Red Bull RB7 Renault

[Just_a_fan]

I'd agree that the RB7 is a fine looking car and the focus of its design is quite obvious, as you say.

However, the other teams only have three options open to them:
1. Copy the RB concept
2. Develop last year's car
3. Try something different

Now, no one is going to do 1. because, well, you're not allowed to. Some are trying 2. e.g. the Ferrari (and indeed RB themselves) but if you weren't as quick as the RB last year just doing this probably won't bring you more than level with RB. Choosing option 3. is what McLaren, Renault and Williams are doing. If it pays off then there's the chance to leapfrog the rest and run away with the title. However, the corollary is that if they get it wrong they'll be focussing on next year's car by mid-season.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather we saw more teams trying option 3 because it makes the whole thing much more interesting. A grid full of RB-copies would be fairly tedious on 2 levels - the first that they'd look the same and there'd be little to discuss and the second that they'd probably not be as good as the original which would lead to a walk-away season for RB (which would be boring for the majority of F1 fans who obviously support other teams and / or drivers.)

So, what do you think the other teams should do?

[carvetia]

Does anyone else think that Red Bull's complaints about the Renault engine last year were designed to put other teams off attempting to acquire it? Their power deficit claims were completely unverifiable, yet became accepted wisdom in the paddock and were frequently perpetuated by Horner. However the packaging advantages of the Renault engine seem quite obvious and are surely a big factor in allowing Newey & Co to do what they do.

Renault too seem to be exploiting the potential of their own engine at last, which I think is by far the best overall package when you look at the comparative bulk around the engine compartments that Mercedes & Ferrari powered teams have. Power talk is just a distraction.

Thus I think their engine is a much bigger factor in the design of the car than we give it credit for, and only with it comes all the aero magic that the others have yet to find.

[Lindz]

Can you guys provide substantial evidence that the Renault RS27 is a smaller package than the other engines? I'm not doubting per se, just curious. I haven't heard that be accepted as 'rumored fact' like was the hp deficit, etc.

[HungryHebbo]

Did the Renault team themselves ever complain of being underpowered? I can't remember that they did, although it might have happened.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Does anyone else think that Red Bull's complaints about the Renault engine last year were designed to put other teams off attempting to acquire it? Their power deficit claims were completely unverifiable, yet became accepted wisdom in the paddock and were frequently perpetuated by Horner.

A thread was started by myself a couple of months ago. And there are no certain answers. Yes Mercedes have very slight and almost undiscernable power advantage, but that is negated by Renaults ability to use less fuel.

As for the packaging, again Im going on what insiders are reckoning. Overall though, the difference in power units in F1 is as close as it has ever been.
To suggest that the Renault is in someway hampering Red Bull is nonsense...

[okibcn]

I see that RB and McLaren are doing a lot of tests on different solutions, this is good and bad.

Good: because the team is alive and active, engineers have ideas and they have the power to bring them quickly into reality, and maybe they are the "Brawn GP car" of 2011. We also have a funny time talking about these ideas and trying to find out the physical justification of them.

Bad: It seems that they didn't make their homework during the winter stop. If those improvements are so important for the performance of the car, then why none of the two mentioned teams have done a single top time yet? Instead, Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Williams have touched the top of the lap time scoreboard at the end of a test session.

Now RB is experimenting with the cooling vent:

In Valencia we saw a moderated vertical exit:



In Jerez we have seen something that seems to be a little exaggerated:




But what's the future of these experiments? Maybe something similar to the 1978 F1 Brabham's BT46B...



</sarcasm>

RB and McLaren seem to be lost trying to find the hidden technology that could cut down that extra second per lap instead of doing the last fine tunning of their solution. And after 2 weeks we have not seen any effective improvement due to all those changes while the rest of the teams are topping the scoreboards and working on reliability and fine tunning of their own technology without any major modification.

