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F1 2014: All aboard the 'power train' - new rules explained (bbc.co.uk)
173 points by alexkus on Dec 3, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 193 comments



I wrote firmware (~20kLocs) for a power (electrical) supply that's part of one such power train.

This kind of development is very demanding, because you can't afford to leave any bugs in your program but at the same time you're always shipping late because of tight schedules and often blurry specifications.

On top of that hardware and software development cycles are concurrent, so no target hardware available when you're writing your code.

In these conditions the only way I found to have something that works is to keep it very simple:

    1. Simple algorithms
    2. Simple data structures
    3. Few abstractions
    4. No dynamic memory allocations
Also, no compiler optimizations.


as a huge F1 fan and software hacker id love to hear more, but i guess its all under NDA right ? :/


I love F1 and am really interested to know more. But, as kayoone mentioned there probably would be a NDA.

If you have a blog, you should put your url out here.


Wow! Have you developed the software for the ECU?


Actually I distribute power from the battery to other subsystems, so it's rather far from the ECU.


Can you do an AMA? I would love to hear more!


Even though the work environment is peculiar, the technical contents itself is far from exceptionnal, really.

If you'd like to read more about this kind of systems, this document could be a starting point: http://www.ti.com/lit/ml/slup232/slup232.pdf

It sums up pretty well the stakes and technical challenges with digital power supplies.


I just want to mention the great safety advances in car (and race) security in the last 20 years; since 1994 and the deaths of Ratzenberger and Senna there has been no driver fatalities in F1 racing.

edit "Following Senna's death in 1994, no driver had died from injuries sustained in a World Championship-related accident until María de Villota died in 2013 from complications of injuries she sustained in a testing accident the previous year"


It is quite remarkable. For example, the Kubica crash in 2007 looked absolutely horrific, but he walked away with only minor injuries.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=685_1181547684


I was in the stands in the hairpin when I saw Kubica go flying by. Seeing his head bobbing from side to side made me think that he was dead. I managed to capture some pics of the crash and wrote a blog post about it, and other racing accidents.

http://blog.octanenation.com/kubica-accident-pictures-an-aut...


Even the de Villota death was a huge huge fluke. She lost control of the car outside of the track (no idea why she was driving outside of the track) and hit a moving trucks lift face first. If she had just ran into a wall on the track there is basically no chance she would have died.


"Bernie Ecclestone has done a magnificent job with Formula One and he needs these last-minute showdowns. But we, the keen viewers, need to be assured that it is still motorsport with young men going wheel-to-wheel in a life or death struggle for glory. And not panto." -Jeremy Clarkson


The video mentions that the aerodynamics of the car generates so much down-force that it could ride upside-down on the ceiling. Wow.


While certainly impressive, that's been true of F1 cars for decades.


As you say "decades" I did a cursory search for a video (assuming perhaps at some point during that time someone thought to make one.) I found this interesting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcPsSI4O2S0

but would certainly like to see an F1 care drive literally upside-down (normal to horizontal) if you have anything like that. I just searched for a second on YouTube.


The whole "driving upside down" thing is mostly theoretical because although the aerodynamics might allow it, none of the rest of the car is designed to work upside down without some modifications:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1752888-can-a-formula-1-c...



Let's hope that they'll introduce that for next year then.

(I might be able to watch it for longer than three minutes then)


It's called Trackmania ;)


I think the majority of such claims are misunderstandings of "generates downforce equal to its own weight" which is most certainly not enough to drive upside down.

The only case of a manufacturer actually wanting to perform a test was Gumpert with Apollo, according to Top Gear UK (take it FWIW).


I think the fuel and oil are gravity fed, or aren't under enough pressure to work upside-down.

I love watching the cars as they come out of a slow corner, they look like they are prancing on their toes, then as they speed up they 'suck' down to the ground... really cool


I heard that several types of race cars could stay upside down at 100km/h. In 2000 F1 was reaching 300km/h on most circuits, less now. I guess that means it could be upside down on a higher gravity planet.


I'd like to see this attempted, Mythbusters style.


I stopped watching F1 about 10 years ago, and these new changes just reaffirm that decision. It's no longer about best car + best driver. It's about mixing it up, making it random, to maximise viewer numbers. Not the kind of racing I go for.


Just about every pro sports league needs to manage its rules to ensure that the playing field gets leveled every season. For example, NFL draft picks are in reverse order of season success. If last year's Super Bowl winner was able to choose their next team on a completely free market, they would simply use their boosted revenue and pay the most for the best players, thus making it much more likely that they'll increase their domination. No one wants to watch a dominating team shut out clearly inferior teams game after game.

F1 needs rules to tighten gaps between the team and to prevent one team from spending their way to success. I think we can argue about whether the new power units, DRS, and tire management are the right way to do this, but I'm glad they're trying something.


Outside of America there are far more sports that don't try to even the playing field artificially. Motor racing (I don't know much about non-F1 racing anyway) is pretty much the limit in the UK, team games generally work on the free market, individual games can generally be dominated by great individuals.


Wage restrictions in Premier League would act similar to NFL salary caps: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2274957/Fi.... Also, the foreign player rule: http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/fans/faqs/home-grown-play...


FFP is generally considered slightly better than nothing, but only just - it's a joke. It's talked about as if it will stop clubs like Man City and Chelsea dominate financially, but it only affects TV money, not any other sources of income (e.g. sponsorships), so realistically it is going to have hardly any effect. Even if it was implemented in a stronger way, it would still only serve to bring football closer to how it was 20 years ago before big money owners were so prominent, it would never take it to a US-sports level where they try to balance teams out completely.

The foreign player rule is about trying to boost national players rather than international players and has nothing to do with trying to even the (metaphorical) playing field.


> It's no longer about best car + best driver.

It already wasn't about best car 15 years ago, or in the 90s for that matter. Turbos were banned in 1989 for instance.


You're right, but up until 10 years ago the best driver still had a chance. Schumacher turned Ferrari around, proving it. And that's when they really started changing the rules to promote random outsider wins.


You're posting as fact about something which you've admitted being out of touch with for a decade.

Do you not think Vettel is the best driver in F1? How is the fact that he has now won 4 consecutive championships aligned with your statement that the rules promote random outsider wins?


The best F1 driver was Schumacher. The greatest F1 driver was Senna. My favourite is Jodie Sheckter. Greatest car is the McLaren MP44 - an unmitigated beast. Favourite car the Tyrell P34. Race commentary isn't the same without Murray Walker. One of my greatest moments was watching Keke Rosberg do a 360 and keep going[1]. That was at the US GP in 1983, when I was 13 and thought those drivers walked on water.

