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Let's consider this for a while, who has vested intersts in what? Garagistes has therir own agenda obviously, costs and rebuilds of an I4 with two camshafts, 16 valves and two main bearings would be less xpensive obviously. But the manufacturers of said engines, how is their thnking?

I recall BMW objecting to the V8 as it did not match the launch of their V10 for the M5, am I totally out at sea?

The tooling required to make the different engines are additional costs for a manufacturer.
This is why i don't think the v4 will be made. A narrow angle V4 cannot be manufactured on 90* V8 tooling. An I4 is more likely, it can be manufactured on virtually any V engine tooling, V8, V10, V12.
An I4 also is lighter and stronger as well as much simpler.

I believe the same format that is being used in rallying, the I4 will be directly translated to F1.
BMW have already started testing their new 1.6lt turbo Mini rally car. It may be a sign they could directly use this as preparation for a return to F1 as an engine manufacturer.

idon´t see the tooling thing please enlighten me there.
You build a new engine and you have to gear up and make tooling to produce produce the castings..be it 90° or 60° two heads or one ..theres not much in it also in weight..the two cam sprockets chains or gears you additinally need to drive the shorte camshaft but two more ..are offset by a crankshaft that has almost half length and two bearings less...the whole engine is also better to integrate into the chassis.so any potential weightadvantage will be negated by the considerable mountings you have to provide to integrate the I4 installation.

After the engines are casted, the I4 can be machined on the same rig as a V8, any angle V8. It's possible only a small change in the same CNC coding is need as well, since it's basically half a v8.
The I4 cam shafts can be machined in the exact same setup as the V8 cam shafts as well.
These are a few examples, it's not a drastic night and day difference with retooling for a V4, but it's still cost cutting and convenience.
Rally engines and F1 engines, even production car engines, V8, I4 can be seamlessly manufactured on the same production line, with only a mouse click required to initiate a change in the machining codes.

Most manufacturers also have decades of I4 research data. I don't think most of them have mastery of the V4 engine. BMW, Honda, Cosworth, Toyota, Renault, all have current car's in their line up with I4 engines and full confidence in technological depth. It would also encourage competition and an F1 to road engine war.

A v4 is also not as relevant or popular to road cars as the I4. Especially the new rally car regulations, which i believe will share the same displacement and layout as the F1 cars. It seems this has begun already.

I hate to think that F1 will share the same engine spec of rally. Im mean, its F1!!! Make it different for Gods sake!!!

I dont care about road relevance. Nothing to compare between an F1 and a road car.

agip wrote:I hate to think that F1 will share the same engine spec of rally. Im mean, its F1!!! Make it different for Gods sake!!!

I dont care about road relevance. Nothing to compare between an F1 and a road car.

Sorry agip but such arguments no longer hold up, as much as it is nice to think so.
F1 will eventualy be at the peak of 'electric traction development'.
That is if those running things at this crucial time do not kill it stone dead.
F1 ic engines must follow a development direction focused in every way on improving energy use. Just power is not a justified goal anymore and can be achieved with almost any configuration.
I4 turbo makes the most sense technicaly and environmentaly.
Anything else is a compromise for the benefit of the obsolete.

autogyro wrote:Sorry agip but such arguments no longer hold up, as much as it is nice to think so.

Sorry but whats the point of F1 if its not different? It used to be used as a playground to develop technologys for the manufactures whilst remaining ultimately a diverse motorsport. Now it seems everyone here wants to stick a reanult clio engine in the back of what are ment to be the best cars on earth. And for what to save a few gallons of oil?
F1 needs technology advancement, but not the SAME engines as our cars. Its never been 100% road relevant, but now it seems it must be? You can develop fuel efficent technologys without using the exact same engines. Do you think every efficent Audi now has a 5 liter V10? It seems to be moving towards a spec series,
and couple that with a L4 engine I might as well go watch formula Renault.

Altough im interested to see efficent technologys developed I really think too much fuss has been made about it. Autogyro talks of the global perception of F1 being bad, and that we need to change. Yet i've yet to hear anyone say or read anything to support such things - outside of the F1 community. To me it seems like everyone on the 'inside' is looking over their shoulders and being paranoid. To be honest F1 isnt football, unless your a specific fan you dont hear much about it, and generally dont care much. Yet its these people we're bending over backwords to please?

Finally about the electric car being the future? I dont think so, its dead before its even started im my view.

010010011010 wrote:Sorry but whats the point of F1 if its not different? It used to be used as a playground to develop technologys for the manufactures whilst remaining ultimately a diverse motorsport. Now it seems everyone here wants to stick a reanult clio engine in the back of what are ment to be the best cars on earth. And for what to save a few gallons of oil?
F1 needs technology advancement, but not the SAME engines as our cars. Its never been 100% road relevant, but now it seems it must be? You can develop fuel efficent technologys without using the exact same engines. Do you think every efficent Audi now has a 5 liter V10? It seems to be moving towards a spec series,
and couple that with a L4 engine I might as well go watch formula Renault.

Finally about the electric car being the future? I dont think so, its dead before its even started im my view.

Why should rally cars have hugely different engines than GP cars? I see no reason for that. One of the most successful rally cars of all time, the Lancia Stratos, used the same basic Ferrari 246 Dino engine as the 1958 F1 car. The same engine was used in Ferrari sports cars and in Fiat production coupes. Only the power output was adjusted to the respective purpose to match the life cycle of the product. There are enough options to play with boost, rpm, weight and other factors to make sure the F1 machine has the highest performance.

