The F1 2014 season

Mr Jack said:
I'm trying to think of a time we've seen a team have a total test failure like Red Bull have done. I don't ever recall a top team doing quite so badly before, yet alone coming back from there to a position of strength in the season.
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Newey himself designed the MP4-18, which was tested, but never raced. Some of the ideas carried over the MP4-19, itself a failure.

The problems for Red Bull is if Newey has done the same again, then you can't just fall back onto the RB9, given the completely different engine packaging. It's highly unlikely they've cocked up that much though - all the Renault teams are having issues, but you have to expect it's a few niggly issues rather than a fundamentally broken package.

Also, given how much work is done in the simulator and CFD, they'll already have an idea which direction to go for the next few weeks. Even in 2009, the champions didn't turn up for the first test - they didn't even have a team until a couple of months before the season.

I expect Red Bull will be fine if they get a decent test before the season. Whether they're the fastest or not is a whole other matter.
 
Skeeter said:
The ES (energy store, aka batteries) is not part of the Power Unit, so isn't limited to 5 per season. The whole rest of the unit is limited as you say. So the V6, turbo, MGUK and MGUH, as they are computer controlled to work as one, unlike last year where the KERS was a bolt on push button addition.

So if one component fails, the whole unit goes into the bin. But given how integrated the bits are I doubt anything would fail in an isolated way that wouldn't affect the rest of the unit. I.e. a turbo failure at the speeds the engines will be working is going to munch other internals and put forces through the electric motors.

The issue will be if minor problems cause a component to stop working. A lose wire in 2013 could mean your KERS stopped working. In 2014 it could make your whole PU eat itself. :p
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thank you for correcting this - however the Renault guy from Ted's notebook (2nd day I think it was) appeared to disagree with you on if one part fails all the rest would as well.

At this point I will admit that most of it went over my head (as Ted seemed to laugh at on the 3rd day's notebook) so maybe I misunderstood, but he seemed to think that they may not all be as broken if another part failed.

Maybe I read into what he said too much (very possibly infact)

Mr Jack said:
Scarbs has a good post on the Lotus twin tusk nose. It looks like it sticks to the letter of the law by having one tusk longer than the other and thus only one tip.
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Ted's notebook on testing did as well -but thank you anyway.

this_is_gav said:
Even in 2009, the champions didn't turn up for the first test - they didn't even have a team until a couple of months before the season.

I expect Red Bull will be fine if they get a decent test before the season. Whether they're the fastest or not is a whole other matter.
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No disrespect to RBR at all, but in one way I think you are making a little light of it with this comparision.

Yes the Brawn had to retrofit a completely different engine (and I seem to recall mount it upside down or something in the end), but the engine design was totally locked down and fully tested for years (possibly even bullet proof or as close as is possible in F1)

AN's packaging may well be agrivating (possibly severely) the already present issues in Renault's design. If all Renault teams have to have better cooling than what RBR have allowed, packaging and therefore aero might well require significant changes - which imo are a lot more significant than anything Brawn had to do in early 2009

edit - surely the simulator has to be wrong however, otherwise the team would have known about the difficulties they were going to face at the track. Which surely means they have to back-track before going forward with further CFD etc?

(Pure guess, but going back to basics to make sure the fundamental package works first rather than going forward hoping its only something little will be required. While I appreciate the tight packaging might limit things, basic changes can and probably were tried at the track and this failed dismally)
 
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I heard a rumour that even the Renault Techs were restricted to what they could see to begin with. Only after the issues were a select few Renault guys shown the car and the engine setup and they were a little taken aback at the time apparently. Rather unconventional setup compared to the other Renault teams supposedly. If it's overheating at Jerez where the temperature struggled to reach double figures sometimes God help them in Bahrain where it'll be in the 20's and then Malaysia where it'll be in the 30's.

Mercedes apparently insisted on a fixed layout and setup of wiring etc and it seems to be helping.
 
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MissChief said:
I heard a rumour that even the Renault Techs were restricted to what they could see to begin with. Only after the issues were a select few Renault guys shown the car and the engine setup and they were a little taken aback at the time apparently. Rather unconventional setup compared to the other Renault teams supposedly. If it's overheating at Jerez where the temperature struggled to reach double figures sometimes God help them in Bahrain where it'll be in the 20's and then Malaysia where it'll be in the 30's.

