BY MICHELINA ANDREUCCI
As Brabham was attempting to find ways to achieve ground-effect with a Flat-12 engine, Ferrari appeared to ignore the phenomena and concentrated on developing its engine and chassis along the same lines as in 1974. However, its efforts left Ferrari hopelessly uncompetitive against the ground-effect cars.
It was not until the appointment of Dr Harvey Postlethwaite, an English engineer who had already designed ground-effect cars, that the extent of Ferrari’s myopia became clear.
Williams Grand Prix Engineering designer, Patrick Head, imitated the ground-effect concept developed by Lotus. It proved to be a simple, but highly effective interpretation of the concept. As the Lotus reached the technical limit of the ground effect concept, the Williams FW07 was considered to be the optimal application of the concept to a F1 car. Williams’ development of the technology was undertaken with an emphasis on simplicity and reliability. Williams developed a championship winning car for 1980 in the FW07B, a car which effectively took them from the back to the front of the F1 grid.
Although ground-effect had created significant advances in performance, safety concerns were increasing due to higher cornering speeds and situations when a collision would send the car airborne when the ground-effect down force was suddenly lost.
In 1980 the FIA announced that sliding skirts would be banned from 1981 onwards, and followed this up two years later by determining that all cars would have totally flat under bodies. The ground-effect revolution was over.
The change in the competitive environment created by the Ford DFV engine significantly reduced barriers to entry and led to a flood of new entrants who were able to design and manufacture the chassis and aerodynamic elements of F1 cars. It meant that a larger number of firms were able to produce Grand Prix winning cars and, as a consequence, this period saw the highest number of different Grand Prix winners
The period also underlined the evolutionary nature of innovation across competitors with the Ford DFV creating the need for improved grip from aerodynamics, which in turn led Ferrari to respond through improvements to the Flat 12 engine and, ultimately, to the development of ground-effect aerodynamics by Lotus.
The introduction of the Ford DFV stimulated the development of new capabilities, most notably around the use of aerodynamics and specialist infrastructure such as moving- ground wind tunnels.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this period was that although it created many new entrants, it did not cause the immediate demise of incumbent firms. Ferrari, in particular, was challenged by these new technologies and, yet, its commitment to engine development throughout the Flat-12 design meant that it remained competitive and enjoyed one of its most successful periods between 1975and 1979.
This period 1981 – 1988 saw the development of a new area of engine technology which, prior to this point, had been regarded as an uncompetitive option. Renault had won the first ever Grand Prix (as opposed to F1 race) in 1906 and had a strong racing heritage to draw on. Its entry in 1977 with a turbo-charged car was greeted with both surprise and cynicism by the incumbent teams. It was their belief that Renault’s technology would not challenge the established normally aspirated engines.
The development of ground-effect aerodynamics in the previous period provided the impetus for a number of constructors to look at alternative materials to use in the construction of the car. Carbon composite had developed out of a variety of aerospace initiatives in the USA, the UK and Japan into a new generation of super-stiff, lightweight materials by the 1960s.
In 1976 it was used by Brabham in the construction of brake discs. Team Lotus had also become aware of the possibilities of this new material and developed a hand laid carbon composite monocoque for the Lotus 81 which was first raced in March 1981. It was followed a month later by the McLaren MP4/1 which became the dominant design in F1.
McLaren’s Technical Director, John Barnard, wanted to create a complete moulded monocoque but, in order to do so, a rapid shift in the current approach to manufacturing composite materials was required. Until that time, carbon-fibre had been used in small sections or had been hand-laminated, as was the case with the Lotus. The advantage of molding was that it would provide a more complete composite structure that would be stronger and therefore could be of alighter construction.
However the moulding process required access to a large specialist oven or autoclave.
Despite leading-edge work being undertaken in the UK aerospace industry, there was no interest in this kind of project from the established companies and Barnard had to look further afield, eventually finding aerospace technology firm Hercules in Salt Lake City, USA.
The molding process enabled the completion of the first Project Four McLaren: the MP4/1 that was raced in April 1981.
The fact that McLaren had developed the first molded monocoque gave it a major technological advantage that contributed to its winning the 1984 and 1985 World Championships. More than twenty years later every F1 car is still constructed using a moulded carbon composite monocoque.
Dr Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher and a published author in her field. For Comments E-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com
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