Ecclestone outlines dramatic F1 engine plans

[NockX64]

Anyone wish they could go back to the 50's and watch F1 evolve to what it is today.

What if you hit the reset button on F1 and throw out nearly the entire rule book except for one new rule. No Fuel. I know the arguments, it would be too slow, too boring, why bother we may run out of oil, but not ethanol and other fuels.

But what if? I think it would be cool. Essentially wouldn't it be a rebirth of F1, start from scratch? I think with today's tech, innovative engineering, we would see it evolve much faster. Maybe it could be a shorter second season (in between the main season) to start and iron out the kinks.

Lets face it a lot of us watch because of the competition in the garage, the engineering (and the on track battles when they happen). I still watch for those rare on-track battles, but you'd see a lot more battles if the series started over.

Bernie and Max are on a crash course with the NASCAR doctrine, which we all know how much we love nascar.{yawn}

don't roast me too bad, it's just an idea that I'm sure some has already posted and talked about.

J

[Shaddock]

Some of the proposals due to be put forward in next weeks meeting between FIA President Max Mosley and the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) in Geneva include: standard engines from 2010, either built by teams themselves or produced by a single supplier, as well as cars with more "common parts", including standard suspension systems, wheels and underbodies. Another proposal is a new engine regime from 2013 with power trains which will incorporate heat and exhaust recovery systems.

A letter Mosley sent to the 10 team principals who will attend the meeting reads: "We are completely open to new ideas. The only preconditions are (i) that the costs of development, maintenance and unit production for the power train must be an order of magnitude lower than is currently the case and (ii) power trains must be available to independent teams at minimal cost.

"The FIA believes that Formula One costs are unsustainable. Even before current global financial problems, teams were spending far more than their incomes, in so far as these consist of sponsorship plus FOM money".

I'm still of the opinion that he is trying to drive out the manufacturers from the sport. Car companies aren’t going to put their name on an engine designed by another company that could go bang at any time.

[pipex]

To me this "cost cutting" measures are something that i cannot understand. For one part the FIA wants F1 to develop great technology advances in the area of energy recovery systems, and we know that developing new technologies cost a great amount of resources, and for other part they want to cap the budgets of the teams to make F1 sustainable. These two things are completely opposite :S. I don't know how developing a completely new system is going to be cheaper that maintaining the regulations... I'm not against KERS (i support the idea) but the actions being done by the FIA are uncorrelated.
The same with the standard ECU, actually developing the new systems and everything i think that it actually increased the costs instead of reducing them. The process can be explained in three "periods". The first, when the costs of introducing the technology are at a maximum, then the second in which the costs are nearly constant (maintenance) and third when costs increase again because the older technology. The current ruling change doesn't allow to get the constant costs. I'm not too well versed in economics but i think that it works something like that...

Best regards

[NockX64]

If the manufacturers are gonna spend obscene amounts a cash, at least be more aggressive in making them innovate with newer tech like KERS, or all electric or hydrogen systems. And there isn't necessarily a direct correlation to $$ spent to innovative results. Lets say you open the rules for hybrid/hydrogen/all-electric drivetrains. Smaller teams like STR may have a gain a serious advantage with an innovative concept for an above-mentioned drivetrain. Lets say you make the rules hybrid, you can run the standard 2.4L w/ KERS and abide by these rules, or you can go full hybrid/hydrogen/all-electric and have an open rule book (with regards to drivetrain, not chassis). I may sound like an idiot but I wish they were more aggressive with allowing alternative drivetrains.

Solutions to curb costs will just follow the nascar doctrine and like others have said will just create a spec racing series.

Ban standard drivetrains and open the rulebook for anything new.

J

[WhiteBlue]

Let us all agree: saving the environment has NOTHING to do with all this Machiavellian activity. If Bernie and/or Max wanted to save energy, there would be no night races, right?
And another point I think we (many of us, anyway) can agree on: true racers (as opposed to marketing shills) will always seek more performance. They will spend every penny they are allowed - and then will try to bend the rules to go a little further.

Sir, in this you are well off the truth. I usually leave it to Ciro to figure out the numbers as I usually look at magnitudes and force multipliers.

Lighting an F1 race will set the ecology and economy back by 3.6 MW times 24 h. The energy is so small you cannot even begin to compare that to the energy consumed by the global fleet of motor cars. we are talking about half a billion cars in the foreseeable future. each of them having an everage use of 50kW applied lets say again 4h in the period of 2 weeks between races.

