From Cosworth
Last month’s exciting finale to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship marked the end of Cosworth’s first year back in the sport as an engine supplier following a three year absence.
The Northamptonshire engineering enjoyed a 100% race reliability with the Cosworth CA2010 engine.
With 1,129 laps and 5,795km racing over 19 races, the Cosworth CA2010 engines supplied to AT&T Williams, Virgin Racing, HRT and Lotus Racing amassed over 100,000kms of race weekend running.
The competitiveness of the engine was also noted, helping Williams to make steady progress with the Williams Cosworth FW32 package during the season to finish the year in 6th place in the Constructors’ World Championship.
On top of Cosworth’s return as an engine supplier, the company’s electronics division continued to develop its long standing business activity in Formula One, supplying complete solutions to both HRT and Lotus, and steering wheels to all three of the new teams.
Qestions & Answers with Mark Gallagher – Cosworth General Manager F1 Business Unit
Question: Mark, what is Cosworth’s assessment of the 2010 season?
Mark Gallagher: “We achieved all our key operational objectives from an engine supply perspective, providing our four customers – one third of the grid – with a competitive, reliable and affordable Cosworth CA2010 engine supported trackside by a dedicated team of technicians embedded within the teams, and backed up in Northampton by the personnel in engineering, manufacturing, build, test and operations. From a business perspective the season went well; we spent money where we needed to and we achieved the profitability required to continue investing in the programme. The relationships with our customers were good, and have developed well – so we can look back on the season with a good degree of satisfaction.”
Question: Did the engine perform as expected?
Mark Gallagher: “The Cosworth CA2010 was created in a very few months using the original CA2006 as the baseline, but revising it to produce peak power within a rev limit of 18,000rpm, a much extended duty cycle of up to three full race weekends, and fuel consumption correspondent with the ban on refuelling and increased emphasis on start-weights. I believe our engineers did an outstanding job. The engine performed very well in pre-season dyno-testing, but we knew that once it would hit the track we would need to optimise its performance more fully. The fact that pre-season testing was rain affected, and that only one of our four customers took part in all the tests, rather limited the gathering of useful data. Once we started racing we had a couple of issues which, while not ‘show stoppers’, necessitated some action to revise the oil system and tackle slightly higher than expected power degradation. I am pleased to say the issues were quickly identified and tack led. Obviously we had an initial pool of engines already with the teams and it took a little time to cycle rebuilds through the system to revise specifications, but at no stage was the programme compromised and the best measure of that was total race reliability.”
Last month’s exciting finale to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship marked the end of Cosworth’s first year back in the sport as an engine supplier following a three year absence.
The Northamptonshire engineering enjoyed a 100% race reliability with the Cosworth CA2010 engine.
With 1,129 laps and 5,795km racing over 19 races, the Cosworth CA2010 engines supplied to AT&T Williams, Virgin Racing, HRT and Lotus Racing amassed over 100,000kms of race weekend running.
The competitiveness of the engine was also noted, helping Williams to make steady progress with the Williams Cosworth FW32 package during the season to finish the year in 6th place in the Constructors’ World Championship.
On top of Cosworth’s return as an engine supplier, the company’s electronics division continued to develop its long standing business activity in Formula One, supplying complete solutions to both HRT and Lotus, and steering wheels to all three of the new teams.
Qestions & Answers with Mark Gallagher – Cosworth General Manager F1 Business Unit
Question: Mark, what is Cosworth’s assessment of the 2010 season?
Mark Gallagher: “We achieved all our key operational objectives from an engine supply perspective, providing our four customers – one third of the grid – with a competitive, reliable and affordable Cosworth CA2010 engine supported trackside by a dedicated team of technicians embedded within the teams, and backed up in Northampton by the personnel in engineering, manufacturing, build, test and operations. From a business perspective the season went well; we spent money where we needed to and we achieved the profitability required to continue investing in the programme. The relationships with our customers were good, and have developed well – so we can look back on the season with a good degree of satisfaction.”
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| Team Williams' Patrick Head with Cosworth's Mark Gallagher (Photo: Cosworth) |
Question: Did the engine perform as expected?
Mark Gallagher: “The Cosworth CA2010 was created in a very few months using the original CA2006 as the baseline, but revising it to produce peak power within a rev limit of 18,000rpm, a much extended duty cycle of up to three full race weekends, and fuel consumption correspondent with the ban on refuelling and increased emphasis on start-weights. I believe our engineers did an outstanding job. The engine performed very well in pre-season dyno-testing, but we knew that once it would hit the track we would need to optimise its performance more fully. The fact that pre-season testing was rain affected, and that only one of our four customers took part in all the tests, rather limited the gathering of useful data. Once we started racing we had a couple of issues which, while not ‘show stoppers’, necessitated some action to revise the oil system and tackle slightly higher than expected power degradation. I am pleased to say the issues were quickly identified and tack led. Obviously we had an initial pool of engines already with the teams and it took a little time to cycle rebuilds through the system to revise specifications, but at no stage was the programme compromised and the best measure of that was total race reliability.”