The GENIUS Innovation that Made Mercedes Champions
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Today's engines in F1 are some of the most powerful ever seen in F1, producing over 1000 Horsepower, despite using an engine that could fit in your everyday road car. But how is this possible?
The secret is much simpler than you might expect, but it’s also SO, SO CLEVER.
So, let me explain.
Formula 1 teams are constantly trying to find grey areas in the rules to give themselves a competitive advantage and this genius innovation gave quite the advantage.
The Formula 1 regulations changed massively in 2014 when they introduced the Turbo Hybrid Era. Before this, F1 cars were powered by normally aspirated, 2.4 Litre V8 internal combustion engines.
These engines were limited to 19,000 rpm and produced about 750 bhp.
The 2014 rules shrunk the engines to 1.6 Litre V6s and limited them to 15,000 rpm. They also introduced turbos back into the sport for the first time since 1988 to help compensate for the loss in power output from the smaller engine.
But the biggest change was using electrical energy to partially power the new ‘Power Unit’. This came in the form of an MGU-H and MGU-K with MGU standing for Motor Generator Unit. It was expected that these ‘Power Units’ would maintain the power output of F1 cars at around 750bhp.
The rules also restricted how much fuel can be used in a race, 110kg, and how quickly that fuel can be fed into the engine, or fuel flow rate. This was capped at 100kg per hour and strictly monitored by the FIA.
However, what the rule-makers left out was anything restricting the ways in which the teams could manipulate this 110kg of fuel to get more power from it and Mercedes found a way to do exactly that.
📹 All source footage can be found here 👉 bit.ly/3ic4q8S
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#Formula1 #Engines #Horsepower
"No such much for Ferrari" , you got me there 😂😂😂
I noticed he said that but i didn't understand though.
@@jeftesantiago And rather than punishing Ferrari, FIA made a secret agreement with them.
He just had to throw some shade
@@viniciusledesma bruh
@@viniciusledesma ferrari got busted for messing with the fuel flow sensors. The FIA gave them a secret punishment and everyone else was pissed off. We don't actually know what they were doing to cheat the fuel flow sensors
Higher octane fuel doesn't have more energy it just has more protection from detonation which allows you to run higher cylinder pressures without blowing up your engine. Also, lean fuelling can also cause detonation which is a bigger issue than anything you listed.
And what you describe is basically just stratified charge on crack not a new idea just a new (and im sure better) implementation
Higher octane allows for higher compression, which does allow you to extract more energy out of the fuel. Also, I’m sure the engine designers have mapped out the maximum amount of fuel they can inject into the main chamber that doesn’t detonate at those temperatures and pressures until they actually want it to. Which again, the higher octane helps with.
He didn't say higher octane fuel has more energy, but rather that it allows you to extract more energy from it...
@@LiamNI how can you extract more energy that what it has wow you need to go back to school
@@aarondavies8486 🤡
I swear they have made this video multiple times
The "How Much Fuel Does a Formula 1 Car Use?" video linked to at the end contains similar info on how they ignite the lean mixture using pre-chamber combustion.
they want many views without doing much
It’s the off season soooooo mailing one in.
I feel like his channel got big this past year and he made less videos about the races which i really liked because he detailed incidents in the previous race. This past year he didn't do any. Or they, but maybe thats the intellectual property lawyers of formula one in action but still there were way fewer videos this year. Still great though thats why i wish there was more!
@@ALPHABYTE64 But his 2nd channel Driven Media is So good
The total power isn't the surprise - its the efficiency. The 1500cc BMW F1 turbo from 1985 was believed to produce 1400 BHP in qualifying trim - but used loads of fuel (special fuel).
