Could We See An Unlimited Class In Motor Racing?

[RobertGracie]

This is a difficult topic to handle now I am just saying you know, from what I have seen the thing that would likely kill it is the money flow...

 

[YuanGS]

If this is only for this idea, I would like to put all my hands up and say YES! The thing is, remember Group C? FIA GT1 from 94? We already tried something similar and the race fell really hard.

I always think there are two sides of auto motorsport. One is mechanical side, including technology, racing formula, car design and etc. The other is competition side, including teams, people, racers and so on. These two are like sitting on the opposite side of one scale. You want more mechanical and tech? Go for european style car racing. You want more competition and driver? Go for American style NASCAR and so on.

I want to put this as simple as I can, but the truth as I can see it is if unlimited class exists and gains a lot of attention, then there wont be too much of competition within it. Then people dont fall for mechanics wont be interested then the revenue couldnt hold then and then, you would understand whats next.

My point is I would love to see them coming, and I am all for mechanical side of racing. Although it wouldnt last long and commercially viable. But whom am I kidding, I am nobody.

After hearing about the blistering lap from a little 4 cylinder made by Porsche at the famous Spa circuit in Belgium, I think we might see a trend with setting the fastest lap times.

This car was made as a tribute to the withdrawal from the World Endurance Championship (WEC) by making a turbocharged 4 cylinder electric hybrid. Now with no rules to follow, as they are not part of a governing body to tell them what they can and cannot do, they built a car that I would classify as an "unlimited class" car. The car they made was an evolution of their LMP1 919 competition car, with parts and technology they weren't allowed to use when driving in the WEC series. With all of this, they went out and set a faster lap time than a 2017 Formula One car, that was set by Lewis Hamilton.

Now, this got me thinking, could it be possible to run an unlimited class run by the FIA to see which manufacturer could be the fastest around certain tracks around the world. There is something similar to what I am thinking of, the land speed records. The land speed records are operated by the FIA to make sure that all speed records are done the same way so that there is fairness in setting one. The rules for this are (but not limited to): The car must have 4 wheels, the car must travel to one point and turn around and come back, the average time will be the record. The car must turn around in less than 1 hour, and the car must be piloted by a human being. Other than those rules, you can do whatever you what to make that car go as fast as possible. With these rules, the car can be powered by whatever they want and be shaped in the most unimaginable way. This is the type of unlimited class I would like to see.

Now, if we run an unlimited class for race tracks there would be more rules that the manufactures would have to follow. I think some of the rules should be similar to hill climb rules. For example, the car has to have power go to the wheels, the car can’t exceed a certain width or length. There are a lot more rules to hill climbing but I don’t want to bore you.

In conclusion, have a class that is “bring what you can” and see how fast you can go around a series of race tracks across the world. That would be something. This would promote making development in electric cars quicker, or make a gasoline engine even more efficient.

One more thing to add, who doesn’t like to see really fast cars?

 

[Turk]

in real life the money is the limit, and as other said, I'm not a huge friend of idea where rich team becomes the fastest, rules and limits needs to be there, but they should be there in a way where it wont' stop smart people becoming faster then the rest, that's kinda how I see F1

I don't think money would be the limiting factor. Even carbon fiber is available to most people these days, it's not as expensive as it used to be.

With no limits, engineers could find speed in obvious places like a powerful engine or big wings. the reason it's so expensive in F1 is because they're eking out performance from advanced materials, or huge R&D to try and find speed in non obvious places. There are companies around the world making low production hypercars that can blitz any of the big boys, and while the car may be obscenely expensive the company making the car is nowhere near the budgets available to Mercedes or Ferrari.

The limit is the human body and what's acceptable to society these days. Society just isn't going to tolerate putting a person i harms way for entertainment purposes.