What FOM and FIA want to achieve is a significant reduction in consumption of the global fleet as a result of the accelerated research the manufacturing teams will be doing. if they manage to contribute an improvement of 1% of everage efficiency in say 2013 I leave it to you to figure what a difference 500.000.000 cars will make. It will be way more than the drop of oil for the night race.

[jddh1]

I say put some sails on those toys and let them race. Americas Cup on land! It is a pretty sweet idea, isn't it?

[NockX64]

I say put some sails on those toys and let them race. Americas Cup on land! It is a pretty sweet idea, isn't it?

put holes in the floorpan for foot pedaling and F1 has a new title Flintstones 1 racing.

[Ciro Pabón]

Is Formula One "green"?

Cars and ICE are directly responsible for global warming.



They cause heavy city contamination, carcinogens, acid rain and smog.



They cause over one million deaths a year and I don't know how many injuries.



They displace farming land for ethanol production and cause higher prices for food.

I googled for ethanol factory picture and I swear this is what I got


They are a major cause of wars for oil, unbalanced trading and general world economic unfairness because of petrodollars.



They are a major influence for ridiculous land planning and exponential growing of cities, plus an infinite amount of time spend on gridlocks.



F1 grid of 20 cars spend around 1 billion dollars a year, more or less the same amount a regular country spend on its entire network of roads for, let's say, 40 million people.




On the other hand, we have heat recovery, braking recovery and green stripes on tyres. Oh, and (finally on thread!) regulated engines, with fuel efficiency of 2 kilometers per liter.

Mmmmm.... wait a minute. Let me bring my calculator and check how green they are.

[Chaparral]

WHiteBlue wrote:

a lot of this moaning is sour grapes. F1 has been pronounced dead by the doomssayers so often you cannot count it. despit all cars driving with uniform tyres and uniform McLaren electronics and with a rev limit we are having a classic season as actual racing is concerned. we have many winners, thrilling races, a fight going to the wire and good entertainment.

Easy to characterize anything you do not agree with as "sour grapes." I'd expect something better than a thoughtless cliche from you or any other poster. You sound like a Bernie/Max apologist.

The portion I quoted IS correct. You are right, SO FAR. The question is "how much more? how much longer?" You are acting as a mouthpiece for the forces that are undermining a sport most of us love. The changes proposed will continue to ensure that F1 is a good marekting tool and a money machine for a few corrupt men. But it will not be the sport many of us love. Just MHO, of course. . . .

Donskar - a word to the wise - Gordon (Whiteblue) works this way - he has very little actual knowledge of motor sport in general (hes a cut and paste google specialist) and loves to antagonise a forum with switchbacks on his original thoughts - just to get a reaction. He did this adnauseum over at Grandprix.com until he was finally booted off the forum after it caused a lot of tension to the point every thread was his opinion and only his opinion it was wall to wall cut and paste rubbish. I actually enjoy the dialogue this forum offers so keep up the good work.

[timbo]

Mmmmm.... wait a minute. Let me bring my calculator and check how green they are.

Well, have you bought anything by advertising?
F1 is a big moving ad banner for quite a while. However I agree in a sence that chasing "greener" technology should not be an excuse for producing slow and over-featured cars.
In case of fuel efficiency - actual termodynamic efficiency of F1 car is much higher than of a standart road car.

[rjsa]

Sir, in this you are well off the truth. I usually leave it to Ciro to figure out the numbers as I usually look at magnitudes and force multipliers.

Lighting an F1 race will set the ecology and economy back by 3.6 MW times 24 h. The energy is so small you cannot even begin to compare that to the energy consumed by the global fleet of motor cars. we are talking about half a billion cars in the foreseeable future. each of them having an everage use of 50kW applied lets say again 4h in the period of 2 weeks between races.

What FOM and FIA want to achieve is a significant reduction in consumption of the global fleet as a result of the accelerated research the manufacturing teams will be doing. if they manage to contribute an improvement of 1% of everage efficiency in say 2013 I leave it to you to figure what a difference 500.000.000 cars will make. It will be way more than the drop of oil for the night race.

And they will achieve this with an engine freeze and standard engines? BS

They have their agenda, that's right, but it's not green under the cover.

[pgj]

Max has been talking about reducing F1 costs for quite a while now. My argument has always been that most of what Max has achieved during his tenure as FIA has made F1 more expensive. About two years ago he even told Williams that its business model was obsolete, that manufacturer owned teams were the way forward. As this was around the time that the teeth were pulled on the GPMA, I have always wondered whether he meant what he was saying or whether he would just wait for an opportunity to get even.

