Misplaced Pages

#556443

15-505: The plans for the car had been purchased from Nick Wirth 's Simtek Research, who had originally designed the machine in 1990 for BMW 's proposed entry into Formula 1. The design was then revived and updated; two chassis were built for Moreno and McCarthy. The car was highly unsuccessful and its best result was at the 1992 Monaco Grand Prix ; Moreno managed to get through the Friday pre-qualifying session, and then qualified in 26th place for

30-658: A chassis to generate as much mechanical grip to overcome the power deficit to Diesel centric rules created by the ACO by exploiting the engine's low mass (low compared to larger Diesel engines). Rear tires are now fitted onto the front of the car, increasing the contact patch by 7%, indicating that the vehicle center of mass was more forward placed than its contemporaries. The ARX-02a were campaigned by two teams, de Ferran Motorsport (Gil de Ferran, Simon Pagenaud and Scott Dixon ) and Highcroft Racing ( David Brabham , Scott Sharp and Dario Franchitti ), and made its competition debut at

45-567: A hard-fought battle with the Fernandez ARX-01. In 2010, de Ferran closed shop and Highcroft was forced to abandon the car, ending the career of the ARX-02. Highcroft returned to campaigning an updated version of the existing ARX-01 for the combined LMP class in 2010. (key) Races in bold indicates pole position . Races in italics indicates fastest lap. Did not finish the race but was classified as they completed more than 70% of

60-652: Is an automotive engineer and the founder and owner of Wirth Research. He is also the former owner of the Simtek Formula One team, a former aerodynamicist at March and former technical director at the Benetton , and Virgin Racing teams. Wirth attended Sevenoaks School from 1977 to 1984 and has B.Sc(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering ( First Class ) from University College London and is

75-459: The 2009 12 Hours of Sebring . Scott Dixon put the de Ferran entry on pole position at Sebring ahead of all the diesels of Audi and Peugeot due to slippery but dry track conditions. However, within the first corner of the race Acura were overcome by Allan McNish in the Audi. Neither Acura finished the race due to mechanical issues and never featured as a threat to win the race, lapping at 2.5 seconds off

90-628: The LMP1 class car . In 2009 Wirth Design teamed up with John Booth of Manor Motorsport to create a car for the 2010 Formula One season . Wirth was appointed the technical director of the team. Richard Branson 's company Virgin became a title sponsor and the team was renamed Virgin Racing . The car that Wirth designed for use in the 2010 season, the Virgin VR-01 , is the first Formula One racing car designed entirely with computational fluid dynamics with no use of traditional wind tunnels during

105-640: The LMP1 category of the American Le Mans Series . It was Acura's second Le Mans Prototype, following their ARX-01 which competed in the LMP2 category. Unlike the ARX-01, the ARX-02 is a bespoke LMP designed entirely for Acura by Wirth Research . The original 3.4L V8 was expanded to 4 liters for more durability and drivability with the larger power developed with P1 rules. Wirth Research developed

120-800: The RS-01 RoboDog in 2001. In 2003 he founded Wirth Research. In 2006 Wirth Research began working for the FIA in the Casumaro windtunnel in Italy on the split rear wing (CDG) design that the FIA proposed for the 2008 F1 season. In 2007 Wirth Research became involved with the Acura LMP programme in the American Le Mans Series and was involved with designing the LMP1 class car for 2009 season. Wirth used computational fluid dynamics extensively to design

135-580: The cars. The team suffered the blow of the death of Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix . Simtek suffered a difficult first season and eventually pulled out of Formula One during the 1995 season which forced Simtek Research into bankruptcy. From 1996 until 1999 Wirth was chief designer and later a board member of the Benetton Formula One team. In 1999 Wirth founded RoboScience, and created

150-535: The design or build process. Wirth also designed Virgin's second F1 car, the MVR-02 , but its performance proved to be disappointing as it failed to close the gap to the leaders relative to the VR-01. In June 2011, Virgin announced that it had parted company with Wirth and abandoned its policy of only using CFD. Acura ARX-02a The Acura ARX-02a was a Le Mans Prototype constructed by Acura for competition in

165-400: The race. After the first qualifying session on Thursday standing 20th, managed in total 11 laps, reaching as high as 19th place before retiring with engine failure. The team was expelled from the championship after team owner Andrea Sassetti was arrested at Spa for financial irregularities, and following an FIA ruling following the arrest that the team was not run "in a manner compatible with

SECTION 10

#1732800959557

180-498: The standards of the championship or in any way brings the championship into disrepute." The team did still turn up at Monza for the next Grand Prix but was banned from entering the paddock. The team finished last in the Constructors' Championship, with no points. ( key ) (results in bold indicate pole position, results in italics indicate fastest lap) Nick Wirth Nicholas John Peter Wirth (born 26 March 1966)

195-607: The winning pace. Throughout the ALMS, the Acura gained overall wins until the Petit Le Mans. In all of the races, the bigger tires took longer to warm up than most competitors resulting in position loss to the turbo charged P1 Lola's at race starts and restarts. Scott Sharp crashed heavily at Petit Le Mans and spend the next 24 hours rebuilding the car with assistance from de Ferran. At the final race at Laguna Seca, Gil de Ferran won

210-621: The youngest-ever Fellow of the Royal Institution of Mechanical Engineers . Wirth started his Formula One career as an aerodynamicist for March Engineering , working on the 1988 and 1989 Leyton House March cars. In addition, he conceived and designed all components of the March active suspension system, which ran successfully in February 1989. Simtek Research was founded in 1989 by Max Mosley and Nick Wirth. It originally

225-430: Was involved in many areas of Formula One, including wind tunnel construction and chassis building for third parties. Wirth was previously employed by March Team owner Mosley. From October 1993 to June 1995, Wirth was founder, owner, and technical director of Simtek Grand Prix , a Formula One racing team that first appeared in the 1994 Formula One season . Simtek Research provided the team with engineering and design for

#556443