F1 is not what is once was - the romance is gone. Vettel? He's a n00b that does it for the money.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMHi8JUBMG8


No it isn't! Racing has always been the source of innovation in automotive- safety harness for example.. ABS, etc

Its exactly the fact that racing became "about best car + drive" that innovation slumped and we still drive cars that are pretty much no different than when Fuel Injection was introduced in the 70's!

I welcome these challenges.

I have been slowly developing my own diesel/electric hybrid using similar technology, it makes more sense than full electric at this point in time. Hub motors are very inexpensive and modern diesels running on waste bio can last upwards of 1,000,000 miles. Thanks to Audi and their endurance Diesel R8 racecar... They challenged themselves under no regulation and it helped prove a technology.


Respectfully disagree. Your post suggests that motor industry innovation is driven (pardon the pun) by F1. Some of it is, but typically for super cars. Certainly not all of it, or even most of it.

Besides, constraining the car specs in and of itself stifles innovation. How much F1 tech is there in Tesla, for example?


I know very little about Tesla, but quick search tells that its made from carbon fiber, probably has a tyres yes?

Tyres very much evolved because of formula 1. Carbon fiber and a few more. No need to underestimate development in F1, especially when manufacturers itself are involved. Prove of that is that Honda announced coming back to F1 as an engine manufacturer straight after new rules was confirmed.

Link gives more details about some F1 innovations in the road cars. http://www.gocompare.com/covered/2013/03/eight-driving-innov...


Yikes. You ought to watch the 2008-2011 (maybe 2012) seasons. Truly awesome.

2013 has been a bore - but partly because the past few seasons have been spectacular.


I agree. The silly cost and stil 840 hp @ 1x,000 rpm is just a bunch of window dressing for the Lefties. The entire enterprise of F1 will never be "green", once you take into account the production of the cars, the crash repleacements, fuel used in training and lower Fxx series, and...the fact that these clowns fly all of this junk around the WORLD to drive. They are doing to f1 what they did to the America's cup. Basically turning a sport into a spectacle to which no 'normal' sportsman can really relate.


Have you considered,that technologies developed for F1 by lets say....Mercedes, can later be used in their regular cars and therefore improve efficiency of not just a single F1 car,but millions of cars on the road?

With the promotion of turbochargers in F1, a stupid amount of research is going to go into them - and they are used in pretty much every diesel car on the road now, so if the technology can be improved further, then it's all for the best.

I've read the article and I don't think it mentions making F1 greener - it's not what it's about.


Audi's opinion for years has been that Le Mans has far more relevance for road cars than F1, thus their involvement there. They've been running turbos since 2006 (when the R10 was introduced), and in 2013 were running a single-turbocharged variable-geometry-turbo diesel V6. There's far more liberty in the LMP1 class, especially when it comes to engine design. As of next year, the primary restriction on engines is fuel consumption.


> I've read the article and I don't think it mentions making F1 greener - it's not what it's about.

(1) Max Mosley and the International Automobile Federation decided 18 months before the 2009 season that all teams must develop a Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS, for use in the 2009 season. It was part of the effort to make Formula 1 more <environmentally clean and relevant>.[1]

(2) Equally, efficiency will be key in 2014. And guess who had the most aerodynamically efficient car and fuel-efficient engine. Yes, Red Bull and partner Renault.

(3) These engines will be governed by two different fuel restrictions: a maximum fuel-flow rate of 100kg an hour; and a maximum of 100kg of fuel to be used through a race.

Now, that being said...the magnetic ers recovery of the turbo over-spin and electronic wastegate seem interesting and quite cool.

[1] From: An A-Z Look at KERS, the F1 Environmental Initiative, http://formula1.about.com/od/car1/a/An-A-Z-Look-At-Kers-The-...


The £300 million that the f1 teams have wasted on these engines is a drop in the bucket compared to what all the manufacturers spend on their road cars. And none of the tech comes out of f1 , only in.


Nothing has ever been developed in F1 that has made it into road cars? What about active suspension, sequential gear boxes, etc?


> With the promotion of turbochargers in F1

Then again, that follows their ban in 1989.


Have F1 cars been remotely close to something that normal people could relate to since the 60s?

Are you sure its just them trying to make F1 green? The cost standpoint helps keep large companies involved and aids smaller companies so they are competitive. The power limitations I believe have always been tied to price and safety. I doubt they were trying to appear "green" when they banned turbos in 89.


Wait you seriously are blaming liberals here? Hey why not i guess...?


You're equating 'responding to' with 'blame'. The former is factually true as an antecedent point of history. The latter is at once both unknowable and irrelevant.


Same here, stopped watching around 1998. I though it's mostly about the car (which is largely random per-season, yes) and instead of celebrating the design/engineering behind the only things celebrated around f1 are the personalities of drivers, their excesses and their egos.


the only things celebrated around f1 are the personalities of drivers

I don't think that's quite true. Quite a lot gets said about at least a couple of designers, most especially Adrian Newey (all agree that Vettel is an amazing driver, but also that the recent RB cars that Newey has designed are dominant). We hear a lot from team principals like Horner, Brawn, Kaltenborn (first female in this role!). And race engineers like Rob Smedley and Rocky Rocquelin get their voice heard as well.


"Best car" in 2014 technology could be seriously very dangerous. It would also be so expensive that you'd get 4 companies competing.

And best driver? Well, one guy seems to do quite well year after year, so maybe he's pretty good.

It'd be cool to see (even simulated) how a Computer driver would do.


But a lot of the regulation changes aren't really about safety - things like standardised suppliers of tyres, or limiting the amount of track testing allowed. Sure, unlimited budgets would allow some companies to absolutely dominate - but that's not really any different today.

And yes Vettel is possibly the best driver. But the car and the support he gets from the team give him a pretty good head start.

F1's not about the best car you could build (or even the best "safe" car you could build), or about the best driver. It's mostly about the best car you build within the set of sometimes arbitrary constraints set by the FIA.


There are so many rules dictating the design of an F1 chassis/engine that I wonder how much faster a "anything goes" car would go.


This video is an interesting comparison of just how fast F1 cars are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0

IIRC some of those GT cars that look like snails compared to F1 cars are "anything goes".

However, here is a truly anything goes car (that has broken the speed barrier on land): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKQ-xj5C2m8

So yeah, an anything goes car will go much faster than an F1 car. But it's going to suck at cornering. We currently don't have anything that can hold such high average speeds as an F1 car can. Not even in any very lightly regulated sport.

For interestingness' sake, modern WRC cars reach speeds of 220kph over gravel.

Top speeds of F1 cars are around 360kph (the Bugatti Veyron can do 430kph), but F1 cares more about cornering speed than top speed.

