Pretty dull race and those new ultra expensive engines sound dreadful, not like a racing car at all. The sport is beginning to be regulated to death.

Limiting fuel flow isn't about limiting power; it's about limiting fuel usage and encouraging the teams to make the most efficient use of the engine to produce more power.

Also, consistently having a fuel flow above 100kg/h doesn't mean that the car will "run out of fuel". With all the energy recovery systems in place, you can use 100kg/h or more for say one or two laps to build up a gap and then drop back down to less and let the ERS take up the slack on corner exits etc. If they guy behind you is playing to the rules and limiting the fuel flow correctly, then he has little chance of catching up - unless he wants to break the rules too.

The problem is that RBR used their own fuel flow model, rather than going by the FIA sensor. The FIA rules state that fuel flow must be governed by their sensor, faulty or not. It doesn't matter if RBR can prove that their flow model was more accurate, they still violated the rules by using a different measuring system.

Their appeal is going to go down like a lead balloon because all the FIA have to is to show that RBR willingly violated the technical regulations. Which RBR already admitted to doing. Case closed.

Correction to BinaryDad, it is 100l/hr not 100kgs/hr. (edit, now not sure about this, have seen on BBC website 100kgs/hr mentioned but it also says that cars start with only 100kgs on board, the race lasts for more than one hour so both cannot be correct) (edit edit I suppose both could be correct if they ran below this rate for much of the time, so how did RBR run consistently above this rate and not run out of fuel. IT IS JUST TOO COMPLICATED)

If it is true that the fuel rate must be governed by the FIA sensor wether it is faulty or not then the sport is in a worse state than I thought.
Providing RBR can demonstrate the sensor is faulty then it would be reasonable to say they have a good case. Even the the FIA would not want to defend faulty data from a faulty sensor. There may be some argument about the criteria of faulty but I understand these sensor are specified with a tolerance range so should not be too difficult to decide wether it was within that range.

Surely the 100kg fuel limit is all that's required to achieve this?

What difference does it make what peak-flow an engine needs?
It still, ultimately, needs to finish the race while using only 100kg of fuel.


Does the rule say "The car is limited to a maximum fuel flow-rate of 100 l/hr as determined by an FIA flowmeter" or does it just say "The car is limited to a maximum flow-rate of 100l/hr"?

If it's the former, you're right. If it's the latter and the RBR data disputes the readings from the FIA flowmeter then it could get far more messy.

Because it limits the maximum power the engine can generate. Otherwise you could get silly (and unfair) power boosts to make a pass.

Probably. That's all I can really say on it.



The fuel regarding fuel flow is the latter (5.4.1). The rules regarding measurements are covered in 5.10. In short the ONLY way you can measure fuel flow is with the FIA approved sensor. No other. To do so is forbidden.




Although the regs aren't so clear as your wording, I think that it's clearly the latter and that it's going to get very messy for RBR.

If RBR had a problem with the measurements of the flow meters, then they should have gone a different way about it. They should not have assumed that they could get away with it, which seems to be the case. They should have, with the other teams, discussed their concerns and demonstrated the issues to the FIA technical delegate to work towards a solution. instead of saying "sod this, we'll do it our own way".

I think RBR's thinking was that if they can demonstrate that they were really sticking to the fuel flow rule, then it would be ok.

I got the below quote on flow limit from the 2014 tech regs on the FIA site.

But now we're back to saying it's intended to limit power, which the post I quoted specifically denied.

We seem to be kinda going around in circles here.

Why do we need to limit fuel flow when there's already a finite amount of fuel to ensure efficiency?
It's not about efficiency. It's about limiting power.
Why do we need to limit power?
It's not about limiting power. It's about forcing fuel-efficiency.
Why do we need to limit fuel flow when there's already a finite amount of fuel to ensure efficiency?

Rinse and repeat.


As I said, when it comes to a real-world application for F1, surely it's better to develop systems that can make a vehicle efficient and generate power when required?
If there's some real need to limit the available power in an F1 car, what is that reason?

