They clearly haven't or they wouldn't be in this pickle, but ok.
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They clearly haven't or they wouldn't be in this pickle, but ok.
Nonsense, F1 needs the shock to the system to actually change. If RB manage to find a way out and stay (which they inevitably will) then it'll just be business as usual for the next however many years. If RB & TR both went, it'd give F1 the serious kick in the shins it needs to actually sort itself out.
Seriously?! None of this debacle is Mercedes fault, nor can they be blamed for refusing to supply their engines to RB. This farce is entirely of RB's making, with their constantly petulant attitude when things are going their way.
It's the only thing that will fix it.
Caporegime
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They very clearly have, Mercedes officially turned them down 3+ months ago, Ferrari turned them down a couple of months ago. They've been talking about finding another engine for a LOT longer than before Mercedes officially turned them down(and only semi officially it can always change).
Silverstone is where Merc said they had made a decision not to supply them, talk about them needing new engines was going on 2-3 months before that at least and that is publicly.
The stage at which RBR will say publicly they are leaving Renault is going to be months if not over a year after they are talking about it in private and Renault will be involved in those discussions at some stage before it goes public.
AS for being in this pickle being proof, nonsense, they had a contract which needed to be broken, multi million contracts take time to dissolve and new contracts for engines couldn't be signed or taken to that next stage till that was sorted out. If Renault were going to sue RBR for 10's of millions if they left, they wouldn't leave most likely. Renault knowing if they could buy Lotus and if it would go through had a lot to do with how willing they'd be to rip up the contract with RBR/TR.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118102
For the record this is an article about their threat to quit as far back as March, otherwise known as 7 months ago, but sure, they only started talking about leaving in the past month and thus Renault considering buying a team can't possibly be related.
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No, I'm suggesting engine manufacturers should not be able to be team owners too. It's a conflict of interest that is becoming detrimental to the sport.
Unless Honda or Renault make massive leaps, its going to be Mercedes vs Ferrari up front for...well...how long do the V6 engines stay for? Till 2019? And if you look like you might start beating them, you lose your engine contract and are forced out of F1...
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Soldato
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Don't you believe it. Losing Red Bull and Toro Rosso would leave F1 in its death throws, with the only question being how many years it would see.
None of it is F1's fault in itself. The market is rather unique (read delicate) at the moment in that it requires a staggering amount of investment to have even a small chance of succeeding, yet a customer throwing money at the situation will likely only have a microscopic chance of paying back to any degree. It's easy to say that four years ago Renault and Ferrari ought to have started throwing their resources at 2014-16, and Honda too, but it clearly wasn't that simple - Ferrari might have clawed their way back to a certain degree, but they are still nearly 200 points behind Mercedes - ab absolute chasm.
We might hope that F1 would be on an equal footing if everyone had the same engine, but the level of integration of the power unit now means that it would be impossible to succeed if you're a customer. Don't think McLaren moved to Honda based on what would happen but on what might happen, as without them it certainly wouldn't. Despite all of our wagging fingers we don't know better than a multi million/billion dollar team - don't be in any doubt that we'd still be wagging our fingers if they'd stayed with Mercedes too.
It's a manufacturers sport and F1 has never relied on manufacturers as much as it does now. Sure we've had eras of manufacturer dominance, but in the 50s the dominant manufacturer changed each year, in the 60s the key players were mere customers, the late 70s eventually laid the seeds of engine dominance, the 80s were about shifting those powers around, the 90s was back and forth and heralded the re-emergence of the customer plug 'n' play engine and in the 00s we threw that away until the engines were even equalised, BTCC-style. Now we're reliant on huge investment in both the car and engine and the integration of the two and the chance of even a remotely competitive field is microscopic. This is worse than the Ferrari domination of 2002 and 2004 as there's no light at the end of the tunnel yonder.
F1 finds itself in a sorry state, where people don't really care about the mediocre tracks (and that's saying something) where even the divine hope that is the weather isn't garnering any hope. We're now reliant on business and business alone, and if that's not enough to scare you then I don't know what is.
