FROM IMAGINATION TO UNVEILING – CREATING THE PANOZ DP01

The Panoz DP01 Champ Car for 2007 was conceived by the design team at Panoz facility in Braselton,Georgia between November 2005 and July 2006. This level of race car takes approximately 20,000 man hours of design (mechanical and aerodynamic) and testing.

The brief was to produce a car that is faster, lighter and safer than the current Champ Car, whilst being substantially cheaper to buy and run.

The rear end layout is still dominated by the huge single turbo from Garrett, and the engine remains as the Cosworth 2.65 turbo V8. The gearbox is an all-new 7-speed unit from Hewland, utilizing some existing Champ Car Hewland shafts and gears to reduce the cost of spares inventory change for the teams.

NEW FEATURES

• The weight regulations should be set at around 1460 lb, current 2006 regulations stipulate 1565lb.
• An onboard starter motor is provided for the first time, in order to cut down on yellow flag time for minor incidents.
• Pneumatic paddle shift is incorporated to keep the level of technology high, and may even reduce the possibility of downshift over revs and missed shifts.

STRUCTURE AND SAFETY

The chassis is a carbon composite structure, with composite bulkheads and roll hoop. As Champ car had decided to use a more up to date collapsible FIA FT3.5 type fuel cell, the rear bulkhead can be molded integrally with the chassis. Which is a first for the Champ Car.

Panoz and Champ Car have collaborated to define the structural/testing regulations for the 2007 Champ Car Series. We have continued the severe side intrusion testing (50% more strain energy than F1), and maintained the double impact frontal crash test (which requires us to dissipate 27% more energy than the single F1 crash requirement.

The F1 quasi-static squeeze tests are employed. The roll hoop is made completely from carbon fiber, and withstands testing loads far higher than any car in North America today.

A new feature to this type of single seat chassis is a cockpit rim upper sill, which effectively strengthens the driver aperture.

The driver is sat more upright in the new Champ Car, to minimize the spinal injury that can occur in rearward impacts due to compression of the spine as the driver rides up the seatback restrained over the shoulders.

The seatback is arranged to incorporate a double set of narrower shoulder straps to specifically accommodate the HANS device and the seatbelts that have been developed around it.

AERODYNAMICS

• The 50% composite wind tunnel model spent 250 hours in an open jet wind tunnel at Moorsville North Carolina.
• Surface design was performed in conjunction with Fluent CFD software at Panoz.
• The underbody was designed with new regulations in mind, to produce the required level of downforce, with less reliance on the front and rear wings for overall downforce levels. This will produce a car which is less susceptible to turbulent wakes in traffic, and hopefully promote closer racing on the track.