Delta Wing at Le Mans?

[Jnovak]

A very interesting video. I was glad to see some of the serious discussion of many of the technical elements of the car by Ben. You really have to give these guys a ton of credit for what they have accomplished. This kind of "out of the box" should get a lot of accolades IMO.

Thanks ... Jay Novak

PS: I would love to see the car up close and personal.

[Brands]

A very interesting video. I was glad to see some of the serious discussion of many of the technical elements of the car by Ben. You really have to give these guys a ton of credit for what they have accomplished. This kind of "out of the box" should get a lot of accolades IMO.

Thanks ... Jay Novak

PS: I would love to see the car up close and personal.

I agree to a certain extent, but this car was designed and built with no regulations in mind. Does that mean anyone can do this? Also a little bird tells me it had considerably more than 300bhp on tap. It is innovative no question, but a one make series for these cars surely defeats the object of such creativity? How about a formula with the DW's engine as the only spec part. Provided you meet safety criteria and perhaps a defined fuel efficiency its open season. that would be interesting.

[RussMcB]

At Petit I was a few hundred yards from T7, where there is a walking bridge over the back straight. I watched the DW come out of the corner with the one of the Rebellion P1 cars right behind. I saw the DW pull away from the P1 car and wondered for a second if the P1 car had a problem, but no, I watched from that position for a few more laps and the DW was consistently fastest accelerating on the straight.

The picture is from Friday night as the team had finished rebuilding and preparing for the 1,000 mile race. The paddock was pretty empty and they let a few of us in for 4-5 minutes to look at the car up close. Very cool.

I asked them why there was no second car (as that would have been pretty handy after the practice crash) and one of the team members said, well, then it wouldn't be unique. :-).

[Tiago Santos]

Just like they went out, designed and built an entire car different from anything else we'd ever seen, what's stopping anyone else? I'm not sure that not designing a car to a set of rules is any more freeing than knowing exactly what's expected of you. I figure it's easier to start from a common base and reading through the rules for exploitable loopholes, than starting with a blank sheet of paper. Then again I've never designed either, so I can't say for sure.

I appreciate the fact that the car turns, goes and stops very well, if somewhat differently from the norm, while using less tires and less gas, and also being cheaper. Isn't that commendable? The criticism for this car has changed from the initial "it'll never turn" to "ok, it turns, but it's ugly" to the current "well, everyone else had rules to follow, nothing special about it".

[Daryl DeArman]

The criticism for this car has changed from the initial "it'll never turn" to "ok, it turns, but it's ugly" to the current "well, everyone else had rules to follow, nothing special about it".

Nice synopsis.

[R. Pare]

Just like they went out, designed and built an entire car different from anything else we'd ever seen, what's stopping anyone else?

Ben designed this while on the Ganassi payroll and with Chips blessing, AND had a blank sheet to start with, so he had something that very few designers get during their lives - freedom to explore, and a steady paycheck. Everyone else out there are designing cars to compete within a specific rule set. Huge difference.

I watched the DW come out of the corner with the one of the Rebellion P1 cars right behind. I saw the DW pull away from the P1 car and wondered for a second if the P1 car had a problem, but no, I watched from that position for a few more laps and the DW was consistently fastest accelerating on the straight.

Was it actually out-accelerating the other car, or were you just seeing the usual distance increase as the speeds increased?

I'd have to go back and look at the specs for both cars, but assuming the same power/weight ratio, initial acceleration would be the same, up to the point where the DW's lower drag would take over.

No different that it would be for 2 "conventional" cars with the same relative characteristics.

[greg pizzo]

For all the admirers and haters of the Deltawing,

After spending 7 days at Petit LeMans I can say the Deltawing was far more effective than the "haters" would have given it credit for and surprised and delighted the admirers and fans even more.

Had the car been classified as a say LMP2, it would have had maybe 9 wave around during cautions. I think it was 3rd in the least amount of time spent in the pits. Think of what position the Deltawing would placed with that simple race control practice been implemented.

The below link is a video taken after the Petit LeMans where the car finished 5th overall. In qualifying, the LMP2 Pole was a 1:13.2, Deltawing was a 1:13.8 after missing a day for repairs. It used just 3 carsets of tires for the 1000 miles, and less than .4mm of total wear on the PFC low drag carbon brakes. Going into turn 10a the car was doing -3.44G @75bar stops.

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/defa...ber_181032912;

You will finally get a nice walk around the car with Ben Bowlby and you can see, especially the rear of the car, it shares more with a F2000 car than it does with any LMP. Look at the tube substructure bolted to the carbon tub and the tubular wishbones.

No one will argue the car is very counter intuitive but after Petit, no one should argue wither the car is effective, durable or if done from a commercial standpoint could be built and sold for about what a fully dressed modern F3 would go for as opposed to a full LMP2 car.

I must admit my own personal journey with this car had it's challenges (especially when trying to justify the project to the my company president!) but when the data started to show what the car capabilities were especially at place like Road Atlanta after the 1st 1000 miles of testing, it was quite gratifying and very cool indeed.

Darrick Dong
Director of Motorsports
PFC Brakes

Darrick

just for you .... !

I must admit the car was interesting !!

[RussMcB]

Was it actually out-accelerating the other car, or were you just seeing the usual distance increase as the speeds increased?

Good question, and I can't answer for sure. It was a subjective thing. I was expecting the P1 car to pull up to it and pass but instead the Delta Wing pulled away. Just wasn't what I was expecting. I had about 5 beers in me at the time (not sure if that needs to be factored in. :-).

[Brakeguy1]

Thanks Greg for the neat photo.

The one thing about those little front tires is they act as 1 tire. The only reason why the car had 2 front tires is the rules required them...Yes Richard, contrary to your marginalization of the brilliance of what the Deltawing group did, they did have to build within certain guidelines. Once the the big players who was buying most the TV time of the 24hrs du LeMans realized their thunder was being shared by the little Deltawing, there was real concerns the $60mil budgets of the big 2 may require a new order of justification.

The Deltawing only had 40 liters of fuel and yet it was 3rd shortest time spent in pit-lane during the Petit. The LMP's had 80 liters. At LeMans the LMP1 Audi's could do 12-13 laps on their fuel, the Deltawing with its fuel capacity could do 16 laps. At LeMans the Deltwing could do 5 stints on its tires.

Those little front tires are only 100mm wide. How the heck do you think a multinational company like Michelin could be convinced to take such a risk as to tool up and produce the brilliant tires for this project if they hadn't done extensive simulations and reach the same conclusions as Ben Bowlby's group.

Those LMP2 mirrors on the Deltawing as required by the rules required 15hp of its 300hp to push through at 300+kph its top speed. Note the rake in the car's ride height? That along with a simple spoiler was where it got it's added downforce for Road Atlanta. This means the car's inherent stability wasn't aero sensitive as say a F2000 if you hiked the rear tray up that high.

This achievement should be embraced by the APEX readership as the gutsy execution it is and shaking up traditional thinking is what true racers do.

Darrick