f1 is going hybrid will you

obi_waynne

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So F1 cars are going hybrid. When do you think you'll make the switch to a hybrid car?

How long will it take to make them good enough to meet your exacting standards?
 
I'm no hybrid fan, and I got the "pleasure" if you want to call it that, of driving a Vauxhall Ampera a while ago... and well, its disappointing to say the last... but I have the upmost respect for the engineering that has gone into these new F1 cars. I've been following the development closely and watched all the recent testing and Teds 'Notebooks' on Sky Sports F1 recently...

You've got a 1.6 V6 pushing 750hp with minimal turbo lag.. you can't not be impressed.

From what I gather.. we've got a 1.6 V6 turbo revving to 15k/rpm and pressure inside the cylinders is twice that of the 2.4 V8. On top of that you've got an energy recovery unit attached to the crank shaft that can either provide braking force to the car via the crank and use said force to charge the stupidly high voltage battery packs (it generates AC voltage, so has to go through a rectifier to be stored as DC), but then the SAME Motor Generator Unit can also discharge the batteries (so you need to go from DC to AC again via an inverter) to provide an electrical power boost of 160bhp during acceleration. Then the turbo has its own electrical generator attached, which is also dual operation. Coming out of a corner it uses battery power to spin up the turbo to reduce turbo lag, but, once required boost is reached (say down a straight) instead of opening the waste gate the waste boost is diverted to power a turbine which generates electricity to re-charge the battery.

Then all this means the braking systems had to change. We've got partial hydraulic and partial brake by wire on 2014 F1 cars. Front brakes are linked to the pedal hydraulically like normal and the rear brakes have no physical connection at all, purely electric as an ECU needs to manage how much of this energy recovery tech is braking it, and how much of the calliper pressure to use. Given its RWD power train obviously only rear braking will be governed by this MGU stuff, hence the hydraulic link to the front.

The first few races will be fascinating as they get a handle on all of this.... I can't wait for March!
 

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