Those engines would be done after a lap, tuned down ~500hp for the race, and then immediately discarded (if it even finished.) Nowadays they’re getting 1000+hp in race trim for multiple race weekends, it’s astonishing. If they changed the mapping enough I’m sure they could get much more
@@Sticktothemodels xdxd, 800hp un race
@@Sticktothemodels wrong stop trying to look clever when made yourself look stupid the dfv was over 500bhp are you a yank yeah
@@Sticktothemodels and its not the engine that's putting out 1000hp yet again your wrong
That number on the bmw has grown over the years. Seen that it was more like 1100bhp and you were lucky to finish the lap.
Bloody hell Scott you didn't half milk that, could have been a 2 minute video.
The only way for him to get the sponsorship through is to talk gibberish for 6 mins straight and hope people won't notice.
Bloody hell Jamie it's called going into a lil bit of detail
Love your videos generally but this was a masterclass on how to make 2min video into 8mins.
you mean the 10 sec he explained the thing real quick
So much waffle
@@esma3el kzhead.info/sun/mJePgKxwnl-pqYE/bejne.html
@@JdotRez exactly
More than half of the video done without saying anything. When you have to hit the required minutes for running ads.
You can skip to 5:20 if you already know what an engine is..
Informative content- 20 seconds Video length 8 minutes . And thanks for the secret, looking forward to become a F1 engine supplier.
Maybe, but I find his videos to be not only informative but also entertaining. And he doesn't use click bait titles like a lot of other F1 influencers
Don't forget 1 Min 30 Sec of VPN AD
100s of engineers per team after reading this comment: What a twat!
Yeah it took 75% of the video to actually SAY what Mercedes did.
A separate pre-chamber into which the fuel was injected was how diesel engines used to be made. Hot bulb engines also works in a similar matter. It is also worth noticing that the actual speed of the combustion increases as the mixture goes leaner, this is due to the relatively higher amount of oxygen available. Drawback of lean burning in everyday use is the emissions since it creates a higher amount of NOx.
......or like the Honda cvcc?
NOx formation is increased by high temperature and pressure. When leaning out the mixture far enough, the combustion temperature begins to drop, actually reducing NOx. This is how the Honda CVCC engine avoided needing a catalytic converter to deal with NOx. This was not good enough to deal with the later, tighter emission standards, though. My understanding is that current emissions controls need near stoichiometric to have the correct ratio of chemical byproducts for the catalytic converters.
@@ajwasp3642 Yes, a more sophisticated version of CVCC optimized to squirt numerous jets of burning fuel jthrough a larger volume of the combustion chamber.
CVCC was neat. Wonder what happened to it.
@@forbiddenera I always thought Honda moved from cvcc to vtec as emission standards in US got even more strict
Love your vids, i wish you had also covered why they don't run at the perfect stoichiometric ratio. I know of many EXCUSES but out of all the industries i would imagine formula 1 and SpaceX would be the ones to overcome the drawbacks.
Not sure about my answer. But maybe they also have to balance how Air is used in the aerodynamics of the car and not only in how Air is used in combustion. Idk
@@nerf123dca My guess is the intense heat from running at a perfect burn ratio is overwhelming and the engine block can't be cooled fast enough. But the rocket industry run much hotter fuels at much higher pressures and they accomplish this by using the either the fuel or oxidizer in channels around the exhaust and combustion chamber to not only cool them but to preheat the extremely cold liquids. Using 3D printing they should be able to make an engine block with cooling veins built in. If you have doubts SpaceX 3D prints a lot of parts for their rocket engines.
@@nerf123dca They run their engine lean so they are "wasting" a lot of air going thru the engine. That could have been used for more down force.
@@Guardian_Arias I see what you mean about the SpaceX thing. Maybe the fuel density of f1 fuels are too high to utilize it in such a small engine with small thermal mass? Maybe the fuel would be too dense to use in such way? Idk.
Stoich would be far too hot in the combustion chamber
90 second ad? for real
It's amazing they can get so much power out of engines with such small displacement.
My goodness, guys. You beat around the bush so, so, so much, and the visuals had nothing to do with what was being explained 80% of the time.
