211 replies to this topic

[niallmckiernan]

why do we have info on the weight of the cars not making it into Q3. they wouldn't have been qualifying with race fuel and wouldn't have decided on a strategy yet, surely?

[F1Fund]

Originally posted by niallmckiernan
why do we have info on the weight of the cars not making it into Q3. they wouldn't have been qualifying with race fuel and wouldn't have decided on a strategy yet, surely?

Apparently a new rule (which slipped in un-noticed by most of us it appears) states they must state their race fuel loads to the FIA within a specified period (I think 2 hours) after qualifying is finished.

[BootLace]

Originally posted by pedrovski
They should allow the cars to qualify on fumes keep the 3 segments and parc ferme. Fuelled qual is a joke and they are now declaring their weights before the race which defeats the purpose of the fuelled qual in the first place. and that was only done to create some artificial "suspense" before hand.

Whilst I'd also prefer to see low fuel Q3, I believe the intent was to create a mixed up grid with cars out of position relative to their true pace in order to promote the chance of racing/overtaking. The "suspense" was just a side effect of this. The system also for the most part appears to have been futile with almost all the overtaking from it occurring in the pits.

[alfa1]

Originally posted by Gareth
When racing, you use both the petrol and electric motor to the maximum to get maximum performance. So there is no energy saving.

I think it was in the BMW thread some time back that described how it was actually worse.

1. Under braking, the KERS system is charging, or sometimes not charging, depending on whether it is full.
2. This inconsistency upsets the behaviour of the car. Stealing joules of energy from the rear drive train or not.
3. To maintain consistent handling, the engine management system now INCREASES the power to the engine to exactly match the energy drain taken by the KERS system, so that the rear drive train sees the same net forces whether KERS is charging or not.
4. That increase in engine power under braking therefore increases fuel usage.

[BMW_F1]

Brawn is going to

[D.M.N.]

Originally posted by MrAerodynamicist
If you revisit the page, there's now plots of along the lines of sldsmkd & JuanF1's calculations, showing performance of the top ten

http://www.myphotogr...Weights-Aus.php

Looking at that, the bottom graph is really interesting, and shows who did the best and who did the worst. If we are going from Over-Performed (best) to Under-Performed (Worst), it would be:

1. Timo Glock
=. Mark Webber
3. Jarno Trulli
4. Jenson Button
= Rubens Barrichello
= Nico Rosberg
7. Sebastian Vettel
=. Kimi Raikkonen
=. Felipe Massa
10. Robert Kubica

[faasfans]

Originally posted by faasfans


In Q2 cars should go on fumes. It's easy to obtain a mean of the penalty with the "Weight adjusted time" in Q3.

Forget it. My reasoning is nonsense.

[anbeck]

Originally posted by Matt Somers
Remember that KERS enabled cars will use more fuel too (extra 80bhp has to have a downside = more fuel consumption)

Ouch.

[Madras]

Why do KERS cars use more fuel? I dont think Matt understands that the KERS bhp comes from the ENERGY RECOVERY SYSTEM.

[anbeck]

I think there's no way we'll see a 1-stopper tomorrow.


I think the Brawns are heavy enough to do long stints. Autosport says their first one could be around 20 laps, so maybe their second might even be longer, say 23 laps. They could do a 15 lap stint on the softs.

If Piquet does even 30 laps on his opening stint (and assuming that nobody will be foolish enough to try a 1-stopper with these soft tyres...), he might even do a hyper-short last stint on softs, 10 laps or less.

I'd be concerned for Kubica. His first stint might be around 15 laps, which is a bit risky for soft tyres. But maybe he gambles on 4-7 safety-car laps after a starting crash, which would mean that he could go easy on his softs and do a minimum of running at the limit on these tyres. Or he hopes that nobody can pass him anyway and some points is all he's hoping for.
Either he's starting on softs hoping for a SC period, or he's on a three stopper and will do a very short soft stint at the end of the race.

I expect the top 9 to do 16 or 17 laps, with the exception of Kubica [~15] and the Brawns [19-20].
Then we have a large group from Heidfeld to Sutil with cars doing 25 to 29 (or even 30 laps), with the exception of Buemi, who is slightly shorter on fuel.
For Hamilton and the Toyotas it will be difficult to do anything good from the back with their strategies.

