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Ellie Zolfagharifard
Senior reporter
Motor racing and the cool wall conundrum
Glamorous, exciting and controversial. Unlike football, Britain is a leader, and unlike rugby, it generates around £3.6bn to the UK economy through exports. You would think that motor racing has all the ingredients to become the UK’s national pastime. But for some reason, the once adrenaline-fuelled and addictive sport is now struggling to draw in the crowds.
David Richards, chief executive of Prodrive and chairman of Aston Martin, believes that motor racing has lost its relevance. What then, of all the technology benefits to society?
‘Much of that has been a myth’, he told The Engineer. ‘The purpose of motorsport is to promote new technologies and put them out to the public. It’s the processes that are really the main crossover, more so than the technology.’
Motorsport has increasingly become a showcase for technology developed in the mainstream automotive world. For decades it has been following rather than leading, so its little wonder that new fans to the sport are finding something lacking.
The regulators have also never quite got it right. The balance between making the competition fair while still making it exciting is a difficult one to strike. And an emphasis on making it relevant to society has been lost along the way.
At the 5th European Cleaner Racing Conference on Wednesday, the big names in motorsport were adamant that all this could change. ‘There is a technology revolution happening in the mainstream automotive industry,’ said Richard Parry-Jones, industry chair of the Automotive Council.
‘The opportunities of the motorsport industry are enormous, especially here in the UK where we’re very strong. Low carbon technologies can provide a way to make motor racing more relevant today.’
KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) is a prime example, and along with hybrids, microturbines and electric cars, they could have potential for development, rather than simply demonstration, in the sport. With exciting concepts such as the DeltaWing car and the Enviro Sportscar Series being launched, it seems that all is not lost for motor racing.
Speaking at the event, former minister for science, Lord Drayson said: ‘The automotive industry needs help pushing ahead with green tech, and the government needs help in persuading people to change what they drive – because the presenters of Top Gear are having a field day making fun of green cars, and any thumbs-down from the Stig leaves a stigma that’s hard to dislodge.’
‘When a green car is rated as ’sub zero’ on ’cool wall’, then we know we’re getting somewhere.’
Look out for our interview with David Richards in the 31 January issue of The Engineer
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Readers' comments (18)
Anonymous | 14 Jan 2011 1:05 pm
the cool wall is meaningless: take the coolest car, paint it mustart and orange and make it drive by a finance banker who looks like the face from the a-team or an idiot like vernon kay and it becomes the less cool car ever.
The problem with motor sports is that the performances should be published: mpg, failure rates, performance or score related to cost, etc... so we can't really compare objectively: they need a score-card, not a cool wall as you're pointing out
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john gearing | 14 Jan 2011 1:05 pm
How cool the cool wall will be will depend on the thermal conductivity and thickness and we can measure this for any engineer who want a thinner and hence lighter bulkhead in his new design car!
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Phil Ackerley | 14 Jan 2011 1:30 pm
"...sport is now struggling to draw in the crowds."
If this is true then why has crowd levels broken modern records year on year at a number of motorsport meetings... Such as the BTCC / meeting at Oulton Park and the F1 at Silverstone..
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Anonymous | 14 Jan 2011 1:49 pm
Battery powered electric vehicles have to be the ideal candidate for racing. The westfield EV cup for exmaple sounds very credible. The charge only needs to be enough for a 10 -12 lap race, and races and practice are usually seperated by several hours making an easy change over or charge up possible.
With the noise and various antis attacking motor racing EV could be the panacea?
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hailesatron | 14 Jan 2011 2:08 pm
I love motorsport but it has a bad rep as a noisy and dirty sport for rich people out in the country.
Motorsport needs to look to the US, Australia and the Isle of Man where events are brought to the public in towns and on city streets, they draw huge crowds and have a festival feel, boosting local businesses in all areas.
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Anonymous | 14 Jan 2011 2:08 pm
"The purpose of motorsport is to promote new technologies and put them out to the public."
