Red Bull "torque control"?

Got a rumor???
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generationx
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by generationx »

MoFo wrote:
Every car must be passed by scrutineering. Every technical change or advancement must be revealed to, discussed with and passed by the FIA.

If Red Bull have a "secret" system then good for them.
These two statements are mutually exclusive. "It would be impossible for them to have any secrets... and if they do, good for them!"

Not to mention just how hilariously wrong it is to suggest that no team has ever snuck anything past scrutineering.
And let's remember that a 32 second win is not "enormous".
Umm... yes it is. The average margin has been 10 seconds this year. In fact, that single race bumps the season average margin by two seconds. It's double the second largest margin of the year, 16 seconds at Spa. And, let's clarify here, that's a 32 second gap formed after the safety car, over just fifteen laps of racing. At that pace, he WOULD have lapped the field over the full 61 race laps. It's not the single largest margin of victory in F1 history, but in 2013, a 32 second win IS "enormous".
Perhaps I should clarify - I when I meant "Secret" I was describing Red Bull revealing their technology to other teams.

And F1 is older than the 2013 season. I was describing a win by 32 seconds from the point of view of the history of our sport stretching back further than 12 months.

What a very aggressive, condescending tone your reply had, and your quoting of me was very selective to aid this.
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

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drledford93 wrote:Maybe I just didn't see it but I don't remember ANYONE voicing cheating thoughts at McLaren in their dominant years of '88-'91. From what I could tell, these sort of accusations started to fly around '94 when electronics were banned and certain teams seemed to have them via evident performance advantages. So, the comparison of the MP4/4 to the RB9 is not valid in my book. There have been plenty of voices wondering the legality of the RB cars over the years.
Very true. No internet in those days so you couldn't read all the fan rage from the forums and get it re-sold as news from websites that work with second-hand material compiled by people who don't have a clue.
If '88 was today, you'd see the non-McLaren fans cry foul over their domination and threads started questioning Senna's and Prost's abilities and worth as champions because obviously the car could be driven by a monkey :-)

drledford93 wrote: I'm all for development but when you start to bend the rules or bending the rules to get a system (or the effect of one) that is banned, that's not right in my book.
Well, that's what it has been all about since the introduction of rules!? Find the competitive edge within the rules, and you usually don't do that right in the middle but at the "edges".
drledford93 wrote: I just wish they'd scrap the rule book and start all over. I wish the rules would be black and white and not allow this "grey area" stuff to continue like it has. The more simple, the better.
That'd be nice. Would make for more interesting cars hopefully. However, in the end the same guys would win. Probably by a much bigger margin again :-)
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by daveyman »

Well put Jaykay. That's word for word what I wanted to write about the the internet and public reaction, implied cheating etc. Spot on.
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by Terry »

drledford93 wrote: I just wish they'd scrap the rule book and start all over. I wish the rules would be black and white and not allow this "grey area" stuff to continue like it has. The more simple, the better.
Realistically the only solution would be to have no rules, because then there is no grey areas, only things that comply. My idea of no rules is actually three rules
1. Set a maximum total tyre width (any number of tyres within the measure)
2. Cars are not to present a danger to other drivers and the public. This would be administered by a competitors vote and appointed body on behalf of the series organiser and spectators.
3. Races to be run on street circuits and Targa type events. Fewer races at circuits paved like "billiard tables".
.... Otherwise turn up with your 2000+hp whatever and try and get as much grip and speed out of a chassis that the tyres can possibly handle! In theory a complete unknown driver could run away with the series if an innovate design worked particularly well.

Alas probably not in my lifetime. (Can-Am excepted :wink: )
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by fade_to_black »

AJP01 wrote:
The control unit to analyze the data in miliseconds wouldn't be hard. The issue are the componentes response times... alternators and specially batteries need time... maybe they have resistances to dissipate the excess energy generated by the alternator that doesn't go to the batteries
Yes, that part (the sensing and electronic control) wouldn't be that difficult - to your (and MoFo's) point. The part that I think about though is; great, you know suspension displacement, relative traction level (you "think", because you're not allowed to use wheel speed sensors for true slippage), and such. But once you've figured out that you want to adjust torque, you've got to repeatedly engage/disengage the motor generators, translate that through the rotating inertia of the engine at XX,000 RPMs, gearbox inertia, driveshafts, and then tires (which are in hysteresis at all times to varying states). With tire sidewall flex. And those Pirelli's are heavy too. All that in milliseconds impresses me.

Cheers,
AJ
Well, going back to the feasibility of this hypothesis, to avoid histeresis and engage/disengage of the alternator, that's why I think they must dissipate the unused power in "resistances" or so. The alternator starts working and the control unit just selects the route of the "excess" power: batteries or dissipatation. BTW, does anyone knows the life of the KERS batteries? The same batteries for full season?

