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Pete
Lyons' fantastic Can-Am Cars in Detail:
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May/June 2012
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All news content copyright Michael J. Fuller, unless
otherwise noted |
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6.17.12
>>So
another 24 Hours of Le Mans is done. Not quite an "epic" with the
results rather predetermined (Audi, but which one?). Some
interesting stories emerged. We'll follow them up at some point
and see where they take us.
On a side note, the fastest car of the weekend in a straight line? Toyota? Audi?
Try Sauber, C9 = 340.4 km/h. |
|
 6.10.12
>>A nice shot of Team Pescarolo post scrutineering. |
  The S102.5 has a new splitter foot... |
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See Race Car Engineering's special Le Mans edition, free!
 6.4.12
>>Pescarolo
03 bonanza. We're big fans of retasked or, work with and improve
what you have, engineering. That's why we were always huge fans
of the Porsche 962. So the instant Henri Pescarolo announced he
was going to utilize the good bits of the whopping failure that was the
Aston Martin AMR-One, we were intrigued to see what would come out the
other end. Now no matter how the car runs in the scheme of
things, certainly they're up against it facing the massive budgets of
Audi and Toyota, ultimately we find what organizations like Pescarolo
are doing to be equally, if not more so at times, interesting.
Sure, you're better off designing bespoke. But when life
gives you lemons, make lemonade!
There's been a suggestion
that the Pescarolo 03's splitter was also borrowed from the AMR-One.
But there are enough indicators that suggest that's not the case
at all. The outboard edge of the 50 mm stepped splitter
transitions beyond tangency before rotating perpendicular (1).
The 03's entire splitter corner is a machined jabroc piece (for
wear considerations) that slopes outboard (2). And the middle
section (3) has a completely different section than the outboard
sections that feeds directly to the radiator inlets (note the trailing
edge heights too). For comparison, the AMR-One's splitter/diffuser seemed relatively flat and undeveloped.
The
splitter mounts (4) have a different shape than the AMR-One, they're
less splayed, more upright, and there's a secondary support as well
(5). |
 The Jabroc outer. |
 Better shot of the different sections of the splitter. |
 The front Big Honking Hole. |
 The
03's pontoon fender has the now-ubiquitous trailing edge treatment.
The 03's pontoon fenders are some of the longest we've ever seen.
Note the rear brake cooling intake (black oval) and note the
similarity of position on the Pescarolo 01. |
 Note the small legality panel. |
 The engine inlet is integrated with the Big Honking Fin. The writing on the inlet lip is 43.285, as in millimeters. |
 One
additional item that most certainly has carried over from the AMR-One is the rear
wing swan neck mount. It certainly looks like the AMR-One part.
And as additional evidence, for 2012 the ACO mandated that the
heights of the Big Honking Fins to increase from the 920-1030 mm range
in 2011 to 1020-1030 mm. Naturally if you were to draw the rear
wing mounts from scratch you'd more than likely draw it to the same
height as your BHF, if for nothing less than simple integration. |
 The
rear end is fairly simple. The diffuser strakes are either not in
place or the trailing edges of the strakes are short of the
trailing edge of the diffuser.
Endurance-info has an interesting interview with the car's designer, Nicolas Perrin.
See Race Car Engineering's special Le Mans edition, free! |
|
See Race Car Engineering's special Le Mans edition, free!
 6.3.12*updated
>>For whatever reason Toyota PR has held onto updated images of the TS030 as though they were gold.
With the LM Test weekend action kicking off they've decided to
release a few new images. Naturally we've now noticed a couple of
new (minor) details.
Notice
the rear wing flap, the center section, has a different trailing edge
detail. Also notice the rear wing endplate leading edge
extensions are splayed outboard relative to centerline. |
 With Sam Collins' image we now see that the center section of the flap varies it's height.
The section appears to be the same though the angle is variously
decreased (outer center bit) and increased (very center bit).
This opens and closes the slot gap across the middle section of the
flap. |
 Rear
wing flap trailing edge gurney detail. Interestingly enough, the
rest of the rear wing flap does not appear to be running a gurney. |
 We
noticed a small inlet duct located on the right hand side of the
forward monocoque. Observing other images from the weekend and
the duct comes and goes. What it feeds? Who knows, but
there are a lot of electronics located in the footwell of the cars
these days so it most likely is related to cooling needs for something
along those lines.
Also note what appears to be a slight separation at speed between the endplate and the leading edge extension. |
 Sans duct.
See Race Car Engineering's special Le Mans edition, free! |
 |
 5.30.12*updated
>>The first images of the Pescarolo Judd 03 are out. The
Pescarolo 03 was always going have an obvious visual likeness to
the donor Aston Martin AMR-One (monocoque, crash box, front and rear
suspension, gearbox). And while the only exterior surfaces that
carry over are the crash box and the monocoque, the Pescarolo 03
already looks much more purposeful.
The Judd's engine inlet is
integrated into the Big Honking Fin, this being one small limitation of
the AMR-One monocoque; the inlet for the turbo Aston Martin engine was
located on the right hand side pod ahead of the rear wheel and no
provisions were made to "hole" the monocoque in the passenger side roll
over hoop for a normally aspirated engine.
The
entire out board section of the 03's splitter is made from Jabroc.
Front brakes are cooled by the ducts attached to the inboard surface
of the front fenders. |
 This second angle provides proof that the center section of the
splitter is different than the sections immediately outboard that form
ramps either side aimed directly at the radiator inlets. This, plus
suggestions of a vertical splitter just underneath the middle of the
monocoque in the above image, indicate
that air doesn't simply flow around the bottom of the monocoque and
then into the radiator inlets, but that provisions have been made for
it to flow underneath the monocoque. We can also just see daylight
through the car if you look between the main splitter supports.