1986 benneton, Gerhard Berger reported wheel spin at 350 KMPH his statement was backed up by co- drivers. Wet races must've been a night-mare 1 centimetres too much on the throttle and she would've spun around the world 3 times I reckon
3 min de enrolação + 1,5 min de comercial
You guys going to address your scam sponsors??
A/F mixture in that game may be misleading; I don't know if the drivers actually mess with that, as it is typically tuner/engineer side, relative to other aspects. A/F ratio can produce some gains, it's part of the whole picture. You were talking about pre-chamber tech that helps to distribute flame travel across the chamber and piston. The 4-valve engine having advantage of a central sparkplug aided by distribution of multi flame fronts, for increased burn of less fuel, for less vehicle weight; or they're not decreasing injection rate and seeing some power gains. It's not that great for road cars, unless the F1 engine is improved more at high rpm timing of spark/fuel duration, improving boost parameters. And if the ICE power can then be balanced better in practical app of the electric power, then more rwhp is available more often for use against opponents. It's a whole system application. Cheers. PS Also it gives advantage after reduced speed/flag conditions, regarding power mode selection duration - available fuel. Relative to someone who doesn't have it. But the teams could still see advantage, depending on how they're using it.
I love Honda coming back into Formula because their research gains in formula are transferred to their Honda motors for us😀
Ohio POWAHHH!
Title is wrong, the Engines produce around 700 to 800 HP and the extra power comes from electrical motors. Power Units do make +1000HP but its not the same thing
He also said the v8's revved to 19k, which isn't exactly true. By 08 the v8's were restricted to 18k. Also kers were introduced in 09. Meaning the hybrid era began then.
Almost a million subscribers! congrats and well deserved.
What’s the image at 6:19 ? It’s definitely not an F1 engine. It *looks like* a cutaway of a 1975 Honda Civic CVCC engine, and the verbal description sounds like the same technology Honda used in the 1970s to build lean-efficient engines during the 1970s oil crisis. Fascinating that the technology has come around again.
This is essentially the same tech as the 1970s Honda CVCC is it not? They did this specifically for fuel efficiency though, and the engine had horrible power, plus I can imagine it would ruin the compression ratio
I'm sooo glad there wasn't another 'Titles' ad in this video.
@Driver61 I have a question: How Does A higher Octane Fuel gives more KJ of energy when it is being combusted? I thought higher octane number is to reduce or eliminate engine knocking? @Driver61 3:39
It lets you run the chamber at a higher pressure. Which results in a higher % of "useful" energy from the combustion
2:42. I know now why Merc was down on power they used Nutella for lubricant.
Octane rating has nothing to do with a fuel's energy density, only how much compression it can withstand before autocombusting, so higher octane fuel is needed to avoid knock in highcompression performance engines
Pre-combustion chamber was well known 20 years ago for direct injection and lean burn engines.
the point was it didnt make sense in F1, until it became a fuel saving formula.
I'd love to see a big ol naturally aspirated V12 that uses all of the genius inventions modern F1 cars have. It would be an absolute beast, but it would be thirsty as hell and much heavier because of the bigger engine and larger fuel tank that it would need. And considering how current F1 cars are already bigger and heavier than they should ideally be (from a spectator's perspective at least), this would never work as an actual race car. But I can still dream.
