Go to Maranello - try Ferrari - with "our" Shell Fuel Blend
As I wrote in the last announcement, "Shell breaks new ground - Shell V-Power Network of Champions"?
"It's all about Shell's labs. Let's see if I can swing the Erlenmeyer flask sometimes? ;-) "
Haha, we even did that, with a surprising result (see the end of this article), ...
And? What was going on in London and Thornton? Time for a review, because the next event Maranello is just around the corner, more on that later in the text. Here you can see the entire rascals, from four countries:
Philippines, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany:
We traveled to London . Pictures are worth a thousand words:
We met to socialize and socialize , as well as social media exchanges on the first day at the Millbank Tower. A few things we discussed were very "basic", but we simply raised the level ourselves by addressing more advanced topics as well. So what tweeting, blogging, facebooken etc.I could have lingered for hours, ...
On the second day we drove to Thornton, into the Shell labs. The boys and girls from Shell really went out of their way to explain what gasoline/diesel is. In the Road Test Laboratory , we saw cars that have two tanks and, more meaningfully, two fuel circuits. Of course, not to increase the range, but so that you can test two types of gas under exactly the same conditions comparable. A completely dismantled engine was explained to us. The test bench was also interesting, Jinno was even allowed to drive a test track, but had some problems to keep the speed exactly.We came to the laboratories, where the highest safety precautions must be kept. Otherwise at Shell of course, but there even more extreme, as far as the clothes are concerned.Yes, it will!
But this is not about apple gadgets being packed into the blender, it's about fuel blending. So the refinement through the right mix!
A Competition, in German very simple: a competition was started. Each country (four) fought for victory.
We had little time to make a perfect mix of light, medium and heavy components that met specifications. The stopwatch was running and we first had to go to the computer to simulate a glare. We even had bad luck, because when the countdown started, the program crashed first (I guess it was a java applet). Our contact, Jo, made an effort to get the Mistding back on track.
Here is Jo in action to see how she starts the dizzy program again. We had - then - several sliders under our nose, which was bebrillt and had to produce the optimal mixture. Much of everything does not help much, we had to quickly find out. Sliders up and down, more oxygen, less oxygen and so on, it literally went back and forth.
Sven then had his hands on the controls and we cheered him on. Sven gave everything. He juggled with the bars, sounded the calls from us for meaningful and meaningless. We came closer and closer to a good result, but then one controller pushed too much forward, it got worse, controller back again, the result came very close to the optimum, but we were not sure if it was good enough - in comparison to the other teams.
The time was up, we had to take our hands off the controls, "rien va plus" went through my head. By the evening we had to wait for the result! But we already asked around, which results the others had. After a short while we learned of two worse results, so we were in second place or the victory.
That's what winners look like
We made it! First place went to Germany! We had produced the best Fuel Blend for the Silverstone track!
From left to right: Alex Kahl, Bernhard Mühlner, Nicole Y. Männl, Don Dahlmann and Sven Wiesner
And what did Shell teach me about fuels?
I do not want to bother with technical and chemical details. The bottom line for me is to know that the composition of fuels is very important. Shell, I know now, is doing a lot of research to produce high-performance fuels. Not only to get a lot of power, but also to save the engine at the same time. Certain additives prevent V-Power from depositing and the engine life is automatically increased.
What happens if I have not fueled V-Power the whole time? That helps still? According to Shell, even chemically controlled processes remove deposits that are already present. Okay, you can not look into an engine so you can control it all the time. But I think it's not a marketing blah after the Shell people showed us the comparisons with the injectors and the valves.In the end, you have to try it out yourself, empty the tank nicely and drive several times with V-Power. I'll do that soon, let's see what comes out!
Ferrari - we're coming!
What's next , the second meeting is over, betray I go:
We drive to Maranello, the cradle town of the cars that carry the horse, who have so much horsepower that it is a pleasure. But we will not only visit the factory, we will "saddle" the Ferrari models and do our own test rides. Fiorano Circuit or Circuito di Fiorano will tell you something, right?
I'm happy to finally drive a Ferrari again. It's been soooo long since I've been to sat a 348 GTB and after the airfield race in Wunstorf could turn an honorary round on the course (of course, I drove the drive from Hannover and back).
A few more links:
- Shell V-Power's Network of Champions Launch Event - Video on youtube
- Shell F1 - How's the Fuel in the Ferrari? Racing Blog by Don Dahlmann
- Shell V-Power Network of Champions and now Sven Wiesner/WebZweiPunktNull
- The day after tomorrow we will go to the Elementals of the Shell V-Power Network of Champions SVPchamps + Watt Watt issen a diesel engine? SVPchamps by Alex Kahl, the test driver
Disclosure: Travel costs are covered by Shell/Ferrari as part of the Shell V-Power Network of Champions Events, but Shell/Ferrari has no editorial Influence on my article.