Ferrari: Enginegate

[Graveworm]

TheDeuce said:

Gearing won't affect ultimate top speed unless the ratios result in the car being rpm limited. In the end, whatever the ratio the car will (eventually..) get to the same top speed, which is in basic terms dictated by power minus drag. Drag being the principal residence to velocity. Other factors such as rolling resistance also play a very small factor.

That's not to say gearing can't help at top speed events, because at almost all such events acceleration is important to reach the highest top speed in the space available - which is typically not the actual top speed of the car.

Edited by TheDeuce on Tuesday 22 October 14:48

Max power, in an ICE, only occurs at a specific point in the rev range. So, for the absolute max speed, max power = drag at the RPM when max power is achieved and drag never exceeds power at any point up to there. It follows that, at the limit, gearing can be a factor, but unlikely in F1.

[TheDeuce]

Deesee said:

Here’s Grosjean down the straight at Baku at high speed.. I’m try to think of a good section through the gears to so the upshifts.. name one and I’ll put it up in video form as such.

DEESEE (@DEESEE15723775) Tweeted:
Baku https://t.co/Nekmdccgru

NB, Baku is quite an extreme example, as I'm sure its the longest full power stretch on the calendar, and Romain, was fastest through the trap in Q1, so that's why i used that, maxed out at just above 12000 rpm.

Edited by Deesee on Tuesday 22 October 16:38

So he ran out of power in final gear to exceed around 12k rpm. Which answers the original question - the cars are not gear/rev limited, just power limited.

I'm pretty sure you're right that Baku has the longest straight, especially if we ignore "corner" 20, which is more of a slight kink joining two dead straight straight sections.

[TheDeuce]

Graveworm said:

Max power, in an ICE, only occurs at a specific point in the rev range. So, for the absolute max speed, max power = drag at the RPM when max power is achieved and drag never exceeds power at any point up to there. It follows that, at the limit, gearing can be a factor, but unlikely in F1.

I was trying to not to make it massively complex - you're right of course. The gearing could in theory leave a car unable to reach it's top potential speed, simply because in the low end of final gear it doesn't have the power to reach the peak power RPM range.

We know that doesn't affect F1 cars as they enough power to quite easily get into the top half of the engine power band , whatever gear they're in.

Another finer detail not really being discussed in the "Mercedes couldn't get close to Ferrari even with DRS", is that the drag disadvantage the Mercedes suffers is going to increase along with speed. At 180kph if the drag is costing the Merc something like 30bhp, at 330kph it could be more like 90bhp, relative to the Ferrari. This is a good example of how drag can offset speed by more than the gulf in power between the two PU's. The actual power difference between the two could be, and probably is, minimal.

[Kenny Powers]

NewUsername said:

Kenny Powers said:

Do the regulations allow the teams to choose their own final drive ratios per circuit? I would presume so but have no idea if that is the case.

No, the ratios for the season are fixed from before race 1 onwards

Thanks. I was aware that the individual ratios were fixed but wasn't sure if perhaps the final drives could be interchanged to suit each circuit.

[Deesee]

NewUsername said:

TheDeuce said:

Deesee said:

They get no where near the limit, they will shift up at circa 11500, getting to the RPM limit is no good for fuel, the electrical power helps them so much now, Merc may be mapped and geared for lower speed corners, Ferrari out of medium speed corners for example.

These guys are doing a little feature on the ERS systems every race, worth looking At

https://twitter.com/marellitech/status/11825816063...

In terms of top speed though? In top gear, if they're attacking/defending, I'm guessing they don't choose to lift at 11500 just to save a little fuel. I had assumed they simply hit the limit of the power they have somewhere ahead of reaching the end of the final gear?

I've often seen onboards of cars on the limiter in top at places like Spa/Monza.....?

Here’s Sharls pole lap at monza..

https://twitter.com/deesee15723775/status/11866761...

Upshifting in the 10s pushing down the straights in 8th at circa 12500 rpm.. (2500 short of max).. (Max is not achievable in 8th)!

