When F1 Cars Used ROCKET FUEL!

[@Driver61]

Who else loves watching these iconic races from the 80s? They bravery of these guys. *Shameless Plug* - You should follow us on TikTok @official_driver61

[@scottyo64]

Love that era in racing. The late 70s early 80s is when I got into F1

[@heberthybr]

There's a Senna documentary where Sir Patrick Head says that everyone in F1 at 85/86 seasons loved to watch Senna's flying laps. He says that Senna's unique throttle technique to avoid the turbo lag was outrageous (already explored here). Also, that everyone was very impressed how he handled that furious Lotus Renault, pushing it through the absolute limit, fighting for poles in a car that wasn't or supposed to be that good. He finishes his testimonial, reminding us that this engines had a exclusively version manufactured for qualify, being the most powerful of all time. So we all can say that this is a historical video! Nice job mate!

[@mclarenjohnf1]

I remember watching them live 70's and 80's live not always a perfect recollection but I remember a lot of the cars.

[@Vic6]

Tiktok 🤢🤢🤢

[@cularu1]

Cool, but It's toluene not tolulene!

[@exsappermadman25055]

1500 Bhp, short run-off area's, driving mostly one handed while changing gear and low levels of downforce.....Bloody legends!....

[@Driver61]

Absolutely!

[@exsappermadman25055]

@@Driver61 They needed that much bhp just to carry the weight of their balls around the lap!.....

[@slowanddeliberate6893]

They had to wear straps to secure their massive balls...lol

[@thegoat-ishere4414]

BLOODY indeed...

[@german_doggy7314]

imagine if they paired turbos with ground effect

[@Miha23_]

Ah yes 1980s. F1 cars with 1400 HP and rally cars with 500-750 HP. What a time to be alive...

[@marino8034]

I think it was only 1 or 2 cars that made that kind of horsepower and it was only for 1 or 2 laps during qualifying. Horsepower was far lower in race trim. A lot of these stories you hear are false. Also, I don't remember Rally cars with 750bhp. Group B was maybe around 450-500bhp. Lancia was flirting with close to 600 bhp for their Group S Delta, but that never happened.

[@laverdajota8089]

Mihael Miličević and the music

[@altergreenhorn]

@@marino8034 Delta S4 engine achieved 1000PS on the bench test the only problem was a longevity it wouldn't survive a rally stage thats why they reduce the power to the 500-600 PS some say that they achived even more at the end

[@Full_Throttle_no_Brakes]

@@marino8034 The Audi Sport Quattro S1 Pikes Peak (1987) Was running with about 750HP

[@marino8034]

@@altergreenhorn Oh I'm sure that was possible with tons of boost. It would still make it pretty useless as an engine in a rally.

[@mgcharoudin]

Member when BMW did motorsports?

[@mrmactknife]

I member

[@TinyBearTim]

Oooh I member

[@jiujitsujedi]

Yes I member

[@huyra8019]

Coughs in m8 gt

[@madaratobi321]

tbh if they returned to F1 I bet they'll make a worthy contender to Merc

[@forbiddenera]

I didn't think mixing diesel and paint thinner was so expensive lmao

[@chemiker494]

Yes, even laboratory grade toluene will set you back about 100$/ litre. Somebody was probably lining his pockets

[@forbiddenera]

@@chemiker494 laboratory grade anything is expensive. To go from 99% to 99.9% is a big jump

[@vasek987]

@@forbiddenera But you do you really need 99,9 % when you mix it up with diesel?...

[@Grabarz23]

@@vasek987 when you want be on top even 0.9% matters

[@liu6898]

there are other additives other than toluene and diesel for sure

[@TheRacingMonkey]

Very interesting video and beautifully made 👍🏼

[@DMC_Motorsports]

Suprised ur here

[@johnjohny1]

When your next video?

[@notinfinity3884]

Lol I just watched it video

[@eddie_23]

uploaf

[@steliojennyfer1185]

Racing monkey when u gonna make a new vid

[@mrrolandlawrence]

ah yeh the old rear wings that used to snap off on the long straights! in the same way redbull had flimsy droopy front wings, rear wings were made rather flimsy too so they would bend at speed, reducing drag. its why they put weights on the rear wing & test deflection now in scrutinising.

[@nickgeorgiakakis7249]

I remember cars snapping driveshafts on the starting line because they had so much power and torque.

[@bernhardtsen74]

u remember they invented the "wing tip" that would pull into the top wing in the back?and become about 3-4 times larger when braking!!! less drag on straghts!

[@rishenreni7618]

And some One hand on steering wheel drives

[@beeble2003]

@@nickgeorgiakakis7249 Yes. Happened, for example, to Nigel Mansell in the 1986 British Grand Prix. Fortunately for him, there was a big crash at the first corner, so he was able to restart in the team's spare car. (Unfortunately for Jacques Laffite, who broke both his legs and never raced F1 again.)

[@andyt5559]

there is only 1 L in toLuene! i worked in the chemical industry!

[@crusherbmx]

A couple corrections, DI Angelis died in 1986, not 1985, and his first win was actually in 1982.

[@blackflagqwerty]

Yeah, the Austrian GP.

[@No.Handle31]

This guy might have his history a bit mixed up.

[@TazioC]

And to be honest, it looks like that the fire at the pit stop was in Spa 1995, Eddie Irvine. Nothing to do with that turbo era. (There is also Nigel Mansell with his Ferrari turning to flames in Phoenix 1990, still nothing to do with the turbo era that ended in 1988).