From Wikipedia:

> The large downforce allows an F1 car to corner at amazing speeds. As an example of the extreme cornering speeds; the Blanchimont and Eau Rouge corners at Spa-Francorchamps are taken flat-out at above 300 km/h (190 mph), whereas the race-spec touring cars can only do so at 150–160 km/h (note that lateral force increases with the square of the speed). A newer and perhaps even more extreme example is the Turn 8 at the Istanbul Park circuit, a 190° relatively tight 4-apex corner, in which the cars maintain speeds between 265 and 285 km/h (165 and 177 mph) (in 2006) and experience between 4.5 g and 5.5 g for 7 seconds—the longest sustained hard cornering in Formula 1.


Anything goes does not exist in a vacuum though, there's over-the-top regulations aiming at a specific goal (here, driving research on efficiency) and there's what you want to achieve within a set of basic rules (e.g drag race, best lap, best 10 laps, max laps under 24h...).

Take for example LMP, which used to go well above 400kph, but not so much car regulations as much as track regulations made that impossible/useless (e.g old Mulsanne Straight), designing top speed out of the cars because it simply was too dangerous. Mulsanne now has a brake zone from ~320kph down to ~100kph, much more humanly manageable.

More downforce also means more drag, and for LMP's long running races this means too high a fuel consumption. Also, ground effects and closed body vs open wheels. Reliability (or lack thereof) is on the F1 side since LMP has to run hundreds of long laps, while a F1, even with "X races per engine" rules has to run continuously for a couple hours at most. Lift such a regulation and you could make a bloody efficient engine that self-destructs over a single race.

LMP have a minimum regulated weight of ~900kg, and as every fellow driver knows, "weight is the enemy of performance". Barring that, and tuned to the problem, LMP would kick the pants off a F1 because F1 is (comparatively) insanely regulated.

The beauty of F1 is that it achieves incredible performance in spite of suffering extremely limiting regulations. My bet is that lifting all regulations would quickly put the human as the sole limiting factor to performance, because the poor pilot of a guy would be on the verge of passing out at braking and inside every corner, unless they're on a balancing seat and have anti-g suits.


The real question is how fast an "anything goes" F1 car would go around a racetrack. Especially if you remove the human driver, or make the car remote-controlled.


> Especially if you remove the human driver, or make the car remote-controlled.

Now that's something I'd tune in for! A couple of high budget vehicles and sophisticated driver AIs slugging it out on a racetrack, that would definitely be interesting.


Agreed - removing the driver would make it much more interesting. Safety regulations could then be relaxed considerably so we'd see more spectacular crashes. Also a human's inability to control a vehicle during high G force cornering severely restricts the speed you can allow the cars to go.

And the driver salaries could be donated to charity ;-)


What I meant was what if an F1 team of designers didn't have to be constrained by any rules and could build their dream F1 car. For example, there was one car a couple of decades ago (I think early 80's maybe?) that used a sort of vaccum effect to keep the car sucked to the ground. It improved cornering speeds greatly, but the device was banned.

I googled some and found this: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=598933&hw...

Couldn't find a link to the original article though. Pretty interesting.


> a sort of vaccum effect to keep the car sucked to the ground

Ground effect[0], thoroughly used in LMP to gain downforce without suffering as much drag as with a wing.

Here's what happens when the effect breaks down[1].

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(cars)

[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIJ4q3PD57A


You might be referring to the Gordon Murray designed Brabham BT46 "Fan car":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46


That's the one I was thinking about, thanks!

From the Wikipedia article: "The BT46B generated an immense level of downforce by means of a fan, claimed to be for increased cooling, but which also extracted air from beneath the car. The car only raced once in this configuration in the Formula One World Championship—when Niki Lauda won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp. To the dismay of its designer Gordon Murray, the concept was voluntarily withdrawn from racing again by Bernie Ecclestone."


Here's a BBC documentary about it from 1981: http://youtu.be/xxvcUnmBF8I?t=3m37s called Gentlemen Lift Your Skirts.


I wonder how a modern day CanAm car would compare to F1 cars. At the time the CanAm cars were producing far more power (Porsche 917/30 ~1,580hp) than F1 and still had to handle.


> There are so many rules dictating the design of an F1 chassis/engine that I wonder how much faster a "anything goes" car would go.

The cars could be made so fast that humans could not drive the cars any more. In addition, safety of the audience would be compromised and the costs would be prohibitively expensive to maintain competition.

While there has been a set of rules and regulations always in Formula 1 (that's what the name "formula" refers to), there have been periods when the cars have been ridiculously quick, despite all the limiting regulations.

In the late 1970's ground effect cars were able to produce a huge amount of downforce with very little drag, and the cars would corner at high speeds and had a rock hard suspension, the drivers hated the cars because of the rough ride.

In the 1980's, there were turbo engines that developed more than 1300 horsepower in qualifying trim. They could spin the wheels on top gear when the boost kicks in. This was expensive, stupid and dangerous but the audience loved it.

In the early 2000's, aerodynamic advances and improvements in computational fluid dynamics made it possible to get immense amounts of downforce. Cars regularly reached top speeds of 340-360 km/h, and ran at more than 400km/h outside of regular racing/testing in special top speed configuration. The costs were ridiculous and only a few top teams were competitive. The teams used up to 8 engines per weekend (that's roughly as much as they use in the whole season).

"Anything goes" is just not a good idea when it comes to motorsport. There are things that have been banned in the past that could be incorporated in a fast and safe racing formula, though.


A meaningful "anything goes" tournament (compare "freestyle chess") would probably have as the single rule that there can't be a driver in the car. That, on the other hand, would probably remove most of the audience appeal, as it's just not that interesting to see machines compete (as is also the case with freestyle chess). No audience means no money and no money means no R&D budget. So that's probably why it wouldn't work.


I don't know when I think about how the F1 car can drive upside down it almost makes me want to see these awesome 3D tracks where cars do all sorts of death defying racing and tracks that we have seen in science fiction become possible because advance AIs are so much faster.

Maybe people would want to watch it on video or even VR so it seems like they are actually there. Who knows if done right it could be a better experience then looking at 1 piece of a race track for hours.


exDM69's note about costs is also important; it would probably be best to not allow mid-race part replacements. You submit one remote-control car and that's it, good luck.


Adrian Newey (most successful F1 designer in the history of the sport) designed the Red Bull X2010 for the game Gran Turismo based on the concept of building the fastest car possible in an 'anything goes' scenario:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_X2010

The limit becomes G-forces that a driver can bear, especially over a race distance. They limited it to 6G. For an engine they interestingly picked a 3L V6, where the new F1 formula is a 1.6L V6.


Here's the X2014: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/03/red-bulls-gran-tu...

Also here's an interesting comparison betweek the X2010 and X2011: http://xn-games.net/okra/2011/10/29/gran-turismo-5-red-bull-...

Finally, tech specs and diagrams (indicating load & downforce) for the X2010: http://jonsibal.com/blog/2010/10/red-bull-x1/


Let's just have robots drive them, then.


Would it get any faster if they didn't need a driver?


