Bending the Rules

Crikey, everything’s gone a bit crazy in the last few weeks in F1 over this flexible wing scandal, which fortunately no crass and lazy journalist has branded ‘wing-gate’ or ‘flexgate’. Yet.

In case you haven’t been following it, people up and down the paddock have been getting in an almighty flap (pun intended) over the front wings on the Red Bull and Ferrari.

The regulations state that the front wing must be rigid and remain 85mm off the track, and slow motion footage of the bowing wings on the Red cars and, to an even greater extent, the Bulls show that their wings are clearly in contravention of the regulations. Or are they?

Here’s the thing: before each race the cars must pass scutineering and it’s up to the FIA’s inspectors using a series FIA-defined visual and mechanical tests to make sure the cars are safe and legal to race. If they pass all the tests then the car is legal – it’s as simple as that, even if the car is actually illegal... if you see what I mean? In the case of front wings, a specific load is applied and the component is supposed to stay rigid, which in the case of the Ferraris and the Red Bulls it clearly did. The fact that the test is insufficient is not the problem of the teams.

There will be calls, no doubt, for some kind of retrospective punishment to be applied; for Ferrari and Red Bull to lose their points, but despite the fact that they have raced with illegal wings, I think this would be a disaster for F1. Not because of any kind of garbage about the fans wanting a fair race, but because cheating... no, not cheating... ‘finding loopholes in the regulations and exploiting them’ is part of motor sport – it always has been and should continue to be.

In an interview, Patrick Head said he reckons that Red Bull has developed a kind of carbon fibre with non-linear flexibility – that is to say, when you put 50kg on a Williams wing it flexes 5mm, when you put 100kg on it flexes 10mm. The Red Bull and Ferrari wings might flex 5mm when you put 50kg on them, but flex 15mm when you put 100kg on them. How clever is that?!

Motor sport is peppered with brilliant stories about mind-bendingly creative engineering solutions that are just as interesting and exciting as some of the most epic drives by motor sport heroes. Ingenious ideas like Toyota’s restrictor plate bypass valve that effectively hid itself automatically when it was removed for inspection and basically everything Smokey Yunich ever did to a car. Look him up on Wikipedia or, better still, read one of the many books about him if you want a master class on ‘creative engineering solutions’.

To lose this part of motor sport by regulators starting to apply retrospective punishments would be to lose one of the most intriguing, mysterious and (I think) glamorous aspects of the sport.

The approach to the type of loophole-finding that Red Bull and Ferrari have done should be a shake of the fist and a ‘you pesky kids’-type exclamation by the FIA. They should alter the test they use to determine the legality of the wings, yes, but there should certainly not be any kind of punishment for the races in which they managed to get around the regs. While I believe that the other teams should be bringing the contravention to the attention of the officials who should, if the part is in contravention of the spirit of the regulations, ban the component from future races by improving the testing procedure, they should also accept that on this occasion, they simply were not clever enough.

Or, perhaps, not ballsy enough.

Caterham R400

by Pete Wadsworth

Somewhere in the U.S. there is a laboratory with a 2.5 mile-long particle accelerator. A place where men with thick glasses in white coats can fire an electron down a tube at astonishing speeds and watch what happens under different – laboratory defined – circumstances. Such is the rate of acceleration, if you were to fire a gun at the same end and the same time at which the particle begins its journey, the particle would cover the entire 2.5 mile trip to the end of the tube before the bullet had left the barrel of the gun: which is fast. Not as fast as the R400 however, which makes that invisible spec look like it was dragging its heels and kicking a can on the way.

In concept at least, the R400 is a pretty old car, and uses the same basic theory to achieve its impressive pace as Caterham’s versions of the Lotus 7 always have – ample power coupled to a lightweight chassis – but this latest iteration comes with a few key changes. The first of which is the chassis, which is now built by robots – making for much more consistent feel – and is (a surprisingly noticeable) 13 per cent stiffer than the old one. The biggest change to the new Superlight however, is under the bonnet.

