“Lets take a look at the power unit first!” That’s when the family members at the dinner table stop paying attention. They will ask the same exact question next year. Great video, these are so informative for the short video length!
You should have explained the pre-heating reasons in more detail: An F1 engine is so precisely manufactured, that it literally will not move when it is cold due to the metals actually being stuck together. Through warming the engine up the seals on the pistons are able to move because they soften up just enough. And since F1 engines are meant to run at several hundred degrees there is no point in having this any other way.
Another purpose of preheating the engine is that the tolerances the internal combustion engine is built to are quite extreme, and when cold, won’t even turn over. The heat in the motor keeps the parts from rubbing on one another- and the tolerances are designed to be optimal at 80C.
I also heard the the sylinders in the engine expand slightly more than the pistons when heated so the engine is actually seized up when it's cold, the pistons being under pressure from the sylinder sidewalls
This is oft cited but it isn’t actually true. It’s one of those perpetual myths. The engines absolutely will turn over when cold; but because the tolerances are so tight, wear will be high.
I really enjoy these informative short videos. They satisfy my never ending desire to learn more about these amazing cars. Appreciate it so much y’all! Much love from the US
Ah yes, thank you for this wonderful tutorial. I shall now proceed to follow this tutorial with my non-existent F1 car used in my non-existent F1 career Edit: So many salty people in the replies LMAO guys it’s a joke
Didn't mention that when the engine is cold it really can't be turned over because the tolerance on the pistons and cylinder walls is so tight that it's basically seized. When they warm the engine everything expands to the proper size and they can spin it over easily.
The engine tolerances are so small and measured at operating temperature, so when it's cold, it seizes solid and won't so much as twitch, which is why they need to get the engine warmed up before starting because they literally cannot start it cold. The car basically needs to be on life support before it can perform.
re: preheating or not, depends on the food, if you're heating up something that's already cooked then yeah just throw it in there while it's heating up. but if you're COOKING something you gotta wait till it's heated up to the right temp first.
Gentlemen. A short view to the past. Thirty years ago, Nicki Laura told us “take a trained monkey, place him into the cockpit of a car and he is able to drive the car”. Thirty years later, Sebastian told us “I have to start my car like a computer, it’s very complicated” and Nico Rosberg said that during the race - I don’t remember what race - he pressed the wrong button on the wheel. Question for you both. Is formula one today too complicated with 20 or more buttons on the wheel, are you too much under effort, under pressure? What are your wishes for the future concerning the technical program during the race? Less buttons, more? Or less and more communication with your engineers?
I'm 100% sure that may be they could perhaps do something about something while they were doing something that could or could not be the right thing to do in the future.
It was like this with the DFVs already... I once was in a garage in a classic f1 race and the firing up from saying "ok let's fire up the egnien" was like an hour
I’m now just picturing Matt hovering over his oven with anticipation and when the preheating light goes out he exclaims, “LIGHT’S OUT AND AWAY WE GO!” (The apostrophe represents contraction for the apostrophe police.)
One correction: The MGU-H doesn’t recover the energy from the heat of the exhaust, it is generated from the turning of the turbo. That‘s also why during energy deployment the turbo can be spooled up electronically
You do know that the turbo is driven by exhaust gasses? Otherwise it would’ve been called a supercharger (driven by the engine itself) or a compressor (driven by electricity).
No actually. Basically this is somekind of S.O.P that you need to do before turning the engine on because they are in a very competitive racing. F1 racing is all about precision. So if they want to make it simpler just using key to turn the engine on of course they can.
so this video was great and the complexity surprised me as a new fan. What I got from this video is the driver cannot restart the car on the track- if the engine( powerunit) quits its the walk of shame back to pits. I find that surprising.
you stay comin in with the heat!! one of those things i had the general idea of how it was started off of quick video clips. great content always thinking outside the box
I do the same procedure on my truck when in winter, I warm up the engine oil pan, turn the engine without starting it and put a hot air blower on the turbo intake.