[D A]

Originally posted by Madras
Why do KERS cars use more fuel? I dont think Matt understands that the KERS bhp comes from the ENERGY RECOVERY SYSTEM.

The RPM of the engine will probably stay higher, longer with KERS, hence higher fuel consumption.

[MikeTekRacing]

Originally posted by D A


The RPM of the engine will probably stay higher, longer with KERS, hence higher fuel consumption.

don't write this on a technical forum ;)
kers cars don't use more fuel when in "boost" quite obviously the energy for the boost is not from fuel

[Madras]

Originally posted by D A


The RPM of the engine will probably stay higher, longer with KERS, hence higher fuel consumption.

The engine management system will handle the fuel delivery, I dont think it will use any more fuel.

[RoutariEnjinu]

Surely you'd also spend LESS time at a given point in a rev range if it's accelerating harder too?

[Clatter]

Originally posted by Gilles12


hmmm, tkilla, you raise a good point - with the extra 80hp the cars may spend more time at higher revs thus burning more fuel than they should

Is more fuel used maintaining a speed or getting there in the first place?

The rev limit is quite low when you consider they were originally designed to run a 2-3 thousand revs more than they do, so when they get to full revs they would actually need to cut the fuel.

[Madras]

KERS DOES NOT USE MORE FUEL.

THE END.

[Knot]

Originally posted by Madras
KERS DOES NOT USE MORE FUEL.

THE END.

Not true. It uses more electric juice fuel.

[Madras]

Originally posted by Knot


Not true. It uses more electric juice fuel.

Which came from the original fuel - it's recycled.

[JuanF1]

Originally posted by anbeck
I think there's no way we'll see a 1-stopper tomorrow.


I think the Brawns are heavy enough to do long stints. Autosport says their first one could be around 20 laps, so maybe their second might even be longer, say 23 laps. They could do a 15 lap stint on the softs.

If Piquet does even 30 laps on his opening stint (and assuming that nobody will be foolish enough to try a 1-stopper with these soft tyres...), he might even do a hyper-short last stint on softs, 10 laps or less.

Yes, that's more or less what I thought. If the Brawns have enough advantage before the first pit stop they might even go for a longer second stint and jut do 10 laps on the softs, don't you think?

I cannot see anybody doing 20 laps on slicks, so 1 stoppers are a no-no for me.

[Madras]

Originally posted by JuanF1


I cannot see anybody doing 20 laps on slicks, so 1 stoppers are a no-no for me.

Eh, why not?

[fnz]

@madras : because of the fast degradation of the option tyres

[JuanF1]

Originally posted by Madras


Eh, why not?

Hmmm, I don't have a scientific explanation. In fact, I should have posed a question, can the softs last for 20 laps? I don't know why (maybe I heard it from someone) I assume softs would degrade after 12 laps.

[Dalek Caan]

Just got back from work, and WOW!

That is some seriously ownage that BGP have got going these days! Qualifying with 5 laps more fuel than Ferrari yet still OQ them by a second? Simply WOW.

[ville]

I'll add my own calculations here. I used fuel consumption of 2.48 kg/lap from Williams Australian GP preview and 40 % (just a guess) of that for two slow laps (pit to the grid and warm up lap). Estimated time penalty from Q2-Q3 time differences is 0.081 s per lap of fuel (0.033 per kg of fuel).

First pit stop estimates

Driver		 Team		   Pit lap guess  Remaining laps
Kubica		 BMW			17			 41
Massa		  Ferrari		18			 40
Hamilton	   McLaren		19			 39
Räikkonen	  Ferrari		19			 39
Rosberg		Williams	   20			 38
Vettel		 Red Bull	   20			 38
Trulli		 Toyota		 21			 37
Bourdais	   Toro Rosso	 22			 36
Button		 Brawn GP	   22			 36
Webber		 Red Bull	   22			 36
Barrichello	Brawn GP	   23			 35
Glock		  Toyota		 25			 33
Buemi		  Toro Rosso	 27			 31
Alonso		 Renault		29			 29
Nakajima	   Williams	   31			 27
Sutil		  Force India	31			 27
Fisichella	 Force India	33			 25
Kovalainen	 McLaren		33			 25
Heidfeld	   BMW			34			 24
Piquet		 Renault		35			 23

