Can F1 Teams See Fuel Loads of Rivals?

[varunschumi]

Rosberg has stated in an interview which is published today that Mercedes strategists know exactly where they stand in the pecking order, as they are able to see 'Full tanks' and 'Low tanks' of rivals during testing.

Are they using any technology similar to Thermal Imaging (or anything else for that matter) to get this insight? Is this technically possible?

[bill shoe]

Good question. If they get full GPS data from rivals during testing like they do on race weekends then I think it is doable to know weight and thus fuel load pretty accurately.

Look at straight line accel over a wide range of speeds. After the car is past the traction-limited low-speed zone then accel should be limited by a combination of linear resistance (weight) and squared resistance (air drag). Also may incorporate a further parameter to account for rolling resistance of tires, etc (not sure if linear or what). On the motivational side of the balance, power translates into longitudinal force as an inverse function of velocity, but of course it is really fixed for each individual gear, as long as the powertrain has a flat-ish power curve. You put all that together and then do some careful math to back out nice, tidy, consistent answers for several things-- power of engine, weight of car, rolling resistance of car (mostly tires), and air-drag of car.

A math-limited person like myself would probably start with discreet data from a single straight, and start plugging through a spreadsheet, but a good team like Mercedes probably has a nice bit of software that takes in the entire data file of a competitor's run, decides what data qualifies as reliable straight-line data, and automatically backs out the answers along with some uncertainty bands.

Could then get into lateral performance, and combined longitudinal & lateral performance, but I'm guessing that's more complicated because backing out lateral parameters depends on a combination of downforce and tire usage (itself a complex statically-indeterminate system of four tires on a plane). Still I would guess Mercedes has the people and software to make it seem simple.

For extra credit, notice that you can analyze your own team's car the same way and hopefully get info about where the drivers are really able to ride the limit of theoretical performance (therefore more performance there would really help) and where the drivers are not getting the theoretical optimum performance (therefore more performance there does not help, or alternatively you need to think how to change the car so the drivers do get closer to max performance there).

For super-duper extra credit, think about how you can harvest and apply this info to improve your team's performance without dipping into any of the resource restrictions imposed by the FIA. Perhaps there are marketing people in your parent company that suddenly have interest in this info...

[nevill3]

I thought the teams relied on GPS data, (for acceleration and braking), ride heights and stint lengths to try and determine what other teams have been doing. They know the effects a full tank of fuel has on their car and most of the staff have worked at numerous teams so they can help with the guesswork if needed. I think I remember a photo of a couple of Williams staff heading out into the spectator areas armed with a large camera and tripod, so the other teams will probably do this too.

Some teams, like Williams, have run with extra fuel or weights on board, even on short stints, to mask their performance (sandbagging) because they know how much lap time is lost per extra kilo. So all the speculation is just that.......speculation.

I am sure the modern hybrid cars are more difficult to analyse because the unkown factors have increased, e.g. how much mgu-k is being deployed, but I am sure the teams can deduce the relative performance of their rivals to a certain extent. Much more accurately than we can just looking at lap times and tyre choice combined with stint lengths.

Edit....the explanation in the post above says exactly what I was trying to say but much more successfully, and they type quicker than me too

[giantfan10]

Rosberg has stated in an interview which is published today that Mercedes strategists know exactly where they stand in the pecking order, as they are able to see 'Full tanks' and 'Low tanks' of rivals during testing.

Are they using any technology similar to Thermal Imaging (or anything else for that matter) to get this insight? Is this technically possible?

I think Rosberg was being a bit facetious.
I believe that all the teams know sector times and speed from GPS. There is no way for them to know(as far as i know) amount of fuel or engine mode, to add to that how do you determine if a driver is pushing the car or cruising to a certain delta?
just a bit of overconfidence from Rosberg i would guess.

[NoDivergence]

Rosberg has stated in an interview which is published today that Mercedes strategists know exactly where they stand in the pecking order, as they are able to see 'Full tanks' and 'Low tanks' of rivals during testing.

Are they using any technology similar to Thermal Imaging (or anything else for that matter) to get this insight? Is this technically possible?

I think Rosberg was being a bit facetious.
I believe that all the teams know sector times and speed from GPS. There is no way for them to know(as far as i know) amount of fuel or engine mode, to add to that how do you determine if a driver is pushing the car or cruising to a certain delta?
just a bit of overconfidence from Rosberg i would guess.

They have been able to determine this for a couple of years now. With a high speed camera, an IR camera, and some microphones overlaid to GPS data, you can get a very good idea of how heavy and how hard people are pushing

[giantfan10]

Rosberg has stated in an interview which is published today that Mercedes strategists know exactly where they stand in the pecking order, as they are able to see 'Full tanks' and 'Low tanks' of rivals during testing.

Are they using any technology similar to Thermal Imaging (or anything else for that matter) to get this insight? Is this technically possible?

I think Rosberg was being a bit facetious.
I believe that all the teams know sector times and speed from GPS. There is no way for them to know(as far as i know) amount of fuel or engine mode, to add to that how do you determine if a driver is pushing the car or cruising to a certain delta?
just a bit of overconfidence from Rosberg i would guess.

They have been able to determine this for a couple of years now. With a high speed camera, an IR camera, and some microphones overlaid to GPS data, you can get a very good idea of how heavy and how hard people are pushing

this is Rosbergs quote pertaining to this topic :
“I’m paying attention of course. We have strategists and they’re doing calculations already, so more or less we already know where we are. Would you like to know? Sorry I’m not going to say! So we know where we are, within a band of errors. Because they are able to see full tanks and so on, and after a while they get a picture of where everybody is."
Bold emphasis is mine.

[OO7]

Pat Symonds mentions in his 2016 season preview with Motorsport Magazine, that they do get a good idea of where the other teams are and relative pace during testing. You'll have to search through the podcast however, as I can't remember the specific point at which he discusses process:
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/2016- ... t-symonds/

[Unc1eM0nty]

Years ago they used to measure the time between gear shifts, i'm sure its a lot more sophisticated now but i'm guessing its basically the same.

During the season it will be accurate, but in testing with no base line established it's going to be a best guess, no one knows what engine upgrades or engine maps the other teams are running.