The latest instalment of Beyond the Racecar looks at the British company’s work developing engines for high-performance road cars.

Cosworth is best known for its six decades in motorsport, especially its decorated tenure as a Formula 1 engine builder.

The British company, founded in 1958 by Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth, won a dozen World Drivers’ Championships with the double four valve (DFV) which, in its 1970s heyday, supplied almost the entire grid with Ford branding.

Cosworth is the third most successful engine builder in F1 history, behind only Mercedes and Ferrari, but it has been a decade since one of its engines last appeared on a grand prix grid.

The group is still involved in other motorsport categories, such as the British Touring Car Championship where it supplies the electronics package, but racing is no longer its solitary focus as it aims to achieve long-term success.

Like many motorsport engineering firms, Cosworth has diversified by applying its knowledge, technology and working practices to other sectors such as aerospace, defence and marine.

In recent years, it has gained substantial traction in the high-performance automotive industry too, developing and building engines for limited-edition hypercars such as the Aston Martin Valkyrie, Gordon Murray Automotive T50 and T.33, and the Bugatti Tourbillon.

Those projects, all featuring large capacity, high revving, naturally aspirated engines, have helped give the powertrain side of the business plenty of work for the foreseeable future.

According to Cosworth managing director Bruce Wood, the order book is long enough to keep the production department busy until the end of this decade. That’s the kind of assurance most motorsport companies can only dream of.

Applied history

Cosworth has a history of flitting between race and road, applying its motorsport expertise to production projects to varying extents.

It built engines for the Chevrolet Vega in the 1970s and the Mercedes 190E in the 1980s, the latter enabling the German manufacturer to go racing in the DTM.

However, Cosworth’s most famous road project was the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth of the late ’80s. Its development came as the company was noticing a dramatic shift in the composition of the F1 grid as the commercial position changed.

‘The DFV had been hugely successful,’ recalls Wood. ‘At some point in the 1970s, two [cars on the grid] would be Ferrari powered and the others would all be Cosworth powered.

‘All the grandees of teams that we think of now – McLaren, Williams, Brabham – all ran Cosworth DFVs. That was a great business then.

‘What Keith and Mike saw going into the ’80s was Formula 1 becoming the domain of the car manufacturers. Porsche, Honda and Alfa Romeo came in.

‘For them, it was a marketing exercise. They were looking at giving engines to teams and sponsoring them to promote their vehicles.’

Cosworth quickly realised that, as a company selling engines to customers, it wasn’t going to compete with a road car manufacturer that could offer a team its engines in a more cost-effective package.

Therefore, Cosworth’s dominant share of the grid was bound to get chipped away, and so it did. By 1984, it was only supplying the Tyrrell, Arrows and Spirit teams.

Badge engineering

‘That’s the premise under which the Cosworth Sierra was started,’ continues Wood. ‘Keith realised our business was going to get taken away from us.

‘He put it to Ford: you’ve won the F1 championship [with Cosworth] for many years in a row, but the man on the street has no idea because you’ve never made anything of that.

‘So, why not put the Cosworth badge on the back of a Sierra?’

The project was a resounding success. Cosworth established a new engine build shop at Wellingborough just to produce YBB engines for the Ford Sierra RS, such was the demand.

The car appeared on bedroom wall posters and achieved cult status through its usage in touring cars and rallying.

‘We made something like 25,000 engines for the Sierra, followed by the Sapphire, followed by the Escort, over a 10-year period,’ recalls Wood.

‘Cosworth has been through these phases: we were heavily motor racing, then we went to road cars, and then we went back to wholly motor racing.’

There was a brief F1 renaissance for the company in the 1990s, which included supplying the 3.5-litre V8 for Benetton that powered Michael Schumacher’s first title, but it never returned to the halcyon days of the DFV.

Cosworth’s final F1 engine was the 2.4-litre V10 for Marussia’s entry into the 2013 season.

Times change

Heading towards the 21st century, the company’s electronics division, established in 1987, ramped up supplying new control and telemetry systems for IndyCar and sportscars.

In 2014, it launched the Performance Data Recorder with General Motors, enabling Corvette and Cadillac drivers to record and analyse their drives. This was followed in the 2010s by the AliveDrive system.

Meanwhile, the powertrain division’s road car work had morphed into consultancy, stepping away from the higher volume production that had been achieved with the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth.

Instead, it focused on manufacturing engines for clients in small volumes, or provide design advice.

That wasn’t to last forever, though, as the automotive industry took another turn in the 2010s that helped set Cosworth’s current trajectory.

Bespoke engineering

The arrival of the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which was conceptualised in 2016 and manufactured from 2021 until last year, changed the game for Cosworth in terms of how it approached the automotive sector.

The company was contracted to develop a 6.5-litre V12 engine for the Adrian Newey-designed machine, capable of revving to 11,100rpm.

‘It made us realise there was a much better business model for us,’ says Wood.

‘We’re not a consultancy; we now see ourselves as a product business, albeit the products are very low volume, very high value and bespoke.

‘Nonetheless, the Valkyrie engine is a product that has to be fully validated. We deliver it, hot tested, to Aston’s production line where it is bolted into the car.’

Fast forward to the present day and the high-performance automotive market has accelerated to dizzying heights, with ever more expensive cars powered by hugely powerful, yet efficient engines that make a thousand horsepower seem average. Cosworth has been central to that movement.

The Valkyrie, for example, which had design input from Adrian Newey, uses a stressed-member V12 linked to a Rimac KERS battery system that results in a 1140bhp total hybrid power output.

The story goes that the Valkyrie was originally designed to have around 950bhp, but inklings that the rival Mercedes-AMG One would breach four figures led Aston’s then CEO, Andy Palmer, to request an increase.

As it turned out, Cosworth had already exceeded 1000bhp on the dyno, and so it was done.

Aston Martin’s production run of 150 Valkyries, which concluded last November, has given Cosworth plenty of business and put its name as a high-performance engine builder back on everyone’s lips.

The project was a major coup for the company, although Wood admits he wasn’t expecting it to be the genesis of a wider movement.

‘I’d be lying if I said we saw it coming,’ he says regarding the onset of big engine, roadgoing hypercars. ‘I don’t think the world saw it coming, but I think the world changed with the arrival of the Valkyrie.

‘On paper, it was a nice business model because it used every part of the company. But we thought it was going to be a once-in-a lifetime [project] to make the most of.

‘We didn’t really imagine there was enough business out there to make it viable.’

Luxury wheeled goods

On the heels of the Valkyrie, another hypercar project emerged with a celebrated F1 designer behind it.

Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) enlisted Cosworth as its engine partner with records in mind for its recent bursting onto the scene.

Weighing just 178kg, the 3.9-litre powerplant in the GMA T50 is the lightest naturally aspirated V12 available, as well as the highest revving at 12,100rpm.

It is positioned low in the monocoque, allowing for a low c of g and heightened agility. Its size restricts the output to 660bhp, although its high power-to-weight ratio helps to compensate.

GMA and Cosworth further worked on this engine for the T.33 model, which produces just under 600bhp at 10,250rpm, with 90 per cent of the maximum torque available between 4500 and 10,500rpm. Both the T50 and T.33 are limited to 100 units.

At this point, Cosworth knew it had the potential for a sustained business model, using its motorsport expertise to develop high-revving engines for what Wood terms the ‘luxury wheeled goods’ market.

‘It’s got nothing to do with transport, or how you get from A to B, but how you arrive at B,’ he says.

‘They are luxury goods bought for emotion. That is what has driven this move to V12s and extremely high performance.

‘Emotion is driven by our senses – noise, heat, visual appearance – much more than the sensation of speed. It is very hard to get that with anything other than these engines.

‘The Valkyrie arrived and was a new type of car. I think it created a whole new customer base, to some extent. There had been the Bugatti Veyron and things before, but they didn’t really celebrate the engine.

‘The Veyron engine [an 8.0-litre quadruple turbo] was very effective for Bugatti and the whole VW group.

‘It was a great engine, but it doesn’t really stir the emotions. It’s buried in lots of covers and the sound is obscured by the turbos.

‘In my mind, the arrival of the Valkyrie was the first time there was a vehicle in that very esoteric niche that really celebrated the engine.’

Life’s too short

The uptake in electrification suggests that such V12 engines might be anachronisms enjoying one last spectacular hurrah before their consignment to history. But Cosworth clearly doesn’t feel that way.

Wood is adamant that extreme roadgoing hypercars, the popularity of which he feels was spurred by a ‘life’s too short’ mentality brought on by Covid, require internal combustion to sell. This is based on the engine being a celebrated part of the machine, bordering on a work of art.

‘There is no such thing as electric wheeled luxury goods,’ he suggests. ‘By default, it is internal combustion engines.’

Another of Cosworth’s recent high-performance automotive engine projects has involved Bugatti.

Although the Veyron was not Wood’s cup of tea from a commercial standpoint, the new Tourbillon very much is. It is a hybrid hypercar featuring a naturally aspirated, 8.3-litre V16 producing 1000bhp.

The engine has a 90-degree v angle and revs to 9000rpm. Combined with three electric motors, the car’s total output is close to 1800bhp.

Racecar saw one of the Tourbillon’s cylinder heads in Cosworth’s Northampton build shop during a visit to the factory, and it resembled an aircraft engine those daring racers would put in early 20th century land speed record cars.

A total of 250 units will be produced, starting in the next couple of years. That will help to keep the flow of production going after the Valkyrie project’s completion.

The most obscure of Cosworth’s current automotive projects is the Bizzarrini Giotto.

This is a planned hypercar from an Italian sportscar manufacturer that was briefly active in the 1960s and revived under new ownership in the 2020s. Its founder, Giotto Bizzarrini, was a lead designer of the legendary Ferrari 250 GTO.

The Giotto hypercar was announced in September 2023 as an extreme grand tourer with a 6.5-litre Cosworth V12, capable of producing over 800bhp.

Few details have been disclosed since then, although the company – now owned by Pegasus Brands – installed a new CEO last summer.