[Deesee]

TheDeuce said:

Deesee said:

Here’s Grosjean down the straight at Baku at high speed.. I’m try to think of a good section through the gears to so the upshifts.. name one and I’ll put it up in video form as such.

DEESEE (@DEESEE15723775) Tweeted:
Baku https://t.co/Nekmdccgru

NB, Baku is quite an extreme example, as I'm sure its the longest full power stretch on the calendar, and Romain, was fastest through the trap in Q1, so that's why i used that, maxed out at just above 12000 rpm.

Edited by Deesee on Tuesday 22 October 16:38

So he ran out of power in final gear to exceed around 12k rpm. Which answers the original question - the cars are not gear/rev limited, just power limited.

I'm pretty sure you're right that Baku has the longest straight, especially if we ignore "corner" 20, which is more of a slight kink joining two dead straight straight sections.

At those speeds (346kph on the fia site), it’s aero limited air becomes harder to push through.

Yeh Baku is not a straight but its certainly flat in that section, and longest flat section? I’d probably say so in race trim.

If you watch the video watch the revs rise as DRS is opened, less drag more available power.

[TheDeuce]

Deesee said:

At those speeds (346kph on the fia site), it’s aero limited air becomes harder to push through.

Yeh Baku is not a straight but its certainly flat in that section, and longest flat section? I’d probably say so in race trim.

If you watch the video watch the revs rise as DRS is opened, less drag more available power.

You don't have to convince me, I was saying all along the cars were power limited - but it's nice to see the evidence in that video

This is basically why I'm sceptical over the supposed Ferrari power advantage.. It's apparent that even with their recent aero improvements, they are still light on down force compared to the Mercs. And that difference in aero, although 'small' will be massively amplified the faster both cars go (as I believe we saw in Japan). Leave alone the fact that with broadly similar budgets, after so many years of refining the hybrid PU, it would be weird if one team had a significant power or power curve advantage.

Anyone that doubts the affects of aero drag at high speed, should consider this explanation:

"Why so much power? Blame the air around us, which is determined to resist motion and slow us down. The force required to push an object through the atmosphere increases at the cube of velocity. Translated: a car that needs 200hp to overcome aerodynamic drag at 150mph would need 1,600hp – eight times more nominal power – to reach 300mph."

Source:http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20150320-how-do-we-get-to-300mph

[Cabinet Enforcer]

TheDeuce said:

I was trying to not to make it massively complex - you're right of course. The gearing could in theory leave a car unable to reach it's top potential speed, simply because in the low end of final gear it doesn't have the power to reach the peak power RPM range.

We know that doesn't affect F1 cars as they enough power to quite easily get into the top half of the engine power band , whatever gear they're in.

Another finer detail not really being discussed in the "Mercedes couldn't get close to Ferrari even with DRS", is that the drag disadvantage the Mercedes suffers is going to increase along with speed. At 180kph if the drag is costing the Merc something like 30bhp, at 330kph it could be more like 90bhp, relative to the Ferrari. This is a good example of how drag can offset speed by more than the gulf in power between the two PU's. The actual power difference between the two could be, and probably is, minimal.

This years red car has clearly been running a higher drag efficiency/lower total downforce model from the beginning, this isn't really the issue raised by the "Merc can't get close even with DRS", remember the Mercedes advantage over Ferrari is in corner speed, the Ferrari drops the Merc at the start of the straight when the drag advantage is lowest and the Merc is starting with a speed advantage, by the end of the straights the Merc is holding station or starting to close when the drag advantage is highest. The difference in design philosophy was evident earlier in the season but the change since the break is something else, the conclusion I make is that Ferrari are deploying a lot of energy on corner exit, more than anyone else by a margin which suggests the rules are being stretched very hard (again).

[Kraken]

TheDeuce said:

Leave alone the fact that with broadly similar budgets, after so many years of refining the hybrid PU, it would be weird if one team had a significant power or power curve advantage.

Which is exactly why teams are querying the Ferrari...

[TheDeuce]

Cabinet Enforcer said:

TheDeuce said:

I was trying to not to make it massively complex - you're right of course. The gearing could in theory leave a car unable to reach it's top potential speed, simply because in the low end of final gear it doesn't have the power to reach the peak power RPM range.

