Engines supplied to Customer Teams

[Wigan301072]

Teams such Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault supply some of the teams in F1 with Engines that are usually last season's engines, which are typically at least a second slower than the engines they themselves use!!! Or the customer teams tend not to have a full engine mapping to unleash the true power of the engine.

But is this really the way to do things?

Teams that rely on engines provided by Teams such as Mercerdes do such for the following reasons:-

1) Teams such as Sauber simply do not have the Funds which Bigger teams such as Mercedes have. after all designing and building a F1 engine is cheap.

2) Teams that rely on customer engines don't have the equipment to make or design their own engine.

3) Customer Teams do not have sponsors who are willing to invest serious money in developing a car or engine.

4) Customer Teams are viewed as make weight so there are more cars on the grid.

5) Larger Teams receive more money from F1, bigger shares of prize money and also have a hand in creating the rules. Plus they simply don't want competition for points, race wins or winning a championship.

These reasons mean it is extremely unlikely that a customer team will win a race, let alone a championship!!! It also spoils it for the fans and drivers.

Racing speeds can be split into three groups, works teams at the front, middle table teams and those right at the back.

I would like to see a system where every team had a full spec engine and races are won by the best driver. Sadly I don't see this happening any time soon.

Simply look at the recent races - by the end of a race most of teams have been lapped at least once, and teams right at the back are nearly two laps down.

It's time for a change...

[Facts Only]

Teams such Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault supply some of the teams in F1 with Engines that are usually last season's engines, which are typically at least a second slower than the engines they themselves use!!! Or the customer teams tend not to have a full engine mapping to unleash the true power of the engine

Apart from the names of the 3 engine manufacturers literally everything in that paragraph is wrong. Good work.

[wuzak]

Teams such Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault supply some of the teams in F1 with Engines that are usually last season's engines, which are typically at least a second slower than the engines they themselves use!!! Or the customer teams tend not to have a full engine mapping to unleash the true power of the engine.

The only teams to use year old power units in this era have been:

Manor 2015: used 2014 PU because they only just scraped enough money to compete in the season, but had to use the 2014 car, which could not fit the 2015 Ferrari Power Unit even if they could afford it.

Scuderia Toro Rosso 2016: used 2015 Ferrari PU in place of Renault because of the fighting between Red Bull and Renault. By the time the PU deal was done it was far too late to get 2016 PUs because of suply lead times.

Sauber 2017: They chose to say with the 2016 Ferrari PU on the grounds that it would save them money, the packaging was well known to them and they didn't expect a large jump in performance between 2016 and 2017.

As regards software, I'm sure the programs are available to the smaller teams. They may not use the extreme mods, such as Mercedes' Q3 mode, as it shortens the life of the engine and they cannot afford to have unreliability and pay for extra engines.

The performance differences between the manufacturer teams and the customer teams is largely due to chassis quality.

[Wigan301072]

If works teams were truly supplying full spec engines, with all the true engine mapping, leading to customer teams have exactly the same power etc than the works teams, there wouldn't be such huge gaps in qualifying and actual races.

Let's think this through properly:

1) if you owned a works team that supply engines to other, would you really give them exactly same engines that you run? I think not, after all you don't want a team you supply engines to beating you to race wins or even a championship title.

2) if a customer team really had a full spec engine etc, then why aren't cars closer during a race, or during qualifying? After all a customer team relies heavily on sponsorship... such a team would undoubtedly want to be competitive as well as wanting to win races. plus being competing creates greater sponsorship revenue for such a team..

3) Mercedes have shown that they always manage to produce extra speed during qualifying, and sometimes during a race.

The race results for Bahrain show there is a huge gap in race pace for the customer teams. For example O'connor finished the race a full (one minute and 35.711 seconds behind the race winner!!! While Massa in the Williams were 54.326 second behind the race winner...

[wuzak]

If works teams were truly supplying full spec engines, with all the true engine mapping, leading to customer teams have exactly the same power etc than the works teams, there wouldn't be such huge gaps in qualifying and actual races.

Let's think this through properly:

1) if you owned a works team that supply engines to other, would you really give them exactly same engines that you run? I think not, after all you don't want a team you supply engines to beating you to race wins or even a championship title.

2) if a customer team really had a full spec engine etc, then why aren't cars closer during a race, or during qualifying? After all a customer team relies heavily on sponsorship... such a team would undoubtedly want to be competitive as well as wanting to win races. plus being competing creates greater sponsorship revenue for such a team..

3) Mercedes have shown that they always manage to produce extra speed during qualifying, and sometimes during a race.

1) No, you would not want to get beaten. But as a works team you would be confident that you would have the upper hand in chassis and aero development over your clients.

FWIW in 2009 McLaren was the Mercedes factory team. They were beaten by a customer - Brawn.

2) Do you expect that Sauber, barely surviving in F1, is going to beat Ferrari using the same engine?
It is a matter of budget. Mercedes' F1 team budget is at least twice that of Williams'.

Force India said a couple of years ago that they could not implement the same intercooling system as Mercedes as it was heavier and they did not have the time or resources to remove enough weight from the chassis to compensate.

The customers have to be choosy on which areas to concentrate, the factory teams not so much.

3) The extra power modes increase wear and chance of engine failure. With a tight budget they do not wish to have to buy extra engines.

For example O'connor finished the race a full (one minute and 35.711 seconds behind the race winner!!!

Who?

[wuzak]

The race results for Bahrain show there is a huge gap in race pace for the customer teams. For example O'connor finished the race a full (one minute and 35.711 seconds behind the race winner!!! While Massa in the Williams were 54.326 second behind the race winner...

I figured out that you meant Estaban Ocon....

For your thesis to be valid, the difference between the customer team should be less as well. There was an 8s gap between Massa and Perez. Circumstances conspired against Ocon (he pitted before teh safety car and lost track position).

In China Massa finished 44.3s behind Perez, and 37.7s behind Ocon. Using, presumably, the same PU.

In Australia Perez was around 27s behind Massa.

So, it would seem, that the chassis has a greater bearing on the gap than the power unit.

[FW17]

Driver too

Kimi a WDC finished 20 seconds behind
Valteri who was the better Williams driver also finished 15 seconds being

If Alonso raced a Williams, he would have finished ahead of Ricardo

[j2004p]

Throw into the mix the added budget concerns of the customer teams...

Last season the teams were rationed to 5 of each power unit element (ICE, MGUH, MGUK, TC, ES), however all the customer Mercedes teams (Manor, Williams, Force India) elected at the beginning of the season to aim for 4 items of each PU element to save on costs.

To achieve this they would have had to run their PU's significantly de-tuned.