data for LMP1 cars. That being said, the teams have homologated their cars for the season, and we have a little bit of test data from Paul Ricard to look at, so just like we did for the Formula 1 teams a couple of weeks ago, let's do some uneducated guess work and see if we can rank the LMP1-H teams from best to worst.
1). Porsche
If you don't love the Porsche 917, please stop reading and leave right now. As you can probably guess then, I was pretty excited to here that Porsche was returning to Le Mans with a factory LMP1 effort last year. Porsche obviously had a good year with the 919 in 2014, winning the race Brazil and claiming a number of pole positions. The car obviously had speed, but it's major flaw was that the car had midturn understear problems. As a result, the 919 chewed through tires at a pretty good clip. I'm just a guy with a blog, but I'm pretty sure that in endurance racing you want a car that's good on the long run. While Porsche had speed, their tire wear problems hurt their finishing position. The lap times at Paul Ricard again suggest that the 919 is going to be one of the fastest cars on the track, and earlier in the year Porsche claimed that they fixed the car's balance problems. If Porsche really can manage their tires better in 2015, then they will have the car to beat.
2). Toyota
Picking the strongest car for this list was fairly easy, as was picking the weakest car (five bucks says that the most common words we hear during this year's WEC championship will be "and Nissan continues having problems as they bring their car back into the garage"). The middle positions are bit of a toss up however. Based on lap times at Paul Ricard, Audi had the faster car, but Toyota is the defending WEC champion. Plus, even though Toyota was slower at Paul Ricard, they still have a 6MJ hybrid system, while Audi has a 4MJ hybrid system. As I explained in excruciating detail yesterday, 2014 race results indicate that the key to speed with the LMP1-H cars is running in the higher hybrid sub-classes. Granted, my analysis is completely neglecting aerodynamics, and essentially every other part of the car that isn't the powertrain, but the Toyota looks like it could be the better car on paper.
3). Audi
While Toyota may have the stronger car on paper, races are won and lost on the track. As the great Yogi Bera said, in theory, theory and practice are the same but in practice they are different. Thank Yogi. As I said earlier, Audi appears to be at a disadvantage using only a 4MJ hybrid system. That being said, you don't win at Le Mans 13 times by accident. All the great endurance teams have one thing in common, their race craft is second to none. I'm not saying that Toyota doesn't know how to run a team, but Team Joest is probably the best in the business. Even if they don't have the fastest car on the track, they stay competitive by capitalizing on any mistake the opposing teams makes. This means that regardless of the car they are fielding, Audi can't be completely counted out from any race. Oh, and they were also faster then Toyota at Paul Ricard, so that may help as well. Although Audi is only ranked third on this list, I wouldn't be surprised one bit to see them race their way around Toyota once the season starts.
4). Nissan
When Nissan first announced the specs on their GT-R LMP1 car, a lot of people were getting ready to hand over the first place trophy at Le Mans, the WEC constructors championship, the WEC drivers championship and their virgin daughters to Nissan before the cars even took to the grid. If Nissan could have built a car to the originally advertised specifications, that might not have been a bad call (except for the virgin daughter part). Then reality hit with the force of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Okay, so the asteroid bit is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but Nissan is definitely the kid from high school who is failing to live up to his potential. Nissan isn't going to debut the car until to Le Mans, and has limited testing miles on it. By itself, that usually spells a recipe for disaster, but that's doubly true for Nissan given the cars unusual engineering. While I salute Nissan for building the weirdest car in recent WEC history, they are going to have more bugs to work out of the car then a team building a conventional layout car would. Also, the car is going to run in a strict FWD setup. Nissan says that their traction control system and superior down force are going to make front wheel drive viable, but I still think they are going to have handling problems because of it.
All is not doom and gloom for Nissan however. If their flow through aero concept lives up to it's promise, they should have really good down force numbers for relatively little drag. The end result is higher top speed on the on the Mulsanne straight. If Nissan can get their other problems sorted out, I think the GT-R LMP1 is going to be a real weapon on the track. The question is will Nissan back the program long enough for the car to develop, or, if the first two years are completely unsuccessful, will Nissan just run away, bury the car in a salt mine and pretend this never existed.
