Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[63l8qrrfy6]

Perhaps there in differences in how long the MGU-Ks can be run at high power. During a qualification lap, if they are maximising ERS use, the K will need to run at max power for around 50+seconds as well as most of the rest of the lap at whatever the H can deliver. They are very seldom not in operation. This is quite a lot more than race duty, maybe half the energy throughput. If they size cooling for race duty they might need to work hard to get the K to cope with the qualification duty cycle.

Fair point - the longer full deployment duration should be something than can be observed by other teams. It would be difficult to understand where the extra energy is coming from since it is always a complex combination of H recovery, and K recovery under braking and part throttle operation. I imagine it would be equally difficult to distinguish between K and H (wastegate open) deployment.

Actually in the Andy Cowell interview zibby posted he did hint at the fact that deployment tapers off as the car travels further down the straight after the initial corner exit phase. As you have noted this does make perfect sense since it is highly inefficient to use full deployment towards the end of the straight. I imagine this tapered deployment is a combination of reducing K output while gradually/partially closing the wastegates and also reducing H output. However I don't see how anyone observing the car speed trace could infer the distinct K and H contributions.

With the qualy mode ban I wonder if teams will now try to also use a high output ICE setting for the start of the straight that tapers off in line with the electrical deployment. Say instead of using 5 laps in qualy mode teams now do 2 second squirts at the start of straight every lap. Whoever has the most powerful and longer squirt will have the biggest advantage.

[mem]

That's an overly simplistic view of a complex subject matter.

1. No manufacture knows how much more or less power their competitions PU has, They are at best an educated, but still fairly wild guess. You can't easily separate the PU from the chassis when making estimates, unless you have access to proprietary information.
2. Merc was partially hobbled all of last year, because they miscalculated how much cooling the PU needed so they had to run it slightly detuned. Thus the jump from last year to this year looks larger than it most likely actually is.
3. Within reason power can make up for a bad chassis.
4. If a chassis/aero update allows you to produce the same amount of downforce while reducing drag (increased efficiency), it has the same effect as a PU gain.

i think you are the one with an overly simplistic view of a complex subject matter.
Toto Wolff has revealed that Ferrari had an “68 horsepower” advantage over them at some races in 2019.

In some races last year, we saw more than 50 kilowatts of power difference (68 hp).
“For us, the task arose: How much power can we actually extract?
“And you can only find them in the internal combustion engine. All other areas are limited.

Honda surprised by Mercedes’ progress since last year
https://www.racefans.net/2020/08/01/hon ... last-year/

Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda and Renault must supply drawings and three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) views of all auxiliary circuits that do not belong to the high-voltage circuit.

What if an auxiliary electrical system feeds the MGU-K with some more current next to the main line that isnt measured by the sensors. Then you can produce more power from the MGU-K, but you would need a more robust MGU-K to cope with that. Remember Ricciardo's split second MGU-K power spike while going over a curb in Singapore last year which did not go unpunished? Perhaps this is going on for quite some time already and is getting out of hand so FIA is schutting down that road now too.

you are 100% on the money, the change to one mode and the investigation on ERS.

[etusch]

last year's merc power increase was 12-15 hp according to news (we don't know reality as we don't know any number for any pu) and last season was not fully hot wheather. It is not a good base to support merc power legallitiy but a good sign that you also can not believe this leap forward and try to share it with last year.

[63l8qrrfy6]

last year's merc power increase was 12-15 hp according to news (we don't know reality as we don't know any number for any pu) and last season was not fully hot wheather. It is not a good base to support merc power legallitiy but a good sign that you also can not believe this leap forward and try to share it with last year.

and what was the increase this year ?

[Sieper]

More then double that. At least. Yes the car is better also. But so is this years Ferrari car, better than last years, but they are down in performance a lot. Due to likely loosing 50/60 horses (deployed on the moment it matters).

But I guess you are going to argue we don’t know. And I agree, we don’t, we never have and we never will.

[Wouter]

last year's merc power increase was 12-15 hp according to news (we don't know reality as we don't know any number for any pu) and last season was not fully hot wheather. It is not a good base to support merc power legallitiy but a good sign that you also can not believe this leap forward and try to share it with last year.

and what was the increase this year ?

@Mudflap,

Didn't you say at the end of last season that you heard from Mercedes people in a pub that Mercedes would come with the biggest upgrade since 2014 this season?
I can't find your post again, but I'm very sure you shared it here.

[63l8qrrfy6]

last year's merc power increase was 12-15 hp according to news (we don't know reality as we don't know any number for any pu) and last season was not fully hot wheather. It is not a good base to support merc power legallitiy but a good sign that you also can not believe this leap forward and try to share it with last year.

and what was the increase this year ?

@Mudflap,

Didn't you say at the end of last season that you heard from Mercedes people in a pub that Mercedes would come with the biggest upgrade since 2014 this season?
I can't find your post again, but I'm very sure you shared it here.

I did and I can't find my own post either but it said something like 20 hp from last year.
At the time several users questioned whether that was such a big step indeed.
Andy Cowell stated in the beyond the grid interview that they started at 44% thermal efficiency and ended up at 50%. This equates to about 100 hp or roughly 20 hp per season. If Mercedes did actually bring 20 hp over a single winter then it is indeed impressive.