 

[Ghoults]

For any unlimited car the limitation is the tire technology. In real life a car like red bull x1 would destroy its tires very quickly at those speeds. Even the chiron which just goes in straight line at 400kmh is limited in top speed (I think 427kmh) because the tires can't cope with higher speeds. In straight line. To take corners at those speeds along with high downforce levels means massive loads for the tires. Whatever you'd build you'd be limited by the tires. Go too fast and it is massive accident at 300kmh+ as the tire disintegrates.

And that is assuming the x1 can even handle reliably at those speeds. At those speeds even the smallest bumps start to become big ones. Just like on motorway going 160kmh you feel the road undulations more than if you go 100kmh. Dangerous vibrations and sudden forces. Ground effects and fans still need need very well controlled ride height and airflow to function and while I doubt the fan would suffer from super sonic flow issues at the tips (which is the limiting speed for propeller airplanes) you still have a totally new tech and in reality the downforce levels do not translate from simulations to real life that easily. And how would the balance of the car be.

In any sim you can build a car that does everything. Just put in bigger numbers. But in reality those bigger numbers come from the materials, construction of parts and how it all goes together. Where the loads come and go and how the air flows occur at those speeds.

In the case of the 919 evo with more money it could have gone faster. The power output was probably limited by gearbox and driveshafts and the downforce levels and speeds were limited by the tires. With more durable gearbox they could get more power from the engine, better tires would give more grip and allow bigger loads. Bigger batteries, more boost, more displacement, more cooling, more faster. And with more money they could adjust the setup to go faster as well.

I'd love to see the red bull x1 be built but at the same time I'm sure newey is well aware of some of the potential issues and design limitations of the design. Of course the x1 would need a ton of work if it was to be built. A gran turismo 3d model and some napkin calculations is not really enough to build a car. Assuming the driver can still keep up.

 

[RobertGracie]

For any unlimited car the limitation is the tire technology. In real life a car like red bull x1 would destroy its tires very quickly at those speeds. Even the chiron which just goes in straight line at 400kmh is limited in top speed (I think 427kmh) because the tires can't cope with higher speeds. In straight line. To take corners at those speeds along with high downforce levels means massive loads for the tires. Whatever you'd build you'd be limited by the tires. Go too fast and it is massive accident at 300kmh+ as the tire disintegrates.

And that is assuming the x1 can even handle reliably at those speeds. At those speeds even the smallest bumps start to become big ones. Just like on motorway going 160kmh you feel the road undulations more than if you go 100kmh. Dangerous vibrations and sudden forces. Ground effects and fans still need need very well controlled ride height and airflow to function and while I doubt the fan would suffer from super sonic flow issues at the tips (which is the limiting speed for propeller airplanes) you still have a totally new tech and in reality the downforce levels do not translate from simulations to real life that easily. And how would the balance of the car be.

In any sim you can build a car that does everything. Just put in bigger numbers. But in reality those bigger numbers come from the materials, construction of parts and how it all goes together. Where the loads come and go and how the air flows occur at those speeds.

In the case of the 919 evo with more money it could have gone faster. The power output was probably limited by gearbox and driveshafts and the downforce levels and speeds were limited by the tires. With more durable gearbox they could get more power from the engine, better tires would give more grip and allow bigger loads. Bigger batteries, more boost, more displacement, more cooling, more faster. And with more money they could adjust the setup to go faster as well.

I'd love to see the red bull x1 be built but at the same time I'm sure newey is well aware of some of the potential issues and design limitations of the design. Of course the x1 would need a ton of work if it was to be built. A gran turismo 3d model and some napkin calculations is not really enough to build a car. Assuming the driver can still keep up.

OFF TOPIC!

Can I ask are you any form of mechanical engineer?

 

[AJ Clarke]

What an absolutely terrible and poorly thought out idea

 

[Thombike]

If racing is to doo one Hot lap than...well I dont wanna to see this. Im sure on this set up after 10 or 20 laps this Porsche tiny 4 cylinder motor is cmpletly death. I think after this one fast lap in Spa is not possible to use it again in the same way. So...only stupid man, who dont understand what motorsport is can say something like "we wanna se cars without regulation" and believe, he see only a 1,5k BHP mosters on track. It's not that simple.

