73 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

Interesting to read this quote just now, apparently from "Germany's 'Auto Bild' magazine", re fuel flow regulations within the current Formula 1.

 

"As well as being limited to just 100kg of fuel per race, each car is limited in 2014 to a maximum fuel rate of 100 kilograms per hour, enforced by a fuel flow sensor."

 

Errr - so to survive a 1 1/2-hour Grand Prix they can only average at best 66-and-a-tiny-bit kg per hour?

 

Hardly nostalgia, I know, but I feel TNFers might appreciate la difference?  Free fuel W125s, W154s, W196s, D50s, 250Fs, Type 25s, BT24s, M23s, 312Ts never gave the regulators a moment's trouble...so far as fuel flow rate was concerned

I detest F1 racing having more regulations than an EU HR handbook.  Happy days.  

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 16 March 2014 - 18:52.

[ReWind]

In this case don't put the blame on the magazine. It only refers to the actual regulation by the FIA.

[arttidesco]

Hardly Auto Bilds fault, they did not write the regs which in the case of fuel flow were designed to limit the maximum power available at any point in time.

 

Red Bull were given the opportunity to correct the problem but chose not to, so no sympathy for them plenty for their driver and spectators who's time they wasted

[Allan Lupton]

I detest F1 racing having more regulations than an EU HR handbook.  Happy days.  

 

DCN

Yes too many unnecessary rules.

If you just gave 'em 100 kg of fuel to use as they liked, with no other definition of engine size or type, car dimensions or aerodynamics, there could be some variety and technical innovation and we could have some real racing.

[Ross Stonefeld]

No, you'd either have a crippling spending war, or what we have now with everyone running the same engines.

[ensign14]

Hardly nostalgia, I know, but I feel TNFers might appreciate la difference?  Free fuel W125s, W154s, W196s, D50s, 250Fs, Type 25s, BT24s, M23s, 312Ts never gave the regulators a moment's trouble...so far as fuel flow rate was concerned

I detest F1 racing having more regulations than an EU HR handbook.  Happy days.  

 

The problem with the W125 era was that Grand Prix fields were often reduced to little more than half-a-dozen cars - almost all of which were being bankrolled by a mad dictator using blood labour.

 

I'm all for a free-for-all in regulations.  If the assets available were limited so that know-how and brainpower made the difference, rather than buying seconds through brute gelt.

 

Strangely enough, the teams have never been able to agree on that.  Mainly because certain very big teams don't seem to be confident of being able to win unless they have twice the spends of the opposition.

[GMACKIE]

Ahhhh...nostalgia ! Why, Im so old I remember when F1 was all about Great Drivers and Great Cars.

[bradbury west]

Just out of interest, does anyone recall if Keith Duckworth put any figures to the fuel flow formula which he proposed years ago?
Talking of fuel usage, ISTR that the 158/159 Alfas made for fast, interesting racing, until someone saw the merit of the Talbot Lago.
Roger Lund

[Doug Nye]

Thread title is of no particular significance - nor, in this context, is the current Red Bull disqualification - I am just amused (a little) by the notion that in present-day Formula 1 racing anyone using 100 per cent of what they have available would fail even to last race distance... The same was true in the mid-'80s, but this latest set of regs amplifies the PC absurdity of adapting Formula 1 - the pure-bred premier class - to make it "acceptably green"... Few of the greats in any area of Grand Prix racing endeavour would ever accept less than 100 per cent.

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 16 March 2014 - 22:00.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Being able to drive at 100% AND have the car last the race distance, always struck me as a phenomenon of modern motorsport....

[arttidesco]

Few of the greats in any area of Grand Prix racing endeavour would ever accept less than 100 per cent.

DCN

 

Formula E sounds like the future for you Doug, there each driver will be using two cars per race so they will be able to use at least one close to 100 % and hoping the the second makes it to the finishing line   

[GMACKIE]

Formula E sounds like the future for you Doug, there each driver will be using two cars per race so they will be able to use at least one close to 100 % and hoping the the second makes it to the finishing line 

[Batteries not included]

[Allan Lupton]

No, you'd either have a crippling spending war, or what we have now with everyone running the same engines.

