F1 cars - V10 vs 2017/2018 hybrids

[TobyTR]

This is a quesiton for the F1 boffins - much is being mentioned by Brundle et al that these 2017/2018 hybrids are the fastest F1 cars to date, but the facts state otherwise...

The fastest average lap speed record is still held by Juan Pablo Montoya in the 2004 William-BMW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqYPU3MNqHw

Ferrari's mighty F2004 still holds the majority of lap records from tracks that are unchanged from 2004 to present, which takes some digging. This includes the Monza lap record, which is undoubtedly the fastest track on the calendar and thankfully unchanged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0q_a63ofog

The fastest lap of the 2017 Italian grand prix was over 2 seconds slower than the fastest from 2004, despite Daniel Ricciardo setting that time on fresh super-soft slick tyres and with only a few laps of fuel onboard.

Power-to-weight surely plays a part in this. While the current cars undoubtedly have more aero, they are also 130kg heavier than the 2004/2005 cars. The top V10s from Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Honda and Renault were producing around 950bhp. The hybrids make 810bhp from the i.c.e and an extra 160bhp from the ERS for a couple of seconds (only when it's charged and available), iirc. But the hybrids have more torque across a wider rev range.

I've read that the tyre war between Bridgestone and Michelin back in the day meant the grooved tyres were generally brilliant and much more durable, but not sure how they compare to these Pirellis.

So, which is faster: the 2004-2005 V10s or the 2017/2018s?

On a subjective note, I know which I'd rather watch live at a track

[davepoth]

The change to Monaco was a 3 metre shortening, so the fastest lap this weekend by Verstappen was better than the 2004 effort by a little bit in terms of average speed.

I'd imagine we might get a new Monza record this year too, the cars are really properly quick this year.

[HustleRussell]

TobyTR you are focussing on Monza which is an outlier compared to other F1 circuits in that it rewards low downforce- the current cars are very wide with wide tyres and a lot of downforce. Also current regulations without refuelling and Pirelli tyre management do not help the current cars in race trim. Nonetheless the post-2017 cars might break the lap record at Monza as they have done at many of the other circuits.

[TobyTR]

HustleRussell said:

TobyTR you are focussing on Monza which is an outlier compared to other F1 circuits in that it rewards low downforce- the current cars are very wide with wide tyres and a lot of downforce. Also current regulations without refuelling and Pirelli tyre management do not help the current cars in race trim. Nonetheless the post-2017 cars might break the lap record at Monza as they have done at many of the other circuits.

Yes, those are good points too.

But I have noticed the lap records broken by the post-2017 cars are because the respective drivers have pitted for fresh super/ultra soft slick tyres with only a handful of laps & fuel remaining in the race, so that kind of negates the refuelling argument

[TobyTR]

This clip really highlights how quick that F2004 was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrudXgt3O8

0-186mph in about 5.5-6.0 seconds... DC still couldn't pass Michael after that spin

And the cars would've been set up with more downforce for Shanghai than Monza

[coppice]

Current F1 cars are absurdly porky , getting on for 50% heavier than an 80s turbo F1 car . Which also had smaller engines but developed more power, as well as making one hell of a noise...

[Dave Hedgehog]

coppice said:

Current F1 cars are absurdly porky , getting on for 50% heavier than an 80s turbo F1 car . Which also had smaller engines but developed more power, as well as making one hell of a noise...

they also handle vastly better, they are like a console game now. They need almost zero steering effort for correction whilst taking a corner, just look at how much Senna had to work to keep the car on track during his legendary monaco lap

[coppice]

Indeed - that must be what makes 2018 so very rivetting to watch, and getting rid of all that tiresome gearchanging stuff was another great leap forward, if not as much as stopping racing cars sounding like , y'know, racing cars ? What way to blow half a billion quid a year

[GroundEffect]

coppice said:

Current F1 cars are absurdly porky , getting on for 50% heavier than an 80s turbo F1 car . Which also had smaller engines but developed more power, as well as making one hell of a noise...

Remember until around ~1993, the minimum weights didn't include driver. So the 540kg really meant 610-620kg (more when Mansell was on board ).

The race laps in F1 are slower than the V10 because:

1) The tyres are designed that if you push them hard, they fall apart - so they work really well for one lap, or lapping for durability; but nothing in-between (losing time vs V10)
2) Lack of refuelling means that the cars are heavy until the end of the race (and typically don't have fresh tyres at the same time)
3) The hybrid powertrains work at their best when they can do a "recharge lap" before going flat out - if you're coming into the lap already having used a fair amount of your energy, it's very difficult to go flat out then*

• What the teams typically do on a qualifying lap is have a fully charged battery and then switch the MGU-H in to an electric supercharger (therefore using energy rather than regenerating), taking the air back pressure off the engine so it can run as sweet as possible and then have the MGU-K full load up to the 4MJ limit. The teams can't do that in the race as they will run out of energy before the end of the lap. And the wear on the engine too.

