planetf1.com

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/merce ... 79555/?s=1

Red Bull have become the latest team to write a letter to the FIA seeking clarification on a matter, this time suggesting someone *cough* Mercedes *cough* might be burning excess oil(5kg!) to get a performance gain in Qualifying. Idea being to burn accumulated excess oil from the circulation and letting it flow into plenum to burn. Suggestion is the oil could contain things prohibited from the fuel and/or prevent knock and boost performance.

Some different suggestions as to how it could be done and Toto has already denied it. Some more info and discussion here. The reddit link is interesting as it was talked about 10 months ago there as the explanation of the infamous blue smoke from the Mercedes on start up on race day in particular. (Idea being oil left over from the last run in Q being burnt on start up).

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 28316.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... l_someone/

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
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Could this be it?? Mercedes "boosting" the fuel with aditivies in the oil, bypassing fuel flow limits for short runs?

Now where did I put my tinfoil hat? This could get good

It does not seem to be about fuel flow limits, just using the oil as a way of getting banned substances into the cylinder at the same time as the fuel is being burned.

If we look at it as oi being burned as fuel, we will go down the wrong road.

Sort of Rule= You can not put "superstuff" in you fuel, its not allowed.

OK, we will put "superstuff" in our oil, that just happens to be above the piston at the same time it is fired, Oh yes, and it will mix with the fuel vapour, but never mind

You can have one of mine, I have two since the Nico-Lewis partnering 13'-16'.

Formula One is so competitive that even a one percent gain in performance can spell the difference between a win and not being on the podium. And thus each team attempt to find any way to improve performance, even temporarily. We saw that last year when Mercedes got funny about their tire pressures and temperatures on the starting grid. That little "gimmick" was good for only the start and first lap, but is displays how much teams are willing to go just improve the start. It is not that teams decided to "cheat" they are "exploring" how far they can push the rules, or even a way to bypass them.

Oil is very critical to a Formula One engine, it is constructed of complex chemical mixes and fine-tuned to that specific engine. Personally I doubt any lubrication engineer would tolerate including some chemical that does not contribute to the performance of the oil. Right now (the only benefit I can think of) is that oil injected into the cylinders may raise the compression ratio, increasing power temporarily.

Back in my aero engine days, one trick for cold engines is to mix gas into the oil so that it flows easier. Eventually that gas in the oil vaporizes/burns off and the oil is returned to original spec. It is a risky strategy, but hey, it may improve those first one or two laps at the start.

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Moby - I was not trying to imply an actual increase in fuel flow, rather than a higher ammount of fuel (or fuel aditive) being delivered to the combustion chamber. Oil can get airborne in drops so small they appear like smoke or gas, thus in some mechanical systems (Refrigerant compressors to name one) use fine mesh filters to trap this oil mist into heavier dropa that can fall down back to oil sump. Now if you add some kind of additive that will mix with this oil mist and be "pulled" by engine intake, sort of a PCV system, and create power will very difficult to prove. Will love to see what this will end up.

Yeh. It does not even have to vaporise in the oil, just the tiny amount left on the cylinder walls could do it, when you think how many times a second they are cleared then exposed. When you think they only have 100 ltr (just over) of fuel it would not take a large component to give the charge 0.001% of this additive. Adblue in diesels is 1 in 50, so that is quite within reason.

I doubt we will ever find out, even if they are "caught", they are already saying there will be a new Petronas fuel for Barcelona, so it may well be a case of not giving them a chance to get caught

That's a very good point. Additives that are designed for combustion enhancement are surely to do nothing for lubrication. Further, the allow engine oil into the combustion chamber on purpose must surely compromise the engine over the long haul. I dont see this as being even remotely feasible given the very limited payoff.

5kg of oil being consumed is an ENORMOUS amount. How could that escape scrutiny?

The smoke is also there when driving the car, was most visible at Monaco GP, probably because of unique backdrop. It was visable on all Merc powered teams, not only the works Merc team.

The fact that Mercedes denied they were burning oil deliberately in their engines then turned around and asked for the FIA to mandate a maximum fuel burn over a race period to 5L is what makes me almost certain that they are indeed doing it... That's massive!

Way back in 2014 Ricciardo was disqualified for exceeding the 100kg/h limit by 2 percent and yet staying well under the 100kg total limit. If it turns out to be correct then it is possible that perhaps this entire time Mercedes engines have been exceeding both the instantaneous limit and the 100kg total limit (the latter only on certain fuel hungry races). 5L is massive considering that oil is far denser than fuel and could explain a lot in regards to where exactly some of that power advantage comes from.

