Yes & no..... I'd need to dig, but IIRC BMW claim that their new baby turbo-diesel eek basically cleans the air between input & exhaust. Hopefully, Florian will be along soon.... Really. Cheers, Ian
Wrong. Different technologies in the cars would mean each car has different strength and weaknesses, this enables passing. Trying to make dead even formulas results in overly aggressive driving (like we currently have) because passing is difficult as no car has enough difference to enable that pass. Pete
Engines are less and less relevant, tweaks are now mainly concerned with aero downforce and cars get faster or slower mainly because of that and can quickly be made to recoup speed lost by engines. http://www.themotorreport.com.au/#/55651/f1-fia-feared-f1-to-be-too-slow-in-2014-report
Not as much as you think. Engine power only enables more aggressive wings to be run. Again a Formula Ford with less than 200 hp laps faster than your 662hp Mustang due to cornering speed ... and a Formula Ford does not even have wings. Add wings and cornering speed becomes even more important. v10 engines are not the only answer to F1 performance. They were simply the right number of cylinders for the capacity that was set back then and made the best package. The best package for 2.4 ltrs was actually v8 engines ... 2.4 ltr v10s would have required more cooling. Pete
+2 Really! I'd love to see 'em go that way. The trouble is cost. We may want it, but they(*) don't. Unfortunately. Cheers, Ian (*) The FIA, Bernie and most significantly, the teams themselves.
The complete opposite I'm afraid. Ever watched single maker races? They're a mess. Problem is downforce that doesn't work when behind another car, hence the drs
What a load of clap-trap! Young kids are not into cars? - then explain the popularity of The Fast and the Furious movies! The petrol-heads are not dying out, they're doing what they've done for years - evolving with the times! And just how have they evolved?: They're no longer interested in big capacity engines like V8's, that are great in a straight line but can't corner for s:censored:t and barely stop!, they want small capacity turbo cars that launch like a sidewinder missile, go round corners like the cars on rails and can stop on a dime! (Mmmm.... that sounds bloody familiar!). These modern petrol-heads are tuning modern pissy little two litre cars and giving them power outputs of 300~400BHP and more! Please tell us what were the great mechanical advancements of the internal combustion engine were prior to the last 10 years. Multi-valve heads? - Nope!, came in @ 1912 for race cars and 1917 for road cars! Turbo's and superchargers? - Nope!, 1962 for turbo's and 1885 for the first supercharged internal combustion engine. The rotary engine? - Nope!, 1957 for the first one of those! Dual overhead camshafts? - Nope!, came in circa 1920's! All alloy engines? - Nope!, from the 50's if not earlier! Variable valve timing? - Nope!, Porsche looked into it in 1958 and FIAT were the first to use it in the late 60's! The boxer engine? - Nope!, Karl Benz in 1896! The point I'm making is that we've known how to make an internal combustion engine for over 100 years and the fundamentals have not changed in all that time, never mind the last 10 years! All we've done is evolved the technology to suit the times, and that's what Formula 1 is having to do now! The kids of today may not be petrol-heads as you know them, but they're the petrol-heads of their generation, not ours! - times move on!
Mate, I think we have a communication break down. Single maker races implies that the cars are very similar, thus no passing possible. If the cars were different then passing is possible, ie. the Reynard has better grip out of turn 3 than the March, for example. Or the Mercedes powered car has more top speed because it has more power and thus able to sneak passed at the end of the long back straight. I think you've only been watching F1 since it became a "all cars are equal" series. Back in the days when the engineers were allowed to design their own car, instead of reproducing FIA designs, we had much better racing ... and yes admittedly less downforce but allowing engineers freedom would mean some cars have more downforce than others too . Pete
I believe you have just agreed with me. Kids nowadays are actually interested in the electronics and hooking up a computer to their engines. They don't need to remove camshafts and change profiles and increase compression ratios like we used to, because that has already been done by the manufacturer ... just alter the computer and away you go. Even bolting on a turbo does not require engine changes anymore, just better control via electronics. BTW: The Fast and Furious movies are not popular. Transformers, etc. are popular. Pete
And we never had to decoke heads or patch tires. Times and tech change but the love for speed and for cool is eternal.
It kind of became an "all cars equal" as you say after Schu and Ferrari were winning everything everytime and it became boring because the difference was made by the engineers and the money, without taking any credit away from Schu. If cars are more equally matched the show improves. They're having this issue in motogp right now, where the inferior classes are more exciting because of the level plain field. Would you really be interested in a race between an f1 and a fiat 500?
We didn't!?..... I sure did! Oh, the joys of hand lapping valves. And tweaking Webbers. Truer words have never been spoken. "We" may disagree about what's "cool", but as Pete notes, it seems it's no longer big-honking V8's - At least in Europe where you have to actually pay for gas...... Cheers, Ian
No I do not agree. There DOES need to be differences to enable racing instead of smashing the other off the track. Back in the 1980's we had Lauda versus Prost ... the best racing I've ever seen between those 2 guys. I could not careless where the other 18 cars finished, there were only 2 cars in those races. Yes the cars were equal, but Lauda had the experience and Prost was the young and faster guy and it was fantastic watching them use their differences to win. Are you sure we are not related? That is the sort of exaggeration that I would use to make a point . But you know what is not what I mean ... but EXACTLY the same cars makes racing incredibly boring. Whoever gets to the first corner first wins. We've also lost the reliability issues that used to make championships interesting. They never fail anymore ... Pete
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DXh9QrTCGWMY&rct=j&sa=X&ei=cgX1UKjkC-So0AXhx4CYDA&ved=0CFQQuAIwAjgK&q=f1+fiat+500&usg=AFQjCNE-wkJiUHuWWuv6rv3uEOmpaW6pug
Not again! I really have to speak to my sperm bank manager. He insisted the chances of this happening again would be practically impossible!
Or Vettel. Failures are so uncommon they have more impact. I think its impressive that they have ancilliary systems catching unused power etc. I think those apply to road cars. I like racing and I think there should be more freedom not less to make your own engine if feasible along with the chassis. Id like to see more engines in different configurations etc. That wont happen because cost and relevance to the real world of 130kmph commuting now apply, and we want smaller teams to join up since the big guys, really big guys have abandoned this sport and are suffering ZERO for it. Frankly F1 is less relevant given the lack of differentiation that abounds. Its more spec and the powers at be are driving this. Fine I get it. Id like to see racing again. Change tires if you want, refuel if you want and maybe run a different motor etc. I know that wont happen and I will still watch. F1 and the FIA could do a few things to mix it up. We have what we have and hope for the best....
