2018 Mexico Grand Prix - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, 26-28 October

[bill shoe]

Also braking. The redbull makes ground on the mercedes under braking after each straight.

Looks like Verstappen's driving style emphasizes late braking and shortening the course with tight apexes and slightly straighter lines between corners, but both Riccardo and Hamilton are slightly more in the direction of wider arcs through corners and carrying bit more speed through them.

[PlatinumZealot]

Alonso split the Force India's so I think my question warrants more than a throwaway 1-liner.

Pointing at McLaren is to point at the outlier, not the trend. As a cohort, the Renault powered cars are significantly faster than normal.

I'm not saying there has to be some attribute of their engine influencing performance.

My question is, what part of the architecture of the current F1 engines would be most impacted by altitude, what component the least, and could it be the case that the Renault is least influenced by these factors (relative to Ferrari and Mercedes) as a result of their particularly architectural strengths?

Well with altitude the air is thinner and the turbos must spin faster to make similar boost to what is made at sea level. (the pressure ratio must be increased). There is probably a reliability limit the teams set on the turbine speed. And thus a boost limit.

On the flip side..
The turbine also will extract more energy from the exhaust because the ambient pressure is lower even though the exiting cylinder pressure does not drop by the same ratio. (? Need to confirm)

So there is an "excess" of energy available to the turbine but you still have your turbine rpm limit. So in reaction you load the turbine more with the ERS. This means the ERS makes a bigger contribution in the power unit now... So one might ask so wouldn't Ferrari and Mercedes get this extra ERS benefit too? Yes.. But they are traction limited with the layout of this track...

So in my view the high altitude allows the ERS a larger fraction of the power output, making the Renault engines a little closer but this "extra available" turbine shaft energy is limited by the track layout and turbine reliability.


This is my guess.

[saviour stivala]

Accumulated mileage of use of some power units is the biggest impact on the performance of some cars on this track, and this effect has/is misguiding a lot of people that follows F1. As a consequence some cars and drivers are artificially being inflated.

[Mansell89]

Looking at tyre strategy guys, are Merc forced to a one stop as they have no new Ultras available?

[NathanOlder]

The clocks have changed in some parts of the world (but not in mine), and not surprisingly, formula1.com is struggling to inform me of the start time in my local time zone. I am now given to believe that the race will start 5 hours from now, instead of 4 as promised yesterday. What is the correct start time?

What is your timezone? Here in New Zealand it will start in 5 hours.

1 hour to race start no matter what country, planet, solar system, galaxy you are from

[cooken]

The clocks have changed in some parts of the world (but not in mine), and not surprisingly, formula1.com is struggling to inform me of the start time in my local time zone. I am now given to believe that the race will start 5 hours from now, instead of 4 as promised yesterday. What is the correct start time?

What is your timezone? Here in New Zealand it will start in 5 hours.

1 hour to race start no matter what country, planet, solar system, galaxy you are from

What about what speed you are traveling?

[NathanOlder]

What is your timezone? Here in New Zealand it will start in 5 hours.

1 hour to race start no matter what country, planet, solar system, galaxy you are from

What about what speed you are traveling?

I hadn't thought of that

[PlatinumZealot]

Dammit Max! Leave space! It's only lap one!

[Shrieker]

Dammit Max! Leave space! It's only lap one!

hahahahaha

[Yurasyk]

Dammit Max! Leave space! It's only lap one!

A bit too late but nice anyway

[nevill3]

Ric on the grass going to the grid! I thought he was stopping at one point, but he made it to the grid eventually

[Just_a_fan]

What is your timezone? Here in New Zealand it will start in 5 hours.

1 hour to race start no matter what country, planet, solar system, galaxy you are from

What about what speed you are traveling?

F1 Technical does special relativity! Yay!

[Phil]

I’ll be surprised if both RB make it to the finish line. Rooting for Dan, but think both, especially Max, will be super aggressive.

[LM10]

Vettel had absolutely no where to go even though he could have had clear pace advantage at the start. But no surprise, was expected. Superb start from Hamilton.

[DarkSurferZA]

A tad ironic that Alonso won't get the record for the most GP laps in light of the talk that he was intentionally retiring the car in the Honda years.

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