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  • F1 rule changes for 2014
  • piedidiformaggio
    Free Member
    Stoner
    Free Member

    I was about to comment what a well written and intelligent article that was, then realised it wasnt a journalist for a change, but someone who actually knew what they were talking about 😉

    Gary Anderson, the former technical director of the Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar teams, was talking to BBC Sport’s Andrew Benson

    honeybadgerx
    Full Member

    Is DRS being retained for next year? I’m hoping not, yes it aided overtaking, but only in a boring, predictable way. KERS was a bit more interesting as at least the other driver could fight back or try and be tactical about when it was used – doesn;t look like that’ll be an option with ‘ERS’ next year (it also sounds a lot less exciting than KERS!).

    retro83
    Free Member

    People think Ferrari have been testing their F1 V6 in a LaFerrari chassis.

    Doesn’t sound as bad as I feared but still not great (he only really opens it up towards the end)

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od3H6Jxisfk[/video]

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Button thinks it’s going to be quite different driving them to the V8s – sounds like the torque issues will be particularly challenging on wet tracks.

    DRS stays for next year – though the zones will be tweaked yet again. AIUI the aim is to give an opportunity for cars to pass without it being too simple, which hasn’t quite worked in some places. I’d still question its usefulness on some of the Tilkedromes with 1km straights though as the aero tow should be enough to have a go there.

    As for ERS not being as tactical as KERS – yes, there won’t be the corner by corner opportunity to use it or not (though in reality KERS was only really useful in a handful of places per lap). I think the fuel limits will certainly need some clever use of engine drive train modes to get a bit of extra pace when necessary without harming overall race prospects, so it’ll be more like the old turbo days where drivers could turn up the boost for a lap or two.

    I’d also expect that even with 100kg fuel limit the teams will still seek to run minimum fuel for the race which could lead to some fraught last laps for some drivers. Better monitoring systems probably means we won’t go back to people running with their instruments showing negative fuel or running out and trying to push their car over the line like our Nige did back in the day.

    njee20
    Free Member

    That Button article really grates – they’ve always had torque, just not in the same quantities as for 2014!

    I don’t think any of us are used to having torque. I’ve raced for 14 years in F1 and I’ve never had torque

    you have torque and we’ve never had that before

    thepurist
    Full Member

    @njee20 – AIUI the 2.4V8s were “only” putting out around 300Nm of torque whereas I’ve seen estimates that the 1.6V6s will be producing about double that before you add in the ERS. That’s quite some difference, which is why Pirelli are going to be in for an interesting time next year too.

    richmtb
    Full Member

    That Button article really grates – they’ve always had torque, just not in the same quantities as for 2014

    He’s not an engineer is he!

    If the 2013 F1 engines were producing a maximum of 780bhp @ 18,000rpm then they must have been producing 227 ft/lbs of torque at that engine speed (in reality they probably produced more like 250ft/lbs further down the rev range) So its still a decent amount of torque.

    In 2014 if total power is the same or slightly more (lets say 800bhp) and its being produced at 15,000rpm then the total torque is 280 ft/lbs so possibly around 320 ft/lbs further down the rev range.

    These figures still seem quite low but the difference next year will be a lot of this torque will be available from lower down the rev range.

    The-Beard
    Full Member

    It seems odd having the pinnacle of motorsport being about tyre management and fuel efficiency. Plus artificial over taking aids, I really hate DRS, think it takes something away from the racing. I am quite worried that it’ll be even duller than this year.

    I’ll probably still watch it. Partly out of a sense of duty and partly because you just never know, it might just be a corker…

    clubber
    Free Member

    At a minimum you’re going to have drama because engines, sorry, powertrains will fail or parts of them will – when RB’s KERS fails (again) in 2014, it’s not going to be just a minor annoyance…

    So my predictions that will no doubt make me look silly in a few month 🙂

    – One engine will be better than the others (and not Ferrari so the FIA will probably have to bring in mid-season fixing rule changes for safety to level things. At least one bit of drama about rule breaking/bending.

    – Plenty of engines will blow early in the season or parts will fail or cars will run out of fuel (or at least have to slow a fair bit) meaning that the last few laps might (artificially) be pretty dramatic

    – RB won’t have the best car out of the box and will struggle with cooling due to the usual tight packaging but will catch up dramatically through the season as Newey et al take the better ideas on other cars and develop them better than the other teams while sorting out reliability (thus making themselves hard to beat in 2015). Vettel for Championship 5 while the other teams have fluctuating results through the season. Daniel to be good but Webber sort of level rather than Vettel but happier with being a ‘number 2 driver’.

    – Alonso to leave Ferrari at the end of the season as they fail to deliver a winning car again. Kimi to either do brilliantly if the car’s good or rubbish if not and he’s not motivated. Initial chumminess between Alonso and Kimi with a simmering cold war in the background, stoked by the Italian press. Dominicali to be replaced at some point during or at the end of the season.

