Engineered rule bending
Discussion
Jonnny said:
As above, cool post - thanks.
Why did you leave F1?
Hoping it would be of interestWhy did you leave F1?
Worth mentioning that in recent years a number of very good ex- F1 designers/engineers have joined the FIA and now writing the rules. They understand how F1 engineers think so the opportunities for doing more of the above has diminished considerably
I returned to F1 4yrs ago, working on my 21st F1 race car and as long as teams still ask me to help I'll keep doing it
Recently I've started looking for opportunities outside of F1 but still within top level motorsport. Would like to try my hand doing WRC, Dakar, NASCAR, Indy, LeMans (again)
Think jsf touched on it earlier that writing rules is much harder than trying to find ways around them. Experienced this 1st hand writing UIM F1 Inshore powerboat rules and over seeing technical scritineering at world championship races.
LukeBrown66 said:
Oddly I find a team spending that sort of money on f1 rather poor taste to be honest, but each to their own, I guess it was Stroll huh!!
Agree 100% on this, F3 is a formula designed for up coming talent to show off their driving skills. Still have conflicted thoughts about being part of what we did. On one hand, incredibly proud of the job we did as it was one of the most difficult design projects I've done. On the other hand feel guilty that a few more talented drivers missed out on opportunities they deserved.
A team was involved but the project was funded by a billionaire dad. Ironically by the end of the championship season he other billionaire dad's were threatening to pull out their kids. FIA closed down the loopholes we exploited for the following season to keep the championship alive
marine boy said:
Hoping it would be of interest
Worth mentioning that in recent years a number of very good ex- F1 designers/engineers have joined the FIA and now writing the rules. They understand how F1 engineers think so the opportunities for doing more of the above has diminished considerably
I returned to F1 4yrs ago, working on my 21st F1 race car and as long as teams still ask me to help I'll keep doing it
Recently I've started looking for opportunities outside of F1 but still within top level motorsport. Would like to try my hand doing WRC, Dakar, NASCAR, Indy, LeMans (again)
Think jsf touched on it earlier that writing rules is much harder than trying to find ways around them. Experienced this 1st hand writing UIM F1 Inshore powerboat rules and over seeing technical scritineering at world championship races.
Really interesting post, thanks for sharing!Worth mentioning that in recent years a number of very good ex- F1 designers/engineers have joined the FIA and now writing the rules. They understand how F1 engineers think so the opportunities for doing more of the above has diminished considerably
I returned to F1 4yrs ago, working on my 21st F1 race car and as long as teams still ask me to help I'll keep doing it
Recently I've started looking for opportunities outside of F1 but still within top level motorsport. Would like to try my hand doing WRC, Dakar, NASCAR, Indy, LeMans (again)
Think jsf touched on it earlier that writing rules is much harder than trying to find ways around them. Experienced this 1st hand writing UIM F1 Inshore powerboat rules and over seeing technical scritineering at world championship races.
If you fancy lending some ideas to a sports prototype in club level let me know
EddyP said:
Really interesting post, thanks for sharing!
If you fancy lending some ideas to a sports prototype in club level let me know
Hope this will be of help, read your sports prototype rules this way... If you fancy lending some ideas to a sports prototype in club level let me know
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
marine boy said:
Hope this will be of help, read your sports prototype rules this way...
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
Some Current Championship Regs said:
The following Technical Regulations are set out in accordance with the Motorsport UK specified format and it should be clearly understood that if the following texts do not clearly specify that you can do it you should work on the principle that you cannot. All competitors are advised to read sections B, J, K, L & Q of the current Motorsport UK yearbook.
Increasingly that viewpoint is covered off in championship regulations with statements like the one above, taken from some club series regs I had to hand.marine boy said:
Hope this will be of help, read your sports prototype rules this way...
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
Thanks, we already try to do that quite a bit, it's having the aero knowledge to try and make some of the aero work better with the thinking outside the box that's the tricky bit.Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
emicen said:
marine boy said:
Hope this will be of help, read your sports prototype rules this way...
