Will there be F1 in 2016?

[hominid]

I doubt we'll be seeing much of Sauber/Force India in the coming GP's. It's a good tactic by old Bernie to make people see things 'his way'.

It's partly the arrogance of Red Bull as to why they have found themselves in this position. First thing any normal team would do, before getting rid of their old engine supply, would be to make sure you had another engine lined up - And I mean Signitures on cast iron contracts.

Renault were right to split with Red Bull, with what they said about not being mentioned when winning 4 Drivers championships and then getting all the flac when not being spot on true.

Renault were due to introduce an upgraded engine for Red bull in the middle of the season, Mario Illien was brought in to help, but they've kept back that upgrade as the relationship with RB broke down.

Renault can still pull out of the sport, and I see a high possibility that this can happen - especially if Lotus's finantial situation, and historical payments from CVC etc, can't be worked out. They only signed a 'letter of intent' to buy Lotus, but if things can be sorted in an amicable way for Renault then they can walk with little finacial hit to the company.

 

[andicole0]

So they do, ok ignore everything I said



Ah ok, I thought you were proposing some kind of equal merging of tech or that WEC should adopt things from F1

WEC is the pinnacle of motorsport now. F1 is the pinnacle of regulations and bureaucracy.

Agreed, great power units and a good variety, manufacturers teams though at the top.

Andi.

 

[Skeeter]

Well, why the hell should Ferrari sell Red Bull (or indeed anyone) works-spec engines? And why should the rulebook force engine manufacturers to build one single specification of engine? Would a cheaper-to-buy, year-old engine not be a better option for a team that has a budget issue? After all, that older engine design would be very much a known quantity.

And it's not as if it's a new thing particularly. For years Ford/Cosworth used to supply a bunch of different specification engines tailored to the budget level of teams. And in '94 you had Mercedes engines in the Saubers, and year-older Mercedes engines badged as Ilmor running in the back of the Pacific cars.

Well Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and Honda all signed up to build V6s engines to a format that forced them to sell works spec to customers. The ability not too is something new that's popped up now, 2 years in.

And capping works engines that cost up to $20m at the moment to a maximum price of $9m seems like a good enough cost cutting excersize on its own. Having 80% of the grid off the pace with slower engines for the sake if another couple of $m saving seems like an unnessasary step to me.

You can't seriously think Mercedes being able to cement its 1 second advantage over the field for the foreseeable future is a good thing, can you?

 

[JRS]

You can't seriously think Mercedes being able to cement its 1 second advantage over the field for the foreseeable future is a good thing, can you?

If it brings about the end of this not-so-golden era of GP racing quicker then....yeah, I'll take it*.

The sporting regs need a mahoosive overhaul. The testing ban and engine homologation rules make it so much more difficult for a dominant team to be caught up to. And in the grand scheme of things, do they save that much money? Or does the money just get spaffed elsewhere?

re: this

Well Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and Honda all signed up to build V6s engines to a format that forced them to sell works spec to customers.

Thing was, they all had customers that they wanted to sell engines to. Now Red Bull are stamping their foot and demanding an engine with parity to the works cars, and no-one actually wants to deal with them. And why would they? They've seen how Renault were treated! When RBR are winning, it's the genius of Newey and the driving talent and look at our shiny cars plastered with the logo of an utterly vile concoction that ****s like to ruin Jagermeister with. As soon as they aren't, it's all the engine.


***edit***

* - please don't take this as full-on criticism of the current engine regs. Aside from my feelings about layout, I like these engines. I even like the sound they make (especially the sound the Honda makes as it self-immolates! ). It's the rest of the rulebook I have a big problem with.

 

[MissChief]

I'm not sure if it's because of how they've criticised Renault over the past two seasons or the fact that they're a top team who are likely to push any team they buy engines from and possibly win which could be very embarrassing for Ferrari or Mercedes. Probably a little of both.

I wouldn't be surprised if they come to a deal, the same engine as the main team at the start of the season but no performance upgrades compared to the works team or something.

