Fittipaldi FD01: the amazing Brazilian F1

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Brother of the great Emerson Fittipaldi, Wilson Fittipaldi Jr. has always been by his side in motorsports. Since the 1960s, they have both competed together, creating several racing car projects in the process, such as the Fitti-Vê, Fitti-Porsche and the incredible twin-engine Fitti-Fusca, with which they competed in several championships and races in Brazil.

In 1970, however, Emerson shifted his career focus to Europe, when he made his Formula 1 debut as a driver in Lotus’ third car. Soon after, Wilson also headed to Europe, competing in Formula 3 and 2 championships. The good results he achieved allowed him to secure a position as a paid driver with the then powerful Brabham. He competed for the English team between 1972 and 1973, but he became increasingly dissatisfied with the special treatment given to his teammate, the Argentine Carlos Reutemann.

In August 1973, in a meeting with his family, he decided that, with the money he spent on racing, he could build a car to compete in Formula 1 himself. This was the beginning of the first and only Brazilian team to compete in the top category of world motorsports. The Fittipaldi team went through several ups and downs during its time in the sport, starting off tough in 1975, reaching its peak with the great performance of 1978, when it finished ahead of McLaren, Williams, Renault and Arrows in the constructors’ championship, as well as achieving an incredible second place in the Brazilian Grand Prix, going on to buy the team from Walter Wolf and coming to a sad end in 1982. The team has had great names such as drivers Emerson Fittipaldi, Chico Serra, Ingo Hoffmann and Keke Rosberg, as well as renowned designers such as Ricardo Divila, Adrian Newey and Harvey Postlethwaite.

According to Wilsinho, at the beginning only two things were certain: one was that the car would be Brazilian, and the other was that it would be designed by Ricardo Divila (who had already worked with the Fittipaldi brothers on their racing car projects and on modifications to their Formula 2 and 3 cars) with the help of former Lotus mechanic Yoshitori Itoh. It was also decided that the only imported components would be the Ford-Cosworth DFV engines, Goodyear tires, Hewland gearbox and Varga-Girling brakes, as there were no local suppliers capable of producing these types of components. At the beginning Divila, Wilsinho and Itoh formed a company in which they were all partners, and the plan was that a prototype should be built by August 1974, so that it could be tested in Interlagos, Tarumã, Brasília and Goiânia.

To serve as a benchmark for development, a Tyrrell 006 was imported. This model had been competitive in 1972 and 1973 and was designed with the first F1 computer, an incredible HP9825, with 12K of RAM and a 16-character LED display. Initial tests in the wind tunnel indicated that the first model, the FD-01, had less aerodynamic drag and consequently also produced less slipstream compared to the reference model, characteristics that led it to be chosen for the debut.

Another new development was the use of an entirely analog data capture device, a black box weighing approximately 12 kg with a 12-channel cassette recorder. This device collected data on air speed through a pitot tube, steering angle, shock absorber travel and wheel speed, as long as the driver had not driven too aggressively or too frequently over the curbs, which would cause the recording heads to move away from the tape. By plotting the data, a strip of paper full of lines was obtained, which allowed the designer to check the suspension behavior and validate the calculations made. This data capture solution was used only for training, as it would penalize the vehicle in races due to its large size and weight.

The decision to manufacture all possible components in Brazil, although commendable, led to some development problems. For example, to build the monocoque, the workforce was borrowed from Embraer, and although they were professionals trained in working with aluminum, they were specialized in working with sheets with a thickness between 22 and 20 SWG (between 0.711 and 0.914 mm). However, the regulations at the time required that the panels around the fuel tank area be built with 16 SWG sheets (1.626 mm thick). It was then that Divila realized that at this thickness the panels could not use the double curvature technique because the thicker sheet would crack during the process. To allow the sheets to be curved, it would be necessary to apply an annealing treatment to the sheets, which would make them softer, but at the same time remove some of the material’s strength, causing the car to lose some of its structural rigidity (due to this difficulty, most cars at the time had flat panels in this region). Other components also presented challenges during development, such as the design of the knuckles and hubs that were ready and would serve any of the models, as Chico D’Ávila, an employee of Albarus (now Dana) recounted in a statement given in 2004 to the Dana website:

We were already manufacturing CV joints, but we still didn’t have them for racing cars, especially for a Formula 1. The mission, then, was to design a universal joint. We had to design all the components following the exact measurements between the differential (gearbox) and the rear wheels of the Fitti-1. In short, we had to make a new driveshaft – shaft with male notches –, a crosspiece, with a hole in the middle to reduce the weight, plus the normal sleeve, the fork, the driveshaft and flange, plus the design of the assembly.

