Phil wrote: ↑06 Mar 2018, 19:43
That's what I was thinking too, but why would Abiteboul say that then?
"Es gibt laut Abiteboul noch ein zweites Problem: „Du musst mit zwei Motoren pro Auto nach Melbourne kommen, um den Notfall abzusichern. Damit bleibt die nur noch eine Ausbaustufe. Das heißt, dass wir zwei Drittel unserer Motoren schon für das erste Rennen bauen müssen."
Roughly translated to "You have to take two engines per car to Melbourne to account for all eventuality. This only leaves one upgrade-spec. That means you already built two engines under spec 1 for the first race".
Now that I think about it - IMO - every spec needs to be homologated. Once it is used in any shape or form on a weekend, it's within the engine pool. The whole point in using 3 engine rule is to reduce costs for customer teams who only have to buy 3 engines (instead of 4). Effectively, they save the cost of an engine. But for a team like i.e. Sauber, they buy 3 engines per car, but they already "bought" 2 per car for Melbourne alone to cover all eventualities. That means they can only use one more spec upgrade, if they want to stay within the 3 engine limit.
Perhaps it's easier for the big teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault (and RB doesn't care). They bring 2 of each engines to the every race, but never use the 2nd one unless they must. For them, it's not a question of costs, since they are the manufacturers anyway. For a team like Williams or Sauber, maybe Haas too, that one engine saving is worth a lot to them, so they might only use only two specs per year under the 3 engine limit rule.
Well, the teams don't buy the PU's, they lease them, or more the use.
Because PU's must be the same for all teams supplied, I imagine the manufactures have a pool of spare PU's and parts, not directly at coupled to the teams.
For the first race, spec 1 you need a bit extra indeed. But that has nothing to do with the number of PU's over the season.
Over the season the spare PU's can be upgraded to a later specs, the PU's only get sealed once they are used. When you're left with a few spec's you can't use because of upgrading, there is enough use for them for show runs, rookie tests, tire testing, etc etc.
With 3 PU's, basically you only have 3 specs during the year, so the reserve pool only has to be 3 specs over the year. That is very efficient. If you had a new PU per race, there would be more specs and therefore more spares, more failures (PU's running end of life more often, now they only run near end of life 3 times a season), etc etc.
small teams could even save a bit of money to "claim" a earlier spec of spare.
Sounds like Renault is just making waves where there are none.
