Minardi PS04B - A Season In BOSS GP (Photo Heavy!)
Discussion
People seemed to like the thread I did in the F1 forum on V10 era tech and several have asked me to post more. This year has been crazy and I've just not had the time but as we wrapped the season up this weekend I thought a run through of the season may be of interest? So here's the behind the scenes on our 2016 Season in BOSS GP with the 2004 Minardi PS04B.
Full disclosure before we start, I have a huge amount of respect for Minardi and what they did. They cars are absolute engineers cars with details that were way ahead of the rest of the grid, it's well known the team were always hampered by a lack of budget for aero development and current engines but what they did with what they had was nothing short of staggering. For us to race these cars was a real pleasure and one of the highlights of my career. I also want to say thanks to BOSS GP for putting together such a well organised and supported championship and to the Minardi family and ex team members who helped way more than we could ever have expected or hoped. Running one of these things competitively is pretty challenging, running one with absolutely no data, no supplier support and limited spares is getting towards impossible.... but we did it
So without further ado here is 2016 for us:
In January we received the two (the only two!) PS04Bs, they were 99% complete having been used for demo and exhibition but a demo car is way different to a race car and there was a monumental task ahead getting them into a position to go racing with them.
Everything had to go back to component form to measure, inspect, test and replace as required. These are properly fast cars with huge energy everywhere on them so the risk created by assuming some aspects are good is just not worth taking:
Front end components laid out post inspection.
Front uprights stripped for inspection.
Gearbox internals pre inspection.
Several weeks later we had a car together that we were happy with mechanically, we had what we thought was a reasonable base setup and had secured enough spares to make running the cars for BOSS realistic. Spares were still really, REALLY, tight.... for example we had no spare engines, no spare complete gearboxes, only one spare set of uprights/wishbones etc. one spare set of hyds, no spare steering wheels, ECUs or major electronics in general.....
Back together awaiting first fire up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ3cEnKmm1U
First fire up and gear check.
Post fire up and gear check. A working, race'able car!
With that done we headed off to sunny Anglesey to do some installation laps and setup development.
Unfortunately snow and winds gusting to 70mph put pay to that which meant were heading off to round 1 at Hockenheim having done no testing at all!
We finished the second car with a few days spare and headed for Germany.
FP1 didn't exactly go to plan with a hyds issue causing damage to 1st/2nd gear dog, 1st/2nd gear ratio, shift fork and punching a hole through the side of the barrel. This was to be the start of our gearbox issues for the year.
Following a quick gearbox rebuild and a swap to our spare hyds set we got the car out for FP2.
It ran well! The setup wasn't great with the car massively oversteer prone at low speeds but considering we had no testing it wasn't as far off as it could be! In fact it was looking pretty competitive behind the STR1 and Jag R5
We went into Race 1 fairly confident that the car would do the distance....
To be rewarded with a P4 finish!
Quite a lot of work went on that night with the box totally stripped and inspected to find that 6th gear fork and dog ring had got seriously hot, we couldn't find a reason why and with nothing else to do the parts were changed for new and another 200ml of gearbox oil went in on the off chance we were struggling due to gearbox temps (GB operating oil temp circa 160 degrees!). We made some setup changes to try to cure the oversteer and Race 2 rewarded us with another P4:
We still had oversteer issues and it was clear it wasn't something that could be solved by tinkering with third element rates or tyre pressures. We knew the rear of the car was too stiff and this was most likely because of the Avon tyres we were running but diving straight in and making new rear torsion bars with the testing time we had available (not just physical time but mileage limits on engines and gearboxes too) was a risky move. We were tight on time to Round 2 and decided to miss this and see what we could do with regards setup and gearbox wear/temp issues as with the parts consumption rate we had we weren't going to make it to the end of the season on gearboxes so we had to address this! We did the only thing we could with our rear suspension issue and got the car on a shake rig:
Which immediately told us our suspicion regarding the stiffness of the tyre sidewall on the Avon tyre was the issue. It was way stiffer than the original Bridgestone which in turn made the rear of the car far too stiff. We tried a few third spring rates and arrived a setup that looked good on the rig.
We also took the opportunity to move to our "better" engine in the prime chassis and concentrate dev on this car with the second chassis acting as T-Car. We also made progress on our gearbox wear rate issues with an ex Minardi engineer helping us to do a deal with original oil supplier to provide the "special" oil that was run in 2004.
We left of Monza fairly confident that we had made progress and used the Minardi day at Imola to test the T-Car which hadn't run at this point. Doing three laps and collecting some valuable data for later in the season.
Conditions looked good and we were excited to see if our changes had made a positive difference to the car.