All of this within the strict criteria of not exceeding the weight limit of 6 kilos on each of the two half-shafts (one on each side of the gearbox), respecting the immutable physical space defined between the differential and the rear wheels of the Fitti-1.

The first driveshaft assembly was based on components from Willys Rural and Jeep vehicles, but they were not approved. They were too fragile to withstand the engine torque. We redid the calculations, but this time with very important information about the driveshafts’ resistance, which Fittipaldi had not provided. Among them, a vital piece of information regarding the car’s entry into certain curves, when more than 80% of the engine’s capacity is transferred to a single wheel.

Aware of the phenomenon, we began using the driveshaft and other components from the Ford F-100 pickup, which were already reinforced to withstand higher torque. We obviously had to adapt them to reach the weight limit, because as the torque capacity increases, the driveshaft grows in size. It worked – and the parts are still there today, embedded in the Fitti 1.

It was also decided that the mechanics would be as reliable as possible, with the suspension using coil springs instead of torsion bars (which were becoming common in F1), with two triangular arms at the front and a simple upper arm and two parallel lower arms with two tensioners at the rear, but with an inboard installation in a pull-rod configuration (where elements such as springs and shock absorbers are mounted inside the monocoque, instead of the conventional system we have in cars, where these components are close to the wheels.

By July 1974, the project was almost ready, the only difference being that the radiators were placed in a more conventional lateral position, similar to the FD-02. The main objective of the FD-01 was to have a fast car on straights, and to this end, several innovative solutions were adopted in order to reduce aerodynamic drag. First, the elevated air intakes (1) that were becoming common at the time were abandoned, sacrificing a gain in power through the ram-air effect, but reducing the frontal area (and consequently the aerodynamic resistance), so that the final model was only 93 cm tall, with the driver in a more inclined position, of about 30 degrees, which resulted in a position 6 cm lower than any other contemporary single-seater, at a time when the minimum distance required between the top of the roll bar and the top of the helmet was only 2 cm, a feature that made it safer than any other competitor in the event of a rollover.

Furthermore, a more aggressive configuration was adopted for the positioning of the radiators: instead of having the radiators mounted laterally (2nd), Divila decided to position them at the rear of the car (2b). This solution reappeared years later in the Ford Probe IV concept car and aimed to reduce the frontal area and allow for a slimmer design, in order to avoid the detachment of the boundary layer of the airflow and reduce aerodynamic drag due to turbulence. On the other hand, the car weighed 590 kg, 15 kg more than the minimum required by the FIA, with two kilograms of this excess being due to the copper radiators, which were heavier than the aluminum ones, but also more efficient, and necessary for the exotic configuration.

However, this rear radiator configuration presented challenges in ensuring good cooling. To ensure good airflow, solutions were adopted such as NACA-style intakes with rear air diverters (3) and the pioneering use of what are now called chimneys or funnels (4), to direct the engine exhaust in such a way as to improve the extraction of hot air from the side oil coolers through the suction effect (this solution would only appear again in the Ferrari F2002, considered one of the best racing cars in history).

There was still a need for a major sponsor, which was also secured in July with the support of Copersucar, which, despite not promoting the sale of any specific product with the sponsorship, had, according to its president Jorge Wolney Atalla, the objective of promoting technological capacity and industrial development in Brazil. According to rumors, however, Atalla’s interest was the nationalist appeal surrounding the first Brazilian F-1, as he wanted to direct this appeal to the cooperative he ran and which, according to Brazilian laws at the time, could not continue to operate because a cooperative should be formed by individuals and not by legal companies like Copersucar. Cooperatives benefited from many tax breaks and exemptions, in addition to subsidies, especially after the start of Proalcool.

