Pre-Season Winter testing : 2014 Season

[teabagyokel]

He has also been accused of using a Higgs boson to slow the other cars down by giving them mass.

 

[Incubus]

2014.

The year when CTA members made Hadron Collider staff look like amateurs, with a far inferior budget.

 

[FB]

Could you fill the side pods with helium to make the car lighter and then let it out at the end of the race?

 

[Incubus]

I think they tried doing precisely that with water instead in 1982 didn't they? and got disqualified for it a month later...

 

[Greenlantern101]

To lift 1kg of weight you need 974 Litres of Helium.
Just short of 1 cubic meter.

 

[The Pits]

Maybe Red Bull were trying something similar? If you fill the car up with hot air (less dense than cold air) the car would effectively be lighter toward the end of the race. just a little bit misjudged.

 

[teabagyokel]

The Pits - "Rumours that team principal Christian Horner has started to talk to the cars have been denied by the team."

 

[Incubus]

The Pits Some of the turo teams tried that with fuel in 1984 didn't they? They'd "refrigerate" fuel prior to the race, so that the tanks could fit more fuel in than the regulatory 220L-capacity would allow at ambient temperatures. The worry wasn't so much fuel management as the straightforward fear of running out of it a few laps before the race.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Maybe Red Bull were trying something similar? If you fill the car up with hot air

If they wanted to fill the car up with hot air they would only have to get Horner to talk into it for two minutes...

 

[teabagyokel]

Mephistopheles - I believe someone else said that...

 

[Mephistopheles]

How dare they....

 

[Incubus]

Am I alone in finding something slightly ironic about these two Autosport articles in succession?

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112517

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112519

Have to say I never heard of anything like this rule, and I can't help finding it a tad concerning.
"Reliability Break"? Whatever next?
What on earth is that all about? The rules are the same for everyone at the beginning of the season aren't they? Why should they be altered because one of the teams, or manufacturers, is worried about their reliability?

 

[sushifiesta]

They're not, the rules have always allowed changes to the engines for reliability reasons with the approval of the FIA.

 

[Incubus]

Yes I know, but I meant I never heard of anything like that before this year, or whether it's ever happened before. Is this a precedent?

Anyway I still find it ironic to see the way Renault are making noises about how confident the are to sort out their problems before the next test while almost simultaneously prepearing themselves for having to invoke the rule.

 

[Incubus]

Sorry sushifiesta , I didn't quite read your post properly. Can't argues too much if it was previously agreed by all teams beforehand.
Has anything like that actually ever been put into practice before?

 

[no-FIAt-please]

It happend somewhat frequently during the V8 era, Renault changed their engine in 2008 if I remember correctly.

 

[Bushi]

Ferrari aswell in 2010, when there was something wrong with the valves.

 

[The Pits]

Ferrari changed the engine the engine due to excessive gas usage in the valvetrain, I think that was 2010, but I am not sure.

Edit: Chapeau, Bushi!!

 

[Incubus]

re: Renault 2008 At the height of "engine equalisation" yes (a pretty drab concept if you ask me, when it comes to FORMULA ONE RACING but there you go...) in order to overcome their power deficit, but engine reliability? I mean, why not just adopt US-inspired "yellow-flags-when-the-leader-is-too-far-in-front while they're at it?

 

[sushifiesta]

The main reason that the additional equalisation process was needed is that Ferrari and Mercedes had found ways to gain a significant amount of performance under the guise of reliability updates to their engines. The FIA therefore let Renault catch up and tightened up what was allowed to be changed for reliability reasons.

One of the most frustrating things about the new engine regulations is how tightly constrained they are, beyond the short term it's unlikely that there will be major differences in performance between the engines. Anyway, all of this is probably a discussion for elsewhere - there's a V6 engine thread for example.