After MG Rover went west a couple of years ago, supplies of the venerable K-Series lump – the motor that powered everything from the Roadsport to the R500 Evolution – dried up, and Caterham was forced to find a new supplier. This posed a big problem: the K-Series was a spectacularly light engine and, thanks to its long-bolt construction, a very tough one too. It was only ever designed to be a 1.4, but was bored all the way out to a 250bhp 2.0 litre in the bonkers, £42,000 R500 Evo. In this state of tune, revving to 9,500rpm, the Minister-tuned Rover was about as much of a road engine as the Pope is a Protestant. It was not happy at low revs, kicked hard at 4,500rpm and needed regular rebuilds to stop it turning inside out.

Caterham needed a new approach if they were to continue to eek more performance from the 7 at sensible prices, and this came in the form of Ford’s new Duratec motor – a much cleaner, lower stressed option that was, unbelievably, even lighter than the old ‘K’. Essentially, Caterham Motorsport simply take the 170bhp Duratec motor from the Ford Focus; change the inlet manifold, fit a shouty exhaust, more aggressive cams and remap the ECU, then drop it into the nose of a wide front-track 7 body. These tweaks put it just 30bhp and 40lb/ft shy of the R500 Evolution engine, but to give you some idea of the extra work involved in wringing out those few extra ponies in the old car, an R500 Evolution engine will set you back a staggering £17,500. The lump fitted to the new R400? About five: a far more realistic proposition.

Now the history lesson is over there is one thing I need to make clear: the R400 in the form I had it is not a road car. It had no doors, no windscreen and no roof. Your top gets cold, but thanks to the unbelievable heat soak from the exhaust on your right, the gearbox on your left and the engine in front of you; the soles of your shoes melt, your legs get too hot and your back sweats. Getting in is a faff of epic proportions – it’s a tight squeeze and doing up harnesses every time you want to go out is a pain, you have to wear a helmet if you’re planning on going over 30mph and if you spend any significant amount of time above 70mph you get a headache, unless you wear earplugs – which is also a pain and won’t protect you from the eyeball-rattling buffeting.

But none of this matters once you put your foot down for the first time – this slime green monster is savagely, cataclysmically, brutally quick. Providing you can get the power down, it will hit sixty in a whisker under four seconds and relentlessly pile on speed as you work your way through the six tightly-stacked ratios. At first it felt - not sluggish - but not as quick as I had thought it would; until I figured out that the engine’s inertia is so low, a very quick shift is required to maintain the rate of progress – and how. Once you get the hang of effectively coordinating your left foot with your left hand, changing gears can be done at a pace that feels more like a Quaife sequential than a Ford six-speed with a short-shifter. 0-100 covered in a four-gear thrash that had me laughing like a total idiot, each shift just before the first ‘braaap’ of the limiter barely changing the engine note and never, ever dropping you out of the post-4,500rpm mania.

Arrive at a corner and feel your body pressing against the harness straps as you blip your way (as quickly as your feet will allow) back down the ‘box – immense brakes pulling you up from the scarcely believable speeds you’ve achieved since the last corner, accompanied by a twenty-one-gun salute from the exhaust barely a foot under your right ear. Now experience the joy of unassisted steering as you ease the R400 into the bend. No slack in the controls, a fast rack and massive levels of feel make for huge grins through the twisty stuff – Avon CR500s serving up fantastic grip – you can drive the thing like a big kart.

An interesting new handling characteristic makes itself felt as you set yourself up for the exit: better low down grunt means that if you put your foot down in a bend, the car doesn’t have time to push into understeer before the engine breaks traction with the rear wheels, so the traditional way of driving a Caterham (out of every bend or roundabout with a whiff of opposite lock) becomes a battle with your own self control, as the temptation to just drift around every corner becomes increasingly difficult to resist. It’s just so easy to bring the tail into play, such is the surfeit of power over rear-end grip, and thanks to the alacrity of the steering (and total lack of weight over the rear end) bringing everything back into line is almost as simple – requiring the merest hint of talent and sufficiently quick reactions. If you can exercise a bit of right-foot discipline and ride out a small-angle slide on the throttle, exceptionally rapid progress can be made.