[@thethirdman225]

@@No.Handle31 He got a lot of things wrong

[@danigonzalez4299]

@@thethirdman225 Yep

[@robmidgley]

A lot of errors in here about the fuel, starting with the narrator incorrectly saying ToluLene all the way through. Toluene was used as it has a high volumetric specific energy. The Luftwaffe never used it to any significant degree. This has been repeated often in magazines and elsewhere that the BMW engineers researched old WW2 Luftwaffe fuels to find toluene, but this is a myth. I have researched the old microfiche on Luftwaffe fuels from WW2 and in addition to Nitrous Oxide and Water Methanol injection, they also used aromatic amines combined with tetra ethyl lead as base fuel octane boosters such as aniline and to a much lesser extent meta toluidine - although the latter suffers with poor low temperature solubility which is an issue at altitude). Interestingly the Luftwawwe fuels were almost all ’87 octane right throughout the war with only a small amount of 100 octane available. Allied fuels by comparison ranged up to 115 Octane when using a comparable octane scale (with these fuels having a150 rich mixture ‘octane’ number) . Toluene has not been used in jet engines to any significant degree as the graphic suggests (it is way too volatile and produces too much luminosity and related combustion chamber thermal stress ) and to my knowledge has never been used as a rocket fuel (the gravimetric energy density is too low). Also , like most aromatics it actually has a relatively low flame speed when compared with other gasoline range components (this partially is why the octane is so high), so it is not a rapid burning fuel as claimed here. So toluene was actually used because it is an obvious choice due to the high volumetric energy density (the tank size was limited) and its relatively high volatility (ability to evaporate) and has a high octane number. The penalty is a relatively high fuel mass but was likely simply accepted as an acceptable compromise. I’d also be very surprised to see diesel blended in there (the low flame speed in the charts and slower energy release is simply a feature of toluene combustion). However, the relatively high boiling point of toluene (compared to full spectrum gasoline) would make engine starting a real challenge, so a minor component of something to increase the vapour pressure would be more useful:: ethanol, butane (C4) or iso-pentane (C5) would make sense in this regard while not harming octane too badly. So good video to highlight the use of toluene in F1,but the more ‘interesting’ claims in here would benefit from a bit more research or fuels formulation knowledge.

[@robmidgley]

@@SlocketSeven minor correction to your last - I think an accidental typo I think you meant liquid Hydrogen rather than helium (the latter is a noble gas, so would be unreactive), but thank you for your clarifications

[@bepisbepi]

Also funny how he said “Used in the Luftwaffe” like it’s an airplane model. Flawless explanation my dude

[@ppturbro]

Interestingly enough Rod Millen's Pikes Peak Celica runs on an 85% Toluene/15% iso-octane blend. It still takes quite a bit to cold start but it does start fine without heating the fuel or spraying ether (in fact I'm 99% sure there is no heating element on the fuel tank). It's possible it needed the iso-octane at the altitude/lower temps of Pikes Peak?

[@malfunction8165]

Looks like you would need to be an expert drinks mixer here, a dash of this, a slurp that and a drop of the other, it would still taste better than whisky though, uuuggghhh!!!!

[@beeble2003]

Toluene was used at least once as an experimental rocket fuel. It gets one brief mention in the canonical book on the subject, John D. Clark's _Ignition!:_ "[Esnault-Peltier's] use of benzene (as Glushko's of toluene) as a fuel is rather odd. Neither of them is any improvement over gasoline as far as performance goes, and both are much more expensive." (Note that being no improvement in a rocket, where weight is absolutely critical, doesn't mean it's no improvement in a car, where weight is important but not as important as in a rocket.) The F1 fuel was 86% toluene, 14% heptane. You suggest ethanol, butane or iso-pentane to keep the octane rating high; however, pure toluene has a higher octane rating than was permitted by FIA rules, so they actually needed to blend it with something that would decrease the octane. (Source: Wikipedia's article on toluene, which also claims it was Honda that pioneered the use of toluene, not BMW.)

[@SpunzZmok3s]

My jaw dropped to the floor in under a minute, then stayed for the rest of the video.

[@dariocuter5692]

😂

[@kickzalonekuz9680]

Holy shit 😳....every second of this video left me amazed

[@thethirdman225]

Too bad so much of it is wrong or distorted. If my jaw dropped, it was because of the level of inaccuracy.

[@Skulldetta]

San Marino 1985 was de Angelis' second win. His first win famously came in Austria 1982, where he managed to outdistance Keke Rosberg by just one twentieth of a second.

[@crusherbmx]

Something that would make this video even more interesting, there actually were rules on fuel types in the 80's, alcohol based fuels were banned, the fuel had to be petrol of some sort, so the teams used fuels that met that definition in only a technical sense, more creative rule reading.

[@tjroelsma]

True, it was petrol in the sense that there actually were a few drops of petrol in the mixture. The rest was just a chemical cocktail that supposedly not only smelled horrible, but also frothed like crazy.

[@beeble2003]

@@tjroelsma "A few drops" -- the fuel was 14% heptane, which is essentially petrol. (Which is to say that petrol is a mix of substances, one of which is heptane. Depending on where you get your petrol from, it will contain different substances in different ratios. It's not insane to describe pure heptane as a highly refined, specifically blended petrol.)

[@tjroelsma]

@@beeble2003 It may be from the same "family" as petrol, but it still has almost no similarities with the petrol you buy at the average gas station. The super high octane fuel a dragster runs on and the very low octane aviation fuel are technically speaking also from the same "family" as petrol, but you wouldn't normally want those in your roadgoing car.

[@beeble2003]

@@tjroelsma Fair point. I was trying to say that heptane is in the same ballpark as petrol, rather than being something totally alien.

[@tjroelsma]

@@beeble2003 I get your point, that's why I used the word "family."

[@beeble2003]

Aside from a couple of experiments, toluene has never been used as a rocket fuel: it's too heavy and the performance increase over kerosene isn't enough to compensate for that. It worked in F1 because their primary concern was volume and because the weight penalty wasn't too bad in an application where the vehicle didn't have to lift its own fuel into the sky. In fact, it may even have been an advantage, given how much effort F1 cars go to to generate more "weight" through downforce. Toluene has also never seen significant use as a jet fuel where, again, weight is the ruling factor. So, interesting video, but based on a number of major misconceptions.

[@WynnofThule]

Actual weight is certainly not an advantage, especially in areas like fuel. It decreases the effectiveness of downforce. Plus heavier fuel means the car's weight changes more in the race meaning setups have to account for a wider range of parameters and can't be as fast overall.