According to Wood, the engine project is still active from Cosworth’s perspective, albeit at a ‘slow walk’ determined by any progress on the Bizzarrini side.

No Giotto engines have yet been produced, although most of the design work is complete.

Long-term stability

With multiple high-performance automotive projects on the go, where does this leave Cosworth in the longer term? Not returning to F1 any time soon, according to Wood.

‘I think we’re very happy where we are now, because Formula 1 is the domain of the car manufacturers,’ he says. ‘It is not realistic to think that a small independent is going to [enter].

‘Even if a new car company came to us and asked us to do an engine for them – for sure we would be very interested to discuss – but it’s a case of be careful what you wish for.

‘Because, from our experience, it is almost impossible to be in Formula 1 and any other business, because it’s all-consuming.

‘From a commercial aspect, this is the strongest we’ve ever been.’

Today, Cosworth is spread between a dozen facilities in the UK, while its propulsion department operates from the main headquarters in Northampton, employing over 300 people.

This is supported by the electronics group in Cambridge, which has around 120 employees, and the smaller Delta division, which focuses on electric powertrains.

For the propulsion business, growth has been fed by the hypercar projects, but does it envisage expanding further?

‘These programmes tend to be four to five years from first discussing the programme to the start of production,’ says Wood.

‘We start with our simulation, design and analysis, and get on to prototype manufacturing, all of which we do in-house.

‘Then we build and test. Each of these programmes uses every facet of the company.

‘You start out by consuming all our design and analysis resource, and then moving on to prototype manufacturing. Where we are now, we can see production going out a long time, but you have to keep feeding the hopper.’

Wood notes there are ‘opportunities’ to add new business, which would scale things up on the design side. But Cosworth is careful not to be too ambitious with any expansion that might entail.

‘It will become difficult to expand this site,’ he says. ‘Also, the cost of increased infrastructure is huge.

‘Things like dyno cells are at least six or seven million pounds each. We’ve got 10 of them. If we got more work in, what we would probably do is look to run those cells on a double shift, rather than build new ones.

‘We have capacity to do a little bit more, but it’s important not to overstretch yourself. It’s always good to have a little bit more available to you than you really need, and that’s where we strive to be.’

Future thinking

Many industry figures believe the key to decarbonising the automotive sector is to have a mixture of fuel and powertrain solutions, rather than putting all eggs in one basket.

This has thrust the internal combustion engine back into discourse because synthetic fuels and hydrogen can be used to keep present technology going with far lower emissions than standard petrol.

‘Five to 10 years ago, people were saying there was no future for internal combustion engines, and it was all going to be battery electric,’ says Wood. ‘The reality of course – and I think it was always the case – is that there is no silver bullet. It’s horses for courses.

‘There is a place for battery electric vehicles in mainstream transport. There is a place for hydrogen. There is a place for plug-in hybrids. There is a place for internal combustion still.

‘We’re of the view that, in the mainstream market, it will be different technologies for different applications.

‘For the wheeled luxury goods, it will always be driven by internal combustion. But that’s not to say that regulation may require some degree of electrification. It might be that you need a 10-mile electric range for city centres.’

According to Wood, e-fuels are the attracting lots of attention with Cosworth’s automotive client base due to their drop-in nature.

While e-fuels are still too expensive for widespread automotive application, that cost matters less in a market where cars like the Valkyrie and GMA T50 are worth millions.

Cosworth’s Delta and electronics divisions are helping to keep Propulsion on top of such technology, as well as electric drives.

Hydrogen is also something the company is monitoring: it recently converted one of its 10 dyno cells to run hydrogen-fuelled engines.

This has required substantial infrastructure changes to the affected building, as well as high cost.

‘We had to change the fabric of the cell considerably to put in blast walls, so in the event of an explosion it takes out a wall, rather than the whole building,’ says Wood.

‘You have to store the hydrogen outside in a separate bunker. As there should be, there is legislation about how to store it.

‘The mechanics of the cell is very little different, but the fabric, storage and plumbing hydrogen into the building is where the time and money went. It was a bigger upheaval than we thought.’

Despite the investment, Cosworth doesn’t plan to convert any more of its dyno cells to hydrogen.

The prevailing school of thought in terms of future fuels is constantly shifting and Wood doesn’t think it would be sensible to ramp up hydrogen too much for the manufacturers Cosworth is trying to serve.

‘It’s a real moving target,’ he acknowledges. ‘We’ve had conversations with Gordon Murray in the past about hydrogen; he’s certainly been interested in running a V12 on it.

‘We first started talking about it three or four years ago. At that point, e-fuels were much more in their infancy.

‘Then, quite a lot of people thought hydrogen ICE would be quite a big player in the marketplace, but I think it’s swapped places with e-fuels now.

‘E-fuels are generally regarded as being a better solution because the infrastructure is there, and the one obstacle – price – isn’t really an issue in this marketplace.

‘I think hydrogen has quite a lot to offer with any kind of vehicle where you’ve got a base and you can therefore have a captive supply to control.’

Roots remain

While high-performance automotive is the priority in terms of engine work at Cosworth, that doesn’t mean the department has left motorsport behind.

Aston Martin and The Heart of Racing’s revival of the Valkyrie LMH project came with the job of converting the V12 road engine into a race-ready unit putting out only 670bhp.

These are built in the same room as the production road car engines were.

‘I think it’s important that we always retain an element of racing,’ suggests Wood. ‘Even where the technologies might be different, and so much of what we do now is driven by emissions.

‘The methodology by which we approach work is very much derived from racing. Racing does drive a different mentality and particularly a different approach to programme timing. That has served us well in this move into the hypercar market.’

Most of Cosworth’s current push in motorsport is coming from the electronics department in Cambridge.

It has developed the Antares 8, an electronic control unit series designed to be a ‘single box solution’ for data logging and analysis. This is used by all BTCC cars, as well as the Valkyrie LMH, and has been tested in Super Formula.

At the end of 2024, Cosworth expanded the Antares range to give more options for series and manufacturers operating on tighter budgets.

Cosworth’s motorsport electronics work also extends to data capture for F1 wind tunnel testing and steering wheels, as part of integrated car electronics systems.

The latter programme includes the steering wheels used in all LMDh sportscars, reputed to be some of the most advanced racecars from a software perspective.

Cosworth is, therefore, still at the forefront of motorsport technology, although its position has changed substantially since the early days of Formula Junior and Lotus-Ford Twin Cams.

The engine side of its business focuses less on racing than it did before, but motorsport-grade design and production capabilities will always be part of the furniture.

They need to be, because it is a selling point to those car manufacturers that want to be convinced Cosworth is not just a name from the past, but an active player in the automotive industry’s future.

The post Race to Road: How Cosworth’s Powertrain Business has Evolved appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

In part four of Beyond the Racecar, we explore how the mining industry has seen the potential in motorsport to help advance its decarbonisation efforts 

What does a 400 tonne, 37mph mining truck have in common with a 0.8 tonne, 220mph racecar? More than you might think.

The mining industry is responsible for approximately two to three per cent of global CO2 emissions, generating between 1.9 and 5.1 gigatonnes per year. That’s around 8500 to 22,500 times more than Formula 1, which has a carbon footprint of 223,000 tonnes, according to the championship’s latest impact report.

‘Currently, Fortescue’s mining operations emit approximately 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere,’ says Tim Strafford, managing director of motorsport and chief innovation officer at Fortescue Zero, the technology arm of Australian mining giant, Fortescue.

‘That gives an indication of how energy intensive mining is, which is why we are moving forward with an extremely ambitious decarbonisation programme.

‘However, displacing mature fossil fuel powertrains with an electrified solution in a commercially-viable way is extremely difficult.

‘This is why motorsport is so relevant to mining: racing pushes the boundaries of efficiency and tries to achieve the highest performance with the least amount of energy.

‘Mining needs to be as efficient as possible as well, so all the ingredients that are pushed to their limits in motorsport directly translate to improving the business case of decarbonising the mining industry.’

Hunting efficiency

Fortescue’s plan is to eliminate its scope 1 (direct) and scope 2 (indirect) terrestrial emissions from its Australian iron ore operations by 2030, and in 2022 committed 6.2 billion dollars to the cause.

Alongside this investment, in 2022 Fortescue acquired the Formula E and LMDh battery supplier, Williams Advanced Engineering, to help facilitate the transfer of electrification knowledge. WAE was then renamed Fortescue Zero and relocated from Williams’ headquarters in Grove to a new campus near Oxford Airport.

‘Over the generations in motorsport, we have seen batteries evolve from only having enough energy to complete half the race, to now finishing the race with the ability to regenerate half of that energy,’ notes James Herring, managing director of the Heavy Industry Division at Fortescue Zero.

‘This means the battery can be much smaller. This ability to pack the most amount of energy into the smallest space possible is what we need for our mining trucks.

‘Although these vehicles are massive, it is still a major challenge to get the energy needed onboard within the space available.’

With a typical mining truck around 6m high, you may be surprised to hear someone say that space is limited. However, consider that a fully loaded mining truck can weigh as much as 400 tonnes, and requires around 2MW of power to move.

To deliver this power via a battery requires hundreds of cells, resulting in battery packs up to 2.8MW in output and 21 tonnes in weight.

These massive powertrains, combined with the ethos that every kg needs to be utilised for payload, is why mining companies across the globe are on the hunt for efficiency.

Motorsport mindset

‘We have the same cultural mindset as motorsport; every second counts,’ explains Herring.

‘These mining trucks operate 22 hours a day, 365 days a year. Whenever these vehicles stop moving, productivity drops and the business stops making money.

‘So the more efficient our vehicles, the more they can carry and the longer they can operate before downtime. That’s why we are relentlessly chasing improvements in efficiency; to boost productivity and therefore reduce the all-important total cost of ownership.’

Total cost of ownership (TCO) is something of a religion in mining. It is a financial estimate of the direct and indirect costs associated with the purchase and running of a mining vehicle throughout its lifetime.

The cost of energy, labour and maintenance are all considered in the equation, as well as the expense of productivity losses due to downtime.

