RB VCARB 03

[chlebekf1]

https://x.com/JacopoRava04/status/20136 ... -torze-akt

[Holm86]

I like the sound

[Lasssept]

Davide Cavazza | Motorsport Italy

[BorisTheBlade]

The battery and control electronics which has to charge and discharge at 350kw almost the entire duration of the race

regulations dont allow for phase change cooling, maybe would have been more efficient than water cooling.

This is almost negligible.
With a rather pessimistic TE of 90% we are talking about 35 KW for half a lap at most. Compare this to around 420 KW with 50% TE for a 2026 ICE. This is within a few percent +/- the same as 2025.

[BassVirolla]

Massive centerline cooling.

I've never seen an airbox which has to be flat at the top to maximize volume staying within the regulatory box.

[Badger]

Anti-squat geometry.

[AR3-GP]

and rake

[Badger]

Massive centerline cooling.

I've never seen an airbox which has to be flat at the top to maximize volume staying within the regulatory box.

[BassVirolla]

Massive centerline cooling.

I've never seen an airbox which has to be flat at the top to maximize volume staying within the regulatory box.

https://media.formula1.com/image/upload ... 15079.webp

You got me! I remembered this car, but I haven't cared about searching it to see if it was flat at the top, I'd said that it wasn't (and I was wrong!). By the way, the RB has a much bigger flat section.

[wiktor977]

As for cooling, I don't see this as a surprise because many technical people had already anticipated that the 2026 cars, as they were described, had more challenging cooling requirements compared to the last gen. The RedBull livery render broke that expectation because it had both slim sidepods and a slim centerline, however we don't know if that's a real car or not.

Honest question: What is the reasoning behind this stance?
As I see it, Thermal Efficiency of the ICE should be one of the highest priorities on everyone's list in order to maximize usable power and energy recovery for the max. 833 KW provided. The same goes for the whole electrical part, which should be well above 90% TE for recovery as well as supply. So there is not a lot of heat to be produced by the latter one.
What else is there that should require lots of cooling?
I would rather suspect, that centre line cooling does not cost a lot of already much less RW downforce, while giving you design freedom for the sidepods in order to work the floor as good as you can.

In 2026 you have almost 3x electrical power output from battery and MGU-K and much more energy recovery than before, so cooling requirements are also higher, also operating temperatures of those components are much lower than ICE. So even tho there is less heat energy produced by electrical part of the PU, it can be difficult to get rid of it when operating temperatures are not that higher than ambient air temperatures which you use to cool it down.

[BorisTheBlade]

As for cooling, I don't see this as a surprise because many technical people had already anticipated that the 2026 cars, as they were described, had more challenging cooling requirements compared to the last gen. The RedBull livery render broke that expectation because it had both slim sidepods and a slim centerline, however we don't know if that's a real car or not.

Honest question: What is the reasoning behind this stance?
As I see it, Thermal Efficiency of the ICE should be one of the highest priorities on everyone's list in order to maximize usable power and energy recovery for the max. 833 KW provided. The same goes for the whole electrical part, which should be well above 90% TE for recovery as well as supply. So there is not a lot of heat to be produced by the latter one.
What else is there that should require lots of cooling?
I would rather suspect, that centre line cooling does not cost a lot of already much less RW downforce, while giving you design freedom for the sidepods in order to work the floor as good as you can.

In 2026 you have almost 3x electrical power output from battery and MGU-K and much more energy recovery than before, so cooling requirements are also higher, also operating temperatures of those components are much lower than ICE. So even tho there is less heat energy produced by electrical part of the PU, it can be difficult to get rid of it when operating temperatures are not that higher than ambient air temperatures which you use to cool it down.

Care to provide any numbers that might be in contrast to my previous post? Again, this is almost negligible.

[matteosc]

As for cooling, I don't see this as a surprise because many technical people had already anticipated that the 2026 cars, as they were described, had more challenging cooling requirements compared to the last gen. The RedBull livery render broke that expectation because it had both slim sidepods and a slim centerline, however we don't know if that's a real car or not.

Honest question: What is the reasoning behind this stance?
As I see it, Thermal Efficiency of the ICE should be one of the highest priorities on everyone's list in order to maximize usable power and energy recovery for the max. 833 KW provided. The same goes for the whole electrical part, which should be well above 90% TE for recovery as well as supply. So there is not a lot of heat to be produced by the latter one.
What else is there that should require lots of cooling?
I would rather suspect, that centre line cooling does not cost a lot of already much less RW downforce, while giving you design freedom for the sidepods in order to work the floor as good as you can.

In 2026 you have almost 3x electrical power output from battery and MGU-K and much more energy recovery than before, so cooling requirements are also higher, also operating temperatures of those components are much lower than ICE. So even tho there is less heat energy produced by electrical part of the PU, it can be difficult to get rid of it when operating temperatures are not that higher than ambient air temperatures which you use to cool it down.

Actually I would argue that there is more heat coming from the PU. If I am not mistaken the fuel flow should be approximately the same (with the caviat of being energy-based rather than volume-based), but the power is reduced, mainly through a lower compression ratio. This means that less mechanical power is produced with the same amount of energy in the fuel, therefore the thermal losses must be higher.
The electrical part will contribute, but a ~90% energy conversion (electric) produces less heat than a ~45% one (thermal engine).

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Would the MGU-H have reduced heat?

If so, does its removal increase cooling requirements?

[vorticism]

Doubling of the centerline inlet size implies a doubling of the heat exchanger size inside. Would they add so much more water mass so high? Guesses:

--RBPT (supplier) retained air-air intercoolers and they are moved above engine. Less COG penalty as it's only the weight of the aluminum.
--They're testing two options in this one test run and the final version will have either smaller sidepod inlets or smaller centerline inlets.

[Emag]

I don't really have exact sources, but I could give a summary to the best of my understanding.

The battery is one of the limiting factors. Batteries are very nasty to work with because they are thermally very sensitive and have a specific optimum temperature window that needs to be maintained for best performance (not to mention the thermal degradation but that's less of a problem since batteries don't need to last for ages anyway). And the fact that there's a lot more reliance in electric power, means that the batteries will undergo more cycles in a lap. mguk is bigger to account for mguh loss + increased expected electric energy output, which means higher harvesting under breaking and more heat in both battery and mguk (and the whole electrical system, including the wires). When it comes to batteries, you really have no choice if you want them to work properly. You have to keep the batteries "happy" at all times. Which is damn hard to achieve with what they're asking the batteries to do with these new regs, but you have to try your best anyway.

There's more things to consider as well. For example, the mguh being gone, which was an element that took quite a bit of residual heat from the turbos through exhaust gasses to convert it to power and now it is no longer part of these power units. Now there is a small caveat here, the ICEs are practically detuned so you would expect less heat from it, however, it's still something to consider. With the mguh gone, you probably need to add in a bit to the cooling requirements of the exhaust system (or have bigger radiators).

And finally, even though this is practically negligible, the cars are smaller. It's generally harder to have a tight packaged car when you have less room to work with, considering you have to fit these complicated PUs alongside the exhaust system and the gearbox as well. However, the size difference is hardly significant, so the effect it has on cooling is probably nothing. Just something worth mentioning.