[@kingsamson9146]

Paul Rosche, the lead engineer for the development of the BMW M12/13 engine said, that they even tried water injection to cool down the combustion. "We went from 1% to 2%, 4%, 5%, 6%, nothing changed. At 7% we lost power and, clever as we were, figured that water does not burn." Love those anecdotes :D

[@chemiker494]

Toluene was afaik never used as rocket fuel. However, the technique of chilling the fuel down in order to squeeze more of it in a given tank volume, is used in some rockets

[@xenuno]

Ya rather sensationalistic calling it that. I've never seen toluene listed in an actual rocketry use case. Kerosene is a rocket fuel and was/is used extensively.

[@thethirdman225]

@@xenuno Still is.

[@captainchaos3053]

Yeah that and toluene needs heated to about 70 degc to vaporise !

[@thethirdman225]

@@captainchaos3053 That would be easy under turbo pressure. But I've herd the toluene myth before too.

[@captainchaos3053]

@@thethirdman225 Honda passed the fuel lines through a heat exchanger. Don't know about the rest. I used to pass the fuel line of my racing minor through a cooler inside box of dry ice before it hit my blow through turbo (from a mg metro turbo) on a really hot day/engine. But that only had to make it a 1/4 mile......

[@HighLiner15]

Toluene smells like paint thinner because it is thinner. Toluene helps prevent Detonation in Turbo or High compression engines. Also when trying to mix Methanol and Gasoline Toluene helps same with mixing Methanol and Nitromethane. Also if you wanna get real crazy, Nitro mixed with Hydrazine makes MASSIVE power in Top Fuel drag cars years ago until ATF/FBI put a stop too it 🏎🏁☠

[@GabrielKish]

The green flame stuff isn't it? Wild-Wild Shit.

[@HighLiner15]

@@GabrielKish yes sir. Its still used in Space program.

[@HighLiner15]

@Bujf vjg Yep, was blowing the cylinder heads off the blocks on return road and in the pits

[@toddb930]

Wow Scott, the ideas F1 engineers never ceases to amaze me. I'm new to following F1 so I really appreciate these historical background stories. The reason I'm new to following F1 is because earlier this year my son suggested naming our new puppy Senna, after Ayrton Senna. That led to learning more about Senna, and even buying the movie.

[@RichardASK]

Very good driver flawed by cheating.

[@randymorash7013]

Senna is a good start, but there are many others. So many interesting characters. From Farina to Hamilton and all the others along the way.

[@soldadoryanbr7776]

When you realize how extreme the 80's was,you realize that it's not Impossible to build the Redbull X2010 with current technology

[@NuclearHeadshot]

Definitely not. The main reason it isn't built is because the forces exerted on the driver could be fatal at max potential.

[@soldadoryanbr7776]

@@NuclearHeadshot gives the meaning to the phrase "breackneck speed"

[@psykkomancz]

Andrian Newey, the X2010 designer, said that the main problem would be that there are no tyres capable to witshstand forces involved without exploding.

[@a3nofficial25]

@@psykkomancz how about airless tyres? Ive seen a few concepts for them and those cant blow up

[@tobi.w]

@@NuclearHeadshot imagine 50 years in the future, when there will be racing without drivers, those cars will drive around the track

[@Katniss218]

There's literally no rocket in the world running on toluene.

[@GearHeadedHamster]

When I read the title, I thought some mad man tried to run there engine off of a hypergolic fuel. Or at least something that ACTALY was used in rockets. Hell, I would have settled for kerosene.

[@ivoboksem851]

@@GearHeadedHamster I was expecting ethanol tbh, which was the fuel the ww2 v2 rockets used

[@rubikmonat6589]

There's also only one L in toluene... but he found another. As well as some file foota ge of gas turbine engines and fighter jet refueling, which use kerosene.

[@beeble2003]

@@ivoboksem851 I was expecting simple kerosene, especially when he mentioned the Luftwaffe. (Plenty of rockets have used kerosene, e.g., the Saturn V first stage, and kerosene is a standard fuel for jet engines.)

[@stankakol5195]

@@beeble2003 Beeble -- Please help me understand. I was thinking a rocket fuel such as 75% ethanol, 25% water. As you know, THAT is a proven rocket fuel. Don't "Top Alcohol" dragsters use that fuel? Would it work in F-1? I am out of my league understanding this engineering.

[@judeackland-patel6646]

Love the video. Small thing to note: toluene along with hypogolic carcinogenic chemicals stopped being used as main rocket fuels decades ago, even before the apollo program. They are still used very rarely as a reaction control monopropellent in satellites and such, but otherwise toluene isn't really "rocket fuel". In fact, the vastly most common rocket fuel, RP-1 (+LOX), is much more similar to diesel , being a form of kerosene. The only other widely accepted rocket fuels are liquid hydrogen, methane and hydrazene.

[@Guardian_Arias]

Yeah, I was like kerosene? That's not that special...and lugging around a tank of LOX doesn't make sense if one could not even rockets would use LOX.

[@roastingminer6919]

Ive been folowing u since u had only around 10k subs, and damn uve grown and it makes me so happy. Hopefully u success grown even more.

[@Driver61]

Thank you so much! I hope you're doing well.

[@askeladden450]

@@Driver61 i can hear your british accent through that comment

[@PerfDayToday]

Newly subbed, fantastic, insightly content. My Subaru outback doesn’t produce 1400 bhp. 🤣

[@olivialambert4124]

I've been around for almost that long too. Probably not the most consistent viewer, but I've certainly seen the change. I get the impression the newer videos have a tighter script, and the subject of the videos definitely have more pull to the average viewer too. But really I think we all knew he was destined for a channel like this even back then.

[@fredweather3366]

We were a support series to F1 at the Detroit GP a couple times back in the 80's. We shared garage space in Cobo Hall. There was pretty much zero security and after the teams had left for the day we were free to romp through their areas. Amazing stuff! On Monday after the F1 teams had cleared out we noticed they left lots of stuff laying around. I guess it was a pain to ship fuel drums they didn't use so they just left it and it was also a pain for the Cobo crews to dispose of it too. There were dozens of 50 gallon drums lying about and I gave a fork lift driver $50 and he put five drums in my trailer. I'll never forget when we off loaded them... one drum weighed easily a hundred pounds more than the others. Curious, I sent a sample to VP fuels to test and they said it was mostly aromatics, hardly gasoline at all. We never used it in the race car because it was illegal but it ran fine in the dually. Smelled great but was probably toxic as hell.

[@FRPlayerOne]

"When you cool something it gets smaller" Water : Am I a joke to you ?

[@Jacob-W-5570]

water does actually get smaller when you cool it, but is the smallest at 4 degrees Celsius. That's why the bottom of the ocean is 4 degrees, because all the weight of the water above it compresses it to its smallest size. any colder it starts to freeze and expends again. every substance has its own temperature where it is the smallest. Or we should say most dense.

[@johndavidwolf4239]

If it does not change state, it is true, while water expands when it changes from liquid to solid, it continues to shrink as it gets colder equalizing to that of liquid water at its densest (@3.98ºC) at -25ºC.

[@Sadik15B]

@@johndavidwolf4239 nope water at 1degrees or 2 degrees is not more dense than 3 degrees. Infact its larger in volume

[@BamBoomBots]

@@Sadik15B that's not what he's saying though. Also, the fact that something is under very high pressure does not necessarily mean that the temperature of the substance is equal to the temperature at which it is at its most dense state.

[@supermaster2012]

@@BamBoomBots for an unchanging mass of any substance, temperature and pressure are literally the same thing, they're both arbitrary human representations of the kinetic energy of the system.

[@mb1261]

Toluene increases octane. It’s also used for a paint stripper. It is NOT rocket fuel. Rocket fuel is liquid oxygen (LOX) and RP-1 (Highly refined kerosene) Another not so common rocket is Hydrazine and Nitric fuming acid. This combination is hypergolic- it combusts when the two substances combine together. Extremely dangerous for any vehicle including rockets.

[@christianwestling2019]

2:15 Johansson learned from this. Later in his career, in Indycar, he once raced and when the otgers went in for refueling at the end of the race, he raced until the end and put the car in neutral and slowly passed the finish line. :D

[@rorbot_SMF]

The 80s were some of the wildest times in racing. Manufactuers did absolutely bonkers things with cars!

[@paulmakinson1965]

Toxic rocket fuel? For a moment I thought of hydrazine.

[@LewdTrout]

Fuck me. That would be scary. Imagine cleaning up a crash.

[@ivoboksem851]

The halo wouldn't have done shit for Grosjean if hydrazine was used as a fuel

[@DerDanachDenkende]

Me too. Never would I have thought about toluene. Its not even really toxic, only a health hazard and harmful. Other motorsports and even road cars use methanol, which is actually toxic. I bet even the normal gas you get at the gas station is equally harmful as toluene

[@ctrang0458]

hydrazine fuel mixures used in rockets are hypergolic. usefull for a rocket engine you might need to start and stop but terrible in a car

[@NNFaNRacing]

@@ctrang0458 I have heard stories of people using hydrazine in drag cars in the 70's. Supposedly it would turn exhaust flames green and could rip the entire crankshaft out of the block. It could be an urban legend though.

[@the_haunted_outhouse]

You may want to brush up on your aviation/rocket technology. I know of absolutely no aircraft or rocket systems that use toluene for fuel.

[@Audiojack_]

Not as fuel per se, but it has been used as an octane booster for jet fuels.

[@robmidgley]

@@Audiojack_ I’m sorry, that’s just not tire. Firstly jet fuels don’t need an octane booster as the Brayton cycle is not sensitive to Octane and secondly Toluene is too low a boiling point to be part of jet fuel. Jet a-11 has a distillation range of circa 150-350 degC and toluene boils at 111C. Ergo it isn’t a part of jet fuel and being an aromatic it would not be beneficial at all (the hydrogen/carbon ratio is too low leading to a low smoke point)

[@Audiojack_]

@@robmidgley You obviously know your stuff, so I believe you for sure, but I did try to do a bit of Googling here and there before saying such. For example, some source claiming "typical composition of JP-4 jet fuel" to be 11.39% toluene, and in the end simply Wikipedia claiming "Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels for internal combustion engines as well as jet fuel." I'm not saying these sources would be correct, but that's just where I was coming from.

[@robmidgley]

@@Audiojack_ that’s a good bit of research you’ve done.. JP-4 was a wide cut military jet fuel used by the US airforce up to the 80’s (wide cut means effectively a gasoline/naphtha plus kerosene mixture). But was is a key word in that sentence. They moved from that to JP-8 perhaps 35 years ago now after their experiences in Vietnam showed how vulnerable wide cut fuels are to small arms. Interestingly the US Navy used a far less volatile JP-5 narrow cut fuel (so think of this as a kerosene with the light material removed) as that improved aircraft carrier safety on board (it is as ignitable as diesel - I.e. not very), but one unexpected advantage is that small arms fire doesn’t set it alight. This is why when you watch videos of the Vietnam war, all the low level work is done by the Navy and the high level operations by the Air Force: they used different fuels. JP-4 and the civil equivalent Jet-B are no longer made.

[@robmidgley]

@@Audiojack_ I think the maker of this video may have been confusing Jet fuel (for turbine engines) with Avgas (for aircraft piston engines). The latter commonly contains about 15% toluene.

[@TheWolvesCurse]

toluol/tolol/toluene was also used in group b rally. the lancia delta s4 was probably one of the most prominent machines using the fuel. the car was making 550hp out of a 1.8liter twincharged inline 4cylinder engine. those hp numbers were otherwise not sustainable without this highly knockresistant fuel. Audi was using it too in it's Sport quattro, and the other team most likely also.

[@WootTootZoot]

Yea, I was working for a paint company during the mid 80's. I got a chance to go to the F1 race in Detroit and got a pit pass. My friend and I were walking through the pits and we could smell the fuel as they were getting the cars ready. I remember at the time we both looked at each other and said "Toluene?!?". It was a smell we were both familiar with. Thanks for the story, that confirms a long held question.

[@mototommy07]

2:50 de Angelis already won 1 time in austria

[@pressstart1490]

Yes. I remember he fought to the line with Rosberg

[@roddydykes7053]

A little detail that’s so awesome is that this channel doesn’t have an intro, just a little visual that doesn’t break the pace at all

[@drchestpain9166]

"we all love it when the race engineers come up with a clever way around the rules" FIA - "And I took that personally"

[@floranhupscher272]

Hi, I am a chemist and dealing with toluene and alkanes (where normal petrol is composed of) on a daily basis. I do have to say that I disagree with putting the emphasis on the dangers of toluene. Alkanes in normal fuel are just as carcinogenic as toluene.

[@joskimengstrom2853]

It's toluene, not "tolulene".

[@mickdriver3942]

Made my eye twitch every time.

[@rowlandstraylight]

Came here to say this.

[@disk0553]

Agreed. - Methyl benzene is toluene. "Toluol" might be an old brand name.

[@edwardwood3622]

We used to clean our hands with toluene which was used as paint thinner for road line paint.

[@randymorash7013]

Could be British, like aluminum/ aluminium. Toluene/ toluene

[@rebeccakenworthy4623]

I'm 2:51 into the vid, the fuel consumption has been mentioned many times at this point - but why not explain to the viewers WHY they were running such a rich mixture? I'm sure you know, a fat mixture is a safe tune, as leaner mixtures burn much hotter. Additionally, the overly rich mixture can act like water injection, further cooling the combustion temps (but potentially washing the oil out of the cross- hatching on the cylinder walls, causing excessive piston, ring and cylinder wall wear). Generally the higher the combustion pressure, the higher the combustion temps... Hence the excess fuel was used to cool the combustion temps... Elementary my dear Whatson

[@Orcawhale1]

1400 in QUALIFYING trim, not race!

[@Mpayne1472]

Back when you had qualifying engines and a spare car. Those were the days

[@BigCat553]

@@Mpayne1472 Don't forget the spare driver for when the main one died

[@sampuhhupmas5666]

@@BigCat553 Don't forget a spare pit crew for when the main one burned

[@captainchaos3053]

Yeah and that was theoretical hp as was not actually required to physically measured but more predicted.

[@vivianoni9565]

'80s F1 was the pinnacle of hairy open-wheeled racing, when performance equalled the beauty of the cars.

[@archiescriven6178]

4:34 I'm pretty sure that turbofan engine is running backwards, the gas's are going the right way but i think the turbines are spinning the wrong way.

[@CaptainSteve777]

Good eye. The compressor fan blades are reversed (aka high bypass fan in the front of the engine). The turbine is correct (in the rear aka hot section). Very confused visual! haha

[@marcoskunrath5914]

@@CaptainSteve777 First stage compressor is also backwards.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

pretty sure that this is from some educational video originally though... I saw this clip in a few places, even though, you are right - this is the wrong way round

[@tordsonander]

Only here to find this comment. :-D

[@endokrin7897]

Lots of smart people here; very wholesome!

[@randomguyontheinterweb]

My favorite engineering fact about the 1.5L BMW F1 motor is. Them leaving the blocks sitting outside in the back of the shop and taking turns pissing on the block to weather it and make it as strong as possible.

[@TarenGarond]

The amount of factual errors in this video is amazing!

[@Techo1329]

Agreed, cool subject but very poor research.

[@bepisbepi]

It’s a messy collage of misread information and general ignorance around the topics. It’s understandable, but the lack of research is never forgivable

[@TarenGarond]

​@@bepisbepi I think that people making educational videos should at least know the basics and care a bit about the subject they're talking about... I mean this stuff is ridiculous, it is like todays discovery channel(I give him props for not doing that many videos about aliens and alaskan monsters though!)!!!

[@bepisbepi]

@@TarenGarond exactly!!! It makes me so mad that they won’t even take the time to make sure they are actually stating FACTS, and not just stitch together a couple of headlines from Buzzfeed articles mixed with misinterpreted wikipedia articles...

[@saksittichompoo3583]

As I understand that the video is meant for the average audience to get the idea, some analogy...like 5:12 is a bit inaccurate, but still makes sense. Anyway, the real in-cylinder pressure profile looks like a mountain shape and plotted against crank angle degree (CAD). The change between 2 pressure profiles at same rpm & bmep, unless exaggerate it, is very subtle. Unless plotting in rate of heat release, it's so difficult to see the different just looking at in-cylinder pressure alone. Anyway, I still like the effort in making this video ;)

[@OggaDugga]

Crazy thing is a few old engineers have said if you took these engines and ran them with a modern ecu and mapping they’d make over 2,000 HP easy.

[@theant9821]

Bullshit, it would blow up. These things at full boost the engine would be fucked after 3 or 4 laps at qualifying pace. The weak point was it the engines, a modern ecu isn't going to do much for power that a 1980s one wasn't already doing. Maybe for reliability and fuel consumption as it would be easier to turn the engine down efficiently but still outright power of those same engines today could be higher using modern materials for pistons, rods etc. But still they'd be on borrowed time in qualifying trim.

[@ZuoKalp]

"It cost 270000 dollars to refuel this car, for a single racing weekend" -Speedy Cars Guy

[@henriquemariusso4372]

He said using the most fuel at the end of the straights when engines are revving at their highest. Well if anyone knows anything about fuel consumption, the engines might’ve been revving high, but so was the speed. You get your highest consumption when you’re revving high at low speeds not high. A car revving high at 60mph breaking running through the gears will give you worst gas mileage than a car at its top speed. You’re consuming the same amount of fuel almost, but then your speed makes you travel 3 or 4 times as much for that amount consumed when you’re at top speed.

[@Thorisotto]

@Driver61 None of the shown rockes use Toluene - they use RP1, a highly refined kerosine (no worries though - awesome videos otherwise :) )

[@beeble2003]

No production rocket has ever used toluene. A couple of experimental ones did but it's a bad choice for rocket fuel: it's heavier than RP-1 and doesn't give enough extra thrust to compensate for the weight. It's also very expensive.

