Posted 01 September 1999 - 02:58
I don't know what happened with Sauber. However, I read about the fuel metering problem in one of the UK magazines, Race Tech or Racecar Engineering. Even though it seems like it should be simple, it turns out not to be.
A float type system like what's in street cars wouldn't work, since a race team needs to know how much fuel is left down to the fraction of a gallon.
Since the engine computer (ECU) controls the injectors, they program it to keep track of how much fuel it has squirted into the engine. This is reset at pitstops. Problem is, that even this isn't as accurate as they would like. Somehow there's enough variation in something that there are errors in how much fuel they think is left.
Also, since this method only calculates how much fuel has been used, and doesn't measure it, if there's an error in how much fuel is put in in a pitstop, they can run out (for instance, meant to put in 30 gallons, but only 29 went in, so if the computer says 28 have been used they think they could make it one more lap, but they can't...).
Maybe the rules prevent this, but I would try putting a video camera in the tank which would allow them to broadcast it back to the pits so they could see how much fuel is left....