    – McL to produce a decent car but not a consistently winning one (per the last 10+ years). JB to win a race or two but in changeable conditions. Magnussen to be the next Hamilton but hopefully with better consistency.

    – Grosgean to win a race. Maldonado to crash but maybe do well in a race or two if the stars align.

    – Hamilton to still not like his brakes but to start getting a slight but consistent edge on Nico. Hamilton to tell everyone he’s sorted his head out at least twice through the season. Nicole Shirtswinger not to return.

    – Massa to get grumpy when the Williams isn’t as fast as he’d like and Bottas beats him.

    – The usual suspects complaining that it was better in the old days

    Yep. I’m definitely going to look silly, aren’t it…

    LoCo
    Free Member

    – Massa to get grumpy when the Williams isn’t as fast as he’d [s]like and[/s] Bottas beats him.

    My money is on this Bottas is going to get quicker and quicker 😉

    clubber
    Free Member

    Maybe, maybe not. With Magnussen coming into F1, I’m always reminded of his Dad who should have been great but wasn’t.

    (Jan Magnussen story for anyone who’s not familiar with it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/03/mclaren_and_magnussen_come_ful.html )

    richmtb
    Full Member

    My bold predictions are Mclaren and Mercedes will be the teams to beat with Mercedes probably edging it in the early season.

    I don’t think Red Bull will be too far behind, it will be interesting to see if Vettel can make up the difference in what might not be the quickest car

    Massa to get grumpy when the Williams isn’t as fast as he’d like and Bottas beats him.

    Can see this happening too, Williams need his money though so they will probably put up with it.

    The relationship between Lotus and Maldonado might be interesting though. He is easily the biggest shit on the grid and a pretty mediocre driver – but again they need his money so they might have to put up with his antics

    jfletch
    Free Member

    It seems odd having the pinnacle of motorsport being about tyre management and fuel efficiency.

    The pinacle of motorsport, by definition, needs to be the pinacle of automtotive engineering. But to avoid this pinacle being achived by the people with the most money (see the America’s cup) there needs to be some constaints applied. Once you apply those constraints you then are trying to maximise how fast you can go within them.

    And two of the biggest variables are how much “go” you can extract from the minimum ammount of fuel and how well you can apply that “go” to the track.

    So F1 (and any form of motorsport) has always been about fuel and tyres. It’s just now this is much more visible to the teams so they can manage it better and more visible to us due to radio feeds and much more techy coverage.

    We could take away all of the sensors and monitoring but a) it would no longer be the pinacle of motorsport and b) the winner would still be the person who managed their fuel and tyres the best, we just wouldn’t know about it.

    NASCAR is the antithesis of F1 with simple cheap cars but it is still about the driver who can best use his tyres and manage his fuel (with the added randomness of not being involved in someone else’s accident)

    LoCo
    Free Member

    The relationship between Lotus and Maldonado might be interesting though. He is easily the biggest shit on the grid and a pretty mediocre driver – but again they need his money so they might have to put up with his antics

    On a good day he can be pretty good, although these are few and far between and has a habit of just losing the plot and driving into people

    thepurist
    Full Member

    So F1 (and any form of motorsport) has always been about fuel and tyres

    Amen and Hallelujah! I’m fed up with people talking about this like it’s some facet of the new regulations when it’s been part of racing for ever.

    The same with the ‘The best car always wins’ – how would (most) people be able to tell the difference between an average car being outdriven and a fantastic car being wasted?

    jfletch
    Free Member

    Amen and Hallelujah! I’m fed up with people talking about this like it’s some facet of the new regulations when it’s been part of racing for ever

    Yay – Someone agrees with me.

    A good example of peoples rose tinted hindsight is the issue of cars running out of fuel.

    When the new fuel limits were proposed people were up in arms that races would be decided because people would run out of fuel. But then people realised the F1 teams were too clever to run out, they would just ask their drivers to drive slower based on their very sophisticated fuel useage models that they have developed to avoid this issue of running out of fuel. The reaction to this was again uproar, “F1 races will be decided by robotic drivers hitting lap time targets rather than racing” they whinged, “why can racing be like the 70 and 80s when it was exciting”. That is the 70s and 80s when avarage winning margins were higher* than they are now due to a greater variance in car speed (the car therefore having a greater influence on the result than now) and when races were often decided by cars running out of fuel.

    I’m not saying the current era of F1 is by any means perfect but it certainly isnt unique.

    *Good stats here on winning margins http://www.motorsportsetc.com/info/f1_mrgns.htm

    richmtb
    Full Member

    The winning margins thing is an interesting one.

    I remember “back in the day” you had some real no hope outfits like Lola, Pacific and Simtek that regularly finished four or five laps down on the field. The crap teams really were crap.

