[Closed] Virgin F1 car design

D'oh indeed!

Slightly smaller scale and less costly than the NASA mission that confused imperial with metric. That was a c*ck of galactic proportions!

I wonder if it was they themselves who got it wrong, or Cosworth that got their figures cocked. Maybe a bit of both. Perhaps they underestimated how much downforce would be needed and then added more at a later stage only to find out that the drag then sent them over the limit for fuel consumption. Either way - big doh!

I suspect the error was Virgins - If Cosworth got it wrong then all the other users of their engine are ****ed!!

yeah, must be Virgin who got it wrong.

Aren't they the first team to fully design and model their car only using computer simulators.

Not really an issue for them, they were unlikely to finish any of the first 5 races anyway!

I read about one of the american race series once where they introduced a maximum fuel tank size one year.

Once of the racers then fitted a 3" bore 'fuel pipe' from the fuel tank to very close to the carb and managed to hold about 3 gallons more than anyone else.

Once of the racers then fitted a 3" bore 'fuel pipe' from the fuel tank to very close to the carb and managed to hold about 3 gallons more than anyone else.

Honda tried a similar trick 3 or 4 years back in F1

[list=1]WTF is this all about? News linky?

Edit: here's one - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8588379.stm

I suspect the Virgin team were managing 0.1mm tolerances and a gram of weight here and there and then missed the basic's

Will be interesting to see if any other teams run out of fuel as the season progresses, especially at the fast circuits where a high percentage of time is spent at full throttle given the comments after the first race

IIRC correctly, you need to have 1 litre of fuel left in the tank for chemical testing, so the large bore fuel pipe is now largely redundant (and carrying around more weight)

I quite like the BBC headline 'Virgin on the ridiculous'

I don't understand all this forhead slapping like it was obvious. They have had theoretical fuel consumption figures, and actually running the car shows they are not accurate.

It's not that bleeding obvious.

I don't understand all this forhead slapping like it was obvious. They have had theoretical fuel consumption figures, and actually running the car shows they are not accurate.

I tend to agree - they've been brave in trying to do the entire year from the ground-up of a 50m Euro budget to show the budget cap might be possible and the reduction of physical testing to zero has been a consequence.

It was interesting reading an interview with Nick Fry who sees the medium term future of F1 being each team is given and allocation of 'energy' per race and they have to come up with the most efficient way of using that allocation of 'energy' - the development of hybrid and electric technology through F1 being a way to tempt the likes of Toyota back into it (and, yes, he did advocate playing taped engine noises on the electric cars so they sound 'real'!).

I think the issue is that they've now got to re-design and re-submit their chassis for crash testing. Not something you probably want to do. So even though they were working with theoretical values they should have enough experience in the team and info available from Cosworth etc to get this crucial bit correct.

It's not that bleeding obvious.

"Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport technology and working on such an exciting project as the Virgin Racing entry gives Wirth Research a unique opportunity to showcase our engineering talent."
Nick Wirth, Virgin Racing Chief Designer.

They made the fuel tank too small - I'm not too sure there are many excuses for that considering the consequences of getting it wrong.

Surprised they don't just lean out the engine a bit and make do for this season. It's not like they were going to be competitive anyway, is it?

I'm not too sure there are many excuses for that considering the consequences of getting it wrong

"...sorry Richard, we made the tank a bit a bigger, to be safe like, so we're carrying around 10 litres more fuel at any given point in the race than the rest of 'um, so we're between 0.5 and 1s slower than everyone else even before you account for the fact we've only just built the thing and run it so we're mighty slow anyway. Still, at least we've gone further than the Indian chap in the Spanish car eh...'

I grant you, it's a bit of a PR nightmare, right in the constant public glare of every armchair engineer, but sh!t happens and it will be how they deal with it that counts.

so we're carrying around 10 litres more fuel at any given point in the race than the rest of 'um

Just because the tank is big enough to carry the fuel doesn't mean you have to fill it up!!

".......sorry Richard, although the car is faster than this, we can't go any faster because we made the fuel tank too small"

What Muffin-Man said. No excuse.

Just because the tank is big enough to carry the fuel doesn't mean you have to fill it up!!