What makes you imply we haven't a spending war now? All that sponsorship signwriting isn't there for altruistic reasons and never has been.

[Roger Clark]

Just out of interest, does anyone recall if Keith Duckworth put any figures to the fuel flow formula which he proposed years ago?
Talking of fuel usage, ISTR that the 158/159 Alfas made for fast, interesting racing, until someone saw the merit of the Talbot Lago.
Roger Lund

Didn't Duckworth purpose an air flow formula?

[johnthebridge]

I agree with Mr. Nye.

Whilst I try and feel very sorry for an Aussie being disqualified in Melbourne (!), I think the FIA should just say, "Bugger this, they're called RACING cars and drivers. It's supposed to be the pinnacle of motor sport, so sod all the environmentailists. Live with it."

What next? An Esso Economy drive, with best mpg, sorry, litres per kilometre, being displayed in the tables for all those poor viewers who can't tell the difference between understeer and oversteer?  An FIA sound level committee? (perhaps there already is one).   And my goodness, talking of that, don't they sound flat? During the highlights programme, a mate sent me a text asking if they were using Atco V-sixes....I was surprised that even Mr. Coulthard thought we'd all, "get used to the new sound" after a while. Really? Dunno why "they" don't just bring in one litre diesel triples and call it a day. Mind you, double-silenced of course.  Mutter, mutter, mutter. Grrrrr.

Roll on the Spring Start.

Yours,

Perturbed, of Tunbridge Wells.

[bradbury west]

Re Duckworth; I cannot remember the details, Roger, and have not checked.
RL

I have now checked. Graham Robson's book, pps 176/7 gives KD's narrative of it. It was fuel flow at 27ccs of fuel per second. Apparently he showed it to Ferrari, who thought it theoretically workable, but they deemed that FISA was not competent to calibrate it.....Keith had the letter from SF to that effect.

KD had considered airflow as an option but quickly discounted it as inefficient technically
Roger Lund

Edited by bradbury west, 17 March 2014 - 09:16.

[Gary Davies]

I agree with Mr. Nye.

Whilst I try and feel very sorry for an Aussie being disqualified in Melbourne (!), I think the FIA should just say, "Bugger this, they're called RACING cars and drivers. It's supposed to be the pinnacle of motor sport, so sod all the environmentailists. Live with it."

What next? An Esso Economy drive, with best mpg, sorry, litres per kilometre, being displayed in the tables for all those poor viewers who can't tell the difference between understeer and oversteer?  An FIA sound level committee? (perhaps there already is one).   And my goodness, talking of that, don't they sound flat? During the highlights programme, a mate sent me a text asking if they were using Atco V-sixes....I was surprised that even Mr. Coulthard thought we'd all, "get used to the new sound" after a while. Really? Dunno why "they" don't just bring in one litre diesel triples and call it a day. Mind you, double-silenced of course.  Mutter, mutter, mutter. Grrrrr.

Roll on the Spring Start.

Yours,

Perturbed, of Tunbridge Wells.

 

I feel your outrage. Many will agree with you but Formula One inevitably has to live in the real world, however much it prefers to live in its own exclusive bubble. It has to recognise changing times, changing climate, changing political and economic forces around it. 

 

If it doesn't... well the dinosaurs provide a reasonable case study.

[ensign14]

 

What next? An Esso Economy drive, with best mpg, sorry, litres per kilometre, being displayed in the tables for all those poor viewers who can't tell the difference between understeer and oversteer?

I'm guessing you would have hated the first-ever Grand Prix, which had a fuel restriction. As indeed has pretty much every Grand Prix ever since.

And of course the chap with the fastest time in the first-ever motor race did not win, because of a rule infraction.

