2022 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 18 - 20

[dans79]

Another great article by Mark Hughes about the potential cause of RBR's double DNF: https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hug ... ls-defeat/

The suspected reason for the sudden loss of power in the Red Bulls late in the race is fuel cavitation – and, if true, that’s almost certainly a function of the team’s ambitiously compressed programme.

Fuel cavitation tends to occur as the last dregs of fuel are being pumped around near-empty tanks. As can be imaged, the fuel is heavily sloshed around because of the loads being fed into the car and no matter how well-designed the tank’s baffling system, the temperature of the fuel increases when this occurs.

At a certain point of temperature the fuel begins vaporise and there will be a vapour lock in the pump, the fuel pressure dives and the pump is briefly pumping fresh air. The sudden load changes as the system pressurises and depressurises (together with the excess heat inside the pump from the vaporising fuel) will tend to damage the pumps and eventually they can no longer feed fuel to the engine.

The E10 fuel introduced this year runs at a higher temperature than the full fossil fuel previously used and so the cavitation threshold has changed. Only those teams with enough preparation time to do full race simulations in testing, including running the tanks almost dry, found this out.

Most teams did, but Red Bull – with its more compacted programme and the 11th hour performance upgrades to verify – did not. The list of parts changed overnight at Red Bull after qualifying included fuel tank lifter pumps.

If this is indeed the cause, I'm sure they'll be on top of this and it won't happen again.

The only real fix for this though is to design a bladder with even more baffles (additional weight), or to carry more fuel! Neither fix is ideal!

[dialtone]

Split screen of Leclerc / Verstappen battle

So this video is super cool, it explains why Leclerc said he had SOC issues. His battery was already empty when he went in the box, so he fought against Verstappen basically without battery all that time, he probably had to push himself to resist the undercut and depleted the battery.

The battery charge is the RED/GREEN bar at the bottom of the display on the wheel.

[chrisc90]

Charles must be pushing track limits to the last 0.01mm on the white line there. Dare bet he crossed it a couple times too.

[Mchamilton]

Charles must be pushing track limits to the last 0.01mm on the white line there. Dare bet he crossed it a couple times too.

Bare in mind the white line is the limit, part of 1 wheel has to be touching the line, not the black tarmac before the line

[chrisc90]

Charles must be pushing track limits to the last 0.01mm on the white line there. Dare bet he crossed it a couple times too.

Bare in mind the white line is the limit, part of 1 wheel has to be touching the line, not the black tarmac before the line

Correct.

Turn 4 Charles must be riding the very edge of the line in places.

Without analysing it frame by frame in a decent quality, hard to say, but it looks VERY close.

Either way, Charles drove a epic race, and can’t take away from that fact.

[NL_Fer]

Another great article by Mark Hughes about the potential cause of RBR's double DNF: https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hug ... ls-defeat/

The suspected reason for the sudden loss of power in the Red Bulls late in the race is fuel cavitation – and, if true, that’s almost certainly a function of the team’s ambitiously compressed programme.

Fuel cavitation tends to occur as the last dregs of fuel are being pumped around near-empty tanks. As can be imaged, the fuel is heavily sloshed around because of the loads being fed into the car and no matter how well-designed the tank’s baffling system, the temperature of the fuel increases when this occurs.

At a certain point of temperature the fuel begins vaporise and there will be a vapour lock in the pump, the fuel pressure dives and the pump is briefly pumping fresh air. The sudden load changes as the system pressurises and depressurises (together with the excess heat inside the pump from the vaporising fuel) will tend to damage the pumps and eventually they can no longer feed fuel to the engine.

The E10 fuel introduced this year runs at a higher temperature than the full fossil fuel previously used and so the cavitation threshold has changed. Only those teams with enough preparation time to do full race simulations in testing, including running the tanks almost dry, found this out.

Most teams did, but Red Bull – with its more compacted programme and the 11th hour performance upgrades to verify – did not. The list of parts changed overnight at Red Bull after qualifying included fuel tank lifter pumps.

If this is indeed the cause, I'm sure they'll be on top of this and it won't happen again.

Didn’t AT run a full race simulation?

[Mchamilton]

Charles must be pushing track limits to the last 0.01mm on the white line there. Dare bet he crossed it a couple times too.

