still busy time for SWRT during WRC summer break
Pierre Genon talks about behind the scene of testing
Letter from SWRT
16 June 2006
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With nine weeks between the finish of the Acropolis Rally in June and the start of Rally Germany in August, the Subaru World Rally Team's focus shifts from events to testing and development. With three tests planned over the break, swrt.com caught up with Pierre Genon, chief engineer for test and development, to find out more.
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Can you tell us more about the calendar over the summer?
We have three tests planned before the next rally. There's a development test in the first week of July and then pre-event tests for Germany and Finland in July and August respectively. It's time to think about specifications for these two rallies and later in the year, plus make decisions about new developments for next season. The break in the calendar gives us an opportunity to cover enough mileage to test new parts and sign them off in time for the second half of the year and the next evolution of the Impreza.
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What is the aim of a pre-event test?
A pre-event test is a short term set-up test where the engineers and drivers will prepare for a specific event. They will be evaluating the set-up of the car and different tyre choices for a particular rally. We will try and test in the country where the rally takes place and as close to the event as possible so the conditions are similar to what you would expect on the rally. Sometimes it's not always possible to do this though as FIA regulations restrict where you can test - we can't test outside of Europe and then only in selected European countries, including the UK, France, Spain and Italy, and we are limited to a certain number of days in Scandinavia. In these cases you just have to find venues that have similar characteristics to the rally route.
Could you explain more about the development tests?
The aim of a development test is to evaluate changes we would like to implement to enhance the performance of the car. We don't look at improvements for one specific event, the aim may be as vague as improving performance on gravel or tarmac, so we go to a test venue that has conditions you would find on several rallies. We will look objectively at areas, including suspension and transmission, outside the normal set-up parameters of the car. You could sum up the differences between pre-event and development tests as development drawing a box and pre-event as optimising performance within this box.
Will the same personnel attend both pre-event and development tests?
The pre-event tests are normally left to the engineers and team personnel who attend and run cars on the rallies. At the moment we do about 80 days testing per year with 40 days of pre-event and 40 days of development. With regards to drivers, for pre-events you obviously want to use the rally drivers and tests are shared between them according to our priorities. But it's obvious Petter and Chris can't do 16 rallies plus all the pre-event and development tests, so we use our test driver, Pasi Hagstrom, for the development work. It's important to have different points of view and Pasi has been part of the team for five years so he has a lot of experience. He's very good at testing and feedback as he has worked on previous cars and set-ups. He's a good solid benchmark.
How are findings in development tests fed into the rally programme?
On a development test we assess the performance gains of various new items and then we have to decide whether they can be run in an event. We have to sign each part off for reliability and show it has a proven increase on the car's performance. If these two boxes have been ticked, it's confirmation for the event engineers that they can use these parts. After that, it's up to the rally engineers to decide whether to use them on the events. If the testing has been done properly, however, there should be no doubt that the parts work and the engineers should be able to use them in confidence.
How far in advance does planning for a test start?
At the beginning of the year we know when and what we will be testing so we can start to plan at this time. There are exceptions where we will add a whole test or remove or add a day to an existing test as priorities change according to performance over the season. Generally we plan months in advance though, particularly for development as you have to know what you want to evaluate in reasonable depth a month or two in advance. Pre-events will also be prepared weeks
before as you need to lay out a base car specification and choose the tyres you want to test.
Of course some elements change but you've got to have a basic plan.
Are there any additional tests you do?
We also have research and development tests (R and D). These are fundamental tests that could impact design for several years to come, but which need testing before we ultimately incorporate them. For example if we have an item that will give us an aerodynamic gain on the car but that will increase the weight, we have to decide whether it is worth gaining some downforce by having an additional weight penalty somewhere else. You can't measure small differences like this in a race environment so we have to test to make decisions objectively. The findings could impact the design of our cars for years to come so we have to know they are the correct choices.
What will be the focus of the next test in July?
It's a development test and our number one focus is on the development of a new transmission, especially front and rear differentials. There were new regulations introduced this year and we are still learning. Some findings may not be included this season as you have to homologate parts that differ from your original design, but transmission components have long lead times anyway. We are already thinking about next year.
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