Ferrari Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Maplesoup]

This makes no sense to me.

Even if they under declared, the flow meter is still tracking how much fuel was actually used. Thus to actually use the extra fuel they didn't declare would still require them to trick the flow meter.

Fuel flow meters don't measure the overall amount of fuel being used. It measures the fuel flow every 100m/s or so to ensure they don't attempt to push more fuel from the tank to the engine than is allowed. They could compile this information to get an overall estimate but it would be just an estimate.

How do you think they monitor the 110kg limit?

My understanding is that they have always integrated the FFS readings over the course of the race . The TD at the beginning of the year allows them to validate the FFS estimate using the pre-race declared fuel weight and post race weighing.

Teams declare how much fuel they are going to run, cars are then fueled and randomly selected prior to the race to b weighed. They then pull all the fuel out of the car and weight it again so measure how much fuel is in the car. Ferrari have gone through this process randomly 10 times this year, so trying to cheat would be very risky. The cars then go through this whole process again at the end of the race (all cars this time i believe) to workout how much fuel they've used vs what they declared.

Its unlikely any teams use 110kg of fuel simply because of the weight and the effect it will have on the tires. So the limit is there but no one is going to try to go over it because you basically give yourself a weight penalty at the beginning of the race.

Ferrari don't have just a pure engine advantage they also have a drag advantage hence why they accelerate so quickly. The new technical directives have had very little effect for Ferrari, since the TD's where issued Ferrari have simply been running more downforce so their advantage in the straight line has been lessened but its been confirmed that their performance in the corners has improved from the extra downforce.

[LM10]

Can someone clear me up, please? This whole situation gets only more confusing.
Weren’t some team members and the media sure about Ferrari having lost power after TD post-Mexico? Now Mark Hughes suggests that Ferrari (might) have been using more fuel in order to compensate for lost performance due to fuel flow meter TD and make others think that they’ve not lost anything?

[El Scorchio]

It definitely seems like they've lost something. They are still fast in a straight line, so clearly still have some horses, but they are not tenths up on a single straight like they were earlier in the season. You'd have expected them to smash everyone down the long straight(s) at Yas, but it's not really happened.

Actually.. They gained half a second on the straights but lost 6 tenths in the slow speed..

Are you sure? When I was looking at the splits in qualifying etc. they were a couple of tenths up at best after s1/2. Or are you saying that the corners even in those sectors really negated straight line speed? I don't ever look at 'micro sectors' so I don't know what the pure time difference on the long straight was. Does anyone know that actual figure?

[izzy]

Can someone clear me up, please? This whole situation gets only more confusing.
Weren’t some team members and the media sure about Ferrari having lost power after TD post-Mexico? Now Mark Hughes suggests that Ferrari (might) have been using more fuel in order to compensate for lost performance due to fuel flow meter TD and make others think that they’ve not lost anything?

lol, Ferrari are clever is one thing we can be sure about . For me the second fuel sensor is next year, this year the oil in the porous intercooler got nixed, and they still have something a bit special but not illegal with the battery. The fuel error was most likely an error as that wouldn't be clever would it, it was always too likely Jo Bauer would check it

Are they running extra sensors for the tyres today? This is the thing they need

[One and Only]

It definitely seems like they've lost something. They are still fast in a straight line, so clearly still have some horses, but they are not tenths up on a single straight like they were earlier in the season. You'd have expected them to smash everyone down the long straight(s) at Yas, but it's not really happened.

Actually.. They gained half a second on the straights but lost 6 tenths in the slow speed..

Are you sure? When I was looking at the splits in qualifying etc. they were a couple of tenths up at best after s1/2. Or are you saying that the corners even in those sectors really negated straight line speed? I don't ever look at 'micro sectors' so I don't know what the pure time difference on the long straight was. Does anyone know that actual figure?

They were faster in sectors with both corners and long straights. In sector with only corners they lost 6 tenths compared to pole sitter. An educated guess would be that they only gained on straights in sectors 1 and 2, lost in corners, and still managed to have best times in those sectors. They had to gain a lot on those two straights. Micro sector times would be nice to have.