The whole "you have to limit power to stop the engines generating huge amounts of power" thing isn't actually an explanation by itself because it doesn't explain why you need to stop the engines generating huge amounts of power if required.
So what if a driver can wind up the power to make a pass?
He's still got that 100kg fuel limit to contend with so any time he spends with the engine turned up to 11, he's going to have to spend a proportional amount of time with it dialed down to 6 as well.
Why not allow that extra flexibility in order to create an extra facet to race strategy?

About the only actual reason I can think of for seeking to limit power is to avoid the potential situation where a car that's running on full boost might come upon a car that's running maximum harvesting and, as a result, you'd have cars with large differences in performance close together on track which might be a hazard.
Perhaps that's the reason for the rule?

It's entirely possible that I don't asses or analyse the situation as well as I should, but my take on the rights and wrongs of the fuel flow discussion is governed by the Steward's Findings (#56):

"A) The team chose to run the car using their fuel flow model, without
direction from the FIA. This is a violation of the procedure within TD/ 01614.
B) That although the sensor showed a difference in readings between runs
in P1, it remains the homologated and required sensor against which the team is
obliged to measure their fuel flow, unless given permission by the FIA to do
otherwise.
C) The Stewards were satisfied by the explanation of the technical
representative that by making an adjustment as instructed, the team could have
run within the allowable fuel flow.
D) That regardless of the team’s assertion that the sensor was fault, it is not
within their discretion to run a different fuel flow measurement method without the
permission of the FIA."

Given that they ignored advice which would have kept them "legal" (finding C), I can't see any wriggle-room for RedBull irrespective of the functioning of the apparatus.

NB "Bolding" is mine.

Some would say that any push to pass is the antithesis of proper racing. But F1 has it but at least so far the following driver has still got be precise and get it right to make it work. If you allow excessive power boosting then they do not even have to do that and could even be tempted to make late lunges from a long way back with a massive speed differential which could result in more take outs as the victim may not even see the pursuer in their mirrors before they are focused on braking and turning for the next corner.

I don't think that it's about limiting power at all. It's all about limiting HOW that power is produced. It forces the engine manufacturers to think about clever ignition systems, but even then, the FIA have some quite stringent limits on that (no more than five sparks per power stroke, per cylinder, no laser ignition etc.).

I would like to share my thoughts.
In my modest opinion this competition is a farce. First of all, I have to say that the sound of the engines is terrible. It was a pleasure for me hearing the sound of F1 engines....hearing engines up to 18000-19000 rpm was like music to my ears. This season, with the turbocharged engines they shift at lower rpm, so we would expect that the sound would be less than in other seasons, but the real problem is when you watch an onboard camera and the sound is like a tin.
This is the highest motorsport competition, so I think most of the fans don't care if it is too loud because they like it. Well, at least me.
Second point: fuel consumption. I don't care if these cars are efficient or not. I want to see drivers going always (or most of the time) flat out. Last year we had to see how drivers had to look after the tires. This year the tires seem to be harder so they may have a better race pace, but they can't because they have to look at the fuel consumption, which for me makes no sense. They have to let the car go for a while before they push the brake pedal only because doing that, the fuel consumption is reduced.
I remember when the teams had to think about the fuel strategy in every single race, and combined with the tire strategy we watched very good races. Why can't be now like that?
For me, the only good thing for this first race was that you never knew what was going to happen, but the rest was boring.
Let's see what happened.
-Mercedes: they have a missile (like Red Bull had last season) so for me, they are the best team. Rosberg is a very good driver but Hamilton is a crack ( for me the best are Alonso and Lewis)
-McLaren: Magnussen did a impressive performance, looks like he is going to deserve that seat, and he is still very young. Button was very good also and he took advantage of a excellent pit strategy. The car has a Mercedes engine which is, at this moment, the best.
-Ferrari: another season and another crappy car . Despite Alonso finished fifth, he wasn't able to pass Hulkemberg on the track, In adition, as always, his team screwed it up with the pit stop because they should have pitted him earlier. He is capable to make the best out of the car, but he can't do miracles. Raikkonen hadn't his best day but we could see that the car isn't easy to drive and he struggled to brake all the time.
-Red bull: two sides of the coin: Ricciardo was superb and the car seem to be as good as always. They had a lot of problems in the pre-season, but they are ready to fight again if they solve reliability issues. One of them happened to Vettel, but I think he will be in the fight for the championship.
-Williams: this car looks very competitive and Bottas did a great job, despite the mistake. I think this car is better than the Ferrari, so Massa might have his chance to overtake Alonso as he wishes......no more coments.