There is no Golden Age of governing anarchy. I suppose the closest one has in the field of motor sport to that is the Land Speed Record. And if the lack of action in that were broadcast every fortnight for the last sixteen and a half years I reckon the audience would have been put off by now.

As it is, if F1 is the pinnacle of technology, surely it is rather exciting that the sport is leading the way in developments that are filtering through to road cars in a way that has not happened in a few sporting generations? Nobody sticks a giant rear wing or slicks or steering-wheel brake adjustments on a Yaris but in ten years' time it might have a KERS system that halves fuel consumption.

[Tim Murray]

I have now checked. Graham Robson's book, pps 176/7 gives KD's narrative of it. It was fuel flow at 27ccs of fuel per second. Apparently he showed it to Ferrari, who thought it theoretically workable, but they deemed that FISA was not competent to calibrate it.....Keith had the letter from SF to that effect.

KD had considered airflow as an option but quickly discounted it as inefficient technically
Roger Lund

This agrees with an interview he gave which was reproduced in Autosport (6th March 1980). In it he says that he originally proposed a straightforward sonic orifice to limit air flow, similar to those used in F3. This proposal, he said, was ‘shot down by the purists on the grounds of the illogicality of restricting air, which is free and abundant, rather than fuel which is costly and which the world needs to conserve’. He then came up with the fuel flow proposal. He had first suggested a maximum fuel flow of 34cc/sec, but at the time of the interview he thought that ’27cc per second would produce power levels acceptable to those concerned about rising circuit speeds’.

 

A very rough calculation (using 0.8 as a guess for the fuel specific gravity) shows that the current 100kg/hour limit equates to a flow of just under 35cc/sec.

 

(I’ve no real idea about the true specific gravity of current F1 fuels. The figure for ordinary ‘street’ petrol is about 0.74 – this would equate to a flow of 37.5cc/sec).

[BRG]

I remember Jack Brabham and Ayrton Senna both rolling to a halt in British GPs - both out after using 100% of their fuel before they covered 100% of the race.

[Gary Davies]

I remember Jack Brabham and Ayrton Senna both rolling to a halt in British GPs - both out after using 100% of their fuel before they covered 100% of the race.

 

Don't remember much about Senna but Blackie also did the same in Sebring 1959. Neither to do with regulations, really. Sebring was self inflicted and Brands was not down to the Brabham Chief mechanic of the time!

[Nick Savage]

Well, perhaps this is the time for TNF members who cared about F1 when it was the pinnacle of the motor sport paradise to declare the era of F1 (1908 to 2008) over.  Not just the Golden Age (whenever that was) but the whole thing.

 

The era that has recently finished  -  100 years when technical endeavour/creativity was matched by driver skill of the highest level;  when circuits reflected both the character of the countryside and in some way, the character of the country in which it sat; when there was a reasonable balance between the commercial interests, governing body and teams and engineers; when the reason you went to spectate was to watch, smell, hear the annual one-off spectacle in your country of the very best pitted against the weather, the track and the competition  -  was great while it lasted. It has been a few years dying, but when a 1.6 turbo generates just over half the power that a 1.5 turbo could churn out, then its dead

 

We can debate the dates and thoughts above, but I suggest that ....  it's over.

Yrs apocalyptically and apoplectically,

Nick

[Roger Clark]

This agrees with an interview he gave which was reproduced in Autosport (6th March 1980). In it he says that he originally proposed a straightforward sonic orifice to limit air flow, similar to those used in F3. This proposal, he said, was ‘shot down by the purists on the grounds of the illogicality of restricting air, which is free and abundant, rather than fuel which is costly and which the world needs to conserve’. He then came up with the fuel flow proposal. He had first suggested a maximum fuel flow of 34cc/sec, but at the time of the interview he thought that ’27cc per second would produce power levels acceptable to those concerned about rising circuit speeds’.

