Most liked posts in thread: 2014 - F1

mrntd · May 10, 2014

The 12 13 14 turn change was done for the bikes.

Steve · May 10, 2014

The original changes to that part of the track were for the bikes but they changed it again while they were making other alterations, including straightening out and eliminating the hairpin from the back straight. I think this is the shape before the most recent alterations:

And the new config, for comparison:

Stinker · May 11, 2014

Really missed to post race interviews.

beken · May 12, 2014

I PVR'd the race and watched it last night.

Post race interviews weren't that interesting.

The race was plenty exciting amongst team mates racing each other. But Mercedes is so far ahead of everybody else so far this season.....

I guess to see Vettel come back to get 4th in Webber's car is pretty exciting to watch.

mrntd · May 13, 2014

The last 10 laps were interesting. Before that it was boring. Looks like Merc might have called team orders the way Rosberg backed off.

B.A.D. · May 13, 2014

mrntd said: ↑

The last 10 laps were interesting. Before that it was boring. Looks like Merc might have called team orders the way Rosberg backed off.
Click to expand...

Either that or he used up the advantage of the softer compound tires closing the 4 second gap. Nathan mentioned on Sunday that there is a site that usually has all the transcripts of the radio transmissions a couple of days after the race. Anybody know what site that is on?

It will be interesting to see what happens at Monaco. Slower speeds and not a lot of passing opportunities could bunch up the field and make for some interesting battles between teammates. I like the spectacle that is the Monaco race, but the racing itself seems to be the most boring on the schedule (granted only been watching for the last couple of years).

Zapski · May 13, 2014

Rosberg 'needed one more lap to pass Hamilton' - F1 Fanatic

Nico Rosberg believes he could have passed his team mate to win the Spanish Grand Prix had the race gone on one lap longer.

Rosberg was six-tenths of a second behind Lewis Hamilton at the chequered flag.

Asked during the podium ceremony how many laps he would have needed to pass the other Mercedes, Rosberg said: â€œI think one more, to be honest.â€

â€œOne more and I could have given it a good go. I wasnâ€™t close enough to give it a go there, but next lap I would have, but unfortunately that was it.

â€œSo a bit gutted. But still, second place, still close to the championship, and many more races to go anyways.â€

Hamilton admitted his team mate had been quicker during the race: â€œI wasnâ€™t fast enough really today, Nico was quicker,â€ he said.

â€œI struggled a lot with the balance, really had to rely on my engineers a lot more to give me the gaps and try to find where I could find time. And also all my settings I was moving them up and down, up and down, really trying to find extra time.

â€œBut Nico was just generally quicker this weekend, but fortunately I was able to keep him behind.â€
Click to expand...

Team radio transcripts are often at F1 Fanatic, but they aren't up for the race yet.

Steve · May 14, 2014

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP8_-_Z5NU0"]F1 2014 New Mercedes exhaust sound - YouTube[/ame]

Zapski · May 14, 2014

*sigh*

Steve · May 14, 2014

Minidave · May 14, 2014

......or the vuvuzela jokes......

It sounded so bad, I'm glad they gave up on it right away......it's not the fault of the exhaust system, it's the 90* V-6 - they just sound like that.

They could get Lotus to dust off their old electronic exhaust sound modification technology - that would be simple and easy to do - they'd sound like a Lambo at full chat, or anything else you wanted them to sound like!

Gil-galad · May 15, 2014

Zapski said: ↑

*sigh*
Click to expand...

+1. Not sure if it's the sound quality of the clip, but if you close your eyes it sounds like a fly-by during aerobatics at the Oshkosh EAA air show...

Stinker · May 15, 2014

An article in "Motorsports Magazine" by Nigel Roebuck, he states that the first turbo era exhaust where quite too, But had over 1000hp to play with.

Crashton · May 15, 2014

Seems to be the nature of turbo cars to be on the quiet side. That Benz sounds like carp with that megaphone on there. Can you imagine the whole field moaning around the track?

Zapski · May 16, 2014

Mercedes are most dominant F1 team since 1998 - F1 Fanatic

Mercedes are currently enjoying a greater margin of superiority over their F1 rivals than any team has done in almost 16 years.

They are further ahead of the chasing pack than Red Bull were during their period of supremacy in recent seasons, and have a more comfortable lead than Ferrari had in the early 2000s.

