FIA Technical Directive 15: Use of exhaust blown gasses to be restricted (or not, as the case may be)

Brogan said:
How thoroughly disappointing; I was looking forward to seeing how it would affect the various teams this weekend.
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Sums up my thoughts on the matter. It wasn't clear (to me) from the autosport article if the ban would still be applied but at Monaco or if they are leaving it to the TWG, and surely they could/will easily scrap it.

I agree with those calling it a bit of a farce, seems like a threat that was meant to be only that, and as soon as it got out they have had to quickly retract it with a fairly poor reason.
 
They just hadn't thought it through. The constructors can't just reduce the effect of, or take a device like that off the car when they have had to take account of it's effects in designing other parts of the car. The immediiate effect of the change would be a significant change in the balance of downforce toward the front end and therefore pretty awful oversteer. So the consequences continue ... increased tyre wear ... as if it's not bad enough already with these new Pirelli Selfdestructo's ... and a nasty propensity to spin ... ooh engage that DRS too soon .. hey, wicked!:D
 
Brogan said:
Agreed tranquility, it all seems a little dramatic at this late hour.

I can't believe that the set up differences are really that much different so there's definitely more to the story than we're being told.

There's no doubt in my mind that Red Bull qualifying would have been most affected.
How thoroughly disappointing; I was looking forward to seeing how it would affect the various teams this weekend.
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Yep, same here :/
 
Fenderman said:
They just hadn't thought it through. The constructors can't just reduce the effect of, or take a device like that off the car when they have had to take account of it's effects in designing other parts of the car. The immediiate effect of the change would be a significant change in the balance of downforce toward the front end and therefore pretty awful oversteer. So the consequences continue ... increased tyre wear ... as if it's not bad enough already with these new Pirelli Selfdestructo's ... and a nasty propensity to spin ... ooh engage that DRS too soon .. hey, wicked!:D
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I disagree. Even the teams who exploit it the most in qualifying, don't use it for the most of practice, because it would wear down the engines quicker. All it does is allows the cars to take more speed through the corners. Without it, cars would be less stable - but setup wise, if anything could be adjusted to help this, it would be nothing more than the usual setup work that is done when new parts or components are put on a car. Everyone would be in the same boat!
 
Ah, so that's why Alonso's Ferrari was making all those god awful noises in Turkey. he was wearing his engine. One learns something new every day! :)
 
Fenderman said:
Ah, so that's why Alonso's Ferrari was making all those god awful noises in Turkey. he was wearing his engine. One learns something new every day! :)
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I'm not sure whether there is a hint of sarcasm there?

Either way, to clarify what I was saying, obviously teams will test out the off-throttle retarded ignition in practice for the odd lap and also if they have a new evolution to their system, they will test it even more so, but the point I was making was that in general, teams won't run with 100% exhaust flow throughout practice. It's kind of obvious that running such an engine mode will have a larger effect on general "engine use", which teams try to keep to a minimum so that they don't end up running out of fresh engines towards the end of the season.

Baring this in mind, the cars can clearly go round the track safely without using this elaborate engine setting. It is simply a performance enhancement, that if necessary, they could do without. The cars would have less rear downforce round certain corners, but this is nothing new when compared to adding or taking away any performance boosting part of the car. Every time a new upgrade is brought to track it changes the balance of the car so they have to reevaluate the optimal setup, I do not see how taking away the off-throttle exhaust flow would be any different to this.
 
In my mind, there are only 2 feasible reasons for them to have reverted their original change of the regs. The first is because they were worried it could damage their own image, if they essentially manipulate the competitive order in F1, with very little notice to the teams or fans and very randomly as well, as the off-throttle exhausts have been being used since mid 2010. The second is because one or more teams has complained. The complaints could range from it being "unfair", to it being "expensive", to it being "unsafe".
 
tranquility2k9 said:
In my mind, there are only 2 feasible reasons for them to have reverted their original change of the regs. The first is because they were worried it could damage their own image... The second is because one or more teams has complained.
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It could be a bit of both perhaps, but to re-quote part of the Autosport article, they would definitely appear to think it's the latter:
"However, following dialogue between the FIA and the teams, AUTOSPORT can reveal that the governing body decided late on Tuesday not to go through with the change to the blown diffuser regulations for Barcelona.
A high level source indicated that the decision had been taken because a number of 'unforeseen and unintended consequences' of the ban had been brought to the FIA's attention.
It is not clear what these consequences were, but teams that had benefited the most from the blown diffuser regulations may have complained about potential difficulties that they may have faced in making necessary changes to car set-up in such a short space of time."
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Smells to me like the FIA are trying to find a way to reign in the Red Bulls before it's too late for this season - it would make all the overtaking-friendly rule changes pretty pointless if the championship's over by mid-season, wouldn't it?:thinking:
 
Hi tranq - wondered where you'd got to sir!:wave:

If anything, the FIA climbdown is rather humiliating - it seems they're being thwarted at every turn these days (see comments on the Ground Effect Thread).

The vagueness of the "consequences" of banning the EBD at such short notice is what seems the most perplexing - I mean, just what are the safety risks? Cars going a bit slower? How unsafe is that?:snigger:
 
I've not gone hunting the net, but the suggestion i read in here that teams will be restricted to 10% flow just means they cannot poor unlimited amounts of fuel down the exhaust off throttle now. 10% of wide open throttle is still quite a lot, and plenty enough to generate a whole load of hot air.

My current (because we're still speculating) thoughts are... We know Renault build the most efficient engine. We also know RBR have boasted about how they can dedicate more fuel to overrun in the race than others due to this fact.

The RBR and Renault (possibly to even further extent) designs are built around their blown floors and they most likely make the best job of using the blown floor due to the lower fuel usage allowing more to play with, so at the moment it appears to me that this will simply dampen the performance of their floors. I'm sure everyone will be effected, but i have a suspicion some teams or the FIA have realised just how much excess fuel is being burned for the purpose, and, here we are today...

TBH, i can't believe the teams use much more than 10% fuel off throttle in any case, because that's a lot of precious fuel to chuck down the exhaust pipe. It also raises queries over Mercedes, who made bad fuel calculations in China and had to back off.... how much did that have to do with their (increased) floor performance in that race??

Still, i think its pretty daft (understatement) to go creating rules mid-season effecting what the teams have spent the last 12 months developing, unrestricted. Who knows, maybe there is a whole load of discussion we don't know about yet..
 
I couldn't agree more.Has Gascoyne wasted all the money that they put into this.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91482

Gascoyne expects Lotus to gain a second once it can get everything working properly.
"It might take us a couple of races to fully exploit it, as I think it is going to depend on the blown floor and engine strategies and some people have more experience than us with that," said Gascoyne in the Team Lotus Notes magazine.
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Indeed, they may well have spent less than the big teams, but i imagine that they have pumped a larger proportion of their total budget into this than the big teams and that will hurt. Hopefully the design they are working on is adaptable enough that it is not all money down the drain!
 
If the EBD is "illegal" why don't the FIA just get on and ban it? If it was just one team who had something outside the rules on their car they woudl have to remove it regardless of the consequences to the handling or stability, what difference if they all have it, the driver just has to compensate or apologise when it comes back in pieces on a low loader.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh but I'm pretty sure, with all the technical expertise these teams purport to have, they could have worked out what to do to compensate :givemestrength:
 
Just because there is still a goal post, it doesn't mean they should have moved it across the field, half way through the match...
 
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