Intentionally passing max allowed engines

[Manoah2u]

so here's a thought.

Mercedes showed utter dominance not just the entire year by running @ the front from start to finish, but also from
falling to the back and finishing 2nd (nico) if the car is still intact and the tires will work accordingly. Thus, their power
benefit must be huge.

The following thought is NOT about Mercedes, i'm not pointing fingers towards them, they're still within their engine count.

It is merely a 'thought excersize' about whether there are possibly benefits from accepting grid penalties when using more than 5 engines a season, deliberately.

As you are allowed a engine lineup of 5 fresh engines for an entire season without penalties, when you have used all of them and are in need of a fresh 6th one, you get penalised.

So in general all the teams are intending to have their engines as 'reliable' as possible and using them as tactical as possible so they won't risk penalties later (even though they seem inevitable). In other words; they intend to have their engines last 4 race weekends before switching to the next.

Now here's an idea;

Let's go another route;

As an engineer, you thus create an engine that is aimed more at reliability to cope with this problem, presumably at the cost of power / not being able to getting the most out of the engine.

Now how about we ditch the 'keep it reliable' idea overboard, and just accept that you are going to have to deal with grid penalties for the last 3 to 5 races. perhaps even 6 if you're feeling crazy.

Is it then possible, to make the engine so powerfull, that you get such an advantage in power that you can overtake the rest of the field without the problem of grid penalties later in the year?

In other words; compared to the way you'd 'handle' your engines 'normally', you seek benefit for like 15 races from huge power supply, having vast qualy power and race power, and are left 'just' with the 'handicap' of having to take penalties for the final 5 races since you've used all possible resources of those allowed 5 fresh engines during the course of 15 races?

In essence, you are going to run the same-spec powerfull engines for the final 5 races, but are going to have to deal with grid penalties because you use a 6th one, perhaps even 7th.

So You've had 15 races of immense power to benefit from with the goal of gaining as many championship points as possible, and are going to deal with 5 final races where you the drivers are having be more active with overtaking......but, since you still have the power benefit, it'll essentially make it easier to overtake other cars compared to running a weaker engine but with the idea you can run them 20 races without penalty.

so can you bring enough power/potential into the engine to benefit from this, or is that not possible?

in other words; is it worth taking the penalties for the benefit of power, or is it not humanely possible to gain enough power benefit compared to reliability?

If i'd put this in figures:

Engine 1: Built to last 4 races
Engine 2: Built to last 3 races

Engine 1 needs to run more mileage compared to engine 2, thus engine wear needs to be minimized to achieve this.
Engine 2 needs to run less mileage compared to engine 1, thus engine wear is a lesser concern - in other words, you can 'crank up' the engine for the same race weekend, at the cost of mileage, but with the benefit of using the most out of the engine.

is it possible to benefit to have a 'engine 2' at the cost of grid penalties?

[mrluke]

If you supply a large number of teams then they cant all start at the back... it could be that the last 10 spots are all engine penalties.

[hollus]

This is a very good idea. You are effectively suggesting having a power advantage for 17 races and accepting penalties in two. I'd say that it might well be worth it even without invoking any overtaking advantages, which one would of course have for 19 races! Turning 4 seconds into 4 wins in the 17 clean races is worth 24 points, plus whatever you are subtracting from your rivals which went from 1st to 2nd (or 3rd), plus whatever you can fish in the two races with engine penalties. That's easily 2 races worth of points, IMO.

So does anybody have an estimate of how much horsepower can be gained this way?

Inspired by this, I am floating the idea of 19 single race power trains in the 1.6L engine formula thread. Let's see if we get any numbers.

[tim|away]

It's an interesting idea, but the big obstacle would be the fuel flow limit. The real bottleneck in terms of power is the limited fuel flow. Maximizing power these days means to build an engine that runs more efficiently.

Having said that, I doubt that one could get a huge power benefit as a result of compromising reliability. The bigger advantage one would get from sacrificing reliability would be weight savings. If the power unit didn't have to last as long, the weight of compoments could be optimised, therefore lowering the centre of gravity. It is very questionable whether this would provide enough of an advantage to be worthwhile though.

[hollus]

Damn, I keep on living in 2013. Of course the fuel limits turn making the engine work harder a less attractive tool. But another advantage to be had from lower life engines is less cooling.

[Lycoming]

Fuel limit means it's difficult, if not impossible to trade reliability for power. I believe there is still a minimum weight on the engines as well as a minimum CoG height, so there's also nothing to be gained on that front. Building more engines is also a non-trivial cost, and you have to be able to justify spending that money here, as opposed to on some other project that may grant greater gains.

As I see it, you would only stand to gain from this if you weren't able to max out the fuel flow rate consistently because you're concerned about reliability. If that were the case, then there might be a benefit. If your power is fuel limited rather than reliability limited, which seems to be the case now (and if it isn't, it will be with a bit of development), then I don't see much point.

