Singapore Grand Prix 2015, Marina Bay - Race 13/19

[this_is_gav]

Losing two teams is only going to kill F1 off, with Lotus potentially leaving too and Sauber and Force India scraping up bits off the floor.

Who actually wants a championship where we've got one team, potentially two teams, fighting it out up front while the remaining six cars are over a second a lap slower, the only other works team three seconds a lap slower and Manor bringing up the rear five seconds later? If F1 isn't dying already that would finish it off.

While Red Bull of course aren't entitled to anything and we're all bored of them moaning, they know F1 needs them, and as a result the other teams need them too - Mercedes and Ferrari included.

 

[Skeeter]

True.
But it does seam that RB want to leave F1 and I'm sure they want to make look like they was forced.
"Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz says his team will not participate in Formula One if they have to make do with older engines" I hope RB go asap.

Really? You hope 2 teams vanish from the grid, leaving us with just 8 teams, and that the only outfit promoting drivers based on skill and not simply how big their wallets are leaves too?

As much as it may be cool to hate them, Red Bull are good for F1 and losing them would be a very bad thing.

You can't keep saying that teams can "take their business elsewhere" and then want to force suppliers to not have any choice who they supply or under what terms. Freedom and choice works both ways.

It seems almost certain that the FIA will approve new regulations capping the price of the V6 engines to $9m per year (and $6m for Current -1 if that happens), so the engine suppliers look set to be forced to accept terms imposed on them. Considering some of the engines currently cost up to $20m a year, the manufacturers are looking at imposed reductions in ROI of over 50%.

 

[deuse]

All this moaning about the engines. should have stayed with the V8s

F1 is dying a slow death and at the moment it's the laughing stock of motor sport.

 

[Skeeter]

All this moaning about the engines. should have stayed with the V8s

With Ferrari as sole supplier... that would have gone well.

F1 is dying a slow death and at the moment it's the laughing stock of motor sport.

More of a laughing stock than it would have been had they continued with a 15 year old engine design while calling themselves the 'pinnacle of Motorsport'?

 

[MissChief]

With Ferrari as sole supplier... that would have gone well.



More of a laughing stock than it would have been had they continued with a 15 year old engine design while calling themselves the 'pinnacle of Motorsport'?

And one with no relevance to modern road car engine technology either which makes justifying your €300 million a year outlay (Mercedes) to the board very, very difficult. F1 doesn't cover itself in glory as marketing, it needs to show benefits elsewhere such as R&D (as much as the regulations strangle new ideas at the moment)

 

[Steampunk]

Really? You hope 2 teams vanish from the grid, leaving us with just 8 teams, and that the only outfit promoting drivers based on skill and not simply how big their wallets are leaves too?

It's never been only about driver skill. It's always been a team sport, where it's about the whole team designing, building, and driving the car. It' seems a lot of people want to remove the rest of the team and just have equal cars with the drivers being the only differentiators. At that point you'll see the teams bail from the sport, at at that point it's no longer a team sport.

As much as it may be cool to hate them, Red Bull are good for F1 and losing them would be a very bad thing.

Good for F1 while they are winning, bad when they are losing as they simply rubbish the whole sport and their own partners (such as Renault and Pirelli). Actually, they were bad when they were winning as everyone said how boring it was.

It seems almost certain that the FIA will approve new regulations capping the price of the V6 engines to $9m per year (and $6m for Current -1 if that happens), so the engine suppliers look set to be forced to accept terms imposed on them. Considering some of the engines currently cost up to $20m a year, the manufacturers are looking at imposed reductions in ROI of over 50%.

Or, unintended consequences are that every manufacturer reduces engine contracts to the minimum they need to get test data, and refuse to supply anyone but their own team and one other. Mandating that every engine supplier loses millions on every engine they sell doesn't seem like a way to encourage them to participate in the supply of engines.

People want the Mercedes and Ferrari engines because they are good, and they got good by putting a lot of time and money into them. If other teams don't want to finance their share, maybe they shouldn't get them.

 

[this_is_gav]

And one with no relevance to modern road car engine technology either which makes justifying your €300 million a year outlay (Mercedes) to the board very, very difficult. F1 doesn't cover itself in glory as marketing, it needs to show benefits elsewhere such as R&D (as much as the regulations strangle new ideas at the moment)

It will (and does already) filter down to road cars just as most technologies pioneered or accelerated in motorsport do.

The only issue I have with the V6s is how far it's going to filter down. Yes turbos feature on smaller cars, and ERS features in supercars, but I can't envisage an era were the ERS system will ever feature on any family car, so struggle to see why there was such a big push for it from the likes of Renault and why Honda felt the need to return.

The only other argument I can see was marketing, as in "look how green we are", which is obviously rather hypocritical, but still, the world is run by marketing now.

It's never been only about driver skill. It's always been a team sport, where it's about the whole team designing, building, and driving the car. It' seems a lot of people want to remove the rest of the team and just have equal cars with the drivers being the only differentiators. At that point you'll see the teams bail from the sport, at at that point it's no longer a team sport.

