virgin need a new fuel tank

[CNR]

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 ?

[ratonmacias]

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



so the car will not be a virgin any more ?

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

[F1boat]

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

[Hawkmoon]

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.

[truefan72]

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

yep.

I guess the computer told them the tank was big enough and they went with that

Its a schoolboy mistake in terms of F1.

[truefan72]

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

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.

[christophulus]

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..

[ArrowsFA1]

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

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?

[turismo6]

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.

[Mark]

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.