The F1 peeps are getting quite clever now, and it's all rather interesting.
7 tricks to keep F1 cars fast and fuel-efficientFORMULA ONE motor racing is all about the noise, the fumes, the gas-guzzling cars that would trash the climate in a heartbeat, were we all to drive them. But not any more...
As the 2014 F1 season kicks off this weekend in Melbourne, Australia, the drivers will race machines with far greater relevance to future road cars. One day their fuel-efficient, energy-recovery technologies will make their way into the cars we drive.
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So why the change? Major carmakers like Ford, Honda, Toyota and BMW have dropped out of F1 competition in recent years and Volkswagen-owned Audi has declined to join because they argue that F1 is irrelevant to improving road cars. So F1's governing body, the FIA, and the sport's three engine-makers – Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes – have worked out how to realign F1's rules with the greener aims of mainstream carmakers. They hope that will attract more of the mainstream to F1.
The goal is to maximise fuel efficiency. "The automotive industry is focused on fuel consumption and the CO2 emissions it generates. So F1 has turned the rules on their head to align with that," says Andy Cowell, managing director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth, UK, which develops F1 engines. "The fundamental challenge now is to convert as much of the chemical energy in the fuel into mechanical energy as efficiently as possible."
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To make this possible the 1.6-litre engine needs to play a few tricks to recover energy that normally goes to waste. Giving a hint of just how complex the new engine is, Mercedes says on its website:
"The engine is no more. Long live the power unit".
One of the particularly bright ideas has been to ditch the standard wastegate for the turbo* and instead use another energy recovery trick. I don't know how well it will work in practice, since it's never been tried AFAIK, but the priniciple is sound.
*For those who don't know about them, turbochargers are good for increasing power output for a given engine size, but conventionally have relied on a blow off valve to release excess exhaust energy. This stops the turbo either spinning itself to death, or pumping so much into the engine that the engine blows up. The new F1 turbos take a different approach, and limit turbo speed/compression by siphoning off excess energy to a generator.
Topic: Making cars fast and fuel-efficient