Downtime refers to whenever the vehicle cannot complete useful work, either because it is undergoing maintenance, is delayed, or is refuelling / recharging.

A low TCO represents a vehicle that is either cheaper to run or extremely productive, while a high TCO indicates a vehicle is either expensive to operate or less productive over its lifespan.

To ensure profitability, every effort is made to reduce the TCO, and the best way to achieve this is by maximising efficiency, whether that be energy efficiency, mechanical efficiency or operational efficiency.

When operating a fleet of 250 vehicles 24/7, even the smallest of gains can scale to a substantial benefit.

Cost reduction

Electrification is not just an effective route to decarbonisation, but also a tactic to lowering the TCO of a mining truck.

Recent reports suggest that switching a typical mining haul truck from diesel to electric can reduce its TCO by as much as $2.5 million. This is down to a combination of fuel savings – which typically make up more than double the up-front cost of the vehicle – and maintenance costs, which are estimated to be 50 per cent less due to fewer moving parts.

‘One of the parallels between mining and motorsport is both require high power,’ says Joris Pezin, product manager at Echion Technologies, a battery start-up.

‘Hybrid and electric racecars need high power to quickly charge the battery under regenerative braking and discharge the battery during acceleration, while electric mining vehicles need high power to move the large payloads they carry.

‘To design a high-power cell, the trick is to minimise resistance wherever possible. This naturally leads to a longer cycle life of the battery.

‘So, although cycle life is not as important in motorsport as it is in mining, a well-designed, high-power cell for motorsport will have low degradation, which in turn makes it suitable for mining where cycle life and range are extremely important.’

Range question

So, if electrification is such an attractive alternative to diesel, why is it taking mining companies so long to make the switch?

Well, similarly to road cars, there are question marks over the range of current battery technologies and how long they take to recharge.

A typical diesel truck needs to refuel once a day, which takes 10-20 minutes. An electric mining truck needs recharging three to five times a day, which can take two to three hours each time.

This longer downtime impacts significantly on productivity and is why some companies remain hesitant to electrification.

To combat this problem, there has been a recent surge in the development of fast charging technology. This is where a cell is capable of recharging at a rate of 5C.

In the case of an electric mining truck, this can cut recharge times down to minutes, whereas typical lithium-ion cells that can only recharge at 1C can take several hours.

The key to achieving this high C rating lies in the chemistry of the battery itself.

‘When a battery charges, ions move from the cathode to the anode,’ explains Pezin. ‘These ions diffuse into the microstructure of the anode’s material where they are then stored, increasing the chemical potential energy of the anode, charging the cell.

‘However, during fast charging, these ions need to diffuse into the anode around five times faster than standard charging. If you had two cells with identical power-to-weight ratios, but one was fast charged and one was slow charged, they would have the same number of ions, as this is what determines the energy within the cell.

‘It’s just that during fast charging the energy released from the cathode per second needs to occur around five times faster.’

Anode materials

Currently, the most common anode materials are graphite and lithium titanate (LTO), both of which have a compact crystal structure.

Consequently, there is limited space for the ions to diffuse into, which slows the rate of diffusion, causing a build-up of lithium deposits on the anode. This is known as lithium plating and it can trigger short circuits, as well as reduce the capacity and life of the battery.

‘It’s similar to cars searching for a space in a car park,’ explains Pezin. ‘If the car park is already full, it’s more difficult to find a space, and this creates a build-up of cars outside.

‘Whereas materials with open crystal structures, such as our niobium-based XNO, have plenty of space that the ions can access from any angle. So the anode fills up with ions much more quickly and uniformly.’

Furthermore, the abundance of space due to the open crystal structure of XNO means the ions cause minimal damage as they diffuse into the anode. This reduces degradation and extends the life of the cell.

Echion tested this in the laboratory and found that XNO retained 80 per cent capacity after 5000 cycles, while typical lithium-ion cells retained 80 per cent capacity after only 2000 cycles.

Therefore, batteries equipped with XNO not only achieve double the cycle life of standard batteries but can also fast charge in under 12 minutes.

It’s no surprise, then, that this material is now being integrated into batteries for mining trucks, marine vessels and other heavy-duty applications.

Charging developments

As well as a redesign of the battery internals, fast charging also requires an overhaul of charger design.

To accommodate the high power necessary to fast charge an electric mining truck, Fortescue has developed its own 6MW chargers, capable of recharging a 3MW mining battery in under 30 minutes.

‘To fast charge these vehicles, we need to operate at 1500V and, currently, there are no chargers that can cope with that high voltage,’ explains Herring. ‘So, we had to develop our own charging solution.

‘Our 6MW chargers are monstrous and weigh around 40 tonnes each. That’s a bit different to the typical 300kW super chargers used to charge a Tesla.’

When dealing with such high-power inputs, the wattage available from the local grid infrastructure also needs to be considered, especially in the often-remote locations where mines are located.

‘It’s all about delivering as much power as quickly as possible, because if a truck is charging, it is not doing useful work,’ adds Strafford.

‘However, you need to deliver it in a way that is not constrained by the grid, as the grid is not necessarily able to supply you with a sudden impulse of charge.

‘That’s why we’ve integrated energy storage into our chargers as well. The energy buffers into the charger and then we can deploy this boost of charge into the truck within a 30-minute window.’

Elysian fields

As well as innovative anode materials, software can be another tactic to help the battery store the phenomenal amount of current delivered during fast charging, without suffering degradation.

Fortescue’s Elysia battery intelligence software, which was originally developed in motorsport, does exactly that.

‘Elysia understands the physics going on inside every cell of a battery,’ explains Strafford, ‘so it can calculate the optimum charge profile to go from the current state of charge to the desired state of charge in the fastest time possible.

‘This may sound simple, but this charge profile dynamically changes to maximise the charge rate, whilst managing all the thermal and chemical requirements.

‘A mining battery and a motorsport battery are essentially based on the same physics, but the software and charging technology we originally developed in motorsport is now allowing us to cut the recharge times of mining trucks from several hours to minutes, without affecting the capacity or life of the battery.’

Elysia continuously monitors the health of a battery through a combination of digital twins and artificial intelligence (AI).

By optimising the efficiency, power, range, charge profile and safety of cells, specific to their chemistry, it unlocks battery performance and, in some cases, can increase battery life by 30 per cent.

Confirming the technology’s relevance to automotive, Jaguar Land Rover has opted to integrate it throughout its new generation electric vehicle range.

‘When trying to win a race, you need a strategy that is optimising towards achieving the best race result,’ highlights Strafford.

‘It’s not that dissimilar to mining because, holistically, you’re optimising to achieve the highest payload within the shortest time, which is influenced by a whole heap of factors and trade-offs.

‘Fundamentally, you are trying to achieve the best outcome based on the operational decisions that you’re making along the way.

‘Our 10 years’ experience of capturing data in motorsport and developing the software is now enabling us to get what we need out of the hardware.’

Herring concludes: ‘The mining industry in most people’s minds is this old, boring, dirty industry that just digs stuff out of the ground. But the technology being deployed in mines across the world is now extremely advanced.

‘For example, the majority of these giant trucks are fully autonomous, run remotely by large control rooms 200kms away from the mine itself.

‘We are already operating full EVs in the field and have successfully tested hydrogen prototypes.

‘As we continue to decarbonise our industry, the intel we are gathering from motorsport around energy efficiency and optimisation is directly translating to our mining vehicles.’

Gemma Hatton is the founder and director of Fluencial, which specialises in producing technical content for automotive and motorsport engineering clients

The post Motorsport’s Role in Decarbonising the Mining Industry appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

But the military comparison is far more than allegorical, as many racecar engineering firms have made big strides in the defence sector.

In part three of Beyond the Racecar, discover how the UK motorsport industry challenged and improved some of the British Army’s technologies.

At first glance, the motor racing and defence industries might not seem to have that much in common.

After all, the purpose of a racecar is to drive as fast as possible, over a given course, for as long as required, while the primary objective for military vehicles is to deliver tactical advantages on the battlefield that do not necessarily include speed.

Look a little deeper, though, and there are a number of disciplines in motorsport – most obviously an ability to innovate and problem solve at pace – that can have a positive effect on defence programmes.

Crossing the divide

As the CEO of B2B marketing agency, Chamois Consulting, Jamie Clarke has a number of client companies that have crossed the divide between motorsport and defence.

It was in the 2000s, however, while working in procurement in the British Army and then joining defence company, Supacat, that Clarke first witnessed how motorsport companies could make a positive contribution in the defence arena with their involvement in urgent operational requirements (UORs) for UK armed forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

‘Basically, the MoD [UK Ministry of Defence] had problems in Afghanistan with all sorts of kit because it was being used in ways it was never designed to be used,’ Clarke explains, noting that a particular issue arose with the introduction of the Jackal patrol vehicle in 2008.

‘Jackal had an extra nearly two tonnes of armour put onto it, and it was never designed to carry two tonnes of armour. If you then reduced your payload by two tonnes, that was okay, because you replace payload with armour, but obviously the guys weren’t doing that.

‘So they were running around in a seven-tonne truck at 11 tonnes with all their battlefield payload on and then wondering why the brakes were failing, and they were having to basically change the brake pads every day. They were just crumbling and falling apart because they were running the trucks so heavy.

‘UORs meant it needed to be developed quickly,’ Clarke continues, ‘but most defence engineering companies can’t operate that quickly, and the key part we found was that motorsport, as an industry, recognised the so-called requirement to cross the start line. Meaning you can design the very best solution in the world in the motorsport industry but, if you are three seconds late, you’ve missed the start, and it’s no use whatsoever to anybody.

‘The motorsport industry, as a sort of collective organisation, is used to working to strict deadlines, but most companies are not.’

In the case of the Jackal’s braking problem, a rapid solution was provided by braking system specialist, Alcon Components, which at the time was largely focused on motorsport.

‘They basically came in and re-designed the whole braking system, bespoke to the vehicle, delivered, tested and certified very quickly indeed,’ Clarke recalls.

