Red Bull exceed fuel flow limit, Ricciardo DSQ at Australian GP

[henra]

Precisely. There is no "objective" fuel flow rate - what the FIA sensor tells you is what matters.

Honestly, when we arrive at that point we should simply let FIA decide on the World Champion. Would save a lot of Money and effort of all these cars running around circuits all around the World and wasting fuel...

If these Clowns don't seem able to enforce their regulations to at least an accuracy of <1% they should simply give it up and do something else, hopefully nothing to do with technical things.
When looking at Toto Wolff's reply it is clear to me the sensors are not nearly up to an acceptable Level of accuracy. This would be inacceptable for a small Touring Car Racing series, let alone the 'Pinnacle of Motorsports'.

That said the effect of 0,5s of a 4% reduction of fuel flow seems excessive to me. Assuming 600HP from the ICE that would give ypou a lack of 24HP. I would expect that to correspond to somehwere between 0,1 and 0,2s.

Yes RB's move was surely not the wisest one (he might have ended 3rd or 4th iso DSQ) and also obviously a breach of regulations but in reality all Teams should have stood up once it became clear these sensors are crap.

[zcar]

The sensor is just a sensor, not a computer. The software in the systems ECU makes the correction, this is built into the car so each team need to know what the correction value is. ALL sensors need calibrating, even those on road cars, but dont need to be so accurate, so as long as they work, they are fine. Indeed replacing a sensor on your road car can make it run worse if its a bad sensor, its pretty common. The dealer doesnt calibrate it, you just swap it out.

The dynamic correction is to the CARS usage, NOT to the sensor. The technical representative will tell the team they are over limit and issue them with a correction, the driver then has to adjust the car to prevent over use. Basically they will say that you are using, say, 103kg/h, so turn down your map to be compliant.

Judging from the complexity of this sensor and its communication scheme (CAN for I/O, RS485 for configuration), it by necessity has an onboard microcontroller and most likely can be internally recalibrated. I haven't run across enough detail saying whether or not the sensor's internal calibration has been questioned or verified by the FIA. Just clarifying your "sensor" point. Not disagreeing with your explanation of the sensor internal calibration vs. the car's fuel flow model.

Given the gravity of any flakiness of this component, I can't imagine why one that has shown any sign of irregularity wouldn't be studied and dissected, or at least tossed. As noted in other posts, the sensor is owned and operated by the team, therefore I'm curious as to why the FIA requested the "suspect" sensor be reinstalled.

FYI I tried starting a discussion of possible failure of the sensor, hopefully to separate technical possibilities from the human and regulatory sides of this issue: http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =4&t=18584

[R_Redding]

and if it is like this, it boggles my mind why in the world would they put that ultrasonic flow meter there in the first place, and why it isn't using such a slow sampling rate (afair it could take samples in kHz range) and not calculate the average "on-board" (from the kHz range) and give that number to stewards, why the 5 and 10 Hz rate, which is way too slow to be anywhere near accurate for the current application

According to the Gill Sensors fuel sensor datasheet ,the sensor uses a 1kHz internal sampling rate...with CAN output rates at 100Hz ,with filtering (1)..on a 1MB/sec baud rate.

and adds.....

******(1) Output availability is subject to calibration procedure ****


So clear as mud then...

Rob
http://www.gillsensors.com/content/data ... r-2014.pdf

[andartop]

As said, in metrology any measurement cannot be considered complete if it is not accompanied by a statement about its uncertainty, as no measuring equipment is 100% accurate and 100% precise. Calibrations should be made against a standard which should be traceable to a national/international measurement institute standard. I would be worried if there was no need for calibration, and I would be worried if the end user did not receive any information about the calibration error.

Having said that, where the FIA and Red Bull are involved, the only certainty I have is that something fishy is going on.

The FIA have made it very clear that they would be very strict with this business before the race, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they had failed to be equally strict with the spec of their own system.

If Red Bull were convinced the FIA equipment was not operating to the required spec, shouldn't they say something before the race? Did they? Still, they should have conformed to the FIA instructions, rather than ignore them, then protest after the race, backing up their protest with actual race data to prove the point, and request the whole race result to be nullified.

That would have been a great development as it would offset the final race double points stupidity!!!

