Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[PowerandtheGlory]

This reminds me of the 2014 winter testing and the frantic body cutting and holing that had to be done because of the bodywork getting baked-up.

You mean like McLaren did with the Renault the whole year last year? Mysterious cooling holes cut open all over the place, some still present this year actually.
I haven't seen any evidence of that whatsoever...
Curiously though, Ferrari, Mercedes (and McLaren for 2019) have now painted that whole rear section black. Maybe just livery related, maybe not

I think almost every team adjusts the engine cover/bodywork for tracks like malaysia, or the other races where ambient temp is really high. Its quick, cheap and effective, but redesigning bits of the engine, even coolers is a bit more complex, even moving them slightly, however- considering this is Honda’s first intergration into a ‘proper’ RB chassis you have to expect some teething pains.
I think it just shows how much they are pushing that envelope.. and how honda’s track side director will get quite a hard time this year from the RB guys..!!

[godlameroso]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

[Maplesoup]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

Unfortunately we can't prove if they are behind (behind who?) over one lap or over a race distance.
We'll only find out in Melbourne where they are within the field.

"As efficiency improves, so will the race pace" do you have any actual source material to prove this?
I don't thing we really know exactly how efficient any of the engines are, plus their efficiency will change race to race. Temperature, engine mapping, tyres, track surface are all going to play a part in the cars overall efficiency.

[godlameroso]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

Unfortunately we can't prove if they are behind (behind who?) over one lap or over a race distance.
We'll only find out in Melbourne where they are within the field.

"As efficiency improves, so will the race pace" do you have any actual source material to prove this?
I don't thing we really know exactly how efficient any of the engines are, plus their efficiency will change race to race. Temperature, engine mapping, tyres, track surface are all going to play a part in the cars overall efficiency.

Logic dictates that given a fixed fuel amount and rate, that improving efficiency improves power. Efficiency also improves ERS endurance because more engine power means more energy can be sent to the ES. If you improve fuel economy 1% that efficiency gain can improve ERS harvesting by letting you burn more fuel. By sending energy from K to H then to ES teams have an unlimited method of converting crank power to electrical energy. Thus the ers can be charged through braking, by throttling the turbo, or by loading the crank(and reducing power similar to a supercharger belt).

Without efficiency, you have to fuel save, your ERS recovery suffers as well(less speed on straights, less boost pressure to harvest), and because of this less fuel is available for charging the ES via the crank to K to H path.

To recap, more efficiency means more power, which means more braking at end of straights which increases K harvesting. More efficiency means more power and at the same time more turbine energy to harvest. Finally more efficiency lets you burn more fuel, which means you can sacrifice more fuel to harvest via the K -> H -> ES route.

Improving fuel, turbine, and ers efficiency may not unlock huge power directly, but does unlock it over a race distance. Remeber that the most powerful engine mode requires the ES to fully supply the MGU-K and MGU-H, so increasing the ability to harvest energy lets you use full power modes for longer.

Do you have any source material that shows fuel inefficiency is an asset in this formula?

[McMika98]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

We are in an efficiency formula, have been since the new hybrids were brought in. How efficient one engine in conpared to other is anyones guess, how high is the sky really? It most likely is in decimals as opposed to whole number in terms of scale so pretty much negligible. You will prolly lose more time with non optimal setup or if they are behind a car and need more power to overtake. In race mode everyone is running at low modes and optimising fuel burn rate. The engine should be enough to win races especially if they can get to the front row and xontrol the pace.

[GhostF1]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

Unfortunately we can't prove if they are behind (behind who?) over one lap or over a race distance.
We'll only find out in Melbourne where they are within the field.

"As efficiency improves, so will the race pace" do you have any actual source material to prove this?
I don't thing we really know exactly how efficient any of the engines are, plus their efficiency will change race to race. Temperature, engine mapping, tyres, track surface are all going to play a part in the cars overall efficiency.

