"Cool the Engines"-- Banning Certain Qualifying Modes (Mercedes)

Dumb question. If the FIA are so concerned about engine power differences, why do they not acquire an engine manufacturer/power unit builder, and make that power unit the standard for every race team?

Any tampering with the power unit would result in immediate disqualification from the season. It would free up an awful lot of red tape. Let the constructors work on the chassis and areo.. would it work?

 

The easiest is get rid of half of the stupid rules and free up innovation. Issue a set of basic dimensional/safety/total fuel capacity regs and get on with it.

 

With a specs engine, that wouldn't be F1 anymore.

 

Completely understand..but it seems to be creeping more and more in that direction anyway. It's almost like they are requiring the teams to build thier own specs engine.

 

Its already spec at least for tracing point

 

Imposing a specs engine in F1 would be the best way to scare the constructors away - including Ferrari, BTW.

Not sure if F1 would survive that.

 

What F1 should do is return to the past::
a) Pick a fuel BTU content and allow so many Billion BTUs in the tank.
Then let the designers figure out how to best turn the allotted fuel into performance.
I4,V6,I6,V8,V10,V12,turbine, Hybrid, whatever.
b) pick a minimum weight (somewhere near 1200 pounds fully fueled), a maximum length, width, height, ground clearance
Then let the designers craft a car within the defined box
c) exactly two single plane (unslotted) aerodynamic elements,
d) mandate whatever safety features FIA desires.
e) enable 1 track day per week for development (as a compromise between none and 7 days per week)

 

I guess that would turn to be the most highly technical formula ever, since based on fuel efficiency.
I think the engineers would immediatly adopt something like the present hybrid formula, and develop it without restriction.
It wouldn't be cheap though ...

 

The V8 era was as close as we got to a specs engine. Each engine had their own individual strength, providing a nice balance, but no engine was a massive step up over the others. IIRC Ferrari had the most power, Mercedes the broadest powerband, Renault most economical. They were cheap, to the point that it made zero sense to have only 8 engines per car per season. Of course they did it as a means to prevent bigger teams using a brand new engine every session. The biggest draw back of the V8 era was that the engine used was rather dull and gutless, no torque to speak of and the noise wasn't particularly nice. Adding 2 or 4 cylinders would've fixed that problem and cost would only go up a tiny amount.

PS you know what's a really good way of scaring constructors away? By having unnecessarily complicated engines, one with a huge power advantage over the rest, then have the rules prevent others from improving, so that no matter how good they make their engines and aero to make up for the deficit, they can never truly challenge for the championship. Matter of fact, same applies for fans!

 

Too expensive. Each manufacturer has well over a billion invested in their engines now. And something would be lost by having all teams powered by the same engine.

Much cheaper would be the V8 + 2-4 cylinders formula and be done with it.

 

Not sure I follow the v8+2-4 cylinder formula.. i have not watched F1 in years. Just getting back into it. I'm realizing there is much to catch up on..almost too much.

 

The V8's where almost a spec engine: Fixed RPM limit, fixed bore/stroke, fixed materials they could use, fixed minimum weight and so on. The engine were all quite close together in power with each having their own strengths and weaknesses. There wasn't a tremendous power advantage by a single manufacturer for example, nor was the engine so complicated that the engineers 7 years later still couldn't figure out how to close the gap, let alone expect the fans to understand anything about the engine.

The biggest issue with the V8 was that they where gutless with no torque, and they didn't sound so great. My V8+2-4 engine formula would take the basic principles of the V8 era, but have 2 or 4 cylinders more, so you'd end up with a 3.0 or 3.6 V10/12. Hello torque. Hello glorious noise. Hello engines with roughly equal power. Hello relative affordability...and Goodbye single manufacturer dominance enabled by the governing body.

Of course some more things than just engines need to change but the rough 2022 rules would work for that. I'd make the front wing less wide and can take 100kg weight off the cars. The series would be spectacular.

 

Thermal efficiency not fuel efficiency.

I agree with the "get rid of the junk" add ons in the engine bay--strict ICE no motors, no batteries, no this, no that.
Also note, some of the last years V10s ended up lighter than the V8s.

 

Money. MB pumped about 1,000,000,000 or thereabouts into their engines with this new formula.

 

The V-8's sounded like real engines vs the current Racing Roombas. Also, the V-8's had blown diffusers to go with them.

V-10's are the logical choice. Plenty of power. Excellent noise. Cheap. Fully developed. They all had power parity. Add a spec manual gearbox and save big $.

 

Yowza..that's a crazy amount of money to put into an air pump. Are you sure that is engine only?

They have been building these air pumps for over 100 years based on the same principle. A billion dollars seems extremely extreme. I cant see a cutting edge engine, soup to nuts costing anymore the 500k..even that is a streach.

 

Engine only (ICE, MGU-K, MGU-H, Energy Store). They aren't the "simple" things they used to be.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

If you allow complete freedom in design, you will probably end up with something quite close to what you have now, because that's the most fuel efficient and advanced technology there is.

 

Formula E might disagree with you

 

I don't think Formula E has a leg to stand on compared to the present Formula 1.
It has been created to showcase electric power and bring it to a new audience, never as a rival to F1 which has its own followers.
Formula E has made a point not to race on tracks, but street circuits.
So it avoids lap time comparison, but can demonstrate to city dwellers how environment friendy electric power is : no noise, no emission, etc ...

An electric formula may have a future, but not the present Formula E that is far too restrictive.

 

If you put FE and F1 side by side, FE would have 1.5-to-1.7 times the number of seconds per lap. They are (ARE) that slow.

 

Mercedes got to where they are by putting the MGU-H between the exhaust turbine and the intake turbine in the turbocharger--allowing for much cooler intake because virtually no heat from the exhaust gets into the intake. In year 1 of this formula, Everyone else guessed wrong.

 

It would be like comparing apples and pears.
A FE has about 450hp, a F1 roughly 950hp, I guess.
A FE is about the level of a F3.

 

An F3 car gets faster as the fuel burns down, and FE gets slower........

 

BMW's final V10 was 82 KG I think. V8's 95...