The V6 Engines
- Thread starter sushifiesta
- Start date
soccerman17
Race Winner
Track conditions might be the only other reason?
Mephistopheles The stupid answer to your question is if the designers aren't making the car quicker then what's the point in them turning up to work?
This article has fastest times from Jerez over the past 15 years or so but that doesn't answer your question either: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112403
Then I guess my development race articles in the statistics forum show how performance differences between the teams changes through the season.
This article has fastest times from Jerez over the past 15 years or so but that doesn't answer your question either: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112403
Then I guess my development race articles in the statistics forum show how performance differences between the teams changes through the season.
I think the tyre is most likely.
Incubus
Champion Elect
Tracks are much faster in wintertime for normally-aspirated engines.. Not because of track conditions but because engines "breathe" much more efficiently in colder air.
Any track will be less grippy in winter but this is more than compensated by the cooler air flowing into normally-aspiraated engines. Lap-times have always been comparatively faster in winter testing testing. If you could go back in time and take a mid-season car (with the development that went into it in a six-month period) to a track in winter, it would be several seconds quicker than at the same track in mid-season.
Of course the difference is much smaller with turbo engines.
For the same reason the 8-second gap we are seeing at Jerez between fastest 2014 lap and fastest ever will probably be much smaller as the season moves on to warm-weather tracks, since these engines will be much less affected in terms of power than their 2013 conterparts.
Any track will be less grippy in winter but this is more than compensated by the cooler air flowing into normally-aspiraated engines. Lap-times have always been comparatively faster in winter testing testing. If you could go back in time and take a mid-season car (with the development that went into it in a six-month period) to a track in winter, it would be several seconds quicker than at the same track in mid-season.
Of course the difference is much smaller with turbo engines.
For the same reason the 8-second gap we are seeing at Jerez between fastest 2014 lap and fastest ever will probably be much smaller as the season moves on to warm-weather tracks, since these engines will be much less affected in terms of power than their 2013 conterparts.
Last edited:
Is it just me or do the new engines sound like Chewbacca?
Strong words from Kobayashi r.e. the current status of the Renault engine, despite the teams starting to complete more laps:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112590
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112590
I'm wondering, based on the early signs of the strength of the Merc engine, whether McLaren are already going to be wondering what the Honda engine is going to be like next year. Obviosuly they've had extremely successful partnerships in the past, but evyerthing goes through a painful growing phase.
It will be very interesting to see what state Honda turn up in. They will have had the benefit of learning (second hand) from everyone else's mistakes and successes, but not the track time. You also have to wonder about the wisdom in McLaren having exclusivity in 2015, as I think is the case. It means Honda will be getting 3 or 4 times less data than Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault.
sobriety
Race Winner
But what's to say that there isn't an old honda f1 car with a funny sounding engine pounding round suzuka as we speculate, and another one hammering round motegi... as long as they get the engine right, then it's down to the clever bods at McLaren to do their job...
Edit: Beaten to it!
Edit: Beaten to it!
Last edited:
I can just imagine Jenson Button being presented with a 2008 Honda for a test session and refusing to even get in the bloody car!
Fenderman
Rooters Reporter
It seems logical that Honda would indeed mount the motor in a "test bed car" (as did Ferrari) and pound around one of their wholly owned circuits. If I were in their shoes, one thing I would take from witnessing the winter tests and Oz' would be to experiment with bodywork mock ups to determine the effect of the packaging. Newey's rather good looking but ultimately too tight packaging is surely exacerbating the cooling issues. Honda must surely have observed this and (I assume) they can put the power unit through its paces with contemporary bodywork in order to make recommendations to McLaren. This could be both with regard to dimensions of surrounding bodywork, ducting, etc. and advice concerning heat shielding.
Later in the year when McLaren have begun to develop the 2015 chassis the two companies will have engineers collaborating on bringing the power unit and chassis together. Indeed I would be surprised if some level of that collaboration is not already taking place in the CFD/CAD departments.
Of course, as usual, I could be talking a load of crap
Later in the year when McLaren have begun to develop the 2015 chassis the two companies will have engineers collaborating on bringing the power unit and chassis together. Indeed I would be surprised if some level of that collaboration is not already taking place in the CFD/CAD departments.
Of course, as usual, I could be talking a load of crap
Last edited:
Anything Honda can do Mercedes/Ferrari/Renault can do though right? I don't think there are testing restrictions on just the engines themselves but I might be wrong. In any case whilst Honda might be testing their engine in some old or irrelevant car, Mercedes/Ferrari/Renault have theirs racing in F1. It would be a pretty incredible job for Honda to turn up at the beginning of 2015 and not have an initial performance deficit to the other manufacturers.
Similar threads
- Article
- Article