FP1, FP2 went very well and the car was clearly quicker and far better behaved with the oversteer issue completely resolved. Our gearbox issues had also disappeared, the box was running 30 degrees cooler than it had at Hockenheim and the wear rates were almost zero.
We were pretty confident in sending the car for Qualifying and were looking forward to some good times! In three laps we were P4 and in a good position to push for a fast time, when about 20 seconds after that one of the hose clamps retaining the lower rad transfer line failed and 6 litres of coolant at 3 atmospheres exited the back of the car in short order. The engine was cooked before it even stopped turning
Not only did we not have any spare engines but that was our good one! The only thing we could do was swap to the T-Car and transfer the setup over (not a quick job) between Qualifying and Race 1, we had 5 hours and just did it!
Formed up on the grid with slightly mismatching livery
Our efforts on setup were well rewarded as the car was quick enough to take P2 behind the STR1 giving us our first Podium! A happy team to say the least!
This also meant for Race 2 we were right at the sharp end of the grid and a long night followed to get the car repreped and ready.
We had a great start and four corners in the STR1 had an engine failure, all of sudden we were leading the race and pulling a gap from P2!
P1! Our first win!
A happy driver
And a happy team. With the points haul from the weekend we were P3 in the championship and only a few points off P2. Through a lot of hard work over the previous months we'd ended up with a competitive car that could win races. Way more important for us was the fact we had just won an FIA race with a Minardi! The first time a Minardi had ever taken P1 in an FIA championship. Over the moon didn't quite cut it and there were a few sore heads the following morning
There was a lot of work to do for Assen and with days to spare we got the damaged motor back and into chassis 2 both cars leaving for Round 3 at Assen on time. An easy setup and the no issues in FP1 or FP2 and we qualified well!
We sent the car to the grid for Race 1 hoping for another Podium, although we were up against some pretty tough competition with two faster cars around us, realistically the best we could do was a P3 unless anyone else fell off or had a mechanical issue.
Which we got! 20 more points in the bag and still only a handful behind P2 in the Championship. However the car never made it back to the pits, it had stopped on the inlap and was recovered by the safety team after a short delay. A quick investigation revealed we'd run out of air and hit the bottle pressure cut off, crossing the line with about 20 seconds running time remaining! Extremely lucky to make it but now we were an engine down again! Another late night followed with an engine change...
Only to find (at 3AM) the spare had developed a pretty serious issue with the power take off that drives the alternator and hyds pump. If we tried to run it we were either going to stop from the drive to the hyds pump failing or stop when the timing gear came apart and lunched the engine. So that was our weekend over, the only saving grace was that our closest competition had a gearbox issue following race 1 and didn't run race 2 either. Still it was pretty clear now that not only did we have no chance of a Championship win but we'd both been overtaken by the previous P4 sitter to P2! We decided at this point that if we could finish top 3 overall that would be a pretty fantastic result considering we had no chance of making the next round and this became our target going into the season finale at Imola.
A lot of work went into prep and rebuilding both engines. We were on our last hyds spares and running low on gearbox parts. Both engines came back in time and we pushed on to Imola aiming for a P3 championship finish. We were a few points ahead of P4 at this point due to the dropped round and had no realistic chance of P2. All we had to do was finish P3 or higher in one of the races and we had it in the bag.....
Conditions were mixed at Imola which made setup a challenge!
Both cars prepped and ready for action, we knew we had a pretty good chance but as always in motorsport and especially when you are running two things which originally had 150 people and £20M a year around them on way less of both things didn't go to plan.
FP1 and FP2 were great. With the motor turned up we clearly needed more aero on the car though as our trap speed showed:
Just shy of 200mph is cool though
Following a late night of prep with an aero tweak, gearbox rebuild and the revs turned up we went into Qualifying and put the car P3, exactly where we needed to be.
Everything was find post qualifying and the data showed a happy car.
We sent the car for Race 1 with no issues and waited for it to come round to the grid.....
Which it didn't, halfway around the formation the alternator had failed, reached way over 400 degrees C (the end of the alternator temp sensor calibration), melted through an oil line and set the car on fire. Luckily it wasn't a bad fire, there was no damage to the tub and the engine had retained oil pressure during but due to the alternators location beneath the heatshields and above the floor the fire had exited rearwards and melted everything around the hyds on the side of the gearbox. That was broken then! Whilst the damage wasn't too bad and we could have swapped hyds from the T-Car we had no idea now damaged some other components were and the rear wishbones and lower wing element had both gone way over temp, it's never worth risking a rear suspension failure so the T-Car was pressed into service once again with another late night of setup swap and prep.
This was really make it or break it now as we were only a handful of points ahead of P4 and another DNF/DNS would see us P5 at best! The problem was we were starting P12 due to our no start in the first race. Not an easy position to make things up from....