 

A very rough calculation (using 0.8 as a guess for the fuel specific gravity) shows that the current 100kg/hour limit equates to a flow of just under 35cc/sec.

 

(I’ve no real idea about the true specific gravity of current F1 fuels. The figure for ordinary ‘street’ petrol is about 0.74 – this would equate to a flow of 37.5cc/sec).

I remembered the speech he gave at the RAC Club, reported in Autosport 9/2/78 in which he said that a fuel flow formula would be impossible to police but an air flow formula would have the same effect due to the necessity of maintaining the chemically correct air-fuel ratio,

 

Clearly Duckworth moved on but I didn't.

[Roger Clark]

 
I'm guessing you would have hated the first-ever Grand Prix, which had a fuel restriction. 

Did it?  1907 had a fuel consumption limit, but I thought that 1906 only had a maximum weight (1,000kg).

[ensign14]

 

Well, perhaps this is the time for TNF members who cared about F1 when it was the pinnacle of the motor sport paradise to declare the era of F1 (1908 to 2008) over.  Not just the Golden Age (whenever that was) but the whole thing.

Weren't there similar laments in 1958 over the 1.5l formula agreed for 1961? And didn't Charles Jarrott declare racing over when it went exclusively to circuit racing? 
 

Did it?  1907 had a fuel consumption limit, but I thought that 1906 only had a maximum weight (1,000kg).

30 litres per 100kms, per Cimarosti.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Well, perhaps this is the time for TNF members who cared about F1 when it was the pinnacle of the motor sport paradise to declare the era of F1 (1908 to 2008) over.  Not just the Golden Age (whenever that was) but the whole thing.

 

The era that has recently finished  -  100 years when technical endeavour/creativity was matched by driver skill of the highest level;  when circuits reflected both the character of the countryside and in some way, the character of the country in which it sat; when there was a reasonable balance between the commercial interests, governing body and teams and engineers; when the reason you went to spectate was to watch, smell, hear the annual one-off spectacle in your country of the very best pitted against the weather, the track and the competition  -  was great while it lasted. It has been a few years dying, but when a 1.6 turbo generates just over half the power that a 1.5 turbo could churn out, then its dead

 

We can debate the dates and thoughts above, but I suggest that ....  it's over.

Yrs apocalyptically and apoplectically,

Nick

 

Not sure if this is satire or utter nonsense. 

 

The idea that the turbo engines of the 80s were better than the current ones is laughable. If they were allowed to run unrestricted in qualifying you'd see very high HP numbers. 

 

And whatever complaints you have with modern F1, I don't see how 2008 is the high water mark. It's not that different from the 2009-2014 version 

[Roger Clark]

 

 
30 litres per 100kms, per Cimarosti.

 

I haven't seen that anywhere else and Cimarosti says on the next page that the limit was introduced in 1907.

[Tim Murray]

 
30 litres per 100kms, per Cimarosti.

That has to be a mistake by Cimarosti. In his chapter on 1907 he wrote:

 

For this year's ACF Grand Prix the 1000kg weight formula was replaced by a formula based on consumption, under which engines were measured for fuel consumption per 100km and were not allowed to use more than 30 litres. With the introduction of this rule, the Automobile Club put a stop to the quest for larger and larger engines ...

My understanding (confirmed by every source I can currently lay my hands on) has always been that the fuel consumption formula was first applied for 1907.

 

Edit: beaten by Roger.

Edited by Tim Murray, 17 March 2014 - 12:22.

[Roger Clark]

Not sure if this is satire or utter nonsense. 

 

The idea that the turbo engines of the 80s were better than the current ones is laughable. If they were allowed to run unrestricted in qualifying you'd see very high HP numbers. 

 

And whatever complaints you have with modern F1, I don't see how 2008 is the high water mark. It's not that different from the 2009-2014 version 

I don't know whether this is what Nick intended but I believe that 2008 was the first year of the homologated engines, which, in my opinion, did put an end to the tradition of Grand Prix racing as it existed from 1906.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Engines had to last more than one race several years before that. There were restrictions on gearboxes. RPM limits and development freezes came in before 2009. Etc. 

