Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[shingles]

I guess it never once occurred to Max or the team to pit Max, fix the setting, serve the penalty, and give Max the fastest lap and a chance at attacking Bottas for the podium. It's understandable that Max will go for the win, but sometimes you need a level headed strategist to see through the mayhem.

Say they come in, pit Max... maybe he comes out 4th, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he comes out further back after serving the penalty. Why do you think they were not level headed? Why do you think they didn’t think about it? Maybe they DID think about it and this was the best choice. As far as I saw, the choice was fine, they wouldn’t have ended any better.

Your same point about attacking Bottas, is the same as attacking Hamilton. If you can get past, they could maybe pull more than 5 seconds... but at the end of the day, it’s Monaco.

[NL_Fer]

I guess it never once occurred to Max or the team to pit Max, fix the setting, serve the penalty, and give Max the fastest lap and a chance at attacking Bottas for the podium. It's understandable that Max will go for the win, but sometimes you need a level headed strategist to see through the mayhem.

The option was considered, but declined. Rather took a chance on Hamilton failing or sliding into a barier.

[ispano6]

To re pit? the option aired over the radio was take 5 second penalty or pass Hamilton and drive off into the distance. As I said before I completely understand Max's decision to take the fight to Hamilton for a win. But once the torque mode issue was identified it is not that there was no possible way to fix the issue. We'll never know if a Max on brand new fresh tires with the correct torque mode could catch and overtake a Bottas on old hards, but we'll never know.
Looking at other team's roadblock strategy makes me wonder what could have been especially if Gasly didn't get demoted to 8th.

[belldanndy]

Onlything i can think of is, that the menu option is only available with pit limiter enabled.

Good luck finding the appendix, however....

8.3.2 The ECU will implement a “lockout” period after each race start or pit stop during which a number of power unit and clutch related functions will be frozen or disabled. Details of the strategy may be found in the Appendix to the Technical Regulations.

So what the "The ECU will implement a “lockout” period" means is the lockout only occurred for a period of time before it can be release? I still can't understand how this race start/pit stop torque mapping work.

[Slo Poke]

I thought he had an SNES in the car

This article has just come out:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/vers ... o/4397096/

Anybody have any idea what it could possibly be that they can only change when the car is in the pit lane? I haven't heard of the other 3 engine manufacturers having a setting like this.

I don’t want to appear rude to anyone but I’m surprised that no-one on site doesn’t already know!
Engine modes are technically chosen by the driver although not normally in an expected way. You will all remember some years back, as it was made a big thing of, about how the Mercedes drivers would go out on track and attack sector one and then abruptly return to the pit garage. Moments later out they would go again and attack sector two and likewise return to the pit garage. Then finally they’d be attacking sector three and so forth. After which both would spend some time driving at near race speeds then again return to the pit garage to fine-tune certain settings. All this mainly went on during early-mid fp1 and would no doubt involve data collection and archiving. Well! Here’s a brief of what they were up to. Please bear with me.
Consider two miniature hydraulic rams arranged in perfect opposition. When the chromed ram on the left is almost fully exposed and naked from its cylinder the ram on the right is almost fully sheathed inside of its cylinder awaiting work. The cylinder on the left is coupled up to the adjustable swashplate hydraulic pump (it may even have its own dedicated pump) whatever, that ram remains idle when it’s not quite fully extended. The cylinder on the right is coupled by branch-line to the braking system and so extends under braking. The eye common to each ram has a scribe or some such attached to it that moves along a set of piano-like keys. Each key represents an engine mode, the more aggressive modes being those at far right. Of course the hydraulic rams as such have never existed on a formula car, as far more sophisticated electronic potentiometers will have always filled that role but you should now grasp the simplified reasoning of engine mode selection to enable accurate nullification of wheel slip and drivability. When requested by push-to-pass, the ram on the left is allowed to fully sheathe the ram on the right, otherwise that, or those modes remain barred to protect the engine from unnecessary wear.
Once set and not strictly adhered to these engine modes are likely to end up out of sequence to the track in question, as Max would have found out after he pressed the torque demand pedal exiting a particular corner. If say he wanted controlled but very quickly provided high torque leaving Portier and the out-sequenced hydraulics were configured for Nouvelle the system would seem to him like it was trying to put him to sleep. Moving quickly on to Max needing a steady influx of torque at Nouvelle an out-sequenced hydraulics we’re now configured for A. Nogues the system would likely try to kill him.
When Max left the circuit to pit, the car may probably have been in mode six and so he would manually switch to mode twelve, start mode but the kerfuffel threw them all and mode six was not saught at pit exit, which leads me to believe the white pit exit line out on track, ends roughly where a formula one car might be self acquiring mode six?
Hope that's a help!

[saviour stivala]

Before number 33 RB pitted it was running in VSC mode, before crossing the pit-lane ‘in-line’ the driver activated the pit-lane speed limiter, on its way out of the pit-lane and after crossing the pit-lane ‘out-line’ the driver deactivated the pit-lane speed limiter. Once the pit-lane speed limiter had been deactivated the power unit would have returned to what mode had been chosen before the activating of the pit-lane speed limiter when entering the pits. But what nobody is noticing is that returning to the mode that was chosen before the activation of the pit-lane speed limiter could not be returned too on pit lane exit, because track was still under VSC mode condition.

[saviour stivala]

The red bull instructions to their driver to ‘go-to torque 12 mode’ in-between the car running in VSC mode and the activation of the speed limiter seems to have been overridden by the FIA ECU software safeguards.

[subcritical71]

Onlything i can think of is, that the menu option is only available with pit limiter enabled.

Good luck finding the appendix, however....

8.3.2 The ECU will implement a “lockout” period after each race start or pit stop during which a number of power unit and clutch related functions will be frozen or disabled. Details of the strategy may be found in the Appendix to the Technical Regulations.