***
Do you notice a little fun fact about this list. The car ranking also matches the hybrid subclass ranking of each teams. That wasn't just laziness on my part, for once. This list was developed based on what we know about the cars plus a little speculation. It just so happens that the cars in the higher hybrid subclasses appear to have a speed advantage. If we see the higher hybrid subclass cars having a distinct speed advantage in 2015, then that will deliver a simple message to all the teams. Get your car to 8MJ's, or race for second place.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Mickey Andretti?
I've been watching a lot of old IndyCar/Champ Car races on Youtube lately. Then I remembered that the Indy Racing League's first ever race, the first race in the famous IRL/CART "split" took place at Disney World. No, the IRL didn't have a street race through the Magic Kingdom (although that would have been pretty cool), but instead they raced on Disney's brand new (as of 1996) "Walt Disney World Speedway," dubbed the "The Mickyard."
I had never watched the inaugural IRL event at The Mickyard, and it didn't take a lot of searching on Youtube to find the event. So, in honor or this weekends inaugural 2015 IndyCar race at St. Petersburg, I present the first ever race of the series that would one day become the modern incarnation of IndyCar.
Walt Disney World Speedway will never be more then a foot note in professional racing history, but it is an interesting foot note. After the Indy Cars left in 2000, the track spent most of it's life as a home for the Richard Petty Driving Experience. It is also rather fitting to watch this race as IndyCar kicks off it's 2015 season, because in June of 2015, The Mickyard, home of the first ever Indy Racing League event, will be permanently closed.
So, grab some pop corn, put on your mouse ears, and enjoy this little oddity of American open wheel racing.
I had never watched the inaugural IRL event at The Mickyard, and it didn't take a lot of searching on Youtube to find the event. So, in honor or this weekends inaugural 2015 IndyCar race at St. Petersburg, I present the first ever race of the series that would one day become the modern incarnation of IndyCar.
Walt Disney World Speedway will never be more then a foot note in professional racing history, but it is an interesting foot note. After the Indy Cars left in 2000, the track spent most of it's life as a home for the Richard Petty Driving Experience. It is also rather fitting to watch this race as IndyCar kicks off it's 2015 season, because in June of 2015, The Mickyard, home of the first ever Indy Racing League event, will be permanently closed.
So, grab some pop corn, put on your mouse ears, and enjoy this little oddity of American open wheel racing.
1.21 Gigawatts?
Buckle in guys, here's the long promised article on LMP1 hybrid subclasses. Sort of. All four LMP1-H manufacturers have declared which hybrid subclass they will be running in this year, and official preseason testing is underway at Paul Ricard, meaning for the first time (that I'm aware of), we have some hard data that we can judge the 2015 LMP1-H cars by. For 2015 we have the full range of hybrid subclasses covered. Nissan's car will run in the 2 megajoule class (the lowest hybrid subclass), Audi's car increases from 2MJ in 2014 to 4MJ for 2015, Toyota remains a 6MJ car, and Porsche increases from 6MJ to 8MJ, making it the first 8MJ car entered in WEC competition.
At this point your asking what the heck is all this megajoule stuff and why do I care? I won't go into a ton of technical detail (this isn't Mulsanne's Corner, and I couldn't explain what a supercapacitor is if my life depended on it), but I do feel that a very basic understanding of the hybrid systems on these cars is important to understanding the strengths and weakness of the various machines. Like I've said before, I'm not an automotive engineer, and I don't have any insider information, so this article might contain a few (or many) technical errors, but I do the best I can.