Answer for clickbait is @ 6:16
This video has a bit of parts missing. 1) The V-8 era wasn't just the ICE. KERS was introduced in 2009. KERS stands for Kenitic Energy Recovery System which had an MGU-K and recovered energy under braking. 2) The 2014 turbo hybrid era. No one was really into hybridization i.e. Italy(Ferrari), France(Renault) and Japan(Honda came in 2015). Mercedes(Germany) were into hybridization and started in 2007 developing this turbo-hybrid formula according to what Niki Lauda told Luca di Montezemolo. Then you throw in the token system(2014 thru 2016....3 years) which hampered further development to everyone which gave MercedesAMGF1 their dominance. It wasn't until 2021, that RedBull-Honda FINALLY caught up to MercedesAMGF1....so 7 years of MercedesAMGF1 dominance. Honda "copied" the split-turbo from Mercedes in 2017. Renault followed suit. In 2023, Renault is playing catch up. Ferrari is the only team that HAS NOT copied the split-turbo design and were plagued with reliability issues in 2022 to include their teams. MercedesAMGF1 engines are still reliable in 2022 to include their teams followed by Honda. An example of this turbo-hybrid era is like asking the teams who can make the best Lasagna since we all know Italy has been making Lasagna for a long time. Then the rules for 3 years was that no one can add any ingredients to their Lasagna. Who do you think will win the Lasagna challenge? Yes, everyone agreed to the rules but no one realized the dominance MercedesAMGF1 would have. Now it's 2022 and MercedesAMGF1, namely Hamilton, doesn't look so dominant....even Russell outscored Hamilton in points for 2022 in his 1st year with MercedesAMGF1.
The basics of this is how Prius has worked since forever.
When your essay needs 3000 ord and you have 2000 just before the deadline.
Octane rating of the fuel has no direct link to fuel energy density. It just means that it ignites harder therefore you can compress the fuel-air mix more which translates to the ability of burning more fuel per engine stroke. In fact often high-octane fuels have lower specific energy density than lower-octane ones.
Basically Hondas CVCC concept from the 70s
0:46 for most of the years the 2.4 V8s were used, the engines were limited to 18,000 rpm not 19.
2006 - Unlimited - Some reached up to 20,500 RPM 2007-2008 - 19,000 RPM 2009-2013 - 18,000 RPM with KERS
1:36 "... not so much with Ferrari". It's criminal that they got away with 'Fuel Glow Gate'. We'll maybe never know what happened.
After 2 minutes of same story in intro and Mercedes, I thought inovation was split turbo
So it's like the upgraded version on Honda's CVCC in the 80s.
Exactly what I was going to say. Pretty sure my 1978 Civic/Accord with the CVCC (where Civic comes from) used that type of head to increase fuel efficiency.
I wonder if you could run a two stroke in F1?? That would be funny to see a 10 cylinder two stroke motor
Right off the bat, I'm not convinced these are the most powerful engines ever in Formula One
My understanding is that the 1980's "turbo era" engines were the most powerful. Safety concerns for the spectators as well as the drivers caused the rules to change intended to slow down the cars. The whole idea of "formula racing" is to put strict parameters on the racing class and see who makes the best use of them. The more recent change to hybrid engines and reduced fuel load is largely a PR move to make Formula 1 appear to be advancing fuel efficiency and technology that would be pertinent to passenger cars.
There have been more powerful engines by pure power yes. But over a race distance the turbo-hybrid ones are 100% the best. The older engines had 0 reliability. They'd break down constantly and for them to survive a single race they had to be turned down a lot. Those were the times where they sometimes went through a whole engine for a single qualyfing stint.
Diesels have used this for a long time
This isn’t how a diesel engine works. They’re using an actual flame to ignite the rest of the mixture inside the cylinder. Diesel engines don’t do that.
That is correct, Turbulent Gas Jet Injection has been used in diesel engines for quite a longtime. The same cylinder pre-ignition technology was also used by Audi, Toyota and Porsche in the WEC. The TGJI or also known as heterogeneous gas jet injection can be transferred to any internal combustion engine and is now also used in Moto GP.
These are the breakthroughs that manufacturers hope to find when joining F1 and Mercedes nailed it. Engines are still a efficiency game and even F1 cars aren't as high of a percentage as you might think but they're significantly higher then road cars. It's amazing the amount of work that F1 engines produce with little fuel.
Caterpillar uses this type of combustion on their G3600 lean burn natural gas engines. They introduced these engines back in 1991.
@@DChrls and? Honda used this tech in a fucking civic back in the 70's. Doesn't mean you can't appreciate top level engineering when you see it.
"This fuel's gettin' manipulated man!!"
