the planning for 2011 keeps trickling in, I’m just going to keep thinking out aloud about all this. My latest information about the plans are contained in this grandprix.com article. The aim is to have the regulations agreed upon by the end of this year, a goal that at least some manufacturers are openly supportive of. This, IMHO, is one more reason to formulate the rules so that those accommodate technological developments that at this point are either unforeseen, unpredictable or open ended.
The main stated rationales given by the FIA remain a) cost reduction and b) a need to react to PUBLIC CONCERN about the environment. Now, I don’t agree with Ron on everything, but in the Monaco Thursday press conference he quite rightly pointed out that the changes will in all likelihood prove costlier than the current F1 operating expenses (I provided the link earlier). And as to the second rationale, how about reacting to the actual environmental and socioeconomical crises at hand rather than merely just addressing “the concern” about those? That, at least, would justify the rising costs!
There’s also talk about “the emotional attraction of F1, in particular the technical awe”, which must be – be prepared to this – “retained”. This evidently presupposes the sport is dull at heart, that fans are uninformed and ignorant of basic causes and effects (and should be so?), thinking of F1 technology as some sort of magic, which just plainly isn’t true and I wonder if it ever has been. I surely take exception to the notion that the types of awe attached to F1 technology represent a form of intellectual incontinence!
Annual homologations and advanced development of power-trains I can certainly live with, but isn’t “restricting what can be done using fuel economy” the polar opposite of aiming for best possible efficiency and indeed straight-out engineering competition? Aiming for a 30% reduction in energy available for each race after 2010 is perhaps based on projections, but arbitrary still compared to just making the reduction in allowed energy directly comparable to any improvement in performance, the kind of improvement the teams are sure to push to the limit at all times. Easy enough to appraise if there are annual homologations anyway.
I actually heartily support the idea that patented technology within F1 should be licence free. This will help F1 becoming a proof of concept venue, enabling different manufacturers to appraise new technologies to be used outside F1 and thus speed up widespread application and overall development. I certainly hope manufacturers don’t have reasons to object to this. What could certainly undo any true benefits of ideas sharing in the sport is “banning F1 specific ideas”. Who, exactly, would be qualified to determine that? This is precariously vague at best, arbitrarily or purposefully restrictive at worst.
And again I feel the urge to state that if energy is retrieved from kinetic or thermal reactions that otherwise wouldn’t propel the car forward, any such energy should be released by the application of the accelerator pedal alone and not by a “push to pass” configuration which just adds a complexity that certainly isn’t “road car relevant”.
An increase in minimum weight makes little sense as ballast is used already and it goes against total efficiency. Ditto for making F1 shapes so disruptive that aerodynamics would cease to be the critical factor in performance (au lieu of uniform aero, it seems). The FIA calls the current shaping of F1 cars “shrink-wrapping” – well, valid reasons abound for that. The opposition to dumbing down aerodynamics is hardly philosophical. F1 aero is relevant to much more than just road going car design. Again, there’s no telling what advantages and inventions may come from that and that’s a good thing. Besides, speaking of sensible finances, now that every major team has invested heavily in human, computing and hardware capital to research and apply aero, there’s an effort to make this investment redundant?
And finally, renewableenergymagazine.com has the following conclusion about biofuels in their feature about the recent UN report on bioenergy (you can find “Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision Makers” here, a semi-large pdf file):
Is it sensible, then, to even attempt to make specific choices about F1 fuels at this point of time? Or would it be better just to strive for efficiency and liberate the rules so as to allow experimentation with a host of existing and “alternative” fuels and engines that can run on them? Calculating the joules contained within a certain volume of any fuel is just a matter of chemistry, after all.“With the advent of a next generation of biofuels derived from non-food sources such as switchgrass - or even more alien, algae – it is not necessarily all doom and gloom. It is about good governance, making the right choices and developing the technology needed to move biofuel production into new fields, away from the current interference with food production and towards truly sustainable alternatives.”
