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2014 F1 Cars


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#101 gruntguru

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 03:21

No argument here. The F1 rule book should be as small as possible IMHO. Pike's Peak open class is a shining example.

 

Of course it then becomes a competition for cheque books.

 

One would hope that year on year the specifications are relaxed while slowly tightening the fuel limits to drive fuel-efficiency innovation.



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#102 Wuzak

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 05:24

The move to budget caps in F1 could be a way to open the rule book.

 

The current proposal would cover the teams, but possibly not the engine suppliers. I suppose they too could have a budget cap - but that would be very tircky to police.

 

One part of the regulations is good in theory - that the mounting points to the chassis and gearbox are regulated, so engine swaps could be easier. Not that it is in practice.

 

On the engine side the regulations are tight to make sure that they are all relatively even. If one manufacturer came up with an advantage in their engine architecture, the others would be forced to switch, which would be expensive.

 

They could, possibly, open up the regulations regarding the recovery systems in the future - allow front brake recovery (which would also allow 4wd), Free up the size of the MGU-K and ES, etc. Allow multi-stage and multi shaft turbines (Porsche's LMP1 engine has a turbo with a power turbine driving the MGU-H). 



#103 desmo

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 16:13

No argument here. The F1 rule book should be as small as possible IMHO. Pike's Peak open class is a shining example.
 
Of course it then becomes a competition for cheque books.


Yes, that would be tragic. Good thing we've avoided that.

Seriously though, I find the argument that having a highly restrictive rulebook is an unambiguous benefit for lesser funded teams to be one of questionable worth. Fundamental technical innovation of the sort currently disallowed may surely be a potentially cheaper route for obtaining a given competitive advantage vs. the field than say investing thousands of hours of tunnel time testing FWEPs or such. Making tunnel time for grinding incremental development the decider in fact favors only the more moneyed entrants. The fact that the top money teams have been on board with the ongoing bloat in the technical regs strongly suggests to me that they feel the same way.

#104 RogerGraham

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 16:28

I'd almost put it the other way around - a change to the rule book could facilitate a move to budget caps.  

 

I have a dream... about an (almost!)-everyone's-a-winner solution whereby:

  • any component supplier must be capable and willing to supply any team, at any time, at a fixed and openly-advertised price, and
  • teams can switch suppliers at any point during a season

 

Ideally, such a solution would:

  • allow teams to pick and choose whatever components seem to work best, while differentiating based on their chassis and aero as they do now.  To a certain extent, teams would quickly gravitate towards the best suppliers, (b) reducing worries about huge performance gaps between teams, and (b) giving real bragging rights instead of today's pseudo bragging rights.  (Who cares if Renault engines win 4 consecutive championships, when the wins are more due to Newey and Vettel, etc)
  • enable easy policing of a much larger chunk of teams' costs, since all teams would pay openly-advertised fixed-rate prices to suppliers.  Part of the issue is that teams with in-house engine suppliers can hide R&D costs, which I think is largely why some non-manufacturer teams are so against the cost-cap idea.  There's still question about all the in-house stuff, esp chassis and aero, but the limitations on wind-tunnel and computer time already help there to some extent
  • allow "unlimited" technical development - suppliers would fund the high R&D costs in order to win bragging rights (Mercedes versus Ferrari, Michelin versus Bridgestone etc).  It would also facilitate GG's point, whereby technical regs could be hugely loosened up while conforming to the green regs du jour, e.g. gradual reductions in starting-energy allowances to drive efficiency.  If one supplier decided to go GT instead of ICE, or diesel instead of petrol, then good luck to them
  • reduce the chances of chasms between the best and worst teams, because all teams would be able to gravitate to "best" solutions far more quickly, i.e. not having to wait until contracts expire in 3 years before switching suppliers

I'm sure everyone can think of 1,000 very good reasons why this wouldn't work in practice, the logistical and financial implications for the suppliers being the big one.  Still, it's a nice dream!


Edited by RogerGraham, 07 March 2014 - 16:30.


#105 desmo

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 16:31

I found grazing through the following interesting: http://formula1.brembo.com/en/

See the brake circuit identity cards section, it contains interesting data (well to me at least) which speaks to the potential energy recoverable via regen braking at the various circuits. It also suggest to me that given 5+ G decels being common, and the tires capable of only communicating some fraction of braking torques necessary to achieve those decels, that much of the braking is in fact simple aero drag resulting from the draggy DF configurations of the cars and that if either max DF were significantly limited or active aero were allowed to force braking torques rather than simple aero drag to dissipate the cars' momentums, there would be significantly more potential energy to be harvested through regen and the thermal efficiencies of cars would or could be significantly higher than they currently are.

#106 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 17:33

Aerodrag at speed is decent, but it's never struck me as that big, relatively speaking. It's in excess of what a supercar does with the brakes on, but aren't we talking about 1.5g? I'd say the under-capacity of high speed braking is down to driver leg size.



#107 saudoso

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 17:56

Tech relevance is BS. Rule makers package a handfull of availiable technologies and write rules forcing teams to use it.

Farce.

Edited by saudoso, 07 March 2014 - 17:56.


#108 Nemo1965

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 19:18

I'd almost put it the other way around - a change to the rule book could facilitate a move to budget caps.  