Like the Exige though, such is the involvement in the drive the R400 is fun at pretty much any speed - partly because everything feels so fast - but mainly thanks to the feeling that you can safely extend the car. Limits arrive at (relatively) low speeds so you feel more able to tidy up a mistake before you find yourself going backwards through a field.

It's also amusing to drive through 'suburbia' and watch people being stopped in their tracks by a bright green something being driven by a bloke in a helmet. And it's always a positive reaction: grins from anyone over the age of twelve; stopping and pointing from anyone younger.

Still, the best way to sum up the new R400 is with a single word: intense. Preceded by an adjective of your choice – take your pick from ‘incredibly’ for example, or any number of words that are far too rude to publish on a family website like crash.net. Every one of your senses is bombarded in such an unapologetic way and there is a refreshing and complete lack of an attempt to separate you – as the driver – from how it feels to travel quickly. Everything feels fast, everything that travels under the front and rear wheels is transmitted to you in a totally raw, unpolished way and yet it never feels overwhelming. If driving a Type-R is like running sand through your fingers wearing winter mittens and a Porsche is like doing it with latex gloves, the R400 is the full-on naked digits experience.

You climb out of the R400 at the end of a drive not just wide-eyed, grinning and sweating, but actually feeling invigorated and alive – as if you have truly achieved something as a human being: chemicals coursing through your veins, muscles pumped and brain alert. It’s a visceral experience that, I suspect, would never dim.

Put simply, I want one. Badly.

John Reynolds Pillion Ride

by Pete Wadsworth

One of my favourite things about my job is that every now and then someone calls me to ask if I’d like to do something really cool – generally involving some petrol-powered, vaguely life-threatening activity and a racing driver intent on scaring at least half a decade off your tombstone inscription. Fortunately I have what some might say is a foolish, unwavering trust in the abilities of talented people so I’m always up for these little jollies. However, there have always been two things I promised myself I would never do: top fuel drag racing and a pillion ride with a motorbike racer.

It’s not that I don’t trust them, but drag-racing is just a bit too extreme and bikers... well, I don’t mean any offence by this, but you’re all a bit mental. I love riding push-bikes, I have done for years and even competed in national trials competition, but when I’m travelling at the kind of speeds an engine can achieve, I like to have more than a couple of millimetres of leather separating my soft, easily punctured skin and brittle bones from rough tarmac and hard steel barriers. What if, what if, what if?

Nevertheless, for some reason of which I’m still not quite sure, when the invitation to sit on the back of one of the fastest road bikes on sale flashed up on MSN Messenger, my inner schoolboy took over and answered, “yes please, who, when and where?”. Oh dear. The ‘who’ was John Reynolds, the ‘when’ was the following Tuesday and the ‘where’ was the terrifyingly fast Mallory Park circuit.

So, as I levered myself into the Dainese leathers in the briefing room six days later, the nerves really began to set in... things weren’t made any better by the fact that the boots wouldn’t fit over my calves. A rather uncouth gaffer tape solution later and yet another worrying variable is added to my already lengthy list. What if my boot falls off, gets caught in the rear wheel, catches fire and the whole bike explodes, killing me to death? I hobble to the pit lane, trying to look like I’m not completely bricking it. I fail.

Reynolds is already on the circuit putting some heat into the bike and he’s looking mighty fast. There are two Alpinas on track being driven by Mallory Park instructors. They’re not hanging around, but the GSX-R1000 is making the D3s look like they’re going backwards.

As the bike comes to a halt in front of us we’re hit by that ‘recently caned’ waft of hot oil and metal and a large dose of adrenalin gets dumped into my bloodstream. The ‘briefing’ consists of being told to hold on tight, sit still and try not to put too much weight on the pilot, which will require me to press my hands on to the tank under braking.

