Isn't it just undulations on the road? I've seen cars do this before....just not F1 or on a track Need to see what the others do too, I guess.
I've seen recorded data from Senna - he was sort of amplitude modulating the pedal at 8Hz (!!!) throughout the race! The engineer who showed us the data said he never saw anything like that with any other driver before or after...
Without wishing to defend RB I seem to recall suggestions that the grip of current F1 cars is such that the tarmac surface gets pulled up - might the track not be flat and hence the car taking off and skipping to some extent - given its out of a low speed corner its surely a possibility ?
I heard it could be the engine shutting cylinders while accelerating the same way they do on braking, letting the explosions happen in the exhaust system and making the fumes hotter. This has two advantages: traction control and better working of the diffuser
I can not see how to implement this if you can not modify or add any functions to the ECU. The engine blown diffusor concepts required only a change of the engine maps for one defined operation point (-> overrun) and steady operation. A traction control is a pretty complex control system including feedback loops. It needs a bunch of sensor data, first and foremost wheelspeeds, and has to work under highly dynamic conditions. IMHO it's impossible to implement a TC by tinkering with engine maps.
Renault were caught already trying smoothing torque response last year and the cylinder's shut with the chainsaw sound can still be heard on braking. They might be doing the same for selected gears on acceleration. The driver could also be playing an important part from the cockpit with the supposed fuel saving engine maps.
As I said there's a difference between some sort of a feed-forward control based on engine mappings and a full-blown feedback control which would be required for a TC that deserves its name. There is only so much you can do by modifying the data and not the underlying functions, and I fail to see how a TC could fit in there.
No it's not. They've often ripped up the track surface over the years. Canada a while back was the last I recall(?) Admittedly under lateral load rather than acceleration, but they can certainly pull the surface up. Not that I think that's what we're looking at here though. I certainly don't know, but it almost looks like he's simply driven thru something (notice the line across the track) and its scrubbing off. Or it's a little washboard? As someone noted, would like to see other shots at the same spot. Cheers, Ian
+1 And no need to be humble about it either IMHO! Further, the rules are now pretty explicit on the topic - Ever since the Benetton 'we had it but never used it' debacle Charlie has been saving checksums of all the code. You change a single byte, he knows...... Even easier now with the standard ECU of course. Cheers, Ian
The Red Bull Renault engine map controversyJames Allen on F1 ? The official James Allen website on F1
? Your point? We know they're all messing, all the time, with engine maps. That's a *long* way from anything to do with TC. Cheers, Ian