Diesel wrote:JimClarkFan wrote:onewingedangel wrote:With Jenson mentioning the team struggling with fuel conservation in the long runs, and Adrian Newey mentioning that Red Bulls analysis of their competition using the available GPS data pointing to a power discrepency between fuel suppliers on the same engine - could these point to Mobil1 not having been able to optomise for the engine given whatever co-operation (or lack thereof) is provided by Mercedes?
If so is the fuel locked for the season?
Fuel is certainly possible, more likely perhaps is the butterfly suspensions is causing some serious drag.
Obviously we don't have hands on the data but I have to wonder if it the suspension is worth it in light of the fuel issues.
There are two options as I see, either Macca are already planning to remove the suspension but this takes time, or the Macca believe the positives outweigh the negatives.... personally I would get rid of it. I think it is a bit of a gimmick.
For all we know though, that rear suspension is making up for deficits in other areas. If they take it off, they could lose lap time.
I don't think the MP4-29 has relative to the rest of the field, made much of an improvement on the MP4-28. I think they'll be hard pushed to win a race this year, and will realistically find themselves either on the final step of the podium, or just behind, which is where they were last year.
It will be interesting to see if the McLaren go aggressive with the development of the MP4-29, or switch efforts to next years car and the partnership with Honda.
Which is what I was saying, we don't have the data to know if the positives of the butterfly suspension outweigh the negative.
It is worth remember here however that we are not talking about maximum performance, we are talking about maximum fuel restricted performance. It is clear that there exists a balance between performance and fuel usage and you can only maximise performance so far as fuel limits allow.
If you have a car that is super fast with unlimited fuel, but uses so much fuel in achieving maximum performance, it could be of little practical use in a fuel restricted formula.
When Newey says that he tracked cars using GPS with the same engines and found that they respond differently to fuels types that doesn't make sense to me. It can't possibly be true because that would mean Newey can accurately model the drag, downforce and mechanical grip of, say a Merc vs a Mclaren, using only GPS data, and then accurately adjust for that to come up with the conclusion that fuels types are causing differences in performance? I think that is wishful thinking.
Lets consider the information we do know, the obvious item on the MP4-29 causing problems with fuel is the butterfly suspension. We already know the suspension causes a drag penalty and therefore a fuel penalty.
So how can Newey come up his fuel theory, what is the most likely way he could know there is a difference in fuel performance? There are two reasons as I see it. Firstly because it is obvious and secondly because Red Bull might have got their hands on some of the Mercedes fuel and found it was more fuel efficient than their own.
I still believe that if you are going to look at why the Mclaren is so hard on fuel, you must surely look at the butterfly suspension first because it is known to have a fuel penalty because of the increased drag.
