working 24/7 for four months, all 88 people. Everyone has been going flat out to produce parts. Motorsport has gone through this funny period where, over the last three years, everyone has de- stocked, run resources down, kept overheads and personnel levels very low, then suddenly we are looking for outsourcing, and you just can’t get it at the moment. It has been a nightmare.’
Engine location is not stressed, but is supported by a triangulated structure that picks up on the bellhousing
Martin. ‘Maybe we should have gone more slowly into it, maybe we could have put an interim engine in the back or just bought an engine whilst we develop the six, but all of those things cost extra cash. And sometimes in life you have to make commitments about things. We utilised all of our resources to their capacity and maybe a bit more than our
COMPANY PHILOSOPHY But it seems that the AMR-One programme is coming out the other side of its early problems. Rival manufacturers’ technical staff go out of their way to point out that the other two works teams probably have the same issues at this stage of their programmes, but they do it in private. Aston Martin Racing is ironing out the bugs and getting the car right before it releases it to customers. ‘The philosophy of everything
we do, and the way we work it across every project we have ever worked on at Prodrive, is that we never hand over a car to customers unless we have operated it ourselves for a period of time. By the time it goes to them, the specification is sealed, there is no change. If the customer wants to make changes it is up to them, but we will not
sometimes in life you
have to make commitments about things
Being an in-line configuration rather than a V, engine layout is asymmetrical, with the plenum on the right-hand side and exhaust on the left
lead set by Nick Wirth’s Acura ARX-02 on running much wider rims. ‘That was an interesting one because it’s obviously a function of what you are going to do weight distribution-wise,’ reveals Howard-Chappell. ‘There is a drag penalty for the bigger tyres, and the main factor in the decision to use them was that the other two big teams were going that route, so that’s where the tyre manufacturers’ development is going to go. We didn’t want to spec something where we would be left behind. This car has got at least a three-year life and we
need to be getting the latest tyres on it to be competitive.’
RELIABILITY ISSUES The AMR-One had a difficult introduction, with testing and its early races blighted with reliability issues but, while the team is disappointed, it admits to not being entirely surprised. It is, after all, the first car Prodrive has developed fully from the ground up, rather than basing it on a pre- existing design (such as with the Aston Martin DBR9). ‘It is a big step,’ admitted David Richards, chairman of Prodrive and Aston
capacity.’ Undertaking the project at a time when the company was fully engaged in the design and development of the MINI WRC may have been too ambitious too, according to Richards. ‘If there is one issue that has compromised this, it is the fact that the two programmes have been running in parallel. It wasn’t about the design side, it was about when we came to manufacturing. Over the last three months we have had a big fight for resources. All our capacity was taken and, at the same time, all of the Formula 1 teams are looking for spare capacity as well, so we couldn’t outsource anything. Our composites division has been
do any further changes after that point in time. Consequently, what you see in the GT2 cars is a product we have developed and handed over and, to be fair, we have not run that car enough ourselves, certainly not compared to the GT1 car which, when you see it in the World Championship, doesn’t require putting a spanner on it. It just runs and runs. The GT4 car is the same and the new GT3 will be run by ourselves until the end of the year. It is the same with the LMP cars.’ Just six examples are being built, and all of them have been sold ahead of time, such is the lure of a genuine Aston Martin Le Mans racer.
Le Mans •
www.racecar-engineering.com
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