“It sounds cliché, however motorsports is the last word proving floor.” That’s Brembo’s Motorsport Division supervisor Mike Messina throughout a latest chat we had with a number of the Brembo crew.
And whereas that assertion could also be couched in a bit of selling aptitude, we have been slightly unprepared for a number of the specifics we realized about Brembo’s capabilities on IMSA’s quickest automobiles. TL;DR: IMSA GTP brake expertise could be very near Formulation 1 brake expertise. Blame–or thank–STEM.
Following the dialog was troublesome, although–not due to the topic however as a result of I used to be busy twiddling with a Brembo GTP-spec caliper and brake pad that they left sitting on the desk throughout our chat. Each items have been impossibly gentle and impossibly rugged trying, however the pads particularly have been onerous to place down as a result of merely dealing with them despatched my mind into bizarre gymnastic making an attempt to reconcile what I used to be taking a look at versus what I used to be feeling.
GTP brake pads are machined from strong blocks of carbon fiber–no backing plates included or wanted–and are about 28 mm thick and 150 mm large. They’re beefy and strong feeling however weigh impossibly little. A equally sized piece of ham would weight twice as a lot as these pads, which most likely clock in on the single digits of ounces.
However don’t let their lack of mass idiot you. These pads, that are paired with carbon rotors, are doing a little critical work, turning the kinetic power of 200 mph race automobiles into warmth throughout a 24-hour race the place drivers will stomp the brake pedal in anger near 4000 instances.
Mike Messina, Brembo Motorsport Division supervisor, reveals us a carbon fiber brake pad employed by IMSA GTP racers. {Photograph} by J.G. Pasterjak.
How a lot warmth? Glad you requested. Through the hottest parts of the race, when ambient temps at Daytona, for instance, can exceed 80° Fahrenheit, observe temps might be 40% greater than that. And if the inexperienced flag has been out for some time, peak temps on the pad/rotor interface can exceed 1500°. That’s scorching sufficient to soften aluminum or magnesium, properly previous the purpose at which zinc melts, and woe be to you if you happen to left any strontium close by, as a result of it’s seemingly historical past, bucko.
But these carbon pads are so thermally environment friendly that far lower than half that warmth conducts by them to achieve the caliper floor.
Your pure follow-up query–and ours: “Properly, simply what number of units of those marvel pads are GTP groups changing through the Rolex 24?”
Certainly a cloth of such low mass, coping with such excessive ranges of friction-based warmth, should be consistently sacrificing itself in service of power switch.
Yeah, no.
“A GTP group [at Daytona] in a carbon/carbon software, over 24 hours, we’ll say they could use 50% of the pad,” Messina tells us. Which is sort of insane given the period of time these bits spend arresting a 2300-pound race automotive from 180+ mph.
Now, GTP automobiles do harvest a few of that kinetic power straight again into the hybrid system, however these pads, rotors and calipers are nonetheless doing most of that work, and for them to barely be dropping half of their mass is astounding.
“Normally, if GTP groups change pads, it will likely be due to a really feel or pedal journey concern associated to put on and pad thickness, not as a result of the pads are in peril of carrying out or dropping effectiveness,” Messina clarifies.
IMSA GTP automobiles pair carbon rotors with these carbon pads. Sorry, however this setup seemingly received’t suit your Miata.
Groups on the IMSA GT facet, which use extra typical supplies within the brake techniques, see a bit extra put on over 24 hours, however Brembo-equipped GT groups nonetheless normally full a 24-hour race at Daytona on two units of pads. These companies will normally be accomplished by swapping out the caliper, rotor and pads as an meeting, a job that takes beneath a minute for a very good crew. That’s due to using dry-break connections and radial-mount calipers, which pop off with only a couple bolts.
Although Brembo techs don’t must cart round a ton of GTP alternative pads, they’re nonetheless within the pits monitoring their clients’ automobiles.
“Motorsport simply exposes us to quite a lot of completely different technical challenges in a compressed timeframe and a compressed demand framework,” Messina says. “It’s not one thing you possibly can realistically duplicate in-house with regards to growth. The calls for in motorsport are consistently being pushed by the groups and the sanctioning our bodies, and we get to be reactive to that atmosphere. There’s so many variables which are simply properly past your management, from circumstances to driver types and talent ranges, that it simply delivers us an enormous profit from motorsport that we might by no means duplicate some other manner.”
Feedback
I am going to by no means be capable of have a look at a GTP automotive the identical manner once more…
In reply to Stueck0514 :
If a set can final 24 hours straight, it does make me marvel how lengthy they’d final on a daily-driven avenue automotive. 
(I do know, completely different mission, completely different automotive, however simply think about if most individuals on the highway by no means needed to change their brake pads.)
In reply to Colin Wooden :
You nearly get that with EV’s, however they’d nonetheless want serviced occasionally to maintain every part lubed up and shifting.
VolvoHeretic stated:
So, one thing just like a House Shuttle warmth sheild tile?
Yeah that was the very first thing that got here to thoughts after we have been chatting. These pads are simply so counterintuitive in so some ways. Like, you decide them up they usually’re nearly impossibly gentle, so you may positively see how they’re glorious insulators, however then your mind cannot reconcile how they will produce and stand up to the sort of friction they have to must generate to make sufficient warmth to sluggish these automobiles down. It is actually spectacular stuff.
I sat subsequent to JG through the roundtable. Sure, the pads have been gentle. And, sure, they have been fairly distracting.
Colin Wooden stated:
If a set can final 24 hours straight, it does make me marvel how lengthy they’d final on a daily-driven avenue automotive.
Most likely about 2 blocks earlier than the automotive by accident runs a crimson gentle as a result of it will not cease with out warmth within the brakes and will get totaled by a beer truck going the opposite manner.
Brembo-equipped GT groups nonetheless normally full a 24-hour race at Daytona on two units of pads. These companies will normally be accomplished by swapping out the caliper, rotor and pads as an meeting, a job that takes beneath a minute for a very good crew. That’s due to using dry-break connections and radial-mount calipers, which pop off with only a couple bolts.
That is the stuff I would like!
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