10 Year Engine development freez

[Militia Est Vita]

This one Is a classic

[Tom]

Yeah, the only difference being Martin carried on (I think he won that rally), Clark carried on (I wouldn't be surprised if he won that race) and Hakkinen, well he carried on too, resulting in severe concussion.
(apol. concussion is no laughing matter)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXhWM8tZE_E

[rkn]

Makes you wonder how Fisi can complain about "low grip" every time he's in the car, huh?

[Belatti]

I dont know what happened with my last post, I think the forum is freaking out!!!

Tom, that´s not Jim Clark, Its Jackie Olivier in a F2 Lotus

[Tom]

Apologies, I'm getting confused with this picture

[Militia Est Vita]

Did they used salvaged cars as safety walls back then?!!? Those were real pilots with real guts not like the pussys nowdays that the f1 drivers have become asking for more and more saftey and less racing

[Militia Est Vita]

Well and while Mosley is pushing hard to make F1 engine tech more boring, as I said in my 1st topic it seems that Champ car will get more aggressive and interesting engine wise:

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/n ... 5649.shtml

Why can't FIA aka Max Mosley can't figure out to do something interesting like this instead of holding engine development for so long.

[riff_raff]

Tom's picture perfectly illustrates what made GP racing so exciting, back in the 50's, 60's and early 70's: No aero devices. And the car's functions were entirely controlled by the driver. No TC, no ABS, no electronic throttle, no launch control, no auto up/down shift, etc. As well, the cars had much more power than traction. The only down side is that the cars were also much less safe.

Engine development can be controlled simply by instituting a spec fuel with a spec fuel flow device. No other rules are needed. The spec fuel only contains "X" amount of BTU's of energy, and whoever designs an engine to most efficiently extract that energy will prevail. Any displacement, any number of cylinders, turbo or N/A, it doesn't matter. Here's a hint on why this formula would be successful: What makes the current F1 engines so fragile and expensive, is that they run at ungodly high rev's. If you're designing an engine for max efficiency, instead of max power, you would choose an engine with large displacement running at lower speeds (ie. a less costly and more durable engine).

In the end, racing fans want to see races and championships decided on the track, not in some engineering office or by a group of lawyers in a courtroom. On the other hand, F1 does need a certain amount of "tech appeal". That's what separates it from Champ Car or NASCAR.

Mosley is paid a lot of money to create a racing series that has a good balance of tech, parity and excitement. For the last few years he has been doing a poor job of it. The races are processions, team budgets are astronomical and unsustainable, and there are far too few cars (competitive or otherwise) on the grid. Limiting engine development for 10 (or whatever?) years into the future is addressing the symptom, and not the problem. Mosley definitely needs to get more creative than that.

Finally, the rule changes that I would definitely like to see is an increase in the minimum weight and an increase in the tub width. Both of these would help to reduce cost and make the cars much safer in a crash.

[Carlos]

Tom's picture was taken at the Nurburing, at the Ring there was an elevation change, a jump, every car on every lap used to come off the ground at that spot. The photographers camped at just that spot every year to get those shots. Exciting, sensational, year after year, but then it was a long time ago, cars, drivers, tracks and technology have all changed, cameras once had film instead of being digital. Is it an exotic epidemic or are some features of F1 past interesting to comtempory F1 fans?

[riff_raff]

"it was a long time ago, cars, drivers, tracks and technology have all changed"

Not really. Here's the scariest (but thankfully injury-free) incident I recall, from 1998:

[Ogami musashi]

Finally, the rule changes that I would definitely like to see is an increase in the minimum weight and an increase in the tub width. Both of these would help to reduce cost and make the cars much safer in a crash.

Actually, a lighter car is a safer car in term of energy absorption.
The only thing that used to make a car safer when heavier was because heavier meant more metal so more protection for object in-body intrusion (like the direction than costs senna's life), but the shock in itself was heavier.

Nowadays we can have stiffer survival cell that are lighter combining both of the thing.

I recently saw a '63 video of jim clark and yes it was superb, but that's another time, F1 is meant to elvove that's why it is so special.

Actually this is because it is hard to be seen but cars still jump in a modern F1 race, not anymore on elevation changes because of downforce (and suspension) but on kerbs.
There're a lot of aggressive flights right after kerbs and that did not exist in the 60's.

And as far as driver aids go, i think we should carefully look at what the driver aid in question brings. TC may allow you to smash the throttle at the exit but it is far from being an on/off way of using it, it requires skills to use it the best way.

But as i said F1 is meant to always change so why not getting rid of them for a time? well that's what's happening ..
in 2008 no TC, no engine braking, no launch control, ABS is gone since 10years, electronic throttle is over in 2009 etc etc..

[checkered]

Engine development can be controlled simply by instituting a spec fuel with a spec fuel flow device. No other rules are needed. The spec fuel only contains "X" amount of BTU's of energy, and whoever designs an engine to most efficiently extract that energy will prevail. Any displacement, any number of cylinders, turbo or N/A, it doesn't matter. Here's a hint on why this formula would be successful: What makes the current F1 engines so fragile and expensive, is that they run at ungodly high rev's. If you're designing an engine for max efficiency, instead of max power, you would choose an engine with large displacement running at lower speeds (ie. a less costly and more durable engine).

Initially I was

more of the mind that freeing up engine and powertrain design by allocating a set amount of energy per race (be it in J, BTU or other) and reducing that amount when lap times go down would be the best solution. I overlooked the obvious, namely that a spec fuel flow achieves pretty much the same thing (and controls max speed in addition to avg). I'm afraid, though, that even having only a spec fuel and a spec fuel flow device is too restrictive when it comes to design philosophy. What do you think? It's hard to come up with argumentation when trying to allow developments that, at least to a degree, are unforeseen ... but I admit, the arrangement you propose would be an enormous improvement in itself (compared to any ******* freeze), so I'd be willing to try that out.

