Porsche announces possible return to F1

[horse]

But they're most likely to be using their own engine at that point, I'd think.

Wow, that's news to me. Can they afford to staff an F1 engine department? My appreciation for the current situation was that Mercedes supplies all of their F1 engine technicians. You are right though, WB, they must have some expertise on the other side of the factory for the MP4-12C engine.

Doesn't this make the engine supply situation even more tenuous, however? If McLaren are building an engine, I have no doubt they'd like to sell it too.

[andrew]

Porsche has been the subject of rumour for a while now. I wouldn't read too much into this just yet.

[WhiteBlue]

Porsche has been the subject of rumour for a while now. I wouldn't read too much into this just yet.

It's obviously a bit more than a rumor when the new chairman of the board announces it on his first day on the job.

[andrew]

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Pors ... eller.html

By the sounds of this it looks like they are to weigh up the options of various series and which brand will enter which series. One to watch though.

Incidently, what is the correct way to pronounce Porsche? Everyone I know pronounces it as Porsh but on various UK motoring shows it is pronounced Porsha.

[xpensive]

The only time Porsche has been successful in F1 was when John Barnard was there to tell them xactly what to do, like;
"No, I don't want an fan-cooled flat-six goddamn it". Someone should call Jackie Oliver to hear what he has to say?

[WhiteBlue]

And what about the V6 turbo they build for TAG and McLaren? An engine with a huge success record.

[twoshots]

I agree that they [McLaren] are likely to run their own F1 engine by 2013.

If I can get the right odds, I'm willing to bet the sum total of my earnings (gross) for 2013 that McLaren will not run their own engine. If they do it'll be a bad year...


Oh, VW have been part of the 2013 powertrain discussions since the beginning. No real surprise that VW/Audi/Porsche may end up having a punt at F1. I don't see what the fuss is about.

[xpensive]

For those who didn't read me previous post, John Barnard spent a lot of time at Weissach in 82-83, telling Porsche xactly what he wanted in terms of envelope, just look at it, without his input there's no telling what they would've dreamt up.

[zeph]

The only time Porsche has been successful in F1 was when John Barnard was there to tell them xactly what to do, like;
"No, I don't want an fan-cooled flat-six goddamn it". Someone should call Jackie Oliver to hear what he has to say?

John Barnard now designs furniture. Not kidding.

[FW17]

Something very wrong about the VW Logo in the backdrop. Any reasons Why? (may have been discussed in the past)

http://www.scuderiatororosso.com/cs/Sat ... 2807620404

[WhiteBlue]

For those who didn't read me previous post, John Barnard spent a lot of time at Weissach in 82-83, telling Porsche xactly what he wanted in terms of envelope, just look at it, without his input there's no telling what they would've dreamt up.

It did not take rocket science to see that a V6 was the tried and simple way to go. Renault and Ferrari had already shown that the concept made sense. Porsche have been quite successful at giving their customers excellent solutions within their design parameters. The TAG turbo engine is not the only example. The modern Harley Davidson engines were all designed in Weissach as a contractor job. Porsche engineering has done chassis and engine designs for many big brands in Europe and the world.

[xpensive]

Again, for those who don't read my posts, Barnard was a perfectionist with regards to the entire envelope, the packaging of every component, which will become obvious if you behold the above picture and compare it to its contemporaries, why I'm still convinced that McLaren's liasion with Honda was one of his reasons for leaving for Ferrari in 1987.

When Porsche tried on their own just a few years later with the 3.5 V12, the result was an utter disaster in that respect.

Furniture? I knew that he did surgeon-tools for his brother in law though.

[WhiteBlue]

Lol, it is common knowledge that Barnard specified the engine, but he did not design or manufacture it. There was nothing revolutionary compared to previous V6 turbo designs in the spec AFAIK. Just the requirements which made the engine fit into Barnard's chassis concept. One has to admit that the chassis was without any doubt the biggest break through in F1 history. The carbon fibre monocoque MP4 was a quantum leap in chassis design and is still influencing Formula1. The whole project shows that Porsche could design and build a competitive engine in comparison with Renault and Ferrari in terms of reliability, performance and efficiency when the total car concept was good. The turbo charged twelve cylinder 917 of the seventies is proof that Porsche was also capable to compete in chassis design when they were prepared to spend ridiculous amounts of money. Ferdinand Piech was running Porsche at that time and it must have been a formative experience.

[xpensive]

Common knowledge to everyone but you perhaps, when you argued against John Barnard's influence until just now,
did you consult the web as usual?

[WhiteBlue]

When one reads your posts, xpensive, one could believe that Porsche had no competence in racing at all, which is ridiculous. Porsche to the day is the most successful race car manufacturer when it comes to the number of races won and race cars build. They simply make it a business to design and build cars and they do not sink their own money into single seater projects.

Since the middle of the seventies all aspects of F1 and single seater design had to fit into an aerodynamic concept to be successful. The engine made no difference. So it is only natural that engine specification needed intimate contemporary chassis know how and nobody would deny that John Barnard was the top man of the eighties in that regard. Porsche at that time had simply decided that they did not want to fund F1 projects and kept that philosophy until last Wednesday.

TAG payed for the V6 turbo engine. The 1991 V12 development also was a customer project and unfortunately badly underfunded. Footwork did not have the necessary funding to pay for a from scratch development with a sensible specification. The engine was a doubled up design of the TAG turbo engine although it was naturally aspired. They did not even have the money to take the unnecessary weight out of the turbo design and the engine had a weight of 180 kg and was hopelessly uncompetitive. The turbo engine was build to a 4 bar pressure limit. So virtually everything except the new crank shaft was hopelessly over specified.

I want to make the point that Porsche or Audi are absolutely capable of running a successful F1 engine project in cooperation with a competent chassis constructor. Other than Mercedes Benz they do not need to buy Ilmor or another British engineering firm to do such a job successfully. The same is true for BMW. They could design and build competitive F1 engines because they never dropped their eyes off the ball in terms of race engine technology. One should not make the mistake to confuse business sense with a lack of ability.