Renault R31

[madly]

Fact is Lotus has not been able to produce the upgrade package in time for whatever reason .They claim to have found big gains in the windtunnel ..but any proof of their research correlating to track behaviour is not there ,judging from the trouble ALL their competitors have suffered after making changes to their Tunnel equipment I doubt the results will translate seamless into laptime.
they can be happy to retain 5th and this is a result not owed to Heidfeld not performing ..but maybe a loss of technical expertise -Bob Bell- ??

Marcush, they said FEE is more complex and it slows development. Good results at the beginning of the year probably blinded them and simply ignored problems they have with R31. I think another reason of relatively slow development this year is a resource split into research and redesign car around RBR like exhaust. It's a big task - R31 was build around FEE.

Big updates still around FEE are expected at Spa as Carlos' mentioned:
However, the team has unlocked some good improvements at the factory and a lot of the new parts - including wings, bodywork and floor updates – will come on tap for the next race at Spa-Francorchamps.

Last year they brought excellent F-duct solution at Spa which worked from the first practice.

Still if you look at Rosbergs and Petrov race peace, they are on the same level.

They lost P4 3 GPs ago and the gap is still not big (14 points). Sixth Sauber has 30 points less. So better trouble of progress W02 . I still hope the P4 WCC fight is not over

[ringo]

Merceds is dead in water.
3 GPs and only 14 pints! ha!

Renault's not settling for 5th.

[marcush.]

I´m pretty sure the drivers give very detailled opinion about the state of affairs with the R31 .It´s up to the Renault technical department to decide if the FEE is a dead end road or something worth pursuing .
With the testing of a cannon style exhaust they have a first idea what the other teams may have in terms of df and stability and after developping their own system for some time now they may have a rather clear idea how much they might be able to gain ´with more development.

Renault was lucky as Mercedes failed to score as lot of points lately due to driver errors and technical issues when Renault did not score simply because the car was not even near the pace.
R31 is not top 10 material when Mercedes was -lets see how they stack up after the summer break.But tbh renault have not shown any sign of improvement apart from announcing steps to improve- they basically emulate Mercedes 2010...
the comments by Heidfeld in Autosport are a bit confusing as the updates planned for Spa seem to be based on the forward exit aexhaust yet they also plan to run the redBull style exhaust maybe...what now ..did they have trouble in the Tunnel or did they have trouble to decide for direction or did they have trouble producing parts ? A tunnel upgrade should have no consequence for the composite or any other production area ..this definitely lacks logic.Someone has stopped all and restarted it all again..maybe a carbonfibre shortage?

[marekk]

They simply burn carbon of the floor IMO. Oil or fuel doesn't make such beautiful sparks. So maybe it was just broken/lost heatshield on the leading edge of the floor ?

[madly]

I´m pretty sure the drivers give very detailled opinion about the state of affairs with the R31 .It´s up to the Renault technical department to decide if the FEE is a dead end road or something worth pursuing .
With the testing of a cannon style exhaust they have a first idea what the other teams may have in terms of df and stability and after developping their own system for some time now they may have a rather clear idea how much they might be able to gain ´with more development.

FEE and 'modern EBD' are dead this season.
Probably Spa FEE upgrade is last in this exhaust configuration and later they invoke rear exhaust.

Renault was lucky as Mercedes failed to score as lot of points lately due to driver errors and technical issues when Renault did not score simply because the car was not even near the pace.
R31 is not top 10 material when Mercedes was -lets see how they stack up after the summer break.But tbh renault have not shown any sign of improvement apart from announcing steps to improve- they basically emulate Mercedes 2010...

Sorry Marcush, LR GP did not score points first time in Hungary.
They lost some points due to drivers errors or bad luck too and it was not marginal points.

Compare best results:
R31: 2 x P3, 1 x P5
W02: 1 x P4, 2 X P5

First two races they got two podiums and they had genuine speed. Only RBR and McLaren was quicker. Ferrari won their first podium (P3) on 4th race after upgrades of their exhaust a'la RBR.

MGP won 2 points in first two races! Do you think that team which was at the level of Ferrari, scored two podiums in first two races thought their innovative FEE is bad solution? C'mon!

I think they realised that FEE gives worse performance than RBR a'like after disappointing Monaco, where the were surprised by lack of downforce in low speed track (despite good simulation expectations).

Hungary is probably R31 worst low point in competitiveness. Hungary is low speed track like Monaco. Remember that Force India and Sauber are much closer to Mercedes now and they score points regularly too.

