Motorsport Off Topic Thread

That's how race tracks work. They pay a series to come to their track and then recover the cost and earn profit through ticket sales and sponsorship. Thats how most 'venues' work, like arenas, theatres, stadiums, etc. F1 is just the most expensive.

If tracks didn't pay F1 and F1 had to pay the tracks... That would mean less money in the F1 prize pool and therefore less money for the teams.
 
Skeeter said:
That's how race tracks work. They pay a series to come to their track and then recover the cost and earn profit through ticket sales and sponsorship. Thats how most 'venues' work, like arenas, theatres, stadiums, etc. F1 is just the most expensive.

If tracks didn't pay F1 and F1 had to pay the tracks... That would mean less money in the F1 prize pool and therefore less money for the teams.
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And less money for Bernie... :D
 
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118626
Nice article and analysis by Scarbs on the Honda Engine.
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In the months ahead of the launch of the McLaren MP4-30, there was a huge amount of speculation surrounding the technology of the new Honda Formula 1 engine.

It's been a troubled start so far, with pre-season testing a disaster and McLaren battling to make up ground in the early flyaway races.

A lot of these reliability problems are the result of Honda trying to steal a march on its engine rivals by incorporating new and unproven technology, as, with in-season development limited, it did not want to start 2015 with a basic power unit set-up that would be hard to improve.

McLaren went aggressive with the aerodynamic concept on this year's car, and that put pressure on Honda to achieve the packaging required for the Woking team's 'size zero' dimensions.

Over the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, the ongoing problems on Jenson Button's car allowed us to get the first clear look at the Honda unit, showing just how radical the Japanese firm has gone to achieve minimal volume with its packaging.

Honda has split its turbo, but the way it has done so is different to Mercedes, as the turbo sits within the tight confines of the 'V' of the engine, along with the MGU-H.

To fit a turbo into this space, it appears that Honda has pioneered the use of an axial flow compressor.

Rather than a large centrifugal fan, there are a series of smaller fans along a shaft.

This design spins up quicker, although it may lack the maximum possible boost, which is not such an issue in this fuel-limited formula.

Aligned on the same shaft as the compressor is the MHU-H and the exhaust-driven turbine; the latter appears to sit behind the engine and is of a more conventional design. Honda hopes to improve driveability and reduce the size of the envelope of the engine with this layout.

Above the turbo is a compact, low-line aluminium inlet plenum chamber. Inside, the inlets are turned through 90 degrees to reduce the height of the chamber, while still allowing for variable-length inlet trumpets.
Fernando Alonso, McLaren, Bahrain GP 2015

More conventionally, the oil tank and MGU-K are located at the front of the engine and under the left-hand cylinder bank respectively.

Finally, and again unconventionally, the ERS module ahead of the motor combines the battery and both control electronic boxes (one each for ERS-K and ERS-H) into one unit.

This creates a lower and lighter unit that requires less space under the fuel tank area, which again aids aerodynamic packaging.

Of course, all of this tight packaging means that there's precious little space for external cooling.

All of the ERS elements will require water or oil cooling, which has led to reliability problems and Honda needing to cap power to keep temperatures under control and prevent coolant leaks via the seals around the spinning shafts.

Although Honda continues to have reliability problems, the fundamental design of the power unit is valid and will eventually become both powerful and reliable.

That will mean McLaren's aerodynamic packaging gains can be fully realised.
 
I needed to Google "axial flow compressor" to see what it was, and all I can say is wow! Brave move by Honda if this is what they have done.

Compressors like that seem to be rare to non-existent on small car engines. They have basically stuck the front half of a jet engine in the car (no, not to deliver thrust before anyone goes crazy, the compressor part of a jet engine).

Explains why its unreliable if it really is this big a step :)
 
Big punt to take when results matter. Do think this is the stuff the sport needs. Innovation.
Do hope it pays off in the long run. I'm very fond of Honda.
 
Exactly. You don't win in F1 by playing it safe.

There is also the bigger picture to think of. If Honda are putting the technology into their F1 engine then you must assume they are planning to introduce it elsewhere in their 'normal' range. Smaller, lighter, more efficient turbos are good news for the road car industry too.

People say F1 is no longer about innovation, but who was talking about split turbos or axial compressors in road cars 2 years go? Nobody. But its now firmly on the agenda because of what the F1 manufacturers have done. Its a shame the Honda engine is having troubles, but having seen the details I can understand why now. Fingers crossed it comes good.
 
sunama said:
Thats pretty bad. And to think that a fair chunk of money would've been spent making that.
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Its CLEARLY a parody, and hilarious!!

