Ferrari Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Pyrone89]

I think we all can sense what is going on, everyone in the paddock can sense it, but until someone leaks at the FIA we will not know the specifics. Perhaps in 10 years time we will know more, but I doubt it. Bad for your career to be a whistleblower.

Edit: and there are the -1’s from Ferrari fans in denial. Cheating accusations haha, yeah the FIA made a deal for no reason and they are suddenly slow for no reason with all Ferrari teams. Suuuuure.

[Sieper]

While this of course is very true, the thing coming to my mind is: Running the engine faster, having more power to go faster down the straight thus much more air resistance to overcome...it would mean you burn more fuel.
But if they really burned about 15% more fuel in a race then FIA should have looked into it much earlier in my opinion.

Fuel limited formula, the engine burns the same amount of fuel at 10.5k rpm, 12k rpm or 15 k rpm(so obviously it makes sense to keep it running closer to 10.5k rpm)

Most of their advantage was in acceleration, not top speed so much.

Yes, it was perplexing why the FIA didn't notice that they were burning so much more fuel than the Mercs. I'm surprised Mercedes didn't point it out.

Remember when Leclerc got caught with the wrong amount of fuel in his car? does make more sense now...

And remember when he actually ran out of fuel. That race he was going very fast and his reputation was being made whilst poor old Vettel had (and has) to keep his mouth shut as he too was benefitting from that same engine and he cannot ever make a statement (he’ll lose deniability).

[ENGINE TUNER]

Fuel limited formula, the engine burns the same amount of fuel at 10.5k rpm, 12k rpm or 15 k rpm(so obviously it makes sense to keep it running closer to 10.5k rpm)

Most of their advantage was in acceleration, not top speed so much.

Yes, it was perplexing why the FIA didn't notice that they were burning so much more fuel than the Mercs. I'm surprised Mercedes didn't point it out.

Remember when Leclerc got caught with the wrong amount of fuel in his car? does make more sense now...

And remember when he actually ran out of fuel. That race he was going very fast and his reputation was being made whilst poor old Vettel had (and has) to keep his mouth shut as he too was benefitting from that same engine and he cannot ever make a statement (he’ll lose deniability).

Who ran out of fuel? And when?

[Jolle]

Remember when Leclerc got caught with the wrong amount of fuel in his car? does make more sense now...

And remember when he actually ran out of fuel. That race he was going very fast and his reputation was being made whilst poor old Vettel had (and has) to keep his mouth shut as he too was benefitting from that same engine and he cannot ever make a statement (he’ll lose deniability).

Who ran out of fuel? And when?

I think, if you would go full paranoia, you could think that (I think it was) Abu Dhabi, but personally I don’t think he did.

[ENGINE TUNER]

And remember when he actually ran out of fuel. That race he was going very fast and his reputation was being made whilst poor old Vettel had (and has) to keep his mouth shut as he too was benefitting from that same engine and he cannot ever make a statement (he’ll lose deniability).

Who ran out of fuel? And when?

I think, if you would go full paranoia, you could think that (I think it was) Abu Dhabi, but personally I don’t think he did.

Ran out of fuel and still finished 2 positions ahead of VET andon the podium? Impressive car pushing skills

[Pyrone89]

Who ran out of fuel? And when?

I think, if you would go full paranoia, you could think that (I think it was) Abu Dhabi, but personally I don’t think he did.

Ran out of fuel and still finished 2 positions ahead of VET andon the podium? Impressive car pushing skills

Pronto, activate eurobeat and push car.

[Mr.G]

In this fuel limited formula fuel usage is basically a function of time on throttle, so before they were using more fuel(probably more than the regs allowed) for a shorter amount of time(it took them less time to get down the straight), rather than less fuel for a longer amount of time. Furthermore, Ferrari were regularly using around 15kg more fuel than any of the other engines per race, which should have been a red flag to the regulators in of itself.

While this of course is very true, the thing coming to my mind is: Running the engine faster, having more power to go faster down the straight thus much more air resistance to overcome...it would mean you burn more fuel.
But if they really burned about 15% more fuel in a race then FIA should have looked into it much earlier in my opinion.

Fuel limited formula, the engine burns the same amount of fuel at 10.5k rpm, 12k rpm or 15 k rpm(so obviously it makes sense to keep it running closer to 10.5k rpm)

Most of their advantage was in acceleration, not top speed so much.

Yes, it was perplexing why the FIA didn't notice that they were burning so much more fuel than the Mercs. I'm surprised Mercedes didn't point it out.

I just wondering:
IF their "trick" needed to deliberately put more fuel than reported and now IF it is turned off and all teams with Ferrari engines are 1s slower, does it mean that they have been doing so too? Do we really believe that? Ferrari just came to customer team and tell him to "cheat" and they have been OK with that?

And one more think, during the wet qualifying, where the times are several seconds slower and it's not engine dependent, how it comes that Ferrari isn't higher or Ferrari powdered teams? There must be a different issue with the car, probably with some part that is delivered to the customers too. What if all the issues came from the gearbox?

