ABB in Formula 1, a first attempt with the Comprex

ABB, the acronym for Asea Brown Boveri, was created in 1988 from the merger of Asea AB of Sweden and BBC Brown Boveri Ltd. of Switzerland. The company, which operates in more than 100 countries and employs approximately 136,000 people today, is involved mainly in robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment, and automation technology areas.

The original company, BBC Brown Boveri, was founded back in 1891 and produced electric motors, generators, turbines and transformers.

When Mauro Forghieri designed the first turbo-engined Ferrari in 1980, he had this idea to produce two version of the car: one powered by a traditional twin turbine, and the other fed by a innovative compressor, the Comprex device produced by BBC.

The technology consisted of a pressure wave supercharger, which used the pressure waves produced by an internal combustion engine exhaust gas pulses to compress the intake air. The waves emitted by the exhaust gas entered a cylindrical cell rotor driven by the engine crankshaft via a belt. The fresh air was compressed inside the rotor, and then flew inside the combustion chambers. This is an extremely simplified explanation of how it worked.

The infamous turbo lag

Forghieri was very interested in the Comprex technology because on paper, this would get rid of the infamous turbo lag, the delay in throttle response that was a characteristic - and a big problem - of the turbo engines at the time.

With the Comprex device, the energy exchange inside the rotor was carried out at the speed of sound, which was believed to eliminate the lag. Therefore, the V6 engine was supposed to react almost instantly to the throttle applications, resulting in better accelerations out of the corners.

A 1.5-litre V6 engine fed by two KKK turbos powered the first Ferrari 126C turbo that Gilles Villeneuve drove during the practice session of the Italian Grand Prix at Imola in September 1980. During the winter tests leading for the 1981 season, the drivers tested a Ferrari 126CX, equipped with Comprex technology.

A disappointment in Long Beach

The 1981 Formula 1 season began on the streets of Long Beach, California. Villeneuve tested the 126CX without much success. On this street course that required good throttle response and swift accelerations, the Comprex V6 sadly was not up to the task. The motor emitted a quiet sound, and was not a success.

It also became quickly evident that the Comprex device was too voluminous. Bolted on top of the motor, it also raised the centre of gravity of the car and impaired its aerodynamics. In addition, the hot exhaust gases overheated the air fed to the engine, which affected its performance and caused problems with extremely high operating temperatures.

Finally, this 126CX Comprex was abandoned, and after that the cars were all fitted with the more traditional KKK twin turbo arrangement. It was behind the wheel of this car that Gilles Villeneuve won the Grands Prix of Spain and Monaco in 1981.