‘They replaced the discs, calipers and pads, and they put a twin-caliper solution onto each hub on the front axle, so you effectively doubled the braking system, but the efficiency and the reliability was multiples of that.’

Bridging the gap

Such fixes to British Army equipment might well have continued to proceed on an ad hoc basis if it were not for the Labour government of the time appointing Lord Paul Drayson as the UK MoD’s defence procurement minister in May 2005.

A renowned petrolhead, Lord Drayson likes to drive fast and find solutions fast, so he inevitably felt frustration, and then disdain, when confronted by the somewhat glacial pace of MoD procurement processes.

Nick Wills, who is now defence development director for the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) but was serving as the commanding officer of the British Army’s Armoured Trial and Development Unit when Drayson was appointed, notes that when appointed Drayson was also serving as president of the MIA, so a link already existed from motorsport to defence.

As Wills recalls, Drayson ‘had a conversation with Chris Aylett, CEO of the MIA, saying, “Well this is crazy. I can be at the Nürburgring, doing some tests on my car. I can find there’s a cooling issue and ’phone up whoever and tell them I’ve got a cooling issue, and then, a week later, they’d have completely re-designed the whole cooling system and I’ll be testing it at Brands Hatch. While as minister of defence procurement, I feel like I wouldn’t even get the phone answered in three weeks, so what can we do?”‘

Wills then describes what he characterised as ‘the most dysfunctional lunch you could ever imagine in the House of Lords’ where, on one side of the table sat the CEOs of major defence companies such as BAE Systems, opposite race team directors and other senior figures from motorsport.

From that initial meeting, and a subsequent series of showcases, where representatives from defence and motorsport gathered to discuss the problems at hand, the MIA’s Motorsport to Defence (M2D) initiative was launched in 2007, aimed at helping motorsport companies engage with the defence industry and maximise the business opportunities between the two.

A symbiotic relationship

The M2D initiative is not simply about helping the British Army with its mobility problems in times of need; it is designed to develop a truly symbiotic relationship between the two industries.

‘We’ve worked with multiple motorsport companies to help them into defence,’ says Clarke says of his clients at Chamois, ‘because they’re starting to recognise that motorsport is a fairly chunky, hard sector to be in – low volume, high price, difficult specs that vary – whereas defence tends to be longer term, slower programmes, but with higher volumes and better revenue. It can put a real slice of security into the business plans for these motorsport companies.’

‘At the bottom line, it’s the same laws of physics, it’s just making sure you’re answering the question,’ adds Wills. ‘Motorsport engineers are competitive engineers: they really want to do stuff better than someone else.

‘Generally speaking, if you’re a tier one or tier two supplier and you’re still in business, it’s because you’ve delivered on time; you’ve done what you needed to do. So what you get is a supply chain very focused on time and quality delivery, with competitive engineers at the bleeding edge of materials technology.’

In some early M2D cases, in fact, it was a lack of latest-generation technology in defence platforms and suppliers that led to motorsport companies being called in to provide optimised solutions.

Wills recalls one situation when, as part of one of the M2D showcases, a couple of specialised motorsport cooling companies were taken up to a BAE Systems armoured vehicle production site in Telford and asked to look at a radiator.

‘They took one look at this radiator, which was essentially 1950s bus technology because no one had really challenged it before, and the charge air cooler for the turbo. Literally, two weeks later, they came back with something that was 50 per cent better in efficiency for the radiator and 75 per cent better in efficiency for the charge air cooler.’

Composite crossover

Even though the technology in the latest defence platforms tends not to suffer any more from using such obsolete components, the motorsport industry still has technology and capabilities that are either not resident in the defence sector or are only just beginning to be. This has led to motorsport companies firmly establishing themselves within the supply chains of numerous defence platforms.

As a leading composite manufacturer for the motorsport industry, for example, West Sussex-based Global Technologies Racing (GTR) makes a large quantity of the major composite components required by a significant number of Formula 1 teams.

At the same time, the company’s GTR Composites division makes the carbon composite seat backs for Martin-Baker ejection seats, composite aircraft components for the AW101 Merlin helicopter, composite housings for flotation and life raft systems on the Sikorsky S-92 and has produced most of the composite-protected crew pods for the British Army’s Foxhound patrol vehicles.

Williams, which has a 50-year pedigree in F1, established Williams Grand Prix Technologies last year to offer a range of capabilities in the areas of platform dynamics, advanced materials, simulation and modelling, instrumentation and data analytics, and high-performance AI and machine-learning computing outside racing, with defence a key part of the company’s plans.

Incorporated in September 2019, the Silverstone-based Digital Manufacturing Centre (DMC) has moved its state-of-the-art metal and polymer additive manufacturing (AM)-based engineering expertise beyond motorsport to a number of other sectors.

In September 2024, DMC joined armour manufacturer and vehicle integrator, NP Aerospace, in working on Project Tampa: the MoD’s initiative to exploit the potential of introducing AM, otherwise known as 3D printing, into its supply chain.

Project Tampa is a five-million-pound initiative designed to explore how AM can be used to print parts for weapons and other military equipment on demand, reducing excessive lead times for parts to be delivered, and even potentially allowing parts to be printed in theatre, shortening the UK armed forces’ overall logistics chain.

The technology also has the potential to improve platform availability among legacy military vehicle fleets by 3D printing obsolete parts. As an example of its capabilities, DMC has already shown it can rapidly produce parts for the rear step and door latch assemblies of the British Army’s Mastiff and Ridgeback vehicles.

This year, Alcon (the company behind the Jackal braking system fix) is celebrating 15 years of providing braking solutions into the defence and security sectors. The company’s business in these fields has grown by 500 per cent during that time, with its defence customer base alone now including BAE Systems, QinetiQ, Patria, Supacat, JLR, Babcock and Jankel.

In June 2024, Alcon announced its latest generation, full service, brake-by-wire technology to the defence sector, offering a range of bespoke and off-the-shelf braking solutions for both autonomous and crewed defence and security vehicles.

Automotive engineered

Shoreham-based engineering firm, Ricardo, which was founded in 1915, has a long heritage of straddling both the defence and automotive / motorsport industries. In the 21st century, the company worked on motorcycle engines for BMW, as well as engines for McLaren supercars and F1 machinery.

In 2010, the MoD selected the Ocelot, a vehicle developed by Ricardo and US company, Force Protection, to replace the British Army’s fleet of Snatch Land Rovers, while the Foxhound protected patrol vehicle, which entered service in 2012, was automotive engineered by Ricardo under contract to General Dynamics UK.

Ricardo has also worked with other militaries around the world. In November 2021, it was selected by South Korea’s STX Engine to develop a clean-sheet power unit for use in heavy duty military vehicles such as the K9 self-propelled howitzer.

Ricardo also established a dedicated business called Ricardo Defense for its work in the United States. In 2020, Ricardo Defense teamed as a strategic partner with GM Defense and won a contract to provide the latter’s Infantry Squad Vehicle to the US Army. It also received a US Army contract to install its Dismounted Soldier Communication System on three brigades of M88 armoured recovery vehicles.

The Ricardo Defense offshoot was sold to Proteus Enterprises and Gladstone Investment in late 2024 for US$85 million.

In 2015, what was then Williams Advanced Engineering, now Fortescue Zero, was awarded a contract by General Dynamics UK to bring its F1-bred technologies and capabilities to provide a core infrastructure distribution system for the British Army’s family of Ajax tracked armoured fighting vehicles (AFV). The company used its F1 expertise in data analytics and systems integration to provide the Ajax AFV family with an advanced electronic architecture.

WAE also worked with BAE Systems on at least two defence projects. In 2018, they linked up to explore collaboration in a range of areas, including virtual and augmented reality, aerodynamics, lightweight materials and battery technology that could power solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and more.

Then, in 2020, WAE and BAE explored how battery management and cooling technologies from the motorsport industry could be exploited to deliver efficiency and performance gains in the design of future combat aircraft.

Shropshire-based casting specialist, Grainger & Worrall, which has a global customer base that includes several F1 teams as well as Tesla, Lucid, Porsche, McLaren, Maserati, Bugatti and Aston Martin, offers innovative casting expertise to produce lightweight, motorsport-quality castings in both aluminium and compacted graphite iron.

That expertise is now deployed on a range of large-scale military sand-casting projects, including production of tank turrets, engines, gearboxes and driveline technologies for military applications.

Rapid deployment

Since its incorporation in 2000, Oxfordshire-based precision fabrication and thermal management system specialist, SST Technology, has gained a reputation for developing and supplying exhaust systems, heat shields and thermal management solutions for motorsport disciplines including F1, IndyCar, touring cars and sportscars, as well as rallying.

Now, the company’s experience with thermal management technology, together with expertise in the design and manufacture of complex exhaust and pipework / ducting systems, is making significant inroads into the defence market.

Lifeline Fire and Safety Systems, a market leader in motorsport fire suppression systems, has also diversified into the military market.

The Coventry-based company has taken its racing-focused systems and further developed them to provide crew compartment fire suppression for British armoured vehicles such as the Warrior – a tracked infantry fighting vehicle – for which the time from initial enquiry through to development, manufacturing and appearance in action was just six months.

Lifeline’s involvement in defence started with supplying fire suppression systems for the British Army’s Mastiff protected patrol vehicles when they were first deployed to Afghanistan in the 2000s.

More recently, the company was selected to provide the fire suppression systems for the British Army’s future fleet of Challenger 3 battle tanks.

While the UK arm of US company, Moog, is known for supplying miniature actuation systems for F1 machinery, its actuation and stabilisation systems are today being used for multiple military applications, including turreted weapon systems, ammunition handling systems, precise missile steering mechanisms and near-silent actuation on submarines.

Adapted technology

Banbury-based motorsport and advanced engineering group, Prodrive, which has a rich heritage in rallying and sportscar racing, has also established a footprint in the defence sector in recent years.

As well as engaging in a programme to investigate and develop a chassis / suspension system for 8×8 military vehicles, in May 2010, the company announced it had adapted the torque control technology used by Subaru in the FIA World Rally Championship to give military vehicles increased capability over rough terrain, while at the same time making them easier and safer to drive.