Likely, as the monocoque (safety cell) has to be fairly tall. It's said above that the limit was 6G, which F1 nearly matches [1] (that GP wasn't for the most powerful engines in ~2000). With no space for driver there could be more aero meaning it could go round a corner like that faster, causing more sideways G.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Grand_Prix


Aside from space issues I don't think you'd need to spend any weight on safety gear at all.

To keep the audience alive, the track safety upgrades would be unfortunately expensive for track owners.

To keep the cars on the road, I suspect expensive track modifications would eventually be required. Perfectly vertical turns, perhaps.


There used to be an "anything goes" series… the original Can-Am (1966-1986) - what Car and Driver called "the vehicular equivalent of great white sharks in a goldfish bowl". The regulations were basically "two seats, enclosed fenders". There was effectively no regulation of engine size or configuration, or of aerodynamics. It was abandoned in part due to extreme cost, and in part due to the safety problems.

The last straw for Can-Am, really, was Porsche simply pouring money into it with the 917 until no one could compete with them, rendering the racing kind of boring. Tight regulation in F1 and other racing forms keeps the focus on the driver, not the car.


Safety problems, indeed. The 917/30, f'rinstance, had a chassis and bodywork you'd be leery of building into a child's pedal car wrapped around a twin-turbo flat twelve that could deliver 1800 bhp when turned up to eleven (and, given the turbos of the time, that power was pretty much on/off rather than something you could lay on gradually). But those were the days when "retirement" and "race car driver" were practically mutually exclusive terms.


Tight regulation in F1 and other racing forms keeps the focus on the driver, not the car.

F1 has always been about the car, and the most heralded of driver in one car often becomes completely humdrum in another, and vice versa. Tight regulations simply change the parameters that the car makers have to optimize, and ultimately came about because without continually restricting the engineering, the cars were becoming impossibly fast.

The only series that are really about the driver have identical cars. I believe that is how the Formula E thing is planned, for instance, at least to begin.


Not much. The top speed for controllable driving in a wheeled vehicle is in the 300mph range. The power and aerodynamics requirements to step up to 400mph are severe. Specifically, the wheel-driven land-speed record is a bit over 400mph (although just last year it climbed up to 440mph) and the vehicles capable of going that fast are nearly incapable of taking turns of any significance at those speeds.

Jet powered vehicles are capable of going faster, even mach 1, but they have the same controllability problems.

If we were to hypothesize a future extreme sport of ultra fast racing in the 300mph or 400mph speed range then a few problems become immediately apparent. First, you'd need a specially designed course with very gradual turns. Also the roadway would have to be kept immaculately clean of debris. Second, the races would not last very long due to high rates of fuel consumption. For example, the Bluebird CN7 consumes fuel at top speed at about 260 gallons per hour (and has a 25 gallon tank), while the ThrustSSC consumes fuel at a rate of 24 gallons/mile. Third, passing would be extremely dangerous because even disrupting another vehicle's aerodynamics in any way, let alone physical contact, could cause it to become uncontrollable resulting in a very damaging and life threatening crash.


Perhaps the turning could be improved if jets were used for steering as well?

But by this point, you are effectively left with a rocket that just happens to have some circular things that touch the ground.


You'd rather use aerodynamic surfaces for turning as well as the speed increased.

It would start resembling aerobatic aircraft like Extra 300.

High aerodynamic acceleration is an old thing, it's how they actually discovered G-induced loss of consciousness. If you are mostly doing the racing with electronic motors, there's less noise and it's not as interesting anymore. Therefore some airstream operated whistle or siren would be useful, as you could deduce the speed directly from it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC9Lmr5mjJQ


Just make the wheels optional and set a 1.5 meter flight ceiling.


And you've got Wipeout :-)


I don't think "anything goes" would be wise but there may room for an interesting race with very minimal rules. e.g.

1) Total fuel limit (of specified type etc.). Gives all cars equal energy budget to use. Maybe some fuel could be traded for pre-charged batteries for KERS type systems.

2) Size limits. Must be narrow enough to overtake, short enough to fit in a pit box and maybe a height limit too.

3) Safety requirements and possibly a minimum weight to allow for sufficient safety without overly compromising safety.

There would still be plenty of things that could be done that are currently forbidden such as active aerodynamics so the car could actually have one or more rudders to assist with cornering etc. and that wings could flatten into aerodynamic shapes.

I could almost imagine the cars no longer using their brakes before corners but instead increasing downforce enough to take the corner and that increased drag being the only reason that they slow down at all.


There's a reason for those rules - F1 is a sport haunted by the memory of dozens of dead drivers. The only way to ensure driver safety is to keep cornering speeds manageable and restrict the use of high-risk technologies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8t_QzZJn7M


Yeah! I always thought it would be mint to be able to do whatever you wanted, put a saturn V engine in it you wanted. Would make great telly. Ditto the paralympics - there should be a class where they can pimp up their kit to the max.


What you're describing sounds very close to F1 of the 60's, 70's and early 80's, now keep that in mind and take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_Formula_One_accid...

As to the question whether or not this would make for "great telly" or not, I leave to those far more cynical than me.


Well, even Indy had to tone down the cars for places like Texas Motor Speedway because the drivers were passing out in the corners. Daytona and Talladega are run with restrictor plates in NASCAR for much the same reason.

The cars have been able to go faster than drivers can handle for a long time.


Nascar put restrictors on the car because they were hitting 212 average laps. And Nascar was not comfortable pushing the cars or tires (Nascar had open tire competition back then) farther than they wanted. so the solution was limit the amount of air an engine could take in. which created massive packs that cause 30 car wrecks. In my opinion it's probably killed more people than the cars running at 212 would have.


Rusty Wallace did 228 mph at Talladega Superspeedway without a restrictor plate in 2004. The new car probably could do a bit more than that. Racing at that speed would be insane and all the safety advances since wouldn't be effective. Further, they were implemented because Bobby Allison crashed into a retaining fence at around 210 mph. This is big no-no in NASCAR because fan's shouldn't be in danger[1]. Looking at what has happened in other series to fans at high speed needs to be a consideration.

I don't think a race at 228 mph would be safer than a restrictor plate race and I am pretty sure it would kill more people.

1) look at all the attention to the Nationwide Race where the catch fence failed


Yeah the cars needed to be slowed down. However the Restrictor plates were the wrong way to do it.


What would you propose?


smaller engines for one, maybe even make them production based. Part of that goes back to relevance to road cars. I test drove a Fusion when I was car shopping. needless to say a pushrod V8 was not one of the options.


This guy's video explaining the new F1 2014 regulations is very good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lyBFmkAKw

Actually all his F1 videos are excellent.


The interesting bit here is the development of the turbochargers. This is an area that has been slow to change over the years, due to the small amount of turbocharged vehicles available new[1]. Most turbos are used in heavy machinery (garbage trucks, big rigs, etc.), a slowly changing industry. They do not face the same regulations as regular autos.