 

[DrRob]

Interesting proposition I have to say. Somebody mentioned CAN-AM. I have lots of ideas and some might even contradict each other tbh. But interesting to philosophize about that. A completely open series without restrictions would be madness however.

I think it should be far less expensive as F1 or WEC today. If you want privateers to compete it has to be on lower cost. But other than that I would make it quite open-tech since the lack of funds would regulate the tech anyway.
Maybe it should be a customer racing effort only backed by manufacturers. Doesn't need to build on existing cars.

I'd like to see less downforce for more passing opportunities and more mechanical grip.
I wouldn't want to see another prototype class like P1, P2, P3 or DPi with generic appearance of the cars. So anything other than that, but defo in the direction of sports cars, no touring cars or formula cars.

Now idea on horsepower and speeds, but I'm not a fan of hunting for the next insane and outrageous gazillion horsepower and 300+ kph class. With less aero this should be the natural thing to do anyway. Make it a sprint series with two races per weekend. No driver changes.

I would like to see a non-restriction on engine type and driven axles. It should restrict weight and engine output or capacity. Maybe ban forced induction? Maybe we could have different concepts of high power with refuelling and lower power but no pitstop in one race. Not sure this would would prove interesting though.

I'd like to see a series where no BOP or too many shared parts dilute the competition between teams and drivers.

 

[Turk]

I'd like to see less downforce for more passing opportunities and more mechanical grip.
I wouldn't want to see another prototype class like P1, P2, P3 or DPi with generic appearance of the cars. So anything other than that, but defo in the direction of sports cars, no touring cars or formula cars.

I'm also of the opinion that less down force would be an improvement. But I can see that restricting wings would only encourage the guys with money to start taking weird ideas to wind tunnels to make up for the loss of wings. Something the smaller teams can't do. I don't think anything can be done to stop the people with money from spending it and gaining an advantage.

I could actually see electric race cars solving a lot of the costs issues, it's a simpler system, it's easier to monitor what's going on. There isn't as many bolt on upgrades like turbos or fancy fuel injectors.

 

[Ghoults]

There are already some forms of unlimited racing. Time attack cars are kinda cool with their rediculous aero and engines:

And then you also have pikes peak and hillclimbs in general:

There tons of cool cars in pikes peak.

As for any actual racing there are mostly just some tube frame cars but if search for things like modsport you'll find interesting contraptions.

 

[DrSmile]

There are already some forms of unlimited racing. Time attack cars are kinda cool with their rediculous aero and engines:

And then you also have pikes peak and hillclimbs in general:

There tons of cool cars in pikes peak.

As for any actual racing there are mostly just some tube frame cars but if search for things like modsport you'll find interesting contraptions.

Thats what i meant

And thats why i dont understand the voices of "too dangerous/Money kill it"

On Hillclimbs there are going 800hp+ Lancia Deltas full throttle 5cm from a tree or freaking cliff. So whats the Point with safety reason on a tilke track with 150m wide safetyzones around? I just dont get it....

 

[CC]

Thats what i meant

And thats why i dont understand the voices of "too dangerous/Money kill it"

On Hillclimbs there are going 800hp+ Lancia Deltas full throttle 5cm from a tree or freaking cliff. So whats the Point with safety reason on a tilke track with 150m wide safetyzones around? I just dont get it....

Are hillclimbs FIA also ?
not sure what sporting associations are about maybe that is the difference

 

[Will Mazeo]

Thats what i meant

And thats why i dont understand the voices of "too dangerous/Money kill it"

On Hillclimbs there are going 800hp+ Lancia Deltas full throttle 5cm from a tree or freaking cliff. So whats the Point with safety reason on a tilke track with 150m wide safetyzones around? I just dont get it....

On costs... put these cars to race 300km per race, 20 times a year + practice, qualify, travel costs, personnel... you should get it now

 

[Lahore]

You did not mention the lap time could i know this..?