We know that doesn't affect F1 cars as they enough power to quite easily get into the top half of the engine power band , whatever gear they're in.

Another finer detail not really being discussed in the "Mercedes couldn't get close to Ferrari even with DRS", is that the drag disadvantage the Mercedes suffers is going to increase along with speed. At 180kph if the drag is costing the Merc something like 30bhp, at 330kph it could be more like 90bhp, relative to the Ferrari. This is a good example of how drag can offset speed by more than the gulf in power between the two PU's. The actual power difference between the two could be, and probably is, minimal.

This years red car has clearly been running a higher drag efficiency/lower total downforce model from the beginning, this isn't really the issue raised by the "Merc can't get close even with DRS", remember the Mercedes advantage over Ferrari is in corner speed, the Ferrari drops the Merc at the start of the straight when the drag advantage is lowest and the Merc is starting with a speed advantage, by the end of the straights the Merc is holding station or starting to close when the drag advantage is highest. The difference in design philosophy was evident earlier in the season but the change since the break is something else, the conclusion I make is that Ferrari are deploying a lot of energy on corner exit, more than anyone else by a margin which suggests the rules are being stretched very hard (again).

But the faster both cars go, the more the extra drag of the Mercs should hold them back. Approaching top speeds, their drag disadvantage will be very significant. If the Merc holds or even gains a little, that would be indicative of the Merc having more power than the Ferrari - as there is no other way to deal with drag than power. But the power advantage they would need would be huge, which is basically impossible within the regs so there must be another factor at play.

That's not to say I disagree with you about their speed out of the corner, which is indeed surprising, especially when the Mercs already have the higher speed through the corner. Maybe Ferrari have an engine mode designed to boost power during certain speed bands that they are able to use when they know they have sufficient fuel left - and they really need to use it to be safe? Or of course, maybe whatever they're doing is simply 'cheating' in some way. This close to the end of the season it seems unlikely anyone will open the can of worms unless there is some pretty clear evidence to support such a claim. I doubt therefore we will hear much more on this subject, although I really would love to know what they're doing and how from a technical perspective.

[SturdyHSV]

TheDeuce said:

But the faster both cars go, the more the extra drag of the Mercs should hold them back. Approaching top speeds, their drag disadvantage will be very significant. If the Merc holds or even gains a little, that would be indicative of the Merc having more power than the Ferrari - as there is no other way to deal with drag than power. But the power advantage they would need would be huge, which is basically impossible within the regs so there must be another factor at play.

That's not to say I disagree with you about their speed out of the corner, which is indeed surprising, especially when the Mercs already have the higher speed through the corner. Maybe Ferrari have an engine mode designed to boost power during certain speed bands that they are able to use when they know they have sufficient fuel left - and they really need to use it to be safe? Or of course, maybe whatever they're doing is simply 'cheating' in some way. This close to the end of the season it seems unlikely anyone will open the can of worms unless there is some pretty clear evidence to support such a claim. I doubt therefore we will hear much more on this subject, although I really would love to know what they're doing and how from a technical perspective.

Yes the faster the more drag, but the drag advantage is with the Merc when it's behind the Ferrari, with DRS open (and still not catching)

The thing with engine modes etc. they're still limited by peak fuel flow figures, and you can bet most of the teams are extracting similarly high levels of combustion efficiency from all of the available fuel. On top of that we know the electric power is limited to 160hp by the rules, so this significantly better launch out of corners does seem... suspicious

As I mentioned earlier there were canteen mutterings about Ferrari burning oil from the intercoolers as far back as July.

As alluded to by MartG earlier, the content of that 'oil' isn't something that's regulated, so the argument is that feasibly some sort of particularly combustible 'fuel' could be mixed in with it, allowing additional power without falling fowl of the measured fuel flow limit.