I've never understood why the FIA introduced electric motors to F1 and created Formula E as a way to "move the technology forward" but then restricts the hell out of the electric motors. Why don't they but heavy restrictions on the internal combustion engines and open up the electrical side? And for Formula E, open the rules up so that it isn't a spec series, let teams innovate and find loopholes to make motors and batteries more efficient.
as far as I know there are no limitations other than the power output. So all the innovation is there, but it's not resulting in more Power but in more efficient and lighter Motors. I absolutely agree with you that FE should let the manufacturers develop their own batterys with a limited capacity.
FIA: time to make F1 a 4 cylinder
Eventually it's gonna be a 1 cylinder
@@stupidhotdog7735 2
@@MDE_never_dies best thing that could happen.
@@homosapien5156 didn't laugh
v8 era hybrid and more sustainable fuel will do the job
This is an old Honda trick from road cars in the late 70s perfected for f1. I think they used the choke though, yes that's how long ago.
How? A LOT of boost. Plus some neat ignition systems
A full 6 minutes into an 8-minute video, before any real info was talked about in this video 🤔
Idk, I think I've seen pre-chamber ignition in a Soviet Volgas. So this "innovation" is decades old.
Can someone please put an F1 engine in an Volkswagen Golf
And don't forget about the split turbo that only merc had for years
Sounds like they pulled the old IDI diesel concept out of the mothballs and threw it in their F1 engine.
Precumbustion chambers have been used in diesels for many decades
OMG it is about to be 1 Million suscribers I hope you and your channel all the best ! Greeting from China !
I seem to recall reading that the rich-lean idea was tried in the 1970s to meet emissions or fuel economy standards. I also seem to recall claims of 1,000+ HP from 1.5 liter turbo engines of the 80s turbo era. What is new is ECUs allowing pushing the engines to the detonation limit to gain max power from minimum fuel.
This video could have been 2 mins long. And I sware you’ve made this video before
Sounds kind of like pre-ignition and than forcing it into the cylinder, hence having to less rely on the cylinder doing most of the work.
Dude. Those F1 engineers did not discover this idea. Lot's of engines have been using a pre-ignition chamber. This is nothing new.
those prechambers look vers similar to the ones merc used on their diesel engines from the 80's
......or like the Honda cvcc?
Honda used this in their first version of the Civic (wheeler dealers episode) and then forgot about it. when it was revealed, the episode had only just been aired and everybody in the paddock took the piss out of Honda. the split turbo was genius and meant they could have smaller intercoolers. Mercedes also invented the party mode to disguise how good the engine was and derated the engine so not to make it look to good, sometimes they turned the engine down to far and had to turn it up to get pole, hence why sometimes they suddenly were over a second quicker from Q2 to Q3. The other consequence of the party mode was that the other manufacturers had to respond and would ruin their engines by turning their engines up to 11 to compete.
This video could’ve been an email.
Dude you just tweaked same single contextual meaning with huge lengthened video. Keep it simple and clean. And admit if any ambiguities.
The script in this video sounds like me when I'm trying to hit the minimum word count in my essay
The benefit of getting the details of the new PU ahead of the grid.
Honda actually developed this in the 1970's for their CVCC engines. It allowed their cars to have cleaner emissions with better fuel economy.
It's called Pre-ignition and Engineering Explained describes it better, and the new Maserati MC20 uses similar technology in it's new V6 engine
Great video as always!
@Driver61 Make a video about things that can be changed in an f1 car and make f1 more relevant to the automotive industry and cheaper so that it can attract more teams, without losing significant performance. Things like changing from carbon carbon discs to carbon ceramic discs. Make it possible to cold start an F1. Reduce the number of possible changes in the aerodynamics of cars, especially in a winning team. Make a concession system like motogp so that the weaker teams can develop faster and catch the stronger teams and others. Cheers
I think that I know exactly how this development happened/played out back then. the rules heavily regulated bodywork, giving teams less room of designing freedom. at the same time, engines came out of a previously frozen state and for the first time in quite a while started playing a role again in lap time/performance. so, teams might've very well just shuffled around personnel internally and gave their fluid dynamicists a go on engine development. 😅 this might sound like a joke but on the other hand, it's also quite convincing, isn't it? because I think to recognize the hand writing of at least my past time trade 😅
I think you’re right😅, you could even use the same software (FLUENT in my days many many years ago…)
6:10 May fireball?
