Christian Horner: F1 must focus on entertainment over technology
he is very right. The more technology the manufacturers develop, the less interesting the racing becomes. That's a fact. Good for normal cars in 20 years I guess, but manufacturers can play the same game somewhere else (Le Mans for example). Entertainment HAS to come first. The less viewers F1 has, the less interesting it becomes for long term sponsors (Red Bull has been involved with F1 for over 20 years, owning a majority share of Sauber first). BMW was short term, as was Toyota and Honda, Renault has been short term leaving plenty of times, Mercedes won't be much longer. The only long term manufacturer is of course Ferrari. All others have in the end left after either failing or dominating and afterwards trailing off. F1 has to be very careful with their new 2020 rules, if it ****s up again, they stand to lose their core fans too, and no one to replace them with. Bending to the will of Mercedes or whichever manufacturer could be suicide.
What would an NA V10 with standardized KERS run...10% of the cost of the current PU's? Fine... let Merc and Honda leave... at that point other people interesting RACING... and let's say that again... people interested in RACING... would likely enter the fray.
+1 The average viewer doesn't give a hoot whether the Merc has 50 buttons on the steering wheel or just one for a horn ! They want wheel to wheel racing with noisy, exciting cars. The intricacies of Software Management from a warehouse near Milton Keynes is rather dull to a TV audience.
Good article.....I'm all for NA engines in the sport of F1.....if V-10's come back...IF...could they or do they have to bring back refueling and adjust fuel-flow rates as well(which seems obvious) ???
The next formula should allow more freedom and for example not impose a standard engine configuration. V8, V10, V12, F8, F10, F12 or whatever should be permitted, to give F1 more diversity. F1 is boring because the technical rules are too rigid, IMO.
Yep. In the development era a new engine would cost 180-250K (pending on manufacturer) 3.5-4 liter V10, with Direct Injection, lets say rev limited to 17500 rpm (back in 2005, at the end of the V10 era, with 3 liter V10s the cars where doing 18k+ rpm during the race, 19K at qualifying...engines had to last 2 full weekends). 1000hp would easily be possible and engines to last 4 races will be easy. At a fraction of the cost. Throw on a 2009-2013 ERS thing if it's really needed (I wouldn't miss it) and we'd easily have over 1200bhp. Plenty...and with noise that'll draw crowds. A quick moan from me again, but some simplified aero without DRS and we'd have highly entertaining races with real overtaking.
I think there are plenty of privateers, manufacturers (maybe not factory), and sponsors that would be highly interested in F1. There are companies, like RedBull that strive for and are keen to invest in audacity. Right now, there is none and the price of admission is absurd by any standard. At the costs you're quoting, the grid would fill if Merc and Honda left... if anything... because people who actually care about the racing aspect of F1 would could afford it and would want to be part of that spectacle.
True. Though I don't find the basic cost that much (certainly can be done on a budget), that aside, especially teams: IMO there are some great teams out there that F1 could really benefit from. Previously, some would take the jump and try to join the big boys table, when sponsorship was easier to get...now with costs spiraling out of control, ever diminishing viewers (in large part due to incontinent FIA), a global financial crisis, F1 sponsorship is nigh on impossible these days at large scale (which is needed to compete). Manor with 83 Million going bust, Sauber thrown a life line earlier in the season and Force india, with a 130 million budget asking for their May money earlier (conveniently blocked by Haas)...it's just to show it isn't sustainable. When you've got one of the worlds biggest car companies out there (VAG group) still not joining because of the sheer cost, and few if any other companies showing any interest, it's time to take action. F1 could benefit from teams such as Prema, ART, DAMS and Racing Engineering are all teams that could make the jump to F1 if it wasn't so obscenely expensive. They couldn't have a hope in hell jumping to F1 these days as one sponsor dropping out would very likely mean a complete implosion of their entire racing operations.
Racing needs to stop being politically correct. It's a sport. It's entertainment. Treat it like such and fans will flock to see it.