It was all over the net when it was out, and most people twigged it was clearly taking the **** :)

Jenson was a great sport for doing it, and quite frankly, I am not sure anyone else would have been up for it, or pulled it off.

The irreverent approach to this form of advert was quite simply genius! :D
 
Skeeter said:
I needed to Google "axial flow compressor" to see what it was, and all I can say is wow! Brave move by Honda if this is what they have done.

Compressors like that seem to be rare to non-existent on small car engines. They have basically stuck the front half of a jet engine in the car (no, not to deliver thrust before anyone goes crazy, the compressor part of a jet engine).

Explains why its unreliable if it really is this big a step :)
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While possible and has been suspected for a while, Scarbs was 'certain' for months and even a few days ago that it was a merc style design with compressor at the front while most others were saying it's very likely a Ferrari style setup with the compressor in the V.


A radial compressor gets a higher pressure change in radial than axial over a single stage... that isn't a fundamental problem except the rules dictate a single stage compressor(one set of fins basically). The main reason to use axial is having more stages in the same unit becomes much smaller and more efficient than a radial and can hit much higher pressures in the same space afaik than lots of radial stages. But over a single stage, radial will have much higher compression ratio, something that basically won't be matched by a single stage axial compressor.

The downsides are Axial is more expensive to develop/make, heavier and significantly less reliable(which maybe we've already seen). It's almost never on small engines because the pressure required in a small engine is small enough to be covered by a much more reliable single stage radial compressor.

Outside of packaging I'm not sure there is a single advantage, in fact it's basically several disadvantages just to get the packaging done better. Ferrari put their compressor in the V, it was too small, probably limited the mgu-h size and entirely compromised their engine. But it didn't work AT ALL and they completely changed their engine for this year and saw a massive improvement.

Don't forget that Ferrari's concept for 2014 was compromise the engine completely, package it tightly and make the car all about aero... they did a crap job on the engine and not a great job on the aero either. This is precisely what Honda did, down to sticking the compressor in the V.

Honda = Ferrari last year - 12 months extra engineering(at the same point)

Scarbs insisted it was a Merc design with the compressor at the front from last November to basically a few days ago. Now he's saying it's a series of fans... which is almost definitely against the regulations( more than one set of fins should be classed as a multi stage compressor... if they've found some loop hole I don't know, the technical regs were pretty concise on those bits of the engine but categorically state single stage).

Scarbs also saying integrating unproven technology... seriously, axial compressors are donkeys years old, they are precisely as proven as radial compressors. People don't use them in such car engines because there is no real reason to.

EDIT:-

https://twitter.com/ScarbsF1/status/589191502380818432

He was claiming a radial compressor at the front literally a few days ago, he wasn't even in Bahrain(again he tweeted to say that), now he's running an article on autosport directly contradicting his own thoughts on the engine a few days ago with basically guesses and something that the regulations would say isn't possible....

This is why being official 'press' doesn't mean much of anything, his guess isn't magically better than anyone else's. Like Ted, the main credential he has for F1 is, as a fan he decided to get involved, not much more than that.
 
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Won't edit again but, for the record, the pictures from Bahrain appeared mid last week but NOT showing the front of the engine, but an airbox that could have been taking air to the front, that is when Scarbs posted to say it's a radial compressor in front. More pictures appeared later in the weekend showing the front underneath the airbox and showed very clearly no radial compressor there. So Scarbs 'article' is based off pictures being posted on a forum(he also posts on and put that sketch on the forums), most of the discussion on there is basically saying probably not an axial fan because they couldn't get the required compression within a single stage... axial compressors that are single stage are somewhat pointless.

Get a few pictures, make a few guesses, write an article claiming something new or different, get a few hits... that is what reporting is now.
 
www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118628

Hmmm.

I've been quite vocal about the FIAs plans to kill off GP2 and/or FR3.5 with its F2 strategy, but this might actually make sense. GP2 already has the prime spot of being the F1 support series, and is (well, was) an established route into F1. If GP2 becoming F2 means it keeps everything the way it is now but adds a crammed grid due to the draw of the Super Licence points then it could be great. GP2 has suffered recently from a lack of top drivers.

This is only one possibility though. We could still see the FIA create a new F2, kill off one or both of its rivals, and then fail itself because at the end of the day all the FIA have shown they are good at recently is killing racing series'.
 
Oh jesus. I made the mistake of posting that on my phone meaning drunkenmasters massive rant wasn't hidden from me anymore.

Is anyone ever right in your eyes except yourself!?
 