Okay, so what is the deal with these hybrid subclasses. The FIA rulebook for the LMP1-H cars has four hybrid subclasses based on how much electric energy the car is allowed to use per lap to supplement the power produced by the internal combustion engine. (In case any engineers are reading this, I know I know a Joule is technically a unit of work, not energy, but frankly I can't be bothered to care about unit consistency at the moment, so just deal with it). The FIA rulebook contains equivalency rules that attempt to balance out the performance of the various subclasses. Specifically, if your car is in a lower class (like Nissan and Audi), you are allowed a higher fuel flow per lap, meaning you should get more horsepower from the internal combustion engine, while the higher hybrid subclasses (Toyota and Porsche) are allowed to use more electric power, giving them a stronger boost out of the corners from the car's electric motors, but they have a lower fuel flow per lap. What this means that in theory, each car is given the same amount of potential energy per lap either in the form of gasoline (or diesel if your Audi and insist on using the same basic engine you find in a Caterpillar D7 dozer) or stored electric energy.
In the world of the WEC though, some hybrid subclasses or more equivalent then others. Just looking at car performance in 2014 for a second, it is easy to see that the 6MJ Porsche and Toyota performed better then the 2MJ Audi. No one has ever confused me for being a mechanical engineer, but if we look at some general performance numbers for internal combustion engines and electric motors, you can see some basics reasons why a higher hybrid subclass (done properly) is a better design. According to my technical sources (okay, I went to Wikipedia), internal combustion engines have a maximum theoretical efficiency of 25% to 30%. This means that of the energy released by the burning fuel, only 25% to 30% of that energy actually moves the car forward. Electric motors on the other hand have a theoretical efficiency of 100%, with a practical efficiency of around 90%. Let's put that perspective for a second. The real world efficiency of an electric motor is three times greater then the theoretical efficiency of an internal combustion engine. Now let's logically think about how this applies to racecars. Each car is (basically) allowed to use the same amount of energy per lap, but if more of the energy is electric, a greater percentage of that energy will be used for actually moving the car, instead of making heat and noise.
Thoroughly confused yet? Yes? Good. At this point, you're also probably asking, who let me on the internet? Good question. You're also probably asking if the larger megajoule subclass cars are faster, why don't all the manufacturers just run in the 8MJ subclass? Two reasons. First, storing energy for an internal combustion engine is as simple as adding fuel to the tank, but to the teams can't add extra electricity to the cars during pit stops. If they could, Formula E would be a lot more interesting. Instead, teams have to recover waste energy over the course of the lap and store it as electric energy (think Toyota Prius on steroids). The higher your subclass the more energy your recovery system needs to able to scavenge per lap. It's easy to claim that you have an 8MJ car, but that's only true if your energy recovery system can scavenge 8MJ's worth of power. If you declare your car into a subclass were you can't recover enough energy, not only are you not taking full benefit of the hybrid system, your internal combustion engine will be down on power compared to a car in a lower subclass using the same amount of electric power due to lower fuel flow number for the higher hybrid subclasses.
Assuming your head hasn't completely exploded yet (or you left to watch cat videos on Youtube), there's even more things for teams to think about. All this equipment to scavenge and store the electric energy, plus drive the wheels, weighs a lot. So, not only do you need to make sure that your hybrid system is efficient enough to generate the amount of electric energy needed for your subclass, you need to make sure that car isn't too heavy. Kind of hard to go fast through the Mulsanne chicane when your effectively giving a baby elephant a piggy back ride.
I'm guessing that none of you are still reading at this point, and those that have are yelling at their computer at all the technical mistakes I've made. To summarize though, performance of the 2014 LMP1-H cars suggest that the higher hybrid subclasses have a speed advantage, but only if the energy recovery system can scavenge enough electric energy, and do so without turning a svelte racecar into a porker. Team's who can't overcome these two technical challenges are better of entering their car in a lower hybrid subclass.
I'm leaving out some of the fine details of the hybrid systems on these cars, but this article is too long as is, and I think I've hit the high points. Tune in tomorrow for a trade mark Racing Nerd uninformed analysis of the 2015 WEC LMP1-H competitors.
At this point your asking what the heck is all this megajoule stuff and why do I care? I won't go into a ton of technical detail (this isn't Mulsanne's Corner, and I couldn't explain what a supercapacitor is if my life depended on it), but I do feel that a very basic understanding of the hybrid systems on these cars is important to understanding the strengths and weakness of the various machines. Like I've said before, I'm not an automotive engineer, and I don't have any insider information, so this article might contain a few (or many) technical errors, but I do the best I can.