Fuel corrected qualifying order

FC Pos		 Pos			Driver		 Team		   Q3-FC		  Q2			 Q1			 Gap			Diff
1			  1			  Button		 Brawn GP	   84.323		 84.855		 85.211
2			  2			  Barrichello	Brawn GP	   84.561		 84.783		 85.006		 0.238		  0.238
3			  6			  Glock		  Toyota		 84.917		 85.281		 85.499		 0.593		  0.356
4			  3			  Vettel		 Red Bull	   85.196		 85.121		 85.938		 0.873		  0.280
5			  5			  Rosberg		Williams	   85.339		 85.123		 85.846		 1.016		  0.143
6			  8			  Trulli		 Toyota		 85.395		 85.265		 86.194		 1.072		  0.056
7			  10			 Webber		 Red Bull	   85.449		 85.241		 85.427		 1.126		  0.054
8			  7			  Massa		  Ferrari		85.497		 85.319		 85.844		 1.174		  0.048
9			  4			  Kubica		 BMW			85.509		 85.152		 85.922		 1.186		  0.012
10			 9			  Räikkonen	  Ferrari		85.578		 85.380		 85.899		 1.255		  0.069
11			 11			 Heidfeld	   BMW						   85.504		 85.827		 0.124		  0.124
12			 12			 Alonso		 Renault					   85.605		 86.026		 0.225		  0.101
13			 13			 Nakajima	   Williams					  85.607		 86.074		 0.227		  0.002
14			 14			 Kovalainen	 McLaren					   85.726		 86.184		 0.346		  0.119
15			 15			 Hamilton	   McLaren					   999.000		86.454		 913.620		913.274
16			 16			 Buemi		  Toro Rosso								   86.503		 0.049		  0.049
17			 17			 Piquet		 Renault									  86.598		 0.144		  0.095
18			 18			 Fisichella	 Force India								  86.677		 0.223		  0.079
19			 19			 Sutil		  Force India								  86.742		 0.288		  0.065
20			 20			 Bourdais	   Toro Rosso								   86.964		 0.510		  0.222

Driver performance in Q3 compared to team performance in Q2. (Fuel corrected Q3 time minus best time of the team in Q2.)

Driver		 Team		   Q3-FC BTQ2
Button		 Brawn GP	   -0.46
Glock		  Toyota		 -0.35
Barrichello	Brawn GP	   -0.22
Vettel		 Red Bull	   0.08
Trulli		 Toyota		 0.13
Massa		  Ferrari		0.18
Rosberg		Williams	   0.22
Räikkonen	  Ferrari		0.26
Webber		 Red Bull	   0.33
Kubica		 BMW			0.36

Both Brawn GP drivers were better in Q3. Good car handling with heavy fuel or did they take it easy in Q2? Kubica underperformed (Rosberg's sand).

Team mate battle. Fuel corrected time difference to team mate in the latest comparable of the three qualifying sessions.

Driver		 Team		   Team Battle	TB Decider
Alonso		 Renault		-0.572		 Q1
Rosberg		Williams	   -0.484		 Q2
Glock		  Toyota		 -0.479		 Q3
Buemi		  Toro Rosso	 -0.461		 Q1
Kubica		 BMW			-0.352		 Q2
Kovalainen	 McLaren		-0.270		 Q1-
Vettel		 Red Bull	   -0.253		 Q3
Button		 Brawn GP	   -0.238		 Q3
Massa		  Ferrari		-0.081		 Q3
Fisichella	 Force India	-0.065		 Q1
Sutil		  Force India	0.065		  Q1
Räikkonen	  Ferrari		0.081		  Q3
Barrichello	Brawn GP	   0.238		  Q3
Webber		 Red Bull	   0.253		  Q3
Hamilton	   McLaren		0.270		  Q1+
Heidfeld	   BMW			0.352		  Q2
Bourdais	   Toro Rosso	 0.461		  Q1
Trulli		 Toyota		 0.479		  Q3
Nakajima	   Williams	   0.484		  Q2
Piquet		 Renault		0.572		  Q1

Alonso is the king at Renault. Glock was probably the biggest surprise here. -/+ marks that times were not comparable because Hamilton had to abort his deciding lap due to gearbox failure.