Lastly, Swiss mechatronics solutions provider, Stäubli, which has a UK arm based in Telford, has found that the fluid and electrical connectors it has developed to withstand the rigours of motorsport are equally applicable to a wide range of defence platforms.

The long list of motorsport-to-defence crossovers is, of course, not comprehensive.

Research for this article, for example, confirmed more than one instance where UK prime defence contractors are currently working with motorsport companies on major platform and weapons programmes where the details of the projects could not be discussed in the public domain.

Conclusion

As the MoD strives in its endeavours to make UK defence procurement more agile and responsive, both in the incorporation of new technology and the addressing of future operational demands, it will no doubt continue to benefit from the expertise and capabilities that the UK’s front-running motorsport industry has to offer.

Meanwhile, companies whose original footprint and interest was firmly placed in the motorsport sector will continue to find benefit from the alternative lines of revenue the defence industry has to offer.

The post Which Motorsport Companies are Involved in Defence? appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

Part two of Beyond the Racecar uncovers how motorsport engineering companies were integral to the launch of a bold, new electric powerboat championship.

They may be worlds apart in terms of the surfaces they race on, but there has been crossover between four-wheel motorsport and boat racing for many years.

In the 20th century Henry Segrave, Malcolm Campbell and Donald Campbell set outright speed records on both land and water. Kaye Don, an accomplished racing driver, achieved the latter.

In 1958, Briggs Cunningham, the American sportscar constructor and driver who twice finished fourth at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, won the America’s Cup as a skipper. There was also the original ‘Flying Finn’, Timo Makinen, a three-time Rally GB winner who triumphed in the inaugural Round Britain Powerboat Race in 1969.

More recently, Formula 1 technical expertise has filtered into sailing as Mercedes engineers have imparted their wisdom to the INEOS America’s Cup team. Last year, a new electric powerboat series called E1 held its inaugural season with some familiar faces.

Sanctioned as a world championship by the UIM (Union Internationale Motonautique – powerboat racing’s equivalent to the FIA), E1 is the latest string in the bow of emission-cutting series chaired by Alejandro Agag, coming after Formula E and Extreme E.

Being water-based, it is further removed from its four-wheel siblings in many ways. But motorsport engineering and working processes were vital in getting the new series up and running.

All-star line up

E1 held its first race off the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in February 2024. That formed the start of a five-round season contested between eight teams, all of which were fronted by famous faces from the wider worlds of sport and entertainment.

Team investors included seven-time Superbowl champion Tom Brady, 22-time tennis Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal, ex-Formula 1 driver Sergio Pérez and actor Will Smith.

The multi-lap races were contested over approximately 8km between up to four boats. Driving crews consisted of one male and one female pilot, who took turns to compete. The format, with its qualifying stage leading to semi-finals and a grand final, was designed to be easily understood by racecar and general sport fans alike.

All E1 teams are given the same, 7.3m long watercraft, the RaceBird, developed by British marine start-up, SeaBird Technologies, which counts Agag as one of its investors. Capable of 93km/h (50knt) on its hydrofoils, the vessel is powered by a 150kW Helix electric motor feeding off energy released by a 518V, 35kWh Kreisel Electric battery.

Both companies will be familiar to Racecar Engineering readers for their motorsport involvement, as will McLaren Applied, which provides the electronics and control software. SeaBird integrated these systems, and the powertrain, into the boat, which was designed with input from marine specialist, Victory Marine.

Motorsport connections

While Agag is the recognisable face of E1, the person at the helm on a day-to-day basis is chief executive, Rodi Basso. An ex-Ferrari and Red Bull F1 race and performance engineer, Basso rifled through his motorsport address book to help put the tools in place for E1 to launch.

‘There is a personal element of comfort zone,’ explains Basso. ‘Before launching the championship, I was very much in the world of electronics and data intelligence.

‘Given the specific requirements of the boat, I went very straightforward to suppliers and partners I knew I could trust in terms of delivering in a short time and matching our key performance indicators. In the marine industry, there is no supplier of these fields at the level of automotive and motorsport.’

That is not to say the series was naïve enough to ignore marine specialists for certain areas where their capabilities could be beneficial. Marine companies were central to the design of the foil and outboard, both alien components to racecar folk. Navico provided specialist navigation equipment and course charts through its Simrad and C-MAP brands.

The E1 powerboat is, therefore, an amalgam of motorsport and marine specialists, with the former taking a leading role in the powertrain and vehicle control departments.

Woking-on-Sea

Considering Basso’s past role as McLaren Applied’s motorsport business director from 2016 to 2019, the Woking-based company was perhaps an obvious partner to sign, though its selection came after a review of several candidates.

McLaren Applied is supplying its VCU-500 control unit and data logger to E1. It also provides the software tools required to generate the control applications and analyse both live and recorded data, including its Advanced Telemetry Linked Acquisition System (ATLAS) and McLaren Control Toolbox (MCT).

E1 was an early adopter of the VCU-500 when it was under development. It is now a commercially available product used by several teams in Formula E, as well as the Mission H24 hydrogen sportscar demonstrator, among others. The VCU found in E1 is the same hardware component used in motorsport, with the only difference being in the software capability. There is also an obvious difference in environment.

‘Although the VCU is IP rated for protection against water ingress, in E1, the unit is put inside an additional carbon box with the rest of the electronics, so it’s got an extra layer of protection,’ says Josh Wesley, motorsport product manager at McLaren Applied.

Wesley was SeaBird’s head of engineering throughout the RaceBird development and the 2024 season opener, before switching back to his previous company after the Jeddah event.

‘One reason to go for a motorsport unit was that we needed something that was robust and would work in harsh environments. Broadly, its use is very similar. It’s just controlling slightly different things – propeller instead of wheels, foils and rudders instead of steering. From the powertrain point of view, it is almost identical in its use to that of an electric motorsport car.’

Running on a 64-bit operating system, the VCU-500 is the brain of the RaceBird, controlling functions of the battery, inverter, sensor processors, display items, throttle mapping and more.

It predominantly controls these using CAN (Controller Area Network) bus communication networks. There can be several CAN bus networks in a single vehicle, connecting various control units for different areas of the boat. The RaceBird has eight of them.

Controlled environment

‘All of the main devices on the boat are controlled via CAN,’ confirms Wesley. ‘This means there is a very large number of parameters available for both analysis and control, and managing these is critical.

‘With the McLaren Control Toolbox software and Model Management suite, adding new devices to the CAN network, building the software to communicate with them, ingesting the vast amount of data and using it in control strategies is straightforward.’

According to Wesley, using MCT was critical to E1 powerboat’s development, allowing new software strategies and functionality to be developed and rolled out to the VCU swiftly, with new versions often being deployed throughout a test. This kept the pace of development high and both software and hardware development in sync.

‘The real benefit of the VCU is that it can be used not only for control, but also for data logging and telemetry,’ Wesley adds. ‘Logging is data that’s recorded to memory and telemetry is data over the air that you’re viewing live. Telemetry devices allow you to stream data which, during development, we used every time the boat ran, for monitoring of the safety systems and the battery.

‘We could then talk to the pilot on the radio and tell them if they need to stop, or if there is an issue on the boat. It’s a lot more difficult to go and recover a boat when it’s stopped. You can’t just put it on a truck like with a car, and the VCU allowed us to monitor systems and prevent us being stranded on the water with an issue.’

Battery development

E1 reached out to Kreisel Electric in early 2021 about using its battery technology in the RaceBird.

The Austrian firm works in both motorsport and marine: its activities in the former have included developing batteries for the electric RX1e class of the FIA World Rallycross Championship and working with Compact Dynamics on the FIA World Rally Championship’s hybrid system. Kreisel also develops battery systems for electric pleasure and commercial boats.

‘E1 batteries benefit from similar requirements [to racecars] in terms of cooling performance and ability to deliver high C-Rates [charge and discharge currents], while at the same time keeping cell temperature within the limits for this type of application,’ says Markus Fürst, mechanical design engineer at Kreisel Electric. ‘The result is a small, lightweight battery with high performance.

‘The carbon housing of the battery was a major challenge. Any changes in battery volume or space requirements would impact development of the entire boat. The RaceBird vessel was developed in parallel with the battery.’

The E1 battery has a nominal voltage of 518V, a capacity of around 37kWh and weighs 246kg. For context, the RaceBird tips the scales at 1100kg, the carbon fibre chassis alone being almost 900kg of that. Kreisel uses cells with high power density, rather than high capacity, because they have a high performance-to-energy density ratio.

Safety-wise, four water entry sensors are built into the battery to detect the presence of liquid. There is also a conductivity sensor in the cooling circuit that detects water intruding into the dielectric battery cooling fluid.

A battery management system (BMS) monitors data from the battery and generates warning signals when errors occur. Developing the battery for E1 has proven a useful crossover activity for Kreisel.

‘Being the battery supplier for E1 provides a lot of knowledge from performance battery behaviour under extreme conditions,’ says Fürst. ‘This helps us to evolve our technology requirements. Commercial and pleasure craft boats are different, so a different type of module is used for these applications, which has different safety features and requirements in terms of performance and lifetime.’

Batteries are charged by the Qube, a DC charging station from QiOn designed to be robust for use outdoors, and transportable. It has an output of up to 80kW, although the RaceBird doesn’t use all that available power.

‘Simply for the sporting format that we have, we don’t need to go to those levels,’ explains Basso. ‘This is also helping the battery life. We can charge the battery in 40 minutes without affecting the sporting format. Our autonomy is for approximately half an hour.

‘We need to consider that every session is in the region of 12-15 minutes. Every two or three sessions, we need to recharge. The good news is we don’t need to recharge fully, we can top up and keep going.’

Mercury rising

The E1 electric motor and inverter are situated at the rear, where the outboard normally sits on a standard powerboat. Typically, an outboard consists of three parts: the powerhead, housing the engine sat above the water, the connecting mid-section and the lower section, featuring the waterborne propellor.