    107% rule was introduced to stop these kinds of mobile chicanes.

    Even though one team and driver in particular dominated this season racing is generally a lot closer than it used to be.

    The second half of 2013 is more of an anomaly than a trend

    njee20
    Free Member

    AIUI the 2.4V8s were “only” putting out around 300Nm of torque whereas I’ve seen estimates that the 1.6V6s will be producing about double that before you add in the ERS. That’s quite some difference, which is why Pirelli are going to be in for an interesting time next year too.

    Yes, I know. But Button says in 3 places that they’ve “never” had torque in an F1 car. Which is wholly inaccurate, they just have a lot more for 2014.

    clubber
    Free Member

    Presumably though that’s relative just like when we say Maldonado is a bit rubbish (most of the time) – he’s not really, just relative to the best drivers (other than Smurf Mat who makes everyone look rubbish).

    F1 engines haven’t been torquey for a while, it’s been all about revs. But that’s obviously in comparison to other series’ race cars. Compare an F1 car to a normal car and it clearly has a good bit of torque.

    njee20
    Free Member

    And they’ve always had torque, or they wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

    It’s like saying that new tyres are better, we now have friction, we’ve never had friction before.

    The wings are good too, we now have gravity.

    thepurist
    Full Member

    @njee20 – You’re being a bit literal there old chap! Do you get upset when the drivers complain of having ‘no grip’, ‘no traction’, ‘no brakes’ and ‘no power’ while still lapping 2 seconds off the lap record? 😉

    LoCo
    Free Member

    Presumably though that’s relative just like when we say Maldonado is a bit rubbish (most of the time) – he’s not really, just relative to the best drivers

    He won a race in 2012.

    (other than Smurf Mat who makes everyone look rubbish).

    😆

    mrplow
    Free Member

    Good articles and good find on the la ferrari mule. Does sound like a new power train as it is doing a lot of venting while braking and surging when coming out the corner so might be on the money of an assisted turbo. Sounds like they are still working on getting it on boost.

    There will be some funny noises in 2014 to replace the current exhaust blowing crackles in the bends. Dyson might clean up…

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Thanks for posting – interesting.

    My take on the whole “fuel efficiency thing” is its a really smart move to make F1 look relevant and cough “environmental”, its great for the manufacturers teams like Mercedes who can spin yarns about trickle down technology into they range.

    With all the big changes I think it’s like the larger wealthier teams pull further ahead. I say Red Bull will once again be the team to beat.

    njee20
    Free Member

    You’re being a bit literal there old chap!

    Oh yes, I don’t deny that, woefully pedantic fellow that I am! Just said that Button’s article grated because of his repeating of that.

    clubber
    Free Member

    njee – you’ve never, ever, ever said that X tyres are crap and have no grip, etc? 🙂

    He won a race in 2012.

    That’s why I said ‘Most of the time’. I know he’s occassionally capable of a good result but he’s not great the rest of the time.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I can sort of see where Button’s coming from in his remarks about lack of torques. Considering these are 2.4 V8’s, producing 700-odd bhp at 18,000rpm, 250Nm isn’t a huge amount, considering this:

    The (VAG) 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine gives you a big thump of torque in the mid-range, serving up its 184lb ft maximum between 1,500 and 3,500rpm but it’s smooth and keeps right on pulling as the revs rise. The 140hp peak power is on call all the way from 4,000 to 6,000rpm and that means fantastic flexibility and response – all from measly a 1.4.

    A 1.4 four-pot, only producing 140bhp, manages to deliver over half the amount of torque from around a fifth of the horsepower.
    Which shows how well developed modern small turbo petrol engines really are.

    clubber
    Free Member

    Good summary of Maldonado actually
    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/111663

    He is very inconsistent, he has been involved in more than his fair share of clashes with other cars and made himself very unpopular at Williams with his attitude, but the pace is undeniable, if erratic

    I’m not sure I can recall many drivers as erratic as he is.

    njee20
    Free Member

    njee – you’ve never, ever, ever said that X tyres are crap and have no grip, etc?

    I wouldn’t say in a press interview “I’ve never had grip, this season will be interesting because we have grip. We’ve never had grip”. Which is basically what he does. Just said it annoyed me, it’s unnecessary hyperbole, I’ve never noticed it so markedly in an interview before.

    It’s the context as much as anything.

    clubber
    Free Member

    184lb ft = 250NM btw…

    richmtb
    Full Member

    Presumably though that’s relative just like when we say Maldonado is a bit rubbish (most of the time) – he’s not really, just relative to the best drivers (other than Smurf Mat who makes everyone look rubbish).

    Well obviously its relative. But how else would you measure him. When people have a go at a premier league footballer for being a bit crap I’m sure they realise they would still be quite handy in a game of fives down the park!

