2026 Hybrid Powerunits

[Farnborough]

There could be some vibration "mitigation" available in there too ...... potentially/theoretically speaking.

[Tommy Cookers]

The obvious placement for a flywheel ..... is where a flywheel traditionally is located
Many of bespoke racing design engines seek to use absolutely minimal design and weighting as the normal approach. Could be described as race engine designer defacto approach, and previously of good reasoning.
If that was considered differently, now, in these distorted PU regulation, then there could be good logic in running a enhanced inertia design, say aluminium lightweight disc structure, with tungsten "band" at outer peripheral region. Spun @ up to 12,000rpm would impart quite significant input.

the flywheel inertia is minimised because that gives a necessary high natural frequency to the crankshaft eg torsionally
so adding flywheel in the usual way is seriously counterproductive
an enhanced flywheel should be be somewhat flexibly coupled to the crankshaft

what characteristic has the H***a engine got in this respect ?

[Tommy Cookers]

What about a high inertia (just make it heavy) rotating mass? The massive electric power will mask any engine response lag ....

the massive electric power won't mask 'any' engine response lag etc on gear-shifting .....
unless something is eg clutched ....
is that allowed ?

[gearboxtrouble]

What about a high inertia (just make it heavy) rotating mass? The massive electric power will mask any engine response lag ....

the massive electric power won't mask 'any' engine response lag etc on gear-shifting .....
unless something is eg clutched ....
is that allowed ?

Don't need a MGUK clutch if it can add or subtract inertia pretty much instantaneously at will. Pulsing small amounts deployment to smooth gear shifts is already common on high performance road car hybrids with single clutch SMGs.

[Tommy Cookers]

What about a high inertia (just make it heavy) rotating mass? The massive electric power will mask any engine response lag ....

the massive electric power won't mask 'any' engine response lag etc on gear-shifting .....
unless something is eg clutched ....
is that allowed ?

Don't need a MGUK clutch if it can add or subtract inertia pretty much instantaneously at will.....

there's nothing that 'can add or subtract inertia'
there's an F1 MGU-K that slows at 350 kW the F1 PU by about 1000 rpm in about 10 msec for every up-shift
adding inertia to ICE or MGU-K will make that job more difficult ie prolong all the up-shifts eg to 15 msec 20 msec etc
and prolong the down-shifts o/c

[mzso]

By the way does anyone really think that Mercedes has a secret flywheel like BSport hypothesizes?

It would be blatant cheating if they are.

I think all the Mercedes teams are using the same gearbox, so they should also have any device Mercedes are using.

McLaren uses their own, Alpine & Williams probably use the store-bought gearbox from Mercedes

Does the same specification rule even apply to gearboxes, and not just the PU?

[Farnborough]

The obvious placement for a flywheel ..... is where a flywheel traditionally is located
Many of bespoke racing design engines seek to use absolutely minimal design and weighting as the normal approach. Could be described as race engine designer defacto approach, and previously of good reasoning.
If that was considered differently, now, in these distorted PU regulation, then there could be good logic in running a enhanced inertia design, say aluminium lightweight disc structure, with tungsten "band" at outer peripheral region. Spun @ up to 12,000rpm would impart quite significant input.

the flywheel inertia is minimised because that gives a necessary high natural frequency to the crankshaft eg torsionally
so adding flywheel in the usual way is seriously counterproductive
an enhanced flywheel should be be somewhat flexibly coupled to the crankshaft

what characteristic has the H***a engine got in this respect ?

Good observation, I see what you mean.

Perhaps needs a big Freudenberg damper off the front of crank to isolate MGU-K and crankshaft from each other

[AR3-GP]

Food for thought

[michl420]

I think a main reason why australia feelt so odd was because of the different time for power recuction (50 kw/sec). It makes the superclipping-fase much longer.

[BorisTheBlade]

Additionally, there are two things to separate:

• How much time do you need to spend during super-clipping to reach the max. energy recovery on any given track? This was particularly bad at Melbourne.
• How much full-throttle distance do you have after you already deployed all the max. allowed energy per lap (allowed to be recovered per race lap). This forces you to only use the ICE on large parts of the straights and will be the case on most non-energy-starved tracks like China.

[karana]

I think a main reason why australia feelt so odd was because of the different time for power recuction (50 kw/sec). It makes the superclipping-fase much longer.

The rate of power reduction only applies when the MGU-K power is not negative, so they can start superclipping immediately at 250kW.

[AR3-GP]

I think a main reason why australia feelt so odd was because of the different time for power recuction (50 kw/sec). It makes the superclipping-fase much longer.

The rate of power reduction only applies when the MGU-K power is not negative, so they can start superclipping immediately at 250kW.

This is what makes the regulations dangerous. One driver in overtake mode with straight line mode (car doesn't have the grip to take evasive action) and the other guy suddenly superclip in front of him at 250kW is an airplane crash waiting to happen. It is what Lando Norris and Liam Lawson have said in Melbourne and Shanghai

[FW17]

[AR3-GP]

Would it be possible to estimate the drag of each car with the wings closed with data like this? The car should be at an approximately constant ICE power, and the speed drop should have some correlation to drag?

[Saykas]

Ferrari power unit in the Cadillac
Pic by NOBU, @m_mode_lod on X