60 seconds before the green flag lap and we had done all we could. We'd done two out laps to check we had a working car and all was well.
Off the start we made up two places and from there went to work arriving in P4 before a safety car allowed us the opportunity to make up the gap which had opened whilst making our way past the slower cars. Following the safety car restart two cars ahead took each other off putting us P2 and with a lap to go we got news the P1 car had a 25 second penalty for missing a waved yellow, we finished a couple of seconds down on them but once their penalty was added we were P1
To say we were happy with that was an understatement. Two wins in Italy with a Minardi, made all the more special with the Minardi Family being on circuit with us at Imola and a great reward for what had been a hugely challenging season racing a car that was down on power and with two seasons less running/data compared to the competition.
Running any F1 car is never easy, running a late V10 era car that is 100% as it was in the day mechanically, hydraulically and electronically with a team that barely breaks double figures and a budget that is less than the hospitality budget most teams had back in the day is a huge challenge..... but a hugely satisfying one to succeed at as quite simply there is nothing as fast as these cars that it is possible to race as a private team or own as a private individual. The complexity, performance and ability of these cars, even at 10+ years old is quite simply mind bending.
A huge thanks to BOSS GP and their photographers for many of the photos above and it is WELL worth getting a BOSS GP race to see these cars in action. The noise, the access we can provide in the pits and the atmosphere are all way better than the current F1 paddock! 2017 is going to be a great Championship with even more F1s joining, a new tyre supplier and more races! We can't wait
Any questions as always I will do my best to answer.
Full disclosure before we start, I have a huge amount of respect for Minardi and what they did. They cars are absolute engineers cars with details that were way ahead of the rest of the grid, it's well known the team were always hampered by a lack of budget for aero development and current engines but what they did with what they had was nothing short of staggering. For us to race these cars was a real pleasure and one of the highlights of my career. I also want to say thanks to BOSS GP for putting together such a well organised and supported championship and to the Minardi family and ex team members who helped way more than we could ever have expected or hoped. Running one of these things competitively is pretty challenging, running one with absolutely no data, no supplier support and limited spares is getting towards impossible.... but we did it
So without further ado here is 2016 for us:
In January we received the two (the only two!) PS04Bs, they were 99% complete having been used for demo and exhibition but a demo car is way different to a race car and there was a monumental task ahead getting them into a position to go racing with them.
Everything had to go back to component form to measure, inspect, test and replace as required. These are properly fast cars with huge energy everywhere on them so the risk created by assuming some aspects are good is just not worth taking:
Front end components laid out post inspection.
Front uprights stripped for inspection.
Gearbox internals pre inspection.
Several weeks later we had a car together that we were happy with mechanically, we had what we thought was a reasonable base setup and had secured enough spares to make running the cars for BOSS realistic. Spares were still really, REALLY, tight.... for example we had no spare engines, no spare complete gearboxes, only one spare set of uprights/wishbones etc. one spare set of hyds, no spare steering wheels, ECUs or major electronics in general.....
Back together awaiting first fire up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ3cEnKmm1U
First fire up and gear check.
Post fire up and gear check. A working, race'able car!
With that done we headed off to sunny Anglesey to do some installation laps and setup development.
Unfortunately snow and winds gusting to 70mph put pay to that which meant were heading off to round 1 at Hockenheim having done no testing at all!
We finished the second car with a few days spare and headed for Germany.
FP1 didn't exactly go to plan with a hyds issue causing damage to 1st/2nd gear dog, 1st/2nd gear ratio, shift fork and punching a hole through the side of the barrel. This was to be the start of our gearbox issues for the year.
Following a quick gearbox rebuild and a swap to our spare hyds set we got the car out for FP2.
It ran well! The setup wasn't great with the car massively oversteer prone at low speeds but considering we had no testing it wasn't as far off as it could be! In fact it was looking pretty competitive behind the STR1 and Jag R5
We went into Race 1 fairly confident that the car would do the distance....
To be rewarded with a P4 finish!
Quite a lot of work went on that night with the box totally stripped and inspected to find that 6th gear fork and dog ring had got seriously hot, we couldn't find a reason why and with nothing else to do the parts were changed for new and another 200ml of gearbox oil went in on the off chance we were struggling due to gearbox temps (GB operating oil temp circa 160 degrees!). We made some setup changes to try to cure the oversteer and Race 2 rewarded us with another P4:
We still had oversteer issues and it was clear it wasn't something that could be solved by tinkering with third element rates or tyre pressures. We knew the rear of the car was too stiff and this was most likely because of the Avon tyres we were running but diving straight in and making new rear torsion bars with the testing time we had available (not just physical time but mileage limits on engines and gearboxes too) was a risky move. We were tight on time to Round 2 and decided to miss this and see what we could do with regards setup and gearbox wear/temp issues as with the parts consumption rate we had we weren't going to make it to the end of the season on gearboxes so we had to address this! We did the only thing we could with our rear suspension issue and got the car on a shake rig:
Which immediately told us our suspicion regarding the stiffness of the tyre sidewall on the Avon tyre was the issue. It was way stiffer than the original Bridgestone which in turn made the rear of the car far too stiff. We tried a few third spring rates and arrived a setup that looked good on the rig.
