The Science Behind Ferrari's Cheating Scandal in Formula 1 and Their Engine Revamp

In the 2020 Formula 1 season, Ferrari finished sixth out of ten teams in the Constructors' Championship, marking their worst performance in 40 years. This dismal result was attributed to their engine, which was deemed the worst on the grid by their own test driver. The cause of this poor performance can be traced back to the previous year's rule-breaking antics.

According to Ferrari's actions in 2019, it is alleged that they cheated their way to success. However, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) struck a confidential deal with the team, rendering the details of their deception unknown to the public.

On the popular business and technology podcast B2B, an episode dedicated to unraveling the science behind Ferrari's cheating scandal is now available for streaming. In this special episode, the hosts break down the technical aspects of how Ferrari managed to cheat in 2019 and then explore the team's efforts in 2021 to revamp their engine design.

The hosts offer a detailed examination of Ferrari's actions during that time period and discuss various factors that influenced the outcome of their performance. With the help of the latest technology, the researchers were able to gain new insights into how Ferrari designed their engines and implemented their strategy.

The team at B2B thanks Constant Contact for sponsoring this portion of their video. This is a message from Shawn Cory Carter, a member of The Y's crew, which says:

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- A portion of this videois sponsored by Constant Contact.- In the 2020 Formula 1 season,Ferrari finished sixth out of 10thin the Constructors' Championship,their worst performance in 40 years.According to their own test driver,they had the worst engine on the grid.And that's in part becausein 2019, they bent the rules,or as some would say, they cheated.And unfortunately the FIA strucka confidential deal with Ferrari.So no one really knows how they cheated.Well today on B2B, we'regonna break down the scienceon how they cheated andthen look at how Ferrarire-engineered their engine in 2021to get back to not sucking.Let's go.(upbeat music)Thank you to Constant Contactfor sponsoring this portion of this video.As the Y's Shawn Cory Carter once said,"I'm not a businessman.I'm a business, man."And since I'm at the office so muchmaking content for you guys,I realized I needed space hereto support my business needs.That's why I secretly built this.While this secret lair allowsme to be a better businessman,it's important you guys have supportwith your small businesses.That's why Constant Contactis a go-to qualified resourcefor providing smallbusinesses around the worldwith online marketing toolsand personalized coachingto help market and grow your brand.I know a lot of you outthere have small businesseslike Nolan's curl cream formen or uncle Jerry's bird food,and it's never been more importantto stay in touch with your customers.And Constant Contact, they know that.They make online andemail marketing a breeze.You can use their emailmarketing automationto help drive sales andkeep your audience engaged,while at the same time,building an accessiblecustomer contact list.Constant Contact also makes it easyfor small businesses tobuild a custom websitewith eCommerce functionality.So what are you waitingfor, fellow business person?Grow your brand today and head on overto constantcontact.com or clickthe link in the descriptionto try it for free today.And soon enough, maybe you'll haveyour own secret office like me.Nolan, what are you doing here.- Jerry, what is this place?- Thanks to Constant Contactfor sponsoring that portion of this video.- Ferrari is the most successfulFormula 1 team of all time.They have more pole positions,more Grand Prix winsand more Constructors'Championship than any other team.So if anyone can come backfrom a disastrous season,Ferrari can do it.But why do they have tomake a comeback at all?What the heck happenedto make their 2020 season so terrible?Well, Ferrari's worstseason since the disco eraactually started in 2019with a cheating scandal.Ferrari's 2019 car, the SF90,seemed unusually fast,especially at high speed,power hungry circuits like Monza and Spa.Other F1 teams suspected thatFerrari was making extra powerby breaking the rules on fuel delivery.The FIA limits fuel flowrate to 100 kilograms an hourand installs a sensor oneach car to monitor this.The sensor, it's called a fuel flow meterand its job is to do exactly that.Monitor the fuel rateso the FIA can make sureyou're not squirtingmore fuel into the enginethan what's allowed by the rules.And this meter is placedbetween the low pressure pumpinside the fuel tank, andthe high pressure pumpmounted on the engine.The fuel flow meters use the ultrasonictime of flight principle to measurethe velocity of the fuel flowing througha straight section of fuel line.It starts with a short burst of ultrasoundgenerated by a transducerlocated at one end of the tube,traveling the same direction of the fuel.A short time later, an identical burstfrom a transducer at theother end of the tubeis sent in the opposite directionagainst the direction of fluid flow.In one direction, youhave the speed of soundplus the speed of the fluid.In the other direction,you have the speed of soundminus the speed of the fluid.A sensor then measures the time it takesthat wave of ultrasound to hit the sensorin each of the two directionsand subtracts one from the other.This ends up giving avalue which is proportionalto the velocity of the fuel.And if you know thecross-sectional area of the line,you can calculate the flow rate.And they tie this meter intothe car's wiring harness,where the data is sharedbetween the team and its ECU and the FIA.But say you wanna squirt more juiceinto your Italian stallionso that