They also want them to look mean and appear to be hard to drive. I think that the good news is that the three chaps who will be running things are from 21st Century Fox, ESPN and Ferrari. If F1 keeps bowing to the manufacturers, we will get what they are currently jumping through hoops to perfect...SELF-DRIVING CARS. Ultimately, manufacturers have no interest in promoting Lewis or Kimi or Vettel, they'd rather showcase their cutting edge technology. Trust me, Lewis doesn't sell many Mercs in Illinois. If that means a car driven by 80 sensors, 4,000 algorithms and 62 quint-core computers attached to a tub full of servo-motors they will.
Loud. Brash. Outrageous. Obnoxious. Exciting. Clever-- yet Pointless. This is what F1 should be: an exhibition of the exceptional. Sorry I'm not interested in seeing a bunch of Teslas do a race to see who can go the farthest without recharging!
Here you go again!! That's too many parameters!! Just give a capacity limit, and let the engineers decide the rest. Some may prefer a V8 for packaging, and torque , others may want a V12 for better balance and higher power output, but don't impose revs limits, etc... In fact, I almost wish there wasn't even a capacity limit!!
If there were no parameters, they'd all use the current PU setup. It produces as much power as the V8, WAY more torque through the entire range and uses 1/3 the fuel. Most importantly, if it's free for all one will get it right and the others would have no hope of catching up unless they switched to the winner's engine/PU config. Which would end up costing much more and take much longer to catch up if your team didn't get it right. Which would mean far greater domination by a single team than we even have now. The only to make it work is BoP, which is a farce. Current F1 framework for rules is fine, they just need to specify NA which would bring back high-revving engines. And mandate V10 or V12, always better to have 10 V12's on the grid than 5 V12 and 5 V8.
Diversity of engines existed before, and worked well. Each engine configuration has its plus and minus, and the chassis designers use that to their advantage, and compensate for the flaws of their chosen engine.
When did we last have a championship year with more than 2 drivers capable of winning it? I can't even remember... The regs need to achieve this. We need 4 or 5 teams in with a chance of victory. But here's the dilemma - if the tech regs are too relaxed, the result is usually a one horse race... I'm ok with that if there is plenty, and obvious to see, innnovation on show. Hidden tech and voodoo are pointless as far as most fans are concerned.
There was greater disparity in chassis performance, more unreliability and a tighter points system. In any case, the current V6T PU destroys any NA+KERS engine from a performance pov, so it's a moot discussion. You already saw in lemans that NA doesn't work, Toyota eventually went turbo to keep up. If NA isn't mandated, they'll be some turbo config and you end up in the same place with regards to sound. Heck, maybe a turbo 4 works better for chassis performance ala Porsche lmp1 and then the sound degrades further. Bas is on the right track, bring back the V10 or V12's and add KERS. They should be relatively cheap as well since they were already developed. Don't even bother with DI since that would require totally revamping what was used before. Cheap + great sound = bring back the old engines with minimal modification.
Personally I am not against atmo engines + kers (even wondering if that is necessary), but who's going to build them? From what has been said by at least 3 or the 4 present engine suppliers (Mercedes, Renault and Honda), that type of engine doesn't interest them, so I presume they won't build them, but pull out of a formula that wouldn't suit their aspirations any more. Supposing Ferrari jump with both feet in a new atmo formula, and supply a couple of other teams as it does now, who's going to build atmo V10 for the rest of the cars on the grid? I think that has to be answered first! Would Cosworth be interested? Would AER/ Or Gibson? Or Mecachrome? To me, the next formula should be cheaper, and that can only be achieved with a massive reduction in aero spending, research, etc... Pointless to reduce mechanical costs, but not the aero costs, IMO.
It's a fact that a turbo engine will always prove to be more efficient than an atmospheric one, and that's why they are chosen by racing engineers and road car designers too. The drawback will always be the muted sound. Now, it you want to design an engine primarily to behave like an organ, regardless of efficiency, go for a multi atmo without revs limit. But that's old technology ... It's a bit like abandoning carbon discs and going back to steel discs, or banning paddle shift gearboxes to return to manual ones, etc... Should we also ban expensive carbon fibre chassis and bring back tubular space frames, etc... Where do we stop ? We risk making F1 a museum series if we stick too much with outdated technologies.