Mercedes supply FI, Lotus, Williams and themselves. Four teams. Ferrari supply Manor, Sauber and themselves. Three teams. Honda only supply McLaren. Renault supply RB and TR. Two teams.
Next season Mercedes will still supply four teams, Renault potentially a single team, Ferrari with three teams again. Such a rule would force Ferrari to supply RB.
Should there be a rule that forces a team to supply four teams should a team formally request it before a certain date? I heard a rumour, pretty weak, that TR have discussed taking Honda engines as well.
Next season Mercedes will still supply four teams, Renault potentially a single team, Ferrari with three teams again. Such a rule would force Ferrari to supply RB.
Should there be a rule that forces a team to supply four teams should a team formally request it before a certain date? I heard a rumour, pretty weak, that TR have discussed taking Honda engines as well.
Dropping to 8 or 9 teams, only 2 of which are going to be in with a chance of winning, won't be a "kick in the shins" to wake F1 up, it will be the punch in the stomach that kills it.
Theres nobody queueing up to join the grid, and half the teams in it already are hanging on by a thread.
I agree change is needed, but they need to make sure there's actually some teams left in it to take part in it after its changed!
Theres nobody queueing up to join the grid, and half the teams in it already are hanging on by a thread.
I agree change is needed, but they need to make sure there's actually some teams left in it to take part in it after its changed!
Soldato
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But there is no rule.
Part of the problem is that there's nothing stopping a team developing their own engine... ignoring that is takes at least 3 years to do so and by that time the regulations you're designing for may not exist, it's impossible to impose that on a team, but as a manufacturer it's a stance you can understand.
I would not want to be at any negotiating table on this matter, as as much as the immediate future of F1 depends on it, the permutations could be equally dangerously far reaching.
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I recently proposed some sort of indirect engine customer agreement model. If you chose to sell your engines to customers, you provide a number of contracts (say up to 3) to FOM and customers buy them from FOM. As a manufacturer you cannot veto a team getting your engine. If you don't want competitors to have your engines you can't sell any, and can only supply yourself like Honda do.
Eeesh.
Bye Ferrari. And Mercedes. And Renault, if they go ahead and buy LOLtus back.
Oh, and works deals like McLaren have? Nooooooope. Bye.
And then we're into spec engines, and everyone on a level playing field, yadda yadda yadda, works for a year or three and everyone gets bored.
But is that the fault of the engine manufacturers?
I'm still not seeing how this is the fault of the manufacturers. This sounds more like a situation where the governing body of world motorsport could maybe, possibly, perhaps look at the mess that they have wrought and fix the ******* thing.
*cough*
Sorry, briefly cared about the state of this crapola and got carried away
When did I say its the manufacturers fault?
Blame for the current situation lies with the FIA, through many different points of complete stupidity and incompitence. They have lost control of their own sport and the result is that the power now lies with Mercedes and Ferrari to basically define the direction of F1. Hell, it was Mercedes and Ferrari that meant we got this odd ball engine format in the first place.
They have lost control, and show no signs (or desire) to get it back.
Its not hard. You don't have to look far to see other series evolving with the times. But F1 is just stuck, because its regulated by comittee, and nobody every agrees. They are stuck in a mindset a decade old. It was (sort of) fine when there were 6 or 7 engine manufactuers who also owned teams on the grid, letting the manufacturers have the power didn't matter so much as there were so many of them, and we know they would never work together on anything. Now were at a point where most of the grid are independant teams, racing teams, not engine builders. Yet the power still lies with the manufacters.
Look at the BTCC. The manufacturers all left, so the series reinvented itself. It took a strong grasp on cuttiong costs, and has kept a grip on engine development while not mandating a single engine. People claim its a shadow of its former self, but I think they are missing the point. BTCC has seen the largest ever grids and the most ever manufacturers in its history within the last couple of years, in a series with basically just 1 'factory' team.