[dans79]

this is the argument

and if it is like this, it boggles my mind why in the world would they put that ultrasonic flow meter there in the first place, and why it isn't using such a slow sampling rate (afair it could take samples in kHz range) and not calculate the average "on-board" (from the kHz range) and give that number to stewards, why the 5 and 10 Hz rate, which is way too slow to be anywhere near accurate for the current application

if you check the pdf I linked to above you will see that the sensor runs at 1khz and I read some place that it's capable of 2khz. my educated guess is that they are running it at 1khz and then doing a summation or an average on board and then transmitting it back to the pits at a much slower rate.

[djos]

These are standard sensors that work the same for everyone. It's not up to the individual team to determine whether or not that is accurate enough.

These sensors DO NOT work the same for everyone.... or they would not need a correction factor issued DURING the race. How does the FIA or the sensor manufacture know if a unit is accurate during the race? Again, RB's approach is a no brainer. They are bring to public light the unresolved issue with the fuel flow meters.

Brian

Nailed it, these sensors are just a bad joke! Why they couldn't just use a normal fuel restrictor just beggars belief!

[djos]

I don't get this "is it faulty or not" arguing. There are independent calibration companies - FIA and RB just have to give them the damn sensor with some fuel and wait for the answer. I believe the fuel flow meter could be recalibrated as all measuring devices has it's own procedure to calibrate. In that process you do exactly what we're asking here > you determine ( map ) the whole measuring range of the device - and you'll get an error map. It will be clear after that is it a faulty sensor at all - and by how much. I can't imagine it will take longer than 2-3 days for an experienced company to do that.
What prevents them doing that ? ...Maybe in this case it really doesn't matter if it was faulty or not, but the check would calm down some emotions either way.

It's one thing to calibrate a sensor in a lab environment but it's quite another to issue calibration corrections during a race as the FIA have done!

[piast9]

Silly action from Red Bull in my opinion. I wonder what do they base their claims that the FIA sensor was faulty. How do they measure the flow more precisely?

Edit:

It's one thing to calibrate a sensor in a lab environment but it's quite another to issue calibration corrections during a race as the FIA have done!

Did they? I thought one thing they've changed is the cutoff frequency of the signal averaging which improves noise immunity but doesn't change the calibration.

[thomin]

These are standard sensors that work the same for everyone. It's not up to the individual team to determine whether or not that is accurate enough.

These sensors DO NOT work the same for everyone.... or they would not need a correction factor issued DURING the race. How does the FIA or the sensor manufacture know if a unit is accurate during the race? Again, RB's approach is a no brainer. They are bring to public light the unresolved issue with the fuel flow meters.

Brian

Nailed it, these sensors are just a bad joke! Why they couldn't just use a normal fuel restrictor just beggars belief!

How do you know that they don't work? That is nothing more than an assertion. I have also not seen any evidence that the FIA changed any correction factors during the race. They did so after free practice when they analyzed the data and they did so with every team by increasing the measurement interval. From the press release, all they're talking about is changes to the rate of fuel flow, not about some change in the sensor. They did tell Red Bull before the race to adjust their fuel rate and then they even gave them the chance again during the race when Red Bull ignored them before.

Lastly, even if they have a faulty sensor, that doesn't matter. When you get a bad set of tires you can't put on special high speed tires in order to compensate. In the case of the fuel sensor, you can even make your case with the FIA and if the evidence supports your claim, they will allow you to use alternative measurement techniques. But Red Bull has nothing. No evidence whatsoever other than a hunch.

Fact is, these are the rules. Other teams adhered to them and they lost power because of it. Why should Red Bull get special rules? And how would this not turn this entire rule into a mockery if every team could just decide at will whether or not to adhere to the rules? You may not like the rules but they're not only the same to everyone, but they all collectively worked on them. There's absolutely no excuse for Red Bull.

[jz11]

this is the argument

and if it is like this, it boggles my mind why in the world would they put that ultrasonic flow meter there in the first place, and why it isn't using such a slow sampling rate (afair it could take samples in kHz range) and not calculate the average "on-board" (from the kHz range) and give that number to stewards, why the 5 and 10 Hz rate, which is way too slow to be anywhere near accurate for the current application

if you check the pdf I linked to above you will see that the sensor runs at 1khz and I read some place that it's capable of 2khz. my educated guess is that they are running it at 1khz and then doing a summation or an average on board and then transmitting it back to the pits at a much slower rate.

ok, lets assume it is done that way, then what would that change from 10 Hz to 5 Hz "sampling" (more like "data acquisition") rate would mean in the long run, considering reading the rule as it is - the limit is 100kg/h, measured in any given time during the race and not in some consecutive 10 minute period? - my guess - nothing, since you only have less averages, but (a1+a2+......ax)/x would still result in the same number, and doesn't matter if x (internal sampling rate per each average calculation) is 1kHz or 2 and the calculation of averages (and sending them over to stewards) is done in 5 or 10 times a second, the result would be the same

that leads me to think that something isn't really working out there with that flow meter, dynamic calibration etc., and RB feel manly enough to stand by their point, that's all

[sAx]

... Weigh the fuel before, weigh the fuel after...

