F1 Fanatic

@stefmeister Posted a video, in which we can hear strange noises from Buttons McLaren.

According to Sky’s Ted Kravitz, the strange noise is the engine running only half of the avaible 8 cylinders. As @hohum hinted these kind of devices are banned, but I have an interesting theory, why this could be legal. It might be a silly thing, but I would like to share it with you, and hear your toughts.

I think its operated by steering angle, when the driver turns the wheel fully to either side, the noise kicks in, using only 4 cylinders, reducing the torque output, but maintaining the same rpm, allowing the driver to hit power earlier out of the corner by reducing the wheelspin.

If it works like this, than its driver operated, and not an aerodynamic element, thus IMO legal. Of course it might be something else. Ideas?

I wish I was clever enough to understand this theory. Are we talking about the traction control-esque grinding sound on corner exit?

At first I thought that it was simply in the first 2 gears, but Button does ‘grind’ his way through T8 in 6th gear and a 3rd and 4th gear later in the lap as well.
So steering lock is likely. I tried to look at it, and at T8 mentioned before you can clearly here it, while he is putting in about 45 degrees of steering lock.
But then look at T17. He is going through there at nearly full throttle, and at 45′ish degrees of lock as well but there is no grinding noise.

@bag0
Wow thanks for making such an effort. Nicely done!
But looking at it again, I think it also has something to do with the throttle application.
See, it turns on when he is not at 100% throttle and applies over 45 degrees of lock, but then it stay on until he is on full throttle. Look at the exit of T1. Much less then 45 degrees (but he did apply over 45 degrees as he turned into the corner, off throttle) of steering lock in 2nd gear, and just as it reaches full throttle the grinding noise stops.
Same through T8 and some of the 3rd/4th gear turns later in the lap.

I picked it up last night during a brief onboard shot during FP2. I thought it being 2AM and all I was just hearing things. If it is just cylinder cutting based on steering angle it sounds legal to me. It could also be McLaren have found a creative way to circumvent the exhaust-blowing ban, but I doubt they’d roll something like that out so late in a season.

§9.3. of the Technical Regulations:

‘No car may be equipped with a system or device which is capable of preventing the driven
wheels from spinning under power or of compensating for excessive torque demand
by the driver.’

Would still be illegal.

I fail to see how ‘[n]o car may be equipped with a system or device which is capable of preventing the driven wheels from spinning under power’ is a grey area. Even if one were to argue that its primary role is engine-/aerodynamic-related (which there are regulations against as well), it’d still be passively ‘capable’ of preventing the rear wheels from spinning under excessive torque demand.

@bag0, your twisting of b) is irrelevant if a) is true. The device affects (in a negative manner) the rate of the rear wheels being spun under excessive application of power.