I hope that RB and McLaren had something as good as the rest. I want to see real competition without any clear winner, 2009 was very boring.


regard,

Oki

[kalinka]

I just posted this in MP4-26 thread, but it could be here too :

"We are seeing Reanult putting temp stickers everywhere on the rear suspension though they have FEE. In fact every team are using them on suspension and other parts, we see opening and closing gills, different shapes of exhausts, differnet sizes of coolong inlets-outlets. Why is that ? I'm not an expert as you know, but I think that F1 teams doesn't have yet a powerful and exact-enough software to simulate heat distribution and heat exchange, and simply they are experimenting weather one or other component can whitstand heat in that position. Maybe McLaren had some ideas for positioning exhaust, but they must see wheather other components close to the exhaust can be packaged (thermally)"
Maybe it's true for RB7 too. I don't see a big problem here. They couldn't test the car before official test with a running engine, so they must do it now. If they think that exhaust position and cooling is so important, they'll test it. Obviously RBR and McLaren thinks that it's overly important for 2011.

[Just_a_fan]

If those improvements are so important for the performance of the car, then why none of the two mentioned teams have done a single top time yet? Instead, Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Williams have touched the top of the lap time scoreboard at the end of a test session.

Testing times are fairly meaningless. Great for headlines and sponsors but that's as far as it goes. For example, Sauber were very quick in testing last year - didn't do too well at the races though.

The Red Bull was quickest last year and, in comparison to the other cars that are obvious developments of the respective 2010 cars, they probably still are. Only McLaren, Renault and Williams have done anything obviously different this year and they are all still getting to grips with their cars.

We'll know the true position at the end of the first race of the year. Before then, we have no way of knowing who is sandbagging or running artificially light, who is running on part used tyres during their fastest laps and who is using fresh tyres to set headlines etc.

[747heavy]

just comming back to the sensors seen on the front wing for a second.
IMHO it´s an array of 5 laser ride height (distance) sensors, as pointed out by Tim.

the centre one (which I think is in the centre section of the wing, rather then on the tea tray), will provide a reference height over ground at the centre line.
(to account for vehicle pitch and heave movements).

As the (geometric)relation of the four outer sensors is fixed under static conditions to the one in the centre, under dynamic running conditions, it will/can provide data about,

- wing tips/endplates bending upwards/downwards (maybe ploted against vehilce/air speed)
- wing twist / pitch
- change in angle of attack
- wing flutter (maybe tested while running in close distance behind another car / in the wake) --> remember some of the FW movements we have seen last year before the Button/Vettel and Kovalainen/Webber accidents.
and probably a whole lot of other informations.

It´s perhaps a development of last years sensor(s), where RBR run with the 4 strings attached to the outer points of the wing and jointed these on top of the nose cone.
(allowed I think (perhaps wrongly) that last year, they where actually measuring the force at this points, rather then just the displacement).
And with this informations designed the desired stiffness into the wing, to get the twist/bend characteristic the wanted to achieve.

A similar idea/technique is used by some teams(companies) to measure dynamic camber(change) of the wheels/tires under real world conditions, during cornering/braking etc.
These systems use two laser distance sensors per wheel, spaced apart in lateral direction.



BTW: If you look at the right FW pillar (in driving direction)upwards, you will see that they still use the "Bulbous" under the nose, which carries, most likely, a slip angle sensor and another ride height sensor.

[segedunum]

The Renault power issue has been done to death. The figures we do have from the end of 2009 with the homologated engines put the power deficit around at least 15 or 20 horsepower. No one has come up with any figures to dispove them nor what they mean by 'discernible' no matter how people have wrangled over it.

The reason why the Renault consumes less fuel is because it has less power. It's the power that is equalised. If you equalised the Renault's power the Renault and Mercedes would consume the same amount of fuel........ There's no advantage there whatsoever. Being able to choose when and where you use that power and how you consume fuel is, however.

I won't feed trolls directly because then this thread will descend into the nonsense of others that we've had before.

[Just_a_fan]

I understand, from an ex-F1 engineer friend who has kept in touch with the paddock, that the Renault engine has good heat rejection qualities and that's the key reason Newey pressed for its use. It allows him to design the tight packaging that we see on the RB6 and 7. Horner's continual bleating about the power differences is just a smoke screen for the media.