We also took the opportunity to move to our "better" engine in the prime chassis and concentrate dev on this car with the second chassis acting as T-Car. We also made progress on our gearbox wear rate issues with an ex Minardi engineer helping us to do a deal with original oil supplier to provide the "special" oil that was run in 2004.
We left of Monza fairly confident that we had made progress and used the Minardi day at Imola to test the T-Car which hadn't run at this point. Doing three laps and collecting some valuable data for later in the season.
Conditions looked good and we were excited to see if our changes had made a positive difference to the car.
FP1, FP2 went very well and the car was clearly quicker and far better behaved with the oversteer issue completely resolved. Our gearbox issues had also disappeared, the box was running 30 degrees cooler than it had at Hockenheim and the wear rates were almost zero.
We were pretty confident in sending the car for Qualifying and were looking forward to some good times! In three laps we were P4 and in a good position to push for a fast time, when about 20 seconds after that one of the hose clamps retaining the lower rad transfer line failed and 6 litres of coolant at 3 atmospheres exited the back of the car in short order. The engine was cooked before it even stopped turning
Not only did we not have any spare engines but that was our good one! The only thing we could do was swap to the T-Car and transfer the setup over (not a quick job) between Qualifying and Race 1, we had 5 hours and just did it! 
Formed up on the grid with slightly mismatching livery
Our efforts on setup were well rewarded as the car was quick enough to take P2 behind the STR1 giving us our first Podium! A happy team to say the least!
This also meant for Race 2 we were right at the sharp end of the grid and a long night followed to get the car repreped and ready.
We had a great start and four corners in the STR1 had an engine failure, all of sudden we were leading the race and pulling a gap from P2!
P1! Our first win!
A happy driver
And a happy team. With the points haul from the weekend we were P3 in the championship and only a few points off P2. Through a lot of hard work over the previous months we'd ended up with a competitive car that could win races. Way more important for us was the fact we had just won an FIA race with a Minardi! The first time a Minardi had ever taken P1 in an FIA championship. Over the moon didn't quite cut it and there were a few sore heads the following morning
There was a lot of work to do for Assen and with days to spare we got the damaged motor back and into chassis 2 both cars leaving for Round 3 at Assen on time. An easy setup and the no issues in FP1 or FP2 and we qualified well!
We sent the car to the grid for Race 1 hoping for another Podium, although we were up against some pretty tough competition with two faster cars around us, realistically the best we could do was a P3 unless anyone else fell off or had a mechanical issue.
Which we got! 20 more points in the bag and still only a handful behind P2 in the Championship. However the car never made it back to the pits, it had stopped on the inlap and was recovered by the safety team after a short delay. A quick investigation revealed we'd run out of air and hit the bottle pressure cut off, crossing the line with about 20 seconds running time remaining! Extremely lucky to make it but now we were an engine down again! Another late night followed with an engine change...
Only to find (at 3AM) the spare had developed a pretty serious issue with the power take off that drives the alternator and hyds pump. If we tried to run it we were either going to stop from the drive to the hyds pump failing or stop when the timing gear came apart and lunched the engine. So that was our weekend over, the only saving grace was that our closest competition had a gearbox issue following race 1 and didn't run race 2 either. Still it was pretty clear now that not only did we have no chance of a Championship win but we'd both been overtaken by the previous P4 sitter to P2! We decided at this point that if we could finish top 3 overall that would be a pretty fantastic result considering we had no chance of making the next round and this became our target going into the season finale at Imola.
A lot of work went into prep and rebuilding both engines. We were on our last hyds spares and running low on gearbox parts. Both engines came back in time and we pushed on to Imola aiming for a P3 championship finish. We were a few points ahead of P4 at this point due to the dropped round and had no realistic chance of P2. All we had to do was finish P3 or higher in one of the races and we had it in the bag.....
Conditions were mixed at Imola which made setup a challenge!
Both cars prepped and ready for action, we knew we had a pretty good chance but as always in motorsport and especially when you are running two things which originally had 150 people and £20M a year around them on way less of both things didn't go to plan.
FP1 and FP2 were great. With the motor turned up we clearly needed more aero on the car though as our trap speed showed:
Just shy of 200mph is cool though
Following a late night of prep with an aero tweak, gearbox rebuild and the revs turned up we went into Qualifying and put the car P3, exactly where we needed to be.