Yes the cars are too heavy but offset by the wider tyres (when they're not graining...) and extra aero.

[Derek Smith]

coppice said:

Current F1 cars are absurdly porky , getting on for 50% heavier than an 80s turbo F1 car . Which also had smaller engines but developed more power, as well as making one hell of a noise...

I'm about 35% porkier than I was in the 80s.

I was at the Historic meet at Brands over the weekend and the noise of the F1 cars was simply delicious. I didn't realise what we'd lost.

[sandman77]

TobyTR said:

This clip really highlights how quick that F2004 was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrudXgt3O8

0-186mph in about 5.5-6.0 seconds... DC still couldn't pass Michael after that spin

And the cars would've been set up with more downforce for Shanghai than Monza

Was that not DC that passed MSC after the spin?

[TobyTR]

GroundEffect said:

Remember until around ~1993, the minimum weights didn't include driver. So the 540kg really meant 610-620kg (more when Mansell was on board ).

The race laps in F1 are slower than the V10 because:

1) The tyres are designed that if you push them hard, they fall apart - so they work really well for one lap, or lapping for durability; but nothing in-between (losing time vs V10)
2) Lack of refuelling means that the cars are heavy until the end of the race (and typically don't have fresh tyres at the same time)
3) The hybrid powertrains work at their best when they can do a "recharge lap" before going flat out - if you're coming into the lap already having used a fair amount of your energy, it's very difficult to go flat out then*

• What the teams typically do on a qualifying lap is have a fully charged battery and then switch the MGU-H in to an electric supercharger (therefore using energy rather than regenerating), taking the air back pressure off the engine so it can run as sweet as possible and then have the MGU-K full load up to the 4MJ limit. The teams can't do that in the race as they will run out of energy before the end of the lap. And the wear on the engine too.

Yes the cars are too heavy but offset by the wider tyres (when they're not graining...) and extra aero.

So would it be fair to say that over an entire race distance, the V10s are quicker, because they don't have to conserve tyres or anything? They can just keep going flat-out without any conserving.

From that, we can gather the hybrids are quicker on some tracks over a one-lap qualifying, but their race pace is still 2-4 seconds per lap down.

Last year at Interlagos, Verstappen only managed to break that track record because he pitted for new super-soft slicks with only 5 laps remaining in the race (and probably c6-7 laps of fuel onboard) and was pushing hard. It's the same for the other track records they've claimed

[Dr Z]

TobyTR said:

So would it be fair to say that over an entire race distance, the V10s are quicker, because they don't have to conserve tyres or anything? They can just keep going flat-out without any conserving.

From that, we can gather the hybrids are quicker on some tracks over a one-lap qualifying, but their race pace is still 2-4 seconds per lap down.

Last year at Interlagos, Verstappen only managed to break that track record because he pitted for new super-soft slicks with only 5 laps remaining in the race (and probably c6-7 laps of fuel onboard) and was pushing hard. It's the same for the other track records they've claimed

I'm not sure this is right. Over a race distance, the current cars are as quick as the V10s even with all these handicaps mentioned above. Fastest lap or race lap times only tell part of the story. The 2005 V10s were even quicker at Monza, if you look at the race times of the winners in 2005 vs 2017, ignoring the pit stop laps, Montoya was averaging 1m23.4s and Hamilton was averaging 1m25.1s. That's not a massive difference, if you then consider that Montoya stopped twice to complete the race while Hamilton only stopped once, Montoya losing around 24 seconds race time to Hamilton.

Hamilton completed the race averaging 152.2mph, while Montoya did it in 154.4mph. Hope that gives another perspective.

[HustleRussell]

TobyTR said:

GroundEffect said:

Remember until around ~1993, the minimum weights didn't include driver. So the 540kg really meant 610-620kg (more when Mansell was on board ).

The race laps in F1 are slower than the V10 because:

1) The tyres are designed that if you push them hard, they fall apart - so they work really well for one lap, or lapping for durability; but nothing in-between (losing time vs V10)
2) Lack of refuelling means that the cars are heavy until the end of the race (and typically don't have fresh tyres at the same time)
3) The hybrid powertrains work at their best when they can do a "recharge lap" before going flat out - if you're coming into the lap already having used a fair amount of your energy, it's very difficult to go flat out then*

• What the teams typically do on a qualifying lap is have a fully charged battery and then switch the MGU-H in to an electric supercharger (therefore using energy rather than regenerating), taking the air back pressure off the engine so it can run as sweet as possible and then have the MGU-K full load up to the 4MJ limit. The teams can't do that in the race as they will run out of energy before the end of the lap. And the wear on the engine too.

