"Wow! I never could've had a V8!"

Renault has been producing V8 engines in thier road cars for several years. They will be no worse off than Ferrari. Honda, Toyota, and don't forget Mercedes should have a leg up, but the differences between and V10 and a V8 is probably not as great as we might imagine. People like Pat Symonds, Patrick Faure, Bernard Dudot, etc have many years of great expericence with all sorts of engines, a V8 should make no real difference.

 

If you listen to Steve Matchett's talk on Speed, he reports that lots of engine designers are having trouble with lateral vibration of the V8 engines. The V10's have vibration but it's in the vertical direction, which a damper can handle.

My pick for V8's are Ferrari, Honda and Cosworth; in that order.

Gilles Simon at Ferrari designs engines with tons of power and ability to take a pounding. Before this year, the last engine failure Ferrari had was Rubens in 2003 (Nurburgring I think). That's a looooong time without the lump going thump.

 

Seems to me air and fuel dont really care about the # or size of the cylinder they combust in. 4,6,8,10,12. An 8 only has two basic choices in crank layout. Its the heads ( read flow ) where the volumetric efficiency is made. I dont see cylinder count being a major hurdle to a good designer.

 

Wrong. Ferrari has tested the V8 allready on track and so have Toyota IIRC. Only recently Mercedes have tested their V8 on track and the said it was "OK". They didn't seem to be too impressed with the new engine. Good news in a way for the competition or maybe they're sandbagging.

Ciao, Peter

 

Ross Brawn had some interesting comments on the new V8 in the Friday press conference at brazil. I'd C&P them but apparently there are copyright issues

But you can read it here:

http://www.formula1.com/race/news/3630/748.html

It's towards the end. The gist is that Ferrari are on a similar learning curve to everyone else.

It may very well be Honda, Toyota, and Cosworth that have the edge.

 

Cosworth have been committed to the v8 for the longest and have been producing hp numbers and revs way above all other teams planned numbers for ages ... if you believe Sam Michael from Williams ... ?

I really put my money behind Cosworth being the best for the begining of this phase but it won't take long for the others to catch up, etc. ... especially Renault who I expect to drop the 'camshaft' and once again completely revolutionise the motorsport world.

Pete

 

I wish the FIA would go for the option of either a naturally aspirated V-8 or a turbocharged V-6 or straight 4, and that the blocks should be based on production units. With flat bottomed cars, single element front and rear wings with a limit on the surface area, and slick tires, I think the racing would be a lot better.

I wonder if Cosworth is serious about running both V-8s and restricted V-10s next year; a detuned V-10 will give much greater reliability over the course of 2 races, although Cosworth has had only one engine failure his year anyways.

 

I like the flexibility ...

Wasn't the restricted v10 only going to be for Minardi ... and they have just been sold to RBR, who will be using Ferrari engines next year.

Thus hasn't the whole restricted v10 issue disappeared?

Pete