Anyway, Max now seems to be hell bent on pushing as many manufacturers out of team ownership as possible. My take on things is that these engines are designed to carry as many teams as possible back into F1 as independently owned teams. If there was not a focus on independent teams, the FIA would not be talking about tendering for a 'stock' F1 engine for independents. That fact alone says a great deal about his thought processes. I would not be surprised to see Renault get the contract with Flav taking his team onwards in F1 as an independent.

I also believe that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Max and Bernie will not allow another team to go to the wall. If Williams went bust, FIF1 and even Renault might not be far behind. F1 is running in its minimal configuration with ten teams. Going down below that figure would put F1 on a slippery slope, it would not be sustainable. Williams has been given the F2 contract and it is being reported that Williams/Philips will get the contract to supply a 'stock' KERS system to go with the 'stock' engine.

I am not saying this because I am a Williams supporter. I was an F1 fan long before Frank Williams entered F1 and I would remain an F1 fan if Williams disappeared from the grid. At first I was totally against the engine proposal. After further consideration I came to the conclusion that although not ideal, I would rather have F1 without this type of restriction, it is probably the best of a bad lot. The present F1 model has taken F1 very close to extinction. If a standard spec engine can get us back to the stage where we have pre-qualifying, it will have been worthwhile. Also, a standard spec engine will still reward engineering excellence with on-track performance benefits. There is no guarantee that all engines will have the same power output so far as I am aware, there will still be, small, performance differences between different engines. It is just the ridiculous engine costs that will be taken out of the equation. A standard spec engine is not that far from where we are now, the guts of the unit will just be less refined.

[donskar]

Thank you, Chaparral:

Donskar - a word to the wise - Gordon (Whiteblue) works this way - he has very little actual knowledge of motor sport in general (hes a cut and paste google specialist) and loves to antagonise a forum with switchbacks on his original thoughts - just to get a reaction. He did this adnauseum over at Grandprix.com until he was finally booted off the forum after it caused a lot of tension to the point every thread was his opinion and only his opinion it was wall to wall cut and paste rubbish. I actually enjoy the dialogue this forum offers so keep up the good work.

I agree completely with your views on said poster -- lots of smoke, but little fire and even less light.

[Chaparral]

You have to love BCE' style - he lies better than his 'mate' Mosely - this is a game thats being played at present - and its a terminal game. Whoever wins this the other will be out of the game for good - my hunch is that Mosely will be out of a gig. This rubbish about supporting a standard power plant by BCE which anyone in their right mind knows will be the death knell of F1 mirrors what Mosely is trying to do with F2 v GP2 etc etc - no one buys it. Mosely continually flip flops on his statements and you can bet your life on him running again in 2010 - its exactly the opposite of what he campaigned with against Ballestre way back when he shafted the French guy - this has nothing to do with 'dramatic F1 engine plans' strategy or the greater good of F1 or everyday road users or green issues whatever - Mosely is a meglomaniac through and through - BCE is just a better salesman and he should win this battle. I would think we are now in the early stages of a divorce between FOTA/manufacturers and the FIA - thats putting it simply - watch this space as they say.

[donskar]

The FIA has released a statement "clarifying" the standard F1 engine (copied from Autosport.com):

"The FIA intends to amend the regulations to require all F1 competitors to use a standardised engine.

"The provider will set out a detailed design and will either provide engines in full working order or the detailed designs to allow competitors to build their own standardised engine.

"Where competitors choose to build all or part of their standardized engine, the appointed provider will assist the FIA in ensuring all engines and parts have been built in accordance with the appropriate design and conforms to a performance output in a prescribed range."

What transparent double-talk. As I read it (other interpretations welcomed) once the "winnning" engine design is selected, then other manufacturers can "build" the identical engine. I think "assemble" might well be more accurate.

If, for example, Mercedes is selected as the "standard" engine, how would BMW react? Mercedes could rightfully claim to be "The Power in F1." One can imagine some powerful promotional campaigns. If one of the Japanese or German companies is chosen, the other would have to reconsider their participation. As I have mentioned in other threads, I played a minor role in Compaq's decision to sponsor Williams, so I know that sponsors go through all sorts of "what-if's."

Imagine BMW boardroom discussion: "We won the German GP, but Mercedes is running an ad campaign saying "Mercedes Power Dominates Nurburgring!"

Jumping to a conclusion: the future HP war will be fought by the oil companies, trying to improve their lube and fuel.