Nobody wants equalisation of teams, but currently there is nothing a team can do to catch up if the power unit they use is so hopelessly down on performance that they're seconds off the pace on most tracks. The token system is fine to a degree, but you're limited to what you can do (obviously) and you receive fewer and fewer tokens over the duration of the current regulations, up until the point where the engines are completely frozen year on year, as they were with the V8s.

We're not in the V8 era were you can simply allow an engine to catch up, as Renault were allowed to, as some power units (Honda) are fundamentally broken from the off and will apparently need an overhaul of the basic layout, which the regulations are unlikely to permit, so they'll eventually leave the sport.

I don't see a solution to that problem short of opening the engines up and allowing another 2 or 3 years of development so that everyone can start afresh if they want, and obviously that would horrendously expensive and Mercedes and possibly Ferrari would never agree to it.

 

[deuse]

With Ferrari as sole supplier... that would have gone well.

What are you on about? there was 4 suppliers of V8 engines.

More of a laughing stock than it would have been had they continued with a 15 year old engine design while calling themselves the 'pinnacle of Motorsport'?

The V6 they use now is very old and they just strapped some old tech to it. It's now slower by 5-8 seconds a lap.

 

[timmeh]

What are you on about? there was 4 suppliers of V8 engines.



The V6 they use now is very old and they just strapped some old tech to it. It's now slower by 5-8 seconds a lap.

Mercedes and Renault said they'd leave if they didn't switch to the V6 and, with Cosworth already on the way out, leaves Ferrari.

How is the V6 old tech?

 

[this_is_gav]

The V6 they use now is very old and they just strapped some old tech to it. It's now slower by 5-8 seconds a lap.

The V6 certainly isn't slower, it's the constantly trimming back the aero developments and not giving them back performance elsewhere.

 

[Skeeter]

Mercedes and Renault said they'd leave if they didn't switch to the V6 and, with Cosworth already on the way out, leaves Ferrari.

To normal people, 4 - 3 = 1
To deuse, 4 - "la la la I'm not listening as this damages my argument" = 4

The V6 they use now is very old and they just strapped some old tech to it. It's now slower by 5-8 seconds a lap.

Looooool!

Here we go again! Sure you aren't comparing wet to dry lap times again?

Aren't the V6s quicker than the 2009-2013 V8s (for comparable aero) at pretty much every track?

I await either a comparison to Lap Records (which will mostly be using V10s), an insult, or a rapid change of subject. Which will it be...

 

[Steampunk]

It will (and does already) filter down to road cars just as most technologies pioneered or accelerated in motorsport do.

The only issue I have with the V6s is how far it's going to filter down. Yes turbos feature on smaller cars, and ERS features in supercars, but I can't envisage an era were the ERS system will ever feature on any family car, so struggle to see why there was such a big push for it from the likes of Renault and why Honda felt the need to return.

My wife has a small engined car with a turbo. It's got better performance and uses less fuel than our old car with a bigger engine. I can see ERS coming in once the tech (especially the batteries) get improved. A car normally wastes so much energy, it's low-hanging fruit at a time when efficiency and emissions are being strictly legislated and important to the buying public.

Ironically, ours is a VAG car, and they didn't need F1 to do it.

Nobody wants equalisation of teams, but currently there is nothing a team can do to catch up if the power unit they use is so hopelessly down on performance that they're seconds off the pace on most tracks. The token system is fine to a degree, but you're limited to what you can do (obviously) and you receive fewer and fewer tokens over the duration of the current regulations, up until the point where the engines are completely frozen year on year, as they were with the V8s.

I'm more than happy to go back to continuous development like it used to be, but the teams voted against it for cost reasons. Obviously a lot of teams wanted to shake up the status quo, and saw the new rules as a time to gain benefit. It worked for the likes of Mercedes and Williams, eventually even for Ferrari. It's no surprise that those that lost out (RBR) have complained the loudest, and can hardly complain they have no engine supplier when they are the ones that all but threw Renault out the door.

If RBR had been a true works team, they wouldn't have had the option to cuss out their engine supplier and walk away, they would have had to stay and fix things (as Mercedes and Ferrari did). You can't have your cake and eat it. You either stay and fix things, or walk away and start again with another engine.

 

[Skeeter]

But for the "stay and fix things" argument to work, it would need each team to be a works team. And there aren't 10 engine makers out their wanting to own teams any more.

F1 had a manufacturer backed era. It was fast, eye wateringly expensive, and incredibly boring to watch. That collapsed, and now we are in an era where most teams are customers. Having a supplier/team relationship and a regulation set that still massively favours works teams means 75% of the grid are basically cemented in the midfield.

Perhaps F1 needs a middle ground? Something that allows customers and works teams to operate equally, but allows a works team to focus on themselves if they wish. Maybe something like you can supply your works team alone (like Honda and soon Renault may do), or you can supply a works team and customers, or just customers. But if you are supplying customers, your contract is with FOM. You must offer 3 customer contracts, and you cannot veto who gets them?