For 2024, the E1 motor and inverter were integrated into a standard internal combustion outboard provided by American powerboat company, Mercury Racing. This used the mid-section and gear case of Mercury’s outboard, minus the six-cylinder petrol engine.

Integrating the electric powertrain into the ICE outboard was one of the major design challenges, partly because it was not originally built to run with a rear foil.

‘It was based on a commercial application, so the level of loads and duty cycles the outboard was seeing, was completely new, and maybe sometimes too much,’ explains Basso. ‘But we have been working very closely with Mercury to fix everything.

‘So far, we are pleased with what we are running. Mercury has the biggest order book of outboards worldwide, so it was just unbelievable [they contacted E1] because in August 2021 we were little more than a PowerPoint. It has been a great collaboration, and we are working on the future as we talk.’

Elaborating further on some of the technical hurdles of integrating the internal combustion outboard, Basso says:

‘We couldn’t touch the rear foil because it was not a self-standing component. It was there to balance the front foils, and we needed to keep the balance as it was. This is a matter of hydrodynamics and loads.

‘We discovered we had three components that needed to be reinforced. They were designed for a thermal engine and had some mechanical characteristics that were not suitable for our solution, so we had to re-shape parts.

‘It was a matter of structural engineering and reinforcing some mechanical parts until we got to the point that the whole outboard was enhanced and more robust, so it is now serving the purpose.’

Foil’s gold

The RaceBird is a foiling craft, so it uses dynamic principles that have been around for over a century.

Foiling was explored in the early 1900s. A notable pioneer was Enrico Forlanini, who mounted foils on ladder-like struts attached over the side of his boat at Lake Maggiore, where E1 has its technical headquarters today. Another was Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.

Foiling is the act of lifting the boat’s hull into the air as it gains speed, freeing it from the drag of the water. A foil is essentially an underwater wing and shares many physical principles with its aerodynamic cousins used in aviation and motorsport.

The wing’s hydrodynamic shape guides water rapidly over the top surface, creating a low-pressure area above that surface in accordance with Bernoulli’s Principle, whereby pressure decreases as fluid speed increases, and vice versa.

The imbalance between the high-pressure zone underneath the foil and the low-pressure zone above it generates enough lift for the hull to breach the surface. This results in the striking sight of a hydrofoil boat that seemingly flies above the water, only connected to the surface by thin stilts.

The dedicated E1 foils were designed by Caponnetto Hueber, a naval consultancy with America’s Cup experience, which used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to map and test the hydrodynamic properties.

The foil design was then built to print by Milan-based ERF, before going to SeaBird for assembly and integration with the rest of the boat. It was, therefore, an area in which marine companies were leaned on more heavily.

Trim and lift

E1 drivers can make live set-up adjustments to the foil’s angle of attack and the height of the outboard.

The latter involves raising and lowering the outboard relative to the boat’s body. The higher the outboard, the closer the boat sits to the water. Such set-up changes are made on the fly during races and are useful when following another boat’s disruptive wake.

‘Generally, you can either be slow and stable or fast and unstable,’ says Joe Sturdy, team principal at Team Brady and an ex-Red Bull F1 power unit engineer. ‘If you change the lift, your trim window changes as well, so you have to play with them both; it’s risk vs reward.

‘You can be quite unstable and quite fast but drop off the foils more often, which means you’re starting from a high-drag phase of acceleration more frequently throughout a lap. Or you can try to be slow and consistent, staying on the foils the whole time and acting with that medium level of drag throughout the lap.’

According to SeaBird Technologies’ chief technical officer, Nathan Baker, the E1 powerboat operates ‘almost on a knife edge’ that requires constant adjustment.

‘That’s why there is a lot of involvement from the pilots in setting the height of the rear foil and trimming it,’ he says.

‘There is a great deal of skill involved in that as you have to anticipate water conditions and adjust accordingly. Those who can do that are smoother and faster.’

Driver crossover

It’s not just technology that has been transferred from motorsport to E1. Many of the pilots have racecar experience, though the switch from ground to water has required some re-calibration.

The field includes 2019 FIA World Rallycross champion Timmy Hansen, former Nissan GT3 ace Lucas Ordoñez and Extreme E driver Catie Munnings. There is also Emma Kimiläinen, a race winner in W Series, who together with her powerboat racer teammate, Sam Coleman, won the inaugural E1 title.

According to Kimiläinen, adapting to the RaceBird was straightforward: ‘The steering wheel is from a formula [racecar],’ she says. ‘The seat is a rally seat. The space is like a formula cockpit. Everything from that perspective, including my driving position, is like a racecar.

‘The driving itself, however, is pretty different, physically. It doesn’t require a lot of turning power. Quite the opposite. You need to have silk gloves on and be gentle with the steering, like karting. So it does have motor racing similarities, but in a different [way].’

The racecar driver’s ability to feel the car through their body is not lost in E1. Additionally, understanding when to adjust the foil’s angle requires similar intuition to controlling a racecar’s balance.

‘This is the first vehicle where I can set up the whole vehicle during the time I race,’ Kimiläinen adds. ‘Basically, if you’re not doing anything, you’re doing something wrong. It is very important to constantly read the water, the conditions and be aware of other boats’ wakes.’

In motorsport, tyre performance changes over the course of a race event as track grip increases, but there is no such evolution in E1. This was one of the main learning areas, and battlegrounds, in season one.

‘When you’re doing A-B-A testing of different set-up options, you can piece together what happened to the track in the time you’re doing the test,’ highlights Sturdy, ‘whereas in this, the water can change within seconds. For example, in Jeddah qualifying, there was one lap where Emma was, for what seemed like no reason, five seconds slower than another lap. It is purely down to water conditions.’

When assembling a fresh team for E1, Sturdy and his co-team principal, Ben King, made the decision to go for the best of both worlds. Their approach paid dividends as Team Brady won three of the five rounds en route to the title.

‘When we were trying to piece together this team, we took mechanics who had a split of experience,’ explains Sturdy. ‘Some were working in endurance racing, but one of our mechanics has worked in F1H20, the very top level of powerboat racing, so we’ve got these different perspectives coming together.

‘We’re trying to move powerboating in a slightly different direction to what we’ve done in the past, trying to bring across some of what we’ve learned in F1, Formula E and WEC, and apply it to this new machine we’re working on.’

Right on time

One of motorsport’s greatest exportable strengths is its ability to meet tight deadlines.

This skill came in handy when E1 was determining the component suppliers. It is also why SeaBird enlisted engineers with racecar experience, not just for their knack of doing things quickly and accurately, but for their connections in the agile motorsport supply chain.

SeaBird aims to use E1 as a platform to showcase its sustainable powerboat technology that it hopes to introduce to the wider marine market.

‘We have a number of people from different backgrounds, whether it’s aerospace, automotive or motorsport,’ says Baker. ‘We’ve had engineers from Red Bull and Toro Rosso within the group.

‘We’re very lucky to have that mentality and approach to designing and engineering a product. It leads to a completely different mindset when it comes to how fast you can do something, or what level of detail you go into. The attitude is that we’ll get it done, one way or another, within that timeframe.’

The RaceBird’s first shakedown took place near San Nazzaro on Italy’s River Po in July 2022. The inaugural season was targeted for 2023, but that plan was scrapped in favour of more testing, as the development team understood how to run the electric powerboat on foils and how to use the control systems.

During this time, motorsport expertise was especially useful in validating the SeaBird for safety. Comptech Engineering, a British company specialising in motorsport bodywork, was contracted to carry out non-destructive testing and inspections. Real-world crash testing was not part of the UIM’s homologation requirements.

‘We don’t have the skill set in-house, but we are using the same skill sets and people that Formula 1 are using, to make sure our loaded components are behaving themselves,’ explains Baker.

‘It’s ultrasonic testing or Eddy current testing, depending on whether it’s a metallic or composite structure. We’re also monitoring the fatigue of components and how things degrade. We have zero historical data, unlike an F1 team, which has decades of information to fall back on. [Comptech] brought their equipment to us and did the scanning, inspections and quality audits for us.’

Voyage of discovery

The first season of any new race series is almost guaranteed to be a rollercoaster. It was no different for E1, starting with shipping the boats to Jeddah in time for the opening round.

This was complicated by Houthi missile and pirate attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, which caused severe disruption to international shipping. The Jeddah event had been pencilled in for January but ended up taking place a month later.

‘In Jeddah, we had a lot of mechanical issues because the boats were finally being driven at the limit,’ adds Basso. ‘Technically, as you would expect, it has been a challenge. We had so many things on our list to be improved, and that we did improve.

‘Even at Como at the end of August, we still had some mechanical failures because of the specific circuit layout, but we managed to cope because we had the right number of spares, and we added some reinforcement to the parts.

‘Being a racing vehicle, naturally it goes through a lot of stress and strain. You need the right approach to cope with this at the very last minute. This can be stressful, but having racing people on board, we knew that was the case, so we were ready and reacted quite well.’

The weeks leading up to the inaugural race were extremely busy. McLaren Applied and SeaBird held education sessions, including two days of ATLAS training, so teams could understand how to use the electronics and hydrodynamics. There was a small amount of seat time for the pilots, but most substantial running only took place at the first race.

‘Leading up to Jeddah, we had a team in Italy pretty much full-time getting pilots up to speed,’ confirms Baker. ‘We were using Prototype 2, which accumulated a lot of hours as our fleet leader. If we were spotting issues, we were generally spotting them on Prototype 2, and then trying to fix those, mainly through software.

‘We’ve got a complicated, Formula E-on-the-water-style system. We were navigating the challenges of when the pilot does something, and the boat reacts in an unexpected way. A lot of those were resolved before and during Jeddah and have definitely been resolved since. Leading up to Jeddah was a huge learning curve and a huge test for us.’

Going forward

E1 is not going to be every motorsport fan’s cup of tea. But even sceptics might appreciate that it has only been possible thanks to the role of motorsport engineering. It has also benefited from the groundwork laid by the pioneering electric racing series, Formula E.

