Engine developments

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Engine Developments Limited is a British engine manufacturer in motorsport . It was founded in 1971 by John Judd and Jack Brabham . The company is best known for its engine brand Judd . The company manufactured racing engines for Formula 1 , Formula 3000 and a few other classes. Judd worked as a service provider for Nissan , Honda and Yamaha .

formula 1

Judd Motors

Engine Developments found its way into Formula 1 in 1988 , the last year of the so-called turbo era. Up until 1992, two different eight-cylinder engines and one ten-cylinder engine were developed under the Judd brand, which were primarily used by medium-sized and small teams. One exception was Williams , the 1987 world championship team , which was in a phase of transition in 1988 after long-term motor partner Honda had left , and which bridged the year until the new Renault engines with engines from John Judd were ready for use.

Judd CV

Nigel Mansell in a Williams FW12 with Judd CV engine at the 1988 Canadian Grand Prix

The first Formula 1 engine from Engine Developments was named Judd CV . The engine was based on a construction called BV, which in turn had its roots in an engine for the Formula 3000. The development took place with the financial support of Leyton House, the sponsor of the 1987 re-established March team ; later also Williams contributed to the development costs. The CV was a comparatively simple eight-cylinder naturally aspirated engine with a displacement of 3.5 liters and a fork angle of 90 degrees. The engine was more powerful than the widespread DFZ naturally aspirated engines from Cosworth , but proved to be prone to failure and was again inferior to the newer Cosworth DFR units .

In 1988, the last year of turbo engines, cars with Judd engines earned a total of 22 world championship points; the most successful Judd team was March, whose driver Ivan Capelli was able to achieve podium positions in Belgium and Portugal . However, the season was more disappointing for Williams. Although Nigel Mansell was able to take second place in his home races in Great Britain and Spain , he dropped out in the other races he contested. His team-mate Riccardo Patrese , however, did not achieve any podium positions this year.

The Judd CV was replaced in 1989 by the completely redesigned type EV. EuroBrun Racing used the CV until 1990 , but without success. In the 1989 season, Gregor Foitek and Oscar Larrauri , who shared the team's only cockpit, did not go beyond pre-qualification in any race. In 1990 the experienced Roberto Moreno succeeded in pre-qualifying four times and even qualifying for the race twice, but in the remaining races he failed, as did his teammate Claudio Langes , in the pre-qualification.

The deployment of the Lotus team, which launched its 101 in 1989, was more successful . The former world champion Nelson Piquet was able to place the car regularly in the points. However, he did not manage to finish on the podium, so he left the team at the end of the season, and Lotus also ended the collaboration with Judd after the season was over.

Judd EV

In 1989 the Judd EV appeared , a compact eight-cylinder with a fork angle of 76 degrees, which was more powerful than its predecessor. Brabham and Leyton House / March purchased the EV engine, and each team came third with it in 1989. Brabham (eight) and March (four) could not surpass the total of 15 championship points scored this year by the Lotus team with the older CV.

The EV was the most advanced Judd engine in the following season. Leyton House was the most successful Judd team in 1990 with seven championship points. The highlight was Ivan Capelli's second place in the French Grand Prix . However, Brabham struggled this season and only reached two championship points.

The last time the EV was used was in the 1991 season at Lotus, whose use of Lamborghini twelve-cylinder engines had been disappointing in the previous year. The performance of the Lotus 102B with Judd engine was hardly better, with a total of three championship points, and the drivers often failed to qualify for the races.

Judd GV

BMS Scuderia Italia 191 from 1991, equipped with a Judd GV engine

Engine Developments' third Formula 1 engine was the Judd GV , introduced in 1991 , a ten-cylinder engine with a fork angle of 72 degrees. The GV was powerful and helped the Italian team BMS Scuderia Italia , which used a chassis from Dallara and received the new Judd engine exclusively this year, to finish eighth in the constructors' championship. This result, however, came about through two finishings in the points: JJ Lehto's third place at the San Marino Grand Prix and his teammate Emanuele Pirro's sixth place at the subsequent Monaco Grand Prix . In the remaining races, however, the team performed much worse: Lehto dropped out in eleven of 16 races of the season, while Pirro was more consistent in the second half of the season, but missed the pre-qualification three times in the first.

In the following year , the GV ran only at Andrea Moda Formula and Brabham, two teams that were fighting for their existence, could not adequately convert the power of the engine and both stopped racing during the season. For the 1993 season a use of the GV with the Spanish team Bravo España was planned; That did not happen because the team withdrew their report shortly before the first race of the season.