Then look at WEC. It knows that manufacturers and customers will struggle to compete on an even playing field, so they don't try. If your a manufacturer who wants their own team, your forced into LMP1-H. If your a customer, your in LMP1-L or LMP2. I agree with some that the 2017 LMP2 rules are a bit much, but the ethos is sound. The big boys with the big budgets and the big technology all play in their own area, while those who cant hope to compete with them, don't, they compete with each other. But then you have to realise that LMP1-H has basically been 2 manufacturers for most of its existence.
F1 just hasn't evolved, and never will by the look of it. A team with 8 Championships in the last 6 years and a trophy cabinet 3 stories tall being on the edge of getting forced out of F1 because a couple of rivals have decided "nah, they might beat us" just strikes me as being utterly pathetic. And as for "oh no Ferrari might leave", wut? You think F1 losing 2 teams and allowing Mercedes to basically award themselves the WCC for the next few years by default is fine, but changing the rules to try and help the sport survive but in a format that might lose Ferrari is somehow awful? I'd take a grid of 10 independent, closely matched teams running customer engines and chassis over a grid of 8 teams where only Mercedes or Ferrari are 'allowed' to win any day!
Isn't it you who's always banging on about how good F1 was back in the day when anyone who could raise the funds could buy an engine, buy a chassis, hire a driver and go and win championships?
Blame for the current situation lies with the FIA, through many different points of complete stupidity and incompitence. They have lost control of their own sport and the result is that the power now lies with Mercedes and Ferrari to basically define the direction of F1. Hell, it was Mercedes and Ferrari that meant we got this odd ball engine format in the first place.
They have lost control, and show no signs (or desire) to get it back.
Its not hard. You don't have to look far to see other series evolving with the times. But F1 is just stuck, because its regulated by comittee, and nobody every agrees. They are stuck in a mindset a decade old. It was (sort of) fine when there were 6 or 7 engine manufactuers who also owned teams on the grid, letting the manufacturers have the power didn't matter so much as there were so many of them, and we know they would never work together on anything. Now were at a point where most of the grid are independant teams, racing teams, not engine builders. Yet the power still lies with the manufacters.
Look at the BTCC. The manufacturers all left, so the series reinvented itself. It took a strong grasp on cuttiong costs, and has kept a grip on engine development while not mandating a single engine. People claim its a shadow of its former self, but I think they are missing the point. BTCC has seen the largest ever grids and the most ever manufacturers in its history within the last couple of years, in a series with basically just 1 'factory' team.
Then look at WEC. It knows that manufacturers and customers will struggle to compete on an even playing field, so they don't try. If your a manufacturer who wants their own team, your forced into LMP1-H. If your a customer, your in LMP1-L or LMP2. I agree with some that the 2017 LMP2 rules are a bit much, but the ethos is sound. The big boys with the big budgets and the big technology all play in their own area, while those who cant hope to compete with them, don't, they compete with each other. But then you have to realise that LMP1-H has basically been 2 manufacturers for most of its existence.
F1 just hasn't evolved, and never will by the look of it. A team with 8 Championships in the last 6 years and a trophy cabinet 3 stories tall being on the edge of getting forced out of F1 because a couple of rivals have decided "nah, they might beat us" just strikes me as being utterly pathetic. And as for "oh no Ferrari might leave", wut? You think F1 losing 2 teams and allowing Mercedes to basically award themselves the WCC for the next few years by default is fine, but changing the rules to try and help the sport survive but in a format that might lose Ferrari is somehow awful? I'd take a grid of 10 independent, closely matched teams running customer engines and chassis over a grid of 8 teams where only Mercedes or Ferrari are 'allowed' to win any day!
Isn't it you who's always banging on about how good F1 was back in the day when anyone who could raise the funds could buy an engine, buy a chassis, hire a driver and go and win championships?
