Virgin MVR-02 Cosworth

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Florio
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Joined: 28 Nov 2010, 22:03

Re: Virgin VR-02

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forty-two wrote:On the matter of the fuel tank, I seem to remember last season, quite early on, seeing a representative of Virgin Racing (no, I can't remember who) on the BBC coverage saying that they'd been promised a higher density fuel and that was the reason for the "miscalculation".

Surely, if THEY were expecting a higher density fuel, then so would everyone else?

Was this PR BS, or do people think that this story is true?
It was Nick Wirth. He did say they were under the impression that they were going to be supplied with high density fuel, but I think there was a change at Brazil if I remember correctly. By then I think it was too late, and the chassis lockdown had been completed.

Richard
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Re: Virgin VR-02

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Virgin do seem to have gone for the complex route with their use of CFD and their own gearboxes. It is almost as if Wirth has the mindset of Newey, without realising that reliablity and simplicity have a greater impact on performance for such a new team.

I can't help thinking that the keep it simple route chosen by Gascoigne will be beneficial for a couple more years.

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Lurk
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Joined: 13 Feb 2010, 20:58

Re: Virgin VR-02

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Miscalculation was also due to an overconsumption of Cosworth engine.
Overconsumption was known but Cosworth promised them that issue would be solved before the beginning of the season. But they failed to improved that point...

And if I remember well, they could not change fuel tank without changing the frame because FIA crash test where changed to full loaded (with water, which is far heavier than fuel) fuel tank instead of half loaded tank.

Raptor22
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Joined: 07 Apr 2009, 22:48

Re: Virgin VR-02

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Fuel density miscalculation or being supplied with the wrong densityis a BIG problem for an F1 engines mapping and fuel tank capacity as well. I don;t think its PR BS, its a known fact that getingthe fuel right is highly important not only for compliance with the rules, but also for performance.

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747heavy
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Joined: 06 Jul 2010, 21:45

Re: Virgin VR-02

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it´s maybe a bit more complicated/confusing that this, and the "truth" lies perhaps somewhere in the middle.

If Cosworth made a wrong claim/estimate about the fuel consumption of their engine, then should this not affect the other teams with the Cosworth engine as well?
Or did they hover on the side of "safety" and designed a lager fuel tank just to be "safe"?

Now, for me it is conceivable that Williams and perhaps Lotus had some consumption figures of current V8 F1 engines (Toyota), and would have perhaps taken Cosworth estimates with a "grain of salt" if they seemed to be too optimistic.

But why would get HRT/Dallara the tank size correct, if Cosworth where to give them a wrong consumption figure?

On the other hand, Cosworth are no rockies when it comes to F1 engines, so I think, they would have a pretty realistic idea/understanding of the consumption of their engine.

To make matters worse, I´m sure that the same engine in two different cars, will have a different consumption, as this will depend from the drag and the weigth figures from the car.

Cosworth can run their engine on a dyno, and can give you figures for fuel consumption at a given engine load.
But they can´t know the drag levels of the car in question, and if one car has higher drag then the other, it will have more fuel consumption with the same engine.

So perhaps, Cosworth made a slight error in regards to their anticipated fuel consumption, and perhaps Virgin found that they have more drag in real life then their CFD predicted.
Which means they would need to run the engine at higher load -> more consumption.
Together with a fuel tank which was perhaps marginal to start with, this could have just pushed it over the edge.

As for the fuel density.
Which fuel supplier does Virgin use?
I did not find anything mentioned on their website.

As F1 does not use a standard fuel supplier, it could come down to what you can afford.
I could see the possibility if they go to XXX and say, we would like this high density fuel, they will be charged for the development. (assuming their chosen fuel supplier has the know how to do it, to start with)
If you can´t or don´t want to pay for this, then you have to use the "off the shelf pump fuel", which is perhaps less dense, or less powerful etc.

IMHO- this is an often overlooked fact, when talking about power gains on a "frozen engine".

While engine development is "frozen", fuel and lubrication development is not.
And I´m sure Shell,Esso(Mobil 1) and Total(Elf) are as competetive when it comes to fuel&lubricantes, as Renault,Ferrari and Mercedes when it comes to there engines.
So it´s not out of this world, for one to have a (temporary) advantage over the others, resulting in a power gain or less consumption of a "frozen" engine design.