Everything was find post qualifying and the data showed a happy car.
We sent the car for Race 1 with no issues and waited for it to come round to the grid.....
Which it didn't, halfway around the formation the alternator had failed, reached way over 400 degrees C (the end of the alternator temp sensor calibration), melted through an oil line and set the car on fire. Luckily it wasn't a bad fire, there was no damage to the tub and the engine had retained oil pressure during but due to the alternators location beneath the heatshields and above the floor the fire had exited rearwards and melted everything around the hyds on the side of the gearbox. That was broken then! Whilst the damage wasn't too bad and we could have swapped hyds from the T-Car we had no idea now damaged some other components were and the rear wishbones and lower wing element had both gone way over temp, it's never worth risking a rear suspension failure so the T-Car was pressed into service once again with another late night of setup swap and prep.
This was really make it or break it now as we were only a handful of points ahead of P4 and another DNF/DNS would see us P5 at best! The problem was we were starting P12 due to our no start in the first race. Not an easy position to make things up from....
60 seconds before the green flag lap and we had done all we could. We'd done two out laps to check we had a working car and all was well.
Off the start we made up two places and from there went to work arriving in P4 before a safety car allowed us the opportunity to make up the gap which had opened whilst making our way past the slower cars. Following the safety car restart two cars ahead took each other off putting us P2 and with a lap to go we got news the P1 car had a 25 second penalty for missing a waved yellow, we finished a couple of seconds down on them but once their penalty was added we were P1
To say we were happy with that was an understatement. Two wins in Italy with a Minardi, made all the more special with the Minardi Family being on circuit with us at Imola and a great reward for what had been a hugely challenging season racing a car that was down on power and with two seasons less running/data compared to the competition.
Running any F1 car is never easy, running a late V10 era car that is 100% as it was in the day mechanically, hydraulically and electronically with a team that barely breaks double figures and a budget that is less than the hospitality budget most teams had back in the day is a huge challenge..... but a hugely satisfying one to succeed at as quite simply there is nothing as fast as these cars that it is possible to race as a private team or own as a private individual. The complexity, performance and ability of these cars, even at 10+ years old is quite simply mind bending.
A huge thanks to BOSS GP and their photographers for many of the photos above and it is WELL worth getting a BOSS GP race to see these cars in action. The noise, the access we can provide in the pits and the atmosphere are all way better than the current F1 paddock! 2017 is going to be a great Championship with even more F1s joining, a new tyre supplier and more races! We can't wait
Any questions as always I will do my best to answer.
chrisga said:
Do you know whether there are any plans to hold any rounds in the UK?
Great read by the way - thanks for sharing!
BOSS are trying but it is difficult due to noise restrictions and circuit costs. Also the UK is a bit of an unknown, in Europe we are getting 50K+ spectators at some rounds which obviously subsidizes via ticket costs. In the UK we'd probably get 5K on a good day....Great read by the way - thanks for sharing!
Trexthedinosaur said:
Firstly, this is truly interesting, I was not even aware that this type of racing existed.
Many questions;
I assume at a qualified although Amateur level? Or?
What is the appx cost of running one of these for a season, I assume you all work for the fun of it / as a hobby rather than a paid team?
Did you all buy the car together as a team or is it one persons from a collection or?
what else were you racing against, all the same era F1 cars?
And most importantly, are you planning to do it again?
Professional race team, all ex F1, this is our job. You can't really run one of these cars as an "amatuer" due to the complexity of it and that an F1 of this era is nothing like anything else. Unless you have worked with them previously it's extremely difficult to gain the knowledge required to run one safely and effectively. Several ex F1 drivers have also raced in BOSS and several more are involved in some way shape or form usually coaching younger drivers who are racing in BOSS for merit towards a super licence test or similar. It's a competitive series and the fastest championship in Europe outside of F1. Many questions;
I assume at a qualified although Amateur level? Or?
What is the appx cost of running one of these for a season, I assume you all work for the fun of it / as a hobby rather than a paid team?
Did you all buy the car together as a team or is it one persons from a collection or?
what else were you racing against, all the same era F1 cars?
And most importantly, are you planning to do it again?
Budgets are whatever is available, much like F1 back in the day
Generally in BOSS the cars are either driver owned, on lease from the original team or sold as part of an agreement between the original team and an individual for use in BOSS. It's actually one of the most difficult aspects of things to be honest as many teams will sell a car but most will not allow for it to be used in competition.
This season we have been up against Jaguar R5, Toro Rosso STR1, Benetton B197, Benetton B199 along with various ex Superleague, Champ Car, GP2 etc. The current GP2 cars are pretty close to the 10 year old F1s due to the level of aero development they have and most of the cars within BOSS are not "standard" having been developed to race in BOSS.
