We gain 3 to 4 horsepower with the oil evolutions - Girard

Philippe Girard, the Formual One project technical manager at Elf, explains how the petrol companies can help in the search for power despite the engine freeze. Given the current engine freeze enshrined in the regulations, it is still possible to find a few extra horsepower by optimising combustion and limiting friction.

"The F1 technical regulations imposed 2.4-litre V8 engines so new ones had to be built. But it was not really a major change in design or technology. The unitary value per cylinder stayed the same so it wasn’t a revolution. The 2006 V8s were based on the same technical principles as the V10s with the same pistons and the same combustion chamber."

"The V8’s a bit like a V10 with a slice cut off! There’s a certain technical continuity between the two engines, so we were on familiar ground. However, the mechanical constraints and chassis integration were very different and we had to find fresh compromises. We had to evolve the lubricants and fuels we proposed to ING Renault F1 team, and we opted for security where the lubricants were concerned."

"At the end of the 2006 season, all the engineers from all the teams worked on the technical modifications they had to submit to the FIA to homologate their V8s. Last year, they worked on the engine mapping as well as optimising how the accessories worked: limiting the stresses produced by the oil and water pumps, for example, is a way of finding a little power. But now the petrol companies finally have a role to play."

"First of all, by supplying a fuel that suits the characteristics of the engine. For example, year after year the thermic constraints are increasingly difficult to cope with, as the aerodynamicists come up with tighter, more sculpted bodywork. That can lead to the evaporation of the lighter elements in the fuel and impact on the quality of combustion. We’ve found an answer to the problem so the engine can burn the mixture at the maximum revs allowed without difficulty. What’s more, with the revs limited to 19 000 rpm we’ve concentrated on where the power comes in in the middle and at the lower end of the rev band. The importance of our contribution in this field should not be underestimated."

"Here the restrictions concern three areas of the engine: the distribution (especially the pressure on the camshafts), the pistons and the bearings. Each of these requires a specific answer in terms of both viscosity and anti-wear properties. In all cases, when you limit friction you limit energy loss. If this can be done without compromising reliability, we can gain an immediate performance increase of around 3 to 4 horsepower with the oil evolutions."