I had an idea of what these modes could be, it's the way i would consider doing it anyway. We know the torque map limitations as far as the rules are written (for example ramp rate). RB reminded VER to go to T6 and then return to T12 after the pitstop so it was a deliberate change for the pitstop. it just became public knowledge since in the mayhem on the pot exit he forgot to switch back. What if T6 is using more of the K at lower pedal positions so as to create a virtual anti-stall. So during the pitstop the K wont get bogged down as easy as the ICE could when leaving the pit. That scenario is not available during the start, but nothing about pit stops are mentioned in the rules.

[Slo Poke]

Before number 33 RB pitted it was running in VSC mode, before crossing the pit-lane ‘in-line’ the driver activated the pit-lane speed limiter, on its way out of the pit-lane and after crossing the pit-lane ‘out-line’ the driver deactivated the pit-lane speed limiter. Once the pit-lane speed limiter had been deactivated the power unit would have returned to what mode had been chosen before the activating of the pit-lane speed limiter when entering the pits. But what nobody is noticing is that returning to the mode that was chosen before the activation of the pit-lane speed limiter could not be returned too on pit lane exit, because track was still under VSC mode condition.

Saviour Stivala: Before pitting, the RB car 33 may have been self-acquiring engine mode six after leaving Rascasse, even though already being under the overall control mode VSC. Turning to pit the driver of car 33 needed to set both launch mode 12 and the pit-lane speed limiter. This indicates to me that the VSC mode is merely an overlay type speed limiter that allows engine modes to still be engaged and dis-engaged at driver’s will. As such it does not interfere with actual car control or manipulation in any way other than being a speed controller. As for the pit-lane limiter, this is much the same type of thing but with far more stringent control of speed. Once mode 12, launch mode, had been manually selected it remains as the standard underlying setting being the driver’s optimal choice to suit the ongoing circumstance.
The incident in pit-lane dislodged the thought process of the RB driver enough to disfigure the routine of pit exiting but not enough to ruin the habit of disengaging the pit-lane speed limiter. Stirred but not shaken the RB driver arrived back on track busily reorganising his thoughts but not his thought process. Had he have followed that thought line the proper engine mode six would have been manually re-acquired. That does imply that an inability exists in the RB driver but that is not the case here as he was as likely as not going through a self-taught, self-imposed regimen of preservation, that being damage discovery i.e. is there any! Assisted into this lull by the VSC mode still being in governance. Once the falsity of that protection was stripped away though......... Oops!

[saviour stivala]

“motorsports.com/f1/news/vers…0/4317096/” is total hogwash and one of those misleading article reporting with half or nonexistent truths and added bits and pieces which causes confusion and triggers polemics that pushes out assumptions and theories as to what was what. The facts are that RB number 33 pitted while race was under VSC mode. (VSC from lap 11 to lap 13) Before RB number 33 passed the pit-lane ‘in-line’ driver activated pit-lane speed limiter. On the way out of pit-lane, and after passing pit-lane ‘out-line’ number 33 deactivated pit-lane speed limiter. When number 33 did that the car went back into VSC mode because he joined the track while race was still under VSC. 10 laps from the end of the race RB gave permission to number 33 to run a higher engine mode (mode 7) to the end of the race. And number 33 had no trouble doing so. Ditto happened with Mercedes number 44 in response, instructed their driver to run a higher engine mode to the end of the race.

[henry]

I think there is confusion from the use of the word mode.

The torque map the failed to be correctly was probably the pedal to torque demand map

The mode change at the end of the race was to a higher energy mode using different ERS and ICE mappings. It’s what Mercedes call Strat.

My guess is the start torque map is less progressive, more sudden, than the race map since it’s only expected to be used in a straight line.

[subcritical71]

I think there is confusion from the use of the word mode.

The torque map the failed to be correctly was probably the pedal to torque demand map

The mode change at the end of the race was to a higher energy mode using different ERS and ICE mappings. It’s what Mercedes call Strat.

My guess is the start torque map is less progressive, more sudden, than the race map since it’s only expected to be used in a straight line.

I’m with you on the torque setting being linked to torque demand curve. I believe the lockout is an effort to prevent the turn by turn changing of the torque demand maps. The Red Bull steering wheel has Mode, Fuel, and Charge dials front and center. The Torque rotary (the type generally used for diff settings) is out of the way in the upper right part of the steering wheel next to the PIT button. Exactly where you would put something that isn’t used much.

[saviour stivala]

It is the easiest of things for confusion to creep in in such a discussion. And the article writer as quoted certainly contributed a lot to confusion. Every change by the driver to any of the power unit function is a ‘mode’, being it for more or less power or more or less aggressive throttle pedal map.

[NL_Fer]

Engine power modes are usually linked to mapping fuel amounts and ignition timing. The Torque mapping is about how much torque the powerunit has to deliver for each throttle paddle position. Things can be confusing sometimes.

I think the Torque mapping for takeoff’s are tuned to make it easy to keep the powerunit on the desired takeoff rpm, while the clutch is pulled in. The normal mapping is more suited for corner exits.

[belldanndy]

Engine power modes are usually linked to mapping fuel amounts and ignition timing. The Torque mapping is about how much torque the powerunit has to deliver for each throttle paddle position. Things can be confusing sometimes.

I think the Torque mapping for takeoff’s are tuned to make it easy to keep the powerunit on the desired takeoff rpm, while the clutch is pulled in. The normal mapping is more suited for corner exits.

The RB15 Steering Wheel have a turning wheel "TORQ" on the top right, is this for the Torque mapping setting? If so, there are 12 position for different setting, Monaco use 6 and 12, will it be different at other tracks?