Most liked posts in thread: 2014 - F1

I love watching F1 for the tech and the racing. I miss the sounds of the old cars but like the tech of the new ones.

But F1 will loss a lot of fans if they continue with sloppy sensors, post race DQs, and other politics.

They should figure out how and with what they are going to police rules before making them. I guess it just makes them like any other government.

 

And make no mistake, more fuel makes more power and can keep things cooler to boot.

 

Yes, but more fuel also means you run out before the end of the race!

and they didn't.....

I still say the FIA will stand by their decision, not because they're right, but because they say so! :crazy:

 

Well the rules are "You use what we give you" and Red Bull didn't. Wether or not they felt the sensor was faulty, and wether or not they actually exceeded the fuel flow limit is kind of irrelevant to the fact that they were told by the sporting authority to do something, and then didn't do it.

Now, were Red Bull justified in ignoring a directive? Could be. On the other hand, all the teams at some point have done dodgy rules evasions. It's part of the sport to say "what can we get away with" and then try to game the system until they get caught.

It might get overturned, it might not. I'm kind of glad that I'll have some drama to follow for the next two weeks as I wait for the next race.

 

Now let's backdrop what more fuel can do with what Adrian Newey was saying on Feb 17, from GrandPrix247:

Adrian Newey has admitted that one of the issues that afflicted the Red Bull RB10, during Jerez testing last month, was down to overheating caused by the aggressive aero packaging, not helped by the Renault V6 turbo’s propensity to run extremely hot, as we reported in the aftermath of Jerez testing [here].

Speaking to about 200 guests at the RAC’s Annual Motoring Dinner, Newey revealed, “What stopped us at Jerez was a problem where the bodywork local to the exhaust was catching fire.”

“Hands up on our side because that was a Red Bull problem. It was, you could argue, a result of aggressive packaging. We felt that we needed to take a few risks to try to get a good package that would minimise the aerodynamic damage of this very large cooling requirement.”

“It is a problem which hopefully we can get on top of [in time] for Bahrain. It was really a lack of time… it was something that we could have proved out on the dyno if we’d managed to get everything together earlier.”

“Renault have been up against it in terms of their use of the dyno, we have been up against it making the parts in time. I think had we been a couple of weeks further ahead then that could all have been done in private on the dyno, but unfortunately it was done in public.”

The overheating problem was not exclusive to Red Bull. The other two Renault powered teams present in Spain, Caterham and Toro Rosso, also experienced problems which also caused limited running, way off the pace.

Newey explained, ”The Renault seems to have a particularly large cooling requirement. Everybody of the three engine manufacturers will have a different target for how hot their charge air is going back into the plenum and Renault have given us a fairly challenging target, with all sorts of advantages if we can get there, but it is not easy to achieve.”

Red Bull and the rest of the Formula 1 contenders begin the second chapter of 2014 pre-season testing at Bahrain International Circuit starting on 19 February 2014 (GP247)

Subbed by AJN.

 

Yes, but I still maintain that if they were using extra fuel to cool the engine, they would have run out. If the fuel flow has to be so low to keep them from running out, they can't have turned it up.....

The issue was they were told to use the FIA sensor which they proved was defective, the FIA admits it was inaccurate, yet they were told to use it anyway.

How can that be right?

Since they didn't, they lose.....

 

Depends on how much pad they had on fuel to begin with, and consider that the fuel is not used to cool at full on power and RPM, but when coming off throttle and part throttle. Ever notice how a lot of race cars shoot flames out the exhaust when they come off full throttle? What do you think they are doing? They aren't dumping unburnt fuel into the exhaust by accident... [emoji85]

But that's just my 2 cents.

 

Racecar Engineering has a new free issue you can download. Of particular relevant interest was this nugget:

Reading that, I gather that the cars should nearly never hit the max fuel flow anyway, and that safety cars can extend the range of the car's fuel usage.

So it really seems that Red Bull didn't like the readings from the sensor, the FIA told them how to adjust it, and Red Bull did their own thing to adjust the readings that wasn't approved by the FIA. It's more of a "you're not the boss of me" thing that Red Bull did than a cheat.

So yeah, Daniel should get his points and podium back, and Red Bull should not accrue constructors' points. It's between the team and the rules authority, not on the driver at all.

 

Maximum HP is not necessarily made at maximum fuel flow, it takes a lot of air to make maximum power, why folks tend to burn pistons (heat) when making the maximum....and given that one might cool things a bit when maximum power is not needed... An average fuel flow rate for a race leaves a lot of variables in between.

All that said, RB was told what sensor to use, they did not....and my money is on it being because they wanted to flow more fuel (at less throttle) at some point than the approved sensor would allow.

 

And the sensor they used allowed for more fuel flow.

 

Because the one the FIA gave them was defective - the FIA admitted it, forced them to change it in Parc Ferme', then when that one was found to be defective, they wanted them to reinstall the first one.....THAT's what Red Bull was objecting too, being forced to use a defective part that might have made them uncompetitive. They claim their fuel flow measuring device was accurate and kept them within the letter of the rules while letting them race competitively.

However, despite being proved right (assuming they are), I'll bet the FIA will rule against them anyway.

 

They used the FIA sensor. It's just that the FIA wanted them to put in a fudge factor. Red Bull said the fudge factor was wrong and would make them uncompetitive. Red Bull should be able to prove their flow calculations were right. The question will be is the rule a fuel flow limit or an FIA sensor rule.

 

Please see post #529 line 7.

 

They did indeed use the original sensor that had been installed in P1, but they changed the math that compensated for the readings.

So the sensor was saying X, the FIA said use X+Y to compensate, and Red Bull said, We don't like your math, we're using X+Z.

It doesn't actually mean that the fuel ever flowed at a greater volume. It means that the math used to determine how much fuel was flowing was not approved math.

Basically, the fuel flow sensor is a tube with a sensor. The sensor pulses at a certain frequency and reads the bounce back as a number. The rate of fuel that's passing through the sensor determines the reflection time of the pulses.

Remember on old vinyl record players the LED strobe light that helped indicate the timing? It's kind of like that. The timing of the pulses between the strobe analog in the sensor and the receiver is software driven. The FIA provided software that Red Bull didn't use.

 

Yeah, I agree. Wether or not the actual fuel flow was wrong is irrelevant. It was probably just fine. The FIA enacted punitive measures for the non-compliance of using the required software as expressed in the rules.

And really, it's not even that the sensor was inaccurate. The disqualification was entirely about Red Bull's decision to use unapproved software to compensate for that inaccuracy.

By the letter of the regulations Red Bull is at fault. I don't think that Daniel should be punished though.

Still, we're gonna be talking about this race for some time

 

Does not the fuel management system operate off this info from the sensor?

 

I don't think so. There are also fuel injection sensors that measure the fuel flow at the engine, and that's what Red Bull was relying upon as accurate. I think the fuel flow sensor is an FIA owned part that basically sits and passively monitors things.

So I think the fuel management system is more tied to the injectors than the mandated sensor.

I could be wrong though.