whats wrong with the renault engines?

[FW17]

Lopez last month claimed that lotus helped develop the ERS for Renault, Redbull also supposedly helped develop the ERS system.

There were also rumors last year around Singapore that Red Bull were using KERS charging as a traction control, if true, I am sure they would want it for 2014 and for sure are not going to allow Lotus to the same system.

Renault also confirmed that their spec was tailored to suit different teams installations.

All this leads me to ask, Are the 2 systems the same? Did Renault commit to different systems and get bitten in the ass with system integration and software problems? Have teams now agreed to run one spec to sort out the problem?

[Gridlock]

There were also rumors last year around Singapore that Red Bull were using KERS charging as a traction control, if true, I am sure they would want it for 2014 and for sure are not going to allow Lotus to the same system.

More obviously a factor is that Lotus use a different transmission to the other 3 Renault teams.

[iotar__]

Die größten Defizite liegen bei der Software, also wie wir die Power einsetzen."

This confirms my suspicion that Renault is way back in software development behind Mercedes and Ferrari. It matches with the view from Horner that the crucial decision was taken long ago for Renault not to develop ERS for the last five years.

No need for suspicions, that's what Renault said during/after Jerez. What Horner said has no relevance to 2014, it was just a marketing noise to cover responsibility of his team that has special status with engine supplier. This realisation was only relevant when new engine rules were announced, solution was also simple - either work it out with Renault or jump into DeLorean and change Flavio's decision.

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... 87199.html Googlish but understandable:
"And also modifications in the service of reliability are tedious. You must reach the FIA be submitted in writing, with a detailed description of the measures and to prove that it is not the power is concerned. Ferrari and Mercedes then have five days abzunicken or reject the request. If there is sufficient suspicion that the intervention improves performance, Renault has to make a new start with a modified program."

So other manufacturers are involved, it's not only about consent but delaying the process as long as possible, as you'd expect. For the fans of apocalypse : some rumours about ERS not charging batteries fully with heat one to blame, I think.

[Pup]

But there were some good signs. Chester confirmed that the car ran at "full power". Just to be sure, AUTOSPORT asked him for his definition of this.
"That's with full boost, full energy recovery release," said Chester. "We haven't run full energy release until today."
So that's with the maximum potential of the engine boosted by all 125,000rpm of the turbo and the full 120kW (about 160bhp) of electrical energy. That is positive. But it should be noted that there was a little wriggle room in his definition.

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/featu ... r-renault/

I don't know if that's good news or not, given that the fastest Renault is still 5 seconds off pace. Perhaps fuel load and tire choice in themselves could account for that difference, but it seems unlikely.

[myurr]

They don't say how long they ran at full power. If it was just for a few seconds then it may be okay. I doubt it would even have been for an entire straight given their speed deficit.

[Pup]

I suppose the time gap could also be down to the Renault teams really not having been able to do any real setup work. So maybe that plus tires and fuel do explain it.

But what you say has relevance - even if they can run several laps at full power, that's not where they need to be. They need to be able to run a significant portion of a race distance at full power.

Times five.

Still, it's progress.

[Blackout]

Lap times are irrlevant, we want top speed to have a little idea. Permane says they never ran a lignt fuel tank or with a qualification setup.
Caterham says they will try to run with maximum power in the last test session.

[Wayne DR]

I suppose the time gap could also be down to the Renault teams really not having been able to do any real setup work. So maybe that plus tires and fuel do explain it.

But what you say has relevance - even if they can run several laps at full power, that's not where they need to be. They need to be able to run a significant portion of a race distance at full power.

Times five.

Still, it's progress.

I think, it really is hard to say where any of them are at right now. Several teams look good, but we have no idea about fuel loads and given this is testing, there is no requirement for the cars to actually comply with the FIA regulations.

Teams do a lot of things during testing to look good for sponsors. In previous years, teams have been known to run under-weight cars on low fuel LOADS when sponsors are at the track, to artificially improve lap times, and potentially open the cheque book a little further...

If Mercedes and/or McLaren do have finance/sponsorship/performance pressures (following McL's 2013 performance, no need to comment...) and Mercedes understand their engine package well enough (which they look like they do), Mercedes could easily tweak the PU to run outside the regs for a hot lap or two.

How? Remove the fuel flow restriction and increase boost and/or allow the ES to discharge 5MJ (full charge) or more (all generated power) in one lap.


I think Red Bull had no intentions of coming up with a fix for the RB10 by the first test in Bahrain. We may not even see much from them at the next Bahrain test, but they are gathering data and gaining knowledge. Adrian Newey and Christian Horner are not to be underestimated, at FP1 in Melbourne we will know where they are really at. (Is it ideal? No, but they will recover.)

Caterham have impressed me greatly, but again I take that with a grain of salt (It is testing and they want to look good in front of their sponsors...)


We will know the full story for all of the teams at end of Q1 in Melbourne...

[oldtony]

The trouble with waiting until post qually in Melbourne is that, as I understand it, homologation sign off day is Feb 28th.
That is just 4 days from now!
After that date power unit modifications are only allowed for "safety or reliability" purposes with the approval of the other manufacturers. Modifications to improve performance would seem to be off limits until re-homologation for the 2015 season.
Thus if they don't find the power by Friday they are stuck with what they have for the season.
Fairly obviously the strategy would be to go for full power at the expense of reliability now, and hope you can make enough units hang together, modifying for reliability on the run, to see out the season without too many penalties.
Do the junior teams get the engines with most power but the likelihood of failure or the other way round.

