Red Bull RB6

[Pup]

I guess it depends on exactly what the ECU does when it goes into fuel saving mode. If it intermittently cuts the fuel supply, then I suppose it could sound like a miss. But then I don't know why it would do that - you'd think it would just lean out the mix. I suppose there's a chance that the mix could get too lean, if things got bad enough, and at that point, the ECU might start cutting fuel. Just thinking, if I were designing an ECU like this, I'd want running out of fuel to be the dead last thing that would happen - outside of burning something up - so yeah, I guess the ECU could take things to extremes like cutting fuel to keep that from happening. Or perhaps a lean mix could have increased the temps enough to damage a plug or the exhaust? (Hmm. I wonder if that could have been part of Massa's heating probs?)

It did look like Vettle ran out of gas on the parade lap.

[autogyro]

If a plug is miss firing, then the fuel in that cylinder will not be fully burnt and it will go into the exhaust without converting any energy.
This will be a fuel percentage loss.
With a very tight amount of fuel to achieve full race distance, this is very likely to result in running out of fuel at or near the end of the race.
An ECU problem could give similar or perhaps identical results as a faulty plug.
If this is the case it will certainly raise some interesting questions as to the supply source.

[Pup]

If a plug is miss firing, then the fuel in that cylinder will not be fully burnt and it will go into the exhaust without converting any energy.
This will be a fuel percentage loss.
With a very tight amount of fuel to achieve full race distance, this is very likely to result in running out of fuel at or near the end of the race.
An ECU problem could give similar or perhaps identical results as a faulty plug.
If this is the case it will certainly raise some interesting questions as to the supply source.

Far more likely that the ECU would do exactly what it's designed to do; i.e., adjust fuel consumption due to the energy being lost though the misfiring cylinder.

Besides, if the ECU had malfunctioned, Red Bull would have said just that. This sounds like pure axe-grinding to me.

[wesley123]

Wes: Sabotage - really?

I was just joking, nothing serious in that post

[Pup]

[ringo]

They could have run out of fuel near then the end with a faulty spark plug. So i think it's both the spark plug and fuel.
Down 1 cylinder means the car is running at 7/8 the power it should, while using the same amount of fuel as if it were 100%. This coupled with the slower lap time due to the drop in power means the RB6 would not make it home with what was supposed to be a calculated amount of fuel for each lap. The Renault engine in the rb6 was basically to least fuel efficient engine after that accident. The only solution was to go in fuel saving mode. Sounds reasonable?

[manchild]

Down 1 cylinder means the car is running at 7/8 the power it should, while using the same amount of fuel as if it were 100%.

I'm sorry, but this is totally wrong. Loss of power and increase of fuel consumption was much bigger.

V8 engine with 7 operational cylinders can't be considered as V7 engine.

That was V8 with one cyl. misfiring, and gaining no power but only generating additional friction, thus wasting fuel and raising temperature (unless ECU is programmed to cut-off fuel supply to a cylinder that misfires). Even if fuel supply tho that cyl. was cut-off, that engine would require more fuel than fully operational V8.

[WhiteBlue]

Even if fuel supply tho that cyl. was cut-off, that engine would require more fuel than fully operational V8.

Particularly if the team was running injector maps with richer fuel mixture to compensate for the power loss. It very much looked that way as Vettel mysteriously gained back some of the lost power and managed to do the last laps with a smaller pace gap to the leaders than the first five laps after the malfunction started.

[MattF1]

doesn't fuel saving mode put the engine down onto four cylinders? Might that be the source of the misfire sound. Not sure that I really believe this story AT ALL but all possible facts and options should be studied.

[manchild]

doesn't fuel saving mode put the engine down onto four cylinders? Might that be the source of the misfire sound. Not sure that I really believe this story AT ALL but all possible facts and options should be studied.

Nope, that can be done only on passenger cars with low IDLE and big flywheel. V8 F1 engine couldn't function on 4 cyl.

Fuel saving mode just reduces richness of mixture via ECU. That's all.

[Pup]

Even if fuel supply tho that cyl. was cut-off, that engine would require more fuel than fully operational V8.

Particularly if the team was running injector maps with richer fuel mixture to compensate for the power loss. It very much looked that way as Vettel mysteriously gained back some of the lost power and managed to do the last laps with a smaller pace gap to the leaders than the first five laps after the malfunction started.

Or the ECU recalculated.

[Jersey Tom]

It would be awfully easy for the ECU to just cut fuel to the one cylinder if it noticed said plug to be faulty.. without changing the mix to the other cylinders.

[Pup]

True.

[ringo]

Down 1 cylinder means the car is running at 7/8 the power it should, while using the same amount of fuel as if it were 100%.

I'm sorry, but this is totally wrong. Loss of power and increase of fuel consumption was much bigger.

V8 engine with 7 operational cylinders can't be considered as V7 engine.

That was V8 with one cyl. misfiring, and gaining no power but only generating additional friction, thus wasting fuel and raising temperature (unless ECU is programmed to cut-off fuel supply to a cylinder that misfires). Even if fuel supply tho that cyl. was cut-off, that engine would require more fuel than fully operational V8.

Well i don't see the disagreement here? I was saying the fuel efficiency drops. Same friction power as a v8, with less indicated power. Same load as the V8 with only 7 cylinders hence the 7/8.
I don't see the misunderstanding. If it's the wording 100% i was comparing the engine at 8 cylinders versus 7.

[Mr Alcatraz]

"The Boss" has spoken!

]"The Red Bull is ridiculously faster than anyone else's car," Hamilton told the British media. "It's insane. The downforce they had on their car last year was at some points just about double what we had.

"Even at the end of the year they had so much more than us, even though we had won a couple of grands prix.

"They have both got the fastest car by quite a big step. They should be quite a lot further ahead in general."

Although Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was able to pressure Vettel even before his problems at Sakhir, Hamilton does not think even Ferrari is a match for Red Bull on raw speed.

"Fernando I think was very quick in the race and they are obviously a little bit closer, but it's a good half second [deficit]," said Hamilton.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82277