F1 Engine usage through season

[llewop]

Okay, not yet at the point where any cupboard will be bare, but:

Anyone got any idea of where to find information on the engine usage to date by the various drivers?

I remember:

• in an early race that it was said everyone changed engines between Friday and Saturday
• Button won 3 races with the same unit
• that there have been at least a couple of engine failures (Vettel this weekend for one)

But is this something the teams are going to be allowed to be cagey about or are we going to get sight of their reserves as we get towards the end of the year? For instance, that (say) Vettel has to choose between one engine that was used at Silverstone and Monaco or one that has been used in Aus and Spa?

[FNG]

Must say I am expecting reliability to drop off a cliff towards the end of the season. We've hardly had an engine let go, and those in practice are already used.

3 races from one engine (I suppose they'll use it for a Friday practice too) is an impressive stat for Brawn and bodes well for the Merc-powered teams.

I'd heard that some teams were trying to save one engine for Monza alone...

As for the question, no I haven't seen a site yet which shows engine use. Sorry.

[pwrmotorsport]

http://www.pitlanefanatic.com/engine.php

[llewop]

pwrmotorsport said:

http://www.pitlanefanatic.com/engine.php

Ta

quite a difference in usage already!

[FNG]

Only McLaren and Torro Rosso have used their first engine again after the first race. Is Australia such an engine breaker? Or are most teams keeping that engine as an end-of-season banker in case they have used all 8 by the time they get to Abu Dhabi?

I see quite a few used Monaco as a method of getting three races out of an engine. I assume Hungary and Valencia will be the next opportunity to create some breathing space in the plan to year-end.

[lucky777]

I believe that the teams are using Engine One for Free Practice on the Friday before switching to their race engine for the rest of the weekend.

[Munter]

Was it red bull who ran 3 races LAST year on one engine. I know someone did it. However if it was Coulthards thats probably only 1 hours running time.....

[lucky777]

Munter said:

Was it red bull who ran 3 races LAST year on one engine. I know someone did it. However if it was Coulthards thats probably only 1 hours running time.....

Yes, Coulthard did run for three races last year on the same engine.

[zac510]

Surely those teams that have used 5 like Toyota have swapped out the engine, taken it back to the factory and pressure tested it, crack tested it, x-rayed it, etc etc to death to work out how much life it has left then coming back with the best ones late in the season.

[FourWheelDrift]

Surprised to see Kubica was on the same engine that appeared to fail in a fiery manner at Monaco during practice, which is covered by the rules this year.

[FNG]

zac510 said:

Surely those teams that have used 5 like Toyota have swapped out the engine, taken it back to the factory and pressure tested it, crack tested it, x-rayed it, etc etc to death to work out how much life it has left then coming back with the best ones late in the season.

They may be working out which are the stronger engines to reserve for when the practice pace is best.

Fact is, with 17 races and 8 engines, it's impossible to do the season without at least one 3-race engine. The obvious place to do that is Monaco, and the only other opportunity is around Hungary and Valencia, which are easier on the engine and are run consecutively.

But even doing that, you only have one spare race meeting in your pocket. By running engine#1 in every practice you remove that luxury too - there's no slack whatsoever.

Therefore, using the best engines at the power circuits like Monza and Spa is one approach; using the best engines at places where you expect to qualify at the pointy end is the other. More relevant if you're someone like Toyota, McLaren or Ferrari to date this season, where some tracks suit the car and others patently don't.

[profstoff]

zac510 said:

Surely those teams that have used 5 like Toyota have swapped out the engine, taken it back to the factory and pressure tested it, crack tested it, x-rayed it, etc etc to death to work out how much life it has left then coming back with the best ones late in the season.

I think with the FIA seals preventing dismantling an engine, there is a limit to how much non-destructive testing a team can do.

[FNG]

Yep, but examination with the seals intact still leaves listening for undue noise, looking at oil pressure, cylinder compression and oil-borne swarf, and running up on the dyno. No crack or pressure testing or visual inspection. Dunno whether x-rays would tell you anything?

[profstoff]

FNG said:

Yep, but examination with the seals intact still leaves listening for undue noise, looking at oil pressure, cylinder compression and oil-borne swarf, and running up on the dyno. No crack or pressure testing or visual inspection. Dunno whether x-rays would tell you anything?

According to the pit lane link posted above

2009 regs said:

Within two hours of the end of the post race parc fermé exhaust blanking plates (with one 10mm diameter inspection hole per cylinder) and further seals will be applied to all used engines in order to ensure that these engines cannot be run between Events.

