When Formula 1 Had MASSIVE TURBOS — Transcript

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1. 0:00This Formula 1 car has 1,400
2. 0:02horsepower.
3. 0:04That's 400 more than the F1 cars of
4. 0:06today. It was all about engineers
5. 0:08pushing machines beyond the limits of
6. 0:10technology at the time, creating
7. 0:12monsters. But they had one main issue.
8. 0:15They loved to blow up. Turbos rocked up
9. 0:17in Formula 1 out of nowhere. Let me
10. 0:19explain. Since 1966, you were allowed to
11. 0:21create engines in any format, as long as
12. 0:24it was a maximum capacity of 3 L. And
13. 0:26teams ran all sorts of engines, inline
14. 0:28fours, V6s, V8s, V16s, the lot. But
15. 0:32there was only one rule they ignored.
16. 0:34You were allowed forced induction
17. 0:36engines, but they had to be less than
18. 0:381.5 L in capacity. So, they were allowed
19. 0:41turbos and superchargers, but nobody ran
20. 0:43them. You'll know the magic a turbo can
21. 0:45bring for performance already. It's
22. 0:47likely your road car will have a turbo.
23. 0:49They're everywhere these days. And it's
24. 0:51not like they weren't popular back in
25. 0:53the '60s and '70s. There were road cars
26. 0:55like the Oldsmobile Cutlass Jetfire and
27. 0:57the Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder were
28. 0:59both turbocharged.
29. 1:01was very common in the aerospace
30. 1:03industry, too. But all of the F1 teams
31. 1:05elected for the simpler and lighter
32. 1:07format of the 3 L naturally aspirated
33. 1:09engines. Many were using the Ford
34. 1:11Cosworth DVF engine that soon became an
35. 1:14icon in Formula 1. It was light,
36. 1:16powerful, reliable, and most
37. 1:17importantly, cheap. But that was until
38. 1:19Renault rocked up. They wanted to get in
39. 1:21F1, but were going to do it differently.
40. 1:23They'd been gaining experience with
41. 1:25turbo engines down to their Le Mans
42. 1:26project, the mad-looking Renault Alpine
43. 1:29A443.
44. 1:30Eventually won in 1978 with their 2 L V6
45. 1:34engine that was producing up to 600
46. 1:37horsepower. An experience that would be
47. 1:39valuable for Formula 1. This success was
48. 1:42put down to the extensive testing they'd
49. 1:44done before the race, running more than
50. 1:4610,000 mi on a track in a single season.
51. 1:49So, Renault developed their 1.5 L turbo
52. 1:52V6 engine alongside the 2 L sports car
53. 1:54engine. Then in 1977, Renault started
54. 1:57the iconic turbo era with the RS01, the
55. 2:00first turbocharged Formula 1 car ever.
56. 2:03And look at the size of that turbo. It's
57. 2:05absolutely enormous, creating more than
58. 2:08two bar of boost and around 510
59. 2:10horsepower. It was by far the most
60. 2:12powerful on the grid. In fact, it was
61. 2:14creating so much boost they had to run a
62. 2:16cast iron cylinder block rather than the
63. 2:18steel or even aluminum blocks of the
64. 2:20other cars. This massive level of boost
65. 2:22running through anything other than an
66. 2:24iron block would just result in an
67. 2:26explosion. This did mean that the RS01
68. 2:29was overweight, but the power would make
69. 2:31up for it. Renault would go on to enter
70. 2:33it for the Silverstone Grand Prix in
71. 2:341977, and the car would absolutely suck.
72. 2:38It was chronically unreliable, so much
73. 2:40so that it wouldn't finish a single race
74. 2:42that year. And after two years of barely
75. 2:45finishing a race, it earned the nickname
76. 2:47the yellow teapot as it very often
77. 2:48produced a lot of white stream from the
78. 2:50engine cover. That's what you get for
79. 2:52pioneering a new technology. They were
80. 2:54running the turbos at pressures that
81. 2:55were unheard of at the time. So much so
82. 2:58that they needed a specifically
83. 2:59strengthened block, and even then they
84. 3:01would get a crack and wear within the
85. 3:03length of one Grand Prix. And with so
86. 3:05much boost pressure, you're adding way
87. 3:07more fuel. So, the heat then becomes an
88. 3:10issue. In testing, the Renault would
89. 3:11regularly melt its pistons and valves.
