Todt: F1 Return to V8 Engines Will Never Happen

I care so much that I'm going to eat a delicious piece of cow for dinner .

 

It maybe that not only battery technology needs improving, but charging methods as well.
There is battery swap and quick charging to develop for example, and I have mentioned research on contactless transfer of electricity too. Vehicles wouldn't have to carry batteries to store their electricity, but could capture it from a cable network running under the road. Now, that would be a revolution.

The electric car was abandoned when the IC engine became more user friendly; the breakthrough came with the starter motor making cars easier to start . Ironically, it's powered by a battery! Then most research on batteries stopped for almost a century.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY

If they get that down to 10 seconds driven by Formula E (or similar) it could definitely be relevant to road cars (and other commercial applications, like trucks).

 

I have never met a cow I didn't like.

 

+1

 

I love you guys.

 

Medicine is important.

But I don't think racing is pointless. I studied medicine and was planning a career as a surgeon. Things were great, until the day that I was so unhappy with that choice that I knew I needed to do something else or lose my mind.

Racing is one of the things that has allowed me to be sane. I work all the time, and racing is one of those great escapes I allow myself.

It is not like a race driver will cure cancer, but for those minutes when I am participating or watching it, well, it is pretty darn cool for me. (Which is why I also long for the days of the screaming V-10s.)

 

Just like you can still have a flight in an old prop airliner, I think there will be "20 or so cars with big massive V10's for 300km a few weekends a year", but that won't be called F1 but Historic Racing, and it certainly won't be considered as the "pinnacle of motorsport" either !

The IC engines race cars will survive in museums and private collections, and be raced by amateurs, just like they do with vintage cars now, but that certainly won't be the mainstream of motorsport. To satisfy nostalgia, the Goodwood Revival needs to go on ...

 

Some people want to place zero value on entertainment but as a mental health device, it keeps people working and sane. I get email all the time from people who are reading my books and say they got them through chemo or a parents' terminal illness, and many have said they would have ended it all without a means to escape. Entertainment matters, regardless of what some might think.

 

Do you mean like the traditionalists who didn't believe CERN's claims they found neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light? Or perhaps the traditionalists that refused to accept the published results of room temperature fusion?
Silly traditionalists.

I'm sure the Parthians will be thrilled to hear their technology is still considered "new" after a couple of thousand years

 

Forget charging to quick that it can be done in a pitstop, even a 5 minute one. If that was possible, they'd have installed those roadside supercharging stations with the possibility of upgrading cheaply...they haven't.

This contactless transfer I've got my doubts about. I don't think it's a sane suggestion, not very save and so incredibly expensive (imagine ripping up all the mainroads in the civilized world, put contactless stuff in them and then re-asphalt them, presumably in a very special manner).

What is so ironic about a battery starting an engine? I'm entirely confused at how that's supposed to be ironic. What's the alternative? A smaller engine with a smaller hand crank to start the big engine?

Again you claim that battery development has been at a stalemate for nearly a century. It very obviously hasn't. Just because it's not in cars doesn't mean they haven't been developed much.

Love you too fellow 550 aficionado

+1

 

Perhaps it would be interesting to include into the grid of the F1, 2 or 3 experimental cars with innovative technology in the style of garage 56 of Le Mans that allows to test new technology for the future.

 

Not an entirely stupid idea to be honest.

 

What I find ironic is that electricity coming to the rescue of the petrol engine killed the electric car at the time.

 

You're right. At concerts instead of playing instruments bands will just go through the motions. Wouldn't want any hazardous noise making it out into the crowd.

 

That is his point of view and respect for me is an interesting idea.
I remember that I read that Imsa and Indy Cars were considering this too.

 

I would be okay with that. I have no problem with advancement, just not at the expense of the sport.

Air guitar - the music of the future. LOL

 

Can't you see the difference between the sound of an orchestra playing music and an excessive level of decibels?

I feel sorry for you ...

 

I am a classically trained violinist and still an 80s headbanger. And just to give you a heart attack, I am also a huge rap fan. God forbid the world ever becomes the sterile, boring place you seem to think would be "better" for all of humanity.

 

Let's do the thought experiment, shall we?

If william was in charge F1 would have:

Closed cockpits
Electric engines
Closed wheels (?)

And F1 would be big on sponsors but not so big on customers.

And as a result the viewership (people in the stands and watching on TV) would:

A) Go up
B) Go down
C) Stay the same (at it's reduced viewership level)

I vote 'B', viewership would go down.

Based on that, I for one am thankful william is not in charge of things.

OR

Just walk away and say fugedaboudit and let the sport go its own way. Nothing lasts forever, maybe this is the end of F1 as a top tier worldwide sport and it will become the international version of IndyCar.

The FIA made their faux enviro, feel good bed, let them sleep in it.

-F

 

Total snooze fest. I'd start watching lawnmower racing.

 

Probably the most sensible part of your post.

If people only want cheap sport and entertainment, that the best way to achieve it.

Forget about being "the pinnacle of motorsport", new technology and relevance, and stick to the good old recipe: let's turn F1 into a specs series, where big V10 make lots and lots of noise.

I think some would welcome a merger between IRL and F1, according to the vibes I get here. With Liberty in charge, that may well happen ...

 

Some people still believe the Auto giants have 50mpg. carburetors. Fantasies. The I/C auto engine is cleaned up immensely, since the start of pollution control. These battery cars have REAL problems with polluting the earth. Hazardous waste, power plants using fossil fuels,(sun and wind can't do it all) Mandating ethanol in gasoline, is another political game with severe ecological problems. Get real!

 

Puleeze. Everything about my post was sensible. It was based simply on your own posts and based on the actual number of viewers F1 has lost during this period of eco warrior based engineering. If you have a specific counter to anything I have asserted, please post it up.

And funny how my last resort suggestion of just walking away was deemed "sensible" by you. Thank you for reinforcing my assertion that we should all be thankful that you are not in charge of F1. You seem to be happy with or at the very least blase to the drop in viewership. "So what" you say, "they have sponsors!"

What the heck are you going on about "cheap sport..."? Hey, all I'm advocating for is a better product to be put out on the track in order to bring in more viewers. I mean, what the heck is F1 for anyway? Just for sponsors to slap stickers on a car that goes around and around empty stands?

You keep going on about antique technology as if F1 IC engines represent the antiques and electric motors represent the cutting edge. They don't! Electric motors are actually an older technology than IC engines so please, enough already trying to paint us as some kind of technological Luddites.

How' bout let's consider what the customers actually want when they pony up a lot of money for a ticket to a race or pay for a package to watch it on the tele?

If customers want what I and others are suggesting and not so much what F1 is offering, then either F1 will change and thrive or it will be set in its ways and die on the vine, as it's doing right now! This isn't theoretical, it's actually happening. F1 is in a period of decay.

If F1 follows IndyCar's style of product then F1 will likely follow IndyCar's level of growth. That is, not much at all over the last 10-15 years, along with periods of contraction.

But based on your posts, it appears you are cool with that. We'll see if Liberty is cool with that.

-F

 

Funnily enough when people see my playlists they just don't understand. It's anything from current house music to 80s rock, from Santana to current rap music, 90s rap classics to dire straits.