You forgot to mention that most manufacturers can kick start their engine when not in the pits using the eleconics as everything is already warm. I think it's the MGU-H? they spin up and it cranks the ICE over and gets it fired up. I think Merc is the only engine not to have that
It's the mgu-k, it moves the car until a certain speed with the clutch disingaged, then the clutch engages and the engine is literally jump started and comes back to life. Since all car have an mgu-k and a clutch, they should all be able to do it
On another note, people ask about starting aircraft engines a lot too. Small planes tend to have keys to operate the ignition/magnetos, but airliners have nothing of the sort. They can be started by one person at nearly any time. Far simpler than F1 cars but, despite both wanting to save weight by eliminating heavy, complex systems (like a a car carrying around all that weight for the race when it was only needed to start the engine before the race), aircraft are expect to not need a maintenance crew to get the engines turning. Definitely to safely operate one over time, but not to just start one.
Awesome video! There is a possibility to the driver itself turn the engine on if he's on track, right? If I'm correct, Leclerc did this in Catalunya 2020 when his engine suddenly switched off mid race and his engineer told him to turn it on using the MGU-K
Yep! However in that case the engine is already fully up to temperature and all the oil is where it's supposed to be, so it's technically already in its ideal starting configuration. Since it was literally just running a short time ago. I'm not sure where, exactly, the MGU-K is connected to along the gearbox/crankshaft system. Might vary slightly from team to team and design to design. But as Mateus points out, put the gearbox in neutral and dump the clutch, and everything's connected and you can rev up the MGU-K to get the engine rotating, where the ignition and fuel systems will handle it from there. Incidentally a lot like how a Toyota Prius starts its engine ...
It is indeed more complicated than I thought, but I knew it wasn't simple. I just didn't know it was a long process. Starting a jet engine is simpler than this (at least from the cockpit). Cool stuff to hear and the steps all made sense; I just didn't think they had to do all of that each time. I guess most of it is handled by production vehicles with automation and aren't built to be stressed the same way as these are, so if you considered all of that being moved to a racecar, it starts to seem more logical that it's essentially a team sport to fire it up!
FYI, the MGU-H is the turbocharger. Specifically the electric motor attached to the shaft between the turbines. It harvests energy under boost and spools the turbo to eliminate lag.
I'm the without pre-heating guy, since it doesn't make a difference on the food (unless, I guess You'd have some insanely slowly heating up oven). That said, I'm pretty experienced at telling when a particular meal is done, but if You're trying out something completely new and different, especially with a strict timing in a recipe, like certain fish, or deserts, then of course have the oven preheated, to match the timing.
All this while I really thought all you need is a motor and you just have to stick the rod in and fire it up. Turns out it is more complicated than that. Thank you for the insight.
I'll have to admit I did not know all that. I thought it was just the starter in the back and done - but then again this was like 30 years ago and things have changed A LOT specially since the hybrid era...
Just wondering, since the MGU-K is afaik a Motor/Generator directly mounted onto the crankshaft: Can the MGU-K be used to hot-start an F1-engine if it stalled? And if so, is that allowed if a driver stalls during the session? Iirc in the V10 era stalling your engine was game over, but that was because the cars didn't have an internal starter
I shove the food into the oven right after I’ve turned it on! The pre-heat only takes a minute or so, so my food won’t have cooked oddly since its going to be at full heat in a matter of minutes :)
One thing though, at times drivers are seen restarting their engine on track if the engine for some reason just cut out, is there an inbuildt starter motor inside the engine?
Matt, you forgot to say what happens if a driver stalls? I know the car has anti stall mechanisms, but in theory, wouldn’t it be possible to stall the engine? Say if you spin out into the gravel or grass, but don’t hit any barriers (so the car would in theory be able to continue). What then?
In that situation the engine is already warmed up, so you don't need all the fancy equipment in the pits. So the mgu-k starts moving the car with the clutch disingaged, then the clutch engages and the engine gets jump started by the movement of the car
Definitely a pre-heater. There's a quicker way to let the red light go off though: Set the oven to a higher temperature and dial back to the desired setting after a reasonable time, which lets the oven pass the long temperature threshold sooner than just waiting.
Is mgu any different than als, like is it using the exhaust gas to combust or is it just harvestijg heat, and if its just heat does it also convert the ambient ice waste heat
Once in a qualifying cars roll to the pit exit too early, but it was red and some drivers just turned off the engine, except Mercedes and the commentator said, probably the Mercedes's engine can't be started from the cockpit.
When the ICE stalls, everything is at the right temperature. No modifications need to be made before starting it up again. The electric motor is then used to crank up the engine. This is for worst case scenarios and not used in any other circumstances.
