Williams FW18 – playing the rules
In design for Formula 1 racing there is a constant battle between squeezing the highest possible performance from the car and remaining within the constantly changing racing regulations. Precision design, engineering and aerodynamics are used to tweak the car’s performance for extra split seconds on the track, whilst ensuring that the vehicles meet all the current safety requirements.
In 1995, when Adrian Newey was chief designer at the Williams F1 racing team, new regulations called for the introduction of a flat plane along the centre of the car to limit the downforce. As is often the case in racing car design, the engineers and designers needed to find a way of maintaining the car’s downforce whilst also meeting the letter of the law as set out in the regulations.
Idea
In this instance, Newey realised that the rules did not state that the diffuser – the expanding area at the back of the car which is key to the under-body aerodynamics – could not extend over the top of the new flat plane. So he addressed the rule change and the need for downforce by raising the gearbox and expanding the diffuser into the car’s centre line. This placed the diffuser underneath the gearbox but also above the regulation flat plane. The result was actually a huge increase in down-force.
At the same time, other regulations called for the introduction of a side headrest to avoid serious injury to the driver in the event of a high-speed lateral impact. They also stipulated that the chassis should be made taller, but did not specifically state that the headrest should be as tall as the chassis. So Newey lowered the seating position of the driver, allowing the headrests to be set lower in the car without compromising safety, and met the chassis height requirement by introducing a fin. The result was a much more efficient aerodynamic solution to the regulations, as compared to the other cars.
Lowering the driver’s seat also separated airflow intake from the headrest and made for a much better quality of airflow back into the engine. According to Newey, the inspiration for this change came from looking out of a window at the propeller intake during an internal flight in the Caribbean.
Impact
The changes introduced by Newey made the Williams FW18 and FW19 cars by far the dominant force in the F1 Grand Prix in 1990s, with Damon Hill immediately taking the Drivers’ Championship in the 1996 season. In fact, Newey joined Williams in 1990 and the team then went on to win the Constructors’ Championship in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997.
According to Libby Brodhurst, chief executive of the Institution of Engineering Designers, Newey’s work in motor racing design has ‘vastly increased improvements in safety and performance’ and has led him to be ‘widely acknowledged as motorsport’s leading aerodynamic engineer’.
Adrian Newey sketching