 

[SKILL]

Well, their treatment of Renault over the past 6/7 seasons kinda points to it being a lose-lose situation for any engine supplier:

Red Bull win and either the engine is ignored, or even at times it's 'despite' the engine being poor.

So no marketing for engine manufacturer, and in the current setup their own team has been beaten by a customer, so negative press if any.

If on the other hand Red Bull lose, well clearly that's entirely down to engine, so yet more negative press.

Why would any engine manufacturer, even if they didn't own their own team, want to enter into an agreement with them? The money won't cover the overall R&D costs, and there are teams on the grid that will happily 'buy' engines(/give drivers a car, aka Manor/Haas) without either beating the 'works' team or whinging incessantly about how the engine is the cause of all bad things.

 

[Dave M]

I don't agree Renault got no benefit from 4 title wins, they were known as redbull infinity, it's up to renault which of their brands they put on the car not redbull. And what team has won in that era and stopped to say "oh we must thank our wonderful engine supplier who we could not have done this without"? None, because lets face it, one engine was much like any other in that time.

They might as well stop to thank their brake pad supplier or bob who runs the autoclave, in-fact bob probably did much more to secure their titles than either of the others.

It's just sour grapes because they're now ****. Ferrari realised they were and got to work on fixing it, Renault realised they were and whinged about how unfair it was.

 

[andicole0]

I don't agree Renault got no benefit from 4 title wins, they were known as redbull infinity, it's up to renault which of their brands they put on the car not redbull. And what team has won in that era and stopped to say "oh we must thank our wonderful engine supplier who we could not have done this without"? None, because lets face it, one engine was much like any other in that time.

They might as well stop to thank their brake pad supplier or bob who runs the autoclave, in-fact bob probably did much more to secure their titles than either of the others.

It's just sour grapes because they're now ****. Ferrari realised they were and got to work on fixing it, Renault realised they were and whinged about how unfair it was.

Have to correct you there a bit, the name was and still is Infiniti Redbull Racing no sign of Renault in the name in fact Infiniti cars are of course a Nissan brand. I can see why Renault got little or no recognition.

I think that Horner seems to be a bit of a whinger now.

Andi.

 

[MooMoo444]

Hopefully F1 falls apart, so the teams can all get together and make a new formula, where they use unrestricted V12's and wider boots for supa speed.

 

[DRZ]

I don't agree Renault got no benefit from 4 title wins, they were known as redbull infinity, it's up to renault which of their brands they put on the car not redbull. And what team has won in that era and stopped to say "oh we must thank our wonderful engine supplier who we could not have done this without"? None, because lets face it, one engine was much like any other in that time.

They might as well stop to thank their brake pad supplier or bob who runs the autoclave, in-fact bob probably did much more to secure their titles than either of the others.

It's just sour grapes because they're now ****. Ferrari realised they were and got to work on fixing it, Renault realised they were and whinged about how unfair it was.

I disagree - I think their engine was critical to their performance advantage.

Renault helped them to exploit the exhaust energy which in turn allowed them to run an aero configuration that no other team could run. The rake that RBR ran was significant, which gave them a downforce advantage all over the car.

The other teams had to do an awful lot of work with their engine suppliers to allow them to run in the advantageous modes without exploding... Renault gave them a big edge that was never talked up as much as Newey's design genius was.

 

[Dave M]

Have to correct you there a bit, the name was and still is Infiniti Redbull Racing no sign of Renault in the name in fact Infiniti cars are of course a Nissan brand. I can see why Renault got little or no recognition.

I think that Horner seems to be a bit of a whinger now.

Andi.

Nissan and Renault are in bed together, I'd be surprised if it was still infinity redbull after they part ways with renault.

 

[Dave M]

I disagree - I think their engine was critical to their performance advantage.

Renault helped them to exploit the exhaust energy which in turn allowed them to run an aero configuration that no other team could run. The rake that RBR ran was significant, which gave them a downforce advantage all over the car.

.

They still run a huge rake compared to others long after the blown diffusers are gone, that's just how they design their cars.

If it's an advantage it's one born from their aero, not their engine.

 

[Skeeter]

Nissan and Renault are in bed together, I'd be surprised if it was still infinity redbull after they part ways with renault.