Okay, so what is the deal with these hybrid subclasses. The FIA rulebook for the LMP1-H cars has four hybrid subclasses based on how much electric energy the car is allowed to use per lap to supplement the power produced by the internal combustion engine. (In case any engineers are reading this, I know I know a Joule is technically a unit of work, not energy, but frankly I can't be bothered to care about unit consistency at the moment, so just deal with it). The FIA rulebook contains equivalency rules that attempt to balance out the performance of the various subclasses. Specifically, if your car is in a lower class (like Nissan and Audi), you are allowed a higher fuel flow per lap, meaning you should get more horsepower from the internal combustion engine, while the higher hybrid subclasses (Toyota and Porsche) are allowed to use more electric power, giving them a stronger boost out of the corners from the car's electric motors, but they have a lower fuel flow per lap. What this means that in theory, each car is given the same amount of potential energy per lap either in the form of gasoline (or diesel if your Audi and insist on using the same basic engine you find in a Caterpillar D7 dozer) or stored electric energy.
In the world of the WEC though, some hybrid subclasses or more equivalent then others. Just looking at car performance in 2014 for a second, it is easy to see that the 6MJ Porsche and Toyota performed better then the 2MJ Audi. No one has ever confused me for being a mechanical engineer, but if we look at some general performance numbers for internal combustion engines and electric motors, you can see some basics reasons why a higher hybrid subclass (done properly) is a better design. According to my technical sources (okay, I went to Wikipedia), internal combustion engines have a maximum theoretical efficiency of 25% to 30%. This means that of the energy released by the burning fuel, only 25% to 30% of that energy actually moves the car forward. Electric motors on the other hand have a theoretical efficiency of 100%, with a practical efficiency of around 90%. Let's put that perspective for a second. The real world efficiency of an electric motor is three times greater then the theoretical efficiency of an internal combustion engine. Now let's logically think about how this applies to racecars. Each car is (basically) allowed to use the same amount of energy per lap, but if more of the energy is electric, a greater percentage of that energy will be used for actually moving the car, instead of making heat and noise.
Thoroughly confused yet? Yes? Good. At this point, you're also probably asking, who let me on the internet? Good question. You're also probably asking if the larger megajoule subclass cars are faster, why don't all the manufacturers just run in the 8MJ subclass? Two reasons. First, storing energy for an internal combustion engine is as simple as adding fuel to the tank, but to the teams can't add extra electricity to the cars during pit stops. If they could, Formula E would be a lot more interesting. Instead, teams have to recover waste energy over the course of the lap and store it as electric energy (think Toyota Prius on steroids). The higher your subclass the more energy your recovery system needs to able to scavenge per lap. It's easy to claim that you have an 8MJ car, but that's only true if your energy recovery system can scavenge 8MJ's worth of power. If you declare your car into a subclass were you can't recover enough energy, not only are you not taking full benefit of the hybrid system, your internal combustion engine will be down on power compared to a car in a lower subclass using the same amount of electric power due to lower fuel flow number for the higher hybrid subclasses.
Assuming your head hasn't completely exploded yet (or you left to watch cat videos on Youtube), there's even more things for teams to think about. All this equipment to scavenge and store the electric energy, plus drive the wheels, weighs a lot. So, not only do you need to make sure that your hybrid system is efficient enough to generate the amount of electric energy needed for your subclass, you need to make sure that car isn't too heavy. Kind of hard to go fast through the Mulsanne chicane when your effectively giving a baby elephant a piggy back ride.
I'm guessing that none of you are still reading at this point, and those that have are yelling at their computer at all the technical mistakes I've made. To summarize though, performance of the 2014 LMP1-H cars suggest that the higher hybrid subclasses have a speed advantage, but only if the energy recovery system can scavenge enough electric energy, and do so without turning a svelte racecar into a porker. Team's who can't overcome these two technical challenges are better of entering their car in a lower hybrid subclass.