Seems they are doing away with the wastegate and replacing it with an electric motor. Using the energy of the engine exhaust to generate electricity. This energy is normally lost or wasted on a typical turbocharged or naturally aspirated engine. The interesting part is that wastegates are simple flow valves that control how much exhaust gasses go through the turbo's turbine. Doing away with the wastegate means that they will be limiting the amount of airflow that goes into the engine in some other way. I doubt that they are using all of the boost that the turbo creates, because it would be a risky proposition to do so. Changes in ambient temperature would greatly impact the fuel delivery system. Not to mention it would increase the possibility of the fuel pre-igniting inside the combustion chamber.

There have been developments in the turbocharger industry, most have been in the way of better materials and turbine/compressor blade designs. I know that Garret (a manufacturer of turbos) has developed a turbocharger with a built-in electric motor. The motor is used to eliminate lag by spinning the turbocharger to a pre-defined RPM. Turbo lag is simply the period of time that it takes a turbocharger to spin up to the speed and start producing boost (back pressure inside the engine). By having an electric motor spin the turbo to a given setting, turbo lag is eliminated, and fuel economy is improved. How may fuel economy be improved? In many vehicles, turbo lag is fought against through the fuel maps (the amount of fuel deliver at a given RPM point). In cases, more fuel is fed to the engine to increase the expansion of the exhaust gases. An exhaust gas that has more unburned fuel in itself will burn most of that excess in the high temperature area between the engine block and the turbocharger. This expansion greatly increases the turbo speed. Though this comes at a cost of higher exhaust emissions, and lower fuel economy.

There have been developments into a new type of turbocharging system. Where the turbo unit is driven by by a hydraulic pump, rather than the engine exhaust. In this system, the turbo speed would rise by increasing the pump speed. For some reason this never reached production. But it could have revolutionized the industry. In a way, having an electric motor in place of the wastegate might turn out to provide the same benefits this system would have provided to passenger autos. Being able to re-capture energy lost in the exhaust system would be a win in terms of efficency.

[1] In the USA market. There are plenty of turbocharged diesel autos in the rest of the world. They are not common in the USA, though.


" due to the small amount of turbocharged vehicles available new"??? Pretty much 99% of diesel cars available now in Europe have turbochargers, I don't remember when was the last time I saw a car without one. And most newly announced cars for 2014(for example - new Nissan Qashqai) got rid of their naturally aspirated petrol engines in favour of smaller but turbocharged petrol engines.

Maybe in the US the situation is different,but in EU the non-turbocharged engines are a dying breed,and have been for at least a decade now.


Just to expand on that a little, turbo diesel engines are extremely common in Europe in even the smallest of cars. Diesel engines are particularly good candidates for turbo charging as diesel requires more air per unit of fuel to burn.

While significantly noisier these are very fuel efficient and even quite fun to drive due to their torque output.


Forced induction is now much more common in the US than it was five or ten years ago, even on gasoline engines. Most new BMWs in the US are turbocharged, Ford is EcoBoosting the venerable F-150, and GM has an interesting mix of turbo- and supercharged engines.


Ford and GM have been selling supercharged vehicles since the 80's. GM doing it in their standard family sedan lines across their many brands. Supercharging is a bit easier to manage and pull off in terms of emissions and packaging. The power gains are not as great (when comparing an Eaton supercharger (what they used commonly) to a turbocharger of relevant size (I think a T3 turbo in .42 trim would compare). They are very reliable, and do not need the same service intervals as turbos. Due to how the engine oil is simply not "cooked" inside a hot turbine when the engine is shut off.

One interesting point is that none of the American manufacturers has paid much attention to centrifugal superchargers. The only centrifugal supercharger equipped auto I remember working on was the VW Corrado G60.


Agreed that the domestics have been doing FI for a while, although many of the earlier turbos (like the Omni GLH, Spirit R/T, Thunderbird SC, Turbo Trans-Am, DSMs, Regal T-Type/GN) were fairly niche-oriented cars. Successors like the supercharged Buick 3800 in the Grand Prix GXP and Bonneville SSEI brought it a little more into the mainstream, but these were still marketed as a performance bump rather than taking the modern everyday economy and reliability angle.

I never heard nice things about the reliability of the Corrado's G-lader... not that the 12V VR6 is a marvel of easy maintenance either, but people seem to prefer them.


>Doing away with the wastegate means that they will be limiting the amount of airflow that goes into the engine in some other way. I doubt that they are using all of the boost that the turbo creates, because it would be a risky proposition to do so.

If I understood it correctly that's not what's happening. Basically you're coupling an electric motor to the turbo. When the turbo is spinning slow you feed the electrical motor some electricity and spin the turbo up, eliminating turbo lag. When the turbo starts to overspeed you run the electrical motor as a generator imposing an extra load that you store as electricity in the battery, limiting the RPMs and thus limiting the boost.


I'm still a bit confused with the article. It does mention that they are not using wastegates.

Excerpt: Instead of a waste-gate, the motor will convert that excess energy into electricity by preventing the turbo from over-speeding.

I reason that they are using resistance on the electric motor to reduce the speed of the turbine. It makes more sense now. They can control the electric motor better than any wastegate by means of a computer. The resistance can then be immediately removed and boost would become available instantly because it would be spinning near the full-boost RPM (or island, as it is commonly called in the performance industry).


>The resistance can then be immediately removed and boost would become available instantly because it would be spinning near the full-boost RPM

You don't need to remove the resistance to get boost if you've only used the resistance to avoid overspeed. You've limited the turbine to max RPM and thus max boost. You only need to remove resistance or even reverse it and have the electric motor spin up the turbine when the RPMs drop below the boost value you want.


Yes, good point. Though I see this technology being used like KERS was used to preload the suspension and improve cornering. Mini boost spikes would be a possibility. In fact, an extra bit of power at the right moment can preload the suspension, too. I'm not saying they will cheat with it, but they will find a way to bend the rules a little bit. After all, you are only racing if you are cheating. :)


> This is an area that has been slow to change over the years, due to the small amount of turbocharged vehicles available new. Most turbos are used in heavy machinery (garbage trucks, big rigs, etc.), a slowly changing industry.

I'm not sure this is true in England - most diesel cars on the road have a turbocharger.


Most of europe, especially VAG[π] cars are turbocharged, either TDI for basically all Diesels and more and more (T)FSI gasoline powered cars.

Also look at the Audi R10 TDI [φ]

[π] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

[φ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI


VAG have a rather nice twin-charged 1.4L engine - with a supercharger and a turbocharger - the former being used at low revs and the latter at high revs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Volkswagen_Group_petrol...