The Renault Clio argument isn't applicable either, IMO. Over long periods of time GP car manufacturers have used the engines and engine technology in their road cars. The famously powerfull BMW turbo engine had more than ten years in road cars, tin top racing and other applications before it got developed into a WDC engine in a Brabham. The average Clio type of car will never use the same class of engine power as an F1 car unless you stick it in there as a gimmick like the Renault 5 Williams used to do. But the cars will use the same fuel saving technologies such as direct injection that we will have in F1. They will just be using them in smaller two and three cylinder engines with smaller displacement.

Finally about electric cars. It may have escaped your attention that most developed countries have very ambitious targets with regard to electric vehicles. Germany for instance aims to have 10% of it's fleet of cars fully electric in nine years time. Stationary power production is massively more efficient compared to mobile ICEs. It is only a question of time that we have to utilize the efficiency advantage in order to meet our green house gas targets. At the pace that battery technology is developing young people may well see more electric cars on the road than ICE driven in their time.

ringo wrote:After the engines are casted, the I4 can be machined on the same rig as a V8, any angle V8. It's possible only a small change in the same CNC coding is need as well, since it's basically half a v8.
The I4 cam shafts can be machined in the exact same setup as the V8 cam shafts as well.
These are a few examples, it's not a drastic night and day difference with retooling for a V4, but it's still cost cutting and convenience.
Rally engines and F1 engines, even production car engines, V8, I4 can be seamlessly manufactured on the same production line, with only a mouse click required to initiate a change in the machining codes.

Most manufacturers also have decades of I4 research data. I don't think most of them have mastery of the V4 engine. BMW, Honda, Cosworth, Toyota, Renault, all have current car's in their line up with I4 engines and full confidence in technological depth. It would also encourage competition and an F1 to road engine war.

A v4 is also not as relevant or popular to road cars as the I4. Especially the new rally car regulations, which i believe will share the same displacement and layout as the F1 cars. It seems this has begun already.

ringo ...I see from where you are coming but tbh .these factors will not make a differnce to the price of the engine..manufacturers do not choose convenient routes recycling avaialble tooling ..they will gear up for what they think will give the solution they look for.
Look eight engines per car ,thats 16 engines per team..you´d hardly start a production line for that sort of order...

and the relevance to the product ..is the downsizing nothing else.. which car manaufacturer currently in F1 has a high rev concept 2.4l V8 in his portfolio for
sale to the public...

marcush. wrote:Look eight engines per car ,thats 16 engines per team..you´d hardly start a production line for that sort of order....

It will be more like five engines per car and ten per team.

Again I'm insisting in the hypocrisy of the green F! discussion. We already know how much jet fuel is burned each race, lets figure out how much eletrcic energy is dumped watching them.

Being conservative:

One 30" LED TV uses 150W
There are 600,000,000 watching it, let's say an average e 2 persons/TV (which I think optimist), so we have 300,000,000 TV sets running for 1.5h

That will give a net energy consumption of 67.500MWh

One liter of gas provides around 0.00967 MWh.

So we are burning 6,980,351 liters of gas each race on TV electricity only.

WhiteBlue wrote:

marcush. wrote:Look eight engines per car ,thats 16 engines per team..you´d hardly start a production line for that sort of order....

It will be more like five engines per car and ten per team.

even less of a "series" type of engine build ..so you tool ab as you go the expensive bit is developing it to be raceworthy.
I´d not be surprised if the block and cylinderhead castings would be made in investment casting rp style methods -rapid casting ..as windform SP.. in alumium ,steel ,Ti..you name it.

rjsa wrote:Again I'm insisting in the hypocrisy of the green F! discussion. We already know how much jet fuel is burned each race, lets figure out how much eletrcic energy is dumped watching them.

Being conservative:

One 30" LED TV uses 150W
There are 600,000,000 watching it, let's say an average e 2 persons/TV (which I think optimist), so we have 300,000,000 TV sets running for 1.5h

That will give a net energy consumption of 67.500MWh

One liter of gas provides around 0.00967 MWh.

So we are burning 6,980,351 liters of gas each race on TV electricity only.

Your comparison makes no sense whatsoever I am afraid.
The issue is developing more efficient ways to produce and use energy in all human activity, not to excuse one because it is less than another.
F1 has a huge responsibilty to address this demand.
If it does not do things properly it will no longer be seen as the peak of engineering achievment and its future will be limited.

autogyro wrote:

rjsa wrote:Again I'm insisting in the hypocrisy of the green F! discussion. We already know how much jet fuel is burned each race, lets figure out how much eletrcic energy is dumped watching them.

Being conservative:

One 30" LED TV uses 150W
There are 600,000,000 watching it, let's say an average e 2 persons/TV (which I think optimist), so we have 300,000,000 TV sets running for 1.5h

That will give a net energy consumption of 67.500MWh

One liter of gas provides around 0.00967 MWh.

So we are burning 6,980,351 liters of gas each race on TV electricity only.

Your comparison makes no sense whatsoever I am afraid.
The issue is developing more efficient ways to produce and use energy in all human activity, not to excuse one because it is less than another.
F1 has a huge responsibilty to address this demand.
If it does not do things properly it will no longer be seen as the peak of engineering achievment and its future will be limited.

More efficient ways to produce energy do not demand immediate less use of energy during the show.

Trying to be PC by saying 'we are burning less fuel during races' is as hypocrite as it gets.

That's my point.

Hypocrisy has absolutely nothing to do with it
We all know that the energy used by F1 cars in the world scheme is negligable.
I have nothing against high performance ic engines, I have been involved with them for nearly half a century.
The reason for F1 to address the environmental issues and to develop towards electric traction is a very simple one.
Without doing so F1 will not survive.