The Honda solution sounds quite interesting and unique. Hope it pays off, it is certainly a much riskier design (aero and engine) than anyone else on the grid for years. If they kept with Merc again this year it would have just been another generic OK season for them, like usual.
 
Duke said:
The Honda solution sounds quite interesting and unique. Hope it pays off, it is certainly a much riskier design (aero and engine) than anyone else on the grid for years. If they kept with Merc again this year it would have just been another generic OK season for them, like usual.
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Precisely why they needed to get a works engine in the car and feed off all of the OEM technology that it will provide - including an axial flow compressor.

I'd much rather McHonda take a risk and gamble than trundle around with a customer engine gaining respectable points here and there. I firmly believe Ron is right when he says to succeed you need to be a works team -look at Mercedes and Ferrari compared to everyone else. Hopefully Mclaren-Honda will be fighting them soon... it'll require patience.
 
So Whitmarsh says they were to conservative. He goes, Ron's back, and now the areo is super aggressive, they got Alonso back, and there's frigging jet engine parts in the car! God I hope this pays off for them!
 
Omnicourse are now saying that in a series of talks Honda are making in some, I have no clue, motorsports/technology conference thing, they've basically said they have a centrifugal(radial) compressor in the V.

Arai, the Honda head guy who seems to blurt out information after races that you get the impression Ron wouldn't want disclosed, seems to be suggesting that they've made similar decisions to Ferrari and they also aren't paying off. Radial compressor being too small due to having to fit it in the V, which prevents proper charging of power, temps also being too high in the area as well.

The article states that where RBR wouldn't make any compromises when Renault suggested they needed to be made that Mclaren are willing to make some aero compromises and will be likely bringing bigger ERS radiators and bigger intercoolers to work around temp problems... though I presume that wouldn't fix the compressor problems though lower temps would help everything in general.

No idea if that is accurate either, however it makes a LOT more sense than what Scarbs is saying and as I said, Arai has been fairly open previously, things like stating in Australia they ran higher power in qualifying but the race air temps were too high so they had to turn everything down which meant nothing was working as it should.

It seems much more likely that Arai would state certain things in a technology conference than Scarbs completely changing his mind based on a few photos when he certainly wasn't at the event talking to the team directly. It should absolutely be noted that the pictures completely disproved what he'd been saying about the engine for 6 months, they didn't prove this new story of his. There was no picture of the compressor, just no compressor at the front where he'd been saying it definitely was. His claims were disproved and immediately we get a click bait story based on rumours that had been around for ages. It's still possible but axial compressors have effectively no advantages in engines like these and big disadvantages.

Three of 4 engines don't have the compressor in the V, the single engine that did go that route last year was the worst engine with the worst ERS, their decision to move the compressor out has taken them from worst engine to a relatively close second best.

I've thought for a while now that the compressor is in the V and that maybe this year, but more like next year we'll see the Honda compressor either at the front or at the back of the engine, but bigger, stronger, more efficient and with the whole engine improved as a result.
 
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Suzi Perry is on A Question of Sport and getting a lot of F1 questions, even about events and drivers from years ago. No pressure then! But she's doing really well, she knows her stuff for the most part.
 
Interesting stuff about Mehri being rumoured as well. I don't think it's confirmed, but he might be losing his seat.

He has been awful in comparison to Stevens but there are some claims about exactly why he's been as bad as he is.

Merhi confirms he is likely not returning with Manor as he has no money.

Says John Booth fought for him to get the drive when Manors owners wanted a paydriver.

Says that whilst Stevens has been privately funding external simulator time, he has been watching YouTube videos and using the Playstation to learn tracks.

Also says that his seat was deformed during transit from China to Bahrain and they could only patch it up during the weekend.
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Now, is this just excuse making after maybe losing his seat or be about to lose his seat, no idea. He has been miles and miles behind Stevens but maybe that isn't based on talent at all. In which case he's getting an extremely unfair 'shot' at F1 compared to Stevens, but then money will do that for you.

In Formula 3.5 in which Sainz Jr won it, Merhi came 3rd with Stevens in 6th. Merhi had more wins, more poles, more podiums and what, same cars, how much difference is there between teams, how well they maintain the cars or bigger differences, use the same chassis/engine for everyone?

Either way, you can somewhat understand that Merhi might not be as far back as he's seeming.

Also sounds like he's not a pay driver. Booth was asked to find a pay driver but signed Merhi instead and was given 4 races to come up with a sponsor. So the idea was if he showed something in 4 races someone would come up with a couple million for him to continue. As he's effectively been held back with issues that isn't looking likely to happen.

Maybe Stevens backers should come up with the 2mil to keep him looking good :p
 
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