[jumpingfish]

Actually.. They gained half a second on the straights but lost 6 tenths in the slow speed..

Are you sure? When I was looking at the splits in qualifying etc. they were a couple of tenths up at best after s1/2. Or are you saying that the corners even in those sectors really negated straight line speed? I don't ever look at 'micro sectors' so I don't know what the pure time difference on the long straight was. Does anyone know that actual figure?

They were faster in sectors with both corners and long straights. In sector with only corners they lost 6 tenths compared to pole sitter. An educated guess would be that they only gained on straights in sectors 1 and 2, lost in corners, and still managed to have best times in those sectors. They had to gain a lot on those two straights. Micro sector times would be nice to have.

Video with minisectors comparison Leclerc-Hamilton Q3
https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2019/ ... Dhabi.html

[saviour stivala]

Can someone clear me up, please? This whole situation gets only more confusing.
Weren’t some team members and the media sure about Ferrari having lost power after TD post-Mexico? Now Mark Hughes suggests that Ferrari (might) have been using more fuel in order to compensate for lost performance due to fuel flow meter TD and make others think that they’ve not lost anything?

MH writes for his followers and it is in the interest of most of his followers to write the way he did.
Telemetry data shows fuel mass flow as well as fuel load being consumed. There is no escaping this telemetry data at any point during a race. This data has lead the FIA to pin-point at which part of the lap maximum allowed fuel flow was breached. It also lets the teams themselves constantly monitor their car fuel consumption.
FERRARI did not breached the allowed use of (lights-to-flag) 110 kg fuel load and neither the 100 kg/h maximum fuel flow – only the TD about declaring the ‘start’ (car out of garage to on the grid) fuel load.

[PlatinumZealot]

It definitely seems like they've lost something. They are still fast in a straight line, so clearly still have some horses, but they are not tenths up on a single straight like they were earlier in the season. You'd have expected them to smash everyone down the long straight(s) at Yas, but it's not really happened.

Actually.. They gained half a second on the straights but lost 6 tenths in the slow speed..

Are you sure? When I was looking at the splits in qualifying etc. they were a couple of tenths up at best after s1/2. Or are you saying that the corners even in those sectors really negated straight line speed? I don't ever look at 'micro sectors' so I don't know what the pure time difference on the long straight was. Does anyone know that actual figure?

I measure it accumulatively. Looked on lewis vs leclerc side by side and just add up the time that Ferrari gains accross the straights over the lap.

[SiLo]

Can someone clear me up, please? This whole situation gets only more confusing.
Weren’t some team members and the media sure about Ferrari having lost power after TD post-Mexico? Now Mark Hughes suggests that Ferrari (might) have been using more fuel in order to compensate for lost performance due to fuel flow meter TD and make others think that they’ve not lost anything?

MH writes for his followers and it is in the interest of most of his followers to write the way he did.
Telemetry data shows fuel mass flow as well as fuel load being consumed. There is no escaping this telemetry data at any point during a race. This data has lead the FIA to pin-point at which part of the lap maximum allowed fuel flow was breached. It also lets the teams themselves constantly monitor their car fuel consumption.
FERRARI did not breached the allowed use of (lights-to-flag) 110 kg fuel load and neither the 100 kg/h maximum fuel flow – only the TD about declaring the ‘start’ (car out of garage to on the grid) fuel load.

That's ignoring really what MH is saying though. The point is that before the directive Ferrari could have been using more fuel than allowed, but what they have been doing for a few races now is declaring an amount of fuel that is lower than what they actually put in the car. What this does is make it look like they weren't hit by the directive, because they still have the performance on the straight by just running the engine in a higher mode and using more fuel. It doesn't bridge the gap to the original boost, but it goes a long way to masking it. With this issue in Abu Dhabi, teams will now suspect this is what Ferrari were doing and likely use it as confirmation that Ferrai were doing something funky with the fuel flow meters.

[turbof1]

but what they have been doing for a few races now is declaring an amount of fuel that is lower than what they actually put in the car.

Not going to deny or confirm that, but we only know of one instance -last race- that that happened.