Time penalties per lap in the first stint compared to the lightest car.

Driver		 Fuel Penalty
Kubica		 0.000
Massa		  0.131
Hamilton	   0.163
Räikkönen	  0.180
Vettel		 0.229
Rosberg		0.229
Trulli		 0.327
Webber		 0.392
Bourdais	   0.408
Button		 0.474
Barrichello	0.539
Glock		  0.653
Buemi		  0.833
Alonso		 1.003
Sutil		  1.127
Nakajima	   1.153
Fisichella	 1.274
Kovalainen	 1.326
Heidfeld	   1.355
Piquet		 1.440

Edit: Adjusted formatting for new BB

Edited by ville, 30 April 2009 - 14:14.

[J2NH]

Originally posted by Madras


Eh, why not?

Last year the two tires Bstone brought were compounds next to each other in terms of hardness.
Hard
Medium
Soft
Supersoft.

So if the Medium was the Prime tire they would have the Soft for the Option. Teams were able to work with that and run one stoppers as the soft wore more but was manageable.

This year Bstone is bringing two tires that are not close to each other on the hardness scale. In Aus we have the Medium and the SuperSoft.
One stopper means running 1 long stint full of fuel (heavy) on tires that more than likely won't hold up. Very risky.
Teams need the option of being able to short stint the Option tire if it goes away.

[Cenotaph]

Glock and Vettel look like superb drivers

And its amazing that Toyota/Williams/Ferrari/Red Bull are really, really, really close to each other, its a shame Brawn is so much better atm, or else it would be a crazy race.

[Bluesmoke]

To me it makes no sense to build the car with the driver weight. What does it really accomplish? Throughout a hot grand prix, the driver will probably lose a pound or two of weight due to sweat.

Build the cars with a max weight and then let the driver choose what his weight should be. I'm surprised the taller guys like Mark Webber, DC, Kubica never formally complained.

[Menace]

Incredible, people whining about the weights being published, after all those years of fighting about transparency in qualifying?!

Atleast now we dont need to listen to the crap about "he might have stopped early" etc. etc., and we know the exact fuel difference between the drivers.

FIA!

[OfficeLinebacker]

Originally posted by MrAerodynamicist
If you revisit the page, there's now plots of along the lines of sldsmkd & JuanF1's calculations, showing performance of the top ten

http://www.myphotogr...Weights-Aus.php

Brilliant. Cheers.

[BiH]

one thing to keep in mind not every team has the same fuel tank so I think from the weights there could be atleast +-1/2 in laps.

[Clatter]

Originally posted by BiH
one thing to keep in mind not every team has the same fuel tank so I think from the weights there could be atleast +-1/2 in laps.

All the cars have to meet min weight, so regardless of the tank size you can be pretty certain that anything above that is fuel.

[peroa]

Originally posted by BiH
one thing to keep in mind not every team has the same fuel tank so I think from the weights there could be atleast +-1/2 in laps.

[Dalek Caan]

So what about heavier drivers? When we get the driver/car weight combo, how do we know its all fuel, and not just that extra bit of muscle mass/heavy bone structure some drivers have?

[Madras]

Originally posted by Dalek Caan
So what about heavier drivers? When we get the driver/car weight combo, how do we know its all fuel, and not just that extra bit of muscle mass/heavy bone structure some drivers have?

The 605kg weight includes the driver.

[HoldenRT]

Originally posted by alfa1



I think it was in the BMW thread some time back that described how it was actually worse.

1. Under braking, the KERS system is charging, or sometimes not charging, depending on whether it is full.
2. This inconsistency upsets the behaviour of the car. Stealing joules of energy from the rear drive train or not.
3. To maintain consistent handling, the engine management system now INCREASES the power to the engine to exactly match the energy drain taken by the KERS system, so that the rear drive train sees the same net forces whether KERS is charging or not.
4. That increase in engine power under braking therefore increases fuel usage.

