The single biggest component of a grand prix car is the monocoque and in one respect at least, it is also the most important, as it provides a survival cell for the driver. All current monocoques are made of carbon fibre composite, which combines light weight with incredible strength and the teams have to ensure that theirs can stand up to several crash tests devised by FIA, the sport’s governing body.

"Once EJ11 was up and running, we started thinking about EJ12," says Stephen Taylor, the man responsible for composite design at Jordan. "The space envelope for the monocoque is decided by the wind tunnel, although not every aspect of it, as the wind tunnel people are not too concerned about things like the fuel tank capacity, or how the engine mounts to it, or the driver cockpit legality. We are quite tightly constrained now with legality concerns, because we have to meet a minimum cockpit size. The idea is to keep as close as possible to that minimum, to reduce the frontal area of the car. This is why a lot of the cars from the different teams look so similar these days."

"We then look at the materials and the amount of them required. The monocoque is all composite construction, made up of a honeycomb, sandwiched between two layers of carbon fibre and has to meet a number of FIA tests, most of them static, where the car is subjected to loads on the roll hoop (structure behind the driver's head and in front of the steering wheel) and sides to check its structural integrity. We have a starting construction which we feel will meet the requirements. That is given to the Finite Elements Analysis guys who will check it and might suggest some changes, such as increasing the thickness of the honeycomb structure which makes up the shell, or the carbon skin thickness."

The monocoque has the longest lead time of any component on the car. The finished product might look like one part, but in fact it consists of several: a chassis top and bottom, a seat back bulkhead and a number of other sub-bulkheads to cope with the loads imposed by other parts, such as the suspension. The tooling to make all the parts gets under way as soon as the basic shape has been defined. The monocoque build begins even before all the final details have been worked out, so the design team is under pressure to come up with these as quickly as possible so that manufacture can work as a continuous process.

Parts such as the engine and suspension cannot be bolted straight into the monocoque. The tub has to have various "hard spots" built in, to accept bolts and brackets and these must all be designed in the right order to suit manufacturing. Typically, to go from an empty mould to a finished and fully machined monocoque, should take no more than two weeks. The first one might take a bit longer and the later ones about ten days. By the time all the equipment is shipped off to Melbourne for the first race, Jordan will have built a minimum of four monocoques, including the one used for the FIA crash tests. "It's a large and complex part," concludes Taylor. "And although it uses high tech design and materials, the actual build process requires very skilled manual work."