Not since McLaren made a crushing start to the 1998 season with their MP4-13 has a team shown up with a car thatâ€™s as competitive as the Mercedes W05. Mercedes had a hand in that success as well, supplying McLaren with their V10 engines.

Over the first five races of 2014 Mercedes were 0.82% quicker than their closest competitors on average, based on the lap times from all the sessions at each race weekend. Thatâ€™s worth more than seven-tenths of a second over a typical 90-second lap.

To put that into perspective, itâ€™s more than 50% higher than Red Bullâ€™s margin of superiority at the end of last year, during the spell which saw Sebastian Vettel win nine races in a row.

Hereâ€™s how Mercedesâ€™ advantage over the first five races of the year compares to similar averages achieved by the most dominant teams in recent F1 history (race numbers in brackets):
Click to expand...

Chart at the link.

Itâ€™s possible Mercedes are actually even further ahead than they look. Wet conditions on Saturday at Australia, Malaysia and China probably served to mask some of their advantage.

Spain was the first time this year the drivers qualified in dry conditions on a high downforce track typical of much of the rest of the calendar â€“ and Mercedes were further ahead than ever. Their nearest rivals â€“ Red Bull â€“ were 1.053s slower around the Circuit de Catalunya.

So far Mercedes have done a near-flawless job of converting their performance advantage into points. None of their rivals have managed to finish a race in front of a Mercedes so far.

They have won five out of five races and four of those were one-twos â€“ only Lewis Hamiltonâ€™s engine failure in Australia prevented them from achieving a clean sweep. Compare that to McLarenâ€™s form in 1998:
Click to expand...

Again, the link.

Another one-two for Mercedes in Monaco would make them the first team to do win five-in-a-row since Ferrari in 2002. Mercedes have also led every lap of the first five races of the year, something which last happened in 1992.

History gives some encouragement to Mercedesâ€™ rivals as Ferrari were able to catch up with McLaren in terms of performance and both championship battles went down to the final race.

However even if they do get on terms with Mercedesâ€™ pace soon they will find it much harder to catch them in the championship than it was 16 years ago, as points finishes are worth much more than they used to be. Third place, for example, is worth 50% more relative to a win than it used to be (60% instead of 40%). Though of course we do have the super bonus double points season finale bonanza this year.

But if the prospect of a threat to Mercedes coming from outside the team seems remote, we have at least enjoyed some close races between Hamilton and Rosberg in Bahrain and Spain. Thatâ€™s more than can be said for many of the other occasions in recent history when one team has found itself with a massive performance advantage.
Click to expand...

Steve · May 19, 2014

Here's hoping for action without increased carnage.

Massa says 2014 cars make Monaco tougher (racer.com)

Monday, 19 May 2014

Felipe Massa believes this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix will be the toughest race of the 2014 Formula 1 season.

The Brazilian, who took pole position for the 2008 Monte Carlo event, believes the combination of lower downforce and increased engine torque thanks to this year's regulations will make Monaco tougher than ever for the drivers.

"I think Monaco will be a very, very difficult race," said Massa about the challenge of driving the latest generation of car on the Monte Carlo streets. "We drive with the car a lot more sideways.

"The torque we have from the engine is maybe double what we had last year, and the grip from the tire is not very high, so Monaco will be a very easy race to crash. I think it will be the toughest race of the season."

Force India driver Sergio Perez agreed that Monaco would present a particularly tough challenge, especially as the rear tires go off.

"It is going to be a very interesting one – you will see a lot of drivers bouncing off the barriers," said the Mexican. "These cars are really tricky to drive. If you hit some degradation, it will be very hard to do anything."

SMEDLEY DENIES CHALLENGE WILL CHANGE

On the other hand, Williams's head of vehicle performance, Rob Smedley, played down the prospect of this year's Monaco race being substantially different to any other, despite the technical changes to the cars.

"Fundamentally, Monte Carlo is always Monte Carlo – I don't think it's going to be really any different to when we've been there in the past," he said. "Monaco has always been rear, longitudinal wear limited; for as long as I've done Formula 1 we've always worn out the rear tires during the race.

"You can allow yourself a bigger margin of degradation, because of how difficult it is to pass there, but the person who manages to keep his rear tires alive and wear them out less than the other drivers will be the person who dominates.

"It is a different technical regime of the cars,but will it change the spectacle of Monaco? Will it change how we operate? No, it won't."

Originally on Autosport.com
Click to expand...

minirab · May 20, 2014

Too bad that Hamilton's car for this year doesn't sound like that.