    But I still say Maldonado is at best mediocre and he has demonstrated a very shitty temperament and shown real disdain for his team. He is only in F1 because he is being bankrolled by the Venezuelan government. At best he might make a competent journeyman if he calms down a bit.

    I really would have preferred to see Hulkenberg in the Lotus next season

    richmtb
    Full Member

    A 1.4 four-pot, only producing 140bhp, manages to deliver over half the amount of torque from around a fifth of the horsepower.
    Which shows how well developed modern small turbo petrol engines really are.

    What it actually shows is the relationship between engine speed and horsepower.

    A normal petrol road engine with a redline of 6500 rpm would need to produce about 600 ft/lbs of torque to match the 750hp of the current F1 engines

    With almost 3 times the revs an F1 engine can make 750 bhp with “just” around 200 ft/lbs

    power in hp = torque in ft/lbs @ 5252rpm

    FeeFoo
    Free Member

    Going back to the DRS thing, whilst I agree that at times it is too artificial, what it does do is to allow the faster cars get past the mid-range and slower cars and get on with racing their real rivals.

    Before DRS, the aero packages meant cars got to 1-2 seconds behind the car in front and then couldn’t overtake due to lack of sufficient downforce to bridge that gap.

    DRS allows the cars to bridge that gap and therefore stand better chances of overtaking even in the non-DRS zones.

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    At a minimum you’re going to have drama because engines, sorry, powertrains will fail or parts of them will – when RB’s KERS fails (again) in 2014, it’s not going to be just a minor annoyance…

    I can see where your going: when the “ERS” systems fail on a 2014 car, all of a sudden the driver is left with 640 BHP (Vs everyonbe elses “840 BHP”) in a car 50kg heavier than his 2013 car, and a limit to how heavy his Right foot can be if he wants to even try and salvage a finish and/or some points, in effect an ERS failure is potentially pretty catastrophic, yes you keep going, but Waaaay off the pace…

    RB’s KERS issues seemed to affect Webber more often than Vettel, I wonder if “ERS” reliability will unaccountably favour certain drivers over other…

    I think it will generally make for interesting racing, heavier cars with a bit less downforce and apparently more torque, or more torque earlier on, in theory that means more passes, as corner entry speed and judging application of throttle on exit become more critical, rather than just straight line DRS drag race passes…

    The the Fanboi in me thinks this might all actually suit Button’s Style of driving, nursing more laps out of the tyres or simply being smoother with the throttle, his apparently getting on better with slightly understeery cars, but then there’s Raikkonen, I can really see him being competitive too as he generally adjusts to changes quite well… All speculative of course

    If the teams and the drivers are going to have to learn and adjust I think we could actually see some really interesting earlier rounds, and hopefully some closer racing over the whole season, assuming half the field don’t lose 20% of their power on the first lap…

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Torque shouldn’t be a huge issue with a turbocharged car, as you have far more control over how the boost builds up. I fitted an electronic boost controller to my old Porsche 944 turbo and you could programme specific boost profiles, so you could gave a wet weather profile that built up boost more gradually. It was open loop and faily crude, but effective. I suppose it would be a simple job to add a feedback loop in to get some form of crude traction control by varying boost. I’m sure such a system has been outlawed though.

    I really think they’ll have good reliability out of the box, they’ve had plenty of notice to develop engines and turbo technology is pretty mature now. The racing will still be ruined by too much reliance on aerodynamics (despite the rules reducing aerodynamic surface size – they’ll catch up to close to current levels of downforce) and carbon brakes.

    legend
    Free Member

    I would just like to point out that I’m already bored of all the torque chat. If this is how dull the hype is, I can only imagine how dull the actual racing will be next year

    maxtorque
    Full Member

    Engine torque is irrelevant anyway. What matters to tyres is tractive effort, otherwise called “power”………

    The 2014 cars will knacker their tyres not due to any more power (although the hybrid powertains could make a bit more power than before potentially), but due to the extra mass and lower downforce!

    slackalice
    Free Member

    Richmtb, I’m fascinated to learn more of how you get the correlation of and between power and torque. Are you working on the dyno benches? The specific nature of your numbers and how a power curve and torque curve are directly proportional suggests to me that you are clearly in the know! Please let me in on your intriguing insights 🙂

    Engine torque is irrelevant anyway. What matters to tyres is tractive effort, otherwise called “power”………

    Excuse me, but that is utter tosh.

    richmtb
    Full Member

    Torque is quite widely misunderstood but really there is a very simple linear relationship between engine speed and torque. 1hp = 1 ft/lb @ 5252 rpm so if you know the power and engine speed you know the torque.

    Indeed you work out power by doing this the other way round. An engine dyno works out the torque being produced by the engine. Power is then a simple calculation.

    BTW Maxtorque’s word on this stuff is gospel so I defer to his good judgements 8)

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