Full article at https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-red- ... he-making/Red Bull and AlphaTauri have benefitted from an ExxonMobil oil upgrade over the past two Formula 1 races, with the specification introducing new components first experimented with eight years ago.
These new materials include those normally used in the cosmetics industry, which have specifically been used to improve the protective properties of the synthetic oil.
ExxonMobil claims the new oil can run at higher temperatures, as well as creating less deposits. But confidence is high that this will lead to longer-term gains, with Red Bull and Honda yet to fully exploit the improvements given it has only used the oil for the events in Azerbaijan and France.
“These are the early steps in terms of establishing just how big a temperature we could push the oil to,” said Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan when asked by The Race about the gains.
“It’s dependent not only on the work that ExxonMobil have done in the oil’s ability to withstand high temperatures, its ability to then take it out of the engine and our ability to put it through a cooler, but it’s also down to what the clever chaps in Honda can do with an engine that we have actually moved the temperature targets a little bit.
“Everything is not without consequence. We can lift the temperature of the engine but it doesn’t mean it’s going to run as we would want. So we have a range of cooling solutions on the car with bodywork, which is quite common practice and we have different exit configurations.
“We’re able to tune that not only for an ambient condition but from whatever ExxonMobil and Honda can allow us to have. Sometimes they might ask for a bit more cooling, if they ask for a little bit less then we’ll take it gladly close the bodywork up a little bit and run the generally hotter.
“We can split the system such that oil and water can be treated a little bit differently. I don’t think it’s possible to ever say that you’re going to treat one in isolation from the other because one typically will be seen in other fluids.
“Whether we are able to make greater steps through this season, we’re on the learning curve and the more we learn, the more we exploit it.
Hamilton made note of Red Bull’s straight-line speed throughout the Paul Ricard race weekend, while Mercedes F1 boss Wolff said after the race that the team had made “a huge step forward with their power unit”. Wolff later clarified that this was not meant to suggest Honda had brought a major upgrade.
So ... get your driver to imply the opposition PU made a major gain in-season, then the team principal says it, then walks that suggestion back, and then says, isn't it strange that Red Bull were offended by the suggestion, and implies something may be going on there. Unless those quotes are way out of context, this is a pretty classless way of behaving. So much for "we relish the competition" etc.Asked by Motorsport.com if there was any scope to unlock more engine performance through reliability tweaks, Mercedes boss Wolff expressed his surprise that Red Bull had protested the suggestion so much.
“I wonder why that is such a topic, when we all know that the power units need to be homologated,” Wolff said.
“I’m really surprised that the Red Bull guys keep protesting so loudly on the power unit story. So that is a bit weird.
On top of this, there have been suggestions that it has been running its first set of power unit components at a slightly reduced output, owing to a vibration that had become worrisome when it first tested the car during pre-season testing.
However, with the introduction of the second power unit in its allocation, it has been able to fix that issue and unlock some additional performance - thought to be in the region of 10-15bhp.
From a story at motorsport.com."I don't share [the view] of what I hear and read about, because the performance of the Honda engine, looking at the GPS data, corresponds to the performance they had at the beginning of the season in Bahrain," he explained.
"Then, they had to reduce performance due to reliability issues. I think by solving that, they're back to the standards they had at the start of the season.
I think they used Max factorgodlameroso wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 14:42I wonder...Did they switch additives? I know ionic liquids(like phosphonium) can create electronic interference, if they were using that in their original oil formulation it may explain why they had to dial back the MGU-K a bit. It also explains why they'd use a "cosmetic" derived additive, if it's what I think it is, it has very good properties without the electronic interference since it's ceramic based.
I'm assuming you mean electromagnetic and not electronic?godlameroso wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 14:42I wonder...Did they switch additives? I know ionic liquids(like phosphonium) can create electronic interference, if they were using that in their original oil formulation it may explain why they had to dial back the MGU-K a bit. It also explains why they'd use a "cosmetic" derived additive, if it's what I think it is, it has very good properties without the electronic interference since it's ceramic based.
I know what I said. If you get electronic interference with the switching circuits you get bigger issues.dans79 wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 22:32I'm assuming you mean electromagnetic and not electronic?godlameroso wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 14:42I wonder...Did they switch additives? I know ionic liquids(like phosphonium) can create electronic interference, if they were using that in their original oil formulation it may explain why they had to dial back the MGU-K a bit. It also explains why they'd use a "cosmetic" derived additive, if it's what I think it is, it has very good properties without the electronic interference since it's ceramic based.
there's no such thing as electronic interference. What you are referring to is electromagnetic interference, often times abbreviated as EMI!godlameroso wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 23:17I know what I said. If you get electronic interference with the switching circuits you get bigger issues.