Perfect Reliability - Good or Bad for F1?

[piast9]

Bad. Very bad. Adds to the boredom. Reduces uncertainty of who will win. Underlines the fact that F1 is fast becoming a glorified spec series.

I agree too. Lest's look at majority of this year races. Vettel gets a lead by some margin and the race winner is almost cerainly known. If there were 25% chances for the car failure this situation would look different. Vettel's fans would keep fingers crossed for him while the others would hope for the failure. If the Pirellis didn't happen this year the season would bye yawnsville, maybe with exception of Canada.

[marcush.]

sorry, not true.
The most entertaining races are not those of high attrition but lots of drama .Drama caused by action on the track ,not machinery giving up.
Dnf s are a fact of life...but nothing more boring than cars refusing to start or just stopping for no real significant reason.When your everyday car is capable to run 100000miles just filling up with gas and three tyre changes a formula 1 car should easily last two hours...as a manufacturer you cannot explain to your customer how your
multimillion operation cannot build two cars to last 2hours each on every other sunday..
and rightly so.

[mep]

The most entertaining races are not those of high attrition but lots of drama .Drama caused by action on the track ,not machinery giving up.

Only a Schumacher Fan can make such statements.
It is no wonder reliability doesn't bother you because there never was an issue between 2001 and 2006.
As a Kimi Räikkonen fan I can tell you reliability causes a lot of drama.
Races with a comfortable lead become very long and stressful then.

[i70q7m7ghw]

He was fine, there have been much worse accidents in F1 in recent years, and the drivers have walked away. If there was a concern about driver safety, the FIA would up the crash tests.

That's complacent. Did you not see those loose wheels? A loose wheel killed Henry Surtees in Formula 2 in 2009 and killed a marshall in the Australian GP in 2001.

Alguersuari's wheel came off in China this year, jumped the fencing and landed next to marshalls and photographers.

Absolutely agree, and additional tethers have been added this year, but as you've said wheels are still breaking loose. Circuits should be improving safety with taller fencing.

Did you see the big accident in the Le Man this year? My question is why weren't those photographers getting out of the way much earlier? Two words, money shot.

Motorsport is dangerous, and everyone involved accepts this risk. Every fatal accident is reviewed thoroughly and if it was avoidable they make damn sure it will never happen again. Unfortunately though, accidents happen.

[Richard]

The most entertaining races are not those of high attrition but lots of drama .Drama caused by action on the track ,not machinery giving up.

I guess it depends on your view of what F1 racing should be about. My view is that F1 should push driver, car and team/strategy to the limit.

No mechanical failures and no drivers going off track in the last race shows that the limit isn't as demanding as it once was.

(I'm not saying that F1 is easy, just that regulations and technology mean that there are fewer instances of going over the limit.)

[i70q7m7ghw]

I'd agree the engines certainly aren't pushing the limit. The turbo charged V6s should change that, since they'll be designed for purpose.

[Richard]

The new engines will be just like the current engines, designed to meet the duration regulations, ie 8 per season (or whatever it will be in the new regs).

The old engines met Chapman's maxim of the optimum car car being designed to only last to the finish line, then fall apart. Any more than that is excess capacity.

[ESPImperium]

New regs will see 6 per season. But no word on any new sporting regs with them. Id like to see no new engines into the cycle, if a driver blows one, he has the 5 for the rest of the season if he blows one early on.

I can also see a possible rule, similar to MotoGP, like what Suzuki have, where if a team hasn't won a GP in the last 2 years they get an extra engine free.

Engines will last about 2400km to 2900km for the V6s, as opposed to the 1500km to 1800km at present.

Total reliability is bad for F1, but i think that something needs to be done. I think releasing the rev limiter to 19,000 or at least give us 2 years of full on screaming V8s for some fun.

[mep]

New regs will see 6 per season. But no word on any new sporting regs with them. Id like to see no new engines into the cycle, if a driver blows one, he has the 5 for the rest of the season if he blows one early on.

It makes no sense to punish the driver for a technical defect. It's enough punishment when a engine blows up. Giving them aditional penalty is a really bad idea.

[WhiteBlue]

The new engines will be just like the current engines, designed to meet the duration regulations, ie 8 per season (or whatever it will be in the new regs).

The new V6 engines will be designed for a 4,000 km life target while current engines are good for 2,200 km AFAIK. Red Bull said life would be 2,000-2,100 km after Vettel's engine failure at Korea last year. Alonso used his last engine for six races including qualifying and third practise. So a target of 2,200 km is realistic.

Accordingly there will be a reduced number of engines per car and season in 2014. I expect 4-5 engines. The delay of the new engines to 2014 has been motivated mainly by giving the manufacturers time to reach the reliability target of 4,000 km.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Current engines were designed to do much higher RPMs than they currently do IIRC. That's what I meant about the V6s being design for purpose, they'll be designed to the regulations, and then homolgated. Rather than being homologated only for the regulations to change.

[ESPImperium]

New regs will see 6 per season. But no word on any new sporting regs with them. Id like to see no new engines into the cycle, if a driver blows one, he has the 5 for the rest of the season if he blows one early on.

It makes no sense to punish the driver for a technical defect. It's enough punishment when a engine blows up. Giving them aditional penalty is a really bad idea.

Its either that ot we have the teams put a new engine in once the old one has reached its ulitmate distance and can go almost no futher.

The rules for 2013 was to have 6 for the first season and 5 for there on in.

Then if they blow, a penalty is awarded. I want to see penalties for poor relyability, it makes the championship lots less predictable and also gives drivers a chance to do the distance early on and have a fresh un for the last 2 GPs or run flat out early and get the points and then hang on.

Introduce season strategy as well.

[WhiteBlue]

The rules for 2013 was to have 6 for the first season and 5 for there on in.

So they will now go straight to 5 engines because they will give the manufacturers one more year to develop. That would fit the other numbers.

The good side is that the design life keeps improving. This is a sensible way of containing cost. The days are long over since the engines had to be designed on the ragged edge to achieve a suitable power level. Nowadays you can have durability, performance and fuel efficiency if you go for the right spec. The 2014 engines may not be optimal in all points but they come close enough IMO to be called an important piece of progress. I'm sure they will not be totally reliable with additional systems like ERS and turbo charging. Every complexity level will first increase the failure rate before experience will reduce it again. So we will probably see some more failures in 2014 than we are going to see in the next two and a half years.

[Traction]

I'd agree the engines certainly aren't pushing the limit. The turbo charged V6s should change that, since they'll be designed for purpose.

In a way I agree with you but in another I disagree. The dramatic increase in relaibility on display is probably due to the fact that in the current engine format the top teams have probably come to almost a point of perfection where every technical flaw experienced early on in development has been ironed out. They just get beter and better until no more development can be done...i.e the limit has been reached. On the other hand, overall, engines haven't reached the limit hence the change in format. Its almost like the powers that be get to a point where they say'come on guys , we need new dynamics in F1, we need new technological enhancements, lets change the format and see what results are achieved'. Therein lies the pushing of limits and technology, always developing. These will now be smaller, more efficient engines but getting the same results as the current engines. Early stages will probably have reliability issues but once sorted out the whole cycle will start again....

[Dragonfly]

Perfect reliability means everything is way below the max. Conservation prevails at the expense of racing.