[ENGINE TUNER]

While this of course is very true, the thing coming to my mind is: Running the engine faster, having more power to go faster down the straight thus much more air resistance to overcome...it would mean you burn more fuel.
But if they really burned about 15% more fuel in a race then FIA should have looked into it much earlier in my opinion.

Fuel limited formula, the engine burns the same amount of fuel at 10.5k rpm, 12k rpm or 15 k rpm(so obviously it makes sense to keep it running closer to 10.5k rpm)

Most of their advantage was in acceleration, not top speed so much.

Yes, it was perplexing why the FIA didn't notice that they were burning so much more fuel than the Mercs. I'm surprised Mercedes didn't point it out.

I just wondering:
IF their "trick" needed to deliberately put more fuel than reported and now IF it is turned off and all teams with Ferrari engines are 1s slower, does it mean that they have been doing so too? Do we really believe that? Ferrari just came to customer team and tell him to "cheat" and they have been OK with that?

And one more think, during the wet qualifying, where the times are several seconds slower and it's not engine dependent, how it comes that Ferrari isn't higher or Ferrari powdered teams? There must be a different issue with the car, probably with some part that is delivered to the customers too. What if all the issues came from the gearbox?

Excellent questions. Ferrari were only caught putting in more fuel than stated once, so it could have very well been an honest mistake that one time. But it was clear that Ferrari were using more fuel over the race distance than Merc(but still within the legal total race distance amount allowed). I remember some races where Merc were winning with 85 to 90kg, and Ferrari were coming in second using 100 to 105. Carrying that much extra fuel is a handling and braking penalty, so they have to be doing it for a reason.

Ferrari customers didn't have to be asked to cheat. They would have just been told how much fuel and cooling the PU requires and not given much more information. Ferrari customers could have easily been taking advantage of the extra fuel usage advantage without knowing if or how it worked. The people running the PUs in the customer teams actually work for the manufacturers.

The Ferrari customers may not have had access to the full oil burning or intercooler coolant burning tricks.

Remember, we are talking about tenths of seconds, not full seconds worth of time here. This is currently the closest field in F1 history. From fastest driver to slowest, and fastest car to slowest, it is unmatched in closeness, small margins matter more than ever now.

Ferrari drivers were complaining about not getting the tires up to temp today. The PU probably wasn't their biggest problem today, but remember, with less power they probably have to take off some of their dirtier downforce or they'd be dead slow end of straight.

[donskar]

I suppose we will never know exactly what happened between the FIA and Ferrari. But I do wonder: how is F1 improved by having only two truly competitive teams rather than three? Perhaps worse, now we have two more teams -- Alfa Romeo and Haas -- joining Williams at the bottom. Did Ferrari do something truly beyond the pale, or did FIA misjudge the effect of their actions?

[Pyrone89]

While this of course is very true, the thing coming to my mind is: Running the engine faster, having more power to go faster down the straight thus much more air resistance to overcome...it would mean you burn more fuel.
But if they really burned about 15% more fuel in a race then FIA should have looked into it much earlier in my opinion.

Fuel limited formula, the engine burns the same amount of fuel at 10.5k rpm, 12k rpm or 15 k rpm(so obviously it makes sense to keep it running closer to 10.5k rpm)

Most of their advantage was in acceleration, not top speed so much.

Yes, it was perplexing why the FIA didn't notice that they were burning so much more fuel than the Mercs. I'm surprised Mercedes didn't point it out.

I just wondering:
IF their "trick" needed to deliberately put more fuel than reported and now IF it is turned off and all teams with Ferrari engines are 1s slower, does it mean that they have been doing so too? Do we really believe that? Ferrari just came to customer team and tell him to "cheat" and they have been OK with that?

And one more think, during the wet qualifying, where the times are several seconds slower and it's not engine dependent, how it comes that Ferrari isn't higher or Ferrari powdered teams? There must be a different issue with the car, probably with some part that is delivered to the customers too. What if all the issues came from the gearbox?

Or

the customer teams never cheated but are also forced to use the new and castrated 2020 engine. Also because of equal equipment rules and the FIA not going to stand for anyone using the 2019 engine anymore.

[Pyrone89]

I suppose we will never know exactly what happened between the FIA and Ferrari. But I do wonder: how is F1 improved by having only two truly competitive teams rather than three? Perhaps worse, now we have two more teams -- Alfa Romeo and Haas -- joining Williams at the bottom. Did Ferrari do something truly beyond the pale, or did FIA misjudge the effect of their actions?

1 competitive team. Mercedes. All the others are in one way or another lagging. And the 2021 rules are not gonna make that beter with the floor cut hurting high rake cars the most. In fact, all rule changes since 2014 have been in favor of the leading team whereas in the past the FIA actively tried to reel the leading team back as seen by bans hurting Renault, Ferrari and before that Williams. The exact opposite has been going on since 2014 (engine, tokens, development freeze at convenient times for Brixworth, special tyres with less thread, front wing changes and coming up floor cuts).

