LOLA INDYCAR Q&A WITH PETER McCOOL – HEAD OF LOLA SPECIAL PROJECTS

Lola today reveal fresh imagery of their 2012 IndyCars. Due to high interest and requests from the US open wheel racing fraternity, Lola, the worlds most prolific and successful race car constructor has released additional renders of its B12/00 and B12/01 IndyCars.

Head of Special Projects, Peter McCool gives further detail on the proposed Lola IndyCars for 2012.

How will the Lola IndyCars improve the race action?

“After safety, improving the show is the next prime focus for our Special Projects team. The majority of the downforce will be generated by a large central underbody, this allows us to reduce the size of the front and rear wings creating downforce, which is less susceptible to variations when following another car closely. Lola are drawing upon their vast experience of open wheel design to ensure the cars look both spectacular and race in a close and exciting fashion.

“The Lola aerodynamics team have utilised their experience in many areas, particularly the underbody design to find a minimum wake solution to promote more overtaking. In essence what happens in the air coming from the back of a race car at speed is, you tend to get two vortex rings falling off the back end of the car. The Lola IndyCar will almost eliminate these forces via the underbody design and rear wing endplates at the back of the car. This, as our CFD study already shows, will minimise the wake and make its effect more manageable. Above all though it promotes better racing all-round, particularly in terms of giving ‘racing power’ back to the driver.”

How will Lola ensure that the dual body styles are performance matched?

“The main reason for choosing one Lola bodywork configuration over the other would be a preference for the visual variety.

“How it will work practically is that Lola will match the configurations in the wind tunnel across the entire ride height range to ensure parity. It is most probable that the team’s engineers will try very hard to get an advantage from one kit or the other, but there will be means, of policing that action. Lola has also designed a series of sized and configured aero blockers for the underbody that can be stipulated at a particular race venue. These will have the purpose of varying the downforce where required, but also ensure that one design does not gain an advantage over the other.”

All pictures Lola Heritage.