FERRARI: FIRING UP A F1 ENGINE

For years, we had grown accustomed to seeing the driver twirl a finger in the cockpit in a signal to a mechanic to insert the starter at the back of the car to turn the engine over. It’s no longer always done like that as some constructors including Ferrari, have a system that allows the driver to do it himself.

For the past few years, the Maranello PU can be fired up by the driver using energy from the MGU-K, both in the pit garage and out on track. In a way, the driver is doing the same as any motorist does with their road car, turning a key or more commonly now, pressing a remote. In truth the racing drivers complete a sequence of tasks, but the method is substantially the same.

It’s a small point but an important one. This was seen during qualifying for the Russian GP a fortnight ago, in the exciting closing moments of Q2. After the red flag caused by Sebastian Vettel going off track, there was just 2 minutes and 14 seconds remaining to squeeze in one last run and at Sochi, a normal out lap takes between 1 minute 50 and 2 minutes 20. It was enough for some drivers but not for all 14 that were still in the running. At this point, position in the pit lane exit became very important as explains Iñaki Rueda, Head of Race Strategy.

"Most of the teams had decided to send their drivers out to the end of the pit lane, quite a while before knowing when the session would restart, because they knew that track position was important. That’s what we did with Charles. Once he was in the queue, he was able to switch off the PU and wait for the restart procedure to begin, being able to fire up the engine again on his own, without external help."

"Other cars also queued up but they had to keep the motor running as the driver did not have the means to fire it up. The wait went on for a while and the operating temperatures got perilously high, some had to return to the garage and give up on improving their lap time. Others even chose to stay in the garage until the restart time was announced and then tried to make up the time on track."

"A driver being able to fire up the engine on his own can also be useful in other situations. For example, if a driver goes off the track and the engine stalls, he can start it up again, as happened to Charles in Spain. It also means that you no longer have to take the starters onto the grid before the start, which means you operate more efficiently, given the limit on personnel numbers."

"This feature can not only save time, it can also save your race!” Ferrari began working on this system back in 2017 and it took plenty of work in terms of refining the hardware, especially in terms of how much torque was required to do the fire up and therefore how strong to make the MGU-K and the starter motor gears, which would be subjected to unexpected stress and a moment of high vibration. The software also had to be adapted to manage the procedure correctly and most important, reliably. It is now a standard feature and its usefulness has been proven yet again."