I disagree with this view. Promoting new technologies may be an important part of motor sport but to imply that it's the main purpose is rubbish. Motorsport is about more than F1 Grand Prix.
Give a thought to the many thousands of motor sport participants, be they drivers, mechanics, promoters, scrutineers, marshalls etc, who give their commitment, time and money to their respective formulas.
Rallying - Stock Car Racing - Short Oval racing in general - Motocross - Speedway - Autograss: There are thousands out there every weekend.
Widen your horizons.
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Keith Cowburn | 14 Jan 2011 2:17 pm
In this article, for motor racing read F1 and for dropping audiences read dropping live spectator audiences. On the first point there are many other classes of racing (and many better circuits to watch at than the F1 Tilkedromes) and they’re nearly all more entertaining than F1. My only interest is how my fantasy team is doing; as soon as it becomes a mathematical impossibility to win I stop watching the races. That said, and coming to the second point, the TV audience is massive.
Although it presents some tremendous engineering challenges, the F1 design constraints (open cockpits, open wheels) take these challenges into the realm of the bizarre. If you want to build a fast car put a lid on it, and generate the downforce from the underbody profile. Look to late 80’s Croup C for the state of the art.
However, contrary to Dave Richards, Pat Symonds in Motorsport this month opined that there had been many spin-offs from F1, outside the automotive industry. Renault for instance were subcontracted to do some CFD studies for Boeing to make their airliners more efficient, though some may be dismayed that the original raison d’etre of such massive computing power came about in pursuit of something essentially trivial.
There are some genuine spin-offs, one military system I know of had it’s wing built by an F1 component supplier. My chosen candidate for broader application would be a development of the KERS system that Adrian Newey was alleged to have developed for Williams a decade ago, apparently using compressed gas in a titanium cylinder. Is it unreasonable to conceive a sealed titanium framed bicycle with the frame itself providing the recoverable energy storage vessel?
Other F1 design glitterati have gone on to apply their engineering expertise elsewhere. The recently deceased Derek Gardner (6 wheel Tyrrell) went back into industry after his F1 design career. Gordon Murray (Brabham/McLaren) is still trying to get a World car project off the ground. Robin Herd (March) meanwhile is designing sophisticated re-cycling and energy plants.
As for the educational value of the Bloodhound SSC project I remain to be convinced, for similar reasons to those voiced above. Perhaps we have to look away from the ridiculous primary aim of travelling at 1000mph over ground to find the value; if the reporting of the project eclipses the marvellous documentary of its predecessor, Thrust SSC, it will have succeeded. This gem, in two hours, encapsulated the entire engineering experience: From struggling with start-up funding, through research trials, design and build, flashes of inspiration and boredom, set backs, fast tracks and shrinking time lines, clashes of ego and ultimately to the almost transcendent thrill of success. There’s an education. Show that to any school child wanting a career in engineering.
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David Sperry | 14 Jan 2011 2:54 pm
If you want to make motor sport more appealling bring back Murray Walker.
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Mathew Lewis | 14 Jan 2011 3:17 pm
My opinion is that Motorsport is not a sport anyway.
The idea of a sport is that teams/people battle it out to win.
Nowadays the teams are fitting the organisers and the governing bodies. Not only is F1 going eco to comply with the governing bodies but so is WRC.
What happened to motorsport when one year to the next, teams would develop a new piece of equipment or redesign a wing etc to try and beat their component. Like when the 6wheel F1 was designed, Ok it failed but it was a new and exciting idea.
I would love to see a motorsport when all the busy bodies are pushed aside and let the teams do what they can (Ok some standards are required or we have issues like with the Group B rally cars).
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adrian wone | 14 Jan 2011 11:46 pm
motor racing will endure if a new class of racing emerges that will not be limited in any way and to simply have the mission to generate the highest speed and control of ground engaging vehicles on a typical race circuit.
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