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
Some Current Championship Regs said:
The following Technical Regulations are set out in accordance with the Motorsport UK specified format and it should be clearly understood that if the following texts do not clearly specify that you can do it you should work on the principle that you cannot. All competitors are advised to read sections B, J, K, L & Q of the current Motorsport UK yearbook.
Increasingly that viewpoint is covered off in championship regulations with statements like the one above, taken from some club series regs I had to hand.mat205125 said:
It's critical to have the "if the following texts do not clearly specify that you can do it you should work on the principle that you cannot" caveats in regulations, as it'll be impossible to cover off every single wild and crazy possibility that could be done.
That’s true of technical regulations in spec series, where the whole point is everyone turning up with the same car. In prototype series, however, the ingenuity of the designers and engineers is a large part of the competition.
In 2018 the series I was in had a rule that the car 'must have a full width dashboard'. Written in the spirit of keeping build costs sensible and written to generally ensure cars retained their dashboards. Dashboards that are often quite heavy, especially on older cars.
The chap that built my car served up a racecar with the dashboard completely missing save for a fairly small piece of sheet alloy above the transmission tunnel. Behind the steering wheel just the old hollowed out clock binnacle.
First race he was questioned and told the car didn't comply....
'yes it does, the rules state full width dashboard. The rules fail to specify full width of what. This dashboard is the full width in and of itself'
Passed.
The camber we ran ensured the wheels stuck out from the cars shell width and tripped the plumb weight test. 4 bits of plastic weighing a few grams stuck to the top of the arches ensured the plumb weight was no longer an issue as where the plumb needed hanging from was too far out.
The chap that built my car served up a racecar with the dashboard completely missing save for a fairly small piece of sheet alloy above the transmission tunnel. Behind the steering wheel just the old hollowed out clock binnacle.
First race he was questioned and told the car didn't comply....
'yes it does, the rules state full width dashboard. The rules fail to specify full width of what. This dashboard is the full width in and of itself'
Passed.
The camber we ran ensured the wheels stuck out from the cars shell width and tripped the plumb weight test. 4 bits of plastic weighing a few grams stuck to the top of the arches ensured the plumb weight was no longer an issue as where the plumb needed hanging from was too far out.
LuckyThirteen said:
Windscreen must be made of Glass
yeah, plexiGlass.............
Many regulations have made the mistake in the past of using the term "alloy" in either a mandatory or prohibitive context, where they actually mean "Aluminium alloy". Steel is also an alloy, of course.yeah, plexiGlass.............
Similarly, people have tried to circumvent "Magnesium" being prohibited, by arguing that "Magnesium" is an element, and including Magnesium as part of an Aluminium alloy mix is something different.
It's also easy to challenge the term "composite" in many badly worded regs, as this means far more than simply the "carbon fibre" materials. Wood is natures composite, for example
LuckyThirteen said:
In 2018 the series I was in had a rule that the car 'must have a full width dashboard'. Written in the spirit of keeping build costs sensible and written to generally ensure cars retained their dashboards. Dashboards that are often quite heavy, especially on older cars.
The chap that built my car served up a racecar with the dashboard completely missing save for a fairly small piece of sheet alloy above the transmission tunnel. Behind the steering wheel just the old hollowed out clock binnacle.
First race he was questioned and told the car didn't comply....
'yes it does, the rules state full width dashboard. The rules fail to specify full width of what. This dashboard is the full width in and of itself'
Passed.
The race series my mate ran in pulled him up for similar (dash removed and a small pod fitted), I don't recall the exact wording as it was over 20 years ago but they were having none of it and based on the above I think you did well to get away with that. Did they change the regulation to something more specific? (they did in the championship we were in)The chap that built my car served up a racecar with the dashboard completely missing save for a fairly small piece of sheet alloy above the transmission tunnel. Behind the steering wheel just the old hollowed out clock binnacle.
First race he was questioned and told the car didn't comply....
'yes it does, the rules state full width dashboard. The rules fail to specify full width of what. This dashboard is the full width in and of itself'
Passed.
marine boy said:
Holy thread resurrection...
