Formula 1 2020 (Will Contain Race Day Spoilers)

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Apropos nothing I nearly bought Mr Brundle’s old BMW K1200s...
My grandfather nearly bought T S Lawrence’s Brough SS100. Yes, really - they were both short-ar$es and George Brough had built a low bike for TSL. He ended up buying a SS80 Black Alpine instead.
 
How I let Mercedes win Le Mans in 1989

This is a Mercedes forum after all!

Mercedes is currently a continuing and dominant force in F1, but their record at Le Mans is rather more sketchy.

The horrific accident in 1955 saw the Silver Arrows stay away from motorsport for decades. In 1985, a Sauber Mercedes driven by John Neilsen performed a back flip over the Mulsanne hump, a feat emulated by Flight Officer Mark Webber and others again in 1999.

In 1988 they were providing stiff competition to the Jaguars in Group C races, but again at Le Mans, their aero calcs were not so clever.

The maximum speed on most circuits was around 200mph but on the Mulsanne, 250mph was possible. That’s just a 25% increase in speed, but almost 65% increase in downforce. The cars were obviously not trimmed out enough for the constant high speed and the tyres cried enough with increased load and promptly exploded. No fix was found at the event and the cars were withdrawn from the race.

Towards the end of 1985 I took up a new post on the recommendation of Martin Brundle, as Chief Engineer at TWR Jaguar on the Group C team.

It was not an easy gig as one of Jaguar’s stipulations was that we use the road car V12 engine. The motor was over 250kgs with a high centre of gravity and almost as long as a Cadillac!

But Tom’s team was carefully chosen and boasted some very talented people. Tony Southgate’s elegant and superbly aerodynamic design added to the novel and cutting edge engine development by Kiwi Alan Scott gave us a fighting chance.

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Here are some of us 30 years after the alleged offence, at a Jaguar do. I sent the picture to Martin and he said he thought it was the cast of the Hatton Garden heist, before realising he recognised us all:rolleyes:

The team was always well run and the drivers were of the very highest calibre, normally on their way to or from F1.

By the end of 1986 we had a quick and reliable car, challenging the dominant Porsche 962 teams.

Come the end of 1988 and the TWR Jaguar Team had delivered two World Championships and wins at both the Daytona and Le Mans 24 hours.

After 3 seasons with the big V12, Tom had persuaded Jaguar that a new engine was going to be required if we were going to continue to win in Group C and IMSA. A smaller, lighter 3.5L twin turbo engine was developed in house from the engine which had powered the Metro 6R4 rally car for the 1989 season. The initial shakedown at Donington in February showed great promise with the Turbo car instantly a second a lap quicker than the XJR9 V12 car.

Two weeks, 5 engines and only 30 laps of the Jerez circuit later, new ex Ferrari recruit Patrick Tambay could have been forgiven for wondering what he had let himself in for. We put one engine in the car which never actually fired up as it jumped a cambelt tooth on the starter motor! Others set the car on fire. The hard working mechanics could be heard muttering ‘Internal destruction engine’ and ‘External explosion engine’ and it was very clear we had a great deal to learn about turbo engines.

So the V12 cars were pressed back into service for the start of the ’89 season and the plan had always been to run these cars at Le Mans.

At Le Mans the cars do a similar race mileage as a whole season of F1 in 24 hours, at a higher average speed, and (hopefully) without service.

Le Mans 1988 had been won by a car with a very broken gearbox, and it was only the amazing torque of the smooth V12 and the skill of Jan Lammers got the car to the end of the race. It did the final 40mins in 4th gear only and was still only 10 seconds off the pace. Everyone just assumed Jan had just engaged ‘cruise and collect’ mode to the race finish. In fact, he had only just engaged 4th gear and was rightly fearful of any other changes as Raul Boesel had told him of the demise of his ‘box just before he got back in the car for his final stint.
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We would later find that the main pinion shaft was in two pieces and only held together by the splined hub which carried the dog rings. Had he chosen any other gear the spreading loads internally would have destroyed the box.

He actually did the final pit stop in 4th gear. Can you do a smooth and clam get away in a 200mph gear on an uphill pit lane with a Le Mans win hanging in the balance? Jan can!

It was very clear we would be developing the gearbox prior to the 1989 race, and increasing the low down torque of the engine to allow higher gears and lower rpm to decrease the stress on the engine.

New smaller diameter primary pipes were dyno tested and run successfully at the Daytona race early in ’89 on the 6 litre IMSA cars. The smooth, low down torque was a hit with drivers and the stopwatch.