[Mr.G]

Fuel limited formula, the engine burns the same amount of fuel at 10.5k rpm, 12k rpm or 15 k rpm(so obviously it makes sense to keep it running closer to 10.5k rpm)

Most of their advantage was in acceleration, not top speed so much.

Yes, it was perplexing why the FIA didn't notice that they were burning so much more fuel than the Mercs. I'm surprised Mercedes didn't point it out.

I just wondering:
IF their "trick" needed to deliberately put more fuel than reported and now IF it is turned off and all teams with Ferrari engines are 1s slower, does it mean that they have been doing so too? Do we really believe that? Ferrari just came to customer team and tell him to "cheat" and they have been OK with that?

And one more think, during the wet qualifying, where the times are several seconds slower and it's not engine dependent, how it comes that Ferrari isn't higher or Ferrari powdered teams? There must be a different issue with the car, probably with some part that is delivered to the customers too. What if all the issues came from the gearbox?

Excellent questions. Ferrari were only caught putting in more fuel than stated once, so it could have very well been an honest mistake that one time. But it was clear that Ferrari were using more fuel over the race distance than Merc(but still within the legal total race distance amount allowed). I remember some races where Merc were winning with 85 to 90kg, and Ferrari were coming in second using 100 to 105. Carrying that much extra fuel is a handling and braking penalty, so they have to be doing it for a reason.

Ferrari customers didn't have to be asked to cheat. They would have just been told how much fuel and cooling the PU requires and not given much more information. Ferrari customers could have easily been taking advantage of the extra fuel usage advantage without knowing if or how it worked. The people running the PUs in the customer teams actually work for the manufacturers.

The Ferrari customers may not have had access to the full oil burning or intercooler coolant burning tricks.

Remember, we are talking about tenths of seconds, not full seconds worth of time here. This is currently the closest field in F1 history. From fastest driver to slowest, and fastest car to slowest, it is unmatched in closeness, small margins matter more than ever now.

Ferrari drivers were complaining about not getting the tires up to temp today. The PU probably wasn't their biggest problem today, but remember, with less power they probably have to take off some of their dirtier downforce or they'd be dead slow end of straight.

I was thinking mainly about the fuel flow "trickery", because the rumor is that they burned more fuel than allowed, so if the customers teams used the qualy/party/overtake mode then if the "trick" would be burning more fuel than allowed and if they don "cheat" during reporting the actual fuel amount, then after race it would be obvious...

[ENGINE TUNER]

I was thinking mainly about the fuel flow "trickery", because the rumor is that they burned more fuel than allowed, so if the customers teams used the qualy/party/overtake mode then if the "trick" would be burning more fuel than allowed and if they don "cheat" during reporting the actual fuel amount, then after race it would be obvious...

How would it be obvious if they dont exceed the allowed race fuel allotment? Which is now 105 or 110kg per race.

They are reported to have exceeded the fuel flow rate regulation(by tricking the standard FIA sensor), not the race fuel allotment regulation.

[Mr.G]

I was thinking mainly about the fuel flow "trickery", because the rumor is that they burned more fuel than allowed, so if the customers teams used the qualy/party/overtake mode then if the "trick" would be burning more fuel than allowed and if they don "cheat" during reporting the actual fuel amount, then after race it would be obvious...

How would it be obvious if they dont exceed the allowed race fuel allotment? Which is now 105 or 110kg per race.

They are reported to have exceeded the fuel flow rate regulation(by tricking the standard FIA sensor), not the race fuel allotment regulation.

By the weight control or by random check, same way as Ferrari "was catched".
If you say you have 105kg at start and by the sensor measurements you burned only 80kg there must be 25kg left...

[ENGINE TUNER]

I was thinking mainly about the fuel flow "trickery", because the rumor is that they burned more fuel than allowed, so if the customers teams used the qualy/party/overtake mode then if the "trick" would be burning more fuel than allowed and if they don "cheat" during reporting the actual fuel amount, then after race it would be obvious...

How would it be obvious if they dont exceed the allowed race fuel allotment? Which is now 105 or 110kg per race.

They are reported to have exceeded the fuel flow rate regulation(by tricking the standard FIA sensor), not the race fuel allotment regulation.

By the weight control or by random check, same way as Ferrari "was catched".
If you say you have 105kg at start and by the sensor measurements you burned only 80kg there must be 25kg left...

The FIA standard fuel flow sensor does not tell you how much you burned, it tells the near instantaneous fuel flow to the high pressure pump. Whatever the Ferrari sensors say is the fuel burn can be doctored without anyone knowing.


Edit: ah yes, the Fia do monitor in race fuel usage, ok, I have to look more into how they do that, or if it is merely reported by the PU manufacturer software.