FONTANA, Calif.--For automotive engineers, the Formula One seriescan be like romping through a candy store with not credit limit. After all, it costs a single team about $400 million a seasonto operate a race car. That's as much as one space shuttle launch.
In comparison to the world of exotic engine-block materials and luxury handbags, the IndyCar teams spend $7 million a year. That cost structure doesn't reduce engineering creativity, and itcreates an accessibility that
Formula One teams lack, at least forsponsors.
[
Learn more about the Indy 500 at the Littelfuse Speed2Design site.]
That's the take-away
from a tech talk here given by James "Sulli"Sullivan of SH Racing (
shown below in white shirt) working with the
KV Racing Technology team on the lastrace of the 2012
IndyCar series.
Formula One "has begun to cap what is allowed and what's not allowedjust simply because the sport was on the verge of implosion,"Sullivan told a group of engineers and guests here as part ofthe Littelfuse Speed2Design project.
"When you get a bunch of really smart guys with unlimited budgets ina room, exciting things happen but scary things happen," Sullivansaid. "The cost to compete spun out of control."
Sullivan said costs have to be reasonable so that enoughcars can race, thereby creating competitive races that will draw fans and keep sponsorship costs in check. By extension, that makes the engineering of super-sophisticated carsall the more interesting in a world of limited resources.
In
the first of several outtakes from more than an hour of technicalinsights, here's Sullivan talking about the engineering, businessand cultural differences between IndyCar and Formula One:
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