Bit of video from the weekend just gone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fyaq5QsV3M We were lucky the STR1 was out or we'd have been 2nd.
rpla102 said:
If you have time, could you elaborate on what was 'ahead of its time' in relation to the grid back in 2004? Minardi clearly had a meagre budget in comparison to the leading teams but i'd love to hear any anecdotal evidence you may have?!
- Minardi had rapid cast Ti uprights in 1999, Jaguar were still on fabricated Ti in 2002- Minardi had torsion bar front and rear springs in 1999, it took until 2007 for the last of the other teams to go to torsion bars!
- Minardi had a rapid cast Ti gearbox during the closing stages of 2000 and ran rapid cast Ti gearboxes from that point on. Ferrari were fabricating their casing in 2001. A 2004/2005 Minardi box looks a lot more like a 2012/2013 front runners gearbox than a mid 2000's design.
- In 2000 Ferrari spent a huge amount of money developing pressure sensors in the plank to calculate wear rates and contact time. Minardi did the same thing with a £20 thermocouple.
- Minardi had a hydraulic brake bias adjuster in 2002, five years later some teams were still running a cable.
- In 2002 Minardi had rotaries for engine braking, traction control, engine mode and diff mode on the steering wheel. It would take a further two years for every car on the grid to get to this point.
- Minardi ran FRICS in 1993.
- Minardi ran pull rod front suspension in 2001.
- Minardi ran a blown diffuser in the later stages of 2001.
Etc. Etc.
rpla102 said:
How easy is it to get hold of the original data etc so you can compare how the car is running now to back when it was new?
Do you ever approach the original drivers and get data from them, or would that be totally unfeasible?
Enjoyed the post, thanks for putting it up.
Generally it's not possible beyond base line lap times etc. from circuits which may now be different. This is part of the challenge really as we have to develop methods to run these cars again from scratch. We are in contact with most of the original drivers for the cars we look after but generally speaking there is only so much they can do to help as 99% of setup work was managed by the engineers on the car and at factory. The original drivers are good for checking "if it always did that" with though Do you ever approach the original drivers and get data from them, or would that be totally unfeasible?
Enjoyed the post, thanks for putting it up.
AdamIndy said:
I'm not an F1 fan but I enjoyed the read! Thanks!
Obviously not being an F1 fan I don't know much, if anything about the engines. What is the rev ceiling on one of these? Also how many hours of running/racing time before a major rebuild is required?
Also you spoke about increasing the revs at imola. How does that effect the life span of the engine/gearbox?
Fascinating read!
The CKs we run in the Minardis are on 18K RPM limits. Generally we'll run a bit less than that in a race. We work on KMs rather than hours, the engines were essentially single use items back in the day and we run to 400KM before inspection and expect 800KM between rebuilds. They make around 860bhp which isn't bad for a 3 litre naturally aspirated motor! Obviously not being an F1 fan I don't know much, if anything about the engines. What is the rev ceiling on one of these? Also how many hours of running/racing time before a major rebuild is required?
Also you spoke about increasing the revs at imola. How does that effect the life span of the engine/gearbox?
Fascinating read!
The gearbox is again single use. It is stripped and inspected after each run with any wearing parts replaced and rebuilt between each race weekend.
Items like uprights, clutches, fuel system, steering racks, brake calipers etc. are stripped and rebuilt between each race weekend. There is very little on the cars which goes twice without heavy inspection.
Teocali said:
Thank you for taking the time to share - fascinating for those of us on the outside looking in!
Are all the telemetry systems operated - or are many non essential systems disabled?
We aim to run the cars as close to how they originally raced as possible. To this end we are still running push rod load cells, brake temp IR's, Pitos etc. etc. as without them it is very difficult to run the car to its optimum. Are all the telemetry systems operated - or are many non essential systems disabled?
Our limiting factor these days is tyres as the Avon we run in BOSS is no where near the performance of the original tyres, these cost us 2 - 3 seconds a lap when compared to where the car was in the day.
Krikkit said:
Will bow to superior knowledge of course, but as I understand it:
1) The valves are pneumatic, so they run a compressed air tank in the car to keep them charged with (hopefully) sufficient air to keep them going for however many minutes of runtime you see. A couple of years ago there was an F1 fire where the compressed air tank went up, you can also see them sometimes on the really big smashes.
2) Probably wouldn't want to call engine shutdown based on one sensor, but you could use alternator temperature beyond a certain threshold, and a cutoff voltage measured elsewhere. Sounds like a pretty freak failure though.
