virgin need a new fuel tank
 

http://in.reuters.com/article/sports...47235020100326

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - New Formula One team Virgin Racing have been given permission to change their car's undersized fuel tank.
A spokeswoman for the International Automobile Federation (FIA) confirmed the specification change had been given the green light, on the basis that the car could run out of petrol before the end of races. so the car will not be a virgin any more ?

could this mean the cosworth drinks more gas than charlie sheen?

Pathetic, IMO. This is a fundamental design flaw, so I guess that so far the CFD is a failure.

I wouldn't have thought "running out of fuel" to be a reliability problem. Nothing on the car is broken, Virgin just got it wrong.

This just highlights the absurdity of homologating an F1 car. It's not sportscar racing for god's sake.

yep.

I guess the computer told them the tank was big enough and they went with that http://www.motorsportforums.com/images/styles/World/icons/icon13.gif

Its a schoolboy mistake in terms of F1.

I agree. That along with an engine freeze makes no sense in 2010

We have 4 engine suppliers so let them develop to their hearts content. Teams should also be able to develop their chassis as much as they want throughout the season as long as it stays withing the regs.

Its kind of absurd to think that teams should have the perfect car setup before the start of the first race and then not be allowed to make fundamental changes to it along the year.

Surely the chassis freeze was brought in to help the smaller teams, so they could afford to compete on a limited budget? So if they're now changing it, for whatever reason, the whole idea seems a bit irrelevant..

I don't get this wish to see CFD as a failure. There was a time when the idea of putting the engine behind the driver was mocked, and yet...

Designing a car entirely with CFD is new. IMHO Virgin should be applauded for trying, and not wasting time and money with a wind-tunnel. After all we've seen how much those cost to build, run and use.

Yes, it is a fairly basic error to get this wrong but as Nick Wirth has said "At the time the design of the tank was locked down in June 2009, its capacity was determined by a number of factors, some of which have since changed, and the tank capacity now needs to be increased accordingly." Is that a CFD issue or a Cosworth issue?

I really don't understand how the CFD could make a fuel tank too small, I understood that the CFD would be used for aero work. Unless it failed when working out the amount of drag produced by the virgin car hence making the engine work harder than the rest of Cosworth powered cars, but even that feels like stretch... be nice to know the size of the fuel tanks from the other three Cosworth cars.

Making teams stick with the same chassis and engine designs is a recepie for a boring season. If one team is ahead and the others cannot develop.

The Lotus looks conservative because MG said he couldn't be sure about engine stats, cooling, fuel consumption etc. It looks that Virgin just "took a punt" and guessed wrong.

I don't think they 'guess' in F1 any more. See USF1....

Agreed... conversely it's pretty hard to see how wind tunnel work could possibly have prevented this problem, so CFD surely can't be blamed.

CFD - Computational Fluid Dynamics. Nowt to do with designing a fuel tank too small. On the other hand CFD can be used to simulate fuel delivery into a tank - a science in itself. Believe me it can be screwed up!

So does this essentially mean that until Virgin bring their bigger tank car, which apparently won't be ready for several races, we can basically assume they will NOT finish any of the races until then, even if nothing else breaks... just because they are pre-programmed to run out of fuel? http://www.motorsportforums.com/imag...s/confused.gif

They could lower the revs in final laps, but I don't know how off the mark there tank size is and how much fuel you can save, I think they will have their fingers crossed for a safety car in aus... hopefully there not the team bringing it out!

Well, since they ain't gonna finish they may as well try to be spectacular. I say a quarter-fill and soft tires--try like heck to make passes!

Oops! Figured that would be a fundamental characteristic of a car, but oh well, they're new, they'll learn. I believe Rial had a similar problem in 1988 when de Cesaris would often grind to a halt near the end of a few races?

And yes I agree, chassis homologation takes the p*ss, just as much as the engine freeze in fact, whatever happened to F1 being a development race? http://www.motorsportforums.com/imag...lies/frown.gif

It's wrong to blame CFD, any method of car design is only as good as the parameters it is given by the humans operating it.

Either the engine wasn't as efficient as Virgin thought, or the car is more draggy, or someone cocked up.

It'll be ironic if they actually have the reliability to complete a race in Australia or Malaysia - will they opt to run lean (and dead slow?) or to retire with an empty tank?

Or just stop and tank up. They are allowed to fuel up in the garage. It'll loose em two laps but slightly less frustrating that rolling to a halt Jean Alesi style.