2014 Australian Grand Prix ****Spoilers****

The race was OK, the sound was acceptable. I'll learn to like it.

What was not acceptable was the team's (other than Bottas!) obvious resistance to racing which I attribute to the flow flow limit.

I understand why they have the fuel flow limit, but please the FIA need to get rid of it. The car's already have a limited fuel amount, leave it at that for now please. It was painful watching Jenson suffer through the final few corners behind the STR's yet run at a reduced pace behind them, knowing he could not catch them without exceeding the flow limit... He was slow in the final sector, but had he been able to boost up a little he could have made up the difference and possibly passed into T3. It would have resulted in him having to save fuel later, but that's part of the challenge.

IMO racing, could suffer this year because of that limit. I hope on other tracks it is not quite so bad.

Other than that, the race wasn't all bad. Bottas was entertainment. Kevin was... perfect. Riccardo was perfect and Nico was perfect.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

Corrected fuel useage people recon Riccardo would have been 4th or 5th.

Its very clear Merc engines are getting better power out the fuel rate than the others. The fact that Button and Bottas could close gaps infront of them.

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marcl
Corrected fuel useage people recon Riccardo would have been 4th or 5th.

How do they know given we don't know what the fuel-rate was?

From what I understand from the report and what rival team engineers told those in the paddock is that he wasn't constantly over the fuel-rate (when on full-power with a looser mixture), but consistently, as the FIA report said. That's a big difference. From what engineers were saying, the sensors were prone to interference that caused spikes in the fuel being reported. The flow rate wasn't changing, but the sensors were reporting, in a spike, that more fuel was being used. Other teams responded by lowering their fuel-rate to eliminate these peaks, but Red Bull chose to ignore the "unreliable" FIA data and use the data reported by their own sensors. From what I understand it's highly likely the Red Bull didn't ever actually exceed the 100kg/h, but the FIA's sensors (with the interference) said otherwise.

If that's true, even if extra fuel was being used, it was likely only ever in a brief spike, so likely to generate probably a fraction of a tenth of a second per lap. It's likely they weren't actually using more than 100km/h fuel at any point, but merely chose to ignore the "unreliable" FIA sensors and used their own calculations/sensors, whereas other teams slightly lowered their fuel-usage so they were reported as legal by the FIA sensors. In that sense they did gain an advantage over the opposition, but it's certainly 100% clear they actually cheated.

It will be interesting to see what the appeal brings - it seems it might be worth arguing, and I'd love to see how much of the above is true. I can't see that the result won't be upheld though.

Yeah to sum up the situation, the FIA sensor fitted to Ricciardo's car consistently noted that he was exceeding the 100kg/h limit.

However, Red Bull, having had two problems with sensors over the weekend chose to ignore those readings, instead relying on those of their internal fuel flow mode.

Red Bull maintain that they did not exceed the due flow limit with their own readings.

But the point is that Red Bull knowingly chose to ignore those readings, even when the official homologated sensor is the one that the FIA takes the readings from.

Some other teams also had issues with inconsistent fuel flow readings between their own internal models and the FIA sensor, but unlike Red Bull, stuck to the readings given by the official sensor.

In effect Red Bull breached both the new technical regulations, as well as the sporting regulations.

I don't feel that they have a leg to stand on with their appeal, and going by the last instance of fuel irregularities - BAR in 05 - may well find themselves excluded for more races.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

All the other teams though allowed for the sensor problem only RBR did not, as usual they push it to the limit and this time they got done. They probably thought they would get away with it and just get told change it for the next race as has been the case with them for years.

Whats stupid is they were told on Friday and Saturday so why risk it in the race, they should have played it safe like others did.

Ferrari2007 Wrote:
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> I don't feel that they have a leg to stand on with
> their appeal, and going by the last instance of
> fuel irregularities - BAR in 05 - may well find
> themselves excluded for more races.


That would be too harsh, I believe. BAR deliberately cheated to gain quite an advantage and put effort in bypassing FIA controls. Same thing happened with Toyota in WRC back in 95. This is just a sensor, and I don't think they gained a huge advantage with that. However, they did ignore the ruling authorities, and should be punished as they were. Should they do it again, then yes, we could make a comparison.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

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marcl
They probably thought they would get away with it and just get told change it for the next race as has been the case with them for years.

Highly unlikely as even they thought they wouldn't finish the race. Why risk it when you were unlikely to finish anyway?