Yep exactly. The air valve systems is a total loss system with a pressurised tank to feed the valves. Tank pressure is circa 250bar which is then regulated down to 18bar at the cylinder heads. The usual none catastrophic failure mode is a seal failure within one of the air valve bodies which results in very high air consumption. Rather than running the engine until it goes bang we elect to turn it off if it's reached the point where it's not going to make the rest of the race. 1) The valves are pneumatic, so they run a compressed air tank in the car to keep them charged with (hopefully) sufficient air to keep them going for however many minutes of runtime you see. A couple of years ago there was an F1 fire where the compressed air tank went up, you can also see them sometimes on the really big smashes.
2) Probably wouldn't want to call engine shutdown based on one sensor, but you could use alternator temperature beyond a certain threshold, and a cutoff voltage measured elsewhere. Sounds like a pretty freak failure though.
The alternator failure is a really rare one. They can and do fail like this but it is very, very rare. Alternator temp sensor is mainly used to determine if the alternator is running within limits or if we need to open the cooling up to it further.
dazzx10r said:
Great thread and a fantastic read, it gives a great insight into what goes into an F1 car. My cousin, Justin Wilson raced the 2003 car, he was team mate to Jos Verstappen. He was tragically killed last year in a freak accident in Indycar.
It's nice to see these cars still being used for what they were intended for, good luck with the next season.
Thank you for the well wishes. These cars are very special to us for a number of reasons but a big one is that due to the fact that Minardi used the same tub for the PS02, PS03 and PS04B one of the cars is the tub your cousin raced. The car which won last weekend at Imola was the car Justin drove in 2003. As a few of us at the "main base" worked with him in FPA and WSN it was very special to win with this car. It's nice to see these cars still being used for what they were intended for, good luck with the next season.
Deadlysub said:
A really fantastic read, it's great that F1 cars from that era can still be raced.
I take it the Avon is a control tyre which all competitors must use?
The Avon is a control tyre in so much as it is the only tyre we can get tyre support on at circuit and have in large enough numbers to support the grids. It has served us well but with the later and later cars coming together it is the limiting factor, as seen by the work we had to do in order to get it to work on the car. I take it the Avon is a control tyre which all competitors must use?
For next year we have a tyre upgrade coming and this will see the cars 2 seconds a lap quicker easily!
turboslippers said:
Great read, thoroughly enjoyed that, thanks!
I was going to ask if these cars were an iteration of the A23 Arrows that my late brother designed front suspension, hubs, uprights etc for but a google shows that the A23s bought by PS were no better than the PSO3 so your cars are the reworked PS03 chassis and not the A23 arrows which internet says were later sold and ran as the Super Aguri cars...
Amazing that you can run any 'modern' F1 car like this. Can only assume that sponsorship and prize money don't come close to running costs and much is just done of love of it. Big thumbs up!
Ben
When PS back to backed the A23 and PS03 it was found both were similar in terms of lap time but the A23 was more fragile hence developing the 03 into the 04B. The A23 did indeed become the SA05 and later the SA06. I was going to ask if these cars were an iteration of the A23 Arrows that my late brother designed front suspension, hubs, uprights etc for but a google shows that the A23s bought by PS were no better than the PSO3 so your cars are the reworked PS03 chassis and not the A23 arrows which internet says were later sold and ran as the Super Aguri cars...
Amazing that you can run any 'modern' F1 car like this. Can only assume that sponsorship and prize money don't come close to running costs and much is just done of love of it. Big thumbs up!
Ben
There is no prize money but the size of the crowds at some events means sponsorship is possible and with next years TV coverage and tyre deal it is starting to look more viable to get closer to cost neutral.
The challenge of running them gets no easier though, people often think these are "simpler" versions of the cars which raced in the day whereas actually they are identical in nearly every way, only we're doing it with a tenth of the budget and 20 rather than 120 people.... oh and pretty much no supplier support!
BOSS has huge potential right now and the team behind it are working very, very hard to get it where it belongs. It is a spectacular championship and there is honestly nothing like it - for those complaining about the lack of noise in F1 come and watch a BOSS GP race where we have everything from 3.5L V6s to 4.2L V12s with quite a few F1 V10s in there with them on the same grid..... with no silencers!
confucuis said:
How fast is the car compared to modern cars OP? Wasn't this generation the fastest ever f1 cars?
We're about 2 seconds off a current F1 due to the tyres we're running. Last weekend the STR1 tested on Pirellis and from looking at the data these tyres would put us close to current F1 times...... not bad with decade old aero! PhillipM said:
Just made the frontpage as Readers Car of the week too!
Second time this year! 
Just to be clear though as the article on the front page implies these cars are mine! These cars don't belong to me/us, I manage the team which supports, develops and races the cars.