General message: I made this point before in the Ferrari Team, but let me repeat for good measure: I'd like to see some restraint on accusations of cheating. Not that members are considered to act naïve, but because we neither can exclude coincidence and accusation of cheating comes with a big baggage of emotions. Therefore please keep the discussion also about the hardware. And state your ideas as hypotheses.

[subcritical71]

Telemetry data shows fuel mass flow as well as fuel load being consumed. There is no escaping this telemetry data at any point during a race. This data has lead the FIA to pin-point at which part of the lap maximum allowed fuel flow was breached. It also lets the teams themselves constantly monitor their car fuel consumption.

You seem to have more faith in the sensor than the FIA who is in charge of the regulations has. For 2020 there will now be two FFS, there must be some shortcomings in a one sensor setup that a two sensor setup rectifies. Maybe they are being proactive in this regard or maybe they have seen something they don’t like, and this could be something any team has done not just Ferrari.

[henry]

Fuel flow meters don't measure the overall amount of fuel being used. It measures the fuel flow every 100m/s or so to ensure they don't attempt to push more fuel from the tank to the engine than is allowed. They could compile this information to get an overall estimate but it would be just an estimate.

How do you think they monitor the 110kg limit?

My understanding is that they have always integrated the FFS readings over the course of the race . The TD at the beginning of the year allows them to validate the FFS estimate using the pre-race declared fuel weight and post race weighing.

Teams declare how much fuel they are going to run, cars are then fueled and randomly selected prior to the race to b weighed. They then pull all the fuel out of the car and weight it again so measure how much fuel is in the car. Ferrari have gone through this process randomly 10 times this year, so trying to cheat would be very risky. The cars then go through this whole process again at the end of the race (all cars this time i believe) to workout how much fuel they've used vs what they declared.

Its unlikely any teams use 110kg of fuel simply because of the weight and the effect it will have on the tires. So the limit is there but no one is going to try to go over it because you basically give yourself a weight penalty at the beginning of the race.

Two points.

The TD protocol does not check the fuel used in the race, it checks the total fuel used from pit fill to engine switch off after the race. It’s used to check the FFS accuracy.

Even so. How do you think they measured the total fuel consumed in the race before this year?

This is not an issue of Ferrari right or wrong. It’s a discussion of the techniques the FIA have put in place to ensure that the fuel consumption rate and total fuel consumed are within the regulations. These apply at all fill amounts not just 110kg.

[saviour stivala]

“You seem to have more faith in the sensor than the FIA who is in charge of the regulations has”.
Although I understand ‘why’ some ‘doubts’ the fuel flow sensor, how can I not have ‘faith’ in the fuel flow sensor? When facts shows that the policing and tools used to police fuel flow has first of all not only caught-out overflowing by the smallest of margins but also pin-pointed on which part of the lap the overflow happened. And secondly when facts show that the accusers of others using more fuel flow than allowed were themselves the ones caught-out abusing the fuel flow, not once but twice.
“For 2020 there will be two FFS, There must be some shortcomings in one sensor set-up that a two set-up rectifies”
A ‘two sensor’ set-up can also be the aim of ‘shutting-up’ the fuel flow accusers/fuel flow sensor doubters.

[turbof1]

“For 2020 there will be two FFS, There must be some shortcomings in one sensor set-up that a two set-up rectifies”
A ‘two sensor’ set-up can also be the aim of ‘shutting-up’ the fuel flow accusers/fuel flow sensor doubters.

I think that is a valid possibility. They did the same when oil burning was the hot thing a couple of years ago. Up to this day nobody got convicted for that. I'm not willing to go as far as excluding it, or confirming it. But, the second FFS will for sure bring peace on this front again.

[Capharol]

“For 2020 there will be two FFS, There must be some shortcomings in one sensor set-up that a two set-up rectifies”
A ‘two sensor’ set-up can also be the aim of ‘shutting-up’ the fuel flow accusers/fuel flow sensor doubters.

I think that is a valid possibility. They did the same when oil burning was the hot thing a couple of years ago. Up to this day nobody got convicted for that. I'm not willing to go as far as excluding it, or confirming it. But, the second FFS will for sure bring peace on this front again.

after the winterbreak nobody will ask for it anymore