F1 Testing 2014: Week 3 Bahrain
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Soldato
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I wouldn't be writing RB off any time soon, its a long season and plenty of time to resolve a few reliability issues, after all its easier to make a fast car reliable than a slow car quick 
Caporegime
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I wouldn't be writing RB off any time soon, its a long season and plenty of time to resolve a few reliability issues, after all its easier to make a fast car reliable than a slow car quick
That depends massively on the reason for the reliability problem though.
When you cut off cooling to a super hot engine and that is the main reason for all your reliability, then fixing it requires changing all the aero characteristics that supposedly makes the car fast in the first place.
If that car had a dodgy wheel connector that kept failing, or a weak front wing, then fixing those things is relatively easy. But I can only really see Red Bull fixing their problem by basically changing the entire shape of the car to get more cooling, in doing that then they have to redesign most of the aero to work. The front wing will need to channel air differently to work air around the car, the rear aero would change as bigger sidepods and larger rear exit's around the exhaust would change how the air worked all around the back of the car.
I think ultimately if they switch the sidepods/back end, then most of their aero designs won't work great with it. That isn't to say they can't make a better cooled car with great aero, I just don't think they can do that quickly any time soon.
I wouldn't be writing RB off any time soon, its a long season and plenty of time to resolve a few reliability issues, after all its easier to make a fast car reliable than a slow car quick
Because of all the heat issues and not being able to run they won't find out till the race if they have any reliability problems.
And don't forget other teams will be moving forward while rb is still trying to do a lap.
They are going to be near the back of the midfield all season
Soldato
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We can all speculate of what there issues are but in reality no one outside of RB are party to the snag list, i think there a bit more resilient to a few teething issues than some of the other teams. Adrian is no fool either. They made short work getting the double diffuser to work and the varying regulation changes over the years.
I'd love to see them on the back foot and in fact it looks like they are, but you'd be a fool to think they will be anywhere other than fighting for the front row within a few races.
Merc are looking immense though! I'd be happy with either of those winning the championship more so Lewis of course!
I'd love to see them on the back foot and in fact it looks like they are, but you'd be a fool to think they will be anywhere other than fighting for the front row within a few races.
Merc are looking immense though! I'd be happy with either of those winning the championship more so Lewis of course!
Not just heat problems either:
Changes Renault have made since Jerez...
Change of battery cell provider
The individual cells that make up the Energy Store have individual over-charge and over-discharge protection. These were proving unreliable due to thermal/vibration issues. Whilst the energy store is sealed in our fitment, I am informed the cells are now supplied by Panasonic.
Change to MGU-K to Crank drive gearing
The original torque multiplication factor was calculated to give a wider spread of torque on acceleration. Track testing found that this was causing traction difficulties and overloading the gear set and causing failure of the crank casing.
Change to turbocharger wastegate function
Renault had originally intended for the H to regulate Turbine speed in 95%+ of normal running. They facilitated this by allowing the H to pull charge (when the energy store was at capacity) to an air cooled heat sink. This strategy proved ineffective in certain environments and a more conventional wastegate is now being used to supplement the H.
Due to both the change in K gear ratio, boost control strategy and the energy store, most of the software relating to the charge and discharge cycling has been modified daily and continues to be refined. There are still issues relating to turbine speed control via H but these are mostly to do with fine tuning of the control software and the synchronisation between H control and wastegate control.
There has been swift progress and software related driveability now appears to be the main issue.
Re the H to K transfer
There are times when you can't (or wouldn't want to) transfer power from the H to the K but still need to limit turbo speed.
Think along the lines of a short burst of acceleration then slight deceleration then acceleration (such as feathering throttle for traction or in a switch back). The last thing the driver would want is for the K to feed power into driveline.
During those transitional situations Renault wanted to control the speed of the turbo by using the H to maintain shaft speed at or close to max rpm. It turned out (partly because of the driveability issues) that H was dumping to the heat sink far more than had been predicted or modelled. This was causing severe heat related issues in some cars at Jerez and the Renault 'patch' was to disable the H entirely and rely on the mechanical wastegate for the remainder of the test.
Obviously this resulted in dramatically increased lag and reduced performance but allowed some mileage to be put on the ICE.
In the interests of transparency it should be disclosed that we have had no first-hand experience with the original spec PU used in Jerez.
Our running experience started with a version that had basic H functioning and limited K output.
Changes Renault have made since Jerez...
Change of battery cell provider
The individual cells that make up the Energy Store have individual over-charge and over-discharge protection. These were proving unreliable due to thermal/vibration issues. Whilst the energy store is sealed in our fitment, I am informed the cells are now supplied by Panasonic.
Change to MGU-K to Crank drive gearing
The original torque multiplication factor was calculated to give a wider spread of torque on acceleration. Track testing found that this was causing traction difficulties and overloading the gear set and causing failure of the crank casing.
Change to turbocharger wastegate function
Renault had originally intended for the H to regulate Turbine speed in 95%+ of normal running. They facilitated this by allowing the H to pull charge (when the energy store was at capacity) to an air cooled heat sink. This strategy proved ineffective in certain environments and a more conventional wastegate is now being used to supplement the H.
Due to both the change in K gear ratio, boost control strategy and the energy store, most of the software relating to the charge and discharge cycling has been modified daily and continues to be refined. There are still issues relating to turbine speed control via H but these are mostly to do with fine tuning of the control software and the synchronisation between H control and wastegate control.
There has been swift progress and software related driveability now appears to be the main issue.
Re the H to K transfer
There are times when you can't (or wouldn't want to) transfer power from the H to the K but still need to limit turbo speed.
Think along the lines of a short burst of acceleration then slight deceleration then acceleration (such as feathering throttle for traction or in a switch back). The last thing the driver would want is for the K to feed power into driveline.
During those transitional situations Renault wanted to control the speed of the turbo by using the H to maintain shaft speed at or close to max rpm. It turned out (partly because of the driveability issues) that H was dumping to the heat sink far more than had been predicted or modelled. This was causing severe heat related issues in some cars at Jerez and the Renault 'patch' was to disable the H entirely and rely on the mechanical wastegate for the remainder of the test.
Obviously this resulted in dramatically increased lag and reduced performance but allowed some mileage to be put on the ICE.
In the interests of transparency it should be disclosed that we have had no first-hand experience with the original spec PU used in Jerez.
Our running experience started with a version that had basic H functioning and limited K output.
Let's not forget that whilst Seb is a decent driver, he is losing time learning the torque and drive of these cars compared to last season's... so not only are Red Bull losing car running time they're losing time for their driver too.
Mark is clever enough to not be public. After all he is shortly to start testing a completely new hybrid engine in the Porsche. He'd look pretty stupid if that turned out to be a dog.
So, do we have details on laps completed and the length of the runs? Have RBR come anywhere close to a race distance?
So, do we have details on laps completed and the length of the runs? Have RBR come anywhere close to a race distance?