407 replies to this topic

[BRG]

I think the blame should lie with the series organisers who appear to be going for races at venues who are willing to pay the most.

It's not as if there were enough spectators there to help heave the car off the track, rally-style.  Another reason why racing in Saudi isn't a good idea.

[RSRally]

One thing that only just occurred to me regarding the races in Saudi.. none of the teams seemed to have any problems completing the race distance at the new 220KW race power and I can’t say i noticed much extra regenning or lifting and coasting to achieve that.

[juicy sushi]

You're right, it definitely did not seem to be an issue.  Will be interesting to see if that remains the case in Mexico.  

[BRG]

Do we know how far the cars would actually go without the artificial FE limit on power?  When they get to 0% power left, they still seem to be able to drive so evidently the batteries still hold some charge.  

[Risil]

How it's been explained to me before is that it's not currently possible to build 20 batteries that hold equal amounts of charge. The actual variation in capacity between the batteries assigned to the teams can be significant. So rather than arbitrarily or randomly giving one team an advantage over another (or, presumably, chucking away loads of batteries) they cap them all at a certain level.

[BRG]

Yes, but I wonder how much leeway they were giving themselves before when they set that cap?  90% of the nominal power?  Are they taking advantage of that margin this year to allow the higher power level?

[juicy sushi]

That would be a good question for a technically minded reporter to ask FE to see if they have an answer.  

[Ben1445]

I would take a guesstimate that they have to leave enough to cruise round a lap and a half at an average of maybe 50kW, which might take them maybe 3 minutes or so. That would be approximately 2.5 kWh assuming limited/no regen. 

 

Diriyah race one was about 40 laps, which with an ~50kWh available would see net energy use of 1.25kWh per lap. 

 

So maybe they could go a lap or two more if they didn't factor in the energy required for an in-lap? But then you'd end up with a collection of flat-batteried FE cars at the end of the finishing straight. 

Edited by Ben1445, 07 February 2022 - 17:35.