Motorsport Off Topic Thread

timmeh said:
It is quite scary that the manufacturers can openly admit that the reason they don't want to supply them is because they're worried they'll beat them and it's seen as an acceptable reason to force a team out.
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If people don't see this as a massive issue, regardless of what their opinion of RBR is, then they should re-evaluate they follow F1.
 
timmeh said:
It's funny that he's saying the Renault unit is hopeless and is then trying to sort a deal with Honda.

It is quite scary that the manufacturers can openly admit that the reason they don't want to supply them is because they're worried they'll beat them and it's seen as an acceptable reason to force a team out.
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As Horner said a few months that Renault wanted and pushed for these power units. Renault are not up to the job. Tough.

should have stayed with the V8s or gone with a high revving V6 twin turbo. F1 and RB have no one to blame but themselves.
 
deuse said:
As Horner said a few months that Renault wanted and pushed for these power units. Renault are not up to the job. Tough.

should have stayed with the V8s or gone with a high revving V6 twin turbo. F1 and RB have no one to blame but themselves.
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The only interest I have in those V8s is the sound. 'Hybrid' power is the way everything is going, just look at the latest crop of hypercars. How many of those are running NA V8s? They're hardly the pinnacle of motorsport.

The problem isn't with the engine, it's the rules. How they thought that teams could get new, massively complex systems running in only winter testing is just nuts.

Why can't the teams stay behind for a day or 2 after every race with a 2+ week break and run testing on Mondays/Tuesdays? Is that going to add so much cost?
 
timmeh said:
The only interest I have in those V8s is the sound. 'Hybrid' power is the way everything is going, just look at the latest crop of hypercars. How many of those are running NA V8s? They're hardly the pinnacle of motorsport.
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Very true but a V8 engine is sold every 45 seconds somewhere in the world. So it must be good.
And the battery tech they use in the road hybrid cars are out of date and costly to replace.

The problem isn't with the engine, it's the rules. How they thought that teams could get new, massively complex systems running in only winter testing is just nuts.
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The teams agreed the rules for these power units so no argument there. And Merc got it right and the rest well..

Why can't the teams stay behind for a day or 2 after every race with a 2+ week break and run testing on Mondays/Tuesdays? Is that going to add so much cost?
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Not every team has the money to do this. And that was the main reason for stopping testing.

Lets see what happens in 2017 or 2020.
 
deuse said:
Very true but a V8 engine is sold every 45 seconds somewhere in the world. So it must be good.
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700,000 V8s a year from a total global car sales figure of 72 million, so less than 1%.

4 million electric and hybrid cars were sold over the last year, that's 1 every 12 seconds.

Forecasts are for 49 million cars (43% of all new sales) in 2019 to be turbocharged.
 
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deuse said:
Very true but a V8 engine is sold every 45 seconds somewhere in the world. So it must be good.
And the battery tech they use in the road hybrid cars are out of date and costly to replace.
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I'm sure they're very good but they're not the best / 'pinnacle' that F1 should be striving for. It'd be pretty poor if road cars like Ferrari's LaFerrari, McLaren's P1, Porsche's 918, etc were all running more advanced, more efficient power units than an F1 car.


deuse said:
The teams agreed the rules for these power units so no argument there. And Merc got it right and the rest well..
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That's true. I think they were between a rock and hard place when they agreed with that.

deuse said:
Not every team has the money to do this. And that was the main reason for stopping testing.
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The testing I'm talking about is what they have done a couple of times in the past couple of years - staying behind at Barcelona and running a couple of test sessions, not the kind of testing they were doing back pre-2007 where they'd have drivers lapping all day at their own test tracks. If all of the equipment is already at the track then the extra costs will be marginal (I guess, I'm no expert).
 
timmeh said:
I'm sure they're very good but they're not the best / 'pinnacle' that F1 should be striving for. It'd be pretty poor if road cars like Ferrari's LaFerrari, McLaren's P1, Porsche's 918, etc were all running more advanced, more efficient power units than an F1 car.
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The La Ferrari uses the batteries for boost only. But at £800,000+ each we won't see many :D
Why F1 didn't follow Tesla tech I'll never know.



The testing I'm talking about is what they have done a couple of times in the past couple of years - staying behind at Barcelona and running a couple of test sessions, not the kind of testing they were doing back pre-2007 where they'd have drivers lapping all day at their own test tracks. If all of the equipment is already at the track then the extra costs will be marginal (I guess, I'm no expert).
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Your right it would be a good idea. I think the teams would have to buy another engine for testing.
With only 4 units a year will anyone risk it?
 
Units used in tests are separate to the allocation of 4 for race weekends. The FIA would need to ensure an allocation of testing engines is included in an engine contract.

I'm assuming an engine contract isn't specifically defined as just 4 per car? Rather its for "1 years supply" which will include additional required units? I.e. we don't hear about people having to fork out millions every time they take a 5th engine, so it must be included?

It would solve the 100 grid place issue as the swapping in and out of development engines would be done during tests, rather than messing with race weekends.

And with regards to the cost of testing, it needs to be weighed up against the "cost" of restricted development, financial and non financial. For example, I expect the amount McLaren would have to spend to to a bunch of post race tests in season is far less than the money they have lost through languishing at the back, still not having a title sponsor, constantly breaking down, and the damage this is all having on their (and Honda's) brand. Theres a value to testing that is not just financial.
 
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Skeeter said:
It's a shame that the veil of being successfull has hidden what is actually a really likeable, funny guy.
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Never hidden to me. Always liked Seb really...the only thing that slightly disappointed me with him was the the Webber incident where he refused team orders. But even then I admired his succeed at all costs attitude.
 
I wouldn't read anything into that. It's a weird mix of vague in most areas and 'informed' in areas where it would be hard to disprove and no one from either side is going to come out and say "yes" to. Lots of "near future" sort of phrases and what appears to be a few contradictions without actually nailing anything to the mast.

There's been no word on Red Bull producing any of their own PU, with or without Renault's IP, and there's not a cat in hells chance they'll get their own variation of the Renault PU race-ready before 2016.

And frankly, while others are saying that the ICE and turbo are the main issues for Renault, and while that might be true regarding reliability issues, the ERS is clearly an issue judging by how soon it runs out of energy - it doesn't seem much better than Honda in that regard.
 
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