Technical data of the Judd engines

engine Judd CV Judd EV Judd GV
Cylinder arrangement V 8 V 8 V 10
Cylinder angle 90 degrees 76 degrees 72 degrees
Cubic capacity cm³ 3497 3498 3497
Bore mm 94 95 92
Stroke mm 63 61.7 52.6
Engine block aluminum aluminum aluminum
Main bearing number 5 5 k. A.
Valves per cylinder 4th 4th 4th
Mixture preparation Zytek petrol injection Zytek petrol injection Weber-Marelli petrol injection
horsepower 600 610 660
Usage period 1988-1990 1989-1991 1991-1992

Connection with Yamaha

From Judd: Yamaha OX10A for Tyrrell
1995
Tyrrell 023 with a Yamaha engine: Ukyō Katayama at the 1995 British Grand Prix

From 1993 Engine Developments produced Formula 1 engines for Yamaha . The Japanese company had initially developed and built its own Formula 1 engines, which were initially completely unsuccessful (such as the eight-cylinder engine, which was used exclusively by Zakspeed in 1989 ) and later, when they had become ambitious twelve-cylinder engines, at Brabham ( 1991) and introduced only minor results in Jordan (1992).

At the end of 1992, Yamaha and Engine Developments formed a joint venture to build Formula 1 engines. In fact, the development and construction largely took place at Engine Developments, while Yamaha contributed individual ideas and largely financed the project.

The ten-cylinder engine of the type Yamaha OX10A presented in 1993 was a further development of the Judd GV; the essential data matched those of the ten-cylinder engine used for the first time in 1991. Several further developments followed before the engine was replaced by the OX11A in the 1996 Formula 1 season.

In the years 1993 to 1996 Tyrrell received the Yamaha engines exclusively. The fact that the engines were provided free of charge saved the existence of the traditional team during these years. With the exception of the first year, Tyrrell-Yamaha was able to collect several championship points in each season, but it did not come to the hoped-for breakthrough. The best result of the partnership was Mark Blundell's third place at the Spanish Grand Prix in 1994. It would be the last podium finish for a Tyrrell. 1997 received Arrows Yamaha engines exclusively. The team was seen as emerging as Tom Walkinshaw took over leadership and Damon Hill , the 1996 Formula 1 world champion, was signed as a driver. At the unusual 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix, the Arrows-Yamaha almost won, but on the penultimate lap of the race, a technical defect caused Hill to fall back to second behind Jacques Villeneuve . However, there were no other notable successes, Hill and his team-mate Pedro Diniz otherwise only achieved one more point placement each.

At the end of the 1997 season, Yamaha discontinued its Formula 1 program.

Formula 1 teams with engines from Engine Developments

season Judd CV V8 Judd EV V8 Judd GV V10 Yamaha OX10 V10 Yamaha OX11 V10
1988 Williams
Ligier
Leyton House
- - - -
1989 Lotus
EuroBrun Racing
Leyton House
Brabham
- - -
1990 EuroBrun
Life Racing
Leyton House
Brabham
- - -
1991 - lotus BMS Scuderia Italia - -
1992 - - Andrea Moda Formula
Brabham
- -
1993 - - - Tyrrell -
1994 - - - Tyrrell -
1995 - - - Tyrrell -
1996 - - - - Tyrrell
1997 - - - - Arrows

Other motorsport classes

Judd AV for the Champ Car series

Judd also supplied engines for the Formula 3000 for years . The engines, known as Judd BV, were based on a Honda design that Judd developed over the years. The F3000 division was taken over by Zytek in the 1990s .

In the US Champ Car series, Judd was represented with an engine known as AV from 1986 to 1992 . This was initially marketed as a Honda product , then referred to as Brabham-Honda at the beginning of the following year due to the connection with the driver Geoff Brabham , but then ran as Judd. Brabham and other drivers like Raul Boesel and Scott Pruett were able to show some podium finishes during this time, but more successful was Bobby Rahal , who achieved the only victory of this engine in the Pocono IndyCar 500 in 1988 and this year finished third in the championship. From 1989 onwards, however, this engine had a significant performance deficit and could only score sporadically.

Over the years Judd was also very strongly represented in the sports prototypes and cooperated there with greats such as Pescarolo Sport or Racing for Holland . In 2000 a Ferrari 333SP was converted to a Judd engine.

Judd V8 engine in Georg Plasa's BMW E82

Judd engines were also used in vehicles that participated in hill climbs. The best-known representative was the German racing driver Georg Plasa , who set various course records with Judd V8 engines . He had a fatal accident on July 10, 2011 with his self-built BMW-134 -Judd-V8.

literature

  • Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing. Cars, tracks and pilots. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 .
  • David Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945 , 1st edition Stuttgart (Motorbuch Verlag) 1993.
  • Mike Lawrence: The engine ABC. Mike Lawrence visits the Englishman John Judd . In: Motorsport aktuell, issue 51/1987, p. 16 f.

Web links

Commons : Judd racing automobile engines  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Motorsport aktuell, issue 51/1987.
  2. Sport Auto, issue 5/1995. Presentation of Engine Developments and Yamaha.
  3. Motorsport aktuell, issue 51/1987, p. 16 f.
  4. What is a Judd engine? In: Motorzentrale.de - The magazine! July 25, 2018, accessed October 15, 2019 .