[Oakstreet]

This is actually the first case in which double points in the last race would be effective: too much risk losing the extra "power-points" in the 17 races before

[mrluke]

If there is no benefit then why are Mercedes teams limited to how often they can use the overtake button?

More power means running more lean, presumably the teams are running some sort of safety margin to avoid det and the overtake button minimises that margin. If the engine didnt have to last as long, very simply you could use the overtake button more.

[Manoah2u]

So allright, haven't thought about that fuel-flow limit, which is a killer indeed though.

However, a good question might be; just how much or how close are the manufacturers to the actual fuel flow limit?
I remember RedBull got Ricciardo's car disqualified becuase of supposed fuel flow limit exceedings. Which suggests that they were close to these limits and surpassed them - but, then, after that, haven't heard about that any longer, and if i'm not mistaken there were 'improved' fuel flow ratio measurement devices available later on.

Now if we look at the fuel usage of both Hamilton and Rosberg, then i've noticed it seems atleast Lewis has managed to be 'more economical' on the fuel used throughout the race; essentially, that would mean he has enough fuel left to switch to another engine mode at the end of the race to use all energy to his disposal....which essentially brings us to atleast partially this point;

the engine has been running in a 'less fuel consuming mode' in order to guarantee not running out of fuel at the race finish.
You could thus say; of the 100% available, only 90% was used in 'fuel saving mode'. Then Lewis and NIco get to hear they passed the barrier, and can turn the engine mode into "full spec", which will consume more fuel, but grant 100% effective power.

now that means there is a 10% difference in engine modes.

So, essentially, Mercedes is dominating the race in 90% engine power, and has the option of switching to 100% engine power, which essentially means more domination.

Now if they switch to full-spec, they are still bound to the fuel flow limits. That means that, if they run 100% engine mode, they would preferably be running at the 100% allowed fuel flow ratio. If they run 90% power, that would mean they run 90% fuel flow ratio.

BUT, the important question here is, just how much there is still to be gained from fuel flow ratio? and is it really the limiting factor? Obviously it is significantly imporant, but - does increase in power always mean increase in fuel flow?

an alternative might be perhaps compression ratio. you could essentially use higher compression to gain more 'power' with the same fuel amount; the higher compressed the fuel mixture, the higher the net explosion result will be.
higher compression brings the danger of unwanted or wrong-timed explosions, though i sense with good maths you can 'calculate' very closely where this 'treshold' lays.

IMHO, lower compression means less wear (because the parts aren't pushed to the extremes as much), thus higher compression equals higher wear.

Would higher compression solve the fuel flow problem?

[Lycoming]

If there is no benefit then why are Mercedes teams limited to how often they can use the overtake button?

Could be for reliability reasons but most likely it's so they have enough fuel to complete the race distance.

More power means running more lean

I think you mean higher rpm means running more lean.

an alternative might be perhaps compression ratio. you could essentially use higher compression to gain more 'power' with the same fuel amount; the higher compressed the fuel mixture, the higher the net explosion result will be.

Assuming that doing so doesn't cause issues with detonation.

[langwadt]

So allright, haven't thought about that fuel-flow limit, which is a killer indeed though.

However, a good question might be; just how much or how close are the manufacturers to the actual fuel flow limit?
I remember RedBull got Ricciardo's car disqualified becuase of supposed fuel flow limit exceedings. Which suggests that they were close to these limits and surpassed them - but, then, after that, haven't heard about that any longer, and if i'm not mistaken there were 'improved' fuel flow ratio measurement devices available later on.
snip

I believe Magnussen was told the FIA to turn down the power because of issues with fuel flow in the Russian GP qual

[Manoah2u]

Hmmm alright well that would hint that they are indeed pushing the fuel flow rate to the max already. I guess that's why this fuel flow limit has been applied, to avoid (atleast partially) this idea from happening.

[mrluke]

If there is no benefit then why are Mercedes teams limited to how often they can use the overtake button?

Could be for reliability reasons but most likely it's so they have enough fuel to complete the race distance.

More power means running more lean

I think you mean higher rpm means running more lean.

an alternative might be perhaps compression ratio. you could essentially use higher compression to gain more 'power' with the same fuel amount; the higher compressed the fuel mixture, the higher the net explosion result will be.

Assuming that doing so doesn't cause issues with detonation.

The amount of fuel is fixed, you can either add additional air (more boost pressure, more lean) or reduce the amount of air (less boost / throttling, richer).

[Manoah2u]

but has boost been regulated or not? If i recall correctly, back in the Turbo glory days, boost got 'regulated' to a max boost pressure back when TAG still supplied Mclaren.

Is there a max boost in the engine regs?

[Skippon]

There is no regulation of the allowed boost pressure.............