I hop onto the tall pillion seat as gracefully as I can (not very), clasp my hands in front of John and try not to cry. He hoofs it out of the pitlane and we’re quickly on top of the first bend – a long, sweeping, opening right hander. He tips the bike in and I must confess to panicking just a touch – it really feels like the thing is going to fall over – there’s just no way those tiny contact patches can generate enough grip to hold the pair of us... oh, we’ve made it round. John opens the taps down the back straight and I have to hold on tight to stop myself from falling off. We quickly reach the first of the heavy braking zones, so I turn my hands over, press hard on the tank and my second scary moment is milliseconds away – it feels like we’ve dropped an anchor as he squeezes the lever and I’m slightly alarmed to find that my arse is off the seat and my feet off the pegs. Swearing happens, but I’ve stayed onboard. We exit the right hander and tip straight into a left-hand kink – the only part of the track that scared me on every lap – before hitting another braking zone into the tight right hand hairpin. He gets hard on the gas at the apex, dropping the front wheel back onto the black stuff just in time to carve through the fast left that takes us back onto the pit straight. He’s starting to build up the speed now and it takes another loop for me to figure out that I can dig my heels into the pegs to stop my feet coming off in the braking zones. I’m really starting to enjoy myself now.

Strangely the only sound I can remember is that of my own loud breathing inside my lid (its surprisingly tiring) – the screaming in-line four completely passes me by.

Despite the fact that whole experience is a pretty frightening one, the closest thing I can relate it to is being on a really good rollercoaster: you’re scared, but deep down you know you’re safe so you end up having a bloody excellent time. The second we pull away I instantly know that I’m in good hands – of course he’s not trying, but your mind could easily play some nasty tricks on you and that trust I have in these guys pays off again – I can relax and really enjoy this most intense of experiences. By the second lap I’ve got a huge smile on my face – I think you can tell in the pictures.

Just as my arms are starting to get properly worn out, Reynolds backs off and peels into the pitlane, giving me a ‘well done for not being a total wuss’ pat on my arm as I sit up and try to process the experience.

We managed a 56 second lap around Mallory’s organic curves, which felt pretty bloody fast to me, but I’m stunned to discover that a race pace lap around the same circuit would be completed 18 seconds sooner!

Now all I can think about is how much I want a motorbike.

Huge, huge thanks to John Reynolds and Rizla Suzuki for the ride, Mallory Park for hosting the event and the lovely Louise Cain for providing me with the opportunity to risk life and limb for the sake of a laugh.

Lotus Europa S

The Wasp and the Bee. Two small creatures, the existence of which causes me great confusion – I mean, they’re pretty much the same animal aren’t they? Both are yellow and black, both fly and importantly, both are much more powerful than their size would suggest: you could crush either one with your hand, but they wouldn’t half make you pay for it as they went down. Let’s face it, no one can look proud in victory when they’re teary-eyed, squealing and clutching a barely visible wound. However, despite the similarities, they’re actually very different beasts, with very different purposes: Bees make honey; no one knows what Wasps do.

Wasps are aggressive, they flick from left to right with a machine-like precision - purposeful in their lack of purpose, then strike when you leave your guard down with an ill-timed swipe – they are malignant and go out looking for a fight. Bumble bees are much more benign, they’re happy to cruise about the place looking for flowers, they’re fluffy and they’ll only hurt you if you really provoke them. In a children’s story, the Bee would be Moog, the Wasp would be Evil Edna.

A bit like the Exige S and the Europa S. On the face of it, it’s hard to see the point of having both in the line-up. They’re very similar in size and outright performance, and there is an undeniably strong family resemblance, but look a bit harder and the differences soon become blindingly obvious. The Exige is the Wasp – all pent-up aggression and no practical purpose, it just likes to go out to see what it can take down in a good old-fashioned dirty street fight. It can’t make honey; it just eats spiders, stings your dog and scares your girlfriend. But it has a lot of fun doing it. The Europa is the Bee, it’s a bit softer, a bit fluffier and a bit friendlier – it makes your girlfriend say “Aaaah”, rather than “Argh!”; pollinates your flowers and will only sting your dog if he tries to eat it. The Bee works for its living.