It'll be very interesting to see where this goes, hopefully it doesn't just get swept aside.

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5 ltr is a huge amount. In that case I stand corrected PRFan, it is worth burning as fuel.
Also, 5ltr of oil is over 5kg, which can be replaced before the car is weighed post race.

My first car, a '84 Ford Escort, already had this technology.

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Comment win.

Sorry Blinkey, missed your post earlier.

I dont know what to make of it but I know both components are used in lube oil

https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/combustion-measurements-of-fuel-rich-aluminum-and-molybdenum-oxid

Thank you Moby, interesting stuff. As a mechanic I am aware of the mechanical aspects, but not that strong on chemistry. But solid rocket fuel could not deliver the burn and thrust characteristics without aluminum mixed in as part of the content. And I will have to toss out my knowledge of "conventional" oil because the stuff they use in Formula One has very different characteristics. We outsiders will never know the viscosity, pour point, flash point, NOACK volatility, acidity and alkalinity of the oils used. But since this entire topic revolves around the acceptance that oil can contribute to combustion efficiency, I must take my hat off to those nameless chemical engineers designing oils for Formula One.

But this issue is more political than engineering, and once again, Formula One has once again identified itself as many warring factions playing politics to the maximum and driving the complexity and costs up.

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5 liters of oil is less than 5 kg. 5 liters of water is 5 kg and oil weighs less than water.

Crude and light oil is usually 9.5 sg ish but some motor oils with additives can be 1.2. (additives are often metal)

We can meet at 9.5 if you like but not much in either direction

Avgas 130 octane has a specific gravity of 0.72 which should be fairly close to what is in use by the teams but even if we assume the teams are running heavy fuel along the lines of military F34 then that is still sg 0.80. Even at the lighter weight oil has a far higher energy density. Add to that the fuel sensor incident where RBR were supposedly burning 2% extra fuel at high rpm which would total right about 1kg of fuel over the entire race was an instant disqualification... If Mercedes engines have been burning an extra 4kg of dense fuel possibly containing additives banned from the regular fuel mix every single race since the start of these regulations. That's a game changer right there.

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I've been working in the lubricants field for just shy of 25 years and can recall only a single mineral oil lubricant that had a specific gravity over 1.0. This one had a fluorocarbon based base oil, completely without hydrogen. Every hydrogen was replaced with fluorine. The density of this was nearly 2.0. It was amazing and the products made with that were phenomenally expensive (sold by the 20 ml syringe as a formulated grease which could operate at 60,000 feet or higher), used only by NASA and the department of defense. The fluorocarbon base oil cost in excess of $2000/liter.

My point is that it is virtually impossible to have a finished motor oil at a density of 1.2. 90% of the oil is base oil, with a density of 0.8 or less. The remaining 10% of additives invariably will have a density *at most* of 1.2. That will never move the overall density anywhere near 0.9, much less 1.2.

I am working from memory, so probably wrong, but what was Mollyslip? I thouhjt it was one of the few over 1?

Ah, I see what I have done, I have 9.5 instead of .95 (wet lunch and a long time since I had to work)

However as I said, even if it was .8 which is reasonable for a lube, not fuel, that is still running 4KG under weight and I seem to recall Prost being DSQ'd for being 1KG under weight?

BH, see below, my mistake, point in wrong place, but this is lube oil, not fuel.

I don't know that there would be any advantage for them in doing it, but if there was, no F1 team would shy away from $2000/liter. Assuming 5 liters per race per car, that's still under a million for the whole season and an absolute bargain for a real performance advantage. They'll happily spend $10m for a few tenths of a second on aero.

Remember, in F1 even the bolts that do mundane tasks cost a thousand dollars. It's a bizarre world of inflation.

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Renault involved in the push for getting some answers, not just RB. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/rena ... st-883025/

Agree with Blackhander above, Mercedes response suggesting a 5kg limit is what makes it look dodgy imo and I can't believe it's not getting more attention either.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Option 1 - return to an open breather system like on my dad's Anglia 105E and belch grey fumes all over the place, on to the track and around the bodywork of the car. Just for extra spice, remember that it will be hitting the visor of the driver behind like in the good old days when they used to get out of the car looking like steam train engineers.

Option 2 - stay with a closed-loop oil combusting system. For maximum power engines need quite sloppy ring and seal tolerances, so they are going to get through a lot of oil. My Golf did about 750 miles per litre from brand new until the day I sold it and Volkswagen reckoned this was fine and dandy. It's the way they acheive a long life service regime.