The assumption is the intercoolers have a controlled 'leak' which allows this additional combustible 'fuel' in to the engine's intake. A bit like a carb

[NewUsername]

TheDeuce said:

Deesee said:

You don't have to convince me, I was saying all along the cars were power limited - but it's nice to see the evidence in that video



Source:http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20150320-how-do-we-get-to-300mph

I suppose it depends on the aero package they are running at each track

[TheDeuce]

SturdyHSV said:

Yes the faster the more drag, but the drag advantage is with the Merc when it's behind the Ferrari, with DRS open (and still not catching)

The thing with engine modes etc. they're still limited by peak fuel flow figures, and you can bet most of the teams are extracting similarly high levels of combustion efficiency from all of the available fuel. On top of that we know the electric power is limited to 160hp by the rules, so this significantly better launch out of corners does seem... suspicious

As I mentioned earlier there were canteen mutterings about Ferrari burning oil from the intercoolers as far back as July.

As alluded to by MartG earlier, the content of that 'oil' isn't something that's regulated, so the argument is that feasibly some sort of particularly combustible 'fuel' could be mixed in with it, allowing additional power without falling fowl of the measured fuel flow limit.

The assumption is the intercoolers have a controlled 'leak' which allows this additional combustible 'fuel' in to the engine's intake. A bit like a carb

The problem with drs is that it effects only rear downforce, and we don't know if that reduction is equivalent to the normal difference in downforce between the two cars. If Ferrari maintain even a small drag advantage Vs Mercedes with drs open, then at very high speed that small advantage would translate into a far greater one. I think at this point the unknowns outnumber the theories though..

I think the fact the Ferrari is naturally fast in a straight line would allow them to sacrifice a little power on the straights in favour of running very high power for a just a moment at a critical time, for example whenever the driver accelerates at above a certain rate, with speed below a certain level - ie, when powering out of a corner. It would only need to momentary, at the right time to fire the car out of the corner and make up the speed the Merc had managed to carry through the corner. Again, that's just a theory.

Is a 'leaky intercooler' a better theory? It could certainly work, but it would be a huge risk to take for a relatively small and somewhat unpredictable power increase. The problems I see straight away are:

1) The leak would need to be constant enough to be reliably of benefit when needed, yet also minimal enough to not be obvious - the team themselves would in the end need to claim they hadn't noticed an excessive loss of fluid during each race.

2) The nature of the leak would need to be such that it could conceivably have occured 'by accident' and be so obscure it could reasonably have passed industry levels of quality checking and testing, and that it could have occured in spite of the design and fabrication processes all being as controlled as is reasonable to expect. Without these factors being ensured, it would be totally unbelievable it was an 'accident'.

So they would basically need a leak that was controlled by nothing other than the size of a fracture, that could give no indication it was ever produced intentionally, and lose such a small amount of fluid that it could be assumed it was being lost elsewhere and wasn't worth worrying about too much - already a stretch. On top of all that, to be effective the entirely undetectable and freak 'leak' would need to differ in nature on each affected intercooler (as it's not there by design..) and release these tiny amounts of extra fuel in a way that is predicatable enough to use, but not significant enough be noticeable.

All in all a lot of risk to take for minimal gain. If they made a lesser effort on improving their race strategy then instead of an extra cups worth of bonus fuel, they could make improvements that lead them to stop throwing entire races away

But in theory, yes a leaky intercooler could introduce useful power gains. That part of the theory holds up, it's just very hard to see the end justifying the means.

[Bright Halo]

What if leak contained an oxygen enhancing chemical (think N2O affect) so when it enters the induction it allows the onboard control systems to adjust fuel flow to take advantage of the enriched oxygen environment?

[TheDeuce]

Bright Halo said:

What if leak contained an oxygen enhancing chemical (think N2O affect) so when it enters the induction it allows the onboard control systems to adjust fuel flow to take advantage of the enriched oxygen environment?

No2 is required in relatively large volumes, no way of packaging such volumes in liquid form dense enough to get a worthwhile volume in to coolant, not to mention, it would be trying to expand and causing gas pocket flow restrictions in the system. I see where you're coming from, in a road car the ECU would increase fuel to match a more oxygen rich intake, however F1 is limited by very strict fuel flow management and limits - they can't have the extra fuel flow even if they were to create a need for it, however they were to do that.