If Honda believed to be on par with Mercedes last year and did not manage to make a step this year then that gap should be around 20 hp. Indeed our resident Honda insider stated he believed the gap to be much smaller even though Honda did not manage to introduce the golden spec engine.

I am a little disappointed with this season. IMHO, Honda took a very conservative approach by using the "Spec 1.1" PU to open the season. I believe Spec 2 which is what I really wanted to see run this season with all the "goodies" would have been ready to go by this time. I realize that track time was severely hampered by what is going this season but again IMO would have liked to seen it run at Austria. Although I have not seen any numbers from race 2, after analyzing telemetry from race 1, I believe all 4 PU's are very close with regards to power and I don't buy this 35 HP gap between Mercedes and Renault nor the 20 HP gap with Honda. However, I think Mercedes has a very robust K unit this season.

Mark Hughes/ AMUS and others in the paddock also have the gap between Honda and Merc to about 15-20 hp.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/how-ferr ... 4986469209

So tell me again what is this monstrous advantage that Mercedes have ?

[epo]

Well beside the HP difference, isn't also widely known the Mercedes engine is more fuel efficient so they need to carry less fuel each race? That and the HP difference does add up for a nice advantage.

[PlatinumZealot]

The engineers aim to get the best efficiency out of two modes:

Qualifying mode - where the Turbocharger is spun as much as possible by the MGUH (E-boost) to reduce engine back pressure and MGUK is given the full beans by the battery. This mode is combination of how efficient your ICE is and of course your deployment strategy.

Race mode - Where the Power unit is run in "self sustaining" mode - where average state of charge of the energy store remains fairly constant over some period of laps/time (even after lift and coast, overtake, VSC etc). This mode is where Mercedes is the king. Their ERS system is calibrated to maximize every drop of fuel, and every bit of braking energy by clever use of engine and MGUH and MUGK programming with whatever track data they have (The cars know their location on the circuit). The efficiency of the enery generation really comes into play here too.

[nzjrs]

Their ERS system is calibrated to maximize every drop of fuel, and every bit of braking energy by clever use of engine and MGUH and MUGK programming with whatever track data they have (The cars know their location on the circuit).

Isn't this part specifically true of all the PU manufacturers?

[henry]

Actually in the Andy Cowell interview zibby posted he did hint at the fact that deployment tapers off as the car travels further down the straight after the initial corner exit phase. As you have noted this does make perfect sense since it is highly inefficient to use full deployment towards the end of the straight. I imagine this tapered deployment is a combination of reducing K output while gradually/partially closing the wastegates and also reducing H output. However I don't see how anyone observing the car speed trace could infer the distinct K and H contributions.

With the qualy mode ban I wonder if teams will now try to also use a high output ICE setting for the start of the straight that tapers off in line with the electrical deployment. Say instead of using 5 laps in qualy mode teams now do 2 second squirts at the start of straight every lap. Whoever has the most powerful and longer squirt will have the biggest advantage.

I don’t think they use tapered deployment. The 2 academic papers I rely on for ERS optimisation agree that the most effective mode is bang-bang. The PUs have several discrete power modes and on a straight they will be used in descending power order.

In qualification the order is likely e-boost, self sustain then ICE only. The last of these is a recovery mode with the MGU-H feeding the ES .

In the race the order is more likely Self sustain plus, self sustain, ICE only.

There are likely to be several variants on this since there are other modes available but they all provide a discrete level of power.

I would expect that they do ramp between the power levels for drivability and tyre management but likely very short.

I think you’re right and they possibly will use, already do use, higher power at the beginning of straights in the race. But I’m not sure whether they will be allowed to vary the ICE tuning parameters in relation to track position in the way they can with the ERS.

The 2 papers were both in collaboration with Ferrari, they are:

Optimal control of Formula One car energy recovery systems. Prof Limebeer et al

Time-optimal Control of the Formula 1 Hybrid Electric Power Unit. Mauro Rubén Ulisse Salazar Villalon

Edit: I see they will be able to modify the ICE parameters for different parts of the lap. They must repeat that pattern for every lap.

[dren]

I wonder if you could use aux current to induce current in the K output. That'd bypass the ES to K limit.

[dren]

There are 2 reasons why I don't buy the strong/robust MGUK:

1. Hamilton had to take a new MGUK early. That is definitely not a sign of robustness.

That could elude to Mercedes asking more from the K, hence the need to replace. Like what Henry is getting at with duty cycle.

Mercedes may be able to run at higher total system power for a longer interval than others. The max delta between makes is likely minimal, as you pointed out in a previous post.

[Craigy]

I wonder if you could use aux current to induce current in the K output. That'd bypass the ES to K limit.

Would be against the K's 4MJ deployment limit.

[dren]

I wonder if you could use aux current to induce current in the K output. That'd bypass the ES to K limit.

Would be against the K's 4MJ deployment limit.

ES-->MGUK is 4MJ
ES-->aux (non engine ancillaries) is unlimited