So dyno running, oil pressure checks are out. As far as I understand x-radiography you need access both sides of the test piece, one for the source and one for the film, so x-ray is out. I'm not so sure about ultra-sonic testing. Otherwise, it's a visual inspection, dye-pen, oil change and a bit of spit and polish.

Edited by profstoff on Tuesday 9th June 09:53

[FNG]

profstoff said:

FNG said:

Yep, but examination with the seals intact still leaves listening for undue noise, looking at oil pressure, cylinder compression and oil-borne swarf, and running up on the dyno. No crack or pressure testing or visual inspection. Dunno whether x-rays would tell you anything?

According to the pit lane link posted above

2009 regs said:

Within two hours of the end of the post race parc fermé exhaust blanking plates (with one 10mm diameter inspection hole per cylinder) and further seals will be applied to all used engines in order to ensure that these engines cannot be run between Events.

So dyno running, oil pressure checks are out. As far as I understand x-radiography you need access both sides of the test piece, one for the source and one for the film, so x-ray is out. I'm not so sure about ultra-sonic testing. Otherwise, it's a visual inspection, dye-pen, oil change and a bit of spit and polish.

Edited by profstoff on Tuesday 9th June 09:53

Thanks for that - sorry for not reading the link!

So no dyno running. Suppose they are limited to data collected at the track then - knock sensors and oil pressure readings retained for examination later.

[zac510]

I don't know literally whether they're x-raying engines, I jsut tried to think of the most crazy expensive thing that they might be doing and then assumed that they're already doing it

[llewop]

profstoff said:

FNG said:

Yep, but examination with the seals intact still leaves listening for undue noise, looking at oil pressure, cylinder compression and oil-borne swarf, and running up on the dyno. No crack or pressure testing or visual inspection. Dunno whether x-rays would tell you anything?

According to the pit lane link posted above

2009 regs said:

Within two hours of the end of the post race parc fermé exhaust blanking plates (with one 10mm diameter inspection hole per cylinder) and further seals will be applied to all used engines in order to ensure that these engines cannot be run between Events.

So dyno running, oil pressure checks are out. As far as I understand x-radiography you need access both sides of the test piece, one for the source and one for the film, so x-ray is out. I'm not so sure about ultra-sonic testing. Otherwise, it's a visual inspection, dye-pen, oil change and a bit of spit and polish.

The engine is sealed up as a unit - as I recall F1 engines are quite compact: not difficult to get film and the tube either side of one. Because of the need for the engines to be light there is no great density there to be a problem for a decent x-ray set (or gamma radiography if you want more 'punch'?). What would limit the effectiveness would be making sense of the radiograph produced..... Only thing you could do I think is maybe use it to analyse particular components so you could select an axis that got as much of the rest of the clutter out of the way.

[skwdenyer]

llewop said:

profstoff said:

FNG said:

Yep, but examination with the seals intact still leaves listening for undue noise, looking at oil pressure, cylinder compression and oil-borne swarf, and running up on the dyno. No crack or pressure testing or visual inspection. Dunno whether x-rays would tell you anything?

According to the pit lane link posted above

2009 regs said:

Within two hours of the end of the post race parc fermé exhaust blanking plates (with one 10mm diameter inspection hole per cylinder) and further seals will be applied to all used engines in order to ensure that these engines cannot be run between Events.

So dyno running, oil pressure checks are out. As far as I understand x-radiography you need access both sides of the test piece, one for the source and one for the film, so x-ray is out. I'm not so sure about ultra-sonic testing. Otherwise, it's a visual inspection, dye-pen, oil change and a bit of spit and polish.

The engine is sealed up as a unit - as I recall F1 engines are quite compact: not difficult to get film and the tube either side of one. Because of the need for the engines to be light there is no great density there to be a problem for a decent x-ray set (or gamma radiography if you want more 'punch'?). What would limit the effectiveness would be making sense of the radiograph produced..... Only thing you could do I think is maybe use it to analyse particular components so you could select an axis that got as much of the rest of the clutter out of the way.

3D x-ray tomography would sort out the problem you describe; in some ways akin to a "cat scan" for the engine. It would then provide a good opportunity for the techies back at base to play with their high-end visualisation systems in exploring that dataset on-screen / through goggles / in a SGI RealityCenter / etc.

[paulmurr]

It sounds like you can get an endoscope into the engine and visually inspect it. I'm sure you can use UV dyes to show up cracks and the like.

[Munter]

News story on engines: Ferrari using Torro Rosso to test long term reliability basically.

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/...