90. 3:13And if they didn't go, it was because
91. 3:15the head got blown off first. And
92. 3:16funnily enough, the heat issue had one
93. 3:18of the weirdest solution. They solved it
94. 3:20by adding more fuel. Yeah, they were
95. 3:23actually using excess fuel to cool the
96. 3:25engine, resulting in the signature
97. 3:27flames coming out of the exhaust. That
98. 3:29would become a staple of the turbo era,
99. 3:32and I think that's fantastic. Who
100. 3:33wouldn't want to see enormous flames
101. 3:35coming from the back of a race car? But,
102. 3:36towards the end of the 1978 season, with
103. 3:39extensive development, the Renault
104. 3:41stopped blowing up. And for the US Grand
105. 3:43Prix at Watkins Glen, the car was
106. 3:45finally quick. Power advantage that the
107. 3:47car had meant that it was quicker at the
108. 3:49faster circuits, and Watkins Glen is
109. 3:52fast. There aren't really any low-speed
110. 3:54corners here, and that helped the
111. 3:55Renault further. As with this large
112. 3:57single turbo setup, they had years of
113. 4:00turbo lag. So, let me just show you
114. 4:02this. It's a dyno graph for a slightly
115. 4:03later version of that car, but my point
116. 4:06still stands. Between 7,000 and 9,000
117. 4:08rpm, the car is creating less power than
118. 4:10the naturally aspirated cars on the
119. 4:12grid. And with its weight penalty, this
120. 4:15made it slow. But as you come up through
121. 4:17the revs and more exhaust gas is
122. 4:19propelled into that turbo, the power
123. 4:21comes in fast. The delay before the
124. 4:23turbo spins up is what we call turbo
125. 4:25lag. The Renault, with its massive
126. 4:27turbo, had a load of it. But when the
127. 4:29turbo came unsung, the power hit you
128. 4:31like a train. I've actually driven a
129. 4:33later turbo F1 car, and it is so hard to
130. 4:37drive. Whilst you may be getting on the
131. 4:38throttle really smoothly, you have to
132. 4:41predict when that wall of power is going
133. 4:43to hit you. And when it comes, it comes
134. 4:45in fast. That's one thing in the dry,
135. 4:47but imagine that in the wet. It wasn't
136. 4:49just an issue for performance, it was a
137. 4:51massive issue for the drivers, forcing
138. 4:53them to drive around it. Ayrton Senna
139. 4:55was famous for blipping the throttle
140. 4:57through a corner when you normally
141. 4:59wouldn't to keep the turbo spinning,
142. 5:01meaning that he had power on the exit.
143. 5:03For Renault, the lag would create
144. 5:04another issue. That wall of power and
145. 5:06torque coming in so quickly would often
146. 5:08just blow the gearbox to pieces. But
147. 5:11back to that race at Watkins Glen. The
148. 5:13Renault really didn't suit the low-speed
149. 5:15corners, but through the medium-speed
150. 5:16corners, the drivers could keep the revs
151. 5:18higher, meaning they had more power on
152. 5:20the exit. And Watkins Glen was the
153. 5:22perfect track for them, and they ended
154. 5:23up coming fourth in the race. Over the
155. 5:25next few years, the engine remained the
156. 5:27same in its core, but there was one main
157. 5:29difference, the boost pressure. You
158. 5:30can't just turn up boost pressure
159. 5:32without the engines exploding. As you
160. 5:34increase the power, components begin to
161. 5:36reach their limit.
162. 5:38I think that in any racing engine, the
163. 5:40nearer you are to it disintegrating, in
164. 5:43general, the better its performance will
165. 5:45be.
166. 5:45And as all of the teams increased boost,
167. 5:47they came across more and more issues
168. 5:49that needed solving. And again, one of
169. 5:51them was heat. So, Renault actually
170. 5:53began cooling the air going into the
171. 5:55turbo with water injection. This allowed
172. 5:57them to turn up the boost without
173. 5:59melting the piston. It also reduced
174. 6:01another problem they were having,
175. 6:02detonation. As you increase boost, the
176. 6:04pressure inside the cylinder can get so
177. 6:06high that the fuel spontaneously
178. 6:08combusts at a point in the cycle where
179. 6:09the engine just can't handle it. Often
180. 6:11resulting in smashed conrods and metal
181. 6:13smashing through the crankcase, not
182. 6:14good. But this, along with loads of
183. 6:16other tweaks, got the power up. And over
184. 6:18the next few years, they took the F1
185. 6:20engine from 500 horsepower to 900
186. 6:24horsepower. Now, with this trade-off
187. 6:25between reliability and power came an
188. 6:28opportunity. The teams realized that you
189. 6:30can alter boost pressure pretty easily
190. 6:32by simply changing the engine control
191. 6:33map, which controls timing, boost,
192. 6:35fueling, and everything else the engine
193. 6:37needs to control it to run. And you can
194. 6:39swap this map in and out. And so, came
195. 6:41the advent of qualifying engines. In
196. 6:43quali, you only need peak power for a
197. 6:45lap or two. The top teams realized they
198. 6:47could dial up their engine for a short
199. 6:48period of time, and it didn't matter if
200. 6:50they completely ruin the engine in the
201. 6:52process. They would lift the engine out
202. 6:54and put a fresh one in for the race, and
203. 6:56run that one on a more conservative map.
