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Barcelona:
three corners in detail
Turn 1 to 3
The first corner comes at the end of the 1km pit straight on which speeds
will peak at well over 300kph. The car and engine are therefore subject to
heavy braking loads as the driver scrubs off 50% of that speed to take the
first corner at approximately 140kph. Halfway through Turn 1, drivers start
to accelerate into Turn 2 and Turn 3 (also known as Renault) but as the
circuit starts to climb a car will have a tendency towards ‘snappy’
oversteer. Having a delay in engine response or an overshoot in torque
delivery will only confirm this trend, thus increasing tyre wear as the car
tries to slide to one side and subject the tyres to lateral g-force.
Turn 10
Once through Turn 9 the track begins to descend into Turn 10. The braking
zone for this corner is the hardest one of the track, as the cars arrive at
300kph and take the turn at just over 70kph. To give the right stability
engineers work very hard on the overrun settings, trying to give neutral
engine braking when the driver is off the throttle. In parallel engineers
will try to make the downward gear shifts as smooth as possible so the
torque gradient change is ironed out and not too aggressive. Giving smooth
downshifts and the right level of overrun will result in a better balance,
thus helping to control wheel lock and minimize tyre wear. By the end of the
corner the driver is down in first gear but needs to accelerate back up the
hill. This sends huge loads through the tyres so pedal maps are often
designed with just this corner in mind.
Turn 14 to 16
The chicane on this track is very slow and needs, again, the right amount of
engine torque, not only at the entry of the corner but in the midpoint of
the chicane. In fact the driver will just blip the throttle between the
entry and the exit of the chicane as he changes direction. Even if he is
only on the power for a millisecond balancing the car on this knife edge is
critical to keep the car balanced, minimize wheelspin and ultimately gain
lap time. Once the cars exit this chicane traction is very important as the
speed will be carried through turn 16, with the driver ultimately going flat
out using KERS onto the pit straight.
Rémi Taffin, Renault Sport F1 Head of Track Operations
The 4.655km long Circuit de Catalunya is a medium downforce, medium engine
demand track used extensively in testing as it has a very good ‘average’ of
characteristics of other circuits on the calendar. In fact it is currently
used in part for our engine sign off process. There are a variety of low and
medium speed corners that push the RS27 on the lower rev ranges,
particularly in sector three, but 55% of the track is also taken at full
throttle.
The longest period of full throttle is of course the pit straight. This
length gives the opportunity for a fully charged KERS to be deployed twice
as the KERS energy counter resets on the start/finish line. While a double
KERS release in the race is useful to overtake, it puts a lot of stress on
the KERS cooling system. We don’t think it will be a major problem for us as
cooling efficiency is a key element in our package, but it does need to be
carefully monitored. Setting up the right top gear in these conditions is
then quite a big challenge!
The undulating nature of the track also puts the engine internals under
pressure so every element of the engine gets a full workout here. The first
corner is quite representative of this as the driver accelerates as the
track goes uphill. In addition to monitoring the fluid systems, we also need
to deliver a smooth torque curve to give controlled power to counter the
high g.
Going into the European season we are very motivated. The Bahrain result was
a good fillip – not only did it keep the record of a Renault-powered car
finishing on the podium every race this year, it was the first triple podium
for Renault engines since Bahrain 2012 and the 50th win for the RS27 V8
unit. More importantly however is the fact we are delivering consistency
across our teams. We now need to keep this rhythm and momentum going. |