[j3st3r]

The other problem is if Renault comes with a B-spec engine after 1 or 2 races.. what do you do ... they have limited engines to run through a season. Do you give up the bad initial spec engine and go for the next one and run all of those longer? Very difficult situation for sure for all Renault customer teams.

[Phil]

I read.mercedes and ferrari are only running 80% of RPM

That's because above 80% RPM power drops off and there's no point in running past that point. 80-85% rpm is max power.

That's not entirely accurate. If there's a point to run past max power (and by how far) entirely depends on the drop off and the gear ratio in place.

[bonjon1979]

I suppose the time gap could also be down to the Renault teams really not having been able to do any real setup work. So maybe that plus tires and fuel do explain it.

But what you say has relevance - even if they can run several laps at full power, that's not where they need to be. They need to be able to run a significant portion of a race distance at full power.

Times five.

Still, it's progress.

I think, it really is hard to say where any of them are at right now. Several teams look good, but we have no idea about fuel loads and given this is testing, there is no requirement for the cars to actually comply with the FIA regulations.

Teams do a lot of things during testing to look good for sponsors. In previous years, teams have been known to run under-weight cars on low fuel LOADS when sponsors are at the track, to artificially improve lap times, and potentially open the cheque book a little further...

If Mercedes and/or McLaren do have finance/sponsorship/performance pressures (following McL's 2013 performance, no need to comment...) and Mercedes understand their engine package well enough (which they look like they do), Mercedes could easily tweak the PU to run outside the regs for a hot lap or two.

How? Remove the fuel flow restriction and increase boost and/or allow the ES to discharge 5MJ (full charge) or more (all generated power) in one lap.


I think Red Bull had no intentions of coming up with a fix for the RB10 by the first test in Bahrain. We may not even see much from them at the next Bahrain test, but they are gathering data and gaining knowledge. Adrian Newey and Christian Horner are not to be underestimated, at FP1 in Melbourne we will know where they are really at. (Is it ideal? No, but they will recover.)

Caterham have impressed me greatly, but again I take that with a grain of salt (It is testing and they want to look good in front of their sponsors...)


We will know the full story for all of the teams at end of Q1 in Melbourne...

Exactly the same thing was suggested when Brawn arrived in testing seconds quicker than everyone else. See how that turned out! Quite simply, there is no way that teams are going to be running without fuel flow monitors etc. There is so little time to do so much verification on the engines that they simply have to run them to as they will be in season. They're trying to get the fuel efficiency working, developing engine maps etc that they'll want to use for the entire season. There is so much to verify and explore that they don't have time for messing about. This is the double whammy that Renault teams are getting hit with -

1. Their engines are unreliable. They've not been able to complete a race distance yet, Red Bull haven't done more than a twelve lap stint. So there is an inherent problem with the engine in that regard that will hamper them.

2. Because they've not been able to do much significant running, they will be lacking the data needed to develop engine maps with the purpose of improving drivability and efficiency of engines.

In 3 weeks time, we'll be picking over the bones of the first GP weekend - there is very limited time to do anything meaningful to get these engines sorted out. They need to do some significant running in Bahrain or they are really f.u.b.a.r. There is so little time at race weekend's to test solutions, it'll be very hard to catch up on all this lost ground.

[Blackout]

''Their engine is not reliable''... We dont know yet if the engine is reliable or not. If it's not reliable, we dont know to what extent and what part is to blame...
The Power unit/ERS is unreliable. Nick Chester says the engine is healthy but the ERS power delivery and especially the MGUH are not ready yet. He says problems are mainly software related, not mechanichal or hardware related. Tere is still some hardware problems, for sure.

[myurr]

''Their engine is not reliable''... We dont know yet if the engine is reliable or not. If it's not reliable, we dont know to what extent and what part is to blame...
The Power unit/ERS is unreliable. Nick Chester says the engine is healthy but the ERS power delivery and especially the MGUH are not ready yet. He says problems are mainly software related, not mechanichal or hardware related. Tere is still some hardware problems, for sure.

Okay, replace "their engine is not reliable" with "their power unit is not reliable". The engines are homologated after a further 2 days of testing, and they have so little data and no race stints under their belts. Christ they don't even have data on what gear ratios are going to work out best throughout a typical race with the varying of engine modes, fuel levels and tyre grip. They aren't able to evaluate their aero package beyond the basics, set up and tune their suspension, even tweak things enough to understand how to tune their cars. RBR will be about to introduce their final Australia spec aero package and they don't really know if the current one works properly. Then there's talk of the gear box being fragile and the car having fundamental packaging problems that require a rethink.

They are in a world of pain at the moment that even if they magically fixed everything in relation to the power unit and all that Renault supplies in time for the next test, even then if that silver bullet is found I still think Red Bull would be in serious trouble. Mercedes scared them with their pace just before the summer break last year and they spent far too long focussing on the 2013 car in response to that. They've mismanaged the relationship with Renault where they should have been helping with the ERS system two years ago not only just starting to offer help now. And they've fallen prey to arrogance in thinking they could pull together this years car in a matter of months where other teams have been preparing for years.

[Gridlock]

I read.mercedes and ferrari are only running 80% of RPM

That's because above 80% RPM power drops off and there's no point in running past that point. 80-85% rpm is max power.

That's not entirely accurate. If there's a point to run past max power (and by how far) entirely depends on the drop off and the gear ratio in place.

Doesn't it also hurt to consider the ICE in isolation here? I'm still getting my head round it all, but for instance can't you take power from the rapidly-spinning turbo at this point via the MGU-H and dump it straight into the wheels via the MGU-K, thus getting more reclaimed power than power available via increased boost pressures once you're past peak BHP?

Whatever 2014 F1 is, it's not simple