Please be careful with who you make sponsors with... Do some research
So Merc basically invented an old school diesel engine running on petrol.
Please do a video on F1 potentially using inline 4 cylinder engines like the Japan Super Formula are using.
That was the plan for 2013 (delayed to 2014) originally. The new engines for 2026 will be 1.6L V6s with ~530hp, instead of ~800hp, plus 470hp MGUKs.
Learn what octane number is since you are wrong, higher octane level coresponds to higher knock resistance (self ignition) - higher octane number mean you can run engine at higher compression ratio without knocking. this allow to more efficient combustion.
this is old tehnology that is used in road cars
F1 should have no rules on the size or configuration of the power unit. Let teams self optimize to produce the most competitive car.
The first time seeing such tech was from the Maserati V6 engine. I always wonder why if the prechamber gets clogged up with carbon.
Didn't honda do something similar in the 80s with the cvcc engine? It had pre combustion area before the main combustion chamber.
The engines are not 1000BHP, the drive train is, but that means the ICE gets help from electric motors...
6:17 A Pre-Chamber like an older in-Direct injection diesel !! Who would have thunk!!
Fuel and a ton of revs
i'm still wondering how they make it more effecient by having it feed leaner mixture but still give a fuel on the passages, it seems like still giving more fuel every time, a lean mixture on the combustion chamber plus the added fuel to pass on the passage for the better burning of the lean mixture present on the combustion chamber, does'nt that point out the same as having exact amount of fuel every combustion? what i see clearly is the advantage of those passage to burn the lean mixture perfectly and faster so the power output give more strength leading to a much better performance...
i think the thing that makes them lean or fuel effecient is another thing rather than that
Honda CVCC been around since the 70s
Honda did something similar the Civic in the 1970’s. It was called CVCC
2:42 Nutella
I belive Driver61 made this exact same video like 9 times.
TJI a new technology that back in the early '70's Honda called CVCC.
Sounds like a fancy version of Honda's civics from the early 70s?
Exactly. Honda CVCC is what this technology's idea comes from. It is a modernized CVCC.
it's very interesting thank you
They are not 1000HP engines. They are 1000HP Power Units. About 150HP is from the batteries. So the engines are more like 850HP. Still a lot in such a lightweight car.
Exactly
I'd recommend everyone to Watch animagraffs formula 1 car video its frekin awesome
Video starts at 5:30
Interesting! Thx!
With many government pushing for banning of combustion engines, we probably will not see this tech on normal road cars. Right now, the closest F1 like engine you can buy is in the Maserati MC and AMG Project One. Nothing that a common man can afford is available.
its crazy to me that these high performance race cars have less displacement than my honda HRV but get nearly 10x the power
Because the safety factor of these engines is nearly 1. They do not last long at all because they are asking too much from these components. But long enough to live for how long the engine has to last for in F1. That's it. Comparing this to a road car engine of similar displacement and configuration will never be a true Apples to Apples comparison. Think of them like dirtbike engines. They make a lot of power for a single cylinder engine (4ST or 2ST) but that's because they have a short service life where clearances will need attention and parts that have worn out of the allowable tolerance the engine manufacture has given.
@@bradleybatt1401 who said anything about an apples to apples comparison. It's still mind blowing
I don't care how these PUs sound, they are so technologically advanced and efficient that they are my favorite F1 regulation. The people who moan so much about them are just too ignorant about how they work, or are too stupid to care
The very first time that I saw that setup, was in the early 1980's on ordinary street car. Sorry, but I don't remember the brand.
That Ferrari dig 👌
Is this similar to mazda sky active x engine