Exhaust blown diffusers and FIA restrictions/ban

[bill shoe]

These new technical interpretations are interesting, they could be good or bad, but in the big picture-

WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK IT'S REASONABLE FOR THE FIA TO MAKE LARGE RULES RE-INTERPRETATIONS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON IN COMPLETE SECRECY?

sshhhhhh .... No need to shout.

Apparently the teams were told after Turkey. Complete secrecy would be for the FIA to creep into parc feme and change the settings without telling anyone.

Secondly you don't know what conversations were held behind the scenes.

Thirdly it is not a large intpretation of the rules, they are still allowed to use EBD but the FIA have said "steady on there chaps" when they realised it was spinning out of control.

Fourthly, the FIA have a long track record of rule clarification, it's how the sport works.

richard_leeds & beelsebob-- OK, perhaps no need to shout.

I grant points 2-4 but they were not my points. Regards the first point, the FIA clarification was done in secrecy relative to the fans the sport supposedly exists for.

The FIA claims to be a democratic international organization that represents motorists and race fans all over the world. When they do things in secret (such as relatively large in-season rule re-interpretations) the natural question is why? Is there any plausible benefit from secrecy for the race fans the FIA nominally represents? I think the answer is no. Fans don't have to care about the re-interpretation, but why secrecy?

In the long run this kind of secrecy protects political and financial corruption. This is why FIA officials might logically prefer secrecy. I think this is a fairly conventional description of the problems with secrecy in large public and/or non-profit institutions.

I know I am not saying anything new here, the FIA is well understood to be secret and political. I'm frustrated with the bland acceptance of this. I think if Jean Todt emerged from the FIA motorhome holding a gun to the head of FOTA president Martin Whitmarsh then F1Technical would start a new thread to calmly ponder what type of gun it was and what chemical reaction might occur in the gunpowder.

[godlameroso]

So they took it back. To me it seems very politically motivated, this move would have shaken up the grid, who knows it may have even given Sauber a chance to win.

[Rob01]

Bill Shoe.... this must be your very first year watching F1. This kinda of stuff happens annually and has for the last many many years. You must be a Red Bull fan to blow a gasket like that.

[tinvek]

apart from the blown diffuser element of this ruling and any "green" cnsiderations, is it possible that someone has realised what the implications could be when turbo's are re introduced? by keeping the exhaust flowing like this, the turbo would effectively be spinning continually at a usefull level of boost. left unchecked we could end up with the turbo engines running at 100% throttle for the whole race (fuel permitting)

dave vizard did something similar on his daughter (samantha? )'s drag racing mini in the 80's so she had full boost as soon as she left the line, in his case he retarded the igintion to act as a rev limiter so she could hold it on full throttle on the red line till she saw the green light, then the moment she let out the clutch and the revs dropped 100 rpm below the limit it went to normal advance, similarly when she changed gear, she held the throttle open and there was a smaller drop in exhaust flow than with a conventional limiter and a correspnding increase in boost / power when she let the clutch out.

[CyleB]

Could anyone explain this?

"This effectively means that any team found to be using off-throttle blown diffusers could be in breach of the famous Article 3.15 of the technical regulations that outlaws moveable aerodynamic devices. - Autosport.com"

What moveable aerodynamic device are they talking about at the rear of the car?

im sure this would be classified as driver operated aero device being that the driver is operating the pedal... i cant remember where i saw this

[Richard]

The story is making a bit more sense now. The FIA seemed to have jumped the gun as if Max was still in charge when rules were changed by decree.

Todt to date has been much more consensual in his approach, ie the way the f duct and DDD were allowed to run their course and then put to one side. Perhaps they might have an interim restriction to halt the arms race in the next few weeks, then something stronger for next season.

[kalinka]

I see some pilitical coincidence here too...isn't it interesting that only few days ago the FOTA rejected FIA plans for 2013 aero rule changes ? Is it just a "showing the power" thing from FIA ? I don't know...it's interesting.