‘It’s things like Formula E and EVs that have started moving the industry in a direction to where it’s a low enough barrier financially, with lead times, that you can actually go and develop an electric racing boat,’ says Baker. ‘In the future, things like the RaceBird will help speed up development for the rest of the industry. It’s a nice passing on of technology from one sector to the other.’

Basso prefers to avoid comparisons between E1 and Formula E because he wants it to stand on its own two legs (or foils) and forge its own path. His vision includes making E1 a place where companies can test and showcase their technologies. In the shorter term, he would like to see the boats go a bit faster, and to increase the battery capacity and output, although he notes the current foil design is limited to around 70knt (129 km/h).

‘We have taken the state-of-the-art in that [motorsport] industry and put it into our boat, putting together fantastic players and suppliers,’ says Basso. ‘We had to marinate the solution, which is an integration issue that we have so far overcome. In the meantime, having the state-of-the-art from motorsport allowed us to accelerate electrification in the powerboating industry by at least 15-20 years.’

While the motorsport industry was clearly integral in bringing E1 to the water, Basso would like the dynamic to shift as the championship becomes more established.

‘We want to build partnerships and technology campaigns in order to be the driver of the future,’ he concludes. ‘So, instead of inheriting from motorsport and high-end automotive, I would like to be the test bed for future technologies, so all the other industries involved in mobility will have the chance to learn and see what is achievable. It is a mission, and a must, for the racing industry.’

The post How Motorsport Helped the E1 Electric Boat Series to Launch appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

Our new weekly Beyond the Racecar series will uncover examples of how motorsport technology firms have expanded into other markets, applying race-proven methods and expertise in a diverse array of fields including mining, defence, marine and more.

In part one, we explore how the renowned British racecar manufacturer, Prodrive, has entered new territory with its development of a compact delivery vehicle.

Buying habits have changed in the last few years, with working from home now normalised for many office-based roles, and home deliveries a regular convenience.

Be that a postal packet or a food shop, there has been a sharp uptake in home delivery demand. Prodrive, a racecar manufacturer for 40 years, has risen to meet the challenge of developing an affordable, sustainable delivery vehicle.

While electric heavy goods vehicles are still a long way off serving the mass market, a significant difference can be made on a local scale.

With zero emissions at the tailpipe, EVs are ideal for city driving. Prodrive, together with its design partner, Astheimer, identified a gap in the market for a low-cost, purpose-built vehicle that claims to be market leading in all areas of design and application.

Motorsport mindset

Prodrive is, of course, more famous for its exploits in rallying and sportscars, so this small electric van might seem a little left field.

However, despite outward appearances, there is a lot of racecar technology in it, and the build and design process drew heavily on the company’s work developing competition vehicles.

Also playing into the motorsport mindset, speed of delivery was a key element to Prodrive securing government funding to build a prototype, which was presented at the Cenex Low Carbon Vehicle conference held at Millbrook Proving Ground in September 2024.

The EVOLV Last Mile Vehicle was designed by Astheimer, but the engineering work, notably around the front steering system and suspension, was undertaken by Prodrive Advanced Technology, the company’s applied engineering division.

Packaging these items into such a small space required Prodrive’s racing experience to ensure it was effective and fit for purpose.

‘We’ve had the luxury of working with a lot of EV companies, so what we’ve tried to do is learn by what they’ve done well, and learn by some of their mistakes,’ says Dr Iain Roche, CEO at Prodrive Advanced Technology.

The result is a platform that fits into the L7e category. This means it is, by definition, a heavy quadracycle, weighing in at less than 600kg, for transport of goods, with four enclosed wheels, maximum power of 15kW and a maximum speed of 90km/h (56mph). It can be piloted on a regular driving licence.

Built for purpose

The vision was for Prodrive to create the most capable, safe and efficient L7e category quadricycle.

At just 3240mm long, 1450mm wide, 2150mm high and weighing 850kg (with batteries), the compact EVOLV packs a surprising punch. It has two configurable load areas providing 4m³ of carrying capacity, achieving a class-leading 60 per cent of overall vehicle volume.

The vehicle’s unique architecture minimises the driver package and maximises the load space. The result is it has approximately double the load box volume of some other vehicles in the L7e category, and is half the weight of a compact van with a similar load volume, making it the most efficient vehicle in its class, both in terms of cost and energy consumption per unit volume of goods per mile.

EVOLV’s design accommodates a 1.6m tall Euro pallet with a 300kg payload in the main load area. It is accessed on the side via self-locking sliding doors and has a 300mm load bed height. The secondary load area, accessible through ‘barn doors’ at the rear, provides additional space for a 1.2m tall Euro pallet and 200kg payload.

With safety a priority for operators, Prodrive Advanced Technology set out to achieve N1 (small van) safety standards, including passive safety crash standards, spanning front, side, and roof crash performance, pedestrian impact and driver safety requirements.

While Prodrive has focused on this category, it has also designed the vehicle to be modular, so it can be stretched to accommodate a higher payload.

‘We can stretch it in both directions, actually, so we can also shrink it, potentially create an l6 version,’ says Roche. ‘We want to be focused on doing one thing well, getting it to market, bringing in the revenue, and then building on that going forward.

‘The load box at the back is completely reconfigurable, so that gives a lot more choice and options, but we wanted to keep the skateboard platform as simple as possible so as not to distract ourselves from all the other applications. There’s a massive demand for this in inner city delivery.’

Interior design

As this is a delivery vehicle designed to be used by a single occupant for many hours at a time, everything has been done to make it a good place in which to work.

The interior has been designed around driver ergonomics, offering a comfortable work environment with an intuitive user interface, allowing for an easy transition from one driver to the next.

The central driver seat offers easy access from either side and the wraparound windscreen offers better visibility of pedestrians and cyclists. Cleverly, the driving position also streamlines the number of variants required for UK and European markets.

The flexible platform will allow for a family of models to be created, adaptable to the needs of each customer.

Conceived for high uptime, EVOLV also has a tight, 7.8m turning circle – comparable to the 7.6m capability of a London taxi – allowing for quick manoeuvring in congested city or suburban streets.

Perhaps reflecting on traditional usage, Prodrive designed fared-in headlights that are less likely to be damaged in a minor incident, while the highly robust modular body panels are easily accessible and can be replaced swiftly should a more significant impact necessitate it.

On the range

Analysis of duty cycles for last-mile EVs has led engineers to anticipate that specifying up to a 20kWh battery has the potential to meet industry demand, offering an ample, 100-mile range. Other battery capacities are under consideration for the production models, and will be explored in the next phase of development.

Mindful that most operators would have access to existing infrastructure to charge overnight affordably, when equipped with a Type-2 connector, EVOLV is predicted to have a 20-80 per cent charge time of less than two hours.

‘We’ve done a lot of work going out with customers, literally sitting with them, observing their deliveries,’ says Roche. ‘It varies, but most of them say 30-50 miles is what they actually need. Current legislation limits your motor to 15kW, so we’re looking at probably up to a 20kWh battery. That’s more than enough for that use case.

‘We’re trying to make it really easy, so it’s simple [to operate] and you don’t need a huge amount of infrastructure. The drivetrain components are commoditising, and becoming commercially available, and the prices are coming down. Frankly, we don’t need anything massively fancy from a drivetrain perspective.’

One of the key elements to receiving the funding to push ahead with the prototype was fast turnaround from concept to reality.

Prodrive admits the prototype is not quite there yet in terms of cost, so is now looking at ways to reduce the price of component parts using off-the-shelf solutions rather than bespoke products.

However, the company predicts EVOLV will go into UK production and be on sale by 2028, with an estimated cost of £25,000 (approx. $32,800).

Production process

‘We’re very serious about getting this into production,’ says Roche. ‘We got investment in that, and in financial diligence with another investor, so we made a prototype because we needed to; to learn from and to demonstrate to customers, investors and so on.

‘We’ve learned from doing this with lots of our Prodrive customers that you can’t afford to create a prototype and then start the design process all over again to make it ready for production. So, we’ve got some elements that we very deliberately said we don’t need to touch at the moment because we need to make some bigger decisions.

‘Other bits, we’ve started to design for cast, design for manufacture and design for production, so that we can hopefully go really quickly into production.’

So, having created the design for a prototype, how did the racing element of Prodrive become a defining factor?

The first is speed of design, the second is that the vehicle was designed to be easily maintained and fixed without high costs. That drew on the company’s rally experience.

For example, if any of the plastic front end panels are damaged, you just bolt on a new one that doesn’t even need a respray.

Market aware

‘We’re very aware that time to market is absolutely critical,’ continues Roche. ‘The market is really interesting. It’s a relatively new one, driven by legislation in cities and low carbon zones. Meanwhile, our changing consumer behaviour means we’re buying more stuff.

‘When you speak to the customers, they’re primarily using N1 vehicles, which are a car-derived van. Often they end up with a Sprinter in their fleet as well, because they want to put a pallet in every Tuesday, and they can’t fit that into the N1. They then might have a smaller vehicle, like an L7, that isn’t really fit for purpose.’

The question is, why are there not more vehicles like this on the market already?

The answer is that they are not that easy to make, as Roche explains: ‘Legislation limits the mass of the vehicle to basically 600kg, without batteries. The payload that we want to base everything upon is then 500kg. So that presents quite an interesting dynamics problem, which isn’t normal for a lot of small commercial vehicles.

‘We therefore had to engineer it in the same way that you do a racecar, back to basic first principles. You need all the mass as low as you can get it, but also to make sure you have the load space to put the pallet in.

‘But you’re limited by mass and footprint, and you’ve got to have suspension and steering that can cope with the different dynamics between laden and unladen. So, you design it in CAD and basically the suspension sticks out, you know, a couple of miles. There’s actually a big engineering technical challenge as well. We got kind of excited by the whole project.’

Now bear in mind that a full payload represents more than 50 per cent of the total vehicle weight, and is placed high up, so Prodrive needed to make a vehicle that was not only functional, but also safe to turn around in a tight turning circle without toppling over.

