Just realised F1’s quest all along was to become the best natural alternative to sleeping pills. It all makes sense now and it never worked better. No excitement, no noise and now with the virtual GPs they’ve reached the zenith. It works a treat
I was using a more basic (and obviously not 100% accurate) method of calculating power: Back in the late 90s when F1 cars where doing around 16K RPM they produced around 750-800 hp, with 3 liters. Adding half a litre to the engine would make that anywhere from 875 to 930 bhp...but of course, massive development in fuel science, much more accurate ignition, direct injection etc would surely make up the gap. If Pneumatic valves are needed to reach 16K rpm on 3.5 liter engines, maybe just do it and rev limit via ECU. It's been a technology since the 80s...
About the only place you can see racing where the cars don't all sound the same is sports car racing. I love closing my eyes for a few minutes at the Petit Le Mans and hearing the varied sounds of the cars as they go by. F1 used to be like that but today all the power units sound basically the same.
I know, but it is an area where F1 could focus on making that tech work and really benefit a lot if carbon neutral. Same with cellulosic yeast ethanol that Toyota is doing: https://www.lallemandbds.com/products/toyota-xyloace-a/ It would avoid having to wipe out natural environments to make crops to make ethanol, which is what corn based ethanol is doing in the US. Not really carbon neutral. Another avenue that Koenigsegg is doing with the Gemera is running it on methanol from volcanos (Volcanol). I think their tech should focus on fuels, which by nature already provide more power than gasoline fuels. The more I hear about OPEC+ meetings and collusion the more I wish we had better ethanol fuel sources.
We shouldn't forget all the by-products we get from refining oil to obtain fuels. I doubt if producing ethanol has the same benefits. The chemical industry, the plastic industry, the cosmetic industry, the pharmaceutical industry all use oil by-products. Oil by-products are used for insulation, building, road construction, etc ... I don't think the oil industry will ever die, even if the ecologists force us to abandon fossil fuels.
Fair enough, but I was thinking about ethanol made of sugar cane. I personally don't care about "carbon neutral" stuff, toxic elements are the real villains. Methanol allows for higher combustion chamber pressures, but it's dangerous in case of accidents & leakage.
If ethanol was to become more widespread, there is the risk that fuel production will be prefered to food production in agriculture.
William, I heard that other times and I call that bullsheet. Ethanol is used as fuel since 1980 and since then the food production has only grown. The same way people who have no clue what they are talking about write "sugar cane crops is destroying the Amazon". Well, you look at the map and the region that produces sugar cane is 3000 kms away from the Amazon.
I know the other uses of petroleum products, but I think shifting as much away from it to something more renewable is better in the longrun for everyone. Even something as simple as getting rid of plastic straws and using glass, reusable grocery bags instead of plastic, etc. Rather than F1 changing the # of cylinders, forced induction, etc, I think they should focus on renewable fuels...just imo. I think they would come up with interesting solutions. Btw a lot of companies that ventured into bioethanol from algae ended up making cosmetics instead.
In this article, Ross Brawn gives his view on the future of F1 No new manufacturers expected to join F1 before 2026 https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/brawn-new-manufacturers-2026-rules/4802878/ “We know what the objectives are – relevance, the economics of it, and it’s got to be a good racing engine. We know what we want to achieve, we just haven’t defined yet what that will be. “We continue to believe that there are alternative approaches to solutions to the future. We don’t think there’s one solution. “We believe we can occupy a very relevant space. Sustainable fuels are a big thing for us, because whatever engine we have, that will be a major part of it. “With some of our partners we’re now working on a strategy for introducing sustainable fuels into F1. So that will be a big element for the future. But really for the moment I don’t have an idea on how the engine should look.” Asked if there would be a revision to the current rules or a more radical shift he said: “I think for the moment we feel it will retain similar technologies to what we have now. So, relevance and cost are the priority, with keeping cutting edge technology and introducingsustainable fuels. The FIA wants F1 to stay at the top, the pinacle of motor racing I think it's fair to say that hybrid will be kept, and perhaps some components of the power units commonly shared to keep cost down. In the article, I didn't see any mention of bowing to pressure to return to NA V12.
