Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
Phil wrote:
Back to Hamilton and Rosberg - why exactly is it unreasonable to think that they might be fueling both cars identical? Identical fual loads at the start of the race equals level playing field by default. Cars have the same weight, so in theory should be pretty identical to drive. The difference in fuel usage (and therefore weight of the car) only becomes apparent as the race goes on when one driver uses more than the other.
Two points. First, forced equality goes against the Merc "free to race" style. Secondly, every technical F1 corespondent regularly notes that a 1kg of fuel is worth some number of 10ths on a given track. Why on gods green earth, would a team intentionally make one car slower?
wgknestrick wrote:"Low drag" is also why I think Hamilton consistently uses less fuel than ROS. I suspect he runs less wing on average. I find it very hard to see how "driving" habits in a race setting would very significantly enough to see a difference in fuel usage. I recall ROS attempting every pass on HAM during braking where his increase in wing would be an advantage.
They constantly have to either be on the throttle, or brakes with no "coasting" (outside of apex) in a perfect world. While these cars are significantly different from past cars, I don't see the advantage in coasting when trying to compete for ultimate lap times.
How do you explain Monza then? Hamilton had lower topspeed by 3 clicks and was (apparently) godlike in sector 2 through the two Lesmo´s.
And still had better fuel economy.
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of sh*t"
It came to light ros had a car infront of him on his last lap, so he was faster in speed trap and s1. Whether the car infront let him past or not after that is not clear. im pretty sure they ran identical cars though.
Juzh wrote:It came to light ros had a car infront of him on his last lap, so he was faster in speed trap and s1. Whether the car infront let him past or not after that is not clear. im pretty sure they ran identical cars though.
Is that the lap shown on F1.com onboards?
Because he has a car ahead of him on that lap but it´s so far ahead of him i doubt it had much of a significance.
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of sh*t"
What about harvesting? Could a difference in driving style and i.e. brake balance mean a difference in electric energy harvesting and thus fuel consumption?
That could be it. Maybe the braking style gives Hamilton more battery charge to use around the lap?
He is braking later and coasting longer?
On the fuel load advantage why do people have the silly notion that HAM will have 3kg of fuel that he will never use? Any driver with 3kg of fuel MORE than their teammate at the end of the race WILL use it to turn up their engine. It is just common sense. 3kg of fuel is enough to power a F1 car for more than a lap of most races.Imagine having all that extra power to use to catch your team mate who is 2 seconds ahead, or even leave him choking in your dust if he is behind.... Crazy stuff....
All I am saying is that 3kg of fuel at the end of the race is a serious and significant advantage to have! And one can be sure that Hamilton if ever the situation arises will use that extra fuel to catch and pass Nico if Nico is languishing in front. It is just that we have never seen Nico lead Hamilton home in a race this season why we have not seen this.
PlatinumZealot wrote:Any driver with 3kg of fuel MORE than their teammate at the end of the race WILL use it to turn up their engine. It is just common sense.
No it´s not. You do what the team tells you to do. they got one race each where they disobeyed that but after that we haven´t heard anything about any driver breaking the already set engine modes.
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of sh*t"
Phil wrote:
Back to Hamilton and Rosberg - why exactly is it unreasonable to think that they might be fueling both cars identical? Identical fual loads at the start of the race equals level playing field by default. Cars have the same weight, so in theory should be pretty identical to drive. The difference in fuel usage (and therefore weight of the car) only becomes apparent as the race goes on when one driver uses more than the other.
Two points. First, forced equality goes against the Merc "free to race" style. Secondly, every technical F1 corespondent regularly notes that a 1kg of fuel is worth some number of 10ths on a given track. Why on gods green earth, would a team intentionally make one car slower?
For the same reason they obviously don't want one driver using a different engine map than the other. There's heaps of evidence for this - the spat in Bahrain (where Rosberg apparently used a different engine map) and in a later race, when Hamilton repayed the favour (China?). Since then I think it has been clear that both drivers will be on the same maps, irregardless who is using less and more fuel. This is a direct contradiction to the "free to race" point you are bringing up. In my opinion, the "free to race" ethos at Mercedes only goes to the point that both cars are driven under identical settings. Free to race as long as they're on the same maps so to speak. Level playing field in other words. If they underfuel one driver by 3kg (significantly) - accoarding to your post, that would be quite a few 10ths, I would think Hamilton would be quite a bit quicker at especially the beginning of the race. I don't really see much evidence of that, so I'm assuming that both cars are fueled more or less equally. If we assume this to be true, it might also explain why Rosberg generally seems quicker towards the end of the race...?
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
Mark Hughes of Motorsport magazine wrote an interesting article about just how LH achieves this.
Apparently it all boils down to the fact that LH is far more comfortable with a lively rear end on corner entry. This means that he is able to carry more speed into and out of the corner meaning he doesn't need to accelerate as hard out of the corner as NR.
So, with less acceleration needed, LH also demands less from his ERS on corner exit, which he can use elsewhere saving fuel. But NR has to make up for the speed deficit by using a different map which gives him more acceleration at corner exit and therefore demanding more fuel. As LH is comfortable with a nervous rear end, he can also have a stronger rear brake bias which in turn give better ERS harvesting and saves fuel.
Coupling this with his late braking ability makes him not only more fuel efficient, but clearly (imo) the faster of the two drivers.
That's all good, but the point I'd like to understand is, if LH is finishing races consistently by using so much less fuel than NR, surely Merc could reduce the amount of fuel in his car to start with (as every kg of fuel is equivalent to about 0.1secs a lap) and would also have tyre wear benefits. Or they could give him a map with more bhp in the second half of the race?
Maybe there are issues with how the telemetry shown to the public works. First of, the sensor does calculate how much fuel a driver starts with. Second I believe the amount of fuel a driver starts with is a team secret.
So how will the public data be shown then? Simple: you make the assumption everybody has exact 100kg of fuel on board and based on the data from the fuel flow sensor you express this a percentage.
So it might very well be that Lewis infact has less fuel aboard. If he really drives around more economic, then that's actually a given since the team will not put in more fuel then necessary.
There are a few constants in play: the installation lap, formation lap, inlap after the race all are laps driven well under the limit. It's safe to assume the fuel consumption on those laps is the same between the 2 drivers, as well as the fuel sample. However while being a constant, in real time relative numbers, it weights on the percentage.
It doesn't really matter if it's percentage or kg's. If the FOM really makes the very simplified assumption that the team run 100kg, the it's the same absolute number. If you burn 1.3% of your 100kg, you have burned off 1.3kg.
Of course that's misleading nobody will run 100kg. All we know is that they all burn off well under 100kg.
Effectively, we only know how much fuel they use during the race. The fuel flow sensor is giving us that data. We know nothing about the fuel load they start with.
extraordinary how they are consistently the lowest of the fuel users.
