The so called 'New Engines'

[v10motorhead]

The new engines (2004 onwards), are supposed to last a whole race weekend. One would expect these engines to be heavier & rev at a lower speed than thier predecessors. Thus hampering bhp figures.

But none of this has happened, instead Pedro De La Rosa quoted the new Mercedes is matching last years engine output & expects Mecredes to come out with an even more powerful engine mid-season.

In addition to that, Lap records have been broken by Barrichello, Button, Montoya & more recently by Raikkonen at Valencia.

My question is if the so called 'new engines' are delivering the goods by producing good & better lap times & having good reliability, why didnt F1 teams opt to make these engines ages ago, rather than using 4-5 engines on an average per race wkend? It would hv saved them heaps of cash... I read somewhere Mercedes used to supply some 200+ engines to McLaren per season & has to now cut down to around 50 per season (Including testing & R&D).

[Scuderia_Russ]

Due to the trade off of reliability and weight.

[Irvingthien]

This rule doesn't save money at all. Engine suppliers will invest more money on researching for engine hp with reliability. I think we need more cost cutting rules that makes more sense.

[uzael]

As long as performance can be gained by spending more moeny, teams will do so. The only real way to cut cost is bu cutting testing. R&D can only advance so fast without track testing to back it up. Limiting testing will slow the RD process and therefore reduce the amount of gain per dollar spent, until it's not wirthwhile to invest past a certain point.

[350plus]

The truth is, that if there was no new rule, the engines would now be even powerful than there are now (maybe close to the 1000hp mark) I think FIA meant to reduce both power and costs but I think they failed... The engines are still gaining power and revs and the money that was being directed to building 200 engines a year is now going to the R&D departments which in turn can build more powerful powerplants. I think the real losers with this rule are the small firms and contractors that probably have less work to do (75 per cent less based on those Mercedes figures...) About limited testing... I dont know if that would just mean spending more money in the wind tunnels...
It is really a though job for the FIA...

[Guest]

its formula one just let them go crazy and develop as much as they want that is what formula one is sorry to shoot u guys down but --- cost cutting and just let them develop insanely fast cars

[drspeed]

Even if I am a die-hard F1 fan, I dont expect current extremes to last until 2010. Ferrari and Toyoda would most likely stay, others i dont know. not even BMW or Mercedes Benz.

I think they need to study some of the reasons why the WRC enjoys such a tight competition. I think it's mostly because the most expensive parts, the powertrain, is develop around a production unit. Imagining that the FIA one day announces that all engines should be production based, i dont think they would revise the engine/transmission package as extreme as they do now since they would have to produce them as well. For us, it'll be good news, because we might have enzo ferraris, bmw m5s or "SL30 Mclaren"s with detuned F1 engines.

[350plus]

I agree with Drspeed that there will be no changes in the next years...
and that maybe one way out was some kind of production based racing.
Take Nascar for example, they run engines that are production based, and that makes it more appealing to the public.
But I am not sure if this would cut down costs as the teams would have to build road cars to base their racing machines in. This would be OK for Ferrari but impossible for teams like Minardi

[Guest]

its formula one just let them go crazy and develop as much as they want that is what formula one is sorry to shoot u guys down but --- cost cutting and just let them develop insanely fast cars

Ok, let's have the sport kill itself by running billion dollar budgets, to the point that even Ferrari is going to go bankrupt. Then we have to revert to motorsports like NASCAR.

Awesome

[drspeed]

But I am not sure if this would cut down costs as the teams would have to build road cars to base their racing machines in. This would be OK for Ferrari but impossible for teams like Minardi

Minardi runs on Cosworth engines, and Cosworth is owned by Ford. They could built a replacement for the Ford GT with an F1 engine. No big deal. If F1 intends to be a test bed of technologies that can be applied to road cars, I see no reason why manufacturers would object this idea.

I believe that it will cut costs mostly from frequent redesigning. Since the bulk of the engine comes from roadcars, they will have to develop a unit that satisfies both formula 1 modifications and roadcar application. For this, they wont even the have to chance to experiment with many different designs and spent millions of euros to develop them. In the same time, roadcars would immediately benefit from increased efficiency of the engines. Fuel consumption nowadays relies heavily on electronics. No big worry then.

[Becker4]

get the race calendar up to 20 races, then allow teams to test for longer b4 the race, maybe all day thursday and some of friday, then all qualifying on satruday, and race sunday. then cut all testing not done on race weekends to a fourth of what it is now. i think a system like that would be a good starting point for cost reductions.

[tonged]

Attempts to reduce costs will never really work. Teams like Ferrari, McLaren and Williams are always going to have EUR200mm (or whatever the figure actually is) to spend, and will spend it all.

Most attempts to reduce costs work by changing the rules. The teams with more to spend will always respond more quickly and more effectively to those changes.

Effectively you have a championship for three or four teams with huge budgets. The only way to level the playing field for the rest of them is to make it so that there is less gain to be had from spending more money, spending more time in the wind tunnel, hiring more engineers. The obvious way to do that would be to standardise the cars and that would be totally against the spirit of F1.

[Irvingthien]

One way to cut cost of the engine is to put a limit to the hp output of the engines. This should benefit lower teams and the gap of competiveness of F1 should decrease.

[Becker4]

One way to cut cost of the engine is to put a limit to the hp output of the engines. This should benefit lower teams and the gap of competiveness of F1 should decrease.

no, then they would invest all the money in how to make it as light as possible, or invest in gaining power in other areas, like torque . . . like tonged said, you would have have an engine standard to all teams which is against the spirit of F1. the goal of cost cuttin, as i see it, is not to limit the amount of money teams can spand - because you can always spend more money. the goal of it should be to lessen the advantage gained by that extra money, so that teams who don't have as much can be more competative. if testing is limited, teams with less money won't have to worry that they can't afford as much development time as others. but total develpoment time wouldn't be severly cut - because you would have more time to test oon race weekends, where everyone has to be anyway. another bonus, is with mroe race weekends in more countries, there is more expose for sponsors, and therefore more money to also lessen the strain on bottom teams. the downsides of this plan that i can see, though are increased costs in engineers and computer technicians who can run computer simulations, windtunnel test, and other in - factory develpoments, but hopefully they cost of this is less that the cost of hualing it around to tracks and running it for 6 days a week. i know its not a perfect solution, but its a start. what do you guys think? any changes you would make?

[rob2004]

there is an argument for having a maximum budget i spose, but i feel that in the current circumstances there should be more of an emphasis on what forms of restrictions on engine output, aerodynamics, tyres etc would be a levelling the playing field most...

My feeling is that:
- if you limit testing it would just change the emphasis on alternatives to circuit testing not to testing the cars...which in it self will in the short term just be a way of compromising ferrari
- if you limit tyres it would compromise the michelin runners
- if you limit HP it would compromise BMW

and so on...

a balanced package may slow down the process of division between bigger and smaller teams as relocation of money flows will mean less disadvantages for smaller teams...and control some forms of excess - the increased speeds and increased risks associated -