I do wonder why they weren't excluded from qualifying though - they suffered the problem throughout the weekend, unless it magically cured itself for an hour.

Question.

We've recently learned how terrible the sensor's appear to be.

Why only now has Horner bought the issue up like this? If they felt the need to use their own method, then they had a justifiable claim to turn around, talk to the other teams and say we need a new way of defining the fuel flow rate.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

I just wonder what kind of company builds these sensors. It's just a flow sensor, not rocket science...
Additionally the fact that the FIA might not be able to tell a noisy measurement and proper data apart makes my inner scientist cry.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Regarding engines.... meh. V8s made my hair stabd on end whenever they revved. These don't. Gotta say I like the added slidey stuff, though

Putting an idea out there - take a MotoGP engine, stick a massive twin-turbo on it, put it in a car. That'd probably be interesting to watch

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GPGSL -
GPGSL-3 - Pizza Party Racing manager and driver
Nations Cup - Team Scotland manager

The V8's were hardly special in terms of noise, not a touch on the V10's or 12's.

They were also irrelevant in terms of attracting new manufacturers.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

It was like the cars were on mute during the race but the other sounds weren't - a bit weird really. It was cool to hear the crowd cheering and tyres squealing so clearly, but it sounded eerie too somehow.

I go along with Martin Brundle's view - the sound itself is great. Would just like it to be a wee bit louder.

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Trackside.. things are likely to be little bit quieter.. thats a given..

But a lot of the problem is the TV Coverage... such a simple tweak of upping the volume on the ambient sound feed would work wonders. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if certain figures have deliberately ployed to keep the ambient sound feed as low as possible as a way of proving a point and applying political pressure.

I maintain that the actual sound is fine... but it's being manipulated for other agendas via the coverage.

^yes I agree.

The TVs did not pick up the real sound of the V8's, when I went to Silvetsone for the test I was shocked how much louder they were in real life than on TV. The TV also failed to pick up all the popping and banging its just not a true sound on TV.

I don't think so, honestly.

I was able during the race to hear more tyre lock ups, than i've ever heard in my life watching F1... and i doubt tyres just gotten louder this season.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2014 05:02PM by Slash.

That's also true, the engines are quieter, there's no deneying that. But the tv coverage still doesn't convey them to good effect.

There was an decent video clip of ambient sound only from Jerez, but it got deleted from YouTube, probably because it sounded too good for as much as any FOM issues. The engine sound seemed just fine on that, you just had to make sure the volume slider was on the far side :p

But with the footage provided with commentary, the ambient sound volume is very low and you can hardly hear the engine sounds. This has always been the case to an extent becasue there's no point having the ambient volume drown out the commentary. But in light of these new engines it really wouldn't hurt to tweak it a bit.

I'm still convinced at these cars sound brilliant, but we're simply not getting to hear it because of the way the footage is transmitted.

I wonder how much of it has got to do with the sound system people are using? Most TVs don't exactly come with top-of-the-range speakers, and the new engines are obviously lower in frequency. It's these sounds that cheaper speakers struggle to put out, which might explain the quieter sound.

I always thought the V8s sounded nice in real life, but dodgy on TV - like a wasp. I decided to watch a race last year with headphones on instead, and the difference was like night and day - it reminded me so much more of when I went to Silverstone a few years ago! Rather than the usual wasp-like whining I was used to, they actually sounded like they had a bit of grunt to them.

I also watched the Australian GP last week with headphones on, too. I thoroughly enjoyed the sound, and it took me by surprise when I came online to see (as Jim calls it) the 'OMGZ INTERNETZ' reaction... the TV volume was exactly the same as it always was, I think, and the new exhaust note is refreshing and brilliant IMO.

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Just a thought from a guy with the technical abilities of a clown: could it be that the microphones used to record the sound are calibrated to pick up the noise of the V8? Those noises have a much higher pitch than the low rumbling of the V6. In other words: are the sounds that make the V6 great not picked up because the microphones aren't customized for them and pick up the higher pitched sounds (like the tyre lock ups) that are much less there?

mics could have a portion of the fault there but im almost sure they´re using condensers so they are taking all the sounds the car makes. equalizing them to bring more engine noise would cause tyre squeeze and other things to sound even louder i guess.

here is a good comparison between 2013 and 2014

video: [www.youtube.com]

Here's another example of the 2014 engines not sounding too terrible afterall..

Quick watch it quick before someome with an agenda has it taken down from YouTube

[youtu.be]