MOTORSPORT: Fuel sensors double worry for Aussies

Two more GPs will be held in that time (Malaysia this Sunday and China on April 6), with RBR and Renault having to decide whether to accept or continue to defy the Federation International de l’Automobile (FIA) on the accuracy of the fuel sensors on the new-generation hybrid F1 cars.

These sensors also have created a headache for another manufacturer – Porsche, which is preparing to run its new 919 LMP1 model in sports car racing with Ricciardo’s predecessor at RBR, fellow Aussie Mark Webber, as one of its drivers.

Porsche’s motorsport director of engineering on its LMP1 project is Alex Hitzinger. Hitzinger is former head of advanced technologies for RBR and Red Bull’s smaller F1 team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, as well as having worked with BMW Motorsport.

An article on Racecar Engineering’s website says Porsche has been “outspoken” in its criticism of the ultrasonic fuel flow meter being used in F1 this year.

“The German marque will use the meter in its new 919 LMP1,” specialist sports car racing reporter Andrew Cotton writes in the article.

“In the LMP1 category gasoline-fuelled cars must run with two sensors identical to the units at the heart of Red Bull’s disqualification from the Australian GP.

“Cars running on diesel fuel must run three, but Porsche says that there is ‘no robust solution’ to the measuring process and doubts that there will be this season.”

Cotton quotes German Hitzinger saying: “It hasn’t held us back because we did not make our development dependent on it, but there is still no robust solution in place.

“The FIA is still very hopeful that the latest spec will work and will be reliable, but that is not proven yet. We optimise how they are mounted to give them the easiest possible life, but right now we don’t know if it is all going to be robust,” Hitzinger said.

That could bring clarity to sports car racing before the start of the eight-round World Endurance Championship with a six-hour race at Britain’s Silverstone circuit on April 20.

The most important sports car race in that series, France’s Le Mans 24-Hour, is less than two months later.

FIA strings out Melbourne GP controversy
Red Bull Racing’s appeal against Ricciardo’s disqualification in Melbourne will be held in Paris on Monday, April 14 – six days before the fourth race of the F1 season in Shanghai.

The dispute is about the speed at which fuel was being pumped into the Renault engine of Ricciardo’s RB10 car’s on his way to finishing second behind the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg on the Albert Park street circuit.

Rules for the new 1.6-litre turbocharged V6s stipulate that the flow must not exceed 100kg/hour.

The FIA said that limit had been exceeded “consistently” on Ricciardo’s car during the Australian GP.

Red Bull Racing (RBR) strenuously questions the accuracy of the fuel flow meters made by Gill Sensors, claims that they are inconsistent too, and says it is sure from its own measurement at the injectors that the “speed limit” was not breached.

The FIA stewards said RBR was given the “opportunity to be within compliance” during the race, but the team defied the direction to adhere to that direction.

The FIA has said that it is satisfied with the accuracy of the sensors.

Autosport has reported that Gill claims 52 per cent of the sensors are within a 0.1 per cent accuracy reading and 92 per cent within 0.25 per cent.

Autosport’s Jonathan Noble reported last week that RBR was not the only team doubting the sensors during Melbourne’s GP “but its rivals knew they had to follow the FIA equipment”.

“No other team went down the Red Bull route and deliberately ignored the sensor reading,” Noble wrote the day after the race.

“Red Bull’s rivals are adamant that teams have to put their faith in the governing body.”

Last Friday Noble added: “Exact procedures for the circumstances under which teams would be allowed to rely on their own data rather than faulty FIA fuel sensor equipment was laid down in a technical directive sent to them on March 1. And it was emphasized then that it would be wholly at the FIA’s full jurisdiction as to when those back-up readings could be used.

“The sport’s competitors could not decide for themselves when to rely on their own data and ignore what the governing body was saying.”

It is farcical that the FIA not resolves the controversy (or at least hear Red Bull’s appeal) before this weekend’s Malaysian GP. However, Red Bull is unlikely to win the appeal no matter how right it may be on the technical grounds. Authorities, and especially the FIA, don’t take defiance of their edicts well.

Unless RBR is prepared to risk sacrificing more points – in the constructors’ world championship and for Ricciardo and his four-time world champion teammate Sebastian Vettel, an early retirement in Melbourne – it will have to play the game the FIA’s way in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai.

IndyCar goes double points route too
The introduction of double points for the final GP of this year’s world championship in Abu Dhabi on November 23 created a storm and now IndyCar has doubled the points for three of the races in its championship starting this weekend.

While the F1 move is intended to ensure the world title remains a fight to the end after the dominance of Red Bull Racing in recent seasons, IndyCar will be rewarding success in its 500-mile (800km) rounds – and particularly the Indianapolis 500.

The other two “500s” are at Pocono in Pennsylvania and Fontana in California.

The move is a counter to the extra points awarded to double-header street races in Detroit and Houston in the US and Toronto in Canada.

Qualifying for the Indy 500 also will carry extra points – from 33 for the fastest driver on the first day of qualifying down to one for the last of the 33 in the field, then more bonus points for the Fast Nine Shootout to determine the order on the first three rows of the grid the next day.

Manufacturers Chevrolet and Honda will earn 10 bonus points when any of their 2.2-litre, twin-turbo V6s clock up 2500 miles (4000km), while penalties on engine changes have been relaxed.

The series, in which Will Power is racing again for Team Penske and Ryan Briscoe has rejoined Chip Ganassi Racing, starts this weekend on the streets of St Petersburg, Florida.

Murphy drops one but still way ahead
Greg Murphy’s perfect winning record in New Zealand’s V8 SuperTourer Championship ended at Pukekohe at the weekend, but he still won two of three races there and leads the NZ series by a huge 159 points.

Ford driver Ant Pedersen won the second of the Pukekohe races ahead of the Holdens of Angus Fogg and Murphy – who had won the previous seven races in the series, in which all cars run a Corvette-based 7-litre engine.

Fogg had crossed the finish line first but was penalized 10 seconds from a chaotic rolling start. Five other drivers, including Murphy, copped similar penalties.

Pedersen had a big lead in the third race too on a damp track but time he lost in pitting to switch to slick tyres as the circuit dried dropped him to an eventual seventh.

Murphy was hounded to the finish of the final race by his M3 teammates, young Queenslander Morgan Haber and Aucklander Richard Moore.

The fourth round of the series, and final of the sprint series, is at Pukekohe again as part of the V8 Supercar round over the Anzac long weekend in late April.

Three endurance rounds of the SuperTourers will be held later in the year.

Teenage Aucklander Andre Heimgartner is second to Murphy on the points table, is contesting Australia’s V8 Supercar development series and is forging links with Dick Johnson Racing.

Winterbottom’s stocks high in Brazilian debut
Ford’s reigning Bathurst 1000 winner Mark Winterbottom was third in a Peugeot 408-bodied machine in his debut in Brazil’s stock car series at the weekend.

Winterbottom crossed the line at Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit, home of the Brazilian GP, in fourth place but he and co-driver Sergio Jimenez were promoted a place after the car ahead of them, shared by Dutchman Jeroen Bleekemolen, was relegated.

Among the 66 drivers in the 33-field were 10 Brazilians who have raced in F1.

Nelson Piquet Junior was the highest-placed finisher among those in the car that was fifth while Rubens Barrichello was eighth.

The event was won by teenager Felipe Fraga and former Formula 3000 race victor Rodrigo Sperafico.

Winterbottom’s co-driver Jimenez had started seventh in the wet and maintained position before the Aussie star made up ground on a drying track.

Fellow Australian Dean Canto did not get to race after his co-driver Max Wilson was eliminated in a third-lap crash.