Sorry, don't believe any team ran a GPS activated fuel tank as working in F1 I proposed the same idea of moving fuel around, think it must have been before 2010 but I'm sure I wouldn't have been the first to think of it. I modelled on CAD a fuel cell with fuel divided up to upper and lower quadrants. The simulation group did the analysis but it proved to have bugger all affect on lap time. F1 fuel cell is very near the centre of gravity of the car, the additional weight of extra lift pumps and fuel cells within the fuel cell was a negative towards performance so the idea was binned
Lucky enough to have had the opportunity to do my fair share of engineered rule pushing, not rules were bent but some were pushed beyond their intended limit
In the late 90's I helped design the 1st qualifying only F1 car, basically the car had to survive 12 laps, we took F1 extremes to the limit on as much as we could. Simple stuff like a bespoke wiring loom with no telemetry boxes and only the sensors needed for the car to run, small fuel tank and no 1st gear. Other easier to make parts like minimum thickness brake pads/disc's, plank. Medium difficult parts like 1.9mm thick rim sections on the wheels, bodywork where a 3rd of the weight was paint, aluminium oil tank acid etch/chemi-milled pockets to 0.6mm thick. At the far end of really pushing the limits we ran magnesium engine heads that would warp and 0.4mm thick inconel exhaust headers that would crack, both were scrap after only one qualifying session. We were a back of the midfield qualifying team but it improved performance by around 0.3secs. Only had enough resource to convert one car to quali-only spec. but this car would reqularly qualify at the front of the mid-field a good 4-6 pos'n improvement. FIA shut this loophole down for the following season but it was fun while it lasted
Designed a 5kg plank fastener top hat, no rule for maximum area so the fixing top hats for mounting the plank to the car were turned into ballast using tungsten (70% denser than lead), can't claim to be the first to take this approach as Williams were already a step ahead of us. For the following season the FIA specified a max. area for plank fasteners which closed off that loop hole
Also designed what I believe was the first F1 rear wing upper flexi-flap to close up the slot gap which stalled the rear wing to drop drag on the straights, that worked extremely well . We were getting an extra 15kph and the rear wing could be switched off within a 5-10kph trigger target speed. We did different stiffness flaps for different tracks for the various top speeds. Other teams followed and then the FIA created an additional rule to prevent it for the following year
Was also part of a small group with in team that introduced lights into F1 pit stops, the wheel gun would trigger a light when done, then the last jack man's light was triggered the light to release the car was triggered. The idea saved mechanic reaction times during the pitstop sequence. We went from 4.2secs for a pit stop with fuel down to 2.7secs without fuel, our team wasn't the fastest but we were consistently in the top 3 fastest pitstops during each race
The one rule exploitation I'm most proud of was a clutch release design I did on the steering wheel, this combined with a driver training programme achieve an extra 10mtrs/2 car lengths jump up the grid by the first corner. Red Bull issued a technical clarification to the FIA which is the round about way teams use to stop other teams doing technical stuff they hadn't thought of. RB's clarification annoyed me at first as I'd put a lot of work into it but after a redesign to the new clarified rules I improved it so it was even quicker
My favourite outside of F1 was working in a very small group we broke the F3 European championship attacking it as we would do if it were F1, ie full wind tunnel programme, full simulator programme, F1 levels of weight saving on the few non-homologated car parts (very difficult as it was like fighting an F1 design war with your hands tied behind your back), even flying parts out to circuits by helicopter to eek out every last minute of wind tunnel development time
That rear wing data is amazing. I have always wondered how accurate the stall speed was. Presumably you select a rear wing with a stall speed of X kph above the fastest corner on the circuit to get maximum benefit.Sorry, don't believe any team ran a GPS activated fuel tank as working in F1 I proposed the same idea of moving fuel around, think it must have been before 2010 but I'm sure I wouldn't have been the first to think of it. I modelled on CAD a fuel cell with fuel divided up to upper and lower quadrants. The simulation group did the analysis but it proved to have bugger all affect on lap time. F1 fuel cell is very near the centre of gravity of the car, the additional weight of extra lift pumps and fuel cells within the fuel cell was a negative towards performance so the idea was binned
Lucky enough to have had the opportunity to do my fair share of engineered rule pushing, not rules were bent but some were pushed beyond their intended limit