The gearbox underwent and number of internal upgrades to reduce the operating temperature and prolong it’s life. Our partners at Castrol had their Tribologists, Engineers and Chemists working on a new mega trick oil that would replace the ‘go to’ American Neo gearbox oil used by most of motorsport in the ‘80’s.

In testing, the new oil reduced the bulk temperature of the gearbox by up to 15 deg c so we felt in reasonably good shape heading for Le Mans ’89.

I was pulling triple duty in the lead up to the race as development engineer for the new turbo car, chief engineer, and race engineer for the Lammers, Tambay, Gillbert-Scott car. It was a busy time.

We had expected the turbo cars to dominate practice with the ability to turn up the wick to gain a grid slot, so we just concentrated on race preparation and all looked quite promising.

The real race contenders were the multitude of droning Porsches, the pair of rumbling Mercedes and the howling Jaguars.
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I'm Major Tom's left hand man...and just about to have a bit of a disaster. This is where the term 'pits' comes from.

After and hour of racing, we had a car in the lead, with the rest of the pack in close company. Two of the Jags had made 1st lap pit stops with the tyre high temperatures, indicating perhaps a puncture, but they were soon back out with a higher warning threshold on the infrared ‘heatspy’ units.

In the 4th hour my car lost almost 2 laps when it came in with a broken exhaust and one of the other cars was having gearbox issues, not something unheard of at Le Mans.

By midnight, my car was back up into the lead and was a lap ahead by 6am.
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Then it all started to unravel. By 6.30 my car was having it’s gearbox changed in the pit road….(no garages at LM until the following year) and over 40 mins were lost.

3 of the 4 Jags suffered similar issues, and one a blown engine probably before the other problems arose.
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My car did a Moses (it came fourth) and the Mercedes rumbled to victory

Whilst the new exhausts had run Daytona without issue, it had been on the 6 litre not the 7 litre engines and without the sustained high speed running which Le Mans demands. The heat signature and vibration nodes were obviously very different and at Le Mans on that day, they all cracked like egg shells.

With the benefit of a long investigation and 20:20 hindsight, we discovered that the new gearbox oil made a wonderful foaming agent after prolonged usage, and that after about the 6 hours the whole gearbox casing was full of foam and very little liquid oil to be collected by the scavenge pump in the gearbox sump. I’m sure you can guess what happens next.

I had carefully considered the ‘upgrades’ to the cars that year, but unintended consequences had come into play and confirmed my mantra for Le Mans races of ‘If it’s new it will give a problem’

It was a hard lesson learnt, but hats off to Mercedes who were there to pick up the pieces.


Next episode: 1990 Chicanes and redemption
 
Many many thanks to @Mactech. Looking forward to that next installment. :thumb:

Why haven't you written a book..... ?
 
Did the V12s run with SOHC/bank and 2-valves/cyl?
Were they bolted in solidly to the chassis?
Yes, they did....as a rule! We did build a few 4 valve engines. It was raced once at Brands IIRC. It added about 59bhp and 15kgs and about a second to the lap time!
The engine was already top heavy, and that just made the car almost undrivable with such a high c of g.
One of those engines ended up in XJ220A the 88 show car, but never ran. But it did come back to haunt me a year or so later:rolleyes:
Engines were all solid mounted as in most racing cars, in fact, the engine was most of the chassis from the rear bulkhead back. See Lotus 49 for details!
 
Yes, they did....as a rule! We did build a few 4 valve engines. It was raced once at Brands IIRC. It added about 59bhp and 15kgs and about a second to the lap time!
The engine was already top heavy, and that just made the car almost undrivable with such a high c of g.
One of those engines ended up in XJ220A the 88 show car, but never ran. But it did come back to haunt me a year or so later:rolleyes:
Engines were all solid mounted as in most racing cars, in fact, the engine was most of the chassis from the rear bulkhead back. See Lotus 49 for details!
Sorry if I'm butting in... interesting that the crankcase was stiff enough to cope with the external loadings. Imagined it to be more like a banana... :)
 
Sorry if I'm butting in... interesting that the crankcase was stiff enough to cope with the external loadings. Imagined it to be more like a banana... :)

Ditto. I'm surprised it had the requisite stiffness. The DFV was designed from the outset as part of the chassis. Not something Jaguar would have had in mind when penning the V12.

Yes, they did....as a rule! We did build a few 4 valve engines. It was raced once at Brands IIRC. It added about 59bhp and 15kgs and about a second to the lap time!
The engine was already top heavy, and that just made the car almost undrivable with such a high c of g.
One of those engines ended up in XJ220A the 88 show car, but never ran. But it did come back to haunt me a year or so later:rolleyes:
Engines were all solid mounted as in most racing cars, in fact, the engine was most of the chassis from the rear bulkhead back. See Lotus 49 for details!