it'll go fasterwithout this fuel flow meterratting you out to the FIA.Well, there are a coupleways you can do it.You can either run at max flow rate,even when you don't needit, and then save that fuelin a separate tank for later use.You cash the fuel upstream of the meter,or you can trick the meter itself.When these fuel metersfirst hit the scene,there were technicaldirectives and rule changesto prevent teams fromdoing the first method.But what about option two?Get tricky and trick the meter?Now, any sensor that's on anF1 car has a sampling rate.How many times persecond a sample is taken.For the fuel flow meters,that rate is 2.2 kilohertz,meaning it takes 2200samples every second.We actually plotted thatand this is what it looks like here.Every 0.00045 seconds,we get a piece of data.And the amplitude ofthat single point of datacorresponds to the flow rate.If it's higher than 100 kilograms an hour,then you're busted.But I'm Ferrari, and I need more fuel.I need it.I need that fuel.So could I hide those pesky peaksthat are telltale sign of me cheating?If you can cheat the test,you can beat the rest.Every MLB player in the '90s.Lance Armstrong.He said it, not me.And you can hide thosepeaks in a few ways.You can alter the signal by jamming itor scrambling it so bad thatit produces inconsistentand unreliable data, or youcan alter the fuel flow itself.The electric pumps inF1 cars don't delivera constant stream of fuel flow.They're pulsed.It's similar to how afuel flow meter work.Those points of data dipdown and dip back up.They're on, off.And that on, off is super fast.It's 2200 times a secondbut there's still time when it's off.If we were to make a similar graphof the fuel flow fromthe pump that's pulsing,it creates a graph similar tothe wave form of the meter.Now, what if we could phasethose pulses of the pumpto supply more fuel when themeter is in the off stage?So by the time the meter turns back on,the fuel pulse has dropped back downto its maximum allowed rate,tricking the sensor into thinkingthat the max flow rate never went beyond100 kilograms an hour.Remember, the fuel flow meteris tied into the team's ECU,so they can synchronize the sampling ratewith the pump's pulse rate,constantly adjusting thepump's output to the meter.Tricky, tricky, buff pony boys.Now, I don't know how,but the Red Bull teamsmelled something fishyover at Ferrari.So doing what Red Bull does best,they designed several possible systemsthat could fool or bypass themandatory fuel flow sensorand submitted these designs as requestfor clarification to the FIA.Their thought was, hey, we got a good ideathat they're cheating.So we're gonna show this to the FIAand then ask them if it's allowed.They will then have tomake a ruling on it.They're gonna draw aline right in the sandon what is and isn't legal.They snitched, but they snitchedin the most dirty way possible.Now, the FIA responded withseveral technical directives.These are updates or changesto the technical regulations.That's the main rule book of Formula 1.That's what the formula stands for.It was these directives that saidthe systems Red Bulldescribed were prohibitedby the rules around fuel delivery.Any team using these systemswould be in violation of Formula 1 rules.And funny enough,immediately after thedirectives were released,the Ferrari car got noticeably slower.The FIA launched aninvestigation into Ferrari,but after several months,they reached an agreementthat would remain confidential.This was to protect Ferrari'sintellectual propertyfrom public release, and in exchange,Ferrari agreed to help the FIAto improve the monitoring ofall Formula 1 power units,as well as assist in FIAand other regulatory duties.It's like the FBI hiring a hacker,except the hacker is a billiondollar luxury car company.In total, there wereseven technical directivesresulted from the scandal,and these included increasedmonitoring of the fuel flowand new sensors to monitorenergy from the hybrid system.The new rules also limitedthe maximum amount of oilwhich could be consumed during racingor present in the intake,in case that's whatFerrari had been doing.Small amount of oil in the intakeof most turbocharged engines is normalbecause oil is used to cool the turbo.But one of the proposed theoriesabout Ferrari's extra powerwas that they engineereda controlled oil leakat their intercooler.The flammable oil provideda little boost of extra fuelwhen it reached the engine.This was now also explicitly illegal.But come on, this is an Italian car.Sure, there was an engineered oil leak.It's supposed to be that way.Nobody knows for sure if any,or all of those technicaldirectives forced changesthat affected Ferrari's power output.But what we do knowis that their power was affected for 2020.In pre-season testing,the SF90's replacement,the SF1000 was nearlya second slower per lapthan the previous year's car.Meaning it had an estimatedloss of about 65 horsepower.That power loss was bad,but the main issue slowing the carseemed to be the relationshipbetween the engine andthe car's aerodynamics.The 2020 bodywork had been designedaround the previous more powerful engine.The revised, less powerful enginecouldn't overcome thedrag from that bodywork.Ferrari was left strugglingthroughout the 2020 season,unable to find the right configurationfor the SF1000 within theallowable adjustments.But in the break between 2020 and 2021,Ferrari engineers, they got to work.They extracted more powerout of their SF100's engine,or more specifically, its power unit.An F1 power unit or PU is a hybrid systemusing a 1.6 liter turbocharged gas engine,and two electric motorgenerator units or MGUs.The MGU H recovers heat from the exhaustand uses that energy to spendthe turbo, reducing lag.The MGU K, which used to be called Kurz,recovers kinetic energy from braking.It's connected to thegasoline engine's drive shaftand supplements thepower going to the wheel.A complex system like an F1power unit must be engineeredso that everything workstogether in harmony.And if you change one thing,then the whole system suffers.So hypothetically, let's sayyou raise the total fuel flowabove 100 kilograms an hour,the maximum allowed by the FIA.Then you would have to change other partsof that power unit to makeuse of that extra fuel.If you didn't take away that extra fuel,the power unit wouldn'twork properly as a systemand would make less power as a whole unit.The biggest change they made this yearwas using the super fast head.The super fast head increasedair and fuel flow speed,not fuel flow volume,which is what got themin a mess to begin with.That extra speed increasesfuel atomization.That means the hydrocarbonsin the gasolineand the oxygen molecules in the airare more thoroughly and evenly mixedwhen they reach the cylinders.Greater atomization leadsto faster combustion,because the flame can propagatethrough an even mixture more quickly.The super facet headalso increases pressurein the combustionchamber, meaning more fueland more air get burned, which produces...James!- More power, baby.- Of course, to make thesuper fast head work,Ferrari has to maximize the amount of airgetting into the engine.And for that, a lot of attentionhas been paid to the turbo system.They've revised the compressorand made it smaller tomake it easier to spin up.That means the energy from the MGU His used more efficiently.They've also repositioned the intercooler,so the intake air will becolder, making it more dense.Cooler air is more dense,which means you get more of it.Got more air, got morefuel, you got more power.While none of these changesare revolutionary by itself,they add up to an increaseof about 20 horsepower.That might not sound likemuch, but it's a start.Ferrari claims that it'llput them on par with Renaultand the Honda-powered Red Bull.Of course, like we talked about before,once the engine is making more power,there are other parts of the carneed to be adjusted to match.Now, the development freeze for 2021didn't include everything.So you can still work onside impact structures,small aerodynamic componentslike vortex generators,basic suspensioncomponents like wishbones,which are control arms,and cooling systems.All those can be altered.So numerous small parts havebeen changed for the SF21,all in the name of reducing dragand improving aerodynamics overall.One of the main sources of drag in 2020were the side mounted radiators.The inlet for these havebeen narrowed to reduce drag,and refined to make betteruse of incoming air.For anything other thansmall revisions like these,the FIA introduced a token system.Each team, they get two tokens to spendon specific parts of the car,which they are then permitted to redesign.Different parts havedifferent token costs,based on their importance for performance.Single token partsinclude the clutch, DRS,brakes and pit stop equipment.If a team wants to altermore significant parts,they have to spend two tokens.For example, they could choose to redesignthe inboard suspension componentslike shocks and springs,or the electrical systemor the driver's cockpit.It's like when you're at Chuck E. Cheese'sand you have all your ticketsand you go up to the boothand you're like, "Ican get a pencil eraseror a pack of sweet tarts.Or I could just walk behind the counterwhen you're not there andsteal whatever I want."Don't do that.Ferrari has been havingsignificant problemswith aerodynamics.So, guess what they chose.The gearbox.Wait, what?Well, as it turns out, thiswas actually a genius move.By choosing to modify the gearbox,they're also permittedto redesign sectionsof the body work aroundit at the rear of the car.That includes rearsuspension attachment points,which were altered tomove the car rearward.And they did that because theysaw success that Mercedes hadwith that suspension design.Choosing the gearbox meantengineers could sculpttheir rear bodywork to minimize dragwhile maximizing downforceat the rear ring.The FIA implemented mandatory reductionsin downforce for 2021,which has slowed everycar down on the grid.Every team has been strugglingto compensate for that,with teams like AlphaTauri and Alpha Romeospending their token specificallyon aerodynamic redesigns.Ferrari's LeClerc hadsignificant trouble specificallywith the rear end grip in 2020,and by resculpting justthe rear of the cararound the gearbox, Ferrari is ableto make aerodynamic improvementsthat affect everythingfrom the rear ring to thepassage of air under the floorwithout specifically spendingtokens on aerodynamics.Freakin' smart, dude.So the million dollarquestion is, will it all work?Enrico Gualtieri, the directorof Ferrari's power unit department,claims the new engine improvements aloneare worth a 10th of a second per lap.Binotto is cautiously optimistic,saying that Ferrarineeds three or four racesto fully understand the true potentialof its 2021 Formula car.And I don't want to give you any spoilers,but they're doing prettygood in this season so far.There's only been two racessince we've filmed this episode,and they're number four in the standings.Will that change by thetime this comes out?I don't know.I don't have a magic ball.In the fifth round this season,Ferrari cars are going to place...- Second.- And?- Did not start.- At the rate that Ferrari is going,it looks like they're going to havea successful 2021 season, but who knows?Leave a comment down below.Let me know if you thinkFerrari made a comeback.Did they re-engineer their car better?Did they cheat? Are theycheating in another way?I don't know.Maybe they are.Maybe they got us focused on one thingso they can dabble onanother part of the car.Put some comments down below.Let me know what you think.Thank you guys so much forwatching this episode of "B2B."Follow us on Instagram @DonutMedia.Follow me @JeremiahBurton.Until next week, bye for now.