The agreement with Renault to terminate the engine contract early also includes agreement to terminate the Infiniti title sponsorship too.

They will just be Red Bull Racing next year.

 

[JRS]

Hopefully F1 falls apart, so the teams can all get together and make a new formula, where they use unrestricted V12's and wider boots for supa speed.

Ugh, I'd rather we continued with this rubbish than a formula set by the teams

 

[DRZ]

They still run a huge rake compared to others long after the blown diffusers are gone, that's just how they design their cars.

If it's an advantage it's one born from their aero, not their engine.

They run comparatively more rake because of their other aerodynamic advantages - but they ran comparatively more rake than they otherwise could have done had they not had the extra exhaust energy / coanda effect exhaust.

The steep rake angle effectively makes the limited dimensions of the diffuser bigger by increasing the diffuser angle relative to the horizontal surface of the road. The design is compromised by the fact you need to have the diffuser as close to the floor as possible to minimise turbulent air entering from the sides and making the diffuser less efficient. By using the coanda effect, they were able to effectively "seal" the sides of the diffuser, meaning a greater percentage of the airflow from under the car was being "used" and thus greatly increasing the available downforce.

Now, their sidepod design does allow for great airflow management around the rear diffuser, but it isn't as good as when sealed by the flow of exhaust gasses. The breakthrough Renault made was being able to generate large amounts of exhaust gasses when off-throttle, meaning the diffuser was still as effective during deceleration and mid-corner on part throttle.

An F1 car gets as much as 30-40% of the downforce generated from airflow underneath the floor. It cannot be overstated just how important under-floor airflow management is - and a high rake angle allows much more ground effect from the front wing, better front end airflow management for air entering under the car. An extreme amount of rake angle change would be in the order of a 3-4mm increase of rear end height relative to the front, to give you some perspective. I believe that the Renault tech gave them the ability to run even more extreme rake angles than they could otherwise have done and as a result had much, much more downforce than any other team.

 

[Nismo]

Hopefully F1 falls apart, so the teams can all get together and make a new formula, where they use unrestricted V12's and wider boots for supa speed.

Lol, teams organising that? In your dreams...

 

[alx]

The WMC meets on 30th September to review and vote on a number of things. One of which is allowing 'Current -1' engines (i.e. the prior years specification), as well as a $9m cap on the cost of Current engines, and $6m on Current -1.

Personally I think its a terrible idea as it basically mandates a 2 tier F1, and allows Mercedes and Ferrari to pick and chose who they want to race against. However, given the current "ZOMG everything costs too much!" rants from the teams, I fully expect the FIA to vote it in.

Any news on this?

 

[Skeeter]

I've not looked, but the news that Manor have signed a deal to take current Mercedes engines suggests the Current -1 idea has been scrapped.

Edit: having poked around I can see news about mandated wastegates, changes to nose camera rules, track limits, crash tests, and other things. So I assume the lack of any news means the Current -1 idea was not voted in.

 

[andicole0]

Without an agreement to supply year old engines RBR are up the creek without a paddle. Ferrari had offered year old engines which is not allowed (Manor exception of course). They won't get a Mercedes engine now. So that leaves crawl back to Renault? or ask McLaren Honda.

What would you do?

Andi.

 

[Dave M]

You don't need a -1 engine to be lower performance than the manufacturer team.

No doubt if they accepted a lower state of tune (map, whatever) then they would need to keep it confidential. This is quite possible, the maps are so complex now no-one could know it was lower performance (certainly not just from speed trap data). They could speculate but that is all.

I doubt Red Bull would like that, being lower performance than Ferrari and not being able to complain about it publicly.

I imagine that is the conversation being had right now, back-room games. Could RBR carry on with Renault? Their deal still has a year on it does it not? If they have not already signed an agreement to split Renault would be breaking the contract if they refused to supply now. They might not care what it cost them of course.

There will be an unholy scramble to pick-up the best talent if they do quit, it's quite possible someone would buy them as a going concern to enter their own team but before that could be confirmed the staff would be cast wide and far.