I'm leaving out some of the fine details of the hybrid systems on these cars, but this article is too long as is, and I think I've hit the high points. Tune in tomorrow for a trade mark Racing Nerd uninformed analysis of the 2015 WEC LMP1-H competitors.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
That New Prototype Car Smell
After this year's 12 Hours of Sebring, I've been thinking a lot about prototype sports car racing in America. As I said in my article on the 12 Hours of Sebring (if you haven't read that, go do it now), I talked about how the current Daytona Prototypes, whatever their virtues (and there are virtues to DP's), they need to leave. The question is what should replace them?
Let's get one thing strait right here, right now, if you love sports car racing in America, do not suggest that IMSA adopt the WEC's LMP1-Hybrid rules. The hybrid prototypes built by Audi, Porsche, Toyota and Nissan (to a lesser extent) are fire breathing beasts of racecars. They would also single handedly kill the Tudor United Sports Car Series in a heart beat. While I'm sure that teams like Action Express and Chip Ganassi could successfully run these cars, they just don't have the budget. All of the LMP1-H teams running in the WEC are factory works teams while the prototype teams in TUSC (with the exception of Mazda's P2 cars and Chip Ganassi in a sort of, kind of, not really, kind of way) are privateers. Point is that the LMP1-H cars require a level of technological sophistication that only a factory supported team has the budget for, and Audi and Toyota aren't going to be running North American teams any time soon. So let's stop pretending that LMP1 hybrids are going to happen.
Now that we've left crazy town, the two options left are LMP1-Light, or P2. IMSA has decided to back the P2 cars, which theoretically should end the conversation right here and now, but I have space to fill, so let's go ahead and pretend IMSA reads Racing Nerd and have a discussion on the merits between the two.
In one very important way, LMP1-L and P2 have one thing in common. They are both raced at Le Mans. As much as I love Daytona and Sebring (and the 24 Hours of Daytona may be my favorite race of them all) the most significant sports car race in the world is Le Mans, and if the TUSC teams don't have a chance to race at Circuit de la Sarthe, then TUSC will always limit itself to being a second class racing series.
The real defining difference between these two cars then is speed. Reviewing 2014 WEC qualifying times, the LMP1-L cars are approximately two to four seconds then the LMP1-H cars (depending on the track), while the P2 cars are about another two to four seconds back. At first, I was in favor of TUSC adopting the LMP1-L specifications. The cars are faster and technically the LMP1-L cars are designed to compete directly with the LMP1-H cars, meaning we could see the TUSC teams squaring off against the factory backed European teams, just like the good old days of the American Le Mans Series. While that's a great theory, the reality is that the factory backed LMP1-H teams always stomp the LMP1-L teams into the ground, and that's not going to change just because Wayne Taylor Racing is the team being stomped.
If the TUDOR privateers have about as much chance of winning Le Mans as Pastor Maldonado has of keeping his car on the track, P2 suddenly becomes a lot more attractive option. Yes, the cars are slower, but the class appears to be much better supported with a number of different chassis manufacturers and growing class popularity from the teams. I'm a big believer that as a class of cars becomes more popular with the racers, and as the class matures, the racing becomes much better, which is great for us fans. Yes, P2 cars are slower then LMP1 cars, but the quality of racing (the thing we actually care about) doesn't necessarily require super sonic cars. The fact that P2 is better supported by both the manufacturers and the teams makes the class a better choice for a racing series like IMSA to buy into.
IMSA, I salute you for making P2 the top prototype class in the TUSC championship. Now all you Tudor teams go give the Europeans hell at Le Mans.
In one very important way, LMP1-L and P2 have one thing in common. They are both raced at Le Mans. As much as I love Daytona and Sebring (and the 24 Hours of Daytona may be my favorite race of them all) the most significant sports car race in the world is Le Mans, and if the TUSC teams don't have a chance to race at Circuit de la Sarthe, then TUSC will always limit itself to being a second class racing series.