I doubt the RB7 would be as tightly packaged if it had the Merc engine in the back. Indeed, Newey's attempts to tightly package previous Merc engines in the back of previous McLarens wasn't very successful and they had some reliability issues because of it. It's not for no reason that Newey has had a reputation for fast but fragile cars - look at the early RB5 gearbox temp issues in testing that had to be sorted out for example.

It's the little differences in the stuff on the inside of these cars that drives some of the differences on the outside - form follows function quite closely in this regard. All of the teams would have shrinkwrap bodywork if they could get it to work with their internals.

[Blackout]

just comming back to the sensors seen on the front wing for a second.
IMHO it´s an array of 5 laser ride height (distance) sensors, as pointed out by Tim.

and by me

maybe lazer sensors that compare wing's height on that three locations ?!

[747heavy]

Sorry Blackout,
no offence or disrespect intented.
Credit where credit is due - =D> =D>
you are right on the money - IMHO

[Lindz]

I understand, from an ex-F1 engineer friend who has kept in touch with the paddock, that the Renault engine has good heat rejection qualities and that's the key reason Newey pressed for its use. It allows him to design the tight packaging that we see on the RB6 and 7. Horner's continual bleating about the power differences is just a smoke screen for the media.

I doubt the RB7 would be as tightly packaged if it had the Merc engine in the back. Indeed, Newey's attempts to tightly package previous Merc engines in the back of previous McLarens wasn't very successful and they had some reliability issues because of it. It's not for no reason that Newey has had a reputation for fast but fragile cars - look at the early RB5 gearbox temp issues in testing that had to be sorted out for example.

It's the little differences in the stuff on the inside of these cars that drives some of the differences on the outside - form follows function quite closely in this regard. All of the teams would have shrinkwrap bodywork if they could get it to work with their internals.

This is what I've always said, especially this year when you see the RB7 compared to some of the other cars. It makes much more sense that the engine has better cooling properties than it 'takes up less space' as was said earlier. Thanks for sharing.




As for the testing many different parts and 'not fast' laps, etc... means nothing in this case. RBR have proved with the Valencia tests that they are up at the sharp end of the field right off the bat. Now they are concentrating on more practical things. I doubt they are searching for something that 'works', more likely they are testing every aspect and gathering data. Besides... if you are blowing the diffuser like they are (no other team is doing their way, mind you) then it would behoove you to test it in all conditions. So it works great on light fuel and new tires? How about worn tires and fuel for 40 more laps and your engine turned to 80% revs? How about super softs with a full tank?

When you have a good car and you then build on that with new parts, ideas, solutions that's when you get an even bigger step, or find more consistency, reliability, etc...

[myurr]

The Renault power issue has been done to death. The figures we do have from the end of 2009 with the homologated engines put the power deficit around at least 15 or 20 horsepower. No one has come up with any figures to dispove them nor what they mean by 'discernible' no matter how people have wrangled over it.

The reason why the Renault consumes less fuel is because it has less power. It's the power that is equalised. If you equalised the Renault's power the Renault and Mercedes would consume the same amount of fuel........ There's no advantage there whatsoever. Being able to choose when and where you use that power and how you consume fuel is, however.

I won't feed trolls directly because then this thread will descend into the nonsense of others that we've had before.

Seg, you can bleat all you want but there is no definitive answer to how much power each engine has. No one has released official figures, all you have are estimates based on rumour and amateur analysis. There is such a thing as engine efficiency which is why all the teams work so hard on the things they can affect in order to minimise the fuel their engines use. Things like changing the lubricants can have a demonstrable affect.

The fact is that the Renault has lower cooling requirements and uses less fuel, contributing to Red Bulls packaging and success. It is also one of the most drivable engines with more low down torque than the competition, as evidenced by both Red Bull and Renaults acceleration out of corners relative to the competition. This isn't aero related as whilst Red Bull had one of the slowest cars in a straight line, Renault had one of the quickest.

Red Bull had the option of switching to the Ferrari engine and chose to stick with the Renault. If it was all about power as you claim then they would have made the switch. There were clearly ancillary reasons for wanting to stick with the Renault unit.