Bare in mind the white line is the limit, part of 1 wheel has to be touching the line, not the black tarmac before the line

Correct.

Turn 4 Charles must be riding the very edge of the line in places.

Without analysing it frame by frame in a decent quality, hard to say, but it looks VERY close.

Either way, Charles drove a epic race, and can’t take away from that fact.

It is very close, i did a little play/pause/play/pause job on it n didnt see him go all 4 off. Neve noticed how wide the lines are either, must be 200mm

[Hammerfist]

Split screen of Leclerc / Verstappen battle

So this video is super cool, it explains why Leclerc said he had SOC issues. His battery was already empty when he went in the box, so he fought against Verstappen basically without battery all that time, he probably had to push himself to resist the undercut and depleted the battery.

The battery charge is the RED/GREEN bar at the bottom of the display on the wheel.

So this explains why max gained so much on the main straight even though he was quite far back at the last corner.

[Just_a_fan]

The parachute wings, as you call them, also help in slow corners fwiw. As they fix their issues I wouldn’t expect to see the same behavior as in this video.

They do help, but if the floor is working correctly, it will do what is needed in the slow corners just as it did with the front runners.

Pressure is inverse to the square of air speed under the floor. The floor is nowhere near as helpful in slow corners as it is in medium to high speed corners, and not linearly with speed but quadratic.

And the same applies to wings. It's the same physics.

[dialtone]

They do help, but if the floor is working correctly, it will do what is needed in the slow corners just as it did with the front runners.

Pressure is inverse to the square of air speed under the floor. The floor is nowhere near as helpful in slow corners as it is in medium to high speed corners, and not linearly with speed but quadratic.

And the same applies to wings. It's the same physics.

Oh yeah it is, the main difference though being you can easily change the incidence of the wings but you can't easily change the shape of the floor and diffuser. And not even just talking about the setup but also the flexibility of the wings at high speed. So although by not a lot you can change the share of downforce generated by wings vs floor, higher angle of attack will generate more downforce at whatever speed and will contribute more to the total downforce of the car.

[Zynerji]

Another great article by Mark Hughes about the potential cause of RBR's double DNF: https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hug ... ls-defeat/

The suspected reason for the sudden loss of power in the Red Bulls late in the race is fuel cavitation – and, if true, that’s almost certainly a function of the team’s ambitiously compressed programme.

Fuel cavitation tends to occur as the last dregs of fuel are being pumped around near-empty tanks. As can be imaged, the fuel is heavily sloshed around because of the loads being fed into the car and no matter how well-designed the tank’s baffling system, the temperature of the fuel increases when this occurs.

At a certain point of temperature the fuel begins vaporise and there will be a vapour lock in the pump, the fuel pressure dives and the pump is briefly pumping fresh air. The sudden load changes as the system pressurises and depressurises (together with the excess heat inside the pump from the vaporising fuel) will tend to damage the pumps and eventually they can no longer feed fuel to the engine.

The E10 fuel introduced this year runs at a higher temperature than the full fossil fuel previously used and so the cavitation threshold has changed. Only those teams with enough preparation time to do full race simulations in testing, including running the tanks almost dry, found this out.

Most teams did, but Red Bull – with its more compacted programme and the 11th hour performance upgrades to verify – did not. The list of parts changed overnight at Red Bull after qualifying included fuel tank lifter pumps.

If this is indeed the cause, I'm sure they'll be on top of this and it won't happen again.

Didn’t AT run a full race simulation?

The fuel pump is Porpoising now?

[Shrieker]

Split screen of Leclerc / Verstappen battle

Very insightful !

Thanks for sharing this.

[Stu]

Another great article by Mark Hughes about the potential cause of RBR's double DNF: https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hug ... ls-defeat/




If this is indeed the cause, I'm sure they'll be on top of this and it won't happen again.

Didn’t AT run a full race simulation?

The fuel pump is Porpoising now?

Nah, the far more scary (if you are a sub-merged pump) cavitation!!!!

[silver]

Race stint averages.
https://soymotor.com/articulos/analisis ... anos-95360

Stint 1


Stint 2


Stint 3


Stint 4

[hollus]

Thank you for all the awesome video comparisons.