Read this argument a few times now and I believe it misses the point. It is not about the mass of fuel left in the tank, it is about the power strategy during the race. A continuous peak flow 100kg/h would mean spending the remaining 30min race period watching from the sidelines. From inspection then, a continuous exceedance in fuel flow would not allow a car to make the hour mark! However, if you could stratgeically burn at higher fuel flow rates (> 100kg/hr) at key periods to increase power to overtake/maintain position (...like Magnussen is catching you!), then switch to fuel conservation engine map, you would not trigger exceedance of max consumption limit as many cars did not require 100kg fuel mass to cover the distance from the start.

[thomin]

... Weigh the fuel before, weigh the fuel after...

Read this argument a few times now and I believe it misses the point. It is not about the mass of fuel left in the tank, it is about the power strategy during the race. A continuous peak flow 100kg/h would mean spending the remaining 30min race period watching from the sidelines. From inspection then, a continuous exceedance in fuel flow would not allow a car to make the hour mark! However, if you could stratgeically burn at higher fuel flow rates (> 100kg/hr) at key periods to increase power to overtake/maintain position (...like Magnussen is catching you!), then switch to fuel conservation engine map, you would not trigger exceedance of max consumption limit as many cars did not require 100kg fuel mass to cover the distance from the start.

I think it's even more complex than that. It's not just a factor in a macro time-scale like "Magnussen is catching you" but also in a micro time-scale. I think you can boost the overall power output by cleverly timing the injection, like maybe slightly exceeding the limit for half a second and then slightly reducing it again for another half second (that's just a probably completely wrong example of how that could work, I have no idea how an actual engine mapping looks like).

[beelsebob]

... Weigh the fuel before, weigh the fuel after...

Read this argument a few times now and I believe it misses the point. It is not about the mass of fuel left in the tank, it is about the power strategy during the race. A continuous peak flow 100kg/h would mean spending the remaining 30min race period watching from the sidelines. From inspection then, a continuous exceedance in fuel flow would not allow a car to make the hour mark! However, if you could stratgeically burn at higher fuel flow rates (> 100kg/hr) at key periods to increase power to overtake/maintain position (...like Magnussen is catching you!), then switch to fuel conservation engine map, you would not trigger exceedance of max consumption limit as many cars did not require 100kg fuel mass to cover the distance from the start.

The point is that if the fuel flow meter is accurate, the integral of the values it records over the length of the race should be very close to the final fuel usage. It should be possible to demonstrate it's inaccurate by taking that integral, and seeing if it matches the fuel consumed.

[thomin]

... Weigh the fuel before, weigh the fuel after...

Read this argument a few times now and I believe it misses the point. It is not about the mass of fuel left in the tank, it is about the power strategy during the race. A continuous peak flow 100kg/h would mean spending the remaining 30min race period watching from the sidelines. From inspection then, a continuous exceedance in fuel flow would not allow a car to make the hour mark! However, if you could stratgeically burn at higher fuel flow rates (> 100kg/hr) at key periods to increase power to overtake/maintain position (...like Magnussen is catching you!), then switch to fuel conservation engine map, you would not trigger exceedance of max consumption limit as many cars did not require 100kg fuel mass to cover the distance from the start.

The point is that if the fuel flow meter is accurate, the integral of the values it records over the length of the race should be very close to the final fuel usage. It should be possible to demonstrate it's inaccurate by taking that integral, and seeing if it matches the fuel consumed.

Does the FIA monitor how much fuel is in any given car before the race starts? One would indeed thing they do, given the 100kg rule. If so, then it should indeed be very simple. You could immediately tell if one sensor works worse than every other sensor.

[djos]

How do you know that they don't work? That is nothing more than an assertion. I have also not seen any evidence that the FIA changed any correction factors during the race. They did so after free practice when they analyzed the data and they did so with every team by increasing the measurement interval.

It's quite clear they don't work, to claim they do work properly ignores the fact that Mercedes and Renault powered teams have both been told to turn down their fuel flow rates!

To suggest that these multi-billion dollar car companies can't accurately measure their own fuel flow while developing and running their engines is simply nuts!