Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Thunder]

To me neither Determination to the Project nor Money is the Problem. It's Tokens and Time. I have no doubt Honda can build a competitive PU, the only question is WHEN. This Year was painful but the Real World Informations they got out of this are incredibly useful. The Guys at Honda know exactly what the Problem is, let's just hope the fixes for next Year are ready in Time and nake a big difference.

Different Cultures (not saying one is better than the other, just different Peolpe of different Cultures working together on a highly complex Project) may be a bit of a hindering at the Start of the Project but i don't think it is anymore.

[Andres125sx]

An engine that is potentially a good idea but fails every other race and is MASSIVELY down on power is one that doesn't work, like Honda's this year.

So the token system wich does not allow Honda to solve the problem is irrelevant here? No, if they fails every other race is because they´re not allowed to solve the problem until winter because of the token system

A 2015 Ferrari/Renault layout has a significantly higher chance of succeeding. But then you again seem to be framing the argument to suit the point you want to make, Ferrari's engine doesn't work because it's not competitive? It finishes races, it's won races, it's a HUGE step forwards and not that far off the Mercedes engine.

And still can´t compete with Mercedes

The chances of succeding in the future is something nobody will ever know until we see it in real world.

I do not frame any argument, I simply say I don´t have a crystal ball telling me who will succed in the future, and I cannot bash a PU manufacturer because he can´t develop the PU because of the rules.

[drunkf1fan]

They both had tokens to fix problems and are allowed effectively unlimited fixes for reliability reasons. They chose to make this engine design and then people excuse them for not fixing it by not understanding the rules.

Engine development takes time. It doesn't matter if they were allowed to bring entirely new engines every race, they made THIS engine and it takes more than 3 weeks to bring an entirely different engine to get it for the next race. Even if they took 6 months to bring a completely new revision it would have similar reliability to the current one, almost none, because it too would be rushed, untested and would likely fail just as if not more often.

There is this rather strange/ridiculous notion that if Honda had unlimited tokens, factors like time to develop new parts become irrelevant, if they had unlimited tokens the engine would be fixed by now. Honda will be incredibly lucky to bring an alternative engine with decent performance next year that has reliability because they will once again be rushing a new engine design.


Ferrari's performance as compared to Mercedes isn't proof that the fundamental layout is worse. it's a much newer engine/concept. It's close enough and an engine that wasn't worked on for three years that it suggests the fundamental difference between a full turbo split and a normal turbo isn't particularly large at all. Ferrari spent a year on this particular engine, not the 4 years Mercedes have spent on their concept, it SHOULDN'T be competitive at this point unless Mercedes had screwed up... which they didn't.

People constantly talk about track testing and tokens being required while entirely ignoring that time is the main thing they need, development AND testing within the lab are entirely unlimited and that it takes time to get complex engines out of the lab. Honda's biggest problem is inability to find problems with the engine on the dyno where Ferrari/Merc find 99% of their issues in the lab meaning they can bring a reliable solid engine it's first appearance on the track.

[Andres125sx]

Looks like you know it all, you know the future, you know what PU concept can work and wich cannot despite the new technology being used, you know who invested what amount of time and resources and where despite no team publish that sort of information, you know what time takes to Honda any development and even the result they will get after that... you know the past and the future, wow.

Now if you could tell me who will win 2016 and 17 WCD so I can make some money

[Joseki]

They both had tokens to fix problems and are allowed effectively unlimited fixes for reliability reasons. They chose to make this engine design and then people excuse them for not fixing it by not understanding the rules.

Engine development takes time. It doesn't matter if they were allowed to bring entirely new engines every race, they made THIS engine and it takes more than 3 weeks to bring an entirely different engine to get it for the next race. Even if they took 6 months to bring a completely new revision it would have similar reliability to the current one, almost none, because it too would be rushed, untested and would likely fail just as if not more often.

There is this rather strange/ridiculous notion that if Honda had unlimited tokens, factors like time to develop new parts become irrelevant, if they had unlimited tokens the engine would be fixed by now. Honda will be incredibly lucky to bring an alternative engine with decent performance next year that has reliability because they will once again be rushing a new engine design.


