Formula 1: top speeds to be way higher in '14

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0zzy

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I-C-E-0-Z-Z-Y
Hey guys.

Now I love a good rule-shakeup as much as the next guy. Its always exciting. But I was really worried about this one, I hated the fact F1 was conforming to the new 'green' future. It seemed stupid, like trying to enter a Pitbull in a beauty contest... that just isn't what it does best.

I hated the fact they tried to slow the cars down. But luckily, it doesn't seem to be the case.

- The new engines are producing far higher amounts of torque, some say between 30%-50% more. Adrian Sutil and Kimi Raikkonen put their crashes down simply to too much torque, with KR saying 'The car has so much torque in it' and Jenson Button saying 'its the most powerful engine I've ever driven'

- The new ERS system is displacing power whenever there is turbo lag, and also in the early stages of a gear shift, allowing 'efficient use of power'.

- Loss of some downforce.

- 8 gears instead of 7. Extra gear means they will never hit the rev limiter, so on tracks like Monza they will continue to gain speed, means slipstreaming will also become more important.

Even if the cars still had all the downforce, they'd still go a lot faster though.

In Bahrain, Alonso's top speed was 336.4 km/h. Ferrari said earlier in the test they were no where near using full power. Just to give you an idea, last year Fernando's top speed in qualifying at Bahrain was 314.2km/h. The top speed of Alonso was nearly the same as Lewis Hamilton's top speed on his pole-winning run at Monza in '13.

In other news, it seems Ferrari may have a good engine, but we'll not know until Melbourne. Other drivers top speeds at Bahrain:

Kevin Magnussen 330.2 km/h
Felipe Massa 327.2 km/h
Renault lower than 310 km/h

So happy we'll be having some serious straight line speed next year, and who do you guys think will have the fastest engine?

Regards, the 0zz.

Source http://forum.planet-f1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9742
 
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Ganon83
They're definitely going to at least be the fastest and largest group of penises I've seen since I tried out for the track and field team in high school.
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They'll have to censor it when the Force India penetrates the rear of the Mercedes.
 
God, if the flex front wing makes a return, these cars are going to look completely ridiculous.:lol:
 
0zzy
They'll have to censor it when the Force India penetrates the rear of the Mercedes.
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That's if it can keep up with one, a poor Renault powered car is more likely to get decimated due to not being able to get away.
 
LMSCorvetteGT2
That's if it can keep up with one, a poor Renault powered car is more likely to get decimated due to not being able to get away.
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Reduced by a tenth? Did you mean annihilated?

Supposedly all the Renault units will be allowed to run at full power in T3, I don't think they're doing any private testing between the sessions.

Ferrari ran one yesterday from what I can gather, they seem to quite happily have their heads down.

Remember that over the course of the race the drivers only have a limited amount of fuel, and therefore a limited amount of kinetic energy available*. Obviously they'll recover a huge amount of that with this year's incredible PUs, but you have to remember that qualifying runs (such as Rosberg's super-run in Bahrain) won't be the norm in races.

Being quick in a straight line is a start (if low-drag is more your friend than top-end torque) but you have to be able to achieve that economically lap after lap. That's going to be a challenge with these peaky engines.

*EDIT: Yes yes, schoolboy error. And the pads-and-tyres :)
 
0zzy
- 8 gears instead of 7. Extra gear means they will never hit the rev limiter, so on tracks like Monza they will continue to gain speed,
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Note that the ratios have to be picked before the start of the season, and they have to do Monaco and Monza...

Rule change: Introduction of eight-speed, fixed ratio gearboxes
Implications: In 2013 teams had the luxury of nominating 30 gear ratios ahead of the season and the choice of running any seven of those (plus reverse) at a Grand Prix. From 2014, F1 gearboxes have an extra gear; however those eight gears must be selected before the first race of the season and then those same ratios must be used at every track on the calendar. For this year only teams are allowed to change the ratios once (in case they get their gearing wildly wrong), but after that any changes will incur penalties. Therefore it’s imperative that teams come up with a range of ratios suitable for every track - no easy task with circuits ranging from tight and twisty Monaco to flat-out Monza.
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daan
Note that the ratios have to be picked before the start of the season, and they have to do Monaco and Monza...
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I suspect that the teams will optimise for tracks up to Monaco, then make their change to an optimisation for the remainder of the season.

That still leaves a few twisty tracks but nothing quite as point'n'squirt as Monaco.

EDIT: Just thinking.... with all the torque available is it feasible to just use six gears per race? That way you could actually calculate a reasonable spread with a low 1st and high 8th. I can't see anything in the regs that says all the gears must be selectable at all times.
 
TenEightyOne
I suspect that the teams will optimise for tracks up to Monaco, then make their change to an optimisation for the remainder of the season.

That still leaves a few twisty tracks but nothing quite as point'n'squirt as Monaco.

EDIT: Just thinking.... with all the torque available is it feasible to just use six gears per race? That way you could actually calculate a reasonable spread with a low 1st and high 8th. I can't see anything in the regs that says all the gears must be selectable at all times.
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Seems like it would be the intelligent thing to do. I think that extra 8th gear will come into it's own on the faster tracks.
 
Yeah, I don't think there's a rule stating that they must use all gears, only that there must be 8 gears. It's been suggested that teams probably wont even use 1st gear, even off the line at the start.
 
