Orihara, Honda F1 track boss: “In some laps, the acceleration was good and, in others, not so much. We haven’t found any major problem with the engine, but we had difficulties with turbo lag. That’s why I think Alonso felt uncomfortable”
Fernando Alonso It was clear at the end of the last F1 Singapore GP. Throughout the weekend, he warned of power delivery problems when exiting corners. He changed the turbo for the Sunday race, and after the event, where he again suffered other setbacks with his engine Slinglaunched a first devastating analysis. And a few weeks later, After the engine was analyzed at the Sakura factory, Honda F1 track boss Shintaro Orihara referred to those setbacks..
“I still had a lot of problems in the race. I think less in terms of the turbo, but there were a lot of problems with the deployment (of electric power),” Alonso said in Singapore.
He continued: “Especially after the virtual safety car, I don’t think the car knew where it was in the lap, because it activated the turbo in places where it didn’t need it and it didn’t activate it on the straights. So that was a little frustrating.”
And he complained of a huge lack of power. “When we were behind Checo or behind any other car, then we lost between 200 and 300 meters on each straight. So it was an impossible task.”
And Orihara spoke about all this in the press conference that he always does with Aston Martin’s track manager, Mike Krack, before each Grand Prix. This time, before the F1 United States GP in Austin.
Honda’s response
“I was waiting for this question,” Orihara said when asked about those problems.
“In Singapore, although we introduced a new turbocharger to manage turbo lag (the time between the driver stepping on the accelerator and the engine responding with full power), we still had difficulties controlling it due to the particular characteristics of the track and the high energy demand. We tried to manage the turbo lag, but we continued to have problems, which caused the driver to experience unstable acceleration,” he acknowledged.
In Singapore, although we introduced a new turbocharger to manage turbo lag (the time between when the driver presses the accelerator and the moment the engine responds with full power) we still have difficulties controlling it due to the particular characteristics of the track and the high energy demand
“On some laps the acceleration was good and on others maybe not so much due to the turbo lag. This caused some discomfort for the driver. We respected his comments after qualifying and decided to change the power unit if we detected something different during the race. Afterwards, we took the engine back to Sakura and did a full inspection. So far, we have not found any major problems with the power unit, but I understand that we had difficulties with the turbo lag in Singapore. That’s why I think the driver felt uncomfortable,” he added.
We took the engine back to Sakura and performed a full inspection. At the moment, we have not found any major problems with the power unit
New countermeasures
Orihara was then asked if the failure to find “major problems” in the engine analysis means those problems might not be resolved, and therefore might recur when they return to a high-power circuit like Singapore.
But Orihara assured that they will try some countermeasures. “We have learned some things from Singapore, so we are preparing measures to counter the problem in the future. We understand that we have to improve our control to manage the turbo lag. At the moment, our control system does not meet the needs of the pilot, but we have discovered some things and learned from what happened in Singapore, and we have applied some corrective measures. Still, we have to check how they work in our power unit,” he said.
We are preparing measures to counteract the problem in the future
They affected the characteristics of the track
One of the options that was considered during the press conference was to solve this problem through the MGUK (electrical component of the hybrid system of a Formula 1, which recovers electrical energy and converts it into power). Orihara pondered this.
“The MGU-K’s power deployment can help reduce turbo lag, but it is not enough to fully compensate for it,” he said. That is, it referred to the use of electrical energy to replace the missing power of the combustion engine in that acceleration.
“That’s why difficulties arise when we go to circuits with high energy demand. Normally, we use the energy recovered by the MGU-K to compensate for turbo lag. If we have enough energy recovered by the MGU-K, the engine can operate at a high operating point, in an area that would otherwise be outside its optimal range. That helps and is positive. However, in circuits with high power demand, it is sometimes difficult to recover enough power with the MGU-K precisely because of that demand.”said. That is, if they use electric energy to counteract this lack of power when exiting the curve, on routes with high energy demand, they may run the risk of running out of energy earlier, during the turn.
“In that case, the engine’s operating point is not enough to control the turbo lag. That’s why we had difficulties in Singapore. In addition, the particular configuration of the circuit, with stop-start corners, also plays a role. The combination of both factors created problems for us,” he concluded.