Ferrari's performance as compared to Mercedes isn't proof that the fundamental layout is worse. it's a much newer engine/concept. It's close enough and an engine that wasn't worked on for three years that it suggests the fundamental difference between a full turbo split and a normal turbo isn't particularly large at all. Ferrari spent a year on this particular engine, not the 4 years Mercedes have spent on their concept, it SHOULDN'T be competitive at this point unless Mercedes had screwed up... which they didn't.

People constantly talk about track testing and tokens being required while entirely ignoring that time is the main thing they need, development AND testing within the lab are entirely unlimited and that it takes time to get complex engines out of the lab. Honda's biggest problem is inability to find problems with the engine on the dyno where Ferrari/Merc find 99% of their issues in the lab meaning they can bring a reliable solid engine it's first appearance on the track.

This is actually false since they only had 9 tokens and to change compressor, MGU-H and turbine require 6 tokens, plus 2 other tokens needed if they wanted to move the compressor in front. Obviously to make all this changes you need to also spend tokens on the ICE and as you can see it's well over 9 tokens.

The fixes for reliability needs to be approved by the FIA and all the other teams, so they are by no means "unlimited".

[shady]

@Joseki

As far as reliability changes, no team will ever veto those. "Mutually assured destruction", the first team to do so will cause every other team in the future to deny changes. Simple game theory on that particular note. The rest is all very valid, the FIA this season did require much more data to substantiate 'reliability' because in effect every f1 change is to increase performance, so for the reliability changes they needed to be validated more thoroughly.

[godlameroso]

IIRC Honda was denied a change to the turbo in Canada by other teams, even though it was labeled a 'reliability' fix.

[drunkf1fan]

This is actually false since they only had 9 tokens and to change compressor, MGU-H and turbine require 6 tokens, plus 2 other tokens needed if they wanted to move the compressor in front. Obviously to make all this changes you need to also spend tokens on the ICE and as you can see it's well over 9 tokens.

The fixes for reliability needs to be approved by the FIA and all the other teams, so they are by no means "unlimited".

If you're going to go ahead and both quote and bold you should really understand what I said. I said they had tokens to fix PROBLEMS. I didn't say all their problems, I said there were tokens available to replace parts they wanted to, not all, but some. They brought a new mgu-h and compressor to Canada.... it was even less reliable till it got further fixes. As for needing approval, again that doesn't make them unlimited. There is quite literally not a limit on changes made for reasons of reliability. Parts changed using tokens also needs approval from the FIA to make sure they are actually changes within the rules and that the changes are limited to what they've said and the tokens are used correctly. If the entire engine is broken it's feasible to change the whole thing. It won't help you fix a fundamentally flawed design but I didn't claim it did. They have brought new parts, significant parts, both through token usage and reliability changes.

[drunkf1fan]

Looks like you know it all, you know the future, you know what PU concept can work and wich cannot despite the new technology being used, you know who invested what amount of time and resources and where despite no team publish that sort of information, you know what time takes to Honda any development and even the result they will get after that... you know the past and the future, wow.

Now if you could tell me who will win 2016 and 17 WCD so I can make some money

Lets be clear, you have categorically stated that going with a design similar to Ferrari/Renault can't be competitive and that it would be stupid for Mclaren to go the same route.

First the teams have been vocal about when and where development started. Renault produced a chart/website detailing the development process, they spent around 2.5 years to the start of the 2014 season. Ferrari were similar, Merc just over 3 years, they saw the engine as more important in this formula than others did and devoted more resources to 2014 than the other teams. Honda didn't have a deal in place, they had tentative talks and put together a SMALL group to do some preliminary investigations into the project, it was by no means a full swing development, they did that for only 3-6 months before signing with Mclaren to commit to making an engine, they had 18 months from then to the start of 2015.

I haven't said which PU concept can't work, I've said both will work. What I've stated, based on evidence from the engines on show across both years, from the mouths of the technical people at Ferrari, Mercedes and others and ALL the technical pundits have all stated is the full split turbo is a very difficult prospect, took a LOT of time, a LOT of money and is one of the biggest engineering feats on the Mercedes engine.

