26 replies to this topic

[slipstream]

In the San Marino race review in section of Formula 1 Magazine it says " On the track the sensationally shrieking Mercedes FO 110K sounded wonderful and experts suggested revs were close to the 20,000 rpm region " How many of you think that the new Ilmor-Mercedes can rev close to 20,000 rpm ? and is it more more powerful than the BMW ?

[Greg L]

My guess would be no and no. I don't think that the Ilmor engine runs much (if at all) above 19,000, and I sure don't see (or hear) it going close to 20,000. Also, I'd still guess that the BMW engine is more powerful, as the Williams' top speed can attest. The Ilmor engine is quite powerful and reliable, but I think that the BMW has the edge. All IMHO.

[desmo]

It depends on whether one considers <18.5Krpm "close to 20,000rpm".

[man from martinlaakso]

I don't know, how many revs the Ilmor engine is able to do, but so far it is clear, that both BMW and Ferrari engines have been stronger than Ilmor. And I think, that BMW and Ferrari are farely close to each other, but Ilmor might be some 30 hps down. That is a big gap, and it is clearly seen in the qualifyings : MS has beaten MH in Interlagos and in Barcelona, although these tracks suit Mika's style better than Michael's style. In Interlagos MH had three poles ina row 1998-2000, but in this year MS was clearly faster. I don't think, that the speed of MH or MS has changed, but the speed potentials of their cars have.

[confucius]

Onboards with Mika in Barca show the Ilmor revving to around 17,400.

[man from martinlaakso]

Confucius, that was probably in the race. As you know, the engines are tuned down for the races. So if the Ilmor engine was doing some 17400 rpm in the race, it might be close to 19000 in the qualifyings. Perhaps a new model can do nearly 20000 rpm, but it has not yet been taken to a real use.

[Bex37]

Perhaps Mika's engine did get up to 20,000 rpm ........ boom

(yeh, yeh, I know they say it was a clutch)

[Juan]

Originally posted by man from martinlaakso
I don't know, how many revs the Ilmor engine is able to do, but so far it is clear, that both BMW and Ferrari engines have been stronger than Ilmor. And I think, that BMW and Ferrari are farely close to each other, but Ilmor might be some 30 hps down. That is a big gap, and it is clearly seen in the qualifyings : MS has beaten MH in Interlagos and in Barcelona, although these tracks suit Mika's style better than Michael's style. In Interlagos MH had three poles ina row 1998-2000, but in this year MS was clearly faster. I don't think, that the speed of MH or MS has changed, but the speed potentials of their cars have.

What crap.

The ferrari and mac engines are very close together.

How can you say brazil and spain suit mika more?
Michael is fast on any track,he has no bad tracks.

The reason you think mika is so good at spain and brazil is because over the last 3 years hes had the best car and hes got pole.

Mclaren have caught up and its clear they have the best car now.

[pRy]

When it comes down to engine power and top speeds, BMW is currently top of the league, followed by Ferrari and McLaren.

BMW used this to their advantage at Brazil on the straight, and hope it will also play into their advantage at A1 Ring, as it requires alot of power.

[JPMCrew]

Williams-BMW which usually tends to play down their chances are unusually optimistic regarding Austria. I would guess they know they have the most powerful engine and that Austria will be a good track to display such power. It also tells you that they think they have their TC problems figured out.

[man from martinlaakso]

Juan, according to an article about a month ago the BMW engine should make 850 hps, Ferrari 840 hps and Ilmor 810 hps. I think, that Ilmor might have made the gap smaller, but for example in the qualifyings in Malaysia and Brazil the power difference between BMW and Ilmor was clearly to be seen. Now with the come-back of TC Williams is loosing its positions.

Every driver has his good and not so good tracks. For MH his best tracks are A1, Barcelona, Intelagos and Suzuka. His weakest tracks are Sepang, Imola, Montreal and Magny-Cours. The best tracks for MS are Sepang, Monaco, Magny-Cours and Spa (especially, if it rains). The weakest tacks of MS are A1, Melbourne, Silverstone and Hockenheim. A1 is the only track, where MS so far has never won. So A1 is probably the best track for MH and the worst track for MS. Still it is possible, that MS will be faster than MH all the week-end. That would be a very bad omen for McLaren, very bad indeed. But personally I predict MH to win. Sometimes his bad luck will end, and A1 would be a very suitable place for that.

[The_Z_Man]

Originally posted by Juan
Michael is fast on any track,he has no bad tracks.

And he never underperforms too. That's why he is basically invincible. It's an UNDENIABLE fact. I know.