Until then, the following Brazilian companies had contributed to the project: Embraer (wind tunnel and monocoque manufacturing), Albarus (half shafts and universal joints), Eutectic (special welds), Gemmer (steering box), Ifesteel (special tools), Italmagnesio (Wheels and castings), Fabrini (spiral springs), RCN (radiators), SKF (bearings), Trivelato (workshop truck), Villares (special steels) and Uniroyal (special rubber tanks).

In September 1975, the final model was finally chosen as the fastest on a straight line, and was named FD-01 (F for Fittipaldi and D for Divila), as was the team leader, the famous Jo Ramirez. The car was finally presented in the Black Room of the Federal Senate, in the presence of the then president General Ernesto Geisel, with a nationalization index of 75%. In October, the car was finally ready and in November it went for the first track tests, which proved that the car did not overheat at low speeds. However, it was noticed that the engine did not exceed 7000 rpm due to a problem with the fuel injection. When the problem was finally solved, the car began to overheat, which was later resolved.

Finally, 1975 arrived and, contrary to many pessimistic predictions, the car, driver (Wilsinho) and team were ready to compete in the Argentine GP. However, this was just the beginning of the problems: during Friday’s practice sessions, the aluminum bypass water tank broke, causing fluid loss and consequently overheating the engine. The car started to oversteer when changing gears, and the rear tire was mounted backwards, which was noticed after the car oversteered on the left-hand curves. On Saturday, the best time was 2m00s93, 39 hundredths above the limit of 110% of the pole-position time, and to make matters worse, Wilsinho had completed 21 laps so far. But he returned to the track and clocked 2m00s22, saving the team’s debut. There was time for another fuel supply problem to appear and the team tried to change the pressure valves, but the problem persisted, and the clutch collar also broke. Despite all these setbacks, it was still possible to enter the fourth and final session, and on the first lap the car stopped on the track because the battery was flat. The warm-up was left on Sunday morning to get the car running, and so far in four practice sessions the car had completed only 33 laps. Once again, difficulties arose: problems began to occur with the new engine’s fuel supply, which forced a return to the pits to put back the engine from Friday, which had not had this problem. This was complemented by a review of all components, where it was discovered that the electric pump was missing a valve, causing a lack of fuel pressure. At this point the warm-up was over and Wilsinho would have to go to the track with no time to adjust the car. Until then, the only problems presented were due to the imported components.

At the start, Wilsinho was in last place and was racing when they noticed the car’s best time: 1’57”86, 2”36 faster than the best time in practice. Unfortunately, on the 13th lap, the self-locking differential broke and Wilsinho spun on a curve and hit the guardrail, where the car slowly caught fire. This was the FD-01’s first and only competition, because for the second stage in Interlagos, the team decided to use the FD-02 model with a more conventional design.

In 2002, Dana, in partnership with the Fittipaldi brothers, began to rescue the history of the Fittipaldi team, with the first step being to restore the FD-01. The restoration work required the car to be disassembled and completely overhauled, in addition to the restoration of the cockpit, which was built in aluminum. In terms of mechanics, the rear suspension was rebuilt and the front suspension overhauled, new radiators were produced and all wear parts in the gearbox were replaced. The Cosworth DFV engine received all of its main wear components, purchased from Cosworth itself. And the paintwork, which follows the official track standard, was redone by renowned designer Sid Mosca.

Restoration of the FD-01, a commendable initiative by the Dana Group.

The drive system originally used in the car was manufactured by Dana and during the restoration process, the two driveshafts received special care. After being removed from the car, they were sent to Dana’s facilities to be restored by the same people responsible for their project thirty years ago. In an emotional statement, transcribed in full, Wilsinho describes his feelings upon seeing the restored FD-01, in a statement given at the time of the restoration:

In the 20 years since I left Formula 1, many things have happened and countless thoughts have crossed my mind. However, given the surprises that life always has in store for us, one of the most unlikely dreams was exactly what I am achieving now. Having the opportunity to remember each moment, meet up with old friends and show, in Brazil and abroad, the seriousness of the work we do with the Fittipaldi Formula 1 Team, is one of the strongest and most profound emotions of my life.