If that's true.. wow!

[Dalek Caan]

Originally posted by Madras


The 605kg weight includes the driver.

Ah thanks, I was confused on that issue.

[noikeee]

Driver of the day: Timo Glock (Buemi gets a mention too for outqualifying Bourdais by 0.4secs on his debut race).

[Madras]

Originally posted by paranoik0
Driver of the day: Timo Glock (Buemi gets a mention too for outqualifying Bourdais by 0.4secs on his debut race).

Glock and Vettel. Kubica did very well too.

[Kimiraikkonen]

Originally posted by Dalek Caan


Ah thanks, I was confused on that issue.

a question...

in this 605 kg is included system KERS or is 605 + KERS???

Regards

[HoldenRT]

After the race we can know fuel burn rates of all the engines and how much fuel KERS burns or saves (or if it even makes a difference at all).

There's alot of factors. Teams use different fuels, engines have different fuel usages for the power they deliver etc etc. And now for this season it's only 18k peak revs.

We have the weights, we have the predictions for when they will stop (using same formula for all cars), and now tommorow we can see if some teams pit earlier or later then we expect them to.

[Madras]

Originally posted by Kimiraikkonen


a question...

in this 605 kg is included system KERS or is 605 + KERS???

Regards

KERS is included too. All the cars (plus driver) weight 605kg.

[Timstr11]

Originally posted by HoldenRT
After the race we can know fuel burn rates of all the engines and how much fuel KERS burns or saves (or if it even makes a difference at all).

There's alot of factors. Teams use different fuels, engines have different fuel usages for the power they deliver etc etc. And now for this season it's only 18k peak revs.

We have the weights, we have the predictions for when they will stop (using same formula for all cars), and now tommorow we can see if some teams pit earlier or later then we expect them to.

There also the possibility to stop earlier than planned, in anticipation of a safety car. If the Brawn cars are far ahead at say lap 19, they could decide to pit ahead of a possible safety car period.

[BiH]

Originally posted by Clatter


All the cars have to meet min weight, so regardless of the tank size you can be pretty certain that anything above that is fuel.

yep my mistake I was confused kept thinking that the driver was weighted with the car.

[MrAerodynamicist]

If they've done a good job, it'll be car+KERS+ballast = 605kg. If they haven't then car+KERS > 605kg.

[BiH]

Originally posted by MrAerodynamicist
If they've done a good job, it'll be car+KERS+ballast = 605kg. If they haven't then car+KERS > 605kg.

that would interesting to see tomorrow if piquet or heikki pit lot earlier might give some indication that their KERS is heavy or not.

[Madras]

Originally posted by MrAerodynamicist
If they've done a good job, it'll be car+KERS+ballast = 605kg. If they haven't then car+KERS > 605kg.

If car+KERS > 605kg KERS would be getting chucked, quite frankly.

[MrAerodynamicist]

Okay, maybe that was overstating it a bit. But by the sound of it, the problem is that it's a choice between car+ballast=605 or car+KERS+not very much ballast=605kg, and hence it's underwhelming introduction.

[ville]

Time penalties per lap in the first stint compared to the lightest car. Calculated using info from my earlier post.

Driver		 Fuel Penalty
Kubica		 0.000
Massa		  0.131
Hamilton	   0.163
Räikkönen	  0.180
Vettel		 0.229
Rosberg		0.229
Trulli		 0.327
Webber		 0.392
Bourdais	   0.408
Button		 0.474
Barrichello	0.539
Glock		  0.653
Buemi		  0.833
Alonso		 1.003
Sutil		  1.127
Nakajima	   1.153
Fisichella	 1.274
Kovalainen	 1.326
Heidfeld	   1.355
Piquet		 1.440

Edit: Adjusted formatting for the new board.

Edited by ville, 30 April 2009 - 14:21.

[D A]

I doubt any car weighs 605 kg without the fuel otherwise they'd be pretty screwed if the driver loses any weight during the race.

[Madras]

Originally posted by D A
I doubt any car weighs 605 kg without the fuel otherwise they'd be pretty screwed if the driver loses any weight during the race.

Well that would be factored in. Probably they weigh 607kg or something.