Red Bull KERS strategy

[Dragonfly]

Can anybody show me the text in the rules about pre-charging the KERS. I searched in the 2009 Technical Regulations, but could not find it.
I thought it was not allowed for safety reasons while cars are stationary at the grid before the start of the race with many people around and mechanics working on the cars.

[simplefan]

Can anybody show me the text in the rules about pre-charging the KERS. I searched in the 2009 Technical Regulations, but could not find it.
I thought it was not allowed for safety reasons while cars are stationary at the grid before the start of the race with many people around and mechanics working on the cars.

Under the Sporting Regulations for Parc Ferme the teams are allowed to charge or discharge the batteries.

34) POST QUALIFYING PARC FERMÉ

"- charging and / or discharging of the KERS energy storage devices ;"

[Dragonfly]

Thanks, but it does not make it clear whether it is done for maintenance and testing purposes or to pre-charge the system for the race.

[King Six]

They definitly have a full KERS, not a start-only-KERS

Watch this video from P2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mikg7vy6 ... re=related

Look at the left hand side display on the dashboard, you can see normaly the speed in kph. At some stages this changes to a number counting up from 0 to 100. This happens always when you would think kers would be activated.
So this display shows him how much kers he has used and we can see when he is using kers.

Aswell in a interview from the preseason testing Vettel said that it´s hard to look at your dashboard display to use the right amount of kers while concentrating on driving fast.

I think rbr has decided not to use kers in quali to optimise breakbias and breaking feel. This extra confidence for the driver and unaffected rearend breaking will give them more laptime as those 400 kj kers power could give

But with the parc ferme rules is that even possible to do?

[nacho]

But it starts counting up when accelerating, it is allowed to charge KERS only during braking.

[Dmitry]

Watch this video from P2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mikg7vy6 ... re=related

Look at the left hand side display on the dashboard, you can see normaly the speed in kph. At some stages this changes to a number counting up from 0 to 100. This happens always when you would think kers would be activated.
So this display shows him how much kers he has used and we can see when he is using kers.

In qualification left display sometimes showed 0 without counting, so kers was uncharged?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pU7X7DAKyM

[JB2011]

But it starts counting up when accelerating, it is allowed to charge KERS only during braking.

I imagine it starts counting up to show amount used not amount left. I doubt there's any point showing the driver a percentage of charge level as it recharges over the course of the lap anyway.

[raymondu999]

a piece from the BBC F1 website on startline KERS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 436936.stm

[nacho]

But it starts counting up when accelerating, it is allowed to charge KERS only during braking.

I imagine it starts counting up to show amount used not amount left. I doubt there's any point showing the driver a percentage of charge level as it recharges over the course of the lap anyway.

That makes sense.

[Dragonfly]

BTW, is KERS limited only to an electric principle?

[DM0407]

If its start line only, then its not KERS, its KES.

[HampusA]

Red Bull is playing a high game here.

I fully believe they have sort of a start only KERS system that recovers energy probably in turn 1 then disconnect itself somehow.
They have to recover the energy they lost to be able to call it a KERS unit.

There are some benefits of doing this.

You have more weight you can shuffle around to optimise the balance. You don´t get all the drawbacks of a normal KERS system.
Without KERS RBR are faster on a lap than with it.

The drawbacks is that if Hamilton hangs on after T1 Vettel is smoked by T2.
He has no chance in hell to stop Hamilton from passing him.

Even if Vettel manages to lead out of T1 but fails to get rid of Hamilton by lap 2 then it´s really over since he can now use the wing.

Vettel might have a chance of getting the position back due to the rear wing but with the Maccas engine and KERS system i´m not so sure.

[Ferraripilot]

Red Bull is playing a high game here.

I fully believe they have sort of a start only KERS system that recovers energy probably in turn 1 then disconnect itself somehow.
They have to recover the energy they lost to be able to call it a KERS unit.

There are some benefits of doing this.

You have more weight you can shuffle around to optimise the balance. You don´t get all the drawbacks of a normal KERS system.
Without KERS RBR are faster on a lap than with it.

The drawbacks is that if Hamilton hangs on after T1 Vettel is smoked by T2.
He has no chance in hell to stop Hamilton from passing him.

Even if Vettel manages to lead out of T1 but fails to get rid of Hamilton by lap 2 then it´s really over since he can now use the wing.

Vettel might have a chance of getting the position back due to the rear wing but with the Maccas engine and KERS system i´m not so sure.

I'm right there with you. If Vettel loses that postion, it's gone. Same can be said for Webber and anyone else who comes within 1 second of a Red Bull on the straights.

[747heavy]

FYI 2011 KERS rules

5.2 Other means of propulsion :

5.2.1 The use of any device, other than the 2.4 litre, four stroke engine described in 5.1 above and one KERS, to power the car, is not permitted.

5.2.2 With the exception of one fully charged KERS, the total amount of recoverable energy stored on the car must not exceed 300kJ.
Any which may be recovered at a rate greater than 2kW must not exceed 20kJ.

5.2.3 The maximum power, in or out, of any KERS must not exceed 60kW.
Energy released from the KERS may not exceed 400kJ in any one lap.
Measurements will be taken at the connection to the rear wheel drivetrain.

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.

5.2.5 Cars must be fitted with homologated sensors which provide all necessary signals to the SDR in order to verify the requirements above are being respected.

the wording is slightly different to the 2009 KERS rules.
if RBR has opted for a start only system, it would still be legal - IMHO
they could even store more then 300KJ, making use of the "..except for one fully charged KERS...." clause, maybe they are o.k. for 2-3 laps, or 2-3 restarts behind a safety car with that.
smart thinking/reading the reg´s, let´s see how it pans out

[myurr]

Sorry guys but all this talk of start only systems and no one is addressing the two major problems with that theory:

1) Why didn't / couldn't they use such a system in qualifying?

2) The engineers asked Vettel to use KERS urgently due to temperature problems with the battery in FP1 presumably due to it over charging. So the team have a full KERS implementation at their disposal.

I can see people suggesting that 2) is because they have a system but decided not to use it, but there's still the question of 1.

To me I think it's more that their system is unreliable, as demonstrated in 2, and so they opted not to use it in qualifying and / or they've bastardised the system by trimming out the charging components so that it doesn't overheat in the race.