[marcush.]

Comparing W02 and R31 racespeeds we had exactly 3 races when R31was quicker australia,malysia and Monaco...let´s be straight those were the races Mercedes was lost in the woods...
So in ultimate racespeed the renault was maybe a bit quicker but not over race distance reflected in the points standings of course.

Furthermore R31 could keep the leaders NEVER in sight -25 seconds to the leader was the best finish and from race two it was 60+ seconds when the chequered flag dropped.

So just why the car looked good in the two opening races and occasionally posted a quick lap is one thing but come Monaco there was no hint of the car being more competitive than Mercedes.

[Arunas]

just my 2 cents: let's swap NR/MS pair with VP/NH. shall we see the same picture?

[ringo]

Yes, Shumacher is the dead weight in the team, and it's making the competition for 4rth look tighter than it should be, but it's mercedes fault for not making a good enough car so he can look good.

Thank you micheal.

Anyway R31 issue is not the exhuast. Seems to be it's the lack of attention to the other areas that is hurting them.
Heidfeld said they know what the problem is, so lets wait and see what kinds of improvements we'll see at spa.

I suspect they overheat the rear tyres.
And on slow tracks the downforce is too central, when it needs to be over the rear axle like the blown diffuser cars to get good traction out the corners.

The car may be better suited to high and medium speeds where central ballance is better. when you need raw and heavy grip round the back the R31 can't deliver it like the RB7.

They might need to alternate exhuasts for different GPs.

[marcush.]

We all like the dare to be different approach but it seems pretty telling that no one has jumped onto that ship even afte´r renault was bagging two podiums at the beginning of the season.
I may be a more elaborate solution than RBR solution but not impossible at all but yet nobody took the bait.

I think it is simply a few notches worse and very much limited in its effectiveness when RBRs solution does work with and without hot and coldblowing very well AND allows RedBull to balance rear downforce from hot blowing instead of DRS not deploying.

[Richard]

I suspect it isn't possible for a team to switch to an FEE mid season even if they wanted to. That sort of change would be limited by the homolgation rules on the chassis and crash structures. Just like teams are unable to do a mid-season copy of the McLaren side pods.

The exhausts position is mandated next season so we'll never know if the FEE would be live for more than one year.

[marcush.]

I really don´t think so .
The exhaust tubing is not a snug fit to the tub ,it snakes from a fairly outward position at the low mounted collector below the radiator forward and only is near the tub at the leading edge of the sidepod where it is mounted to the side of the tub via a tube section finishid up with a flange.I see really no reason why this could not be implemented on other cars.

[Richard]

Other teams would need to move radiators to fit the exhaust, and that would interface with the crash structure ... plus other packaging issues.

Of course the problem is not insurmountable if there was enough benefit to justify the effort, but it would be a very big effort to make the change mid-season.

[marcush.]

you need to redesign a corner of the radiator to make room for the exhaust tube and then it´s big time heat protection for components /relocation of components normally fitted to the radiator ducts add to this a development programme for correct outlet direction and of course a complete set of bodywork and you have a big update package commisioned and keep the enghine guys busy as well as the long exhaust piping is not what you really look for ....

[horse]

Exhaust crack and excess fuel in the exhausts.

Allison admitted several circumstances had combined to cause the fire.

"As with most accidents, several incidents combined to cause the fire that Nick suffered in Hungary," Allison explained. "First of all, we ran a slightly different engine mapping strategy in qualifying, which produced hotter than normal exhausts. We believe that this elevated temperature and caused a preliminary crack in the exhaust pipe.

"We presume that the crack then propagated during the laps to the pitstop - this was not evident to us as we believe that the failure occurred upstream of the place where we have a temperature sensor. We believe that Nick then came in with a partially failed exhaust.

"This pitstop took longer than normal, the engine was left at high rpm for 6.3 sec, waiting for the tyre change to be completed.

"Under these conditions, a lot of excess fuel always ends up in the exhausts and their temperature rises at around 100°C/sec. This temperature rise was enough to finish off the partially failed pipe and to start a moderate fire under the bodywork."

Renault forced to write off Heidfeld's chassis after Hungarian GP fire

[Pierce89]

I suspect it isn't possible for a team to switch to an FEE mid season even if they wanted to. That sort of change would be limited by the homolgation rules on the chassis and crash structures. Just like teams are unable to do a mid-season copy of the McLaren side pods.

The exhausts position is mandated next season so we'll never know if the FEE would be live for more than one year.

The monocoques aren't homologated this year