Quick side note, I keep referring to LMP1-L like it's a thing that is seriously raced. In reality, only one team, Rebellion Racing, is campaigning an LMP1-L car at the moment, so don't let this discussion make you think that the class is well supported. Which is another good reason IMSA should run away from LMP1-L specifications like the plague
If the TUDOR privateers have about as much chance of winning Le Mans as Pastor Maldonado has of keeping his car on the track, P2 suddenly becomes a lot more attractive option. Yes, the cars are slower, but the class appears to be much better supported with a number of different chassis manufacturers and growing class popularity from the teams. I'm a big believer that as a class of cars becomes more popular with the racers, and as the class matures, the racing becomes much better, which is great for us fans. Yes, P2 cars are slower then LMP1 cars, but the quality of racing (the thing we actually care about) doesn't necessarily require super sonic cars. The fact that P2 is better supported by both the manufacturers and the teams makes the class a better choice for a racing series like IMSA to buy into.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Formula E-ehh?
I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to write an article about Formula E for almost a month now. The biggest problem I have with expressing my opinions on Formula E is that I have some conflicting thoughts on it. Back before Formula E's first season, it was easy to write the series off as a novelty. At it's best, Formula E is a support series (that ironically, doesn't support anything) that has some absolutely painful gimmicks ("cough" fan boost "cough"). Somewhere along the line though, I've ended up watching every Formula E race from Beijing to Miami...and...I actually kind of like it.
Formula E has one (and only one) very good thing going for it right now, the wheel-to-wheel racing is actually really exciting. If you don't believe me, watch this last lap crash between Nick Heidfeld and Nico Prost at the last lap of the race in Beijing. Yes, cars crash in all forms of racing (Pastor Maldonado has practically made an entire career out of it), but when's the last time you've seen a legitimate wheel-to-wheel battle for the lead on the last lap of a Formula 1 race. The crash in Beijing happened back in September, and I still remember it quite clearly, and I can't remember anything from the last Formula 1 race I watched, so Formula E has to be doing something right.
Okay, so the racing in Formula E is actually pretty good, but there is still a lot wrong with the series. For starters, there's fan boost. For those of you who don't know, the Formula E cars are equipped with a push-to-pass feature. So far so good. Even the almighty CART Champ Cars had push to pass. For Formula E "ePrixes" however, (these things really do need a better name), the driver who gets the most mentions on social media gets an extra use of his push to pass button. Let's take a step back and put this in perspective. The driver who is the most popular, effectively gets a more powerful car. That seams totally legitimate and in the spirit of competition. To be fair, from the racing I've seen, fan boost isn't exactly a push-to-win button, but it makes Formula E look about as legitimate as a South American military dictator.
Fortunately, fan boost is an amazingly simple problem to fix, you just get rid of it, but the Formula E cars have some technological problems that are going to be more difficult to fix. Chief among these problems is the limited battery storage. For a race that's only an hour long, each team needs two cars, because a Formula E pit stop doesn't mean four tires and fuel, it means getting in a new car. This effectively puts every team on the same basic pit strategy, and diminishes the racing product as a result. It also takes the fact that electric vehicle racing isn't truly ready for prime time yet, and places that fact front and center. Also, these cars are fragile. At Buenos Aires, a number of cars ended their races early with broken suspensions because the cars couldn't go over the curbing without self destructing. Think about this last sentence for a second. The race is only an hour long, and each team uses two cars in the race. This means that (neglecting qualifying and practice time), these cars are only capable of racing for 30 minutes before disintegrating. These things make the old Life W12 Formula 1 engine look positively bomb proof. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you owe it to yourself to read the story of Life Racing).
Assuming Formula E has ambitions of being a top tier racing series, and not just the dancing monkey to Formula 1's main attraction, they're going to need to run longer races, either in the form of two hour races (my preferred option), or double header weekends (think Pirelli World Challenge), and that means Formula E is going to need to figure out how to make traditional pit stops possible, and make sure the chassis is physically capable of running flat out for more then an episode of The Big Bang Theory.