You're saying it would be stupid to go with the Ferrari design because it can't be competitive. You can make an engine based on either design, however where Mercedes had 3 years or more till the start of the 2014 season to achieve this engineering feat... Honda have 6 months AND have to start from an already set engine with limited amount of changes. The Ferrari style engine is categorically easier to produce and has a much better chance of producing a reliable and significantly improved performance engine for next year than attempting to make a Mercedes type engine. This season is already the result of rushing the engineering on a complex engine formula in which they tried an overly complex design. The solution to this is with even less time try to achieve something even more difficult in even less time?

A good engineer should make a realistic goal for the time he has. A ferrari type simpler turbo has a dramatically higher chance of bringing Honda more points in 2016 and 2017. Could they get lucky and crack the full split turbo in 6 months, sure, anything is possible, possible and likely aren't the same.

For me the simple fact is coming to an engine based formula late was always an uphill battle. Even with a Merc design they are 3 years behind in development of it and always will be 3 years behind. Honda and Mclaren's best shot for winning a title before the next engine change is aero, make a solid engine that can finish races and throw everything at the 2017 aero. They will not win under these engine regulations with this long of a disadvantage, what they can hope for is an engine to get them within shooting distance and attempt to make a killer chassis.

[drunkf1fan]

IIRC Honda was denied a change to the turbo in Canada by other teams, even though it was labeled a 'reliability' fix.

From what I recall it was deemed they needed a complete redesign and change of placement of the mgu-h. They of course asked if they could do it for free, don't ask don't get. But it was basically a completely new part moved for both reliability and performance reasons. They spent tokens in Canada on mgu-h and compressor(maybe the turbine, but deffo the mgu-h).

I would imagine all the teams have some parts they will first see if they can sneak it through as a reliability update for 'free'. Other parts they won't want to share information about with the other teams. There may even be parts they could change for reliability reasons but choose to spend the tokens to keep the part secret from other teams. Honda are obviously in a bad place so getting more changes is more important than secrecy where Merc may want to protect their secrecy more.

[Andres125sx]

Looks like you know it all, you know the future, you know what PU concept can work and wich cannot despite the new technology being used, you know who invested what amount of time and resources and where despite no team publish that sort of information, you know what time takes to Honda any development and even the result they will get after that... you know the past and the future, wow.

Now if you could tell me who will win 2016 and 17 WCD so I can make some money

Lets be clear, you have categorically stated that going with a design similar to Ferrari/Renault can't be competitive and that it would be stupid for Mclaren to go the same route.

False!

I haven't said which PU concept can't work, I've said both will work.

Then you should clarify what did you mean here:

An engine that is potentially a good idea but fails every other race and is MASSIVELY down on power is one that doesn't work, like Honda's this year. Another year of engines that are a potentially good idea with the potential to be fast but fail all year again is useless.

You're saying it would be stupid to go with the Ferrari design because it can't be competitive.

False again!

It´s you the one stating this design or the other can work or not, I´m saying exactly the opposite, nobody can know if a concept will work or not at this point, this is new technology with no previous experience so none of us can know beforehand what concept will be the most successuful, they all need some time to develop the concept, and only after that we will see what is better. Problem is with current token system development will take a lot of time.

A different thing is if you want to analyse what concept can provide results faster, but since McHonda project was never intended to produce results fast and they specifically stated the project was a long term one with no results first season, you can´t criticize Honda because they got no results this season, they told you that before the beginning.

[mrluke]

Both Mclaren and Honda are on the record saying they have championship winning car, they then revised this to a race winning car. This was clearly communicated at the start of the season on multiple occasions.

The problem isn't to find the absolute best possible solution, the problem is to produce a competitive PU before the PU regulations change significantly.

[The_Truth]

How much is Honda down on ICE alone?

[Tauri_J]

Arai has said that ICE alone is better than Renault's.

[nanocustic]

Arai has said that ICE alone is better than Renault's.

Do we have some empiric evidence of that? I'm curious