Yes the cars are too heavy but offset by the wider tyres (when they're not graining...) and extra aero.

So would it be fair to say that over an entire race distance, the V10s are quicker, because they don't have to conserve tyres or anything? They can just keep going flat-out without any conserving.

From that, we can gather the hybrids are quicker on some tracks over a one-lap qualifying, but their race pace is still 2-4 seconds per lap down.

Last year at Interlagos, Verstappen only managed to break that track record because he pitted for new super-soft slicks with only 5 laps remaining in the race (and probably c6-7 laps of fuel onboard) and was pushing hard. It's the same for the other track records they've claimed

You have to decide what you're comparing, are you comparing 'the cars' or the prevailing tyre and refuelling regulations of the time? The current cars are deliberately hobbled by the refuelling ban and the Pirelli tyres which are designed to fail.

[thegreenhell]

HustleRussell said:

You have to decide what you're comparing, are you comparing 'the cars' or the prevailing tyre and refuelling regulations of the time? The current cars are deliberately hobbled by the refuelling ban and the Pirelli tyres which are designed to fail.

I don't think you can separate the elements like that. The car isn't a car without tyres and fuel. The cars are built to a certain set of regulations, and only ever race under those specific regulations, so that's what we can compare. The FIA periodically change the rules anyway, usually to stop the cars from getting too fast, so even those 2005 V10 cars will have been hobbled in some way compared to their predecessors - narrow track, grooved tyres, aero restrictions etc.

No car in the modern era is the fastest car that can be made at that time; it's simply the fastest that the rules allow. What we're really doing is comparing one set of rules against another, not individual cars.

[TobyTR]

Dr Z said:

I'm not sure this is right. Over a race distance, the current cars are as quick as the V10s even with all these handicaps mentioned above. Fastest lap or race lap times only tell part of the story. The 2005 V10s were even quicker at Monza, if you look at the race times of the winners in 2005 vs 2017, ignoring the pit stop laps, Montoya was averaging 1m23.4s and Hamilton was averaging 1m25.1s. That's not a massive difference, if you then consider that Montoya stopped twice to complete the race while Hamilton only stopped once, Montoya losing around 24 seconds race time to Hamilton.

Hamilton completed the race averaging 152.2mph, while Montoya did it in 154.4mph. Hope that gives another perspective.

From the evidence I've seen so far, on the vast majority of tracks the current cars are on average 1-4 seconds per lap slower than the V10s, with slower total race times. So that would indicate they're not as quick? (handicaps included).

In the Monza 05 example above, Montoya would've clawed that second pitstop time back after only 12 laps at that pace... Two seconds per lap is quite a margin and rather impressive imo

Edited by TobyTR on Wednesday 30th May 02:38

[coppice]

It's rather impressive to blow £ 500m not too go much quicker than 15years ago ? Hmm

[TobyTR]

That's certainly one way of looking at it

[Dr Z]

TobyTR said:

From the evidence I've seen so far, on the vast majority of tracks the current cars are on average 1-4 seconds per lap slower than the V10s, with slower total race times. So that would indicate they're not as quick? (handicaps included).

In the Monza 05 example above, Montoya would've clawed that second pitstop time back after only 12 laps at that pace... Two seconds per lap is quite a margin and rather impressive imo

These sort of hypotheticals break down at some point. The 2005 V10s were also slower than the 2004 V10s in many respects due to tyre and engine regulation changes. However, I'm willing to bet that the audience numbers were higher in 2005 than 2004. No prizes for guessing the answer.

The F2004 holds many lap records, but how much faster will a W08 go if the team knew that it was racing an F2004? The 2017 Monza race was dominated by the Mercedes team, so Hamilton was cruising (at over 150mph a lap) for most of the race. The idea that those V10 cars were driven at 10/10ths at all times is also wrong. The F2004 was a second (or more) a lap quicker than anything it raced with in period, so when Schumacher was pumping in those lap records, was he pushing his F2004 to its absolute limits or was he simply driving at 95% knowing his car is far superior to others that he pushed only just when he needed to?

2004 vs 2017/2018?

I know which season(s) I'd rather watch.

Less driver aids for the current cars compared to the 2004/2005 V10s too. Traction control anyone?

Edited by Dr Z on Wednesday 30th May 11:17

[travel is dangerous]

coppice said:

It's rather impressive to blow £ 500m not too go much quicker than 15years ago ? Hmm

I think they are using a lot, lot less fuel though.