The_Z_Man

[XPG]

According to latest F1 Rumors newsletter:

BMW (Williams) 840 bhp (1)
Mercedes (McLaren) 835 bhp (2)
Ferrari (Ferrari) 835 bhp (2)
Honda (BAR,Jordan) 825 bhp (3)
AMT (Arrows) 820 bhp (4)
Cosworth (Jaguar) 815 bhp (5)
Ferrari'00 (Prost,Sauber) 815 bhp (6)
Ford '98 (Minardi) 805 bhp (7)
Renault (Benetton) 800 bhp (8)


29th March:
http://f1rumors.net/...2001/03/29.html

"Ferrari reputedly produce nearly 830 bhp in qualifying trim; more importantly, they combine that power with the smoothest delivery in the paddock. Until traction control comes in, they have the engine to beat.
BMW Williams are a close second, producing over 830 bhp, but unable to utilise all of it, due to excessive wheelspin. Plenty of work has gone into the engine mapping program since Malaysia, bringing them closer to Ferrari.
McLaren-Mercedes are arguably on a par with BMW, as their 830 bhp rated engine is highly drivable. The unit has excellent torque and peak power, but is being detuned until traction control is added, as the uncontrolled unit tends to fall apart over race distances... though more power will be fed in for Brazil to aid the quest for parity with Ferrari.
Honda have an 820bhp unit on offer to BAR and Jordan, which both are using for qualifying at least -- they should be able to use it for racing too, as of this event.


Ferrari's 2000 engine is rated at 810 bhp, and comes with some excellent mapping pre-installed. Ferrari believe Prost and Sauber could make more of their 2000 championship winning unit...
Jaguar are using an 810 bhp rated Cosworth engine, which incorporates the best concepts of the 1999 and 2000 units. On the downside, it is being downrated slightly, in search of reliability.
European is really Ford's 98 offering, revised. And at 805 bhp, power is not as far down as you would think; but bulky, heavy packaging carries a buge penalty.
Renault have built a new 111 degree engine, capable of 830 bhp and 19500 rpm. However, it is detuned, yielding well under 800 bhp, and with a maximum of 17,5000 rpm so far. It has also been mentioned the V might actually measure nearer 100 degrees than 111... but we haven't got a protrator out to measure it, so we can't tell you.
AMT figures vary from 790 bhp to 820 bhp, depending who is leaking the information. In any event, the engine is mentioned as the least powerful on the grid by non-team members. The de-tuned Renault unit is probably lower on power, though!

There's the lowdown, according to the latest figures we have been able to get at prior to the Brazilian event. We know that Renault are considering tuning their units up for qualifying (look out for blown engines), whilst at least Prost believe they have improved their engine mappings, hence traction, hence lap times, considerably since Malaysia. And very shortly, we'll find out! "

[cygnus]

It's difficult to guess which engine is the 'highest revving' because they DO tune them down. McLaren had quite a few failures all through Winter testing .. and its possible they're rev limiting farther down than most of the others for more reliability.

We also have to consider how much rear wing Williams-BMW are using .. they're choosing to sacrifice cornering speed for straight-line speed .. which is beneficial on circuits like Brazil, A1-ring, Hockenheim Spa and Monza.

[man from martinlaakso]

Juan, you wrote : "Mclaren have caught up and its clear they have the best car now."


Also Norbert Haug has stated, that McLaren had the best speed in Barcelona. But is this true ? Ferrari was the best car in the Barcelona free practises and especially in the time trials Ferrari clearly seemd to have an upper hand. MH could almost steal the pole, but I have the feeling, that he had to sweat much more for his fast laps than Michael.

In the race MS had the race under his control, until his tyre prolem began right after his second pit stop. Before that MS/Ferrari combo was about 0.1 sec pro a lap faster than MH/McLaren combo. RB drove a good race (as long it lasted), and was loosing about 0.2-0.25 sec pro a lap to MH, which is not much. The best lap time for DC was almost 1 sec slower than MS's best time, and about 0.3 sec slower than RB's best lap time. So MS was slightly faster than MH and RB clearly faster than DC. The most natural conclusion is, that Ferrari still is ahead of McLaren in speed. The gap is not as big as it was in Melbourne and especially in Sepang, but it is still there. And remeber, that the Barcelona track had been very good to McLaren earlier, three 1 - 2 wins in a row in 1998 - 2000.

[The RedBaron]

MFM- some of that gap might be down to Ferrari having more advanced (better performing) TC package at Barcelona....who knows.!!

[dynamic]

Cygnus Williams as one of the most rear wings. And recently Dr. Mario T. said basically that they were happy with the engine progress and could now put as much rear wing as they need.

[Dimo]

As people with BernieTV will tell you, the Merc gets nowhere near 20K in racing trim. I doubt they hit that in qualifying either.

There were rumours early in the season that Merc cut back on the revs before Oz after all the engine failures they were having in testing. Does anyone know if this is true? Is there a chance they could bring back those revs after sorting out reliability?

[The_Z_Man]

Originally posted by dynamic
Cygnus Williams as one of the most rear wings. And recently Dr. Mario T. said basically that they were happy with the engine progress and could now put as much rear wing as they need.

