Secret to Red Bulls Dominance in 2011?

[forty-two]

I doubt it, but I heard a whisper of a theory being put forward to explain Red Bull's dominance in 2011 (ok, of course the truth is that there were loads of factors to it...)

The suggestion is that Red Bull ran their KERS in a sneaky mode whereby whenever the driver was pressing the pedal, the KERS was pulsed on and off many thousands of times per second, such that over the course of a lap, exactly 50% of the legally allowed KERS energy would be spent. The remaining 50% was then available as per every other car running KERS.

I don't know the wording of the regulations RE KERS, and how it may be deployed, but it occurs to me that Red Bull did appear to only ever have 50% of their KERS available, and the story put about was that this was a decision on their part for packaging reasons, but what if they were using it to augment regular engine power?

Granted, the 6 or so seconds per lap allowed, when cut in half would only allow 3 or so seconds to play with, but three seconds sliced into thousands of tiny bursts of power for fractions of a second might well account for a useful boost.

I guess the key would be in the wording to the regs, or more importantly how (or if) this is policed, not to mention the problems associated with fast switching of high current at kilohertz frequencies, but perhaps that could explain their reliability issues with KERS, especially during the earlier races of the season.

Just wanted to know what you guys thought to the idea.

FWIW, I don't have any reason to believe this is what actually happened last year!

[bhall]

5.2.4 The amount of stored energy in any KERS may not be increased whilst the car is stationary during a race pit stop.
Release of power from any such system must remain under the complete control of the driver at all times the car is on the track.

I'm not sure the system you described would satisfy the portion of the regulation I've italicized.

[forty-two]

5.2.4 The amount of stored energy in any KERS may not be increased whilst the car is stationary during a race pit stop.
Release of power from any such system must remain under the complete control of the driver at all times the car is on the track.

I'm not sure the system you described would satisfy the portion of the regulation I've italicized.

Thanks for posting.

While I agree that it doesn't satisfy the spirit of that statement, one could argue for instance that if the driver had say two buttons or paddles, one for "Pulsed KERS" and another for "Conventional KERS", the driver would still be in "complete control" of the system. "It does pulsing whenever this button is pressed, or ON whenever that button is pressed" might be the explanation?

Like I said, I don't have any reason to think that this idea is right, I'd just like to know why a team (eg. RB) might not be able to do this.

[RB7ate9]

If the Red Bull Kers would be 50% outputted via thousands of pulses during throttle pressing, it could be argued that it's still under the control of driver input (via pedal press angle or something). So it could be still allowed.

That being said, I don't know how that would work, mechanically speaking, to have the motor essentially pulse at kHz levels.

[Robbobnob]

also if you take into consideration the system you are describing.

if they are only using half of the allotted 400KJ for use with their button activation, that gives 3.3 seconds at 60KW

the other energy then being directly fed into the drivetrain is 200KJ. Now to eek that out for the remainder of the lap (lets assume 30 seconds as a reasonable time for total accelerating around a circuit) then that is only a power increase of 6.6 KW. Which is a fairly negligible power increase, certainly for the Renault RS27 which is rumored to be down on power by ~60 bhp.

However Renault have announced that they have gained ~ 20 bhp from not hot blowing and other reliability modifications, As RedBull only ever used Cold-blowing, they might have had a significant power advantage over teams who were hot blowing.

[forty-two]

Very interesting points guys.

I just wonder if the "every little helps" maxim might come into play here.

[bhall]

I think the key word in this case is "complete." A pulsed KERS release would be initiated by the driver, but the driver would not control its timing, which would rob him of the complete control required to satisfy the regulation.

[forty-two]

I think the key word in this case is "complete." A pulsed KERS release would be initiated by the driver, but the driver would not control its timing, thus robbing him of complete control.

True, but being pedantic, no driver is in complete control of KERS.

The KERS system won't output power for longer than it's allowed to, so the driver is not in complete control of that.

KERS is an all on/all off system, so the driver doesn't have the ability to adjust KERS output for example, so he's still not in complete control.

The smart F1 guys seem to find their advantages in little nicks in the armour of the regs. Sure I don't need to mention DDD for example!

As for whether or not the motor could work when being switched at suc high frequencies, this perhaps is another issue, but could be overcome with a suitable power supply beyond the KERS unit itself whose job would be to smooth the pulsed output. Granted this would be extra kit to cart around, but could probably be quite small and light given modern switchmode PSU design for example. There would be losses there too, but again, every little...

[RB7ate9]

I think the key word in this case is "complete." A pulsed KERS release would be initiated by the driver, but the driver would not control its timing, which would rob him of the complete control required to satisfy the regulation.

Understood. Any wish to be a F1 scrutineer ?

[bhall]

True, but being pedantic, no driver is in complete control of KERS.

The KERS system won't output power for longer than it's allowed to, so the driver is not in complete control of that.

The KERS also won't release more than ~80hp, no matter how much the driver may want it to. By their very nature, regulations limit control.

[forty-two]

Perhaps another example would explain my meaning?

If you take the example of a lawn sprinkler hooked up to a "water computer" (fancy name for a timer which controls a solenoid valve for a set number of minutes per day) which is in turn connected to a manual tap which can be turned anywhere between fully open to fully closed. The gardener can adjust the tap so that the sprinkler just reaches all of the lawn, but doesn't get the washing line on the patio.

In this example, the timer is the KERS controller which only allows n seconds per lap, and the tap could be described as giving "complete control" of the system.

But that wouldn't be complete control, because if the gardener happened to adjust it while the washing machine was filling, the available water pressure would be different to other times.

I know my analogy is far from perfect, I'm just saying that to enforce "complete control", one must have an unambiguous definition of complete control in this context.

[Ian P.]

Not convinced that the Red-Bull Secret for 2011 was KER's related.
At many of the tracks, especially at the end of the season, the trap speeds for the RBs were waaay down on everyone else.
If they were gaining a power advantage, one would think their trap speeds would be higher, not lower.

[forty-two]

Not convinced that the Red-Bull Secret for 2011 was KER's related.
At many of the tracks, especially at the end of the season, the trap speeds for the RBs were waaay down on everyone else.
If they were gaining a power advantage, one would think their trap speeds would be higher, not lower.

Not so if they were running with higher drag and therefore downforce.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying this IS or even could be the only 'secret', if they or anyone else were doing this it would only be one string to their bow anyway. Just wondering if such a plan would categorically be against the rules.

[radosav]

it was vettel

[bhall]

I understand the point you're making. But, your definition of complete control would allow engineers to program the complete set of KERS inputs for any given track, and all the driver would have to do is be the one who activates and deactivates that system to satisfy the requirement for complete control.