Mercedes apparently insisted on a fixed layout and setup of wiring etc and it seems to be helping.
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It was either this thread or the other 2014 thread which mentioned that a lot of the gear is heating upto 900 degrees or something insane, so a relatively measly 10 or 20 degrees increase in ambient temp isnt going to make any difference
 
FrankJH said:
It was either this thread or the other 2014 thread which mentioned that a lot of the gear is heating upto 900 degrees or something insane, so a relatively measly 10 or 20 degrees increase in ambient temp isnt going to make any difference
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I don't think you can see it compare it quite that way, it will make a big difference.
 
this_is_gav said:
Also, given how much work is done in the simulator and CFD, they'll already have an idea which direction to go for the next few weeks. Even in 2009, the champions didn't turn up for the first test - they didn't even have a team until a couple of months before the season.
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The BGP001 is a special case in many ways. The engines were already a known commodity and with the 18K rev limit getting towards being bomb proof, whilst the car itself will go down as one of the most expensively designed cars in history. Even before 2008, 18 months of design work had already been carried out and multiple wind tunnels were being used simultaneously.
 
Mr Jack said:
I'm trying to think of a time we've seen a team have a total test failure like Red Bull have done. I don't ever recall a top team doing quite so badly before, yet alone coming back from there to a position of strength in the season.
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What about Lotus (Renault) a couple of seasons ago with their forward-facing exhaust?

As for the Brawn, six inches had to be hacked off the back of the chassis to accommodate the Mercedes engine, and it was the gearbox that was mounted -effectively - upside down.
 
FrankJH said:
It was either this thread or the other 2014 thread which mentioned that a lot of the gear is heating upto 900 degrees or something insane, so a relatively measly 10 or 20 degrees increase in ambient temp isnt going to make any difference
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The batteries and electrics aren't heating up to anything like 900 degrees.
 
Skeeter said:
The ES (energy store, aka batteries) is not part of the Power Unit, so isn't limited to 5 per season. The whole rest of the unit is limited as you say. So the V6, turbo, MGUK and MGUH, as they are computer controlled to work as one, unlike last year where the KERS was a bolt on push button addition.

So if one component fails, the whole unit goes into the bin. But given how integrated the bits are I doubt anything would fail in an isolated way that wouldn't affect the rest of the unit. I.e. a turbo failure at the speeds the engines will be working is going to munch other internals and put forces through the electric motors.

The issue will be if minor problems cause a component to stop working. A lose wire in 2013 could mean your KERS stopped working. In 2014 it could make your whole PU eat itself. :p
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In that case, the requirements on engines this season is going to be incredibly challenging, when you think how comparatively simple last years engines were. How many times did we see the relatively low power and comparatively simple KERS system fail last year?

What is the penalty for going over the engine quota?
 
FrankJH said:
It was either this thread or the other 2014 thread which mentioned that a lot of the gear is heating upto 900 degrees or something insane, so a relatively measly 10 or 20 degrees increase in ambient temp isnt going to make any difference
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It doesn't work like that. A 20 degree increase in air temperature doesn't mean the gearbox will now be 920; it means the whole package is now able to shed less watts of heat. That can have a dramatically higher effect on actual component temperatures that the 20 degree difference. Besides the components temperature tolerances are unlikely to be that much higher than their working temperatures anyway; and even if they are it's quite possible they won't work as well. Also remember that the problem is rarely the effect of being heated to those temperatures, per se but rather the consequences of being repeatedly heated to those temperatures across the course of a race.
 
I think the same 10 place penalty for each engine over 5 used remains. And a 5 place penalty for each gearbox (although I can't remember how many they have).
 
Mr Jack said:
It doesn't work like that. A 20 degree increase in air temperature doesn't mean the gearbox will now be 920; it means the whole package is now able to shed less watts of heat. That can have a dramatically higher effect on actual component temperatures that the 20 degree difference. Besides the components temperature tolerances are unlikely to be that much higher than their working temperatures anyway; and even if they are it's quite possible they won't work as well. Also remember that the problem is rarely the effect of being heated to those temperatures, per se but rather the consequences of being repeatedly heated to those temperatures across the course of a race.
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1st-ly - correct the person who first mentioned it not me, Im just repeating it lol

2ndly

Everything is within %'s of tollerances so IF something is designed to work at 900 degrees I would suspect would have a 5-10% tollerance (and given the nature of F1 thats quite a narrow window imo) so the designs arent going to dissipate a lot less wattage of heat over that small ambient increase.

Again , yes any normal product being taken out and subjected to that you are probably correct but F1 parts are desgned to be repeatedly stressed like this (and its not like Bahrain is a new race, everyone will have designed their engines / MGU-H/MGU-K & batteries for the extremes of Russia (probably colder than anywhere else) and Bahrain (being the opposite)
 
FrankJH said:
Everything is within %'s of tollerances so IF something is designed to work at 900 degrees I would suspect would have a 5-10% tollerance (and given the nature of F1 thats quite a narrow window imo) so the designs arent going to dissipate a lot less wattage of heat over that small ambient increase.
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The problem isn't the particular part that's designed to run at 900 but that the heat that's being generated isn't getting dissipated and thus that heat energy will remain within the car and raise the temperature of other components which are not designed to run hot.
 
Looking like double points could potentially be most favourable to RBR as thingsstand

Oh iI would love it if RBR took the wcc from someone else on double points
 
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