 

I have a dream... about an (almost!)-everyone's-a-winner solution whereby:

  • any component supplier must be capable and willing to supply any team, at any time, at a fixed and openly-advertised price, and
  • teams can switch suppliers at any point during a season

 

Ideally, such a solution would:

  • allow teams to pick and choose whatever components seem to work best, while differentiating based on their chassis and aero as they do now.  To a certain extent, teams would quickly gravitate towards the best suppliers, (b) reducing worries about huge performance gaps between teams, and (b) giving real bragging rights instead of today's pseudo bragging rights.  (Who cares if Renault engines win 4 consecutive championships, when the wins are more due to Newey and Vettel, etc)
  • enable easy policing of a much larger chunk of teams' costs, since all teams would pay openly-advertised fixed-rate prices to suppliers.  Part of the issue is that teams with in-house engine suppliers can hide R&D costs, which I think is largely why some non-manufacturer teams are so against the cost-cap idea.  There's still question about all the in-house stuff, esp chassis and aero, but the limitations on wind-tunnel and computer time already help there to some extent
  • allow "unlimited" technical development - suppliers would fund the high R&D costs in order to win bragging rights (Mercedes versus Ferrari, Michelin versus Bridgestone etc).  It would also facilitate GG's point, whereby technical regs could be hugely loosened up while conforming to the green regs du jour, e.g. gradual reductions in starting-energy allowances to drive efficiency.  If one supplier decided to go GT instead of ICE, or diesel instead of petrol, then good luck to them
  • reduce the chances of chasms between the best and worst teams, because all teams would be able to gravitate to "best" solutions far more quickly, i.e. not having to wait until contracts expire in 3 years before switching suppliers

I'm sure everyone can think of 1,000 very good reasons why this wouldn't work in practice, the logistical and financial implications for the suppliers being the big one.  Still, it's a nice dream!

 

It is what I've said (but you say it more eloquently) a hundred times: the current problem of F1 is that there are no spare-parts! The Cosworth-era (though dangerous) between 1970 and 1983 provided excellent chances for new teams and new drivers because there was always a way of buying good parts for your car... and even be competitive with it.



#109 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 07 March 2014 - 19:43

Tech relevance is BS. Rule makers package a handfull of availiable technologies and write rules forcing teams to use it.

Farce.

 

I dunno, it seems to be the entire reason for the existence of LMP1 at Le Mans, in its current form.

 

Though arguably it'd be better *not* to have crazy-spending manufacturer entries.



#110 saudoso

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Posted 08 March 2014 - 02:09

The rules do not design the engine in LMP1.

You have gasoline and diesel, turbo and NA, any number of cilynders. Not going to discuss the equivalency formulas.

In F1 rules define bore, stroke, V angle and turbo placement, and pretty much everything else. And them you freeze the specs.

That's what makes any illusion of relevance a huge joke.

Now if the thechonolgy flow is race->road or the way around in the real world is not an issue to be discussed here I'd say.

#111 RogerGraham

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Posted 15 March 2014 - 12:48

To be clear, we would not know the optimum temperatures for the fuel and charged intake air of a 2014 engine from the RA168E.

 

In 1988, the only reason Honda pre-heated their fuel, and kept the charged intake air at 70*C for their RA168E was to help with fuel vaporization.

 

The factors controlling vaporization would include:

  • The chemical composition of the fuel
  • The fuel pressure at the injectors
  • The design of the injectors
  • The thermal environment inside the cylinder during intake and compression strokes
  • The bore size, stroke length, and cylinder head design

So while it's not safe to assume that today's 2014 F1 engines require 70*C intake air, gruntguru is certainly right to show us the example of Honda finding that it's possible to lose efficiency by over-cooling the charged intake air of a turbo-charged engine. Thanks for that!

 

A snippet relating to this discussion, from Autosport.com today:
 

The Red Bull has also been seen without bodywork in the garage. The large size of the cooler package and in particular the turbo intercooler, which is split into two with one part in each sidepod, is immediately apparent. The intercooler is about four times the thickness of the radiators and far larger than other teams' set-ups.  That suggests the Renault unit needs a far lower charge air temperature to make power reliably, which of course comes at the price of the aero penalty of larger sidepods.

 

And this, also from Autosport.com:

With the all-new power units being so different to each other this year, it's worth noting a design detail on the Mercedes engine.  As far as we can see, the turbo installation on the Ferrari and Renault engines places the entire turbo low down behind the engine.  

 

By contrast, the Mercedes turbo is split.  The exhaust-driven turbine is still mounted behind the engine, but the larger compressor is mounted ahead of the engine.  The two units are linked via a shaft passing through the 'V' of the engine, most likely with the MGU-H mounted between them.  The placing of the large aluminium compressor at the front of the engine means it's far removed from the extreme 900 degrees C heat of the turbine, which will reduce charge air temperatures.


Edited by RogerGraham, 15 March 2014 - 12:52.


#112 MatsNorway

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Posted 17 March 2014 - 14:54

 The exhaust-driven turbine is still mounted behind the engine, but the larger compressor is mounted ahead of the engine.  The two units are linked via a shaft passing through the 'V' of the engine, most likely with the MGU-H mounted between them.  The placing of the large aluminium compressor at the front of the engine means it's far removed from the extreme 900 degrees C heat of the turbine, which will reduce charge air temperatures.

Thats crazy. Never heard about it before. ofc. People have been thinking about it before but the weight of the shaft was allways the issue. Now with the Turbo KERS its an easy fix to counteract the extra mass.