Formula One's Engine Crisis

[horse]

1. spent vast sums of money on simulators, super computers, & wind tunnels.

F1 engineers have used wind tunnels since the 1930s, its just that as the sport has evolved the quality of tunnel that's required has increased.

Infinite track testing can help you validate a design, but will tell you very limited information about why one design should work or another not, and therefore is not much help in the design process. Its just not controlled enough.

That's why I think every F1 team would take more CFD and tunnel hours if they could and spend more money on people, which is where most budget goes.

Total deregulation is not going to solve the problem as it stands, it would just make the situation much worse. Who needs the mid 1990s again?

[bhall II]

Credit where credit is due, the W06 is the fastest car in this non-refuelling era of F1.

Huh? The W06 would have qualified P20 for the 2010 Spanish Grand Prix.

[horse]

I used Monza as a benchmark, because aerodynamic performance is the least important there. It's impossible to compare the aerodynamics of today's car with those of the past, I'm afraid.

[bhall II]

The W06 would have qualified P11-ish at the 2010 Italian Grand Prix.

[horse]

Yeah, but the important part is the race time, not the qualification times.

[bhall II]

The W06 would have finished P14-ish at the 2010 Italian Grand Prix.

Wanna keep going?

[horse]

Oops, sorry, my mistake. It would have won the 2012 race though.

Anyway, on a 100kg of fuel that car from 2010 could not have made that time.

[langwadt]

Why didn't they do what the le mans series did for engines? It would be like the eighties with I4t, V10, etc.

The Le Mans is fuel limited as well.

I could run a Merc engine at Le Mans but not a Porsche engine in F1. Why not?

I keep reading this sort of thing and its utter nonsense, you would maybe get a couple of different layouts in the first year or so but then when half the field relaisesd that their layout was wrong and they were getting thrashed they will change to the winning (correct) layout.

Back in the days of the 3l Formula with no layout rules how many layouts were there by the end? one, V10. Why? Because that is the best layout.

Lets look at the current situation, Renault and Honda are using exactly the same layout as the best two engines and they are still miles behind and getting hammered. How much worse would it be if there was just a blank sheet? Mercedes would have absolutely obliterated them and Honda and Renault would have had to start again at great expense on a massively compressed timeframe.

exact, Audis and Porsches are on par because the have their performance equalized
Toyota can't keep up with their configuration and since they run the same fuel as Porsche they can't
be saved by equalization of performance

[Edax]

All that strict regulation does is to protect the status quo. It avoids the situation where a small team can come up with a good idea that performs better than a well funded team.

The PUs are a great example they are so complicated and expensive to develop due to regulation that only two companies in the world are able to manage it. Take the regulation away and any aftermarket tuner can provide a 1,000bhp engine. The regulation effectively stops RBR developing their own powertrain and ensures that they will have to pay one of the manufacturers that wrote the rules a subscription fee if they want to continue to compete.

If regulations save money then F1 should be at the lowest cost to compete ever in its whole history. I would suggest that the opposite is true.

A tuner can give you 1000HP but that is far from a competitive racing engine. I think what racing is concerned we're already down to diminishing returns. It is very expensive to develop a competitive engine for any series. Just look at the LMPL1's or any other free format series.

When the V6's were announced I thought that the idea was to create a common platform for the WRC, WTCC and several other racing series. The F1 variant would be a beefed up version of the WTCC engine + hybrid technology (or the WTCC engine a detuned F1 engine).

I wouldn't oppose to that. Though I would personally choose a V8 as standard which would get you commonality with DTM, superGT, United sports car championship, Nascar, Aussie V8 etc.

But the whole idea of sharing the engine development between several racing series, might be just what is needed to get more manufacturers in.

The thing where it IMO went wrong is that they went overboard on the whole green image. I mean I like hybrid technology. But by squeezing the fuel consumption this far has pushed out the entry threshold for new manufacturers even more than the V8's.

[dans79]

The only absolute way to control costs is with a cost cap. Just like in the NFL.

That won't work with the top teams spreading costs out across multiple loosely affiliated companies.

how do you account for Mercedes HPP, McLaren Applied Technologies, and the equivalents at RedBull, Ferrari, & Williams? How do you account for the R&D work done by Petronas & Shell?

[dans79]

Total deregulation is not going to solve the problem as it stands, it would just make the situation much worse. Who needs the mid 1990s again?

I didn't say they should completely deregulate. However, It's pretty obvious hundreds of pages of regulations with loopholes so big you can drive a truck threw them (if you have the money) isn't any better.

[superdowg316]

We can say how the power units will decrease in cost over the next few years, but there's one slight problem. If the FIA get their way (which they always do), 2017 will have a big regulation change. Guess what's included? New power unit formats/regulations. What does that mean? Costs go back up developing 1000hp engines and selling them. And then you have the chance that someone, say McLaren Honda find a loophole or advantage of say 1 second, then you're back to square one as, yes, Mercedes aren't as competitive anymore, but now McLaren Honda are and we basically have now just with a different team winning every race and even more money being wasted.

Here's an idea. How about we stop paying the drivers a ridiculous amount of money every year and some costs might go down. Since we're speaking of NFL, how about a salary cap? Teams wouldn't have to spend so much on drivers and they could still get their other how many millions from personal endorsements.

