In the last years motorsport is facing a technical revolution concerning the engine technology in every category, from touring car championships up to the F1. The strategy of the car manufacturers to bring motorsport engine technology closer to mass production one (e.g. turbo-charging, downsizing and direct injection) allows both to reduce development costs and to create a better image and technology transfer by linking motorsport activities to the daily business.
Under these requirements the so-called Global Race Engine (GRE) concept has been introduced, giving the possibility to use one unique engine platform concept as basis for different engine specifications and racing categories.
In order to optimize the performance of this kind of engines, especially due to the highly complex mixture formation mechanisms related to the direct injection, it is nowadays mandatory to resort to reliable 3D-CFD simulations.
In this paper the contribution of intensive CFD simulations within the engine development process will be shown, in particular some issues regarding the injection modeling and its influence on the prediction of the mixture formation, the combustion and the global engine performance will be analyzed.