And while we're talking about the technological limitations, let me throw some more cold water on Formula E. (Which is actually a really bad idea because you shouldn't throw water on electrical equipment). Formula E is not going to drive technological development for electric road cars. For the 2015/2016 Formula E season, there are eight car "manufacturers." Great, these guys will develop the technology to get a leg up in racing, and that technology will trickle down to road cars. There is only one little miscalculation in this line of thinking. Andretti Autosport isn't in the business of building road cars. Of the ten current Formula E teams, only two (Audi Sport ABT and E.Dams-Renault) have any connection to real car manufacturers. Yes, Andretti Autosport has racing relationships with Honda and Volkswagen, but do you really think Andretti engineers are calling Japan to give Honda electric vehicle tips? Plus, as I said earlier, the number one technical problem facing Formula E right now is the need to run two cars per driver in every race. Formula E is hoping to be at the point where they have one car per driver by season five. I'm not sure Formula E is going to be in existence for season five.
There's no doubt that Formula E is a flawed series in it's current incarnation, and I have doubts about it's long term viability, but in the mean time, there is some fun to be had.
Formula E has one (and only one) very good thing going for it right now, the wheel-to-wheel racing is actually really exciting. If you don't believe me, watch this last lap crash between Nick Heidfeld and Nico Prost at the last lap of the race in Beijing. Yes, cars crash in all forms of racing (Pastor Maldonado has practically made an entire career out of it), but when's the last time you've seen a legitimate wheel-to-wheel battle for the lead on the last lap of a Formula 1 race. The crash in Beijing happened back in September, and I still remember it quite clearly, and I can't remember anything from the last Formula 1 race I watched, so Formula E has to be doing something right.
Okay, so the racing in Formula E is actually pretty good, but there is still a lot wrong with the series. For starters, there's fan boost. For those of you who don't know, the Formula E cars are equipped with a push-to-pass feature. So far so good. Even the almighty CART Champ Cars had push to pass. For Formula E "ePrixes" however, (these things really do need a better name), the driver who gets the most mentions on social media gets an extra use of his push to pass button. Let's take a step back and put this in perspective. The driver who is the most popular, effectively gets a more powerful car. That seams totally legitimate and in the spirit of competition. To be fair, from the racing I've seen, fan boost isn't exactly a push-to-win button, but it makes Formula E look about as legitimate as a South American military dictator.
Fortunately, fan boost is an amazingly simple problem to fix, you just get rid of it, but the Formula E cars have some technological problems that are going to be more difficult to fix. Chief among these problems is the limited battery storage. For a race that's only an hour long, each team needs two cars, because a Formula E pit stop doesn't mean four tires and fuel, it means getting in a new car. This effectively puts every team on the same basic pit strategy, and diminishes the racing product as a result. It also takes the fact that electric vehicle racing isn't truly ready for prime time yet, and places that fact front and center. Also, these cars are fragile. At Buenos Aires, a number of cars ended their races early with broken suspensions because the cars couldn't go over the curbing without self destructing. Think about this last sentence for a second. The race is only an hour long, and each team uses two cars in the race. This means that (neglecting qualifying and practice time), these cars are only capable of racing for 30 minutes before disintegrating. These things make the old Life W12 Formula 1 engine look positively bomb proof. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you owe it to yourself to read the story of Life Racing).
Assuming Formula E has ambitions of being a top tier racing series, and not just the dancing monkey to Formula 1's main attraction, they're going to need to run longer races, either in the form of two hour races (my preferred option), or double header weekends (think Pirelli World Challenge), and that means Formula E is going to need to figure out how to make traditional pit stops possible, and make sure the chassis is physically capable of running flat out for more then an episode of The Big Bang Theory.