Indeed, although almost unheard of in the US, these twincharged engines have been available over the years in the Japan and Europe. The "special" edition cars haven't sold in large numbers but were readily available at the time of release from dealerships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twincharger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4AGE#4A-GZE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_MA_MA09ERT


Nice but AFAIK unreliable.


Well, we're on our second Golf that has a 1.4TSI and I'd happily buy another one!

[My downsizing of car sizes has seen me go from a 4.4 V8 BMW to a 2.5 V6 Turbo diesel VW to a 1.4TSI VW - perfectly happy with the latter now!]


Not due to the twin charging, but due to it being a VAG auto.


Do VW and Audi cars have the name of being unreliable in the US? Can't imagine that really..


Show me a reliable twin charging design. I dare you. I double dare you.


I used to be a mechanic. So, show me a reliable VAG auto. Experience taught me to avoid them like the plague.


Around here they are deemed as reliable as the sunset. This leads to comical situations where 10-15 year old VAG autos are sometimes priced almost the same as 5-10 year old autos from other brands.

AFAIK only real sour lemon were the 1.4 petrol engines and those dual charged engines from the mid 00's. But around here everybody knows that only true VAG engine is a diesel. That is the folk lore around here not my own opinion.

I myself drive a Peugeot as for my tastes price/performance of VAG is not as good.

Personally I would steer away from Renault (had several, only "good" car was R4 :)), and basically any American brand. I think that in the value department Asian brands are giving European and US brands quite a run for ther money. Too bad they do not make a Berlingo/Caddy/Kangoo class of a car.

Even if VAG is total shit, dual charged engines are not something you would want in your vehicle. I think hybrids are a much better and simpler option.


Indeed, updated my comment to be more accurate :)


You are right. My point was that there not many petrol or gasoline powered turbocharged autos. Diesels powered autos are commonly turbocharged. In the USA, diesel autos are not common. Thus, turbos are mostly seen in high-performance vehicles (like the 911, WRX, etc.).


In reply to cjrp (whom I can't reply to directly, strangely enough) -- it's harder to find diesel in the US than plain gasoline/petrol, but not that hard. Most trucks here use diesel, after all, and many gas stations have at least one diesel pump. It's mostly the gas stations along the commuter corridors to little bedroom communities which are gasoline-only.


truck pumps should not used to fuel cars, their flow rate is way to high and will cause damage if not bathe you in fuel. I haven't ever had an issue find low sulfur diesel on my travels, however I am mostly doing than East of the Mississippi.


Right about the truck pumps - I guess the main thing is that because trucks and other large diesel fuel consumers exist and are popular, the overall infrastructure for diesel, including refining and distribution networks, also exist. An individual pump is only a small part of that network.


Splitting semantic hairs, but I'd say that turbocharged cars are quite common in the USA, although still greatly outnumbered by normally-aspirated ones.

I've been driving various turbocharged cars for 20 years, and both cars in the garage right now have turbos. I'd be surprised if you could drive on a highway more than a couple of miles without seeing one.

So, based on my own observation, I'd says that gas-powered turbocharged passenger cars are common yet still greatly outnumbered.


Interesting. Is it hard to find gas stations which sell diesel over there as a result?


Yes, there are less gas stations that sell Diesel. Most are located around common routes used by the shipping industry. Also, the requirements for Diesel fuel in the USA is different than in Europe. Plus the price of diesel is actually higher than gasoline.

There is another phenomena around diesels in the USA. Which is the perception of the general population towards them. People often think of them as noisy, smelly, and unreliable autos. This due to the awful diesel engines produced by American auto manufacturers during the 70's and 80's. General Motors is the one to blame for the awful engineering and cost-cutting practices that led the public to see diesels as a non-option.


I think you'll find that it was actually the Rabbit (Golf) Diesel of the time that set the tone. It was (to put it mildly) a bit of a clatterbox, and it was (if I recall correctly) the Diesel one was most likely to see. And there was more than a little bit of trouble in winter as well in northern states (the fuel of the time would become like unto a solid block of paraffin at temperatures above those that normally lead to keeping a car with a block heater plugged in). GM didn't help (and Volvo certainly didn't hurt), but it wasn't the main culprit.


Yes, you are right. It was the Rabbit diesel that started damaging the public's perception of diesel. But then GM, Volvo, and Ford kept the "flame" alive during the 80s.


Come now. American impressions of diesel cars were formed by the ghastly Mercedes cars of the 80s and the Volvo DL, both smokey and pokey and unreliable. It's taken many years to shake that reputation. It doesn't help that the manufacturers refuse to market the cars here. VW is really the only mark with good success selling diesel cars in the USA.

It makes sense that diesel costs more because it contains more energy per unit volume and fuel is sold by volume.


But then on the other hand, diesel requires less work to be done to get it than petrol(gasoline) does. Both arguments are perfectly valid.

And most EU countries(with the stark exception of UK) have diesel a lot cheaper than petrol.


Define "a lot"? Here in Switzerland at least diesel is more (by about 7%, not a lot). Since most of the cost of fuel here is taxes, I assume the difference between petrol and diesel is also due to differential taxation.

One of the things that has kept diesel out of the USA until recently is the diesel fuel was good enough for heavy trucks to meet truck emissions standards but wasn't good enough for diesel cars to meet car emissions standards. This wasn't the case in the EU for some years because truck emissions standards in EU are more strict and car emissions standards were less strict compared to California. Now that you can get ultra-low sulfur diesel in all 50 US states it is becoming easier to market diesel cars in the USA. But the new fuel standards (since 2010) also make diesel cost more.


>>Most EU countries

>Here in Switzerland

The last time I checked Switzerland was not in the EU.


Well you got me there.


Ah, I see. I believe there was a time here (England) when diesel was cheaper than petrol, but it's now a few pence/litre more. Presumably that's made up for with improved efficiency though.

Funny how the perception of a technology can be tainted by poor implementation. I'm not sure how European diesels were in the past, but as long as I've bothered to pay attention (~10 years), diesel has been more popular here since fuel is so darn expensive. Will be interesting to see if the gain in popularity of Euro/Asian cars over there will have any effect on the number of diesels on the road.


Diesel passenger car engines were pioneered by companies that market cars in Europe but not in America, like Peugeot/Citroën. That's why diesel popularity in Europe is 10-15 years ahead of where it is in America. The early diesel cars from companies that sell in America, like the VW Golf and the Mercedes 300, were just terrible cars.


Diesel also has 1.17 times the energy density (by volume) of petrol/gasoline.


Maybe a little harder. But we do a lot of shipping by truck, so there is diesel pretty much everywhere, just not at every station.


At least in Georgia, most gas stations also sell diesel. That could be a product of more people owning pickup trucks (some of them have Diesel engines) and the fact that I tend to live in a more agriculturally focused area.