In the late 90's I helped design the 1st qualifying only F1 car, basically the car had to survive 12 laps, we took F1 extremes to the limit on as much as we could. Simple stuff like a bespoke wiring loom with no telemetry boxes and only the sensors needed for the car to run, small fuel tank and no 1st gear. Other easier to make parts like minimum thickness brake pads/disc's, plank. Medium difficult parts like 1.9mm thick rim sections on the wheels, bodywork where a 3rd of the weight was paint, aluminium oil tank acid etch/chemi-milled pockets to 0.6mm thick. At the far end of really pushing the limits we ran magnesium engine heads that would warp and 0.4mm thick inconel exhaust headers that would crack, both were scrap after only one qualifying session. We were a back of the midfield qualifying team but it improved performance by around 0.3secs. Only had enough resource to convert one car to quali-only spec. but this car would reqularly qualify at the front of the mid-field a good 4-6 pos'n improvement. FIA shut this loophole down for the following season but it was fun while it lasted
Designed a 5kg plank fastener top hat, no rule for maximum area so the fixing top hats for mounting the plank to the car were turned into ballast using tungsten (70% denser than lead), can't claim to be the first to take this approach as Williams were already a step ahead of us. For the following season the FIA specified a max. area for plank fasteners which closed off that loop hole
Also designed what I believe was the first F1 rear wing upper flexi-flap to close up the slot gap which stalled the rear wing to drop drag on the straights, that worked extremely well . We were getting an extra 15kph and the rear wing could be switched off within a 5-10kph trigger target speed. We did different stiffness flaps for different tracks for the various top speeds. Other teams followed and then the FIA created an additional rule to prevent it for the following year
Was also part of a small group with in team that introduced lights into F1 pit stops, the wheel gun would trigger a light when done, then the last jack man's light was triggered the light to release the car was triggered. The idea saved mechanic reaction times during the pitstop sequence. We went from 4.2secs for a pit stop with fuel down to 2.7secs without fuel, our team wasn't the fastest but we were consistently in the top 3 fastest pitstops during each race
The one rule exploitation I'm most proud of was a clutch release design I did on the steering wheel, this combined with a driver training programme achieve an extra 10mtrs/2 car lengths jump up the grid by the first corner. Red Bull issued a technical clarification to the FIA which is the round about way teams use to stop other teams doing technical stuff they hadn't thought of. RB's clarification annoyed me at first as I'd put a lot of work into it but after a redesign to the new clarified rules I improved it so it was even quicker
My favourite outside of F1 was working in a very small group we broke the F3 European championship attacking it as we would do if it were F1, ie full wind tunnel programme, full simulator programme, F1 levels of weight saving on the few non-homologated car parts (very difficult as it was like fighting an F1 design war with your hands tied behind your back), even flying parts out to circuits by helicopter to eek out every last minute of wind tunnel development time
marine boy said:
EddyP said:
Really interesting post, thanks for sharing!
If you fancy lending some ideas to a sports prototype in club level let me know
Hope this will be of help, read your sports prototype rules this way... If you fancy lending some ideas to a sports prototype in club level let me know
Motorsport rules tell you what you can't do not what you can do, pay particular attention to the wording. Don't concern yourself with their intention or the spirit of what they were written for. Concern yourself with what you can do but never lose sight of what you can't do
Simple example of this is from my F1 inshore powerboat days. There was a rule stating that 10mm protective foam must be placed in the cockpit to protect the drivers from injury to knees and elbows.
Every team except one had covered the internal cockpit surface all over with 10mm foam as drivers do get bashed about from high G turns and choppy water. The team that read the rules properly had sewn into the drivers race suit 10mm pads of foam over the knee and elbow areas saving a few kgs of foam weight.
Most important word in the rule was 'placed' , if the word was 'fixed' then the loophole they exploited would've been closed
ETA: Another of reading rules very carefully, Dave Andrew’s of Emerald fame competed in Stock Hatch for a while. The rules for that stated the the factory suspension points had to be original and unmodified. Nowhere in the rules did it say they had to be used… he didn’t do it though because he thought that was taking the Pisa slightly too far.
Edited by Megaflow on Monday 28th November 11:29
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