Honda F1 project leader Yusuke Hasegawa has outlined a number of reasons why Honda has been struggling so badly in the beginning of the 2017 Formula One season. He confirmed that lots of problems were not discovered while running on the dynamo meter.
Mod: please feel free to move to separate thread since this is a bit OT.
A lot of discussion on GPS data. In my limited knowledge, that's speed at any given part of the track. How do you determine PU performance and Separate that from Aero/Chassis? Wouldn't you just have the comparison from one car to another?
For meaningful comparison, you will assume all Merc teams runs the same PU with same mapping then you can have a meaningful discussion on the Aero/Chassis between the Merc teams. Same can be said for Renault Powered teams. I have a hard time to see it as a meaningful comparison without a constant to make the comparison using GPS data. Obviously I picked PU as constant since it is much less likely to have Aero/Chassis as constant. The only team that can make some good analysis will be Mercedes since they probably know all the PU parameters running a merc engine. Same as the Renault to know PU in all the Renault powered team. However to compare between Merc and Renault, then there must be some 'Assumptions' being made. Am I missing something?
I think the best power comparisons come from peak acceleration at medium speeds. Low-speed accel is traction and downforce dependent, and high-speed accel is drag dependent, but at medium speed (100-120 mph?) the car has plenty of traction and the "resistance" to acceleration is dominated by car mass rather than aero drag. Of course when making power comparisons you need to assume similar car mass, so either compare cars during qualifying or during similar times during the race.
Each team has lap simulation software which is used to predict lap times, sector times etc with different car configurations. ...Of course GPS data is completely irrelevant unless you run your own car and use its performance as a baseline.
The teams spend as much time analyzing the performance of others as they do their own.
This way they can always track where they are on setup and especially how the relative speed changes over the weekend with setup changes here.
You can be sure that the top teams know the power the other teams are making to within 10HP.
The undercut was only good at Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard came to the pits one lap ahead of Felipe Massa and had his entire energy budget stashed for the one lap after the pit stop. At first the plan seemed to go awry. Massa rejoined Alonso again.
But on the long straights, the McLaren driver then struck. With a Honda engine against Mercedes power. But full-zero battery power, as confirmed by Williams engineering chief Paddy Lowe. The 163 hp difference can not even make up for a Mercedes engine. https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... 35721.html
Oh dear...once again this thread has gone off topic with talk about Merc and Ferrari fuel loads, something that has zilch to do with the Honda PU. And to cap it all, the insults are flying.
Please look at the title of the thread and restrict you comments to the specific topic.
The undercut was only good at Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard came to the pits one lap ahead of Felipe Massa and had his entire energy budget stashed for the one lap after the pit stop. At first the plan seemed to go awry. Massa rejoined Alonso again.
But on the long straights, the McLaren driver then struck. With a Honda engine against Mercedes power. But full-zero battery power, as confirmed by Williams engineering chief Paddy Lowe. The 163 hp difference can not even make up for a Mercedes engine. https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... 35721.html
Good but I think commenter(or journalist) forgot mgu-h supply on mgu-k. Their lost must not be full of 120 kw power.
The MGU-H will see a major design change for next season.
Honda's Yusuke Hasegawa who finished the last race weekend without trouble told F1 general manager with a relieved expression.
It was like three years walking in a long tunnel where the light of the exit could not be seen easily, but at last it was able to race with the potential of the current machine called MCL 32 fully drawn out. I was relieved and satisfied with that.
The troubles centered on MGU - H (*) which has been plagued many times have also taken measures against the hardware side many times during the season and also found measures to suppress the occurrence of problems with the software aspect (how to use) By disappearing by disappearing. To make drastic measures, it is necessary to make a major design change, and measures using Honda Jet's technology are being advanced for the next season, he says.
The teams spend as much time analyzing the performance of others as they do their own.
This way they can always track where they are on setup and especially how the relative speed changes over the weekend with setup changes here.
You can be sure that the top teams know the power the other teams are making to within 10HP.
100% agree. I bet teams have very sophisticated hardware and software that help them determine all this. Here we say impossible and MB is speaking out of step- but i bet you teams have very clever tools we the general public do not know of. Let's say for a moment what MB said is true. Honda need to find 10% power + whatever power gain the competition gain this winter. FML
The teams spend as much time analyzing the performance of others as they do their own.
This way they can always track where they are on setup and especially how the relative speed changes over the weekend with setup changes here.
You can be sure that the top teams know the power the other teams are making to within 10HP.
100% agree. I bet teams have very sophisticated hardware and software that help them determine all this. Here we say impossible and MB is speaking out of step- but i bet you teams have very clever tools we the general public do not know of. Let's say for a moment what MB said is true. Honda need to find 10% power + whatever power gain the competition gain this winter. FML
If you think about it purely in time + testing miles.