[ensign14]

 

That has to be a mistake by Cimarosti. In his chapter on 1907 he wrote:
 
My understanding (confirmed by every source I can currently lay my hands on) has always been that the fuel consumption formula was first applied for 1907.

Either way, fuel consumption formulae are over a century old. The current one is surely more generous than the mid 1980s when many a GP was lost through running dry. Let alone those Le Manses when otherwise healthy cars had to retire because they couldn't make the mandated minimum inter-stop distances.

[AJB]

No, you'd either have a crippling spending war, or what we have now with everyone running the same engines.

What we have now is the worst of both - everyone using the 'same', very expensive drive trains.

 

If the FIA wanted to cut costs, why not have a standard low cost engine? The Corvette V8 taken to 7 litres, with gobs of torque and a lovely sound, would do nicely. They could call it Formula 7000.

[kayemod]

What we have now is the worst of both - everyone using the 'same', very expensive drive trains.

 

If the FIA wanted to cut costs, why not have a standard low cost engine? The Corvette V8 taken to 7 litres, with gobs of torque and a lovely sound, would do nicely. They could call it Formula 7000.

 

I've got an even better idea, the Cosworth DFV.

[Doug Nye]

What we have now is the worst of both - everyone using the 'same', very expensive drive trains.

 

If the FIA wanted to cut costs, why not have a standard low cost engine? The Corvette V8 taken to 7 litres, with gobs of torque and a lovely sound, would do nicely. They could call it Formula 7000.

 

I set out to spark an idle-moments F1 conversation.  Now it's talkin' dirty...a production-engine premier Formula really would be THE END.

 

DCN

[RogerFrench]

I am puzzled by the assertion that giving freedom to designers to build V6, V8, Straight 4, or whatever configuration will automatically lead to astronomical costs.
It seems to me that if you constrain them all so that the only advantages they can develop are on the extreme fringes of technology, then that would lead to extreme costs too. Or doesn't it work that way?

I'd really like to see a fuel consumption formula with no other constraint. If, in that context, ERS systems make sense then so be it, let's have them. I'd also like to mandate that the formula regulate consumption from ALL energy sources on the car - petrol, electricity, compressed air, whatever.

I also think there ought to be a panel of judges to disqualify ugly cars, but that may not be reasonable.

Edited by RogerFrench, 17 March 2014 - 15:50.

[arttidesco]

I set out to spark an idle-moments F1 conversation.  Now it's talkin' dirty...a production-engine premier Formula really would be THE END.

 

DCN

 

Was that not tried from 1968 to 1974

Edited by arttidesco, 17 March 2014 - 17:10.

[scheivlak]

I've got an even better idea, the Cosworth DFV.

We've had that before.

 

How glad I was that the likes of Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and later Renault gave us some variety!

[Sisyphus]

Apparently all the spectators arrived in Australia by bicycle or sail boat. 

 

The idea that the amount of fuel that an F1 car consumes has any relevance to the need for the world at large to conserve fuel is--sorry--stupid.  I suspect more fuel was used in the tranport aircraft delivering the cars to the race than the cars used the whole weekend.  Better keep all the races in Europe then. 

 

And if F1 needs a green appearance, why then have they instituted night races which wastes a significant amount of electrical power for lighting?

 

F1 cars need to burn gasoline in the same way that baseball needs to consume cow leather for balls and wood for bats.  All professional sports mainly consume fuel in getting the participants and spectators to and from the event.  Is the public not able to comprend this fact?

 

The whole KERS and fuel flow regs are just distracting and add to costs, it seems to me.  The fact that any somewhat similar technology may eventually make its way onto production cars does not validate the requirements for the technology development in F1.  I suspect that some things the OEM's are doing now to improve fuel economy is at least as sophisticated as what F1 is doing.  We used to joke that the sophisticated turbos were the ones on the haulers in the paddock rather than on the Indy cars--which was a fact.