I fail to see how using "sustainable" fuels will put F1 at the pinnacle of motorsport. What next, sustainable saddles for horse racing ?
And them droning on about ''relevance''. What's ****ing relevant about the current engines in the real world? Who rocks a 150K turbo that needs replacing every few thousand km? Who needs a team of people to get the car going (and this time it genuinely IS a team needed, not the crew of 3 possible with the V10s!), and 45 minutes, just to get the thing started providing everything checks out? What a load of twaddle. Lets see them wave the ''we must remain relevant'' flag when there's only 1 manufacturer (ferrari) left.
Well, you heard it from the horse's mouth, it's not just me saying. Possibly technology is the main motivator for manufacturers to stay/join in F1. Also, I should think Ferrari likes to be the spearhead in technical advance, not the rearguard.
Just bring back the V-10's and be done with it. They were all fully developed and had parity in power. By today's standards, CHEAP too. Have a standard manual transmission for all and call it a day in the drivetrain department. Ban all the crap on the steering wheel except a passive display and a few buttons. Radio/PLL/drink. It is silly watching the drivers working all those buttons and knobs during a race. It looks like they are playing Nintendo.
I've tried so hard to be an F1 fan but it can be drop dead boring. I got the F1 online package that let us run multiple monitors but at the end of the day my friends just wanted to do other things. I wish there was more variety in the chassis and engine. I wish it was less clean. I've watched old F1 races with Senna and that's EXACTLY what I wish I could watch. I'm sure there is a subtlety to the sport that guys who have watched for decades would get. But to me it just seems like a bunch of kids playing slot cars.
The new cars have KERNS drawing energy from forward momentun, while DAS will harvest centrifugal forces from turning and feed that into CVT (composite venturi tubes) under the Titanium deflectors right behind the multiplannar aeros e vacuum generating floor providing a significant extra 0,03 milisecond faster lap at a reasonable extra cost of 15,7 Million Euros in R&D which is cheap, and 8,2 million liters of fuel were burned in the process of developing all this amazing world saving technology! I miss Naturaly Aspirated internal combustion engines and manual transmissions driven by men with a passion for racing Everything else is a ginormous PILE of DUDUH !
It would also weigh more and need bigger fuel tanks because Ethanol has lower energy density compared to gasoline (and especially compared to what F1 gets by calling gasoline.)
In the early years of F1, an 1.5L supercharged Alfa Romeo running on ethanol, was using 3 times more fuel than a NA Ferrari 4.5L on gasoline. The Alfa needed to pit to refuel one or twice during a GP, whilst a Ferrari could do the distance without stopping if the tyres held.
Heard what from the horses mouth exactly? Ross works for the FIA, he's hardly going to say the current engines are **** is he. **** sakes. Technology isn't hte motivator of manufacturers to stay in F1. ROI is. Honda spend way more than they wanted in an effort to become competitive, what will their paymasters/shareholders do if they blew a billion in a few short years only to then leave the sport with zero to show for it? Heads would roll. They've already spend this much, it's like building 9 tenths of a roundabout, running out of money...you don't abandon the whole mission then! They stay in because they HAVE to, not because they want to. If manufacturers where told today that an additional billion was needed to keep going, they'd all leave. ALL. If they knew that was the cost, none would've signed up. And once again....why do we need manufacturers? What do they do that makes F1 so much better? I'd argue without manufacturers the sport is far better. More or less this. How many shift mistakes have we seen in the last 10 years (double up or to quick down)? Zero. Last one I remember was Alonso in the mid-late 2000s double shifting up coming out of parabolica. Might as well run auto gearboxes at this point. The V10's, which where replaced every session in the top teams, where cheaper to run and develop over a season than the current engines. Amazing! That's because the current engines are still being destroyed, just not on track, but on test benches. The FIA is so ****ing short sighted it's incredible.
Yes, piloted by gentlemen racers. That's what we really want to see! Where we have 3 F1 cars competing, one from 2005, one from 1997 and a Forti from 1996! It's a parade for god sakes.
But you like these cars !! Lots of noise, multi-cylinder NA, and manual gear change. There has been Ferraris racing in BOSS in the past. And in the last 6 years, people have been complaining that F1 was a Mercedes parade.