Most often the engine supplier would specify the lubrication/fuel which has to be used with his engine.
Otherwise he has little/no control about the performance and life expectation of his engine. Or he would need to run parallel pojects to adapt/map the engines for the different fuels used by it´s customers.
This is not very likely - IMHO

Which leaves us with the question, why only Virgin got his fuel tank size wrong?
Unless they made a "silly" mistake, which would explain it, it maybe just comes down to "trying to be too smart, too fast" and sailing closer to the wind then the others.
How much fuel capacity where they "missing"?
To lose 10-12 ltr in a ~200-220 ltr. tank is not "difficult".
A wrong guess by 1% here and there, adds up pretty quick.

Just as an example, forget to calculate for the volume of the "safety foam" inside the tank, or use the wrong estimate for the foam density (been there :-)), having a fuel pick-up problem can easiely lose you 3-4 ltr. in a tank this size. etc. etc.

Just some thoughts, Nick Wirth and his boys will know where they went wrong, nothing wrong with that either.
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Last edited by 747heavy on 20 Jan 2011, 17:33, edited 2 times in total.
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver."
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gridwalker
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Joined: 27 Mar 2009, 12:22
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Re: Virgin VR-02

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Very well thought out 747H!

Now, this is going to be rather O/T but ...
747heavy wrote:... I´m sure Shell,Esso (Mobil 1) and Total (Elf) are as competetive when it comes to fuel&lubricantes, as Renault,Ferrari and Mercedes when it comes to there engines.
Yup, of course they are because the marketing possibilities on the forecourt are immense! It is one of the few technical partnerships in F1 where the product being showcased is something that almost all of the sport's target demographic will be buying as part of their daily lives.

People don't buy cars, tyres, lubricants or brakes as part of their day to day lives, but they will be buying FUEL. This gives the fuel companies promotional possibilities beyond the reach of other suppliers (even if their forecourt products all emerge from the same shared pipeline) and they try to make the most of it. Look at how Shell milked their success with Ferrari in F1 and Audi at Le Mans ...

Back in my teens, I used this fact to "obtain" full size stand-up replicas of all of the Elf-Fueled world champions of the 90s from my local filling station ;)
"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine ..."

wesley123
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Re: Virgin VR-02

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richard_leeds wrote:Virgin do seem to have gone for the complex route with their use of CFD and their own gearboxes. It is almost as if Wirth has the mindset of Newey, without realising that reliablity and simplicity have a greater impact on performance for such a new team.

I can't help thinking that the keep it simple route chosen by Gascoigne will be beneficial for a couple more years.
The Lotus didnt quite show it was that much more reliable. Apart from that like 95% of the reliability problems where due to gearboxes, the Xtrac gearbox is far from reliable and using this one again for next year is a big gamble to do so. These 95% of retirements had nothing to do with the Virgin and cannot be credited to Wirth
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ESPImperium
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Re: Virgin VR-02

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I think 747Heavy has the VIrgin/Cosworth thing about right.

1) The Williams and Toyota guys that remained at Williams and went to Lotus would have taken things with a little more pesimism to the cosworth figures, posibly add 10% to the Cosworth figure.

2) Hispania i guess decided to go much in the same way, but they had fuel pickup problems at the first 4 GP, but that was all down to the fuel tank and where the pickup pump was placed in the car.

3) The fuel supplier that i belive Cosworth used for the teams for 2010 was BP with Castrol lubricants, but each team could choose to change at any time, Williams decided to change to BR fuels mid season as they saw a performance difference when they back to back tested at Valencia i belive.

marcush.
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Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: Virgin VR-02

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HRT was oviously very quick on the straights ..so they had considerably lower drag than the other Cosworth boys...

Virgin had fuel pickup problems as well so this exagerated this problem massively.
as they could not qualify on löow fuel and had to keep a lot of reserve...(30l?)

Raptor22
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Joined: 07 Apr 2009, 22:48

Re: Virgin VR-02

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gridwalker wrote:Very well thought out 747H!

Now, this is going to be rather O/T but ...
747heavy wrote:... I´m sure Shell,Esso (Mobil 1) and Total (Elf) are as competetive when it comes to fuel&lubricantes, as Renault,Ferrari and Mercedes when it comes to there engines.
Yup, of course they are because the marketing possibilities on the forecourt are immense! It is one of the few technical partnerships in F1 where the product being showcased is something that almost all of the sport's target demographic will be buying as part of their daily lives.