Twin cam 4V/cyl heads are so bulky and heavy (a point I've made previously on this forum) but I didn't imagine it would cost you lap time. It is those direct back to back comparisons that really shine. I had a Vauxhall/Opel 1.8 OHC in a Seven type kittycar and then returned to its original Kent. Despite the Kent having an iron head and the GM unit an alloy one, the handling benefit from the lower (height) pushrod Ford unit was obvious without looking for it.
 
It seems Ferrari have closed their F1 and road car factories for a couple of weeks
 
Le Mans 1990. Chicanes and redemption

I must confess at this point that I have never actually worked in F1, in fact I’ve managed to stealthily avoid it all my life!

I was asked at the end of ’87 by Ross Brawn to race engineer for Arrows, but had to I say that I still had unfinished business at Jaguar at that time, as we were yet to win at Le Mans.

In a quirk of fate, it was Ross who came to join me at TWR Jaguar at the start of 1990 as Technical Director and design a new 3.5L atmo car for new Gp C regulations of 1991.We quite literally shared a desk for the first couple of months whilst his new design office was built. We shared a great deal of information and Ross was generous enough to credit me in his book with his introduction to race strategy.

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Ross came to first couple of races in 1990 but then devoted the majority of his time to the design his iconic XJR-14.
With Tony Southgate now gone from the team and Ross busy, it was down to me to develop a car to suit the ‘new’ circuit at Le Mans with importantly, the Mulsanne straight now broken in to three sections with two new chicanes. I’d spent a couple of weeks in the Imperial Collage wind tunnel at the end of 1989 concentrating on the most efficient aero possible from this series of Jaguars with a ‘medium’ level of downforce. With none of the circuit and driver simulators we take for granted these days, it was very much a case of careful calculation and big dose of experience.

Without the need for the a massive top speed as in previous years, we would be running more downforce, going quicker in all the corners and inevitably running more drag….but we didn’t get an increase in the 2500L fuel allowance for the 24 hours.

I had the benefit of 4 years of running the cars at Le Mans by that stage and importantly, the performance details of having run 3 very different downforce levels on my first visit to the circuit for the test day in 86.

I knew the car had to give the best aero efficiency ever, and that we would probably want a drag level similar to that run at Monza, but the big puzzle was where the aero balance would have to be. Most racing cars typically run the aero ‘split’ at the same point as the c of g of the car. So, if you have a 40:60 weight distribution, you want the downforce to act in the same place to maintain the balance throughout the speed range. The old Mulsanne straight with it’s constant high speed on a truck rutted real road would not tolerate this. Drivers said they felt the car would spin as soon as the thought about steering at over 200mph, which at night, in traffic, in the dark is… errr…uncomfortable!
Having the centre of pressure on or ahead of the centre of gravity is unpleasant, ever driven an old VW kombi van in a high cross wind?

A typical aero split on the old circuit was about 28 to 30%.
After much debate, mostly with myself, I decided to centre the maximum efficiency around a 38%, about 3% back from our sprint car setting reasoning that it is much better to deal with a slight understeer at high speed than having the car trying to swap ends. On-circuit tuning aids would allow me to alter that by about +/- 3%, but with some loss of efficiency.

Adding NACA ducts in place of active scoop inlets was aiding the efficiency, but it was the position of the rear wing to get the airflow from both the underside and topside of the car to combine effectively which was the biggest step forward. I ended up using a 2 piece wing with the main plane in a 5 deg. nose up attitude to match the flow regime off the tail, set at the optimum height and distance back.

The lift to drag ratio on the low drag 88/89 car was around 2.8. On the 90LM car it was 4.0. Better even that on our high downforce ‘sprint’ cars.

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This is the 1990 spec LM car. Note the low drag NACA intakes, the nose up rear wing main plane, BBS wheels and Goodyear tyres.

Just to add to the gamble was the fact there would be no traditional test day in May, so when you pitched up for the race, it was going to be very much ‘run what you brung’

One real positive was that Martin Brundle was back in the driver squad after playing with F1 cars in ’89 and we had already won the Silverstone 1000kms together in the turbo car just prior to Le Mans. It was his 2nd and my 4th win at that race.

Having worked with each other for many years we had developed an almost telepathic understanding of what was required to get the best out of the car.