A massive thanks should go to the guys who own these cars and race them. With so many people today purchasing rare and/or historic cars such as these and mothballing them as an investment it is beyond fantastic that there are still those who will go through the pain, heartache, fitness and work required to race one of these cars wheel to wheel in a competitive environment. It is not easy in any way and it is physically punishing at the best of times.
To all those racing in BOSS or that have made the investment to maintain a running F1 car for any other use thank you many times over for keeping the skills and the possibility of seeing these cars on circuit and in action alive.
Here's a bit of onboard from Quali: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjl7orvj5IQ bit of slow traffic hurts the laptime but sounding strong at 17.8K none the less
Unfortunately no race footage as due to delays going to the grid the camera systems had turned itself off by the time moved
Unfortunately no race footage as due to delays going to the grid the camera systems had turned itself off by the time moved
daltonr said:
Fantastically interesting thread. To me the V10 era was the pinnacle of F1: power, revs, noise, driver aids limited to TC and ABS. Don't you just think they look better than the current ones too? I do.
Unlike F1 this series is not much about making money, or 'the business'. Yes paid teams are essential but its about people with the love of it first and foremost. I can't imagine that the recent hybrid cars will be possible to run in the same way in the future due to their inherent complexity so enjoy these now! We should all be grateful that these beasts are still run for the purpose that they were intended.
My F1 V10 race experience is limited to just 11 laps in Spain but I can say that the memory and experience of the first time that rear end bit at full throttle in 2nd is with me almost every day ...in fact I watched the vids again just yesterday! Make no mistake these cars are monsters, and the challenge of running these without the backing of the large operations/budgets of the day cannot be overstated. I think this really comes out in the thread - thanks for sharing.
RD
For me the 2004 cars are the pinacle of F1. They were after all capable of setting the fastest lap times which is rather the point! They are still around a second a lap faster than this years cars even with the far less complex aero and the last or last but one evolution of the V10s was something to behold. Just look at Klaus's R5 on a warmup up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIx3Cv69reQ or even our old back marker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-hYpZDlwDk not only that they were to my eye far pretier too! Unlike F1 this series is not much about making money, or 'the business'. Yes paid teams are essential but its about people with the love of it first and foremost. I can't imagine that the recent hybrid cars will be possible to run in the same way in the future due to their inherent complexity so enjoy these now! We should all be grateful that these beasts are still run for the purpose that they were intended.
My F1 V10 race experience is limited to just 11 laps in Spain but I can say that the memory and experience of the first time that rear end bit at full throttle in 2nd is with me almost every day ...in fact I watched the vids again just yesterday! Make no mistake these cars are monsters, and the challenge of running these without the backing of the large operations/budgets of the day cannot be overstated. I think this really comes out in the thread - thanks for sharing.
RD
It should really be impossible to run these cars privately but a small "core" of ex F1 guys chose to do this once they left F1 and that small batch of people, many of whom are working together across teams, keep these cars running despite the lack of any factory or supplier support. Really we are taking on far more now in terms of component maintenance than the teams did, we're servicing our own electronics, rebuilidng our own hyds pumps etc. etc. these items would have just been swapped out in the day for 0KM or new parts. We just don't have that option these days.
It's a challenge but a very, very rewarding one!
For anyone interested in seeing these cars in action have a look at www.bossgp.com the galleries on the website are great and BOSS hire in some amazing photographers to capture the cars in action. It's well worth a browse
confucuis said:
Some lovely sounds from the Monza Boss series round.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6Bvuv6ZHs
Is that your Minardi?
Yep that's it in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6Bvuv6ZHs
Is that your Minardi?
loudlashadjuster said:
Usget said:
God they all make a proper noise! Fabulous stuff.
I'm also amazed at a) how they sound, and b) how quickly I've forgotten that F1 should sound like this.Probably at least partly to blame for my absolute apathy regarding today's F1.
The start with 30 cars at WOT is really something and I think this is what so much motorsport is missing today. The 2017 Calendar will be up on bossgp.com shortly - anyone attending let me know and I'll sort some garage access out!
matrignano said:
Great thread!
Question: why are the calipers so thick? Is it simply that the pads have to be super thick to last a whole race?
Carbon/Carbon brakes so generally our pads are way thicker than a conventional brake bad due to the requirement to handle sustained very high temperatures for long periods. Wear rates are pretty high but also we are using a fair bit of the pad as thermal insulation.Question: why are the calipers so thick? Is it simply that the pads have to be super thick to last a whole race?
stevesuk said:
Just found this video of what I assume is your Minardi in action at Imola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG2fnCfrWlE
Not only do I miss that V10 sound, I also miss Imola
Yep that's our one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG2fnCfrWlE
Not only do I miss that V10 sound, I also miss Imola
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