I've also begun to think that since there's a constructors' championship, why not reflect reliability on that instead of punishing the driver with a grid penalty (the way it's administered is not very logical nowadays either)? If you want an engine to last for four races, deduct 4 pts for changing the engine after one race, 2 pts after two races, 1 pt after three, give 4 additional pts after completing the fourth race with the same engine.

Mosley is paid a lot of money to create a racing series that has a good balance of tech, parity and excitement. For the last few years he has been doing a poor job of it. The races are processions, team budgets are astronomical and unsustainable, and there are far too few cars (competitive or otherwise) on the grid. Limiting engine development for 10 (or whatever?) years into the future is addressing the symptom, and not the problem. Mosley definitely needs to get more creative than that.

I'll second that.

... a lighter car is a safer car in term of energy absorption ... Nowadays we can have stiffer survival cell that are lighter combining both of the thing.

And that's a good point, too ... and potentially very relevant to road going vehicle development and the way we arrange traffic and mobility in the future.

[Tom]

A nice example of the older 'lots of metal' philosiphy verses the modern, light weight option with the metal in the right place.

I'm not going to tell you who wins. I guessed right though.

Edit: forgot to post the link
http://youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I

[Carlos]

IMO
No flow meters. X number of litres of fuel. Any engine configuration. The Constructor Championship is mean't to reflect the chassis with the most points, the 'fastyest, winingest' chassis.

[checkered]

Well, FIA tech

consultant Tony Purnell has come out with a list of reasons why he thinks the freeze is a good thing, while the constructors are still pushing their own proposal (homologation from 2010 - 2013, apparently).

Car manufacturers are already working flat out to develop optimal low-emission engines and there is little that engine development programmes in F1 will add to this effort.

Well, yeah, if you want to separate the two. But efficiency definitely is a priority in motorsport and quite naturally in line with other developments. And I would guess engineers would prefer being left with the possibility of coming up with something that is universally beneficial and not rule out that prospect out of hand. It's actually very uninspiring to make such predeterminations.

It's not the "threat of innovations" that makes manufacturers spend money on Formula One, how crazy would that be?!

However, in five years or so, their attention will turn more and more to subsidiary devices incorporating energy recovery. By opening up this area now, Formula One can make a real difference to this important facet of future car technology.

The current homologation was justified by the need to save money for such developments. Not only did it not run its course, it had no chance of producing any kinds of "subsidiary devices" (implying, btw, that more fundamental changes are not even considered possible), so why on Earth would the next freeze be any different? "Once bitten, twice shy."

Some manufacturers had project groups spending extravagant sums working on such minor areas as water pumps, exhaust pipes, inlet snorkels, the things around the engine that you were allowed to change.

So we looked at that and saw that the only way to stop spending with finality is to prevent any changes whatsoever. Freeze the engine, freeze the peripherals as well, and do this long-term so there are no thoughts about retaining a department to develop future engines. This may seem brutal, but to contain spending, it delivers.

Just how well does it need to be documented that the teams' expenditures on F1 are in no way dependent on where the advantage is sought? It's the FIA's very own rules that have forced engineers to concentrate on "minor areas". The best possible avenue of action is to redirect the same investment into "major areas". Reasonably and realistically, it can be done. It'd be an interesting experiment to homologate the "minor areas" instead.

And teams and manufacturers are to be left hopeless of developing future engines in F1? Quite a statement. We're still talking motorsports here or what?

KERS is something the public can understand quite easily. The technical challenge is huge and there will be very little constraint on it. This is very different to the current engine or chassis regulations, which are massively constrained. As a project it is one of the freest areas of development in F1 for the last 15 years.

KERS arguably embodies a "minor area" of development and the rules governing it as far as I've gotten to know them are anything but vague, btw. Other developments would require more elemental changes to the powertrain, so I'm beginning to suspect that KERS is favoured merely because it has the least to do with any real advances regarding the engine.

And give me a break, are important advances in any way contingent on everyone understanding them? When asked, what percentage of F1 fans would regard it important for their fandom to understand the principles of say, ICE, basic aerodynamics, transmission, differential ... people lead very different lives and face very different challenges and have very different, but equally important skills and talents.

I suspect the technically minded are always in a minority, even in a technical sport, when the audience numbers in the tens of millions. People's general capacity to understand KERS or other regen systems relative to those systems' technical applicability is a completely false analogy. If not patronising.

There will be technologies that will begin to become attractive to put on the car. For instance, researchers are developing a type of silicon that simply converts a heat gradient into electricity.

Today they are very inefficient and bulky. But in future we can imagine such devices removing the need for an alternator and delivering significant amounts of power. Some 30 per cent of the energy available goes straight out of the exhaust pipe, so there's a lot of potential.

So, does this mean F1 teams will take up the development of these? And if the sole purpose of the recovered 30% of all energy (let's be unrealistically optimistic) is employed only to run the alternator ... well, let's just say that's one **** of an alternator right there. Remember, engine design is off limits.

Obviously if the teams were to redesign their engine blocks they could incorporate KERS in a much neater way. But this is hardly necessary. And as recent experience has shown, any opportunity to touch the engine is opening up a Pandora's box full of potential expenditure.

Nothing is necessary. But F1 isn't about necessities, it's about possibilities. All the hand wringing about expenditures is really discouraging. Isn't that just saying to the manufacturers, teams and fans alike: "Listen, you're not going to get decent returns for your investment"? A sensible person takes his time, effort and money elsewhere, then. Take note of that.

Purnell: engine freeze good for F1 - link, Autosport