When the first red flag came out during the first test session (to remove Johnathan Palmer’s wrecked Porsche from the straight between the new chicanes!) Martin comfortably topped the time sheets with the very minimum of adjustment. He was happy that the car felt just right, and while we knew we would not stay quickest as the turbo’s were turned up, we could get on with race running whilst the Porsche’s faffed about with short and long tailed versions of their cars.

Jaguar went on the to finish the first ‘chicane’ race in first and second positions, but it was far from a flag to flag victory, battling throughout the race with our old adversary Porches, and seven(!) Nissans. Two of the four Jaguars which started were sacrificed to the perils of the race, and only in the final half hour was second place secured as one of the Porches expired.

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Drivers of car 1. Fast Frog Ferte, Martin and the late David Leslie who had been my first F3 driver back in 1981.

My no.1 car was one of the Jaguars to retire with overheating and eventual water pump failure, but Martin still got to win the race in the no.3 car.

The rules of the time said that a driver could swap cars within the team provided no more than 3 drivers actually drove the car in the race.
After my car pitted from the lead and lost 4 laps at about 8pm, Martin was rested after midnight and was going to be put back in the either car 3 (which was using just 2 drivers up to that point) or car 1 depending on the position and state of the cars early in the morning.

The overheating didn’t go away on my car and it retired at 6am. By that time car 3 was still going well but Price Cobb was completely wasted, so Martin joined ‘big’ John Nielsen in car 3.

Together they drove the car to the finish. John was just unstoppable. He was the sort of guy that if the car had a problem out on the circuit, you expected him to return to the pits on foot with the car tucked under his arm! He drove 17 stints in that car and Martin a total of 10 in the two cars.

This car was being run by our American IMSA squad, and they had fitted some very smart American made, billet, ‘Fat Pad’ calipers which were claimed and tested by them to reduce the number of pad stops required during the race from 3 to 2.

They worked really well and by lunchtime on Sunday, the car was leading and enjoying a 2 lap cushion over its pursuers after just one pad change.

On the second change, one of the extra long caliper pistons decided to seize in the bore and a new caliper had to be fitted. Fortunately these were fitted with dry break connectors so only 1.5 laps were lost.

Now what was my Le Mans mantra? ‘If it’s new it will give a problem’

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The winning car 3 with ‘big’ John Nielsen at the wheel. If you can spot the vertical line half way along the big side NACA duct, (below the ‘K’) it was one of several sizes of angle we could clip on to the car to trip the flow into the oil coolers and so regulate the oil temperature. An idea a borrowed from the cabin air intake duct on a 737. I must have spent too much time queuing to get on aircraft!

This was the Le Mans win I am most proud of and the one I contributed most to. We fought hard all the way for victory, even if I wasn’t race engineering the winning car. Tired and happy, I fell to sleep face down in my dessert on Sunday evening having been awake for over 40 hours.
Such a glamorous, carefree and relaxing world is motorsport!

Our wheel and tyre suppliers recognised my contribution by donating me a new set of BBS forged wheels and a set of Goodyear’s finest tyres to go on my 124 Mercedes estate road car. These were duly fitted with a new set of Mercedes Sportline suspension by the dealers in Oxford. It was the sort of car that ‘big’ John might have driven, but was actually used mostly by my wife. A few years later, its replacement was sold to me by Brundle Lexus….

Tom was well pleased and 'rewarded' me with new position heading up the development of the world's fastest road car, the XJ220, at the end of the season. You learn not to say no to Tom’s requests.

So my last task that year in TWR racing after completing the Gp C season was to do the c of g calcs. for Ross’s XJR-14. He had never done an ‘asymmetric’ car before and was very concerned about the driver not sitting on the car centre line!

Then into the alien world of road cars….oh! except I had to go to every F1 race that hosted a round of the Jaguar XJR-15 challenge to race engineer and, of course, back to Le Mans to advise and race engineer one of the cars….and get paid for enjoying my hobby.
 
Wonder if the frogs have consulted with others about possible clashes with other stuff, they've alread upset the tennis world by unilaterally moving the French tennis open!
 
Wonder if the frogs have consulted with others about possible clashes with other stuff, they've alread upset the tennis world by unilaterally moving the French tennis open!
The ACO may well have acted independently. I think they often do.
 
Should the thread title now be changed? I mean, the way things are going, what race day spoilers will the thread contain?
 
I always used to say that one of the major differences between working in the racing world rather than the road car world, is that in racing we always had hard, fixed deadlines. In my working life that remained true, and races just weren’t moved.
We are now entering a whole era.
 
Should the thread title now be changed? I mean, the way things are going, what race day spoilers will the thread contain?
How about.
'The F1 2020 Season Thread (Caution, may eventually discuss actual 2020 races..)'
 

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