Odd smell at F1 races identified !!!!

[KurtTank]

I posted a few months ago about a mysterious odor I noticed at every F1 race I've ever been to. Its a very mysterious chemical/organic smell that I could only describe partially accurately as "Chinese hot mustard and lacquer thinner."
Well, I've finally identified the source after a couple decades of wondering.
I recently bought some fuel for my lawn equipment. Its a special super high quality gasoline that comes in a can and its about 4 times as expensive as the premium you'd buy at the pump for your sports car. It is 94 octane (which is about the highest pump street unleaded octane you will find in the USA by the way.) This fuel is crystal clear. It is ethanol free gasoline which is nearly impossible to find these days in some parts of the USA. And it has a very long shelf life. VP Racing Fuels makes it. Its called SEF94. Here's a link...
http://www.vpracingfuels.com/sef-small-engine
Anyway, when this stuff burns it gives off an odor that smells just like the mysterious smell at an F1 race. I was shocked to stumble upon this.
I had always read that the fuel the F1 cars is "basically the same as the premium pump fuel you put in the car you drive on the road." Well, It seems that it may be similar (94 octane with R+M/2 method) but this stuff is an exotic, extra pure version of gasoline. It smells more like lacquer thinner (while in the can) than it does gasoline. My chemist friend always tells me there are countless formulas for "gasoline" and that gasoline is a generic word to a chemist. This fuel, and the fuel they use in F1 are top shelf gasolines obviously.
I finally found the answer.

[Jersey Tom]

I had always read that the fuel the F1 cars is "basically the same as the premium pump fuel you put in the car you drive on the road."

I had never heard that... seems very unlikely to be honest.

[George-Jung]

I had always read that the fuel the F1 cars is "basically the same as the premium pump fuel you put in the car you drive on the road."

I had never heard that... seems very unlikely to be honest.

[youtube]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AbQZQUoy1L4[/youtube]

[KurtTank]

Thanks for the video link! That's the first time I've seen evidence like that. The reporter guy doesn't seem to have a clue what Fernando is saying, but its obvious if you listen to Fernando that the fuels act similar and the octane rating is high enough to allow full power, only the "pickup" is lessened.

[sAx]

I had always read that the fuel the F1 cars is "basically the same as the premium pump fuel you put in the car you drive on the road."

I had never heard that... seems very unlikely to be honest.

The chemical constituents are the same for both fuels, however the way they are compositionally balanced (blueprinted) is the over-riding difference.

[strad]

They have foisted this lie for years.

[SiLo]

Imagine how much fuel the US could save by using the what we use over here in the UK (98/99 Octane).

I know that Nascar uses 112 octane which sounds pretty fun. Glad you found out what the smell was!

[tathan]

Imagine how much fuel the US could save by using the what we use over here in the UK (98/99 Octane).

I know that Nascar uses 112 octane which sounds pretty fun. Glad you found out what the smell was!

I think that you'll find an AKI of 94 is about the same as 98/99RON

[neilbah]

want to smell odd fuel..go to a drag strip

[Jersey Tom]

I had always read that the fuel the F1 cars is "basically the same as the premium pump fuel you put in the car you drive on the road."

I had never heard that... seems very unlikely to be honest.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AbQZQUoy1L4

So a second a lap difference is the verdict? Sounds about what I'd expect - pretty significant!! That's the only hard number mentioned which they sneak in only briefly. Rest of it seems pretty heavily skewed as... I suppose you could call it a PR exercise and demo.

Just saying that from my experience at race tracks... other than specifically testing production cars I don't think I'd really ever heard of running race cars competitively on pump gas. I'm sure you could drive around on it if you pull some spark advance or something, but you're definitely giving up speed.

[KurtTank]

Uh, negative. Fernando said himself in the video that the road fuel actually allowed a higher top speed.
And yes, the premium road fuel used in the UK is very similar in octane to what we are offered in the USA. We measure our octane a different way. Its known as the R+M/2 method.

[Jersey Tom]

Uh, negative. Fernando said himself in the video that the road fuel actually allowed a higher top speed.

Funny, I heard a second a lap slower... and FA saying he was slower coming out of every corner...

[stephenwh]

Yeah I got that it was slower too...

[George-Jung]

Uh, negative. Fernando said himself in the video that the road fuel actually allowed a higher top speed.

Funny, I heard a second a lap slower... and FA saying he was slower coming out of every corner...

Funny, I also heard that the mapping wasn't optimized for normal fuel..

PS.
Overall laptime doesn't say much about the actual top speed.. this can still be higher with normal fuel.

[Jersey Tom]

Yeah I don't think they're going to "optimize" a second of laptime out of that map. A re-tune on lower performance fuel is going to save the engine from grenading, but I don't see that extracting huge power.

Also, if you're slower exiting every corner... the engine isn't going to magically find some turbo boost all of a sudden and jump to some higher end of straight speed. Only way you'd have that is some freak luck of going in the right direction of the wind.

Either way it prove the point. If you replace your fuel and go a second a lap slower and/or need to completely re-map the thing.. pretty obvious that the two fuels are not "basically the same."




The whole vid is just a PR thing. Shouldn't get too wrapped up in it, IMO.