As is tradition for the team since 2019, the chassis is named after an influential motorsports engineer – Keith Duckworth. Team Principal and team co-owner Adam Blocker described the thought behind naming the car after Duckworth: “Keith Duckworth was one of the most influential engine designers in Formula One history, working in the sport from the 1950s until the late 1990s. In 1958 he co-founded Cosworth with another former Lotus employee Mike Costin with the intention to specialize in race engine design. Duckworth, funded by Ford, led the design of the famous DFV engine in 1967 that would go on to be the most successful engine design in Formula One history, winning 155 wins of 262 races between 1967 and 1985. The engine was the first engine in Formula One to be a stressed member of the chassis, greatly simplifying chassis design and reducing weight. That combined with it’s competitive power output and low price compared to the competition lead to periods in the 1970s where a majority of the grid ran the Ford-Cosworth engine. We’ve decided to name our 2023 car after Keith to honor his contribution to motorsport, and in the hopes that the Duckworth 23 will be half as innovative to the sport of Formula Virtual as Duckworth was to Formula One.” From there, Blocker invited drivers Felix Perez and Stefan Klien to pull the covers off of the Duckworth 23: After a few minutes of picture taking and various team personnel posing with the car, Blocker took over proceedings again to talk about the new car: “First, I have thank all of our partners that made this possible. Many of them, such as Motorcraft, Verizon, 3M, and Pfizer have been with us for a few seasons now. We were also fortunate to pick a few new partners for this year – some other influential American companies in the shape of Delta, AirBnB, and Honeywell. All of them are bringing unique contributions to our team that will help with logistics, fan engagement, on-track performance, or obviously the financial side of things and we couldn’t do it without them. Likewise, I’d be silly to leave out our biggest partner – Ford Motor Company. They’ve supported this project since it started in 2016 and they’ve been through the highs and lows with us here at FIRST. For this season, they evolved on what they had in 2022 with the 180A to create the “Ford FV 180B” powerplant. The 180A was a fresh concept from the ground up last year that had some teething issues, but the engineers at Ford managed to implement a lot of performance and reliability updates throughout the season – that corresponded with FIRST’s push up the grid during the season – and will continue that evolution into this season. As a group we think that there is a lot more potential left in the 180 platform and I’m excited to see how it improves throughout this season. On the chassis side, we have a bit more than just an evolution going on. It’s no secret that we missed the mark at the beginning of 2022, and while everyone in Rock Hill did a great job at recovering what we could from 2022 we weren’t satisfied with where we stood. Early on in 2022 we identified some shortcomings of the Offenhauser 22 that couldn’t be fixed properly until we got a design reset in a new season, which is now. So our hope is that we’ve improved upon our mistakes from last year while also keeping up with the gains our rivals have inevitably made. We won’t find out for sure where we stand until pre-season testing, but for now all of us can enjoy the day that a Formula Virtual goes around Watkins Glen International – one of the fastest and most historic tracks in North America – for the first time. Enjoy everyone! With the introduction complete, Felix Perez strapped into the Duckworth 23 and took it out onto the track for the first time: Felix managed at 1:21.8 as his fastest lap, an unofficial lap record of the Boot layout of Watkins Glen. The Duckworth 23 will be in action next during the official pre-season Formula Virtual testing in March.
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