Turbocharging has been making a huge comeback in the US over the last 5 years, driven mainly by the increase in fuel economy it affords. The biggest example of this is Ford's Ecoboost engines, which are all turbocharged and direct injection. Many 2014 Cadillacs are V6 turbos. There are countless 1.8 and 2.0 VW and Audi turbos on our roads. Let's not forget all the WRXs and Mini Cooper S, Acura RDX (<=2012), Mazda CX7, Hyundai Veloster and Sonata.


CAFE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy) is the reason more new cars are being produced with small turbocharged engines. Manufacturers are able to get the same power from a small turbocharged engine with less fuel consumption through the use of direct injection, variable valve timing and lift control, and better engine controls/sensors.


I have one of the New Ford Escapes with the 1.6L 4 Cylinder ecoboost engine and it is wonderful. I got 35MPG on the highway in a small SUV.


Audi was developing a system similar to this for the R18 for 2013. However the FIA steped in at the last minute and nixed it. http://www.mulsannescorner.com/newsmarch13.html

So, what is (was) the new mystery hybrid system? I hear through the grape vine that it is an "Air Hybrid" system and understand that it works like this: a compressed air reservoir is charged by the engine cylinders during braking/coasting and then released on acceleration, eliminating turbo lag. The beauty is that it augments the engine without the need for heavy, environmentally unfriendly, batteries.


Most new vehicles today are turbocharged in Europe. Either turbo diesels or turbo charged petrol engines. Audi, VW, BMW, Mercedes actually have more turbo engines than normally aspirated in their lineup, much more in fact!


> Not to mention it would increase the possibility of the fuel pre-igniting inside the combustion chamber.

Detonation isn't all that much of a concern with F1 engines. When running at 15,000-18,000rpm there just isn't enough time for pre-ignition to occur.


Also, the article says they're moving to direct injection, so only gets into the chamber at the instant it's supposed to ignite.


Important to the discussion is superchargers are still being built on JLR vehicles. Instant HP boost is still a defining quality for superchargers.


Several F1 teams are hiring C/C++ engineers currently. Mostly looking for C brainers with experience in embedded systems and C/C++ Matlab programmers.


Interesting I am in the process of doing a cheeky spec job application to my nearest f1 team - will probably hand deliver it to the factory - maybe its time to dust of my old FORTAN skills.

I suspect engineers with expertize in cooling electronics will be in demand as if the kers/battery conks out it will destroy a cars race now.


As with F1 races, the article seemed interesting at the start but quickly bores the heck out of you.


Is this one better?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/vintage-speed/the-...

Not F1, but very much a case of wiggling through the rules.


I really hope this will reduce the number of times commentators have to say a word "tires". Couldn't care less about saving tires. Its like a footballer saving a ball, or boxer his gloves. The same applies to the engine.


Well, the thing is, it costs time to replace tires

So you have to balance tire wear with the time gained by pushing it to the limit

They also have an increased engine life this year, I think each team must go through 5 engines during the season, as opposed to 8 engines

And you can bet they're designed to last as much as needed but not much more.


Absolutely. Tire management is important, but it should not be essential. Reckless breaking with wheels locked should have its consequences. I'd rather see wheel to wheel action than listen to the comments about how this guy in a second place will have to save his tires and give up positions to score a few points.


>> "I'd rather see wheel to wheel action than listen to the comments about how this guy in a second place will have to save his tires and give up positions to score a few points."

The only reason he is in 2nd place is because he didn't save his tyres - and the reason he has to now lose places is because the guys behind did. In the end it usually works out the way it should be and we get some fighting on the last few laps. Even 5 years ago the last 15-20 laps were a procession to the line. I think introducing a bit of excitement towards the end is much better.


Its a matter of taste I suppose. I did not enjoy this season. Maybe I'm too spoiled by MotoGP.


Well, what can I say, I agree, I think it's getting boring and too many artificial limitations.

But it's better than the Schumacher era, with absolutely no challenge to him.


Without the excitement generated by the tyres these last few seasons the sport would have been as boring as during the Schumacher days (and I say that as a Ferrari supporter). Vettel was able to run away at the front but we still got exciting racing further down the grid. I think the tyres unfairly penalise some drivers (because their driving style doesn't suit them) but you can't deny they've made races that could have been incredibly boring more exciting. Not to mention the fact that because we've taken away refuelling, if the tyres were made as good as they could be, pit-stops and strategy would pretty much be taken out of the sport.


Huh? Tires have always been one of the most strategic elements of F1.


Not "always". Prior to the downforce era, it wasn't unusual to use a single set of tires for several race weekends.


I read sometime ago about how supposedly the KERS was used as Traction Control System by Red Bull, so this new "ERS", which is not even activated by the driver, seems more suited to be modified to act as a TCS.


The "traction control" part of the KERS system wasn't controlled by the driver. The best guess is that a system monitored wheel slip by the oscillation of the rear suspension. The extra power was fed into the recovery system rather than being wasted as wheel slip.

I think all teams will be doing this in 2014.


But do they have to limit fuel. Does the advantage of the turbo outweigh more pitstops?

I'm afraid races might get boring when drivers will have to conserve their fuel or just lose the race.


> But do they have to limit fuel. Does the advantage of the turbo outweigh more pitstops?

Refueling is not allowed in Formula 1, it has only been allowed during two brief stints in the early 1980s and late 1990s. It was/is silly dangerous and there were a few quite nasty pitstop fire incidents.

One goal of the new regulations with the turbo, the regenerative braking and the fuel limit is to put emphasis on the efficiency of the engines. The engine manufacturer with the best efficiency is at an advantage.

There's a risk that this will introduce boring fuel saving periods to races. But on the other hand the fuel limit is the same for everyone. If you look at this from a different perspective, there will periods where you can crank up the boost and mixture to allow for more power at the cost of more than average fuel consumption.


> Refueling is not allowed in Formula 1, it has only been allowed during two brief stints in the early 1980s and late 1990s.

Brief? It was allowed from 1994 to 2009, and the official reason for removing it in 2010 was team expenses (they had to move expensive speed-refueling machinery around the world, and highly trained pit staff to match)


Brief in the sense that for most of the history of F1, refueling has not been allowed.


That's not strictly true. Refuelling was allowed (or, more accurately, it wasn't banned) from 1950 (the first F1 world championship) thru 1983. Fangio did a deliberate pitstop during his famous win at the Nürburgring in 1957 [1].

However, it appears that it wasn't until 1983 that a team (Brabham) deliberately built a car with a tank too small to hold enough fuel to finish a race [2]. Brabham went on to win the 1983 championship and refuelling was banned from 1984.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_German_Grand_Prix [2]: http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/refueling.html


Refueling was only banned in 1984, it was allowed before that.

So using the historical argument, it's the refueling ban whose stint has been brief (1984 - 1993, and 2010 - ?)