For me, it was a disappointing start of the championship because Alonso has another piece of shit car. He is wasting his better years in Ferrari because they are not giving him a competitive car to fight with other drivers under equal conditions.
Last 4 seasons he did a impressive driving but he was in a one second slower car (or maybe more like we saw in Singapour)
I think he deserves another championship but it'll be difficult for him because he has to fight with his own car to make the best out of it and even this way, he manages to finish ahead of his car's capacities.

Sorry for my English. If you see mistakes, please let me know. Thanks.

Your own thinking matches mine completely, especially when matched up against the technical regs.
.

Just looking at that....

First thing is, it doesn't actually say, anywhere, that the fuel flow-rate is determined by the readings from the FIA flowmeter.
Section 5.2.5 seems to be the important one, where it says that "Cars must be fitted with homologated sensors which provide all necessary signals to the FIA
data logger in order to verify the requirements above are being respected."

RBR will know exactly how much fuel is flowing through the system because they'll know the exact capacity of each injector and the engine RPM and they'll be able to use that information to calculate exactly what the fuel flow-rate is.

Arguing the case from RBR's POV, I'd say that if I can show that my car IS within the fuel-flow tolerences, it's not my problem if the FIA can't use their data to verify that fact.


Thing is, as well, that there's a couple of very useful bits of info' within the rules too.
The first thing is that the flowmeter is supposed to be inside the fuel cell, which means it's at atmospheric pressure.
The second thing is that the injector pressure is 500 bar maximum.

That being the case, it seems like you easily have the potential for there to be a situation where high-speed running might reduce the system pressure and then you'd see extra fuel flow from the tank to repressurise the system even though the flow at the other end of the system, through the injectors, was never greater than 100kg/hr.

Again, you're looking at 13ml per bar to pressurise a system volume of 2 litres so a 10 bar pressure reduction would require 130ml of fuel to repressurise it in addition to whatever the actual flow of fuel was.

Basically, it's a poorly thought-out method of policing the rule.
If they're determined to impliment this rule, issuing the teams with a homologated orifice-plate to fit into the fuel-system would have been a far more robust method of going about it.
That way, you just flat-out cannot get more than a given quantity of fuel through the system.

Great post. Welcome to Digitalspy.

Don't agree about the noise. I reckon the looser handling of the cars more than makes up for the quieter cars.

Agree with pretty-much everything else you said though.

So what's your view on 5.10.4 and 5.10.5 (I've quoted them again for reference)? You're right that the rules don't say that the rate is determine from the flowmeter, however, it does say that only the FIA approved slow sensor may be fitted and anything that increases the flow rate after the measurement point is prohibited.

As I said, it's not exactly a clear definition, but it's there. After all;
1) What is a flow meter for, if not for measuring the fuel flow
2) The flow meter is defined as being the measurement point




I agree with you, really I do. The problem is that RBR have still broken the rules by using a different measuring system. It doesn't matter if RBR can prove their flow was within the limits, because that's not why they've been penalized.



You're probably right, especially given your own thoughts on on flow/pressure. But just violating a rule on race isn't the way to change that policy. As it stands, these are the rules all the teams have to stick with.