Crashton · May 20, 2014

That looked like a lot of fun. Bet Lewis was grinning ear to ear.

Steve · May 20, 2014

Renault expects engine penalties later in the F1 season (autosport.com)

By Jonathan Noble | Tuesday, May 20th 2014, 15:43 GMT

Renault fears that some of its Formula 1 drivers are on course to face grid penalties later this year because of early season reliability niggles.

Although the French car manufacturer has made good progress with its power unit since a troubled pre-season testing programme, the early woes are not without consequence.

Renault's engine chief Rob White says that the rapid rate of early developments means its drivers are all at different development stages with the components that make up the power unit.

And the state of affairs means that, with just one quarter of the season gone, a number of its drivers could get grid penalties later this season for running through more than the maximum five power units allowed.

"As each race goes on the situation team by team and driver by driver becomes more and more individual," explained White.

"One of the things we have to throw into the mix is the optimisation of the power units that are deployed in each car.

"Clearly four races in, we're a quarter of the way through the season, and we're ahead of schedule because we've introduced more power units than we should have done in that period. That's something that has to be taken into account.

"Perhaps later on for some of our drivers that will result in a penalty. But for most of them we're still in a possibly manageable situation."

Analysis of the engine situation shows that Renault looks most at risk of breaking the maximum five limit with its control electronics systems.

Sebastian Vettel and Kamui Kobayashi have already used four so far this season, meaning they just have one new one left for the rest of the campaign.

It is possible though that some of the older units may still be able to be brought back in to use, even if they are not of the latest specification.

White added: "Although we've introduced more pieces than we probably should have done, not all the parts we have replaced are completely out of service.

"There is still potential performance and life in some of those systems and sub systems. Those things will live to fight another day."
Click to expand...

Zapski · May 21, 2014

F1 2014: Why fuel flow is limited | Racecar Engineering

Balance of performance, success ballast, reverse gridsâ€¦ Theyâ€™re all methods currently being employed across motorsport to level the playing field and stop everything becoming a spending race. But many years ago one of the founders of Cosworth, Keith Duckworth saw all this coming he realised that the only way to stem things would be to limit the energy available to the engine.

This has been tried out in the past with both CART and Group C sportscar racing, but they limited it to a maximum amount of fuel allowed for the duration of the race, this meant that the cars did not run flat out and resulted in rather dull races.

In Cosworth: The Search for Power by Graham Robson, Duckworth reveals how the FIA (then FISA) contemplated adopting a fuel flow limit decades ago. â€œWith a set amount of fuel for a race, you have a pointless economy run before a wasteful dash to the flag, a set rate of flow promotes flat-out racing throughout, because hoarding fuel means extra weight sloshing in your tank. It would be totally unsatisfactory to have racing based on so many gallons for the race distance, so the only sensible alternative was to limit the maximum instantaneous power. Therefore, some sort of flow-limiting valve, calibrated in fuel/second, was needed. When I thought this through, I calculated that 27 cc per second was enough to produce 500 bhp, and this ought to be allowed.â€

FISA liked the idea and asked Cosworth to make 50 valves restricting flow to exactly 27cc/s but Duckworth later told Robson that; â€œI said I couldnâ€™t guarantee that â€“ I could guarantee that they would flow with in one per cent of one another, but no nearer. To have a valve flowing exactly at 27 cc/second, in all temperatures, and at all heights, â€¦ well it just wasnâ€™t practical. I showed the device to my main rival Ferrari, and I still have the letter which agrees that it is theoretically sound, but that there was no way that FISA was competent to calibrate itâ€.

As technology moved on over the decades it became clear that the flow limit could be enforced and in 2014 three series adopted fuel flow limits. Formula 1 and the World Endurance Championship adopted Ultrasonic fuel flow meters, which do not actually restrict the flow instead they just monitor it, whilst the Super Formula Championship in Japan uses a highly innovative fuel flow restrictor developed by Toyota.