[@Jafmasterflash]

The 80’s what a crazy era for speed, not just in F1, Rally too with Group B cars This video seeing that BMW power, I’d live to see them back in F1 today

[@f-jericho4021]

That BMW is one of the coolest looking f1 cars ive ever seen

[@fsca72]

Except they hardly ever finished a race . A lot of races both cars would retire and if they made it to the finish, it was usually in the back.

[@f-jericho4021]

@@fsca72 haha, talk about usefulness over appearance

[@ΛουκάςΚλαρνέτατζης]

Back then BMW's engines when tuned for qualifying were producing ''1500+''! That number (1500+) came officially from the factory and the reason for + was because the dynos of the era could not measure above 1500 hp

[@comrade-uj5iy]

Which is it? Jet fuel or rocket fuel? Misleading title, misleading "facts" Toluene is not rocket fuel," either to you or me" it was simply used as an octane booster.

[@bepisbepi]

Neither. It’s KEROSENE what’s used as rocket fuel, not toluene, not even close. I wonder if people nowadays can read and use their brains instead of stitching random pieces of media together just to make content...

[@beeble2003]

It's neither: no significant rocket or aircraft has ever been fueled by toluene. However, your question contains a false dichotomy. You suggest that something cannot be both a jet fuel and a rocket fuel, but this is completely incorrect. Kerosene is very widely used as a rocket fuel and a jet fuel. Which is to say, basically every jet aircraft in the world runs on kerosene, and many rockets have used it too; for example, the first stage of the Saturn V moon rocket was powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen.

[@mcgeufer]

You make for sure more sense mister Hussein. This video was pretty confusing to me.

[@bricefleckenstein9666]

@@beeble2003 Jet fuels aren't PURE Kerosene - but are pretty much kerosene with additives that vary depending on the specific type of Jet Fuel. The fuel that was used in the SR-71/A-12/YF-12 series was quite a bit different from the fuel used in any other jet aircraft, for the most extreme example.

[@beeble2003]

@@bricefleckenstein9666 I completely agree with everything you said but it seems you're arguing against something I didn't say. Yes, different jet fuels use different additives and kerosene isn't even a single substance but, rather, a grade of oil that has different chemical components which may appear in different proportions (it's just like gasoline in that respect). So, yes, the kerosene that's used to power jets has different composition to the kerosene that's used to power rockets, but it's still fair to say that kerosene is used to power both jets and rockets. And, honestly, at a pinch, you could use the same kerosene to power either -- it wouldn't be ideal but, in an emergency, it would work. Re specific fuels, most of the exotic fuels aren't in wide use any more. Most civilian planes fly Jet A-1 (Jet A in the US 'cos 'murka gotta be different), or Jet B or TS-1 if they need a fuel with a lower freezing point. NATO mostly uses JP-8, which is very similar to Jet A-1. Carrier-based aircraft use JP-5, which is harder to set on fire. The XB-70, SR-71 and friends, and U-2 had their own fuels. Of those, the U-2 is the only one still in service and I'm not sure if it still uses its special fuel: they were trying to get it to work on something closer to JP-8 but I'm not sure what became of that.

[@itzed]

I have to admit, those were exciting races to watch.

[@casperborn8474]

To-lu-ene where does that second magic L come from?

[@realistic_delinquent]

Yea, that was annoying.

[@stupot8413]

I've noticed a few struggle with Toluene.

[@MrJef06]

I used to like Driver61 videos but the more it goes the more I realize they are full of inaccuracies yet the guys always sounds like he's the best specialist of the subject in the world :-/

[@2ARM2]

It's the L he made after showing a video of an F/A 18 refuelling while talking about the Luftwaffe. And all the L's from the other misinformation

[@Chironex_Fleckeri]

Toluene's hazardousness comes primarily from its acute intoxicating effects and the way it destroys the central nervous system. It has been abused for a long time as an inhalant, and those are some of the saddest cases. It results in a form of dementia. It's not known to be carcinogenic, but it hardly needs to be. It's seriously nasty and irreversible.

[@550LMS]

Great video, very informative as always! 1 caveat Scott, 300L of fuel is just over double what's allowed today, not tripple. 110kg of fuel is 144 liters.

[@propulsionmaster]

Never heard that Tolune is used as a Rocket Fuel this is wrong. They use Hydrolox, Kerolox or Methalox and in some oldschool rockets they still use hypergolic fuels like udmh as fuel and nitrogen tetroxide as oxidizer.

[@alanmay7929]

7:57The cars were animals 😅🤣

[@exsappermadman25055]

Animals you had to try and catch with one hand!...

[@briancox2721]

Space X does the fuel freezing trick on the falcon 9 rocket. The liquid oxygen and RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) are chilled to just above their freezing points, and then loaded shortly before launch so that they have extra propellant on board without making the rocket bigger.

[@joelangley7974]

1:26 look at the wheel off guy on the right of the car, he is reaching for his fire extinguisher before even the car has caught fire

[@NuclearHeadshot]

That's when you know how much the teams know about the volatility of the fuel.

[@joelangley7974]

@@NuclearHeadshot yeah it’s very professional of him

[@not_herobrine3752]

fast hands

[@musography6958]

if you slow the video down you can see the guy at the rear of the car has already activated his extinguisjer before we see the flames

[@joelangley7974]

@@musography6958 didn't even notice that, very professional team

[@jenniferwhitewolf3784]

There was one guy in Nascar that got around the limit on fuel tank size, by using 2" fuel line running round about from the tank to the engine bay... Smokey was pretty clever👍.

[@Dennis4523]

Half the rule book is there cause of him

[@spishco]

The EPA has stated that "that the carcinogenic potential of toluene cannot be evaluated due to insufficient information".

[@40below1000]

...but the guy in the mailroom who opened the box the sample came in is now dead and the mailroom is still on fire.

[@donaldt3330]

As far as I know rocket uses refined kerosene called RP-1 as fuel. Never heard of toluene.