Honda are x years behind and x times y team's miles behind.
It's hard to come back from that deficit. But - MB will be getting smaller and smaller returns each year so catching up becomes easier - IF you are going in the right direction.
This formula is doing something very interesting that we never get to witness, combustion modeling is more interesting than aero CFD in my opinion. The combustion process requires top level input from a variety of sources, chemists for the species propagation endo and exothermic reactions(ie fuel vaporization rates), and that's just the start of it. Aero CFD specialists that work LES, and have experience with custom meshing to model the induction system, fuel mixing, and generally the rest of the combustion process, including the turbo. You need those wildcard engine guys that know how to tweak and optimize stuff. You need good validation engineers to test the new concepts and verify them, and make sure the models do what they're supposed to be doing. Once all that's in place and you have a good concept that you can develop everything should start moving in the right direction. Of course much easier said than done.
And yet its still IC engine, all the money and effort to improve IC will be wasted if researcher found large capacity battery. I think the only Way to move forward is keep or increase hybrid dependant so manufacturer can invest their money in correct technology. Thats why even if honda and renault cant win in current formula, they said it is a shame to move to less sophisticated electrical side.
This formula is doing something very interesting that we never get to witness, combustion modeling is more interesting than aero CFD in my opinion. The combustion process requires top level input from a variety of sources, chemists for the species propagation endo and exothermic reactions(ie fuel vaporization rates), and that's just the start of it. Aero CFD specialists that work LES, and have experience with custom meshing to model the induction system, fuel mixing, and generally the rest of the combustion process, including the turbo. You need those wildcard engine guys that know how to tweak and optimize stuff. You need good validation engineers to test the new concepts and verify them, and make sure the models do what they're supposed to be doing. Once all that's in place and you have a good concept that you can develop everything should start moving in the right direction. Of course much easier said than done.
And this is part of the reason that I enjoy F1 now because so much interesting stuff comes up. It's bound to be ruined by the noise breathers though :/
I just wish that the manufacturers could afford to be more open about their developments; imagine getting a Honda level of transparency from the others too.
This formula is doing something very interesting that we never get to witness, combustion modeling is more interesting than aero CFD in my opinion. The combustion process requires top level input from a variety of sources, chemists for the species propagation endo and exothermic reactions(ie fuel vaporization rates), and that's just the start of it. Aero CFD specialists that work LES, and have experience with custom meshing to model the induction system, fuel mixing, and generally the rest of the combustion process, including the turbo. You need those wildcard engine guys that know how to tweak and optimize stuff. You need good validation engineers to test the new concepts and verify them, and make sure the models do what they're supposed to be doing. Once all that's in place and you have a good concept that you can develop everything should start moving in the right direction. Of course much easier said than done.
And this is part of the reason that I enjoy F1 now because so much interesting stuff comes up. It's bound to be ruined by the noise breathers though :/
I just wish that the manufacturers could afford to be more open about their developments; imagine getting a Honda level of transparency from the others too.
Combustion CFD modeling is not something new for your interest, Ilmor used to perform simulations with my Professor in Uni. The amount of secrecy though was unreal even 12 years ago.
Computational power however has increased exponentially and you can get very fine/detailed models nowdays. Back then analyzing the models and getting any meaningful answers instead of just colorful pictures was almost an art.
The things possible now are pretty incredible, like I said, you can model the actual molecules, in other words you can see the hydrocarbons break down and react with oxygen, and see all the molecule species in between the initial reaction and the end product. You can model how air enters the combustion chamber, the effect of head tweaks like valve overlap, or tweaks to the piston crown, or pre-chamber. I wonder if things have advanced to the point that modeling cylinder heads and ports can be done in a reasonable time frame, instead of 3 to 6 month intervals.
The undercut was only good at Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard came to the pits one lap ahead of Felipe Massa and had his entire energy budget stashed for the one lap after the pit stop. At first the plan seemed to go awry. Massa rejoined Alonso again.
But on the long straights, the McLaren driver then struck. With a Honda engine against Mercedes power. But full-zero battery power, as confirmed by Williams engineering chief Paddy Lowe. The 163 hp difference can not even make up for a Mercedes engine. https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... 35721.html
Good but I think commenter(or journalist) forgot mgu-h supply on mgu-k. Their lost must not be full of 120 kw power.
If the battery was indeed emtpy on the williams, the MGU-H would have almost guaranteed prioritised filling it up for the next straight, instead of dumping directly into mgu-k. Given that honda ICE is around 80-90 bhp inferior to the merc, alonso would have enjoyed a net 70-80 bhp advantage in that instance.
Brundle said a couple of times during the abu dhabi weekend that honda ICE is 11% down on mercedes in outright power (told so by the engineers). That would indeed make it around 90 bhp down.
FML