That is quite true - but if their engine is X% more thirsty than another then you will need X% more fuel at the start which is where the absolute mass is likely to count most in reduced lap times. Also a bigger tank means more structure, so more weight, a bigger aero packaging solution to come up with, probably longer wheelbase so even more [s]uglyness[/s] limosine like handling to accomidate etc etc.

I can see some teams running light with no intention of completing the distance, but very intention of getting some tv coverage for a few laps - quite a few cars with no sponsors on the side at the mo…

That is quite true - but if their engine is X% more thirsty than another then you will need X% more fuel at the start which is where the absolute mass is likely to count most in reduced lap times.

Except its not is it? Its the same Cosworth engine Lotus, Hormone Replacement Therapy and Williams are using...

Also a bigger tank means more structure, so more weight, a bigger aero packaging solution to come up with, probably longer wheelbase so even more uglyness limosine like handling to accomidate etc etc.

...... huh? All the other teams seem to have done OK. I doubt we're talking 100ltrs here.

which is where the absolute mass is likely to count most in reduced lap times

As opposed to running out of fuel which is likely to lead to increased lap times 😉

Stu - it may be the same engine, but if the VR aero package inherrently generates more downforce (drag) by design, then it will use more fuel for the same speed.

Sharkbait - yes, but you don't know what compromises the other teams have used yet - give it a while and see who runs out of fuel next ;-). The design cycle for an F1 car is typically 6 months from clean sheet of paper to a witnessed crash test so you can go off an actually drive the thing. That's not long - alot of the big design decisions that influence the details are based on gut feel and experience (hence why designers are paid (relatively) alot) from previous cars. The space envelope for the tank was probably set ages ago based on some data from Cosworth and their best guess at how the car might perform and given themselves at least a margin that woudl still be competitive. Now they have the real thing and they may be less than a few % out - but that has now become critical.

I say again, it is not ideal and there will be red faces all round, but there are reasons why it may have happened.

if the VR aero package inherrently generates more downforce (drag) by design, then it will use more fuel for the same speed

I may well be wrong, but I thought that drag limits the speed and cannot be overcome by adding more fuel.

You may be right in a couple of respects but given that a car is pretty useless without fuel it is a monster cock up. I suspect they were trying to be a little too clever rather than spending their first year being slightly more conservative and learning a bit rather than looking daft.

Stu - it may be the same engine, but if the VR aero package inherrently generates more downforce (drag) by design, then it will use more fuel for the same speed.

Indeed and I agree with you on that but thats not what you said previously! 😀

I suspect they were trying to be a little too clever rather than spending their first year being slightly more conservative and learning a bit rather than looking daft.

I will certainly agree with that - but they are there to at least try and be competitive I guess. Don't think Virgin's money would hang around too long if the only TV time they got was when one of the cars was about to be lapped.... again.....

Stu - I tend to say alot of things, you have to pick and choose 😉

If only they hadn't banned/severely limited the track testing time available then maybe they'd have been able to sort this much earlier on.

FIA say they've done it to reduce costs, but how much is a chassis reconfig/possible missed races going to cost Virgin?

you could look at it as another stab at the design and sanctioned by the fia they get to do some testing with this chassis and also build another one after seeing what all the other teams have been upto .

I say it is a master stroke on behalf of virgin

Anthony Davidson was having a little dig at the cost cutting this morning re letting reserve drivers run in free practice sessions.

He said all the teams carry more than enough spares with them to build a spare car anyway, so why not just let them build the car* and let the reserve drivers get the tracktime they need.

(*rather than it be sat in bits!)

I dunno,
I reckon the FIA will keep an eye on what they do & only allow minimum change to accomodate the larger fuel bag

A bit off topic - I went to a talk a few years ago with Adrian Reynard and Nick Gouzie (sp?) (head of Reynard and Penske at the time) and they were taking about how different their cars were for Street/Road course/Oval and super speedway races. The thing that stuck in my mind was that when Indy Car is running at full chat on a super speedway, then the amount of fuel going into the engine is at the same rate as filling your kitchen sink with the cold tap going at full bore!