If you want to then get any advantage out of Option 2, you need to find things to add to the oil which will benefit combustion but not be a detriment as a lubricant and therefore lead your engine or turbo to expire early. Oh, and make sure it all works with only 4 engines a season.

This is another non-story, just RBR stirring the pot because they don't have the silver bullet they had for four years.


.

The real question is around proof from either Mercedes or the knowledge of the FIA to understand these engines enough to know if they are being duped.

Completely disagree, this is probably the biggest story of the season so far but it's not getting any attention so far, probably because most people have it stuck in their mind that when their 1992 ford focus was burning oil it was because it was a peice of junk therefore burning oil is bad... In the combustion process there is no difference between burning fuel or oil, the engine doesn't care. Remember when Ricciardo got disqualified for exceeding the instantaneous limit and burning MAYBE 1kg of extra fuel over the race? Well Mercedes have all but confirmed that they've been burning around 4kg of oil every single race for 3 years!

And the tolerance of these engines are so tight that they're effectively seized solid until they warm them up. The oil isn't accidentally slipping around the piston rings, it will have to be being ported in as a vapour probably from the case breather or reservoir tank de-aerator

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I also dont understand why this isnt a bigger story than it is. Really interested to see how this one plays out.

Has this been confirmed or all hear-say?

Super fascinating. I can't wait to see what comes of this. And what someone will come up with next.

Option 3 issue a sealed recovery condenser which is returned for examination after race.

So Mercedes is suspected of having an engine that burns up to 5 liters of oil during a race? Is this correct?

If yes, their oil sump size should be significantly larger than other engines. Should be easy enough to check.

Also, all the Mercedes customer engines should have this advantage too. The engine would not be entirely redesigned to prevent oil burning for customer engines.

Seems real easy to pick up on this.

They dont hold oil in the "sump" in the style of road cars, it is held in a tank and scavenged back from a shallow sump in the way of old motocycles. This is one of the problems with the Honda, as the tank is around the MGH unit on the face of the engine.

Understood, but the point remains, that Mercedes' engine must have 5 liters of storage space available that other engines dont have. Wouldnt the FIA have full schematics of these engines? Surely a 5 liter tank would not escape notice.

Not sure on this, but I think they all use about the same.

I'm hardly an expert, but doesn't "oil" in the combustion chamber of a gasoline engine have the effect of reducing the fuel's octane rating? I remember reading a paper about WWII Daimler Benz aero engines using an inverted "V" configuration. One bank of cylinders was intentionally set with a slightly lower compression ratio because mere windage (coupled with the inverted layout) pushed more oil past the rings on that side. This odd solution was adopted to address catastrophic failures in the coupled DB606 engine (two DB601s driving a single prop) and retained for the subsequent BD603, DB605, and DB610 engines.

Lord only knows what kind of "oil" is used in a modern F1 engine, but considering how carefully the fuel is matched to the engines, getting anything else mixed in would seem to be a recipe for disaster.

They don't necessarily have to be burning oil. It may be something added to the oil that boils off as it comes to temperature which may explain why the car is faster in qualifying than it is in the race.

For example I tune a car that gets excessive amounts of methanol in the oil if it idles for too long. As much as a quart of methanol in 10 quarts of oil. When the oil gets over 150f the methanol starts to boil off. If the drysump tank was vented into the intake the engine would burn the methanol.

The engines have a tall narrow drysump tank running down the front of the engine. The bottom funnels directly into the oil pump. The Mercedes tank is shaped like a question mark to get around the turbo compressor.

Rules don't allow oil to be added to the car during the race so there is a separate oil tank in the car and a transfer pump that adds oil to the drysump tank during the race. So as the engine consumes oil there is already a system in place to replenish it. This is common practice that goes back at least to the V10 days.

Oils used today are nothing like traditional oils either. They're built from the ground up by chemical engineers to produce a final product that matches exact specifications required whatever those requirements are. They don't just take contaminants out of a base oil like in ye olde mineral oils. Synthetic oils are only really called oils because that's the colloquial name that's stuck for something that lubricates and/or cools an engine.

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FIA will be inspecting the oil systems of each engine this week as well as monitoring oil consumption over the course of the weekend to ensure that oil isn't being burnt as a non-regulated fuel. Should clear everything up, hopefully they continue to monitor oil consumption randomly throughout the year as well to stop any teams simply blanking any potential systems for a few weeks.

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Podiums: 1st Spa '16, 1st Bahrain '15, 1st China '14, 1st Malaysia '14
Championship position 2014: 13th | | 2015: 10th (heading the right way)
PF1 Autosport GP Predictor 2014: Second 2015: Second