Shell techies helping Ferrari engine survival strategy

[John S]

With no room for engine failure and max power needed, can Ferrari make its V8 engine supply last the rest of the season? According to Racecar Engineering Ferrari are relying heavily on Shell technicians to get the best from the engines. Indeed Shell lubricants are even credited with finding the tenth of a second to secure the pole and race win at Monza. Seems Lubs and fuel are just as high tech as areo for F1 teams.

So the 2010 Formula 1 season is winding up to something of a climax and amongst the tight championship fight one team above the others is struggling. Despite moving into second place in the drivers championship Ferrari is getting desperately short on engines. Felipe Massa has already exhausted his supply, installing his ninth unit shortly before the Singapore race. Teams are only allowed eight units a season so Massa took a ten place grid drop. Ferrari’s lead driver, Alonso, is on his eighth 056 engine which with three race meetings left will be on the limit by the end of the season.
 
But unless the V8 turns into a high speed cloud factory how does Ferrari know when the engine has a problem when the units are sealed?
Well one of the teams partners, Shell, plays a very major part in this.
At every race Ferrari brings along a mobile laboratory for Shell’s scientists to work in. After qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix I had a chance to have a look round the ‘track lab’ with Shell scientist Lisa Lilley.

The lab sits upstairs in the back of one of the two trucks used by the team, and is packed with equipment. One of the main tasks for the Shell team is to ensure the legality of the V-Power fuel used in the works Ferrari’s this is a major undertaking. But at this stage of the season a more crucial task is to report back to the team on the condition of the engines via the chemical make up of the Helix lubricants.
Using an RDE (rotating disc electrode) oil analyser - which uses a technique called Optical Emission Spectrometer (OES) – Shell is able to detect the metal particles in the oil and warn the team if there is excessive wear in a particular region of the engine.

There will be much attention paid to the work of the Shell analysts in the races to come. But they are likely to be in the good books at Ferrari. For the Italian Grand Prix one of the upgrades introduced to the F10 was a new Shell Helix lubricant for the event and it was reckoned to worth around 0.1 second a lap on Monza’s long straights. Fernando Alonso was on pole position there by 0.1 seconds. The new oil reduced internal friction in the engine just enough to free up a bit more power where it counts. And maybe has given his final engine the life it needs to get to the end of the season without a ten place start penalty.

Racecar Engineering magazine, Sept 30.

[lkjohnson1950]

A lot of equipment and construction companies regularly send samples through the mail for analysis to protect their very expensive engines. There are even a couple of on-line labs you can send your oil to for review. I have some friends on another forum who do this regularly.

Lonny