[MartG]

TheDeuce said:

Bright Halo said:

What if leak contained an oxygen enhancing chemical (think N2O affect) so when it enters the induction it allows the onboard control systems to adjust fuel flow to take advantage of the enriched oxygen environment?

No2 is required in relatively large volumes, no way of packaging such volumes in liquid form dense enough to get a worthwhile volume in to coolant, not to mention, it would be trying to expand and causing gas pocket flow restrictions in the system. I see where you're coming from, in a road car the ECU would increase fuel to match a more oxygen rich intake, however F1 is limited by very strict fuel flow management and limits - they can't have the extra fuel flow even if they were to create a need for it, however they were to do that.

Nitromethane

[TVR_Steve]

Layman here: If Ferrari are using nitromethane, would it need to be declared? I'm thinking for safety / fire fighting reasons.

[TheDeuce]

MartG said:

TheDeuce said:

Bright Halo said:

What if leak contained an oxygen enhancing chemical (think N2O affect) so when it enters the induction it allows the onboard control systems to adjust fuel flow to take advantage of the enriched oxygen environment?

No2 is required in relatively large volumes, no way of packaging such volumes in liquid form dense enough to get a worthwhile volume in to coolant, not to mention, it would be trying to expand and causing gas pocket flow restrictions in the system. I see where you're coming from, in a road car the ECU would increase fuel to match a more oxygen rich intake, however F1 is limited by very strict fuel flow management and limits - they can't have the extra fuel flow even if they were to create a need for it, however they were to do that.

Nitromethane

Which is great if you're mixing it in high ratio with fuel and rinsing it through a top drag cars engine in the space of a few seconds. But not so good if you have to try and fit several litres of the stuff in to the oil running through a very tightly packaged closed system. You would have to either use so little that the effect would be fractional, or increase the amount at the cost of reducing the effectiveness of your cooling - I'm not sure how Nitromethane would act as a suitable medium in terms of cooling but I do know that if you leaked enough of the mixture you would have created in to into the intake via the intercooler to make any real difference, you would quickly end up with insufficient fluid of any sort left in the system to actually do the important job of exchanging heat.

If in a full race you wanted to introduce just a single litre of Nitromethane (so a roughly 1/100 mix with the race fuel), if the Nitromethane was mixed 50/50 with the oil you would need to 'leak' 2 entire litres of oil per race. And then if the FIA were to come sniffing have a team of engineers be prepared to claim they simply hadn't noticed they were burning/losing 2 litres more oil than the average across the rest of the grid per race.

All that risk for a tiny, tiny gain. The fluid they use on the coolant side may not be regulated/monitored, but the whole system could still be examined if it was suspected it was being used in a way tantamount to both adding extra fuel (oil) and introducing a fuel agent (Nitromethane) intentionally, in addition to the fuel mix and volumes claimed.

Edited by TheDeuce on Wednesday 23 October 11:42

[rdjohn]

MartG said:

Nitromethane

No, because it’s banned - see Article 19 details for full a explanation.

ARTICLE 19 : FUEL
19.1 Purpose of Article 19 :
19.1.1 The purpose of this Article is to ensure that the fuel used in Formula One is petrol as this term is generally understood.
19.1.2 The detailed requirements of this Article are intended to ensure the use of fuels that are composed of compounds normally found in commercial fuels and to prohibit the use of specific power‐boosting chemical compounds. Acceptable compounds and compound classes are defined in 19.2 and 19.4.3. In addition, to cover the presence of low level impurities, the sum of components lying outside the 19.2 and 19.4.3 definitions are limited to 1% max m/m of the total fuel.
19.1.3 Any petrol, which appears to have been formulated in order to subvert the purpose of this regulation, will be deemed to be outside it.

I still feel certain that if Mercedes thought that leaky inter coolers were a serious proposition they would have already appealed it.

[MartG]

rdjohn said:

MartG said:

Nitromethane

No, because it’s banned - see Article 19 details for full a explanation.

That's the point - Article 19 only bans it in fuel - it says nothing about it ( or any similar compound ) being used as coolant in an air/liquid intercooler...which could then leak into the inlet airstream. AFAIK there are no regulations governing the composition of any coolant used in the car.