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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by -Felix- »

Terry wrote:
drledford93 wrote: I just wish they'd scrap the rule book and start all over. I wish the rules would be black and white and not allow this "grey area" stuff to continue like it has. The more simple, the better.
Realistically the only solution would be to have no rules, because then there is no grey areas, only things that comply. My idea of no rules is actually three rules
1. Set a maximum total tyre width (any number of tyres within the measure)
2. Cars are not to present a danger to other drivers and the public. This would be administered by a competitors vote and appointed body on behalf of the series organiser and spectators.
3. Races to be run on street circuits and Targa type events. Fewer races at circuits paved like "billiard tables".
.... Otherwise turn up with your 2000+hp whatever and try and get as much grip and speed out of a chassis that the tyres can possibly handle! In theory a complete unknown driver could run away with the series if an innovate design worked particularly well.

Alas probably not in my lifetime. (Can-Am excepted :wink: )
The problem with ideas like this, are in fact, with all the technologies that have been developed and banned over the years in F1 combined in one car, there would no human being able to drive such a thing. imagine a modern F1 car and now give the aerodynamicists the possibility for a non flat underbody and skirts and all what he wants, combined with a "qualifier" tyre according to modern tyre technologies. the lateral accelerations would increase to the 2 digit g region. Additionally, imagine now a failure (tyre explosion).
It's nice to think of "what would be if there were no rules..." but in my view, just not possible these days.

To the topic: IF it all works the way we imagine it to do, what impresses me the most, is, how do they know what traction capability is availabe? Yes, they do have measurements in the suspension, they do know the load, travel etc but how exactly do they know how much torque the tyre can handle? i worked with racing tyres and do know how complicated that subject is. and there are so much influences and parameters. if they do not measure the slip, then they have to have a tyre model, which calculates the possible torque. But for a reasonable value, they would have to add camber, toe, tire pressure, tire temperature distribution, ambient temperature, sidewall deflection and slip angle etc. i wonder where they get all that information from, and even where they got the tire model from, and even how fast the computer must be to calculate all that in fractions of a second?
In the article they just state "yeah they measure the suspension movements and loads and so they know how much torque they can apply". Sounds easy, but it isn't. it's not even in the region of being easy, i would say it's more or less near impossible. But IF RB does it really this way: Please give them the physics nobel prize.
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by De21 »

fade_to_black wrote: BTW, does anyone knows the life of the KERS batteries? The same batteries for full season?

Kind regards
There was an article about the 2011 KERS from Mercedes which says that the batteries would last about 10000km which is something around 5 races or so I think...

http://scarbsf1.com/blog1/2012/01/27/me ... velopment/
Scarbs wrote:Battery pack life was extended to as much as 10,000km, several times the 2009 predictions that batteries would need replacing every two races (2,400km). Over this period, the cells do not tend to degrade, as the team manage the unit’s condition (‘State of Charge’ & temperature) throughout the GP weekend to maintain their operational efficiency.
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by MoFo »

fade_to_black wrote: BTW, does anyone knows the life of the KERS batteries? The same batteries for full season?
I'd imagine it varies from team to team, and battery to battery. Red Bull doesn't even use batteries; they use supercapacitors.

As for 'non-formula Formulas'... there have been several of them over the years. They have all been awesome. They have also been very short lived, before destroying themselves due to costs, uncompetitiveness and/or fatalities. Can Am, Group B, Group C... If F1 went a similar route, it would be dead in a decade, unfortunately.
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by Terry »

-Felix- wrote: The problem with ideas like this, are in fact, with all the technologies that have been developed and banned over the years in F1 combined in one car, there would no human being able to drive such a thing. imagine a modern F1 car and now give the aerodynamicists the possibility for a non flat underbody and skirts and all what he wants, combined with a "qualifier" tyre according to modern tyre technologies. the lateral accelerations would increase to the 2 digit g region. Additionally, imagine now a failure (tyre explosion).
It's nice to think of "what would be if there were no rules..." but in my view, just not possible these days.
Apologies for OT people. A no rules series will ultimately come down to the tyre width, rather than engine or aerodynamics. The key to a no rules formula is choosing the right width of tyre for competition. Myself; I would propose road car tyre widths like you might encounter on Mazda MX5 and this is the determining factor on how fast the car can go through corners. Obviously tyres need to be engineered to withstand loads, but this is the challenge, especially for the chassis designer to maximise speed from a given tyre size. It would be unrealistic to expect 1970's wide F1 rubber on a no rules F1 car today for the reasons you point out Felix, if only because the resultant G-force would cause a lot of damage to tracks and roads, and this breaks rule 3. :lol:
As you were.
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Re: Red Bull "torque control"?

Post by fade_to_black »

Thanks Decs and Mofo!

I thought they all have to follow the same KERS approach, because I knew that, for instance, Williams had a flywheel to store energy, but now uses batteries. So I thought that change was because of rules.
I also thought they had limited battery replacement, like gearboxs or so, which is confirmed.

I don't want to speculate more. If they do it as described, it is a great idea, which shows the guys at Red Bull are smarter than the others to find loopholes in the rules book. And, yes, I'm tired of Vettel winning, but he is the best right now :wink:

Thanks you both
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