Sounds like a disagreement over whether one is referring to the act of refueling or the refueling rule.

Both mid-race refueling and the refueling rule have had brief stints.


One search youtube for 'f1 fuel fire' for some examples of how it can be dangerous but this is a good example of what you're talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdyuN_cUqjA

I don't think F1 had this problem but with some races the fuel is made with methanol and the flames can be impossible to see:

http://boingboing.net/2010/11/03/its-hard-to-fight-a.html


That video of Jos Verstappen's pitstop fire is quite disturbing. That fire was partially caused by the fueling rig that had been tampered by removing a filter to allow faster refueling.

Here's another disturbing pitstop fire of Heikki Kovalainen leaving the pit stall with the fueling hose still attached and the fuel gets sprayed on his compatriot Kimi Räikkönen, who went on to finish the race in 5th spot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgjhfQLTNk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzg_9UXo9s8

Trying to refuel 50 liters (15 gallons) or more in less than 10 seconds is bound to be dangerous.


It's already the case. You cannot refuel (I think for safety reasons, but not sure), so to get a weight advantage you have to take as little fuel as possible at the beginning of the race. So I don't expect changes. And yes, it happened to some, like Hamilton, to have to drive slower to save fuel. http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/21917717


> You cannot refuel (I think for safety reasons, but not sure)

Definitely not safety reasons. Refueling on pit stops was allowed from 1994 to 2009 (inclusive). The official reason for refueling ban was lowering team expenses: refueling stops required significant machinery, equipment and crew (much more so than calibration and tyres changes), which had to be carried around the world.


In race refueling has been banned since 2010. Their concern was with the increasing number of fuel related pit row accidents. But on the flip side, many argue that operating with the increased fuel loads is even more dangerous.


Cars going round in circles? I already find that fairly boring.


That's NASCAR, not F1.

In F1 you see real cars, doing real curves, not the thing NASCAR does like having a car that only could turn one way.

In F1 you see cars going through the streets of Monaco or Valencia, or German circuits that you could race yourself with your own car. BTW I do it.


NASCAR has road tracks so stop the stupid and tell the truth.

I like NASCAR because F1 feels too teched up and NASCAR doesn't even give the driver a fuel gauge or speedometer. Plus all that weight and those small breaks. And just to stop another stereotype, I hate wrecks and cautions and I haven't met anyone who does.

NASCAR is also the most fan friendly sport with a huge amount of fan interaction with the drivers and cars. NASCAR fans can even go on the actual track in training vehicles.


Not very many NASCAR tracks are road tracks, looks like 5 out of 29. I don't believe NASCAR has ever (or at least in the past decade or so) raced an actual street course though. E.g. similar to the Monaco GP, Montreal GP or for ALMS, Baltimore GP.

Isn't the lack of fuel gauges more due to them being inaccurate if you are at a 30 degree slant and back to level? I believe they use fuel pressure gauges to indicate if they are running out of fuel.


Well, NASCAR only has 4 dates at 2 tracks with restrictor plates, but a lot is made of them. Cup has two course: Watkins Glen and Sonoma which each get 1 race. I do wish they would move one to the chase.

I cannot remember Cup racing a street course, but the Nationwide did in Canada and the Trucks raced on dirt[1] this year, so they might be a Cup date in the future. Nationwide ran a road course in Mexico City, so that might be a possibility for Cup.

They just don't let drivers have much info or else they'd let the drivers have a speedometer. Heck, they've banned cellphones in the car since that could be used to get performance information.

1) a Cup race on dirt is a scary thought, pitting would be odd


> stop the stupid and tell the truth

Be nice.


I'm just sick of folks repeating that same tired argument, much like most Linux / BSD people being told that neither can be used as a desktop machine. It gets old and you just know the person saying it is much smarter than that.


In NASCAR you see cars passing each other.


I used to think it was dull, but then I read up on the aerodynamic and engineering work that goes into each car's design and suddenly it became a lot more interesting.


Circles? That's Nascar


They're all topologically equivalent


It may well be the case that they are all topologically equivalent, but they needn't be, so long as bridges are allowed. Perhaps that's how they could make F1 more interesting.



Unfortunately, the presence of a bridge is necessary, but not sufficient. Think knots.


In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

Even circle tracks have tremendous local variation from a racing point of view.


You should give the WRC series a good look. Here is Round 8 in Finland of the 2013 season. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82FgaYyXYwE


Formula 1 is street circuits.


There's something in the rules about maximum fuel flow rate, which IIRC is 100kg of fuel per hour, with a maximum of 100kg of fuel in the tank, so the trick has been to make these engines as efficient as possible, it's no use having the most powerful engine if if can't reach it's full capability, or can only reach it when it's using the max fuel flow rate as you'll run out having only completed half the lap.


Life... I mean the need for speed will find a way.

I'm quite excited by this, can't wait to see what innovations will come out of the new restrictions!


I wonder what'll happen to F1 when the consumer car industry shifts to driverless cars. Will F1 "catch up" and the teams get rid of the drivers? Will it still be considered a sport?


How do they handle network latency back to simulation / data processing environments when travelling?


Latency does not matter because the driver must do all the work controlling the car and the engine.

They use data links (at some point they used direct radio links, don't know what happens these days) back and forth from the car to the pit wall and all the way back to the factory. There's around 20-50 engineers working every time the cars are out on track.

But the telemetry is all one way, it's not allowed to control the car from the pit wall. There are computer programs and engineers analyzing the telemetry all the time but all they can do is give instructions to the driver.

You can regularly see/hear this happen in races. There may be a slight collision between cars and e.g. the front wing gets damaged a little. The driver will radio the pit wall and ask whether they have damage or not. The engineers behind the pits and in the factory will analyze the data from the suspension travel vs. pitot tube telemetry and conclude whether there's damage to the wings and whether that damage is grave enough to warrant changing the front wing at the pits (~10 seconds stationary).

Here's an amazing video from McLaren mission control in their factory in Great Britain while the cars are out on track in Korea on the other side of world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhl7csZJHw


There was a story on Ars[potato] about a small team a couple of weeks ago, they bring their servers with them (for this team only a couple in a half size rack) So I'm guessing they're doing the calculations they need during the race locally...

[potato] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/galler...


Network latency isn't really an issue, because the team has no direct control over any aspect of the car aside from what they say to the driver; Pit-to-car telemetry is explicitly prohibited, and radio comms from the team to the car are voice-only.

In short, the latency introduced by voice comms far outweighs any geographical distance introduced by sending data to and from the cray at homebase.


Can't racing just be about fun loud cars? Leave the environmentalist somewhere else?


F1 has always been intended to move tech into production cars. It was never just about fun loud cars. It's definitely true that a few dozen cars running laps for a day isn't going to have much effect on the climate, the point is to improve millions of cars in the future.




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