Logic dictates that given a fixed fuel amount and rate, that improving efficiency improves power. Efficiency also improves ERS endurance because more engine power means more energy can be sent to the ES. If you improve fuel economy 1% that efficiency gain can improve ERS harvesting by letting you burn more fuel. By sending energy from K to H then to ES teams have an unlimited method of converting crank power to electrical energy. Thus the ers can be charged through braking, by throttling the turbo, or by loading the crank(and reducing power similar to a supercharger belt).

Without efficiency, you have to fuel save, your ERS recovery suffers as well(less speed on straights, less boost pressure to harvest), and because of this less fuel is available for charging the ES via the crank to K to H path.

To recap, more efficiency means more power, which means more braking at end of straights which increases K harvesting. More efficiency means more power and at the same time more turbine energy to harvest. Finally more efficiency lets you burn more fuel, which means you can sacrifice more fuel to harvest via the K -> H -> ES route.

Improving fuel, turbine, and ers efficiency may not unlock huge power directly, but does unlock it over a race distance. Remeber that the most powerful engine mode requires the ES to fully supply the MGU-K and MGU-H, so increasing the ability to harvest energy lets you use full power modes for longer.

Do you have any source material that shows fuel inefficiency is an asset in this formula?

I'm pretty sure most of us are well versed in this.
What I'm most curious about is how adamant you are Honda are "still behind", "they lack efficiency, especially in race pace".
Now, while I wouldn't necessarily disagree, I am extremely curious as to how you've extrapolated this information given what we actually know, bar a few tidbits from Tanabe saying they've improved the combustion efficiency over last year's engine.

Care to share how you KNOW they are behind? (I'm also assuming you mean behind Renault)

[godlameroso]

Look at the long runs, they tail off more than can be explained by tire degredation alone.

[godlameroso]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

We are in an efficiency formula, have been since the new hybrids were brought in. How efficient one engine in conpared to other is anyones guess, how high is the sky really? It most likely is in decimals as opposed to whole number in terms of scale so pretty much negligible. You will prolly lose more time with non optimal setup or if they are behind a car and need more power to overtake. In race mode everyone is running at low modes and optimising fuel burn rate. The engine should be enough to win races especially if they can get to the front row and xontrol the pace.

Entirely possible, Max is very good. Efficiency is a moving target, you can always improve components. Turbine efficiency alone is worth ~6kw

[Bill]

You just grandstanding,redbull say Honda have meet all the targets the set for them that is they have to have an engine that is within 0.2 to 0.3 of Ferrari benchmark which is an ambitious target if you consider that Mercedes according to Wolff was loosing up to 0.4 tenth in quali but you can never know with Toto he just another attention seeker. The only time when Honda had severe "efficiency" problems was when they had mguh problems in 2015 and first half of 2017.

[Maplesoup]

Honda is still behind, maybe not apparent over one lap, maybe not so much on this track. Nevertheless they are behind especially over a race distance. As efficiency improves, so will the race pace. Efficiency is the hardest thing to engineer besides reliability, the two big question marks for Honda this year. If they want to win they need big strides in these areas.

Unfortunately we can't prove if they are behind (behind who?) over one lap or over a race distance.
We'll only find out in Melbourne where they are within the field.

"As efficiency improves, so will the race pace" do you have any actual source material to prove this?
I don't thing we really know exactly how efficient any of the engines are, plus their efficiency will change race to race. Temperature, engine mapping, tyres, track surface are all going to play a part in the cars overall efficiency.

Do you have any source material that shows fuel inefficiency is an asset in this formula?

So for starters I'm not looking for an argument here, I didn't claim that fuel inefficiency is an asset in F1 either. What you claimed is that efficiency (not only fuel efficiency) improves race pace. If this was the case then all the cars would run huge radiators on the car perpendicular to the flow of air, better cooling means we can force more air into the engine via the turbo, and we can run the engine harder for longer. But then we'd destroy the aero of the car, cause huge amounts of drag, add extra weight to the car etc and all that would have a detrimental effect on race pace.

