To put it another way "If Ferrari can't spend $400m on F1 anymore, it might as well spend money on another racing series it can use as a pretext for research that will improve it's F1 car".
If that were true then why don't Red Bull or Mercedes have LMH teams in the WEC series? Surely, they would want to use all that data to improve their F1 cars, right? Or is it because they all know, including Ferrari, that there is very little correlation between an F1 car and a LMH car.
Based on Ferraris performance in F1 over the last decade, you could give them unlimited amounts of money in any series, and they will find a way to...not win.
Watching slower production cars drive for example Nurburgring can be quite relaxing, but these class of cars are truly terrifying. For example here is the lap record video of the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsLi7HgSuhI
[Edit: Note that for this they basically took an LMP1 car and then broke the rule book by modifying it]
Last year, I took my wagon for a drive on "The Ring". It was an exceptional experience, a rollercoaster ride I haven’t experienced in my life before. I'd really like to get back there some time, with a more beefier car.
I had the great opportunity to get to know a semi-professional driver on the track, who drove three rounds with me in his Subaru. That was a whole different level.
Honestly, I can only imagine what’s going to happen if movable aero is ever allowed at the top end of motorsport. Think something like the McMurtry Speirling (https://youtu.be/tHIbvYWhaxA?t=999), but as if it was put through some madman’s Kerbal Space Program fever dream.
Granted, I think the memory of June 11th, 1955 will keep it from ever happening.
> These components need airflow to keep from frying while the car is parked, so a Home Depot’s worth of Milwaukee M18 Fuel leaf blowers ($387 each, including a lithium-ion battery) is stuffed into the beast’s many openings.
This was as entertaining to read as it was to see visually. That's such a funny solution for a multi-million dollar endeavor like this.
It's the same for all F1 cars, as there is no radiator fan and the airflow from driving is required to keep the car cool. you actually can't idle for too long or you'll overheat. you also have to cool the brakes after running or there is a fire risk.
not sure about so-called prototype [ie, lemans] cars, but i do suspect those cars have radiator fans. Even many (most?) passenger cars keep the electric fan on the radiator going, and water pump circulating, after you shut the engine down. it looks like the 2 leaf blowers in the front are for the brakes and the one in the top is for the engine.
Of course in F1 they have custom enclosures made to fit and lock into the radiator openings. It is funny to see these do look like bog standard off the shelf leaf blowers.
I used to use an e-go leaf blower with a fabricated attachment for the air intake.
One thing you learn about high end performance cars is just the sheer amount of heat they spew at all times. From everywhere. Part of it is they have far more than a single radiator. Once you start crossing $100K USD a fair number of cars start getting to 3-5 heat exchangers (even NA cars!), and it climbs from there.
Road going performance cars have fans first to help get things up to temperature for emissions, and after that, for when you’re at low speeds or stationary. So you don’t overheat (or catch fire) when you’re stuck in traffic after having the car at high load.
Race cars tend to not have any fans near their primary heat exchangers. You get more airflow without fan blades creating impedance, and you just rely on the airflow at speed to do all the work.
The Formula 1 Tech Talks had a discussion of heat dissipation in the cars. The interesting part was the limited space available between engine shape and aero requirements means that a lot of very hot parts are squeezed together.
I think this was the link...but not sure. They've covered the topic a number of times. The whole tech talk series is worth watching. They have a lot of visual demos of different design aspects of the cars.
https://youtu.be/AC0eOfQl1d0