So Honda supply McLaren, Renault supply Lotus, and then Mercedes supply Mercedes and also provide 3 customer contracts to the FOM, and Ferrari supply Ferrari and provide 3 customer contracts to the FOM. FOM then have 6 engine contracts that customer teams can take up. It provides a buffer between a customer and a manufacturer too, so you avoid the Lotus/Renault issue of them not paying for their engines. FOM pays up front, and if the customer team doesn't pay, FOM already have their hands on a lot of the teams money so they can get it back that way.

So if Ferrari decide they don't want to allow competitors to get their engine, thats fine, but they can supply only themselves. If they do want customers buying their engine, thats fine too, but FOM decide who gets them, not Ferrari. And if someone wants customer engines only, then they provide those 3 contracts to the FOM alone with no works outfit.

Might work? It would provide a barrier to a new manufacturer coming in if they didn't also on a team, so would need restrictions on testing relaxed too.

 

[this_is_gav]

My wife has a small engined car with a turbo. It's got better performance and uses less fuel than our old car with a bigger engine. I can see ERS coming in once the tech (especially the batteries) get improved. A car normally wastes so much energy, it's low-hanging fruit at a time when efficiency and emissions are being strictly legislated and important to the buying public.

As you say there is a heck of a lot of wasted energy in a road car but only so much could be harvested. Imagine how much energy an F1 car generates under braking and then think how little a road car is able to brake in comparison and as such how much kinetic energy it could harvest. Also consider an F1 car will always be braking at or close to the max whereas a road user will only ever use full braking in an emergency (unless you're a complete tit of course). Surely it would be borderline pointless for a road car to harvest what must be a minuscule amount of energy? As for heat energy from the turbo, I've no idea how much heat a standard road car turbo produces, but I doubt it's anywhere near a racing car turbo.

Either way, I'm fairly sure that in such a weighty car (compared to a much more weight efficient F1 car), plus the additional extra weight of the motor and battery and the other ancillary parts needed, any benefit would be minimal.

Hopefully years down the road the technology will have evolved to find some way to use it in a road car, but currently I struggle to see how it would add anything at all, before you even get to the cost implications of such an installation.

Ironically, ours is a VAG car, and they didn't need F1 to do it.

Of course they don't need F1 to do it, but the tech F1 develops finds itself in other cars, be it through licensing or just the technology passing in general. A good example is Porsche and their flywheel-based KERS unit which was developed by Williams (who didn't even end up using it in F1, but it was developed for it).

I'm more than happy to go back to continuous development like it used to be, but the teams voted against it for cost reasons.

It's the staggering costs involved though. We're not talking about tens of millions or even £100m, we're talking £300m plus. You simply can't carry on doing that.

 

[timmeh]

Ironically, ours is a VAG car, and they didn't need F1 to do it.

That'll be from Audi/Porsche in the WEC then

 

[deuse]

Mercedes and Renault said they'd leave if they didn't switch to the V6 and, with Cosworth already on the way out, leaves Ferrari.

How is the V6 old tech?

The V6 turbo engine is very old. The battery they lump on is old tech. My power chair has better tech.

Did anyone call Mercedes and Renault bluff? no as it was plain to see they would get their own way.

@Skeeter what's all this childish lolol and all the rest of it? got to ask are you still in school?
You did say just Ferrari and left out Mercedes and Renault and cosworth.

May as well add that the BBC’s audience is down 25 percent, with Sky Sports F1 down 32 percent year-on-year(2015)
As I've said..F1 is dying a slow death.

 

[Skeeter]

You claimed the V6s are old and 5-8 seconds slower than the V8's, and that had they persisted with the V8's there would have been 4 engine suppliers.

I'm laughing because what you say is funny, not because I'm a child.

(oh and seems 'rapid change of subject' was the winner)

 

[Skeeter]

<snip> rooad car tech <snip>

I remember reading a while back that some of the technology Mercedes were working on for the Inline 4 engine format is now in its I4 road car engines.

Mercedes were developing the I4 engine before it had even been confirmed in the rules! Shows how much of a head start they were keen to get.

Theres a lot of smaller, less obviousl things, and even simply stuff like a 'mentality' that developing a race engine can do to help your road engines. The V6 is far from the ideal test bed though... the I4 would have been much better for pretty much everyone except Ferrari...

 

[JRS]

Theres a lot of smaller, less obviousl things, and even simply stuff like a 'mentality' that developing a race engine can do to help your road engines. The V6 is far from the ideal test bed though... the I4 would have been much better for pretty much everyone except Ferrari...

Being allowed to choose your layout would have been better for everyone. And if they had been allowed to choose, I would be willing to bet that no-one would choose a 90° angled V6.

 

[deuse]

You claimed the V6s are old and 5-8 seconds slower than the V8's, and that had they persisted with the V8's there would have been 4 engine suppliers.

I'm laughing because what you say is funny, not because I'm a child.

(oh and seems 'rapid change of subject' was the winner)

As I've said there WAS 4 engine suppliers. Nothing about if or but.
You really need to back off and read posts as stated. Not add your own statements.
You have been told this by many members of this forum.