I very much agree. When the solution further complicates a problem, then a loophole should be closed IMO
An "interesting" hijack. Prompted a little reading about algal biofuels - Interesting stuff. Anyway, somewhat back on topic; Seems McHonda aren't happy. My emphasis added.... It certainly seems that at least the folks at Autosport concur with my belief that we'll see "2014 + XX tokens" running this year ahead of any re-homologation. No "2014 crap". If true, also confirms Honda will have more freedom going in to year 3 (their year 2 of course) than the others. Which seems remarkably sensible for these guys...... Cheers, Ian FIA set for engine talks with Honda - AUTOSPORT
Honda has no reason to whine about this because they have until the first race to declare their unit homologater when I believe the other teams cannot officially begin testing other bits and tokens until thereafter, which makes it more risky for them. If in reading this correctly anyway.
This whole thing is getting nuttier and nuttier. The various interpretations are just silly. There are many different clauses in the technical and sporting regs that will need to be ignored in order to open the loophole in the way that most envision. So many clauses, that it would effectively say go ahead do what you want, unless you are Honda. This is simply a total cluster f. Teams just need to go ahead and do what they want and dare the FIA and F1 to tell them not to race. This just demonstrates that what happens in the board room is more impactful than what happens on the drawing board, in the shop, in the wind tunnel or on the track. The pecking order for F1 is determined by who can twist the rules to their advantage.
The only reason the Fia didn't offer immediate clarification is because they want to give teams a chance to develop to Mercedes' level of power during the season. They will be very lenient with everything until MB are starting to be competed with.
Honda should be allowed to do as they please until the season starts ... weird. It will not be so easy for me to watch it soon, not sure if I'll bother. Pete
Well, they are allowed till 28th February, so that´s almost until the season starts. I guess they´ll be packaging to travel to Australia by then.
Oh ... okay I'm confused. I thought some were saying that they were disadvantaged to other teams because they are not allowed to make changes. Okay back into my corner, but this change freeze has to p!ss off. Just stupid. Pete
Well' F1 is a trash sport already. I can't believe that a multi mega buck sport is so disorganized about engine specs this close to the start of the season. O.K. I can believe it I just don't want to.
Nice summary/analysis here from the BBC on the issue of Honda and the new PU token/homologation. Sadly, there is no mention of algae as token BBC Sport - Honda's F1 return seemingly soured with engine controversy
Thanks D interesting. And I thought Todt was going to tidy up rules ect, and make things simple and clear.
Honda won't be able to do much between now and Feb 28th anyway. It's just too small a window to make a prototype component, test, optimize, run. They are pretty much stuck with what they have right about now.
I just read that they're having even less testing this year. So here we have the most sophisticated equipment in the racing world... but let's not test it and see how it works. Makes zero sense to me. Teams should be able to test, let drivers run laps, etc. How much can that possibly cost compared to making these new crazy engines?
The cynic in me reads this as Pirelli have to make up with soft sticky tires what has been nobbled out of the cars by the stupid rules and regs
I think that there's some truth in that. I'm wondering if these softer compounds will mean more pit stops.
Since there is no testing for Pirelli, this could either be a disaster or they could get it right. They may develop tires that are have 2 good laps in them and then fall off sharply or tires that will run 100 miles at nearly maximum grip or they could last 25 with some linear degradation. I assume that they are still planning on making 4 dry tires as usual, with no plans for changes during the season. So, this is yet another drama to be played out over the course of the season. One that will put the emphasis on the drivers and cars, or make this a drama with Pirelli in the leading role.
They may not be able to test on current spec cars but I'd be surprised if they haven't track tested them at all.