[@PM-cj4gj]

If inspiration for use of toluene rich fuel came from the Luftwaffe, it must have been from it's use in piston engine aircraft not the jets shown which run on kerosene. All studies to date show that Toluene is not carcinogenic which is stated in the video. This is one reason that it is often used as a solvent. (other aromatic compounds, notably benzene are but not toluene so far as is known)

[@edwardelliott5756]

When you said rocket fuel I thought immediately of hydrazine. 50’s & 60’s drag racers used it and it really is rocket fuel. Cans of it would blow up in the pits!

[@pinkdispatcher]

This is all very interesting, but where does the idea come from that toluene (not "tolulene") is used as a rocket fuel? It isn't and as far as I can tell it never was, except perhaps in experiments. Knock resistance is no issue in rockets or turbine engines, as both use a continuous flame, so there can be no pre-ignition or detonation. Rockets generally use either refined kerosene (RP1), liquid hydrogen or (increasingly) liquid methane for cryogenic propellant (with liquid oxygen as oxidiser) or some variant of hydrazine and dinitrogen-tretroxide as oxidiser for hypergolic fuels. The name for the toluene-based F1 fuel is rather a nickname, because it made the cars go "as fast as a rocket", but it is not literally rocket fuel. If you search for the combination of "rocket fuel" and "toluene" the only hits you get are for the F1 turbo era.

[@jamielonsdale3018]

Now give this beast a Continuously Variable Transmission like on the FW15C. You're welcome. I take no responsibility for traumatic injuries sustained while attempting to drive such a car.

[@liamdertinger5705]

Wondering how messing with a drivers mechanics by telling him to ease off the throttle earlier is better for lap time than having him race at 100% with a slightly weakened turbo

[@mac5917]

Yeah exactly! Why not just turn down the turbo fort the race and up for qualifying?

[@SiVlog1989]

I did a dissertation on the evolution of F1 safety over the years and the aspect on what fuels they had been using made my jaw drop. The most astonishing being Toluene. When trinitrofied, it forms the material Trinitrotoluene, TNT, which is used for explosives in the military

[@JoshWright396]

"Rocket fuel" was just a nickname. Toluene is not used as a rocket propellant. The rocket clips used in this video are of the Falcon 9, which uses kerosene. The technique of super-cooling the fuel _is_ actually used in rockets (specifically the same Falcon 9 used in the video clips)

[@azarisLP]

"Paint-thinner fuel" doesn't sound as good I guess.

[@tomkusmierz]

There was also a nice caveat in FIA rules, which did not state that you had to run on same engine in qualifying round as in main race - HENCE, teams would run far higher boost during qualifying laps and destroy the engine -> quickly replace the engine for main race and run with lower boost (and different map as well to stop engine from melting)

[@slay3r930]

Imagine getting disqualified on a COOL DOWN LAP 😩😭😂

[@madjimms]

Toluene isn't rocket fuel, it's simply a high octane fuel. You can buy it from chemical suppliers but it's over $40/gal.

[@vascobatista2299]

Can't get past the "tolulene"

[@jacopodebiasi1231]

I always been a petrolhead but discovering you channel... senna's and alonso's drivings skills, f1's bizzar engine , brakes discs, clever engineers.. man, I really owe you at least a beer for sharing your knowledge!

[@jeffscharpf]

Thanks! This was great! I love how racing teams used to push the limits. I remember a story from the 1970s in NASCAR where, in order to stay within the fuel tank size limits, one of the teams increased the size and length of the fuel lines from the tank to the engine, snaking it around and around, using a larger diameter tube, simply adding just a bit more volume of gasoline for that extra advantage. When NASCAR found out, of course they "adjusted" the rules again :).

[@bennynagon9322]

Smokey yunick the 🐐

[@yazbayaz]

And these were times where in a race weekend teams runned racing and qualifying engines (qualifying engines were the most powerful ones obviusly).

[@VinCoxRides]

The rockets shown run on RP1 (kerosene) and oxygen. Toluene doesn't seem to ever be used in rockets.

[@Voltikz95]

I'm glad someone pointed it out, yes Toulene is used in jet fuel, not rockets

[@robmidgley]

@@Voltikz95 Toluene is not even used in jet fuel (its boiling point is too low and its hydrogen/carbon ratio is also relatively low, which would result in a low smoke point value and a resulting increase in hot section thermal stress) . It is a common to see toluene as a significant minor component in Aviation Gasoline.

[@Voltikz95]

@@robmidgley ahh, I always thought it was used in the very early days of jet fighters before they found a better method, but thank you for pointing that out

[@endokrin7897]

@@robmidgley thank you for your many informative posts on this video. It's great to have a few experts around; something usually missing from the online world, where everyone is a Google expert 👍👌😏😉

[@richardmuise7961]

Fuel freezing is now used by SpaceX to gain more performance from the Falcon 9 rockets. The fuel temperature is so low, it's just above becoming solid. It's a slush when pumped into the rocket just before life off. The gain is significant.

[@danielsgrunge]

That just gotta be one of the smartest moves ever

[@marsattacks7071]

That fuel smelled so good ! I remember the Montreal grand-prix of 1984. My first one.

[@thedeamonmeteor69420]

"Rrrroket ship" - Alonso 2018

[@dsdy1205]

Ironically none of the rockets shown in this video actually used toluene, and toluene was abandoned as a rocket fuel very early on in rocket fuel development

[@to777ti]

80s were mechanics and drivers era now it's all ecu No mechanics No drivers

[@Vorgaloth]

Yup. I stopped watching F1 in 2013 before the hybrid era. It was getting boring. I was too young in the 80's but started watching in 93. I've seen all the races from the 80's but the 90's and early 2000's were great too IMO. That being said, I wish F1 had simple aero, big tyres, manual gearbox, V8 - V12, beautiful cars and livery. Ayrton Senna's statement on computers and technology: "The machines have taken away the character and it is the character that the sponsors and public are looking for. At the top, you have a few characters of conflicting personality; the rest, without good results, don't have any credibility. We must reduce costs so that we return to an era where the emphasis is on people not computers. I want to be challenged by my own limits and by someone who is made of the same skin and bone and where the difference is between brain and experience and adaptation to the course. I do not want to be challenged by someone else's computer. If I give 100% to my driving, which is my hobby as well as my profession, I can compete with anyone, but not computers."