Making this distinction is important before you drive the Europa anywhere; if you go into a drive in this thinking it’s going to be like a big Exige you’ll be disappointed. If you go into it thinking it’s going to be a big softy just because it’s a bit bigger and has carpets, you’ll be very surprised. The guys at Hethel have done a very good job of removing the hardest of the hardcore bits of the Exige, without losing any of that crucial Lotus ‘feel’. The steering is just as you would expect: awesome, it feels light, agile, fast; it has an impressive ride and exceptional body control. It’s still stiff, but it doesn’t crash over big pockmarks in the road.

It feels more exploitable than the Exige too, with lower limits it doesn’t snap into oversteer and, despite still feeling mid-engined in its balance, it doesn’t seem to have the inertia you would normally associate with a car like this once the limits of grip have been breached. Information about the road surface and how much grip the front tyres have flows through the thick-rimmed Momo steering wheel and it seems that no matter how quickly you’re going, the car always gives you tonnes of time to react to any situation you’ve managed to get yourself into. Traditionally, the best way to drive a Lotus quickly is to be swift but very smooth, and if you get truly ragged you’re punished by slower lap times and embarrassing understeer. But the Europa seems happy to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and thrown about and offers just as much satisfaction over its limits as it does below. The only criticism I have about the controls is a slightly dead middle pedal.

It is undoubtedly a much more relaxing drive than its little brother, both in terms of the way it handles, the way it rides and the mind set it encourages.

A lot of this is down to the 2.0 litre turbocharged Vauxhall lump being a much less frantic motor than the 1.8 Toyota mill that appears in the smaller models. It’s a torquey little thing and lets you have a nice slice of acceleration pretty well wherever you are in the rev range – flex your right foot beneath 4,500rpm and you’ll quite easily waft your way past B-road dawdlers, keep it on the boil above that mark and things get truly frantic. And then you’ll run out of fuel.

Yes, ‘Business Class by Lotus’ has a lack of range rivalled only by Ford’s GT. But, what is truly irritating is that the Europa – which will get you from rest to 60 in less than five seconds and across a country lane faster than things costing twice as much – returns a truly respectable 25mpg, yet will only get you 160 miles between stops. For what is supposed to be a Grand Tourer this range just isn’t good enough and, for someone who hates filling up with petrol as much as I do, would get extremely annoying.

Another thing that would quickly become an irritation is the car’s inability to keep the outside, out. In the Exige, a bit of a leaky window and a healthy slug of wind noise are just about acceptable. As I said in my review of the ‘S’, “this isn’t a BMW 3-Series – road-holding, handling, performance and exhilaration are the far more important factors in a car like this”. Unfortunately, the Europa is a car that will go head-to-head with the Porsche Cayman and Nissan 350Z, so build quality cannot come second to performance in the R&D process. When water started streaming in through the firmly closed window on my way into work one morning, I was less than impressed. You just can’t get away with build quality issues like this on a car costing more than £30,000 aimed at a market populated by people who want to use their cars to get around every day; as a mode of transport as well as – if not in preference to - a source of fun. It is also far too noisy: the engine is an acceptable volume, but wind noise at motorway cruising speed makes the stereo all-but useless.

Because of this, I’m finding it very difficult to come to a definitive conclusion about Lotus’ latest motor car. If I wanted a sports car that I could use every day Porsche, BMW and Nissan wouldn’t even get a sniff of my £35k – I would be straight down to the Lotus dealer and ordering a Europa. But I’m 25, my back is in fine fettle, I don’t wear a suit to work and I don’t have ‘business clients’ who like to stay dry. The problem is that if someone asked me which sports car they should buy, I would point them towards a Cayman, a Z4 or a 350Z. I simply couldn’t bring myself to recommend a noisy car that leaks to someone who just wouldn’t get the satisfaction from having a truly involving vehicle that you need to get in order to offset being deafened and dribbled on.

In short, there’s no doubt that the Europa is a great car – unfortunately it is also a poor product.