Well, in my opinion a competition engine must roar (don't know if this is the right word), I mean, it must be very loud, noisy.
Even in rallys, if an engine is not noisy it could be dangerous because there is always people walking down the stage and if you don't hear the engine........you know what I mean. F1 is not the same, but engines have been always noisy because it's exciting
What could be the next step if they are looking for fuel efficiency ? A diesel engine? Makes no sense to me.

5.10.4 is there purely because the FIA know their system is flawed.
They know that if a team fitted more than one flowmeter, they'd get different readings and it'd undermine the credibility of the system.

5.10.5 is there to prevent teams designing any kind of fuel accumulator which could be filled at the legal rate (during braking etc) and then pumped into the engine at a higher rate when required.

It's worth noting that the point of 10.5.4 doesn't prevent teams using non-approved methods of monitoring fuel flow. It's simply there to stop teams from fitting more than one FIA fuel flowmeter.

dee-eff's post seems to get to the heart of the matter.
It seems like the truth of the matter is that RBR have noticed inaccuracies in the FIA fuel flowmeter and have decided to ignore it and make use of other systems to monitor fuel-flow and the FIA are penalising them for doing so.

Look at it this way though:-
There's an FIA sensor on the car to monitor engine speed too.
If that sensor was faulty during a race weekend and showed the engine speed to be, say, 22,000rpm even though the actual engine speed was only 15,000rpm, would you expect the driver to drive the car at only 8,000rpm in order to ensure compliance with the FIA sensor or would you think it'd be acceptable to use the in-house telemetry to demonstrate compliance with the actual rule, itself?

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that RBR have some vested interest in discrediting the FIA flowmeters.
If they had an engine that ran particularly lean, I'm sure they'd be the first to complain when other teams tried to dispute the flowmeters too.

25 years of experience with flowmeters tells me that they're definitely not robust technology, though, and it's wrong for the FIA to be relying on them in such an arbitrary way.
Maybe this will prove to be a one-off thing, and RBR really are just trying to pull a fast one, but it's equally likely (IMO) that the FIA are just stubbornly defending their technology and if that leads to a situation where cars are regularly excluded due to non-compliance on the basis of information from these flowmeters it could do a great deal of damage to the credibility of the sport.

And, of course, if they are intent on being so intransigent about it all, there needs to be a bloody good reason to actually have the rule at all, especially when there's already the 100kg fuel limit to govern ultimate fuel efficiency.

I disagree. Engines have been noisy because the manufacturers have always chosen the path of least resistance when it came to increasing power.

And they've not always been massively loud engines. If you listen to the Lotus 25, it's a not a wailing scream. It's a small capacity V8 that in terms of sound, isn't so far away from the new engines. But rather than thinking smart and trying to get more power out of a similar sized unit, for various reasons, the manufacturers chose the easier route of bigger, faster revving engines.

I really like this smarter, more refined approach to generating power. To me, it embodies what F1 is about. What it has always been about. And that's progression. Not who is the loudest.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112973

A bit more on the current fuel saga. Other teams have had the same issues, but have just pegged back their fuel flow a little bit.

That's the key thing IMO.

I'm not exactly Napoleon's biggest fan but he obviously understands that F1 needs to have some relevance to the real-world and these small-capacity hybrid V6s really are exactly the sort of technology you're likely to find in a road-car in, say, 2020 so that's perfect.

I'm particularly impressed by the idea of the MGU-H. The idea of using a generator built into a turbo not just to harvest energy but to actually spin it up and reduce lag is just brilliant IMO.

I don't really care what the cars sound like. Form should follow function in F1 and, as long as the cars are doing the lap-times, I don't care if they sound like thunder or a baby farting.

Ok, that was pretty insightful. I think you've convinced me that RBR might have a valid point, albeit a rather thing one. It might come down to how pig headed the FIA are going to be.

Is this the same internet I'm usually on?

