After a few minutes looking at the model, Moore led them on to a nearby computer screen. ‘F1 is an open-wheel formula. In other words, we can’t smooth the shape by covering the whole body like a Le Mans car, and we have limits on the size of the aerofoils we can fit. When an F1 car punches a hole through the air,’ he explained, ‘its profile, wheels, and protuberances create drag — friction, resistance — which slows us down. Our aim is to minimize that drag, and help increase the ease with which it slices through the air.’ The aerodynamicist tapped a few icons on the screen. Two images appeared. Straker saw the screen was horizontally split — top and bottom — each showing a silhouetted chassis. Blue smoke seemed to be flowing over each one. ‘Here,’ he said pointing at the upper image, ‘is a simulation of our car’s core body with no aero assistance at all.’
This top car, without any wings or surfaces, showed the blue smoke swirling frantically off the front wheels and bubbling the length of the car, with a huge cloud of turbulence behind. ‘Every element of disturbed air slows us down,’ said Moore. ‘Now look at the bottom model, which shows our current aerodynamic package.’
This car, fitted with the wings and surfaces, showed the blue smoke — the airflow — over and around it was considerably smoother. Even where there were blunt bits of the car, the small blades and fins attached to various parts clearly trimmed and nudged the airflow preventing nearly all of the turbulence seen in the one above.
‘Does this computer model analyze the airflows and then prescribe what changes are needed?’
‘Sadly not for everything. CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics, are getting better but — for reliability — if we want to try something new, we prefer to physically cut out a fin or wing, stick it on the model, run it through the tunnel and see what happens.’
‘Pretty much trial and error, then?’
The aerodynamicist nodded and moved further down the workshop. ‘Here, for instance,’ said Moore, ‘we’re working on and testing a design for a new front wing we’ve come up with. It’s quite a radical innovation. We’ve configured these three blades,’ he said lifting up a model of the nosecone, ‘to go on each end of the front wing.’
These, Straker saw, were curved and in different sizes, the smallest was about the same size as a paperback novel with the largest about the size of a piece of A3.
‘As you can see, they’re each curved and, when they’re fitted together, have the effect of spiralling the air up and back off the end of each wing. We’ve nicknamed them our Fibonacci Blades.’
‘As in the golden section?’ offered Straker.
‘The very same,’ said the aerodynamicist with a nod of appreciation. ‘It’s uncanny how nature’s arithmetic, so often, gets it right.’
Straker took the model and studied it more closely. ‘When do you hope to have this on the cars?’
‘Spa this weekend. We’re testing it in the wind tunnel at the moment, if you want to go and take a look?’
Backhouse accepted the invitation and they thanked Moore for his time. Straker was led from the modelling workshop through another set of computer-controlled doors and into a vast room. This was filled with a deafening rushing sound. Above their heads was a twelve-foot diameter tube configured in a circle about thirty yards across. ‘That’s the tunnel up there,’ said Backhouse as he led Straker up some stairs. ‘Air is accelerated and then whizzed continually round that loop.’
‘Like your own mini Hadron Collider?’
They reached a viewing gallery. Set in one wall was a sheet of glass which gave them sight of a half-sized model of a Ptarmigan racing car suspended from the ceiling by a complicated-looking hydraulic arm.
Backhouse provided a voice-over for Straker as he stared transfixed through the window: ‘You will notice the floor under the car is being rolled extremely quickly, which is turning the wheels. We do that to simulate the airflow through and around a real car as best we can.’
‘How long do you test each model for?’
‘Each modification gets about an hour in here. The results are analyzed. We then play with a few alterations, which we hope will make a difference, and then go back and test it all again — and so on.’
‘Good God, it sounds never-ending.’
‘It is — because it’s an iterative process. It shouldn’t surprise you that this wind tunnel is running twenty-four hours a day.’
‘No down time, then? How close to Spa will we be testing the car for that race?’
‘Right up until Remy’s car leaves here for Belgium tomorrow evening — hopefully fitted with our new design, the Fibonacci Blades, that Colin mentioned next door. You can see them, there, on the model,’ said Backhouse pointing through the window.
Backhouse walked Straker back to his office. ‘The fact is that if you don’t make improvements to your car, with every other team constantly trying to innovate, you’ll effectively end up going backwards,’ summarized Backhouse. ‘The Formula may get more and more restrictive from one year to the next, but, despite that, the developments we all make to our designs still make the cars go faster and faster every year.’
‘The pressure to perform is absolutely remarkable,’ declared Straker. ‘We were lectured on competitiveness throughout training in the Marines, but I truly didn’t fully understand what being competitive meant until I saw this. Your pursuit of every possible ounce of performance — in every single component of the cars — is astonishing. With all this effort and dedication, it makes the work of the saboteur all the more detestable.’
EIGHTEEN
Backhouse led Straker into his spacious office, which had a restful view through the reflective glass out over the Oxfordshire countryside. Its inside walls were festooned with pictures of racing cars, miniature replicas of trophies, models of Ptarmigan cars and other memorabilia. Unexpectedly, one wall showed an array of photographs from a time when Backhouse had clearly been a member of the Massarella team. Straker had been completely unaware of that association in Backhouse’s past.
Turning his attention to the room, he was grateful to see a plate of shrink-wrapped sandwiches and several cans of soft drink waiting for them on the desk.
‘Thanks for the tour,’ said Straker. ‘It’s helped fill me in on the process, pressures, as well as our systems. Can we talk about overall security?’
‘Sure,’ said Backhouse, unwrapping the sandwiches and offering them to Straker. ‘You saw our computer-operated doors around the factory. Every member of our four hundred staff wears a security pass and has to swipe in and out of everywhere they go, as we did. That would have to make it hard for anyone to be where they shouldn’t, or do anything without being spotted.’
Straker acknowledged the statement with a nod.
‘What about scrutiny of the team out on the road and while we’ve got people at races?’
‘Not possible to be so tight,’ said Backhouse. ‘The road crew numbers about sixty, which includes the lorry drivers, those who travel with the cars, the kit, those who set up the garages in the pit lane, and the staff in the headquarter truck. Lorries can get left unattended, as do, sometimes, the cars and our kit — when things are being unloaded.’
‘What can we do to tighten security away at races?’
Backhouse finished chewing and snapped open a can of Coke. ‘The circuits operate very strict accreditation and pass controls, as you saw in Monte-Carlo. But they are not perfect and — here’s the crucial flaw — they don’t stop accredited members of other teams coming near us. We often find people wandering about — particularly, would you believe, in the pit lane?’