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We know that the teams would prefer to take less fuel in order to gain race pace - for example Williams were said to be fueling at about 95kg mid 2014.
Obviously, with more fuel they can turn up engine maps, and so deliver more power to the rear wheels. So, someone has done some calcuations that X kg of fuel is worth Y hp.
What do you think those figures would be? If the engine makers are fighting to find 50hp, and spending 100's of millions in the process, would this suggest that the teams do not give up a lot of power to run less fuel?
The question is a bit flawed - a set mass of fuel does not contain a certain amount of power (a measure of energy delivered over time), it contains a certain amount of energy.
Gasoline's energy density is around 44.4MJ/kg.
We can then assume that what you really meant was "how many HP is equivalent to x kg/h of fuel"
100kg/hr (the maximum fuel flow rate) gives you 44.4MJ/kg * 100kg/h = 4440MJ/h = 1.23333333MJ/s (aka MW) = 1654hp *if* you can burn it 100% efficiently, and transfer that crank shaft 100% efficiently.
In practice, you can't do that. The teams have generally been stating that their engines are somewhere around the 40% efficient mark. That gives you a range of 630 to 695hp (ranging from 38% to 42% efficient) for the internal combustion engine. Plus an extra 160 from the KERS system to get you to around 790-855hp total.
Note, the reason that the teams don't fuel to 100kg is because in practice, an F1 race is about 1 hour 40 minutes long, and the driver is only on the throttle for about 50-60% (varies depending on the track) of the time. The result is that they're typically only on the throttle for about 50-60 minutes, so there's no need to carry around the full 100kg.
Further to that, the benefit of not carrying 100kg around at the start of the race (in improved car handling) is huge - it's roughly a tenth of a second per lap per kg you can shed. Because of that, teams prefer to get their driver to lift and coast for a period in the race, so that they are much faster at the start of the race.
so 100kg of fuel would be 350 HP? that can't be right.......
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
OK, recalculating...
From those simulations, 10Kg is the equivalent of 0.3% in lap time (which is the usual soundbite, 3 tenths anyways). And it would take a 2.83% increase in power to get the same lap time difference, which at 740 assumed max power is 21HP. So I guess I get 210HP being the lap time equivalent of 100Kg. That's 3 seconds at the start of the race... surprising, but that's Optimum Lap's verdict (unless I made another mistake). Note that the weight penalty might be underestimated as Optimum Lap uses a point mass and cannot take into account that fuel is relatively high in the car, so that would make the HP equivalent... even bigger
It sounds extreme, but I guess that extra power doesn't help you corner faster nor brake faster, it doesn't let you accelerate faster as long as you are grip limited and it only increases your top speed a little bit.
Note also that I did not simulate a change in setup as could be expected by increasing power, I left the aero settings the same. An increase in power might also be translated into higher downforce (and higher drag) via higher wing angles, then all bets are off.
without taking away all the effort and calculations you did, i'm sure it was lots of work and research, and i'm sure loads of collected data went into the project but......wouldn't that mean that these calculations were useless because there is not a single thread of realism into the 'data' you posted? 350 hp max, 210hp the laptime equivalant of 100kg of fuel? excuse me?
power goes even more down? you really want to tell me these F1 units have 210-350 hp? i'm sorry but you can't believe yourself to be accepting this, right? and how do 'downforce' or 'drag' numbers have anything to defend these impossible low numbers? I take it you're using lots of important data into account, but this is simply not correct.
Why do you refer to 'Optimum Lap'? What makes optimum lap so special or realistic?
even more; they are hybrids, F1 laptimes are not achieved solely on ICE [thus fuel]. They are achieved through electric power aswell. I don'r really see how laptimes are a benchmark for this.
Furthermore, Horsepower is not a linear thing; you can for example have peak horsepower @ let's say 6500 RPM [in some random non-f1 engine] and peak torque @ let's say 1500 RPM. Torque figures go down when a higher RPM is achieved and horsepower figures go up with a higher RPM. obviously, at 6500 RPM more fuel is being injected into the cilinders compared to 1500 RPM. the fuel however is not which generates horsepower. Like said in another reply, fuel carries energy, it's the way this energy is transferred which is where it becomes important.
Put it like this; let's say a Ford Fiesta is generating 60 HP most out of it's 3-cyl turbo engine, and carries 40kgs of fuel. [hypothetically]. It's not like you would double HP by changing it's fuel capacity from 40kgs to 80kgs.
The issue thus is, xKg of fuel can not be calculated into HP. A ford fiesta does not achieve 60HP because it uses 40kg of fuel over let's say 600km. the fiesta gets 60 HP becuase of the amount of fuel injected paired with the efficiency of the engine and the construction of the engine. You CAN make the car reach 1200 km on a single run by doubling the fuel capacity, AND you can shorten the distance to 300km by halving the amount of fuel carried.
5 litres less fuel in the fiesta does not cost it HP. nor does 5 kg more add HP.
The permitted rate of fuel that is allowed to flow into the engine however is a different story, as this is limited.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
I think there is a misunderstanding. I did not claim that the cars make 200-300 HP. And this is not high research, but the result of a few hours of playing with Optimum Lap, thus of a model which simplifies way too much and then some .
I actually pointed out explicitly most of the model's flaws in the other thread.
And the results suggest that if you carry 10Kg exra but produce 21HP extra (over an estimated 741 peak and above 700 at most times), your lap time stays the same. The same applies to 10kg less with 21 less HP. The extrapolation to 100 and 210 is probably pushing the linear range a bit, but it is only meant to say that a car with 795kg in the starting line could compensate the weight by producing 950 HP.
Does it make sense now?
Take the numbers as a veeeeeryyyy rough approximation also because that model has a simple power curve with no lap optimized kers, no lift and coast, etc.