People don't buy cars, tyres, lubricants or brakes as part of their day to day lives, but they will be buying FUEL. This gives the fuel companies promotional possibilities beyond the reach of other suppliers (even if their forecourt products all emerge from the same shared pipeline) and they try to make the most of it. Look at how Shell milked their success with Ferrari in F1 and Audi at Le Mans ...

Back in my teens, I used this fact to "obtain" full size stand-up replicas of all of the Elf-Fueled world champions of the 90s from my local filling station ;)

Shell's platform for marketing fuels is not Formula 1, its Ferrari.
Since Ferrari is in Formula 1 they use that imagery. IF Ferrari left Formula and went to Le Mans, they will move their maarketing platform to Le Mans. The Relationshipis with Ferrari, not Formula 1.

Despite the branding on the cars, most often the F1 fuels comes from a single supplier in the UK. Shell is the exception. They produce the F1 fuels betwen facilities at Incein Cheshire county and Hamburg in Germany.Its the only F1 fuel supplier that produces all the base gasoline components itself. Total ACS and Racing Fuels, Mobil, Petrobras, Petronas etc all buy components from refineries around the world (Including South Africa) to blend the F1 fuels to their recipe. The smaller teams all buy from a company (whose name I cannot disclose), based in the UK.

Take a look at the fuel spec in the FIA rule book, you will see there is around a 10% variance between the min density and the maximum density allowed for Formula 1 pump grade motor gasoline(MOGAS)

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Lurk
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Joined: 13 Feb 2010, 20:58

Re: Virgin VR-02

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I retrieve the article (does it exists in english?) and I was remember wrong.

In fact:
1/ FIA crash test procedure changed 3 weeks before VR-01 crash test.
With their little budget, Virgin cannot take the risk to loose a frame. So they reduced a little their tank.

2/Cosworth promised to reduce their consumption when Virgin had known they didn't have a high density fuel. But they didn't manage to.


@marcush: 30l is huge! F1 car can run with less than 1kg of fuel on their tank and Hamilton proved that in Canada. Are you sure they had to keep as much as fuel?

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747heavy
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Re: Virgin VR-02

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Raptor22 wrote: The smaller teams all buy from a company (whose name I cannot disclose), based in the UK.
The company in question could be Carless, not sure if this is such a secret.

They used to supply the fuel for F3000 and the WRC for a while (maybe still do), when they moved to a mandatory fuel, so they have good links with FIA.

Perhaps they still supply the fuel for some FIA championships.
It would be a logical option/choice for smaller teams, without individual fuel/oil supplier partnerships/sponsorship agreements.

http://www.petrochemcarless.com/docs/PD ... perflo.pdf
http://www.petrochemcarless.com/index.php

But I think it´s about time to move back on topic and discuss the design, developments and improvements of the VR-02 here.
Last edited by 747heavy on 21 Jan 2011, 14:13, edited 1 time in total.
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver."
- Colin Chapman

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci

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forty-two
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Joined: 01 Mar 2010, 21:07

Re: Virgin VR-02

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Lurk wrote:@marcush: 30l is huge! F1 car can run with less than 1kg of fuel on their tank and Hamilton proved that in Canada. Are you sure they had to keep as much as fuel?
But you're not really comparing apples with apples there. There's a MASSIVE gulf in terms of quality between the Hispania/Virgin/Lotus 2010 cars and the MP4-25.
The answer to the ultimate question, of life, the Universe and ... Everything?

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Lurk
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Re: Virgin VR-02

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Yep, but they achieved that since several years ago. I think even a GP2 car can achieved something like that (maybe 2 or 3kg?) but I'll ask for confirmation.

Virgin surely had pickup problem, but I don't think they'd had more than 4-5kg on their tank. Or they have nothing to do in Formula one!
5kg is already 1.5 to 2.5 tenth lost by lap. 23kg is more than 1 second!

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forty-two
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Joined: 01 Mar 2010, 21:07

Re: Virgin VR-02

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I just noticed that the 2011 car from Virgin will be tagged the MVR-02, with the M standing for Marussia.

Perhaps the title of the thread should be changed accordingly?
Last edited by forty-two on 21 Jan 2011, 19:20, edited 1 time in total.
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