Anyways, I find it quite ironic how Renault agreed with Mercedes that F1 needed to go to smaller engines or they would quit. Now they have those smaller engines that they wanted and they're still quitting. Also that they whinged that Red Bull never gave them credit with their titles even though the cars were badged Infiniti and they were behind Mercedes in the V8 era as well!

[Cold Fussion]

The only absolute way to control costs is with a cost cap. Just like in the NFL.

That won't work with the top teams spreading costs out across multiple loosely affiliated companies.

how do you account for Mercedes HPP, McLaren Applied Technologies, and the equivalents at RedBull, Ferrari, & Williams? How do you account for the R&D work done by Petronas & Shell?

It's the only way that can control the costs, but like you say it is impossible for it to work.

Why do you think it would be uncompetitive?

Would it last the 24H? Maybe. Competitive? Definitely.

The F1 engines are designed to the F1 regulations which apart from the presence of a fuel flow limit and hybrid technology are completely different to the LMP1 regulations. The F1 engine regulations are purposely designed to force the engines into a (small) continuous electrical deployment usage while the LMP1 do not regulations force that style of usage. In LMP1 the most efficient way to deploy are short bursts of very high power.

If you look at the 919, the mgu-k is in the region of 600-800 hp on the front axle that deploys at full power for a couple seconds a lap in the acceleration. Out of every single acceleration zone, the 919 is 400 hp or more powerful than the Merc PU, while at the same time having more traction than a hypothetical LMP1 car with the Merc PU because it was AWD.

[Pingguest]

Why didn't they do what the le mans series did for engines? It would be like the eighties with I4t, V10, etc.

The Le Mans is fuel limited as well.

I could run a Merc engine at Le Mans but not a Porsche engine in F1. Why not?

I keep reading this sort of thing and its utter nonsense, you would maybe get a couple of different layouts in the first year or so but then when half the field relaisesd that their layout was wrong and they were getting thrashed they will change to the winning (correct) layout.

Back in the days of the 3l Formula with no layout rules how many layouts were there by the end? one, V10. Why? Because that is the best layout.

Lets look at the current situation, Renault and Honda are using exactly the same layout as the best two engines and they are still miles behind and getting hammered. How much worse would it be if there was just a blank sheet? Mercedes would have absolutely obliterated them and Honda and Renault would have had to start again at great expense on a massively compressed timeframe.

The V10-configuration was made mandatory, as Toyota and Ferrari were already developing V12-engines.

[iotar__]

That won't work with the top teams spreading costs out across multiple loosely affiliated companies.
how do you account for Mercedes HPP, McLaren Applied Technologies, and the equivalents at RedBull, Ferrari, & Williams? How do you account for the R&D work done by Petronas & Shell?

I'd say R&D work done by Petronas would not be included in cost control, it equalises itself anyway between manufacturers. You can force them to provide the same fuel for all customers along with equal engines (although they can't even be bothered with that currently) or stop development.

Off topic: "Cost cap wouldn't work" is a lie. It's like doping, just because you can't control it 100% you shouldn't forget about it altogether. Start with people, number and quality of people (therefore the costs) is one of the major differences between big and small teams. People that have to live and work physically somewhere and pay taxes. Staff is the best example because it includes the biggest liability in any cheating - human element, people can talk, spend money and move from team to team.

People that work together based on data from 20 races are needed to develop the car constantly during the season, not some divided hidden cost companies, that's not how you spend and win in F1. At least some core that connects it all is necessary, example: developing engine and chassis together is a big advantage. What else? Facilities that physically exist (wind tunnel etc.), car assembling with many outside suppliers (documents, taxes again), tyres. Some purely financial tricks? OK but limited and cheating is an expense itself. R&D? You can hide some of it within bigger companies but I think smaller team would take a chance with that .

Now you can add big penalties ("is it worth it to try"), marketing and brand costs of cheating, ability for controllers to close loopholes. These are big public companies with exchange of documents, FIAT etc., surely you can't hide new Ferrari facilities underground and falsify accounts so they disappear along with 100 people? Didn't they just spend millions on some new ones and costs are public? There's no will to lose competitive advantage, those teams are running the sport and that's the end of it. They blocked the common parts platform for independent teams while keeping B teams with all data exchange advantages.
______
OT, current "engine crisis" only exists because:
- F1 is chaotically managed with no plans or back up plans, it's funny to hear Cowell saying they could supply more teams if they knew in May. Thinking 6 months ahead, in F1, is he joking? Ecclestone didn't know Red Bull would leave Renault in September, did he?
- They allowed engine suppliers to reject customers on top of other advantages,
- Red Bull needs engines and Ferrari doesn't want to be beaten by them, see above
- Mercedes is dominating, not "one team" is dominating
- no other supplier is interested in a circus where you lose money, entry barriers are huge and results predetermined but Toyota/VW group wouldn't even think about joining and Renault staying without "expensive" hybrids.
Renault's situation has nothing to do with strict rules but everything with marketing, Red Bull (forced), not getting new engines right and brand image because of all that. Stay or leave decision depends on money distribution deal, preferential treatment on Mercedes' level and below Ferrari, RB, McL, and not on engine development although I'm sure this topic will resurface.