We
understand the test at Magny Cours went well with the Pescarolo 03
setting times about a half second slower than the Dome S102.5.
There were no issues with the car. |
 >>Strakka
Racing was showing off their HPD ARX-03a prior to heading out the door
for this weekend's Le Mans Test. We note some revisions.
Naturally the front is devoid of diveplanes given the lower
downforce and drag requirements for Le Mans, though the splitter is
complemented with a vertical turning vane. The JRM HPD ARX-03a
ran in this front end aero configuration at Spa a few weeks ago.
The front Big Honking Holes are sans fore and aft (but for one
just ahead of the side view mirror) louvers. All subtle
balance-oriented changes. |
 However,
the rear fender has been pretty heavily modified, all having to do with
the rear BHH. The bodywork ahead of the hole has been lowered.
A strake that is mounted on top of the fender and inboard of the
BHH manages air exiting the BHH away from the underside of the rear
wing. The strake butts up to the rear wing endplate though is attached to the engine cover. |
|
 5.19.12*updated
>>We woke up this morning to this image in our Twitter feed from Dome founder Minoru Hayashi.
Not a pretty sight, clearly a major issue in testing for the
S102.5. We understand that the accident was caused by a tire
failure at the end of the straight of the Châteauroux airport at 310 km/h with Minassian at the wheel. The team was checking through the pre-Le Mans Test list on Châteauroux's straights. The
car was launch about 3 feet off the ground by the lump of tire carcass
but the Big Honking Fin and Big Honking Holes did their job and the car
didn't take flight, instead going sideways and landing, "quite softly"
(per Minassian), spinning down the runway and into the grass. The
flailing tire caused all of the damage, tearing the wing off as well as
the engine cover, as well as damaging numerous other items (toe links
and pushrods, exhaust muffler, etc.). But mechanically the car is
completely sound (tub, gearbox).
A quick reply to our email and we have some answers from Dome's Hiroshi Yucchi:
"We were just doing a systems check at the airport where we went in March for the shake down (Châteauroux).
The burst was caused by the debris. Apart from that, everything
was fine at the test. Also, we have spare parts to repair the car
in time for Le Mans test. Actually, the damage of the car is less than you can imagine from the photo."
So good news about a bad situation. |
|
 5.13.12
>>Woes
for Toyota? While Toyota's official post Argon PR offered up the
usual vanilla corporate-speak ("...made good progress..." type
language, no pictures--boo!), and only hinted at issues (Pascal
Vasselon, "The endurance test has not been as smooth as we expected"),
we're told that Toyota actually experienced some sort of engine failure
early into their endurance test last week. Naturally the nature
of the failure is unknown though the engine was changed and the test
continued hours later.
We also understand the car's lap times at Argon put it in line with times set by other outfits recently at Argon.
We're told that the TS030 regularly lapped in the mid-to-high
1:25s early in their runs with 1:26s towards the tail end of the longer
stints. For comparison, l'Equipe indicated the Dome S102.5 set a 1:25 (high/low, unknown) at Argon last month.
We were told the TS030 set a fast time of a 1:23.8 on Wednesday,
but we understand it was shortly afterwards that the car suffered its
engine issue. The TS030 was timed at 196 mph through the speed
traps.
Conditions were apparently ideal for Toyota with the
track having been recently rubbered-in and temperatures only in the
upper 70s F. |
|
 5.4.12
>>Toyota stopped in at Spa for a brief photo shoot on their way to Magny Cours for testing. This is the revised "Audi R18-esque" aero package we mentioned back in January. There are a number of changes at the front and for some reason the visual influence reminds us of the XP-67 Moonbat
(well, a little bit). Toyota has redesigned the front end
aero and now air is blowing across the top of the splitter and
underneath the bodywork covering the front suspension. The front
fender leading edge is very upright (1), as is the trend these days.
The splitter itself has been revised, the outer edges of the raised 50
mm section are squarer and closer to vertical (2). The outer
splitter/diffuser strake is missing. It's interesting the brakes
are cooled via the oval ducts (3) either side of the nose. Can we
assume the wheels are entirely segregated from the air flowing
underneath the front bodywork? Ahead of the brake duct and
outboard is a winglet acting either as a flow conditioner or as a
legality valance panel, just depends on what is downstream (is there
even anything visible; suspension, brake cooling related, etc.) and it
would require a closer look to ascertain more definitively. |
 In
side view we can see a new front wheel well exit duct (1). Rear
brake cooling comes from an inlet located in the leading edge (2) of
the rear fender. The rear fender (3) is of the Audi school of
thought with its forward lengthened leading edge. Here we have
another look at the enlarged rear wing endplate extension (4).
And from this angle it's clear the upper radius on the rear
cheese wedge has been softened. |
  This
is also our first look at Toyota's Big Honking Hole solution. They
would appear to simply be extrusions of the regulated minimum area
through the top of the fender with the rear BHH having some additional
shape inboard. |
|
 5.1.12
>>Toyota's Twitter feed
has released this shot of the further-developed TS030. Toyota is
finally catching their breath following their testing accident last
month. We're noting a number of changes: (1) revised rear
fender leading edge shape, (2) increased endplate leading edge
extension, (3) squarer rear fender exit and fuly open to top, (4)
softer top edge to cheese wedge, (5) and legality fender holes, front
and rear. |
|
4.30.12
>>Differences
in fenders, nose covering panel, pontoon fender trailing edge, wing,
and endplates, Audi R18 e-tron quattro (left) vs. Audi R18 ultra
(right)...
|
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