[@paulcaswell2813]

7:58 - the wonderful sight of the Brabham 'swarm of bees' tailing the car during qualifying. The days of the magic 1bhp per cc or, as here, 1500bhp from a 1500cc engine...

[@ZeUbinator]

Just wanna say, toluene is actually one of the biggest components in gasoline (still less than 40%). It's not really accurate to call it rocket fuel. It's sold as a paint thinner in hardware stores and actually makes for an excellent octane booster.

[@GreenJeep1998]

It’s also a plastic solvent used in some model making cements and filler putties.

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

2010s Formula 1: uses turbos to downsize its engine and trying acquiring a "greener" image. 1980s F1 and Group B Rallying: used turbos to go totally banana with POWAH! The '80s were absolutely crazy. Too bad I wasn't born yet, seemed to have been a fantastic time in same respects.

[@bocahdongo7769]

Either you restrict it pretty much or you will see AI-Assisted Fully Electronic Fish-looking race car exist because we, as future human has "digital computer technology" that people in the 80's would sell their soul to Satan to get this tech

[@isuckatthisgame]

car: has a 1500hp and runs on rocket fuel me: THAT'S THE F1 !

[@thethirdman225]

It never was.

[@williandossantos7740]

Tolueno was never used as rocket fuel and it was 1500hp in qualify, they had to race with 700hp otherwise the cars wouldn't make to lap 10.

[@thethirdman225]

@@williandossantos7740 No car made 1,500 hp. BMW might have got to 1,400. They might even have got 1,450. But nobody got to 1,500, much less a whole grid full.

[@thethirdman225]

Never ran on rocket fuel either.

[@TheCymbalProject]

1400 HP, 5.5 BAR, 200,000 pounds per weekend on fuel !?!? That's a tad nuts. Great video BTW

[@Snoooo]

Oh man I was just wondering when the next video is coming out, perfect timing!

[@kstricl]

That hp/l is insane. For perspective, that's 933 hp/l on an engine that runs for several hours between rebuilds. Compare that to top fuel at up to 1375 hp/l with a rebuild between runs, and you can really appreciate the engineering. I remember reading an article (I believe in the 90's) where either popular science or popular mechanics took an f1 team and an indycar team to the dragstrip - IIRC the indycar team ran the quarter in 10 seconds, while the f1 car did it in 8 seconds - sideways.

[@tiutubanana7506]

9:28 the moment i realize the video is flipped cause Catalunya looked so weird

[@tensevo]

Trinitrotoluene (TNT), or more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, Literally explosive in solid form.

[@Jacob-W-5570]

1:10 round steering wheel, analogue clocks on the (actual) dash, and does his hand go to a stick gear shifter?

[@slwsnowman4038]

Yes, probably an H pattern.

[@NuclearHeadshot]

Yes. Monaco GP had drivers driving with one hand on the shifter for most of the lap.

[@andgate2000]

No abs or traction control either.

[@Steve-vp8ng]

​@@andgate2000 There is no abs or traction control in current F1 either.

[@johndavidwolf4239]

During WW-2, both sides had fuel additives for their supercharged piston engine fighter planes that were many times more toxic than toluene, boosting effective octane rating to as high as 140.

[@losFondos]

I mean, we used to put tetraethyl lead in regular gasoline, in the 90s!

[@40below1000]

I can't get over the amount of unspent rocket fuel that instantly smogs out every 1985 mass start. You could probably set fire to the AIR in those days.

[@perfectentrytrading]

I actually use toluene as octane booster In my triumph I run anywhere between 10-35% toluene rest as 99octane super unleaded Makes a huge difference to the car and the blue flames are worth it I get it from a chemical seller for like £1.4 a litre for 99.5%pure that 0.5% is water and it helps manage temps better than 100% pure

[@perfectentrytrading]

Definitely not for a normal car it eats normal fuel hoses, and cars not designed to take it should defo not run it i re engineered a lot of my cars engine and was basically forced to it as my compression ratio went up from 11:1 to 13.8:1 last minute with a piston i didnt expect

[@senna138]

Woah dude get your facts straight, especially when it's about the death of a driver and his first win.. smh R.i.P. Elio

[@JonathanAllen0379]

Correction at 8:05 - Elio DeAngelis died in 1986, not 1985. Senna wanted to be #1 driver for Team Lotus and was instrumental in having Elio leave and bringing in Johnny Dumfries for 1986, whose onboard footage at Adelaide is shown several times here.

[@DhruvKumar-us5eq]

Btw Toulene is also used for paint thinner.... The one used in rockets is RP1 which is classified as kerosene but had a ring of toulene in it....

[@andreavico6198]

Somthing about 1%. The other propellant is Hydrogen, a mix of hypergolic fluid or recentrly methane. This is the liquid rocket fuel I know.

[@RossNixon]

@@SlocketSeven Toluene - seems several people have a problem spelling or saying this word.

[@okaymister8139]

Oh What I would give to have lived in the 80’s race era :(

[@DrColoso]

Why Formula 1 don't try with the methanol, in the IndyCar (CART) heydays, used that and created a massive amount of horsepower, plus is less dangerous in terms of cancer or corrosion.

[@sebastianmarda7151]

nowdays : rules limit extreme creativity

[@mArvAlcao71]

Or expand the creativity instead(?). They would always find the way

[@dr.science_0177]

Creativity are limitless

[@jaytantoso4421]

No rules creates copycats

[@Senny_V]

Dude... some of the most creative and impressive solutions in F1 have come because of rules and limits. And evening out the chances between the higher and lower teams regularly with changes promotes the teams to constantly find solutions to get ahead of the curve instead of the higher tier teams just pulling away from the rest F1 is still in large parts an engineering competition, that whole "lol the rules are ruining that" is such a shit take because rules have been "ruining" that since the sport has fucking come to exist.

[@Felip.c]

Creativity comes from boundaries and rules. Not the other way around. You may wanted to say instead: Cool monstrous machines are made from unrestricted grounds in certain areas. But even then is quite subjective.