 

I do like the idea of limiting power with a sonic nozzle--the physics is sublime.  Let them build whatever design they like:  4, 6, 8, 12, 16 cylinders, with or without turbo--as long as all the air comes thru the nozzle.  That would be an interesting F1.

[kayemod]

 I suspect more fuel was used in the transport aircraft delivering the cars to the race than the cars used the whole weekend.  Better keep all the races in Europe then. 

 

 

I suspect you could make that the whole worldwide 20 race season and still have several tanker-loads left over.

[GMACKIE]

The Mobil Economy Runs were not that popular in Australia, back in the '60s.....why are they trying to bring them back?

[Allan Lupton]

I am puzzled by the assertion that giving freedom to designers to build V6, V8, Straight 4, or whatever configuration will automatically lead to astronomical costs.
It seems to me that if you constrain them all so that the only advantages they can develop are on the extreme fringes of technology, then that would lead to extreme costs too. Or doesn't it work that way?

I agree, it does work that way: the more regulated the design is, the harder (and costlier) it is to gain any advantage within the rules - remember "blueprinting" Group I saloon racers.

[Ross Stonefeld]

So there's diminishing returns. Rather than needing the money and corporate motivation of say, Honda to investigate every configuration and then dump even more money on the version you decide on. 

 

At least Cosworth knows what kind of F1 engine to design.

[AJB]

I set out to spark an idle-moments F1 conversation.  Now it's talkin' dirty...a production-engine premier Formula really would be THE END.

 

DCN

 

I know.

I was just throwing a cat into the pigeons. :-)   But I know which one I'd rather listen to.......

[AAGR]

Regarding 'whatever engine you like, but use the same inlet hole .... - way back in the 1950s, as I recall, Joe Lowrey of MOTOR magazine made exactly the same proposal. Naturally, this became known as the "Joe's Hole" formula ....'

[kayemod]

Regarding 'whatever engine you like, but use the same inlet hole .... - way back in the 1950s, as I recall, Joe Lowrey of MOTOR magazine made exactly the same proposal. Naturally, this became known as the "Joe's Hole" formula ....'

 

That's not as good as "Miss Shilling's orifice" though, won the Battle of Britain for us did Beatrice Shilling.

 

And that's a name worth Googling. I learned that she lapped Brooklands at 106mph on a Norton, I bet Joe Lowrey never managed that, though they could always have compared holes, or even orifices.

[Doug Nye]

What an 'orifying thought...

DCN

[Rob Miller]

As it happens, the Battle of Britain had to won without "Miss Shilling's orifice" as it only came into being in 1941.

[ray b]

I set out to spark an idle-moments F1 conversation.  Now it's talkin' dirty...a production-engine premier Formula really would be THE END.

 

DCN

BMW 4 TURBO ?

existing 1960 era block won how any races in the 1980's

lots of poles too

many think it was the most powerful F-1 motor of all time esp in Q form

[Andrew Fellowes]

That's not as good as "Miss Shilling's orifice" though, won the Battle of Britain for us did Beatrice Shilling.

 

And that's a name worth Googling. I learned that she lapped Brooklands at 106mph on a Norton, I bet Joe Lowrey never managed that, though they could always have compared holes, or even orifices.

Tilly Shilling had some interesting cars too, she redesigned them off the track while hubby George Naylor did his best to change them on the track. There is a good book to read about her.

[Allan Lupton]

Tilly Shilling had some interesting cars too, she redesigned them off the track while hubby George Naylor did his best to change them on the track. There is a good book to read about her.

Somewhere I have a photo of Tilly racing their Lagonda Rapier at an Eight Clubs' Silverstone, but I can't be doing with secondary photo-hosting so can't put it here.

Joe Lowrey also appeared as an official at Eight Clubs and quite possibly raced there - he certainly raced (and overturned) at Goodwood.