When you look at RBR, they certainly have a history of slipperiness.
They were slippery about hot-blown diffusers, slippery about flexible front wings, slippery about F-ducts, slippery about holes in the chassis and, most recently, they've been slippery about the camera mounts and now it's almost certain that they're also being slippery about the fuel-flow too.

Trouble is that, in this case, there really is a good chance that they're in the right.
There's just so much that can go wrong with a system like this that I wouldn't trust one to fill up a cup of coffee properly, never mind monitor an F1 car.

Mystic_Si predicts that several more cars will be excluded and then a bunch of teams will get together, hook up all their flowmeters together on one flow rig and demonstrate that they're all showing different readings.

I enjoyed the race, there was quite a bit of unpredictability, that made it exciting. Also the cars, not doing as they should. Quite afew times, we saw drivers having to apply opposite lock when they wouldnt normally have to. Magnussen at the start is one such example. At one point he was almost facing the advertising boards, how he managed to save that is pretty amazing.

I found the sound abit flat. I didnt mind it as i was watching it on tv. However if I went to a live race, I would be pretty annoyed. One of the reasons why I went to a live race, was to hear the sound of the cars, especially with the blown diffusers, which were louder than the engine sounds, especially when entering a corner. The sound is one of the reasons people go to a race. That is now gone from F1.

Magnussen and Bottas were the best two drivers on the track yesterday (for me). Rosberg, took the lead, and drive his usual self, and brought the car home - he wasnt tested at all during the race. So didnt have to do anything special to win.

The Ferrari looked poor, however the team did say that both drivers were nursing problems. So hopefully will see a better showing at future races. Kimi doesnt like the car, hes not happy with the brake-by-wire system, which showed in his performance.

The RB, was better than most expected, they did manage to finish a race, and came 2nd. Vettel had problems all weekend. However RB must be encouraged, that if the car doesnt have problems, they can be at the cutting edge of the grid.

Williams, look like they have a good car, and can challenge for podium positions.

Lotus, oh dear. From the second best last season, to the worse car this season. Not looking good for them. Feel for Grosjean.

Now fuelflowgate...
On Friday, RB had problems with the FIA sensor, they claimed it was faulty.
On Saturday, they fitted a new FIA sensor, this failed during quali.
On Sunday, the FIA said fit the original sensor, and apply an offset.
RB considered the original sensor to be unreliable, so chose to use it own "internal fuel flow model".

To be honest, from the above, RB have a case. Its up to the FIA to provide reliable sensors. If they cant, you can not really blame the team for choosing to use its own sensor. What would happen if the sensor failed during the race? RB could then have run whatever fuel flow they wanted. Its true that you have to run the FIA sensor, or get permission to run your own. This rule was broken by RB. However does this mean that they should be DQed? especially if they can prove they ran within the 100l/h fuel flow rate? I think not, a fine possibly, but certainly not a DQ.

I agree with Si on this matter, who cares what fuel flow a team runs? They have a finite amount of fuel to get to the end of the race. Let them run a higher or lower fuel rate as they see fit. If they use a higher fuel flow rate for too long, they will run out of fuel, and not finish the race. Seems the fuel flow rate is a rule that isnt required, especially if the FIA can not provide reliable sensor to monitor the rate.

This fuel flow business is puzzling me.

As mentioned already, the rules state that they are not permitted to exceed 100kg of fuel per hour. But they are also limited to 100kg of fuel per car per race.

The RBR car that did finish had enough fuel to provide a testing sample and as the race lasted more than an hour it can be proven (unless there was some hidden tank onboard) that the fuel consumption was less than 100kg per hour in basic terms.

However the stewards are saying that the consumption rate for RBR exceeded the rules. So what is the FIA sampling rate for the fuel flow? Is it a certain flow over one minute? Or five seconds? Or a tenth of a second?

As Si_Crewe has said, it looks to be a method of limiting power available from the combustion engine at any given time, but I don't understand how they are trying to govern or enforce it.