Racing toward relevance: at the prodding of the FIA, automakers are finally opening their eyes to the true costs of Formula One, and its need for relevance in terms of fuel efficiency and safety.

"You can't stop manufacturers from spending more money, all you can do is make it less and less worthwhile for them to do so," says Peter Wright, technical advisor for the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the governing body of international motorsport. The balance of money spent--some Formula One teams reportedly are spending nearly half a billion dollars per year, with most dropping more than $150 million each year--entertainment value and sport is a constant problem for racing and the sanctioning bodies that control it. It's also a problem for the manufacturers competing in the series.

Take the near-constant wind tunnel testing that takes place in an aerodynamically constrained series like F1. Is it necessary? "All of the real work is going on inside of computers these days," Wright says, "so things like the round-the-clock wind tunnel work tends to be checking the CFD [computational fluid dynamics] models and looking at the interactions it isn't particularly good at." In short, it is a lot of money chasing very little gain. The same is true of engine development.

"Cosworth spent about $20 million to design and develop its new grand prix engine, while certain other teams spent upwards of $200 million on theirs," he says. Judging from pre-season testing and early season performance, the small independent engine maker from Northampton, England produced the best engine for the least amount of money. And that means the $180-million difference was effectively wasted.

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"That's a lot of money--shareholder money--and you have to ask yourself what that difference is being spent on and whether anyone realizes this is taking place." According to Wright, an increasing number of company CFOs are starting to understand and ask questions. Heretofore, the heads of the racing programs and the engineers had been enjoying themselves.

As a result, teams think nothing of carving an engine from billet--an exercise that gives a very precise wall thickness, stable material properties, and that can run non-stop--or having a bill of materials of $250,000 per engine. "In the end, however," Wright cautions, "there is so little in it that is in common with a road vehicle that it has no real value to the manufacturer." Or, for that matter, to the customer who buys the cars that are sold under a banner of "race-proven" technical innovation.

Certainly Renault, winner of the 2005 driver's and manufacturer's world championships, has discovered the limitations of its motorsports involvement. Despite a crushing performance that relegated most of its competition to also rans, broke the five-year domination of both Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, and gave Spaniard Fernando Alonso the title of youngest F1 champion ever, Renault sales stayed flat or declined slightly in markets around the world--including Spain. This disconnect has caused Renault CEO Carlos Chosn to call for a review of the company's Formula One commitment on a year-to-year basis. And while competing successfully inevitably says something--though exactly what is unclear--about an automaker's ability to battle with the best in the business, "The marketing departments aren't interested in anything they don't already have in their product lineup. Suggest that they may have hydrogen-powered hybrids in 10 years," says Wright wryly, "and they'll say: 'Hold on. I can't think that far ahead.'"

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The FIA, however, can. Over the longer term, it's expected that the FIA will propose an engine formula that limits the amount of air and fuel in an attempt to increase efficiency. It is a technology the FIA believes is of interest to manufacturers, politicians--who might take a jaundiced view of racing if a major fuel crisis hits--spectators, and consumers. Prior to that change, slated for 2011, the FIA will introduce an energy storage regulation. "We probably would introduce a storage device that we would provide to the teams as a module," says Wright, "and leave it to them to devise the electrical system for it."

The FIA's interest also extends well beyond engines and costs. After the death of former World Champion Ayrton Senna in the 1994 San Marion Grand Prix, safety improvements took center stage. Barrier crashes--starting at 40 m/sec. though increased recently--were introduced, as were a number of safety features validated through this testing. "From data, statistics, and experiments," says Wright, "we know that if a car is protective in the test, the driver is protected in reality. The relevance to road cars is the understanding of injury mechanisms, which is becoming a very big part of the research we are doing." Out of this work--at the track and in the lab--come more complete mathematical models of the human body and its crash response that are being shared with researchers around the world. Racing, it seems, really can improve the breed.

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By Christopher A. Sawyer, Executive Editor

RELATED ARTICLE: Who Is Peter Wright?

Peter Wright began at working with BRM's F1 race team in 1967 ("A fantastic education."), then moved to Specialized Mouldings--a pioneer in composite bodywork for racing cars--where he worked in composites, built a wind tunnel and ran the aerodynamic design function before moving on to Lotus where he rejoined his former BRM boss Tony Rudd. Tapped by Rudd to, "Do some aerodynamics in your spare time," Wright--along with Rudd and Lotus founder Colin Chapman--discovered and harnessed the power of ground effects by reshaping the underside of a Formula One car, then was shuffled off to Team Lotus where he developed Chapman's nascent active suspension brainstorm into a race winner. After time as Lotus Engineering's managing director, it was back to Team Lotus as it tried to stave off its demise, then off to the FIA as technical advisor for F1 and GT racing. Wright also is president of the FIA Safety Commission. Given his full slate, it's not unusual to discover that Wright spends little time at the races. "I go to enough races to keep in touch with everything," he says. Still, as one who spent most of the weekends of his youth at race tracks, Wright describes his current position this way: "Fortunately, it's a fairly office-based activity."