Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[SameSame]

Welp, not gonna say i'm surprised....

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... no-918068/

That does not bode well for their supposed big update that is due.

[-wkst-]

Welp, not gonna say i'm surprised....

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... no-918068/

Honda - lousy amateurs!

For a very long period I haven't seen such a headless organisation in F1!

[FW17]

Welp, not gonna say i'm surprised....

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... no-918068/

I remember the Honda documentary in 2015 about the engine team at Sakura.

The team was young and another thing was there were a lot of empty chairs. Wonder what is the total strength in the R&D office right now.

[j.yank]

I tried to figure out where the supposed 80-100 hp deficit of Maclaren-Honda to Mercedes is coming from. It seems that this is based on standard ET 1/4 mile Horse Power calculators that you can find on internet. You can get the speed and time for passing 1/4 mile from the onboard qualification laps of Alonso and Hamilton from here https://youtu.be/uCP79ZKMMdI and here https://youtu.be/yx6BbFTNyy0 . Look at the timing from the start of the final straight to the red lights on left that are slightly before the middle of the straight (if you look on Google Earth this is roughly 1/4 mile). However, you need a chronometer to get more precise timing. In this way, you see some very strange results. The Alonso time deficit is about 0.3 sec but surprisingly he is faster with about 10 km/h (note that this is 1/4 mile, not the full length of the straight). In this case, the only way the calculator could give 80-100 hp deficit is Maclaren-Honda to be about 10 kg lighter than Mercedes. This is very interesting. This means that Maclaren-Honda have better initial speed on the straights but don't have enough power to maintain this speed to the end or even to middle of the straight. Also, this means that Maclaren-Honda have very, very light car comparing to other cars, and Hasegava comments on this are in fact true (probably this also explains why they are so good in the corners). IMO if they successfully resolve the combustion and vibration problems in order to maintain this speed and keep the same weight of the car, with the upcoming update they suddenly could be ahead of the rest. I don't think that this is impossible.

Exit speed from last corner is not 0. it would explain why final speed is higher on mclaren compared to Merc even with time lost. Also i remember noticing comparison between merc and ferrari. Merc was setup for more strightline speed, ferrari was a bit more downforce for Corners.
p.s. i did not find where alaonso has higher speed on start/finish stright.

Both cars exit speed are not 0. Actually you are measure the difference between the exit speed and the top speed at 1/4 mile, then you put the timing for this 1/4 (which is the trickiest part because on these videos there are not timing clocks), and then you put the minimum weight of the cars. The maximum speed of Alonso is 284 km/h and you can see it 1:09 min. Now I see that Hamilton is also 284 km/h at the beginning of the lap at the same spot. The general picture is that the power deficit in China is somewhere between 95 and 125 hp, if they are even on weight minimum. If someone can provide link with video where both timing and the speed are visible you can calculate more correctly the power difference. Even better if there are video onboard with timing and speed from the last two races to compare.

[Big Mangalhit]

The lest 3 years I really was under the impression that teams were being tied by the stupid token system which didn't let them develop the engines to the Merc level. Always trying to balance which updated they could run where and be modest with changes that bring knock on effects elsewhere.

With that system scrapped and seeing how hard it is for a major corporation like Honda to deliver I think simply that Mercedes engine and now the Ferrari and Renault ones are really impressive pieces of engineering.

[FW17]

The lest 3 years I really was under the impression that teams were being tied by the stupid token system which didn't let them develop the engines to the Merc level. Always trying to balance which updated they could run where and be modest with changes that bring knock on effects elsewhere.

With that system scrapped and seeing how hard it is for a major corporation like Honda to deliver I think simply that Mercedes engine and now the Ferrari and Renault ones are really impressive pieces of engineering.

The problem was always project management, they never achieved (or chose to destroy) a solid base to either build on or fallback

[Alexitation]

Bang. Clunk. Agh.

Here's what I think, Alonso is just pushing everything, if it breaks it doesn't bother him because he's not even in the points. Understanding what fails can go a long way to making it better.

I thought the same. It would go some way towards explaining the gap to Stoffel (different engine modes)

Look at the gap between Massa who was never considered a top driver and Stroll. There's also a huge gap between Hulk and palmer. The gap between Alonso and Vandoorne is way smaller. I don't think we need any explanation, Alonso is just a better driver than Vandoorne right now.

Plus all drivers are limited with fuel. I don't think Alonso could use ridiculous engine modes during the whole race as he would run out of fuel at some point. Unless he has 10kg of fuel in his pockets in addition to his 5 tenths....

[aran.vtec]

Welp, not gonna say i'm surprised....

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... no-918068/

just a question excuse my ignorance.

why cant they build a rig thats basically a cut up rear of a f1 car, engine ,gearbox, side shafts, rims, tyres etc... and put it on rollers (like you would dyno your road car) yes you wont be able to simulate the g forces like in a full f1 car on the track but you could test straight line performance, or is that no allowed?

[Postmoe]

At this point, it doesn't matter if they will ultimatelly get it working, as I cannot, I simply cannot, support a manufacturer that wastes three seasons in a row punching a car until it works. Honda is doing this:

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2010 ... ge-car.jpg

Is that Alonso?

I really don't know, it is too conceptual even for me, but if I remember correctly, the artist named it "The unbeareable lightness of Honda engineering developing f1 engines".

[toraabe]

Honda probably has to run the engine in the highest mapping in order not to be even slower.
Another thing why on earth do they have to rev the engine so much higher than the rest ?
Even Ferrari seems to have lowered their target rpm in the last race 11500 like Merc from 12000 until recently

Here's what I think, Alonso is just pushing everything, if it breaks it doesn't bother him because he's not even in the points. Understanding what fails can go a long way to making it better.

I think PU modes are determined by engineers, not by drivers. If so, are you saying Alonso ignore his engineers and always use a more aggressive mapping than he´s told to?

That's not what I was saying at least. Of course I'm not suggesting he is going rogue.

All things considered it might be a reasonable engineering decision to let Alonso run in a different mode to Stoffel, allowing him to thrash the **** out of the engine might keep him slightly happier and might provide some insight to honda (reliability differences from running in different modes).

[clownfish]

Another thing why on earth do they have to rev the engine so much higher than the rest ?
Even Ferrari seems to have lowered their target rpm in the last race 11500 like Merc from 12000 until recently

Maybe the vibration issue is worse at low RPM, I recall the engineer reminding FA not to short shift in the race perhaps for the same reason.

[GoranF1]

It's very likely true. Alonso always want's to look good. Everybody thinks, he is a god, because he himself says so and he uses ridiculous engine modes. Could be.

When we are talking about racing he is god.....in a road course Indycar race he probably wins in his debut...given the similarity of cars performances.

[wuzak]

Honda probably has to run the engine in the highest mapping in order not to be even slower.
Another thing why on earth do they have to rev the engine so much higher than the rest ?
Even Ferrari seems to have lowered their target rpm in the last race 11500 like Merc from 12000 until recently

This may be a product of the gearing they use.

The changes in rpm may be because of how the gearing suits a particular track.

[FW17]

They run higher rpm so that they can harvest more from the MGU H

Honda up until 2016 did not have a self sustain mode and all energy recovered from MGU H were sent to the battery.

If you read Wazari, there is a explanation to this

[HPD]

Welp, not gonna say i'm surprised....

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... no-918068/

He speaks of reliability, right? The new engine gives good results but they are afraid of reliability problems