Ecclestone to propose V10 comeback

I agree but those are the existing parameters. Do away with green considerations and all things are possible.

Road cars have outstripped F1 in terms of many performance innovations. The feeling was that the cars were too fast and the driver's talent secondary to tech.
Unless they are willing to allow a return to those sort of performance innovations green tech is the only way they can have any legitimacy as the pinnacle of automobile innovation.

Not what I'd prefer but it is what it is,

 

I'm always amused by the "too fast" argument. It's been a long time since we had to worry about the safety of the riding mechanic as he jumped from the car during a pit stop.

 

What he said.

 

I have heard this too except that V12 is actually the most balanced and V8 wants to shake itself to pieces. I remember teams having lots of problems with vibrations when the V8s first came out

 

Stopped reading here.

 

He has some thoughtful posts. I too like to drink and post, before you know it you're back at the theory of relativity.


Tires have been an issue since andretti was carving his own. (he had space in my town tucked away - first time I ever saw a racecar)

Personally I think this is where the most money can come from. Maybe have pirelli share last years compounds with a few potential manufacturers, assume liability for a few races while still retaining advert placement and work from there?

 

V12s are balanced in terms of both primary and secondary vibrations.

Oddly enough Ferrari made a flat twelve that's actually a 180 degree Vee in terms of crank throws and a V8 that's configured with a flat crank that makes it a twin I4 in terms of balance.

In performance engines vibration isn't always a primary (N.P.I.) concern.

 

I think the fuel flow rate limit does more to limit the ultimate level of horsepower that the engine can produce.

Imagine a turbo V-12 that could make huge horsepower, driver just blows past another car on the straight. Then the engine effectively dies or goes into extreme lean burn to try to conserve fuel through the corners or under braking. It has already passed the car on the straight without effort, but the following car usually couldn't repass under braking. So what you would end up seeing in an actual race is the powerful cars only passing on the straights, and the less powerful bunching up behind them in the corners. Limiting fuel flow rate limits the peak power available to lessen the chances of this rather boring (and not requiring as much driver skill to pass) scenario.

There is some precedent in MotoGP in the early 990cc four-stroke era. For one year (2002) 500cc two-strokes and 990cc four-strokes raced together. The two-strokes being down 30-50 horsepower. They were still fast during qualifying, but in the race you saw them be passed by the 990s on straights and then under braking they could only follow the four-stroke through the corners, they were unable to take advantage of their higher corner speed potential because the 990 was blocking their line. This happened all year. Higher power was more effective in a race setting than handling.

 

Bernie Ecclestone will again propose F1 returns to normally aspirated engines | Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 News | Formula 1 Teams | Sky Sports

Bernie continues the effort to change motors. Overall the teams do not seem to agree completely.

 

Luckily not all teams need to agree. IMO bringing back a V10 or similar NA engine will bring back a lot of fans, which means ultimately more monies in the teams pockets.

 

Bernie has it in for the Power Unit. I hope he is successful somehow. I do think you are right!

 

Probably the only time I agree with Bernie.

 

IIRC for 2014 F1 dropped around 20% of viewers compared to 2013 (which saw viewers drop by 10% from the 2nd half onwards till the last race because of Vettel's sheer dominance). A shocking amount. If we go by the numbers that 1% = 5m, F1 income just from TV would have dropped 100m.

Part of this was obviously because of the Merc dominance, but IMO a larger part due to the lack of noise and the quality of it. If Hamilton was as dominant as Vettel the number of viewers dropped would be even larger...

 

You're correct on the noise. There are other factors as well IMO. The likeness of the cars, the inability of teams to be able to really catch up performance gaps, the complications and complexities confuse and the actual racing - our screens look more like a Super Mario game than actual racing. Drivers spend more time focusing on "lift and coast" instead of racing.

The audience and attendance was significantly down for this years German GP - that with a German team and driver leading both Championships.

 

And there is the tifosi factor, or more correctly the marginal-tifosi factor. Ferrari are by far the most popular marque in F1. As such they represent a disproportionate share of F1 fans. When Ferrari are not winning or even performing well, millions of those marginal fans do something else on Sundays.

Mercedes is the flavor-of-the-week in the grand history of F1. How else do you explain that they won their first WCC in 2014. Mercedes domination or RBR domination cannot replace the loss of fans as a result of poor performance by Ferrari.

Bernie knows this, everybody in F1 knows this. To bastardize a phrase: What is good for Ferrari is good for F1. Bernie is a simple man; if it puts money in his pocket it is good, if it takes money out of his pocket it is bad. Every race that Ferrari are not on the podium is money out of Bernie's pocket.

 

Because they didn't have the WCC in '54 and '55

 

... issuance of a press leak, proposing V10s, Ecclestone doesn't intend to revert F1, to V10s. Threat of a reversion to V10s, Ecclestone intent was, killing two birds with one stone, (1) appeasing Ferrari, while (2) softening up Daimler-Mercedes, into loosening up on the engine homologation prerequisite.

The only engine maker on planet Earth who wants V10s and V12s is, Ferrari. Nobody else wants a thing to do with them. No one moreso, than the Daimler-Mercedes people -- asj.

 

I am aware of that. But it did not keep Mercedes from making a big deal out of winning their first WCC.

But, if F1 were so important to Mercedes and vice versa, why did they not compete in F1 between 1956 and 2010. And the 1955 LeMans accident is not an excuse for a 55 year absence, Mercedes went back to LM in the 1990s.

 

...Do you, in real life, talk, with a comma, in the wrong place?

 

You're right, misplaced commas not withstanding. Buried in the article is a plea from Bernie for the engine manufacturers to lower the prices for a PU.

Bernie said, "But if they're prepared to reduce the cost of the engine then the problem disappears, then there's no need for a new engine. We keep what we have."

Lower the cost and there is no need for V-10s. That keeps the independent teams solvent, and it is a far easier pill for Mercedes to swallow. And Ferrari are stuck, they must stay in F1 and keep making PUs. Of course the question is does Ferrari have an appetite to sell PUs at a loss, effectively subsidizing the customer teams. Or, will they cut back on customer teams, leaving Mercedes and Renault (maybe Honda) to pick up the slack. I don't see how Bernie can increase the number of teams in F1, if the PU makers lose money on each unit.

But lowering the price could drive Renault out of F1. Why should they bother to continue to make PUs that are clearly overshadowed by Mercedes (eliminating marketing value), and lose money doing it?

 

With LdM being given a seat on the board, BE now has another person who was massively against the current engines sitting next to him.

Good for the NA engine vote I'd say...

 

If F1 was only about production car companies, then that may be true, but, as far as fans are concerned I think there would be mountains of support. I suspect there would be plenty of support from F1 teams that are not production car oriented as well.

 

...a pretty big symptom at that. They copied Toyota Prius tech in some weird fantasy about making F1 green, and all it's done is drive off fans in droves...not to mention that F1 is still about as good to the environment as bunker oil.

To make things worse, the nitwits at FIA are repeating the mistakes other organizers have in the past; they let manufacturers dictate tech formula, and let teams make up their own rules. All this PU has done is make things much more expensive without improving a single thing. One of these customer PU's cost as much as an entire season's worth of customer V-10's did.

Twerp deediddle, twerp deedee.

The worst part of all this, is that there's no end in sight to all this madness.

 

As long as he doesn't use the colon when he talks too

 

Seems the freeze has been relaxed and the homologation will be possibly done at any time in 2015