Budget cap driven engine formula

[f1316]

There’s a lot of discussion recently about V8s or V10s, how much electrification to allow, road relevance vs racing/fan enjoyment. What of this answer to all these questions could be: yes?

We now have a budget cap for engines that prevents costs getting out of control and that, imho, ought to be the main control the FIA imposes - beyond that, what not let the manufacturers each decide what kind of engine they want? For all the issues with BoP in WEC, one of the joys is seeing a V12 powered Aston Martin competing with V6 and V8 powered cars, which each team able to decide what works best for them. I don’t think a WEC-style control of power output or curve would be a good thing, but given teams can only spend a certain amount of money, what not simply let that be the determining factor?

I think some other broad limitations might be useful - eg you can only use x kgs of fuel and/or it must be sustainable etc - and maybe there are some other components like weight or size that are worth factoring in, but ultimately I don’t see why this would not be a better solution than trying to get everyone to agree on a very specific type of engine. F1 always used to allow this (prior to 1996) so I think this would be a positive for the sport and would encourage more manufacturers to join.

[wuzak]

For all the issues with BoP in WEC, one of the joys is seeing a V12 powered Aston Martin competing with V6 and V8 powered cars, which each team able to decide what works best for them. I don’t think a WEC-style control of power output or curve would be a good thing, but given teams can only spend a certain amount of money, what not simply let that be the determining factor?

It is only the BoP and power output restrictions that allow the N/A V8s and V12s to have any hope of competing with the turbo cars.

[f1316]

For all the issues with BoP in WEC, one of the joys is seeing a V12 powered Aston Martin competing with V6 and V8 powered cars, which each team able to decide what works best for them. I don’t think a WEC-style control of power output or curve would be a good thing, but given teams can only spend a certain amount of money, what not simply let that be the determining factor?

It is only the BoP and power output restrictions that allow the N/A V8s and V12s to have any hope of competing with the turbo cars.

Right, but in this case the teams would know that equation going in and would decide which to use based on performance/cost. Now, could that mean they all converge anyway? Quite possibly. But they wouldn’t *have* to - so in that way no one needs to worry about coming up with some hodge podge engine formula that satisfies everyone. Part of the reason the 2026 engine regs are the way they are was because it was designed by committee to both satisfy existing manufacturers and attract new ones. Ultimately they ended up with something no one particularly loves and a set of chassis regs designed to compensate for all the shortcomings. That clearly isn’t going to produce great results.

In my idea, each team can figure out how best to balance performance and costs and come to the best result in the way that best suits them. Even if they all end up with essentially the same, optimal concept, surely that would still be better because it’s governed by the fastest/most efficient way to go racing?