The Monte Carlo Rally scheduled for January will kick off the new edition of the World Championship and with it a new era for the World Championship. In fact, 2022 will be a year of great news, starting from transition to hybrid propulsion, already in-depth in the past weeks on the pages of FormulaPassion. However, the revolution will not be limited to the motorsport field, as also gThe mechanical, chassis and aerodynamic aspects will be affected by the regulatory changes. At present, the technical regulation of the new class that will take the name of Rally 1 has not yet been made public, which is why all the information available is the result of the work of collecting what was leaked through the press releases and the interviews of the individual protagonists. .
With the Rally 1 cars, the concept of the chassis will radically change. The backbone of the WRCs in action in the last technical cycle consisted of a monocoque based on the road version of the model in question, a feature that will disappear from 2022. The new cars of the World Championship will be built on the basis of a tubular steel frame regulated by FIA specifications, which is why the cars will distance themselves even further from being series derivatives, getting closer to the concept of prototypes. However, elements deriving from the production model such as the windshield, the doors or the hood will still have to be present, whose dimensions can however be scaled to adapt to the tubular frame, which will no longer be based on the road version.
From the press release published by the organizers we learn how the new chassis will significantly improve the safety of Rally 1 cars compared to previous WRCs. Side impact tests against a pole of about 25 cm in diameter showed a 51% reduction in intrusion inside the passenger compartment. The frontal impact simulation instead highlighted how the intrusion measured at the level of the bulkhead, the structure protecting the legs of the occupants, is reduced by 70%. In the rollover scenario, on the other hand, the new frames, equipped with a double roll-bar, guarantee 115% more energy absorption from the roof.
The Rally 1 cars will also be equipped with a hybrid system, with the associated problem of placing its components. In detail, the battery and the inverter will be enclosed by a carbon fiber casing designed to withstand impacts up to 70G and positioned in the rear, behind the driver and co-driver, with the attached cooling radiators. The cars will therefore have additional air intakes to ensure cooling of the hybrid system, but with the new regulations the internal ducts of the car can no longer be used for aerodynamic purposes except for cooling.
Overall, the aerodynamics will be drastically simplified in order to guarantee a reduction in the development and production costs of the aerodynamic components, which are often damaged by the impervious conditions encountered in the special tests. Among all the novelties, the removing the rear speaker, in response to which the teams have already begun to explore alternative routes to recover the downforce lost from the bottom. In this regard, the site WRCWings.Tech highlighted, for example, how Toyota is shaping the bodywork so that, together with the adoption of an accentuated rake angle, therefore a forward inclination of the car body, the rear end is raised, widening the exit section of the bottom to accelerate the flows below it and recover downforce.
Parallel to the aerodynamics, the mechanics will also be simplified, starting with the suspension. Besides these, from 2022 the active center differential will disappear, a tool used up to now to regulate the distribution of engine power between the front and rear axles according to the driving scenarios and the steering angle. The transmission will also shift from 6 to 5 gears and, as revealed a + Motor2021 by Malcolm Wilson, founder of M-Sport, will be implemented by a traditional mechanical lever gearbox, replacing the current paddles on the steering wheel. The Monte Carlo Rally 2022 will reveal the real goodness of the new formula, which in any case will require a strong adaptation both by the designers and by the drivers in their driving style.
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