‘Racing cars don’t have that problem,’ says Roche. ‘At worst, you’ve got fuel start vs fuel at the end from a dynamics perspective. With this, it’s a horrible high mass, it’s all things you don’t want to do. So working out how on earth can we do that, and make it safe, and feel safe, was quite a challenge.’

Packaging challenge

Making such a small, lightweight vehicle compliant for the road, safe for the occupant and not feel like a milk float was a complicated engineering challenge that Prodrive clearly relished.

Positioning the driver behind the front axle created a packaging nightmare with the load area, but meant the team was able to fit the front suspension and steering system into the narrow space available at the front.

Due to the complexity of the design and build process, plus the cost, Prodrive is hoping its design will not be copied, even though the big delivery companies are already investing in their own versions of a similar vehicle.

It now hopes a competitive price, higher-than-expected safety standards, and overall efficiency and effectiveness will lead to a successful production programme.

The post Delivery! Why Prodrive Developed this Tiny Commercial Vehicle appeared first on Racecar Engineering.

For 12 years now, TGR-E has housed a parasports division, responsible for developing racing wheelchairs, high-tech handbikes and prosthetic limbs for Paralympic athletes.

Utilising the engineering facilities and expertise housed within TGR-E, the parasports programme has delivered equipment on a case-by-case basis for German para cyclist Andrea Eskau, South African shot putter Tyrone Pillay and Guinea-born German wheelchair racer Alhassane Baldé.

Eskau, who was the project’s first athlete, won gold in the H5 category road race at Rio 2016 aboard a handbike fitted with a seat inset developed in Cologne. TGR-E then made an updated version of the handbike, with which Eskau competed at the Tokyo 2020 and this year’s Paris Games. In France, finished sixth in the H5 individual time trial and fourth in the road race.

Toyota isn’t the first motorsport or automotive manufacturer to be involved in parasports. BMW’s North American car division worked with the US Paralympic team to develop racing wheelchairs and Italian motorsport constructor, Dallara, built the carbon fibre handbike in which two-time CART champion, Alex Zanardi, won three medals (two gold, one silver) at London 2012 and Rio 2016 respectively.

Companies such as these, with experience in the production of lightweight and strong components, are a natural fit for parasports, especially the wheeled disciplines. This is partly because of their expertise in dealing with composites and structures, but also because they can provide athletes with the high quality, bespoke equipment they need to shine.

For Toyota, parasports is small fry compared to its factory motorsport programmes. It isn’t even a dedicated department; its engineers have full-time jobs in other parts of the TGR-E company and dip into parasports work as and when required.

‘It’s really a case-by-case project, depending on an inquiry, or an athlete who has a certain request and, of course, depending on available capacities on the design and production sides,’ says Norbert Schäfer, project manager of TGR-E parasports.

‘The good thing is that all our projects have, and had, top management back up. With certain exceptions, I think we can say we have a freedom to work in a concentrated way and be straightforward on the projects.’

The core TGR-E parasports team consists of around 15 people, most of whom work in departments such as design, CNC machining and composites. Central to each project, though, is the athlete, whose physical requirements and preferences are at the heart of developing comfortable, adjustable and manoeuvrable equipment.

Chance encounter

TGR-E’s parasports venture started in 2012 with Eskau, who has been paraplegic since a bike accident in her 20s. The collaboration began with a chance encounter: Eskau lived on the same road as a TGR-E employee (back then it was called Toyota Motorsport) and highlighted some issues with her handbike at the time.

During subsequent meetings at the factory to produce a new seat insert, Toyota learned that Eskau was also a successful Nordic skier. The two parties started looking at ways of improving her ski equipment and ended up developing a new sled. Eskau went on to win three Winter Paralympic golds with Toyota-designed equipment, one at Sochi 2014 and two at Pyeongchang 2018.

‘She showed us some pictures of her [original] sled,’ recalls Schäfer. ‘One of our colleagues gave the comment, “It looks not so bad… but we can do better.” The team in the composites department spent their private time, mainly, to quickly design and produce the first Nordic skiing sled made from carbon fibre, using some special components to create a one-off for her, which made her quite successful, to be honest. That was the start of the business.’

Schäfer runs the commercial side of Toyota’s parasports programme, serving as the link between the engineers and the rest of the company’s motorsport business, as well as the parasports regulatory bodies.

The technical side is spearheaded by Roger Kirschner, a senior composite design engineer at TGR-E. Kirschner’s motorsport career has included stints as an aerodynamics engineer for the Sauber and Toyota Formula 1 teams.

‘What is crucial is that there is a strong link between the athlete and me,’ he says. ‘When I have their opinion, I cast this into a first concept. I always go to the dedicated departments, especially from production, and say what I would like to do. They explain if I need to do it [differently]. I then make a second concept and take that into 3D design. Then, we release the components.

‘We make sure we have their opinion, to allow us to use new techniques, such as machining components more efficiently.’

Development of Eskau’s latest handbike started in 2018 ahead of the Tokyo Paralympics which took place in 2021. Despite winning gold with it in Rio, her previous handbike suffered from high-speed instability and was difficult to handle in the corners.

Kirschner and his colleagues went to the TGR-E suspension department to re-design the trailing arm for the wheel, which opened the steering angle and reduced its turning circle by three degrees. The updated version also featured adjustable steering damping and force feedback, while its weight was reduced by 19 per cent, from 12.2kg to 9.9kg.

‘If the handbike is stable in a corner, it is also stable in a straight line,’ says Kirschner. ‘Packaging-wise, the old handbike with massive wheels at the rear is something we wanted to avoid.

‘We wanted to deliver something with a lower c of g and much neater, compact packaging. The rear wheels are now lighter and better to package. You can put them closer to the [athlete’s] arm and, in doing so, reduce the overall length of the handbike.’

The rear wheels on the updated bike carry more negative camber than the previous version, too. This is to match the natural camber of Eskau’s arms as she propels the bike, leaning forward and using the hand grips. Smaller wheels helped reduce the wheelbase, contributing to the weight reduction and increasing structural stiffness.

TGR-E also modified the front section of Eskau’s seating compartment, bringing the monocoque closer to her body for a tighter fit, while keeping the seat adjustable. According to Kirschner, Eskau can take corners at much higher speeds than before.

Aero grey area

Devices built to aid aerodynamics are banned in Paralympic cycling disciplines to ensure it is the athlete who makes the difference. However, though this presents a grey area with regards to other parts. Aero might not be as important here as in a racecar, but handbikes can still go surprisingly fast. According to Kirschner, speeds of up to 100km/h are achieved on certain downhill sections in favourable conditions.

‘In the regulations, it says that if a device has one purpose and that is to be aerodynamic, it is forbidden,’ notes Kirschner. ‘But if you have a lever for the steering, it can look aerodynamic. So, you must balance this right.’

TGR-E has an aerodynamics department at Cologne, and Kirschner acknowledges that the people there can be an extremely useful resource for the parasports team, even if they can’t design any purpose-built items.

‘Of course, they can give their opinion,’ he says. ‘Maybe we should open or close an area, make a corner sharp or rounded. There is nothing wrong with this. It is just aero efficiency from a theoretical point of view. Putting devices into the wind tunnel for hours is too much for us. Not because we cannot do it, but because our understanding is this is not how it should be done.’

In creating Eskau’s new handbike from carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP), Kirschner’s team sought to increase the structure’s stiffness to best support her physical input. This was seen as more important than reducing the handbike’s weight.

Creating a lightweight handbike did result in less mass for the athlete to propel, but stiffness reduces as weight comes down, so there was a delicate balancing act at play. Drawing on TGR-E’s existing in-house composites expertise, the parasports team set to work on the handbike’s geometrical properties.

‘Here, performance is driven more by the pure stiffness of the product,’ explains Kirschner. ‘The power the athlete can give is limited. In the end, the stiffer product should lead to more transition [of strength] into speed. With speed, you are more competitive.

‘Stiffness is the key. It is usually done by geometrical stiffness and not the choice of material because you use carbon where possible. Carbon is very low on flexing, but in a racing wheelchair, the geometry will allow the beam to flex. Usually, people misunderstand, saying that by using carbon you will make it stiff. This is wrong. It’s about geometry. Of course, carbon will contribute to this, but not in the way that geometry is.’

Safety is also a key factor in the design, considering the high speeds that can be reached. Crash testing of the TGR-E handbike was not feasible, due to financial reasons more than anything, but Kirschner’s team carried out finite element analysis (FEA) to ensure the structure would protect Eskau in the event of an accident.

‘They are sitting in a monocoque,’ highlights Kirschner. ‘If you compare this to a motorcycle, or bicycle, the idea is different. In a crash, you try to disconnect the rider from what they are riding. We don’t have this. We have them encapsulated in the monocoque, like our racing drivers, so we have to make sure they are well protected.’

Contribution to racing

The development of Eskau’s handbike, and the other parasports equipment that TGR-E has made, has been possible due to the existing motorsport engineering practices at Cologne. However, the benefits don’t just flow in one direction.

The parasports division has a useful part to play in helping Toyota’s sportscar, rally and manufacturing programmes, through its ability to take on the risk of small-scale prototype parts and engineering processes.

‘Paralympics can always say, let’s go for that, we’ll test it,’ says Kirschner. ‘We have no problem with this. For example, machining a part from both sides using a new technique developed in the production department was used for the first time in Paralympics. When it proved a success, it went into things such as customer and works motorsport.’

Although Schäfer would love for TGR-E to expand into developing parasports equipment commercially, that is unlikely for the time being. Most of its project members work in other TGR-E engineering departments, so developing parasports into a proper department would require some serious restructuring.

Nonetheless, the small band of engineers seems to thrive on its underground reputation. It showcases the diversity of motorsport engineering processes and, when called upon, has a small but significant part to play in the operation of Toyota’s manufacturing activities.

While most engineers at TGR-E this autumn were eyeing up the closing rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship, a small number of staff at Cologne were just at keenly tuned into the Paralympics in Paris. There, the fruits of their labour could be seen in competition with some of the most remarkable athletes in the world.

The original version of this article appeared in the September issue of Racecar Engineering.

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