One should not overlook the fact that all rear wings aren't created equal in terms of downforce and drag, and moreover one should not only rely on eye to gauge the aerodynamic efficiency of a car, wing...

The_Z_Man

[slipstream]

I have read that this years Ilmor-Mercedes was designed with traction control in mind so this years Ilmor is not very smooth and it has a very savage torque curve. Now that Traction is legal McLaren can take full use of it`s powerful Engine . In Spain it did seem that the McLaren had the edge on Acceleration which it did not have before.

[man from martinlaakso]

RedBaron, I assume, that Slipstream has got it right. The McLaren car was originally planned to co-operate with TC. The TC seemed in fact work better in McLaren than it did in Ferrari. Well, Ferrari was still the fastest and best car, but not a very big margin. If you compare the Barcelona races in 2000 and 2001, Ferrari had the upper hand in both cases before the technical problems came to the picture. In 2000 MS was able to drop MH twice as fast as he did in 2001. Both MH and MS have been very stabile performers in Barcelona, so I read the results so, that the gap between Ferrari and McLaren has reduced from May 2000. Remeber that in summer 2000 Mclaren was ahead of Ferrari technically most of the time, until Ferrari improved in fall.

[diosh]

You know that article is a complete and utter load of bollocks once it says the 1998 ford unit Minardi are using develops 805hp

I remember martin Brundle saying last year, that the engine must be AT LEAST 100hp down on the rest. I find it hard to believe that 3 years ago the teams were knocking on 800hp in qualifying trim, Ford didn't even have the strongest engine then! That's only 10hp down from this years ford works unit. Seems like someone's just gone and made those numbers up. A 5hp advantage is virtually nothing for the BMW, doesn't begin to make up for the speed those Williams cars have been showing on the straights. Perhaps the williams just car is very slippery in a straight line? Combined with a good engine and low wing settings they are setting high speed trap times.

[HartleyHare]

I roughly agree with diosh - the figures are all rumours. Unless you get them all on the same dyno in the same conditions you will never know the full truth. But I understood that the CR series Fords were only down on power due to artificial rev limits which were later lifted, but that the engine was reputedly pretty pokey.

I'll quote the example of a magazine test of 600cc bikes as an indicator of how power figures can be misleading: the 600cc Yamaha was putting out about 94bhp on the dyno compared to the 600cc Suzuki's 97bhp, and similarly behind on peak torque. But the fact that the Yam had a higher rev range meant that thrust in each gear, and thus acceleration was significantly quicker on the Yam. The Suzuki had a higher outright top speed, but took longer to get there - thus effective speed at the end of any given straight was higher on the Yamaha (given similar exit speed).

It is also instructive to remember the last season Williams ran the Mecachrome/Supertec - they were much faster than the other two teams running the identical motor. Similarly the Arrows was living up to its name with stupendous straight line speed with the super-annuated Renault motor. Speed and performance can be achieved despite, as well as because of, an engine. Williams have always been pretty good with aeros and the current package would appear to be no exception. Clearly the BMW is strong, but the word I have heard is that it is revs, not sheer power which confers the main part of any advantage.

The bottom line is that we cannot judge an individual part of a car, such as the engine, while the other parts are variable. Peak revs is one of the few measurable factors which has a direct bearing on performance. But do we have any reliable source for actual revs? I can't say I'd trust Bernie TV!!

Hope the Renault comes good soon - at least they are trying to push the limited boundaries of the F1 regs. I still believe they will be close to Williams by the end of the season, at least closer than any other Michelin runner.

[The_Z_Man]

Originally posted by HartleyHare
The bottom line is that we cannot judge an individual part of a car, such as the engine, while the other parts are variable. Peak revs is one of the few measurable factors which has a direct bearing on performance.

I very much agree with you on that, and stated things like that on my "About engines and the importance of the chassis" thread.

The_Z_Man

[Mrv]

The best engine on the grid is the 050 then the BMW. Check out the trap speed at Barcelona. The Williams and Ferrari were even. Ferrari had there engine detuned a bit in the first few races as they were concentrating on reliabilty first. They have stepped it up a notch as their straightline speed shows.

[tony]

Someone probably stated this already, but peak horsepower figures are more or less useless. It's like the guys who see the commercials for K&N air filters..."get 25 more HP from changing your air filter" Sure on one particular engine a K&N air filter might make 25 more HP at one specific RPM.
The figure of merit for an engine is having lots of torque and having a flat torque vs. RPM curve. In other words you want alot of torque at all RPM's. Horsepower is related to torque by multiplying by the RPM.

HP = (some constant)*torque*RPM

Thus even if an engine can rev to 50,000 RPM's if it's torque drops off at higher RPM's then there's no reason to rev that high. With all this said, doesn anyone have any torque vs. RPM curves for any of the engines?

[Bob Nomates]

I think it's possible, McLaren aways seem to go for speed over reliabilty.