I feel like I am back at the 1975 Argentine GP, when we first lined up our car in Formula 1. I am reminded of the beginning of my career at Interlagos, the prototypes we created, the difficulties we faced and, above all, the satisfaction of knowing that, with that boldness, we placed Brazil in the small group of countries capable of mastering the most advanced technology in world motorsports.

But I also can’t help but remember the pain and disappointment when the team closed in 1982. The harsh criticism from the press at the time, the merry-go-round of hopes and disappointments in the search for sponsorships and, at the end of it all, the terrible feeling of having to face reality and move forward in life, even though I didn’t know what to do, what to think or which way to go. Because of all this, I can assure you that the emotion I felt in November 2004, when I restored our first car and put it back in Interlagos, was even greater than the one I felt when I first lined it up in Buenos Aires.

Since then, the car has participated in several events throughout the country, in a fair tribute to what it represented in the history of motorsports and even the national industry.

Sources:

http://www.dana.com.br/cultural/nossos_projetos.asp?idTag=381&idProjeto=828. Acess in: 2013.

http://angolaoffroad.livreforum.com/formula-1-f16/fittipaldi-t199.htm. Acess in: 2013.

http://www2.uol.com.br/bestcars/colunas2/c175.htm. Acess in: 2013.

http://autoracing.virgula.uol.com.br/show_cars.php?t=Veja%20o%20FITTIPALDI%20FD%2001%20completamente%20restaurado%2014/10/2004&id=162. Acess in: 2013.

http://lemyrmartins.com.br/blog/?p=210. Acess in: 2013.

http://www.dana.com.br/cultural/nossos_projetos.asp?idTag=381&idProjeto=828. Acess in: 2013.

Pushrod-Pullrod, disponível em: http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/pushrod_pullrod.html. Acess in: 23/02/2016.

Chimney or Funnel, disponível em: http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/chimney.html. Acess in: 23/02/2016.

Galpin, Darren,The FD0”X” Fittipaldi Years – Innovation despite the results, Available ar: http://www.dlg.speedfreaks.org/archive/2003/fittipaldi.pdf. Acess in: 27/02/2016.

Imagens

[1]: From Formula Total. Available at: https://formulatotal.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/a-resposta-do-desafio-gp-jarama-1978-sera/. Acess in: 22/02/2016.

[2] From Flatout. Available at: http://www.flatout.com.br/o-incrivel-fusca-flat-8-de-dois-motores-dos-irmaos-fittipaldi/. Acess in: 22/02/2016.

[3] Personal Archive.

[4] From HP Museum. Available at: http://www.hpmuseum.org/9825.jpg. Acess in: 27/02/2016.

[5] Adapted from: Formula 1 Dictionary e Jonhston Automotive. Available at: http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/pushrod_pullrod.html e http://www.johnstonsautomotive.com/suspension-repair-phoenix.html. Acess in: 27/02/2016.

[6] Adapted from: Allphacoders e Dogfight Mag. Available at: https://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=270730 e http://www.dogfightmag.com/forum/showthread.php?340-F-1-images….50-s-60-s-amp-70-s./page12. Data de acesso: 24/02/2016.

[7] Adaped from: Grande Premio. Available at: http://flaviogomes.grandepremio.uol.com.br/2009/11/do-saco-de-maldades-2/. Acess in: 23/02/2016.

[8] Adapted from: Grande Premio. Available at: http://flaviogomes.grandepremio.uol.com.br/2009/02/ao-vento/. Acess in: 2013.

[9] From: GP Expert. Available at: http://www.gpexpert.com.br/2010/02/historia-da-fittipaldi-parte-33.html. Acess in: 2013.

[10] From F1 Stats. Available at: http://www.statsf1.com/pt/copersucar-fd01.aspx. Acess in: 2013.

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