â€œWith a fuel flow limit Efficiency becomes the primary performance objectiveâ€ says Ben Bowlby, the free-thinking creator of the Laurel Hill Tunnel aerodynamic test facility, Nissan Zeod and the Delta Wing. â€˜Reducing exhaust heat, friction and unburned fuel in the exhaust pipe will be paramount. It would be simple to slow the cars, and do so in a way that encourages efficient innovations, rather than removing them because they make the cars too fast. But we say, â€œkeep it, just burn less fuel.â€ Thatâ€™s the storyline the auto industry wants. The industry has to keep cars desirable, meet government- set emissions targets, and deliver on performance and safety.â€

The Ultrasonic solution used in Formula 1 and WEC was created, at least in part by Automotive Engineer Andy Burston, who now runs the FIA test house Calibra Technologies and has no involvement in the current Gill Sensors fuel flow meter. â€œThe objective from day one was to make a sensor that can be bolted into any racecar and be impervious to the harsh environment conditions that entails,â€ says Burston. â€œInside the box there is a tube of a particular length and, at each end, there is an ultrasonic transducer. An ultrasound wave is transmitted from one end and, when it is received at the other, it is essentially transmitted back. If there is no flow, the time taken in each direction will be exactly the same, but if there is flow in either direction there will be a slight difference. As you know the diameter of the tube you can calculate the volume flow rate. If you add a temperature compensation and the properties of your fluid, then you can get to a mass flow rate.â€

Meanwhile in the East the solution used in Super Formula is purely mechanical. Mirroring the rule changes in WEC and Formula 1, it was deemed important that both GT500 and Super Formula races were determined by sheer speed. However, the manufacturers insisted that the engines were still able to â€˜balance environmental performance, power and fuel efficiency.â€™ To this end it was decided that if this new fuel-efficient turbo engine was to be competitive, there was a need to focus not on the total amount of fuel used, but rather on the management of instant fuel consumption.

If this instant fuel consumption was not managed, more power could be achieved simply by pumping more fuel into the cylinders, as was the case with the conventional turbo engines of the past and which is the exact opposite of what they wanted. But if the fuel flow was restricted, it would put the emphasis on producing performance from fuel-efficient turbochargers: something that could be directly transferred to production cars. JRP was well aware of the fuel flow metering systems planned for introduction into F1 and WEC in 2014, but it wanted the fuel flow to be restricted, not just metered.

Toyota project leader Yoji Nagai came up with the idea of an instant fuel restrictor mechanism. But colleague Junya Tanaka, a fluids expert, believed from the start of the project that it may not be the right route. Typically in racing, air restrictors are used to limit performance. If liquid fuel is regulated in the same way, by narrowing down the flow rate, the fuel may vaporise and cause uneven fuel delivery. This in turn could lead to misfires under full power, which in a race could lead to a sudden loss of speed and rear-end collisions.

Tanaka raised his concerns with Nagai, and Nagai realised that he was right. After simulations proved Tanakaâ€™s theory, work went into developing a fuel flow restrictor. Not only does this restrictor raise an interesting conversation in Formula 1 with the issues following the Australian Grand Prix but it also cuts costs for the engine suppliers in both Super Formula and GT500.   â€I have been in charge of Super GT at Toyota, and although both Super Formula and GT500 have the same engine [RV8K], the GT specs differed as it has a air restrictor,â€ explains Miyajima. â€œSo at TRD we created a specific piston and intake system for the air-restricted engine to cater to the GT series. But from now on, the engine will be exactly the same spec in both series. Development and maintenance will be simpler, since the change to the fuel restrictor system means that it is all essentially the same for both. Of course, since the weight of the car and the flow restriction differ, the way in which it is used may also differ. However, since the cost has been dramatically decreased, I would like to think that this technology would become widely used in the future.â€ There have been suggestions that Toyotaâ€™s solution could be implemented in F1 in 2015.
Click to expand...

Forums

Most liked posts in thread: 2014 - F1

mrntd Well-Known Member
Supporting Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Stinker Active Member

beken Well-Known Member

mrntd Well-Known Member
Supporting Member

B.A.D. Club Coordinator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Minidave Well-Known Member
Lifetime Supporter

Gil-galad Club Coordinator

Stinker Active Member

Crashton Club Coordinator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

minirab Well-Known Member

Crashton Club Coordinator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Useful Searches

Most liked posts in thread: 2014 - F1

mrntd Well-Known Member Supporting Member

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Stinker Active Member

beken Well-Known Member

mrntd Well-Known Member Supporting Member

B.A.D. Club Coordinator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Minidave Well-Known Member Lifetime Supporter

Gil-galad Club Coordinator

Stinker Active Member

Crashton Club Coordinator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

minirab Well-Known Member

Crashton Club Coordinator

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Zapski Well-Known Member

mrntd Well-Known Member
Supporting Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

mrntd Well-Known Member
Supporting Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Minidave Well-Known Member
Lifetime Supporter

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator