The F1 2014 season

Guerrilla said:
That's good news I suppose, that it can be run flat out and the teams aren't forced to fuel save (though as you say, they likely will to under fuel).
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Yep. Any of the teams had the fuel allowance to run the V8's flat out all race*. But they chose not to as a tactical decision. Exactly the same is likely to happen next year.

*with the exception of Marussia when they built a fuel tank that was too small, doh!
 
Given how much more efficient the V6s will be, I'm not sure they'll choose to start off with less fuel than needed to run flat out all lap. I've not looked it up, but there may well be more benefit to having all the fuel needed for a race. They might put enough less to account for a short safety car period on some circuits, but I expect that's all it'll be.
 
It all depends on the simulations.
When you save what was it 0.2 seconds a lap for ever kilo of fuel. Thats a huge time saving over a race, something even hamilton could not gain back by fuelling more compared to the others.

So it all depends what the time penalty for fuel is with the v6 cars.

They should have made it 100kilos not a max. (assuming it is a max and not a set weight)

Theres easy ways to get "proper" racing, you just need to change a few rather simple rules.
 
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Gutted :(

Austrian GP tickets have completely sold out. Really wanted to go to that one as well :mad:
 
2014 Calendar confirmed.

March 16 – Australia GP, Melbourne
March 30 – Malaysia GP, Sepang
April 6 – Bahrain GP, Sakhir
April 20 – China GP, Shanghai
May 11 – Spain GP, Barcelona
May 25 – Monaco GP, Monaco
June 8 – Canada GP, Montreal
June 22 – Austria GP, Red Bull Ring
July 6 – Britain GP, Silverstone
July 20 – Germany GP, Hockenheim
July 27 – Hungary GP, Hungaroring
August 24 – Belgium GP, Spa-Francorchamps
September 7 – Italy GP, Monza
September 21 – Singapore GP, Marina Bay
October 5- Japan GP, Suzuka
October 12 – Russia, Sochi
November 2 – USA, Circuit of the Americas
November 9 – Brazil, Interlagos
November 23 – Abu Dhabi, Yas Marina
 
Not sure if this has been discussed already, but according to the BBC website the driver will no longer be in control of the 30+ seconds of boost generated by the ERS systems and instead it will be programmed into the engine map.

Until now, the Kers boost has been accessed by a button on the steering wheel that the drivers have to press. But from next year the Ers is built into the running of the engine.
The electrical power will be used to create a much smoother torque curve.
The engineers will map the engine to fit the driver's style and as long as he drives consistently then he will stay within the fuel consumption that you need for the race distance.
If the driver is erratic and every lap is a new experience that will lead to a bit of trouble.
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Not sure if I prefer this or not? Pressing a button to pass isn't in any form pure motor racing but it does add a little something to a drivers tactics.
 
Its because its no longer a little boost, but now a key chunk of the power units output so needs to be managed into the normal power delivery of the whole system.

Its also a bit missleading to refer to it in terms of 'seconds per lap' as theres nothing to stop the teams putting a variable amount of power through it. You could run it at half power for 60 seconds a lap, for example.

I expect it will be used as the BBC suggest, to smooth out the torque curve. Any holes in the curve caused by the turbo will be plugged with electrical power (as the electric motor generates full torque from 0rpm).

You can also engineer different maps for different tracks. In Monaco for example the electric power might be used at different levels at different points of the power curve than somewhere like Monza.

Its like the engine output and the fixed ratio gearbox are a rough brick wall, and the ERS output is the plaster used to smooth it all out. Sort of :p
 
mark66 said:
Not sure if this has been discussed already, but according to the BBC website the driver will no longer be in control of the 30+ seconds of boost generated by the ERS systems and instead it will be programmed into the engine map.



Not sure if I prefer this or not? Pressing a button to pass isn't in any form pure motor racing but it does add a little something to a drivers tactics.
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i think its a step backwards, it gives a little something to the person, the choice of when to deploy it.
so does this mean its a pointless tool in that its set before the race? :/
 
al4x said:
i think its a step backwards, it gives a little something to the person, the choice of when to deploy it.
so does this mean its a pointless tool in that its set before the race? :/
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Is an engine pointless as its set before the race?
What an odd comment.
Its part of the engine and is used with the throttle.
All it is now, is rather than a tack on. Its now a integrated part of the power train. Seeing as it could be used for 100% of the lap, a button isn't suitable.
 
Exactly. A 2013 car with a broken KERS is just an inconvenience. A 2014 car with a broken ERS is a retirement. Its not just a push button boost any more.
 
id rather see it be a bit more powerful than now but only useable for X seconds per GP/lap
 
So a push to pass style system? There is already plenty of those in other formulas.

The F1 rules are designed towards using electric motors to seemlessly improve performance and efficiency of petrol engines. On paper it seems to be working. 2013 F1 cars had around 800bhp, 2014 F1 cars will have around 800bhp, but use 40% less fuel. Although I don't know if that says more about how outdated the old engines were than the progress with the new ones?
 
Skeeter said:
Exactly. A 2013 car with a broken KERS is just an inconvenience. A 2014 car with a broken ERS is a retirement. Its not just a push button boost any more.
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Might this be Red Bull's achilles heel given how many KERS failures they've had over the years? (setting aside the conspiracy theories about 99% of them being on Mark's car...)
 
JonnyT said:
Might this be Red Bull's achilles heel given how many KERS failures they've had over the years? (setting aside the conspiracy theories about 99% of them being on Mark's car...)
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Maybe, it depends on the specifics of what was breaking.

From what I understand it the 2013 KERS units were effectively 'bolt on', meaning the teams could develop their own. We only really heard of RBR having issues with KERS, rather than all Renault cars, so I'm assuming they were building some, if not all of the KERS system themselves.

For 2014 the ERS becomes part of the power unit as a whole, so everything other than the battery pack (ES) will be delivered by Renault and be the same in all Renault cars. So I see 3 scenarios:

The bits that failed for RBR will be replaced by Renault bits which may be more reliable.
The Renault power units are using the RBR developed bits, in which case all Renault engined cars could see issues.
Or the bits that failed for RBR are outside the confines of the power unit (i.e the ES or the control unit) in which case we could see continued issues for RBR alone.

Without knowing the specifics of what was breaking its difficult to guess. But I think we can safely assume that the RBR design will squeeze the ERS to its limit, just as it has done for the last few years :)
 
JonnyT said:
Might this be Red Bull's achilles heel given how many KERS failures they've had over the years? (setting aside the conspiracy theories about 99% of them being on Mark's car...)
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While Red Bull may have had some control over the KERS previously (or perhaps full control?) this will be 100% Renault as it's integrated into the 'power unit' (that's never going to catch on), not the bolt-on it was.

As far as I know, all Red Bull have to do is provide the cooling, which admittedly hasn't always been Newey's strong point, with him liking to keep unoptimised airflow on a knife edge.

Edit: gingerstepchild.jpg
 
Skeeter said:
Without knowing the specifics of what was breaking its difficult to guess. But I think we can safely assume that the RBR design will squeeze the ERS to its limit, just as it has done for the last few years :)
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Wasn't the problem always more an overheating issue meaning they had to turn off KERS before it broke itself rather than it just generally "breaking" ?
 
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