Cap'n Jack
Yeah, I don't think there's a rule stating that they must use all gears, only that there must be 8 gears. It's been suggested that teams probably wont even use 1st gear, even off the line at the start.
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Damn, I was just going to sell the idea to a team. Oh well. :)

They'll use first somewhere, but I guess Monaco only (for the first part of the season). Maybe they'll only get up to the 6th ratio there.

Then I think they'll use their ratio-change to go for 8 gears optimised across the remaining tracks, just using 6 or 7 at each depending on where the predicted speeds fit into the spread.

Throughout the two 'phases' of the season (providing that the teams DO use the change option in that way) they'll use all the gears at some point, otherwise they'd be losing potential performance.
 
The first half of the season has some pretty fast tracks, so I would imagine it would be a tough call to use a shorter ratio up to Monaco. I mean, it's only really Spa and Monza that the teams will really have to worry about, aside from those two the rest of there's quite a bit of variety in circuit types in there.

On a somewhat related point, after this year the teams wont be able to change gear ratios mid-season. So if any team finds themselves on the back foot, I wonder if they would maybe try a different set of ratios just to test for the following season.
 
Cap'n Jack
The first half of the season has some pretty fast tracks, so I would imagine it would be a tough call to use a shorter ratio up to Monaco. I mean, it's only really Spa and Monza that the teams will really have to worry about, aside from those two the rest of there's quite a bit of variety in circuit types in there.

On a somewhat related point, after this year the teams wont be able to change gear ratios mid-season. So if any team finds themselves on the back foot, I wonder if they would maybe try a different set of ratios just to test for the following season.
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I'm sure they will, that's a good point.

They WILL use a shorter first gear up-to-and-including Monaco (I think) because that's where they'll need it. That's not to say that the top ratios would be used there, they'd be for the faster earlier tracks up to that point.

After Monaco I can't think of anywhere where 1st would need to be so short? That's the point at which I'd expect them to change the box. Just because they can't do it next year doesn't mean that they won't try to get every 10th of a second this year :)
 
With fixed ratios they'll either be bloody slow at Monza or bloody slow at Monaco...
 
PeterJB
With fixed ratios they'll either be bloody slow at Monza or bloody slow at Monaco...
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That's what we're saying...with the higher torque they could potentially use fewer gears at each circuit, i.e. miss the very short 1st out at the fast tracks, miss the very long 8th out at the slow tracks, and all variations in between.

Because they'll be able to change the ratio set at some point this season I think many teams will choose to do so just after Monaco, the most extreme of the low-speed circuits.
 
It's not that simple, as they have the huge China straight as well as Singapore and Hungary after Monaco. Very tough choices for the teams but I'm sure with 8 gears they'll use the bottom 7 for monaco and the top 7 for the faster ones.
 
Alex.
It's not that simple, as they have the huge China straight as well as Singapore and Hungary after Monaco. Very tough choices for the teams but I'm sure with 8 gears they'll use the bottom 7 for monaco and the top 7 for the faster ones.
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And, as I said, they'd change the ratios after Monaco. That means they can optimise for the first 'half' of the season up to Monaco, then for the 2nd. It makes sense that 1st will be the slowest corner that the gearbox will run through, 8th will be the end of the fastest straight. The gears between will be spread to give the best optimisation for track ranges in between.

I still wonder if they might go with sets of fewer than 7 gears per-race, the torque of these engines really is very high and even 'seamless' shifts require energy. The turbos are almost instant but not quite, presumably you want as few spin-up cycles as possible.

The more I think this through the more I think 6 gears per-race could be the way to go. If I get chance later I might try to do some actual numbers....
 
I know what you said mate, I was just suggesting it might not be as simple as changing at Monaco, maybe some teams will change after Hungary or something around that time.
 
Alex.
I know what you said mate, I was just suggesting it might not be as simple as changing at Monaco, maybe some teams will change after Hungary or something around that time.
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I see what you mean... I'll try to find a table of the spread speeds across the circuits (might be able to cobble one from the F1 circuit guides). Looking at them tabled end-to-end might give an obvious clue.
 
How large is the penalty? I can imagine some teams towards the back relegating themselves to a last place grid slot for the sake of a new set of gears at a particular track.
 
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Unscheduled transmission change looks to be a 5-spot grid penalty. Wonder if that will be it?
 
I know that, but was just speculating since I can't find anywhere what the penalty for "changing gear ratios" after the freebie. If it was a 5-spot penalty.
 
Infinital-NG
I know that, but was just speculating since I can't find anywhere what the penalty for "changing gear ratios" after the freebie. If it was a 5-spot penalty.
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Actually, they're only penalised if they don't run a gearbox for 6 consecutive races. Then they can change it. I hadn't realised they had so many changes available to them, I'm pretty sure this rule's been quite heavily modified since it was first announced in 2013.

The get-out for 2014 is that they will have more opportunities to alter without penalty. Basically this year I don't think the gearbox ratios are going to be too limited at all.

Source, FIA Formula 1 Tech Regs 2014, Article 28.6
 
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I think you're talking about 2 different things. One of you is talking about changing the actual ratios (which they can only do once with an unexplained penalty for any further change) and the other is talking about changing the gearbox as it becomes worn or broken.
 
Yes @daan, you're right. I didn't follow through to 9.6.2 in the tech regs, one change is permitted to the change ratios for 2014, none after that.

The other "de"-regulations for 2014 basically cover everything BUT the change ratios and final gear.
 
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