Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Hoffman900]

A rising tide lifts all ships… a manufacturer struggling and potentially risk leaving F1 is headlinew news and only hurts the F1 brand itself, which effects all teams evaluations. They want all the manufacturers to be competitive, but just slightly less than themselves.

[diffuser]

I'm not sure what the goals are regarding PU costs. I can't see how banning expensive sensors solves the cost problem.

If you take a manufacturer like Honda, let's say the PU budget is $160M. Subtract whatever Aston Martin pays for the PU (around $15M), and that's still essentially a complete write-off of about $145M.

PU manufacturers can't really generate advertising revenue directly, so selling the PU is basically their only revenue stream — and the FIA sets a maximum price cap for that, right? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model for the "Hondas" of the world that don't own their own team.

I understand that Honda, in normal years, can absorb a $145M write-off as an advertising and R&D expense, but isn't it a better idea to expand F1 to 24 teams and have 4 PU manufacturers each supplying 6 teams?

That would spread the costs across more customers and reduce the effective burden on the manufacturers. For example, if the total PU budget were $200M, each team could pay around $40M, and each PU manufacturer would actually recover meaningful revenue instead of operating at a massive loss.

[peewon]

A rising tide lifts all ships… a manufacturer struggling and potentially risk leaving F1 is headlinew news and only hurts the F1 brand itself, which effects all teams evaluations. They want all the manufacturers to be competitive, but just slightly less than themselves.

I think in this case, a large part of the explanation given for these otherwise non sensical regulations has been its attractiveness to engine manufacturers. A F1 legacy name like Honda leaving would also draw further criticism towards the decisionmakers from within the sport.

[GoranF1]

https://x.com/i/status/2059005331720540600

[PlatinumZealot]

People care too about ADUO if you ask me! People waste too much mental space thinking about it. At the end of the day it is a convergence tool. There will be no manufacture shooting out in front by 100hp anymore as these engines will reach limiting peak horsepower returns pretty quickly. Remember we basically saw the peak of combustion technology in the previous regulations! What holds them back is the change of fuel! So as the synthetic fuel gets better we will see the engines approach the plateau of limiting returns. I see it getting there in mid 2028.

[gearboxtrouble]

People care too about ADUO if you ask me! People waste too much mental space thinking about it. At the end of the day it is a convergence tool. There will be no manufacture shooting out in front by 100hp anymore as these engines will reach limiting peak horsepower returns pretty quickly. Remember we basically saw the peak of combustion technology in the previous regulations! What holds them back is the change of fuel! So as the synthetic fuel gets better we will see the engines approach the plateau of limiting returns. I see it getting there in mid 2028.

I think the main concern with ADUO isn't the massive leapfrog concern but the impact combining it could have on 27 if we do move to 60/40. If Mercedes and Red Bull are still limited to what they can change for 27 in the ICE while Honda, Audi and especially Ferrari have lots of ADUO allowance, they'd be able to redirect the "in season" development towards acing the 60/40 engines. I think all the noise is about trying to get some extra development allowance for Mercedes and maybe Red Bull to ensure they don't fall 0.2 - 0.3s behind Ferrari on engine alone in 27. Audi and Honda imho are not considered major threats.