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Yep. And at no stage did that scenario require a manufacturer to sell someone an engine when they didn't want to
Oh, it's evolved. It's just done so in a bizarre direction that has led us to this current state of play.
So are you in favour of Ferrari and Mercedes taking the stance of not selling their engine to anyone they feel may be a threat to them?
How often were the engines required to be competitive only available from manufacturers that owned their own teams? Its not about weather someone wants to sell you an engine, its about whether someone wants to sell you an engine because they also own their own team.
The DFV was a success because Cosworths priority was to sell the engine to customers, not to run their own team and sell the engine only to people they didn't see as a competitive threat.
You need either large number of manufacturer owned teams to mean there is a large competitive proportion of the field, or you need a few manufactures supplying a number of independent teams. Having a small number of manufacturer owned teams who also get to pick and choose who they sell too creates a de facto 2 tier formula, which is not a good thing.
I don't know what the solution is, but hoping RBR and STR leave because its cool to hate them, and thinking that allowing Mercedes and Ferrari to decide F1s pecking order is OK because "hey, its not their fault" is a very narrow sighted stance to take. F1 will not survive if it continues on the path its on. Does anyone really want to watch Mercedes win almost every race for the next 5 years because anyone other than Ferrari who might look like being able to beat them gets refused a competitive engine deal?
Yep. And at no stage did that scenario require a manufacturer to sell someone an engine when they didn't want to
How often were the engines required to be competitive only available from manufacturers that owned their own teams? Its not about weather someone wants to sell you an engine, its about whether someone wants to sell you an engine because they also own their own team.
The DFV was a success because Cosworths priority was to sell the engine to customers, not to run their own team and sell the engine only to people they didn't see as a competitive threat.
You need either large number of manufacturer owned teams to mean there is a large competitive proportion of the field, or you need a few manufactures supplying a number of independent teams. Having a small number of manufacturer owned teams who also get to pick and choose who they sell too creates a de facto 2 tier formula, which is not a good thing.
I don't know what the solution is, but hoping RBR and STR leave because its cool to hate them, and thinking that allowing Mercedes and Ferrari to decide F1s pecking order is OK because "hey, its not their fault" is a very narrow sighted stance to take. F1 will not survive if it continues on the path its on. Does anyone really want to watch Mercedes win almost every race for the next 5 years because anyone other than Ferrari who might look like being able to beat them gets refused a competitive engine deal?
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But then you get like Red Bull were in 2011, 2012 and 2013 (although I can't remember what year it became "official") - Not officially a works team, but they might as well have been.
What's stopping someone like Renault supplying Red Bull, not noting it down on paper that they are a works team, but then they treat Red Bull as if they one?
Even if they monitored how much time X engine manufacturer spends with each team, making sure it's all equal - What happens if someone supplies only one team? How do you govern that?
Horner said on the BBC a few races back that is was Renault and Merc that pushed for these power units.
That's why Horner said he can't understand why Renault are so far behind.
We know by interviews that Ferrari didn't want these power plants. But it is funny you NOW call them ODD!
should have stayed with the V8s.
If the alternative is them being forced to sell engines to teams then....yeah.
Almost never. But that's what happens when you create a formula that precious few outfits want to build engines for.
Well, if the solution to that is saying that no-one who manufactures engines can be a constructor then you can almost certainly say goodbye to all the manufacturers. And then where will the sport be?
I see your grasp of my point is yet again rather loose for the purpose of causing an argument.
Ive always said it was an odd engine. Not because I'm a dense headed caveman who thinks they should all have stuck with a 15 year old design in the pinacle of Motorsport, but instead because a 90 degree small capacity V6 with a single turbo is an engine format used almost nowhere in anything. The original I4 design made far more 'sense' from a global car maker perspective, and that's what Renault (and the queue of other makers that backed it) pushed for. But because Ferrari and Mercedes wanted V12s and V8s respectively, we ended up in this no man's land compromise in the middle.