Efficiency doesn't have a direct collation to race pace, it has an impact but with everything in this formula it's a balance. Efficiency is also made up of a billion different things, so a catch all statement like "better efficiency = race pace" needs to be more precise to what you actually mean, and being that the argument in question is of a scientific nature some stats or figures to prove your point would be awesome.

[Singabule]

Unfortunately we can't prove if they are behind (behind who?) over one lap or over a race distance.
We'll only find out in Melbourne where they are within the field.

"As efficiency improves, so will the race pace" do you have any actual source material to prove this?
I don't thing we really know exactly how efficient any of the engines are, plus their efficiency will change race to race. Temperature, engine mapping, tyres, track surface are all going to play a part in the cars overall efficiency.

Do you have any source material that shows fuel inefficiency is an asset in this formula?

So for starters I'm not looking for an argument here, I didn't claim that fuel inefficiency is an asset in F1 either. What you claimed is that efficiency (not only fuel efficiency) improves race pace. If this was the case then all the cars would run huge radiators on the car perpendicular to the flow of air, better cooling means we can force more air into the engine via the turbo, and we can run the engine harder for longer. But then we'd destroy the aero of the car, cause huge amounts of drag, add extra weight to the car etc and all that would have a detrimental effect on race pace.

Efficiency doesn't have a direct collation to race pace, it has an impact but with everything in this formula it's a balance. Efficiency is also made up of a billion different things, so a catch all statement like "better efficiency = race pace" needs to be more precise to what you actually mean, and being that the argument in question is of a scientific nature some stats or figures to prove your point would be awesome.

More efficient ur engine, less fuel u need to carry. As per MB case, it help alot in 2014 and 2015. Secondly more efficient ur engine, less cooling needed as more fuel converted to energy. More efficient your ICE means you can generate more with "super regen" engine mode which utilize mguK to send energy to H, then to battery and/or back to K to deploy more in the straight.

[etusch]

Hasegawa was saying that the more they develop ice efficiency the more they lost heat and regenaration. So overall efficiency is harder something. I read that this year they developed efficiency of Engine. They didn't talked about ice specifially (if I remember true) . As they close the gap to front runners they must be closed in all area.

[Singabule]

Hasegawa was saying that the more they develop ice efficiency the more they lost heat and regenaration. So overall efficiency is harder something. I read that this year they developed efficiency of Engine. They didn't talked about ice specifially (if I remember true) . As they close the gap to front runners they must be closed in all area.

Maybe because too much heat loss in cooling system because honda is still behind of the rest in the combustion technology. But at least they tripled their compressor size compared to 2014, hence development should within combustion part, apart from H reliability. So maybe previously Arai and Hasegawa put efficiency target way too high and cooling target waayyy off hence makes MCL angry (usually old school big organisation that couldn't adapt to new conditions would angry) coz they need to scrap all the design. Fortunately its all in past, but i think 2019 engine is not achieving its preliminary target as well, you can see it as cooling issue. But should be easy fix if it is not way off.

[equaliser]

I'm not sure we saw the real pace of the RB15 in testing (race pace or single lap) to compare to others. It looked like they didn't have the engine turned all the way up probably due to the minor cooling issues Tanabe-san referred to in his interview. We'll have a much better picture come Melbourne but the STR14 looked good thorough-out the test. I don't believe Honda are way off in efficiency but they'll continue to refine the mapping to find the optimal balance of ICE & ERS.

[Bandit1216]

I really wonder how this balance between ice efficiency and mgu-h works.

Basically they went from about 30% efficient to 50% in a few years. I think about 1/2 of the exhaust losses are now harvested by mgu-h.

It does mean a lot that they sometimes choose to sent more energy into the turbine rather then to increase ice efficiency itself, because the turbine's efficiency itself is only about 50% and also mhu-h and mgu-k are about 97%, so more losses.

They must be at the very limit with combustion efficiency already.