204. 6:58Now, as you can imagine, as soon as
205. 7:00Renault started performing well with
206. 7:01turbo engines, everyone else started to
207. 7:03follow a similar formula. One of the
208. 7:05most famous with the BMW M12/13 engine.
209. 7:08This was interesting in that it was an
210. 7:10inline four engine, which meant that
211. 7:12each cylinder was just a little larger
212. 7:14than the V6 in most of the other cars,
213. 7:16and therefore stronger. It could rev to
214. 7:1811 and a half thousand rpm, and
215. 7:20eventually got up to over 1400
216. 7:23horsepower, the most powerful engine in
217. 7:25Formula 1 history. That wasn't
218. 7:26overnight. In 1983, the engine was
219. 7:28producing 800 horsepower from 3.2 bar of
220. 7:32boost, and that is a lot. Current F1
221. 7:35cars have pretty big turbos, and they
222. 7:37run at 3.5 bar, but that's with today's
223. 7:41technology. But by 1986, the BMW was
224. 7:44creating so much power that they didn't
225. 7:46even know how much. It actually maxed
226. 7:48out BMW's dyno, which could only measure
227. 7:51up to a measly 1,280
228. 7:53horsepower. The 1,400 horsepower that we
229. 7:56know now is down to privately owned
230. 7:58historic cars being put on modern dynos
231. 8:00we have today. And they got to this
232. 8:02insane number through years of
233. 8:03development with some of the best engine
234. 8:05designers in the world. But they did
235. 8:07implement some old-school tactics. Now,
236. 8:091,400 horsepower is a lot. That's
237. 8:12towards the upper end of what we can
238. 8:13achieve with modern engines now. And
239. 8:16that's with modern ECUs and cars with
240. 8:18paddle shift gearboxes. These drivers
241. 8:20were controlling these 1,400 horsepower
242. 8:22cars that only weighed 600 kilos with
243. 8:26manual gearboxes. Driving them with one
244. 8:28hand at times and on tires that are
245. 8:30nothing like the tires we have today.
246. 8:32Absolute heroes. Over the next few
247. 8:34years, developments came thick and fast.
248. 8:36The teams began running the cars on
249. 8:38toluene, an incredibly toxic fuel that
250. 8:40allowed them to get more power from the
251. 8:42engine as they could continue to
252. 8:43increase the boost further without
253. 8:45blowing up the engines. And we made a
254. 8:46whole video all about that. The other
255. 8:48advancement was the reduction of turbo
256. 8:50lag. And the teams all tried different
257. 8:52ways to solve this issue. Ferrari moved
258. 8:54to a twin turbo setup, meaning you could
259. 8:56have two smaller turbos that spin up
260. 8:58faster, but still get a similar peak
261. 9:00boost. While others stuck with one turbo
262. 9:03that used variable geometry turbos,
263. 9:05which are super clever. They use these
264. 9:06movable vanes to essentially mimic a
265. 9:08smaller turbo in the lower revs, meaning
266. 9:11you have less lag. And then mimic a
267. 9:12larger turbo in the higher revs, meaning
268. 9:15you have more peak boost. Best of both
269. 9:17worlds. And this design is now
270. 9:19relatively common on performance road
271. 9:20cars. As ever, the battle commenced
272. 9:22between the rule makers trying to slow
273. 9:23the cars down and the teams trying to
274. 9:26make the cars faster. So, the rule
275. 9:27makers began by stopping in-race
276. 9:29refueling and giving the teams a
277. 9:30fixed-size fuel tank so they couldn't
278. 9:32run the engines flat out for the entire
279. 9:34race. This resulted in a lot of cars
280. 9:36running out of fuel on the final lap.
281. 9:38But as ever, the engineers got clever
282. 9:40and began cooling the fuel to make it
283. 9:42more dense and cram more of it into the
284. 9:45tanks. And this even goes on in club
285. 9:47racing today. So with failing to reduce
286. 9:49the speeds enough, over a couple of
287. 9:50years the FIA lowered the maximum
288. 9:52allowed boost pressure more and more
289. 9:55until the turbo was finally outlawed in
290. 9:571989. But that brought the next epic era
291. 10:00of Formula 1, the era of active
292. 10:02suspension. And you can check out our
293. 10:04video on that just here. Thanks very
294. 10:06much for watching and I'll catch you