You’ve Probably Heard a Ton About Oil Burning… Here’s How it Happens

If you take a look at just about any competitive racing series, rules are constantly on the move, adapting to technology and limiting exactly what teams are able to do. The idea here is to keep all the teams on a relatively level playing field so that, come race day, everyone is about as close as can possibly be and it, in theory, comes down to driver ability. It wouldn’t really behoove the sport if one team was running away with the lead while all of the others were hanging far behind them. Nobody really wants to watch a race that isn’t close. This is why, with developments like this, you’ll surely see rule changes to complement them.

In this one, we take a look at a process that’s known as “oil burning.” No, we aren’t talking about your worn-out engine that spits out a little bit more smoke than it probably should but instead, the process that’s common in F1 racing where an engine might be able to make just a little bit more power if it’s able to burn some oil with the gasoline. It sounds like an incredibly complex process and that’s definitely because it is but that isn’t to stop some teams from engineering excessively to try and come up with the small little advantages that can put them on top come race day. We’re talking about millions of dollars on the line so you wouldn’t expect anything else. These guys really straddle that line and do every last thing that they can all the way up to the lines of the rulebooks and sometimes beyond!

Down in the video below, you can get the lowdown on exactly what oil burning is and how it adds to the efficiency of the engines, cranking out more power, which is putting officials on notice. After checking out exactly how this all works and hearing about the blowback that is coming as a result, tell us if you think that racing associations should be able to limit the technology under the hoods of their cars or if they should let the drivers go at it and only concern themselves when it comes to safety.