Motorsport Off Topic Thread

I believe they said they would supply 2015 engines but did not have the resources to supply 2016 units.

http://adamcooperf1.com/2015/09/28/...saga-critical-as-ferrari-offers-2015-engines/

Mercy certainly said they didn't have the resources this late on to up manufacturing to supply 2016 engines.

I agree with others RBR tried to force the issue, by quitting Renault without having a firm offer with someone else. So Bernie and others would jumps in and apply others.

With all RBR bad mouthing it's no wonder no one wants to supply them.
 
I have no love of Red Bull but I can understand not wanting to race another season with an utterly uncompetitive engine.

The biggest fault here lies in the rules. If engine deveopment had been a lot looser for the first few seasons of the new rules, the engines would be a much more even playing field. Sure Merc would probably still have the best but the law of diminishing returns would suggest the gap woud be smaller. By locking in Merc's advantage they locked Red Bull into a losing position. No competitor wants that.

Under the previous rules Mercedes had the most powerful unit but the gap was small enough that RB with the least powerful unit could make up the difference in the car design.

The whole saga stinks and has made F1 overall the poorer.
 
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Going back a page again, engine in-season development is taking place in 2016

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/121347

Formula 1's engine manufacturers and the FIA have agreed to allow in-season development for 2016, Autosport has learned.

Under the present regulations the amount of tokens available for development was due to decrease from the 32 available this year to 25 for next season.

The systems were set for homologation by the end of February
 
Thank god for that. It's something at least.

But boo, teams can now run 2015 spec engines and Toro Rosso looks set to run 2015 Ferrari engine.

And oh god. F1 leaders need brain transplants
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone was rumoured to be considering options to the current 1.6-litre V6 turbo-charged hybrid systems, such as a 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 or a pre-2014 V8.

But despite it being recognised sustainability is key to the future of the smaller teams, and a standardised customer engine could be a way forward, that idea has been comprehensively rejected
Hybrids are the now and the near future. Na/turbo engines are the past and should stay there for everyone's collective good.
 
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Great, so now Mercedes will upgrade their engine and not sell it to their customer, and half the grid will be using old engines too.

May as well present them the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 WDC and WCC titles now and save ourselves the "omg F1 is so boring, the same guys keep winning" threads.

But on a side note, Manor must be laughing themselves to sleep at the moment! They have secured a current spec Mercedes deal while theres every chance the guys in front of them will be using year old engines!

Not even a hint of a mention of RBR though...
 
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Great, so now Mercedes will upgrade their engine and not sell it to their customer, and half the grid will be using old engines too.

May as well present them the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 WDC and WCC titles now and save ourselves the "omg F1 is so boring, the same guys keep winning" threads.

But on a side note, Manor must be laughing themselves to sleep at the moment! They have secured a current spec Mercedes deal while theres every chance the guys in front of them will be using year old engines!

Not even a hint of a mention of RBR though...

And having the engines homologated in February and blocking any upgrades would be a better option? I think it's the lesser of two evils. 2016 will definitely be more interesting now than it would have been, just look at how close Ferrari have got now.

The old engine thing is a bit **** as we'll probably end up with F1 and F1.5 now.
 
But also look at how close the customer Mercedes teams havent got.

Its created 3 tiers. Mercedes and Ferrari factory teams with upgraded engines, everyone with customer engines, and then everyone with year old engines.

In recent races they have been 1 or 2 seconds faster than last year. Do we really want a formula where within a single manufacturer there is 2 seconds of field spread in engine alone? At least with the original rules in place everyone using a manufacturers engine had the same spec.
 
I have not kept up with recent engine specs, could someone explain the difference between a works and customer engine, is the power output capped, upgrdes withheld, or something else?

Jay
 
I have not kept up with recent engine specs, could someone explain the difference between a works and customer engine, is the power output capped, upgrdes withheld, or something else?

The main difference is in integration in the design of the car, hence why McLaren knew they needed to move away from Mercedes in order to have a chance of winning in the future (though they're certainly no closer to that!).

The second difference is when we have in-season upgrades, where teams won't get those upgrades - Mercedes have already said that their customers won't get the upgrades they introduced at Monza.
 
The main difference is in integration in the design of the car, hence why McLaren knew they needed to move away from Mercedes in order to have a chance of winning in the future (though they're certainly no closer to that!).

The second difference is when we have in-season upgrades, where teams won't get those upgrades - Mercedes have already said that their customers won't get the upgrades they introduced at Monza.
I see, thanks for the info :)

Jay
 
Seems like it's time to stop following F1. What is to stop Mercedes or Ferrari to produce under powered "new spec" engines that they will sell to other teams to upgrade them after first or 2nd race to give themselves 2 or 3 seconds advantage for rest of the season.
 
Seems like it's time to stop following F1. What is to stop Mercedes or Ferrari to produce under powered "new spec" engines that they will sell to other teams to upgrade them after first or 2nd race to give themselves 2 or 3 seconds advantage for rest of the season.

Nothing. It seems perfectly logical that they will deliberately hold back the big power/performance gaining upgrades until after the 28th Feb.

In theory, as all the Tokens they can spend (32) are available for them to use from now until the end of next year, theres nothing to stop them homoligating a 2015 spec engine with zero upgrades as their 2016 spec on the 28th, and then on the 1st of March rolling out a full, 32 token upgraded new engine that only they will get.

Not to mention that the Current -1 engines they are now allowed to deliver too will probably 2015 launch spec, so way off as well.

This is a bad idea for everyone other than the manufacturer teams who have a top engine, so in this case Ferrari and Mercedes, or actually potentially just Mercedes.
 
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