Technical 2014 Technical Regulations
- Thread starter Brogan
- Start date
Blog Zbod
Podium Finisher
They can. Sort of. Not really.
Some years ago, one of the USA-based car mags (R&T or C&D, IIRC) tested one of Lauda's 312Ts. Because there were no body panels suitable for attaching their "fifth wheel" telemetry device to, they jerry-rigged its sensors onto one of the car's front wheels. The data from their standing start acceleration tests puzzled them, because there was a mysterious spike in the speed graph the moment the car was launched. After some discussion and debate, they concluded the spike was the result of the car's front wheels briefly leaving the tarmac.
And that was the old 3-litre V-12, which had well less bhp & torque than the current lot of cars, even without ERS. So provided the tyres had the same amount of traction, the V-6Ts also should be able to loft the wheels. At least briefly.
Blog Zbod
Podium Finisher
Auto Motor und Sport claims there is a paddock rumour that both Merc & Renault plant to protest the Ferrari engine for its lack of supplemental shielding on its turbocharger.
TR 5.18.5 reads, en toto, "Measures must be taken to ensure that in the event of failure of the turbine wheel any
resulting significant debris is contained within the car".
Merc and Renault have taken this to mean there must be shielding in addition to the "compressor housing" itself. Ferrari believe -- and Charlie Whiting allegedly concurs -- that a properly "armoured" turbo housing in itself is adequate to 5.18.5. The additional shielding that Merc and Renault are using reportedly weighs about three kilos.
Any protest undoubtedly would be timed to cause the greatest disruption to the Ferrari program, probably the weekend of Melbourne. Depending how this plays out, it could take months for all the appeals and counter-appeals to play out, which could keep the entire first half of the season's results in limbo.
Ferrari, in the meanwhile, are doubling down on their wager, further strengthening their compressor housing in anticipation of it being tested on its own adequacy to the TR.
TR 5.18.5 reads, en toto, "Measures must be taken to ensure that in the event of failure of the turbine wheel any
resulting significant debris is contained within the car".
Merc and Renault have taken this to mean there must be shielding in addition to the "compressor housing" itself. Ferrari believe -- and Charlie Whiting allegedly concurs -- that a properly "armoured" turbo housing in itself is adequate to 5.18.5. The additional shielding that Merc and Renault are using reportedly weighs about three kilos.
Any protest undoubtedly would be timed to cause the greatest disruption to the Ferrari program, probably the weekend of Melbourne. Depending how this plays out, it could take months for all the appeals and counter-appeals to play out, which could keep the entire first half of the season's results in limbo.
Ferrari, in the meanwhile, are doubling down on their wager, further strengthening their compressor housing in anticipation of it being tested on its own adequacy to the TR.
The most telling part of that statement is "Charlie Whiting concurs". How many times have teams said "well, Charlie says it's okay" only for those that better understand the regulations tell them to bugger off and change it? Not that I question Whiting's competence, more the reason for his existence in F1 at all - another of Bernie's old mates working his retirement ticket.
rufus_mcdufus
Champion Elect
Getting Charlie to concur with you is usually the kiss of death!
I know there is energy recovery from the turbo, and the heat the generated, but will the ERS system be allowed to spin the turbo up or will the drivers have to rely on their right foot to keep the power going? Also, lots of talk at the last test about the brake by wire systems, sounds like ABS by another route to me and I thought that wasn't allowed.
Charlie concurs didn't work in the past under Max and his sidekick Alan Donnelly but I think it now carries greater weight with Todt not willing to get in his way. If he says the Ferrari engine is ok I can't see any protest being successful.
There was obviously more to the tyre test than just giving an ok, igoring the lack of clarity about car spec, drivers etc. Charlie's advice definitely did strengthen Mercedes' argument at the hearing and in the end the blame was effectively shared. Point being Charlie's opinion carries greater weight than it did under Max when he was frequently overruled.
FB The ERS will be used to spin up the turbo and reduce turbo lag (there's some info in the V6 engine thread I made).
Brake by wire isn't ABS, it just translates the force the driver applies to the pedal to a consistent force at the rear of the car electronically. Without this the ERS would screw up the rear braking so much that it would be impossible to control for the drivers.
Brake by wire isn't ABS, it just translates the force the driver applies to the pedal to a consistent force at the rear of the car electronically. Without this the ERS would screw up the rear braking so much that it would be impossible to control for the drivers.
Sounds like a Smith and Wesson.
With ABS if the driver hits the pedal too hard the system stops the wheels locking up. With brake by wire if the driver hits the pedal too hard the wheels still lock up.
Brake by wire should be completely transparent to the drivers if it is working correctly - the brakes should just function like "normal" brakes. In fact, the point of the brake by wire system is to make the rear brakes act like normal brakes, which wouldn't be the case without it due to the ERS.
Even KERS had a significant effect on the rear braking of the car, but it was small enough to ignore the issue by fiddling with brake balance etc. and just work around it. In the 2014 regulations up to ten times more energy can be harvested (from a combination of ERS-H and ERS-K), and the issue can't be ignored any more. Brake by wire is the solution, and it's only a driver aid in the sense that it makes the car act normally rather than randomly. Without it we'd see lock ups all over the place that the drivers could do nothing about and tyres would get wrecked very quickly.
Brake by wire should be completely transparent to the drivers if it is working correctly - the brakes should just function like "normal" brakes. In fact, the point of the brake by wire system is to make the rear brakes act like normal brakes, which wouldn't be the case without it due to the ERS.
Even KERS had a significant effect on the rear braking of the car, but it was small enough to ignore the issue by fiddling with brake balance etc. and just work around it. In the 2014 regulations up to ten times more energy can be harvested (from a combination of ERS-H and ERS-K), and the issue can't be ignored any more. Brake by wire is the solution, and it's only a driver aid in the sense that it makes the car act normally rather than randomly. Without it we'd see lock ups all over the place that the drivers could do nothing about and tyres would get wrecked very quickly.
Fenderman
Rooters Reporter
More synonymous with Glock, methinks
Max Chilton described the brake by wire on the Marussia on Sky the other day. His description was very odd, he said you push the pedal and then it's like it moves away from you so you get no feedback. This may just be that the Marussia system is crap or the driver just gets to a point on the circuit and pushes the brake switch and the car does the rest, they don't even have to adjust the balance as this is pre-programmed into the system. F1 get's more like Gran Turismo every year.
I believe Chilton said he experienced that in Jerez but since then it has been pretty much back to normal in terms of feel. So that was an issue with the brake by wire system - it's not how it's meant to behave.
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My point is simple - ABS is already a form of Brake by Wire (BBW). Even in BBW's most simplest form there is computer interpretation of the input:
Code:
IF pedal_pressed_percentage = 10 THEN
apply_brake_percentage = 10;
ELSIF pedal_pressed_percentage = 20 THEN
apply_brake_percentage = 20;
... etcWih very minor edits to that code (mostly in the heavy breaking) you could have a simple ABS-like functionality that still allowed locking up but was still better than no changes:
Code:
IF pedal_pressed_percentage = 70 THEN
apply_brake_percentage = 70;
ELSIF pedal_pressed_percentage = 80 THEN
LOOP
apply_brake_percentage = 70;
WAIT 3;
apply_brake_percentage = 50;
WAIT 1;
END LOOP;
.... etc
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Blog Zbod
Podium Finisher
To quote Monty Python, "All of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan." That all ABS is BBW does not equate to all BBW being ABS.
Ten pages ago in this very thread I offered that legalised BBW inevitably will lead to surreptitious stability control.