I must ask you again for opinion, because my previous attempt was blown away by rapid posting :

If that 10% rule applies just for "under braking" conditions...then the teams are allowed to use EBD in "off throttle+not braking" situations too. Like Turkey T8 when they lift the throttle, but not applying brakes..though it's probably a very rare situation, and probably there are only very few corners that allows this...
I put a big question mark here because of course I'm not sure in that speculation, and want your opinion : ???

[CyleB]

the way im reading it if the driver isnt applying throttle then it is limited to 10% after the engines revs reduce and its at idle rev

[Martin Keene]

Why would it increase gas-flow? It's not like the cylinders absorb magic-smoke to generate motion (that's electronics >.>).

Heat -> kinetic energy for the piston, no? Witch would mean more heat in the exhaust when off throttle because it does not move the piston.

Yes, that exhaust gas will be much hotter than normal. That's why they can only run max EBD percentages for Q3 only, they car just cannot take the heat.

Thanks. Might this be the reason for mclaren to request another material for their exhaust other than using it for their weird layout? Or is the excessive heat more of a problem for the piston and the manifold?

Quite possibly. My understand of the system means the massive ignition retardation means they are burning the injected fuel in the exhaust manifold, very similar to anti lag on rally cars, hence it creates massive heat in the exhaust system.

It must also have a knock on effect to piston / core engine temperature purely because of the proximity of the exhaust system to the piston.

Another reason why they can't run it at max percentages for a race distance is the simply massive quantity of fuel it would use.

[beelsebob]

richard_leeds & beelsebob-- OK, perhaps no need to shout.

I grant points 2-4 but they were not my points. Regards the first point, the FIA clarification was done in secrecy relative to the fans the sport supposedly exists for.

The FIA claims to be a democratic international organization that represents motorists and race fans all over the world. When they do things in secret (such as relatively large in-season rule re-interpretations) the natural question is why? Is there any plausible benefit from secrecy for the race fans the FIA nominally represents? I think the answer is no. Fans don't have to care about the re-interpretation, but why secrecy?

In the long run this kind of secrecy protects political and financial corruption. This is why FIA officials might logically prefer secrecy. I think this is a fairly conventional description of the problems with secrecy in large public and/or non-profit institutions.

I know I am not saying anything new here, the FIA is well understood to be secret and political. I'm frustrated with the bland acceptance of this. I think if Jean Todt emerged from the FIA motorhome holding a gun to the head of FOTA president Martin Whitmarsh then F1Technical would start a new thread to calmly ponder what type of gun it was and what chemical reaction might occur in the gunpowder.

I honestly have no idea why you think think that all these processes should happen in front of the fans. The 2012 rules will not be made up at an open meeting with a bunch of fans yelling "zomg, you're doing it wrong", nor are the rules to any other sport. Why should this be any different?

Tools like facebook seem to have had a huge impact in making people think that they should be involved in the very inner workings of the things they love. This is not the case for oh so many situations, simply get over it, let the FIA do their job, and enjoy the racing. You don't need to have input, and you don't need to be told every thing they're thinking about.

[ianwit]

Prepare for a temporary u-turn.

http://www.pitpass.com/43612-Confusion- ... user-rules

[HampusA]

Prepare for a temporary u-turn.

http://www.pitpass.com/43612-Confusion- ... user-rules

And it just keeps getting better

[andrew]

I wouldn't get too excited just yet. The only requirement to work at Pitpass is to have an irrational hatred of the FIA, MrE and Ferrari. I have not seen this anywhere else yet.

If the FIA do a rapid handbrake turn on this it'll be a shame. I was hoping for some non-DRS overtaking!

[ianwit]

Autosport are also reporting the same delay in the rule change.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91481


http://www.planet-f1.com/driver/18227/6 ... en-back-in

[andrew]

OK, maybe get excited a little then!

Looks like just a temporary repreive though.