Not a single team, manufacturer or person anywhere pushed for the V6s. What Renault wanted was a shift from large capacity NA engines to small capacity turbo engines. Renault don't (I think) have a V6 turbo in any of their road cars, while almost every (if not actually every) petrol car they now make is a 4 cylinder turbo. Is it any wonder they are struggling to see the point in staying from a corporate level. It's like a butcher trying to get more business by entering a baking competition.
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Well, if the solution to that is saying that no-one who manufactures engines can be a constructor then you can almost certainly say goodbye to all the manufacturers. And then where will the sport be?
Would you? Currently only 2 out of the 4 manufacturers own teams. Cosworth never owned a team. I don't think that, if its done right, shifting the sport to a model where its geared up to benefit manufacturers selling engines to teams would mean it fails. Again look at the WEC structure. There were manufacturers queing out the door to be on the approved manufacturers list for LMP2 engines and chassis. And look at GT racing across the multiple series globally, almost all teams are independent, buying cars from manufacturers.
You seem to have this mindset that "if manufacturers can't own teams then F1 would die", but if you look around F1 is almost alone in having a major manufacturer owned team presence in its field, and its struggling. It's hardly a huge leap to suggest that might be linked.
Caporegime
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People get caught up in F1 and eras but forget that development is important, it's a fundamental part of the sport. New engines are made to keep development going. If everyone used the same engines for 25 years it would both be disgustingly aero dominated and technologically boring.
The actual engine format doesn't remotely matter. There is nothing wrong with v6's, the big cost is in R&D for ers parts and testing lots of combustion chambers, pistons and various designs. This is all general knowledge, it's not like a v4 is so entirely different from a v6 that data isn't transferable. Actually making an engine that is different from anything any of the companies commercially produce is a fairly sensible choice to give everyone a level playing field.
If Renault were making I4 turbos for the past decade and want everyone to use them while the other manufactures didn't have 10 years direct experience with that exact engine is that sensible, or just Renault looking for an advantage? Either way who cares, they use different fuels, specific designs, different ERS designs, different materials. It all adds to extra knowledge and they find tricks they can transfer to other engines or R&D directions they know are dead ends.
As for getting manufacturers out. If Ferrari/Merc weren't allowed to have teams, the commercial side of developing engines loses 90% of it's appeal, which would quite easily make both leave for a different series. Lose Ferrari and Merc, lose a huge number of fans, viewers, sponsorship and a huge amount of money in F1.
I mean the premier league could ban Chelsea, Utd and City for having too much money, too big an advantage... it wouldn't improve the league, those three would form some superleague and people would watch that instead. Removing any and all financial incentive for teams to be in F1 will cause them to leave F1. It is 100% the wrong move forward for F1.
The actual engine format doesn't remotely matter. There is nothing wrong with v6's, the big cost is in R&D for ers parts and testing lots of combustion chambers, pistons and various designs. This is all general knowledge, it's not like a v4 is so entirely different from a v6 that data isn't transferable. Actually making an engine that is different from anything any of the companies commercially produce is a fairly sensible choice to give everyone a level playing field.
If Renault were making I4 turbos for the past decade and want everyone to use them while the other manufactures didn't have 10 years direct experience with that exact engine is that sensible, or just Renault looking for an advantage? Either way who cares, they use different fuels, specific designs, different ERS designs, different materials. It all adds to extra knowledge and they find tricks they can transfer to other engines or R&D directions they know are dead ends.
As for getting manufacturers out. If Ferrari/Merc weren't allowed to have teams, the commercial side of developing engines loses 90% of it's appeal, which would quite easily make both leave for a different series. Lose Ferrari and Merc, lose a huge number of fans, viewers, sponsorship and a huge amount of money in F1.
I mean the premier league could ban Chelsea, Utd and City for having too much money, too big an advantage... it wouldn't improve the league, those three would form some superleague and people would watch that instead. Removing any and all financial incentive for teams to be in F1 will cause them to leave F1. It is 100% the wrong move forward for F1.