F1 Power Units Discussion

only one thing is standing out as an absolute certainty,
You cannot legislate to make everyone equal.

 

Nor should you
Need cost reduction and the ability to enable engineers to be creative. Although I have no idea how to do that

 

TheJudge: Before the Spanish Grand Prix everybody was hoping that the fight between AMG Mercedes and Ferrari would intensify as the teams have brought their first big aero updates of the season. But alas, it all ended up being rather a damp squib.

Instead of getting closer, Ferrari’s gap in qualifying was back to Malaysia proportions. In the race, the gap between Mercedes and the next best team in 2015 was the largest of the season to date.

On an identical race strategy to Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel lost an average of 0.687 seconds per lap to Rosberg and the Mercedes driver didn’t even push particularly hard for most parts of the race.

So why has the gap risen from 3.9 seconds in Bahrain to 45.3 seconds in Barcelona? Particularly when Ferrari’s race pace has been within tenths of a second per lap of the Mercedes duo.

Auto Motor & Sport‘s engineering expert, Michael Schmidt, insists that a gap so large cannot be explained by track characteristics and updates alone. Not even the fact that all Mercedes powered cars now have the ‘power mode’ of the unit for 100 kilometres longer than Mercedes initially specified – is enough to explain this sudden difference because Rosberg did not use that additional boost for most of the race.

One explanation is that the Ferrari unit has lost some power. In Bahrain, the FIA mandated the fitting of additional fuel flow sensors to preempt the engineers creating a fuel reservoir beyond the original sensor.

There has been a theory abroad suggesting that certain engine fuel delivery systems have been pumping fuel through the original sensor at the maximum rate – regardless whether the engine is using it or not. The unused fuel is stored and then when required injected into the ICE at a higher fuel flow rate than the regulated limit.

According to Schmidt and other experts, such a system is worth three to four tenths of a second per lap. It is particularly effective following corners that require maximum traction – like Barcelona’s third sector – where Ferrari lost consistently over half a second per lap.

During Q1, one car was caught with suspicious sustained fuel pressure peaks in the range between 90 and 100 kg/h. As later transpired – it was an AMG Mercedes car. While the team was apparently able to provide a plausible explanation, Schmidt believes that the German team did that deliberately to raise FIA’s awareness in the matter.

The FIA were remarkably swift to respond. At 15:05 local time on Saturday a technical directive was issued that stated sustained fuel pressure peaks in the range between 90 and 100 kg/h would not be tolerated.

The fuel flow peaks were absent from all the FIA’s measurements during the race, but Ferrari were now noticeably more anaemic.



Tinfoil hats time. We can but speculate!

 

Interesting read from Hughes;

The performance of the upgraded Mercedes engine that powered Lewis Hamilton to victory in the Italian Grand Prix has underlined the incredible pace of engine development in the hybrid era.

The full potential of what is essentially the prototype for Mercedes' 2016 engine was only really hinted at in the first practice session of Friday morning when they were being run in aggressive trim in an attempt at quickly highlighting any potential problems.

Thereafter, the units were turned down in the interests of reliability – and the engine in the back of Nico Rosberg's car had to be removed and replaced by an old standard-spec unit after suffering a leak in Saturday morning practice. But in P1 on Friday their end-of-straight speeds, combined with information gained by other teams via GPS-tracking suggested the new motor could have been as much as 40bhp more powerful than that which was already dominating the season.

It would be more accurate to say that the combined power unit and Petronas fuel was more powerful – for fuel technology has proven to be the most potent development tool in the hybrid turbo-charged formula since its introduction last year. It's a similar story at Ferrari, where gains of 40bhp have been made during this season, just from the fuel alone.

The heart of the Mercedes upgrade was a new fuel composition from Petronas that allowed a change in the combustion chamber shape of the engine. The fuel alone would not have made anything like as much difference with the old engine. Likewise, the new engine would not be as powerful as it is if the old fuel was used. It's a symbiotic process of development – "lots of small steps together that make one significant step in total," as Mercedes HPP boss Andy Cowell explained. "It all comes together beautifully."

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The Mercedes were in a class of their own in Friday practice after introducing new engines at Monza
What the fuel and new combustion chamber shape combined allow is not just a bigger explosion in the combustion chamber – but a flame of greater duration, enabling the parts to be exposed to it for longer and thereby making the ignition less critical. This makes the engine more resistant to detonation – which is the chief limitation to power with this type of engine. Detonation is the phenomenon whereby the ignition becomes uncontrolled and uncoordinated with the delivery of the fuel mixture into the combustion chamber.

If it spontaneously ignites at the wrong time it can prove disastrous for the engine. The more prone the engine is to this uncontrolled ignition, the more conservatively its settings have to be to avoid it – and the less power it makes. Delay the onset of detonation with a new fuel composition and/or a better combustion chamber design and the engine can be run more aggressively, giving more power for the same fuel consumption or better fuel consumption for the same power.

This resistance to detonation is believed to be the biggest single advantage enjoyed by Mercedes over the rival Ferrari and, particularly, Renault, which is believed to be poor in this regard. This advantage compounds in the hybrid era, for the more power that is produced, the more heat that is created for the ersH to recover, giving greater electrical power too.

The necessity for the engine and fuel to be developed together in this formula was underlined last year when McLaren ran Mercedes engines as customers but was contracted to run Mobil fuel. Despite identical engines to the works cars, the McLarens were often as much as 40 horsepower down.

 

And another variation from Bernie and Jean...

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/34629481

Their concerns...
"Top-level sources say their concern is three-fold:

• Only Mercedes and Ferrari have competitive engines, reducing the number of teams competing at the front of the grid

• The two manufacturers' dominance is increasing their political power in F1 at the expense of Todt and Ecclestone

• The cost of the engines is proving difficult for customer teams to afford"

And their solution...
They're still arguing that these can be addressed by allowing a 2nd 'engine architecture' to compete against the current PUs.

And with it - more complexity, and more potential for competitiveness and results to be skewed by poorly written rules.