And while we're talking about the technological limitations, let me throw some more cold water on Formula E. (Which is actually a really bad idea because you shouldn't throw water on electrical equipment). Formula E is not going to drive technological development for electric road cars. For the 2015/2016 Formula E season, there are eight car "manufacturers." Great, these guys will develop the technology to get a leg up in racing, and that technology will trickle down to road cars. There is only one little miscalculation in this line of thinking. Andretti Autosport isn't in the business of building road cars. Of the ten current Formula E teams, only two (Audi Sport ABT and E.Dams-Renault) have any connection to real car manufacturers. Yes, Andretti Autosport has racing relationships with Honda and Volkswagen, but do you really think Andretti engineers are calling Japan to give Honda electric vehicle tips? Plus, as I said earlier, the number one technical problem facing Formula E right now is the need to run two cars per driver in every race. Formula E is hoping to be at the point where they have one car per driver by season five. I'm not sure Formula E is going to be in existence for season five.
There's no doubt that Formula E is a flawed series in it's current incarnation, and I have doubts about it's long term viability, but in the mean time, there is some fun to be had.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Dear Nissan, Different Doesn't Always Mean Better
I'll be honest, I'm not a huge Nissan fan, but I might be a GTR LMP1 fan. I'm kind of a sucker for weird, slow, race cars. While few people would disagree with me that no one is going to confuse the Nissan with any other car in the paddock, some people might be claiming that it is too early to say that the GTR LMP1 is going to get it's lunch money stolen by Audi, Porsche and Toyota. Those people don't read racing news.
Thing's haven't been going well for Nissan lately. The exceptional Mulsanne's Corner has been following and speculating on the development of the GTR LMP1 since the beginning of the project. The latest news from the guys over at Mulsanne's is that Nissan will not be racing either at the WEC season opener at Silverstone, or the following race at Spa. The reason for this is that Nissan failed their FIA crash test. Specifically, they need to have the car homologated 30 days before they can race it. This puts Silverstone completely out of the question, and Spa (if Nissan had chosen to run Spa), extremely difficult. That means that the car will make it's debut at Le Mans. In addition to the Nissan's shake down run being the most important race on the calendar, Nissan has limited testing miles under their belt. According to the cover story in the March issue of Racecar Engineering, Nissan has only 2,000 kilometers of testing on the car, compared to 40,000 kilometers of testing that Toyota had when they debuted their car. Unconventional car, limited testing, and late debut to the race season, I don't possibly see anything that could go wrong here.
Of course, if the Nissan could live up to the car's original billing, then they still might be a force to be reckoned with. According to RACER's March cover story however, Nissan has slowly been adjusting everyone's expectations downward. Originally, Nissan was shooting for 2,000 horse power with all wheel drive (internal combustion engine driving the front wheels and hybrid drive system driving the back wheels). This has been adjusted downwards to 1,250 horsepower. Also troubling is that originally the car was supposed to run in the 8MJ hybrid subclass, but Nissan is now anticipating running in the 4MJ or even 2MJ subclass. The speed comparison of the 2MJ Audi to the 6MJ Toyota and Porsche last year showed that when it comes to hybrid LMP1 cars, you want all the megajoules you can get. But wait, it gets worse. Nissan designed the original concept of the car assuming an 8MJ hybrid system driving the rear wheels. With the smaller hybrid system, Nissan has decided to lighten the car by getting rid of the heavy drivelines that send power to the back wheels and send all of the power to the front wheels. You read that right. The GTR LMP1, Nissan's flagship racing car, is front wheel drive. Just like an Altima. Nissan claims that they feel they can make this concept work with a combination of high downforce (which is Nissan is to be believed is the car's true strength), and advanced traction control. Personally I'm still not buying it. Nissan is asking the front tires to do all of the work, and no matter how advanced the engineering, there are certain laws of physics that Nissan can't change.
Racecar Engineering reported that the GTR is running sub-two minute lap times at Circuit of the Americas. Pole time at COTA last year was 1:49. Depending on what is mean't by "sub 2 minutes" Nissan could either be a few seconds of the pace (still significant), to almost ten seconds off the pace. Either way, they have work to do.
To be fair, lots of cars have significant issues their first year, but with Nissan it seams like the hits just keep on coming. If Nissan can build a car that matches the GTR LMP1's original specifications, they will have a car that is the class of the field. The real question is can they sort out the car's problems before Nissan decides to cut their losses.
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