Did F1 need a greener engine formula?

[Sulman]

@ Turbo

Agree there man.
No flow limit, but a 100kg fuel limit will be for all intents and purposes reaching the same end goal as we have now.....only less restriction.
No limit on energy recovery will transform the tech used from advanced to bleeding edge, that can be used as a running lab for manufacturers to test their wares.
Expensive it will be but then energy recovery is something most manufacturers spend billions on any way. Just make it available to 3 teams. Job done.

And I'm certain these engines would be far louder and sonorous if they where allowed to rev to 18/20k Rpm.

The idea to change was a good one....but once again it's regulation and restriction that hampers things.

This is where I feel it should go to. I like the concept, just take the FF cap off. 100kg is 100kg. Let them get on with it. They'll spend the money anyway, if not on the PU's then on bits of carbon fibre.

[GitanesBlondes]

As far as I am concerned, F1 stopped being a relevant technological breeding ground when it turned into the Bernie and Max show.

Seriously, consider when F1 began to stagnate from a technical perspective first - 1998 with the introduction of the narrow track cars riding on 3-grooved tires...this coincided with Max determining he was the only one qualified to make technical rules and also had to save F1 from itself in his effort to implement his fascist way of thinking upon the sport.

F1 was already gearing up towards an aerodynamic arms race by the mid-90s once everyone figured out raised noses were the way to go for speeding up airflow underneath the car. Though one could potentially make the case that F1 began the stagnation in 1994/1995 when things like the minimum ride height rule were established, and the banning of active suspension took effect, and the end of the V12 engines.

The way I look at it is, if green engines were needed, the engine regulations should have been left open all these years as we likely would have seen the value of pursuing engine configurations beyond the V10 powerplants.

No, this is all a marketing con job that has nothing to do with the fans, and never did. F1 is one of the most amazing sports because of how little fan input even matters any longer. Sure the teams go through all of the hoops with social media marketing, but when it comes to the actual rules, the FIA gives not one crap about the fans. Todt is proving to be quite as useless as his predecessor did.

The rules work best in F1 when ideas are allowed to blossom, not when they are continually stifled year after year. The best rules also engage the fans' imagination, as well as stimulate the visceral experience of attending a grand prix. Stifling the rules just results in the same tired formula where refining what exists is the only key to success, and to refine it requires ungodly sums of money.

That's why the proposed budget cap is a sham, because it still doesn't address the issue that the best ideas come from creativity, and do not cost a penny to think up.

Green F1 engines are an exercise in pissing money away with no real benefit to anyone on this planet. Any technology from these engines that happens to make it into a road car, rest assured, it's going to be in either a McLaren or a Ferrari...you know, cars that a whopping 1-2% of the global population can afford.

The pollution from those batteries alone negates any green benefit that might have been had.

As that the great quote goes, "there's a sucker born every minute"...and the fans, media, and sponsors, are the suckers here.

[MOWOG]

NIce job, GB. An excellent explanation of how we got to where F1 is in 2014. Great post! =D>

[Lycoming]

As far as I am concerned, F1 stopped being a relevant technological breeding ground when it turned into the Bernie and Max show.

Seriously, consider when F1 began to stagnate from a technical perspective first - 1998 with the introduction of the narrow track cars riding on 3-grooved tires...

I would argue that this actually started sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, by which time everybody had more or less gravitated towards the same basic configuration.

The way I look at it is, if green engines were needed, the engine regulations should have been left open all these years as we likely would have seen the value of pursuing engine configurations beyond the V10 powerplants.

But it's not needed, at least not for grand prix racing, though endurance racing is another story.

No, this is all a marketing con job that has nothing to do with the fans, and never did. F1 is one of the most amazing sports because of how little fan input even matters any longer. Sure the teams go through all of the hoops with social media marketing, but when it comes to the actual rules, the FIA gives not one crap about the fans. Todt is proving to be quite as useless as his predecessor did.

And yet, the model works because people still pay to watch the races.

The rules work best in F1 when ideas are allowed to blossom, not when they are continually stifled year after year. The best rules also engage the fans' imagination, as well as stimulate the visceral experience of attending a grand prix. Stifling the rules just results in the same tired formula where refining what exists is the only key to success, and to refine it requires ungodly sums of money.

That's why the proposed budget cap is a sham, because it still doesn't address the issue that the best ideas come from creativity, and do not cost a penny to think up.

First, the best ideas may not cost a penny to think up, but they will cost a penny to validate, manufacture and refine.

Second, I'm not so sure about what you're saying. When you open up the rules, it could just become a matter of who has the most money, who can hire the most engineers, etc. because, as always, you know that there are, say, 20 things you know you can do to make your car faster, but you only have the time/money to pursue, maybe 10 of those items, and the engineering challenge is to choose which ones offer you the most improvement for the time/money spent. If you open the ruleset, then it becomes maybe 200 things, of which you can still pursue only 10. But the bigger, richer teams will be able to pursue more. Except now, these things may be worth not .2 or .3 of a second, but 1 or 2 seconds. It may just end up increasing the gap between the top teams and the midfield.

And it's not like a small team can just come up with a clever idea and run away with the championship, because the big teams are likely to immediately copy it and have the same thing on their car in a few months at most, and then your advantage is gone. An open formula may well turn out to work much better in the good old days when the largest teams did not have such large budgets.

Green F1 engines are an exercise in pissing money away with no real benefit to anyone on this planet.

Absolutely. The money spent on the development of these engines could have been better spent if your goal is to reduce CO2 emissions.

As that the great quote goes, "there's a sucker born every minute"...and the fans, media, and sponsors, are the suckers here.

So what does that make us?

[Powershift]

This is not a "greener" engine formula, it is a more technologically advanced engine formula, that also happens to use less fuel. Given the choice any race team would choose a smaller, lighter, more powerful and more fuel efficient engine and that is why the Turbo's dominated the NA's in the 80's. Last years 2.4L V8's were basically upgraded Cosworth DFV's from the late 60's with pneumatic valve train. How could F1 be considered the "pinnacle" of open wheel racing when even Indycar's 2013 engines were more advanced? That would be like NASCAR advertising itself as the pinnacle of stock car racing when everyone knows the V8 super cars and DTM are far more advanced.

I agree that F1 should be the pinnacle of motorsport with new technology and I would welcome lighter, more advanced engines. These new engines however, are not the pinnacle of technology. For starters the new power trains are MUCH heavier than the outgoing V8's. The V8's had a mandatory minimum weight of 95 kg, something which all engine manufacturers easily achieved, so they could have been lighter still. The new power trains weigh in at a mandatory minimum of 145 kg. That's 50 kg more than the outgoing power train, excluding the extra radiators and inter coolers. The result? The minimum weight of the cars has been increased and teams struggle to make that much increased minimum at the moment. So much for progress.

A little shortsighted aren't you? V8's may have been 95kg, but they also had the KERS system that was another 25kg or more, plus the extra 50kg of fuel they carried and burnt... so with KERS & Fuel the V8 is at least 270kg whereas the new PU(which includes the KERS & TERS(145)) plus fuel is 245kg... So then which one is really lighter? At the start of the race, full of fuel the V8's may have actually been heavier, and only got lighter(through the race) then the V6's because they were less efficient and burned more fuel, nothing special.

I think that a 2.4 liter V8 or 3 liter V10 which - without the rev limiter - runs at 20.000+ rpm producing well over 750 / 1000 hp is still pretty advanced, but that's just me...

Like I said, updated DFV's with pneumatic valves, late 60's design updated with late 90's engineering... sounds like the recipe for NASCAR. The turbo cossie's were more powerful and more efficient than the V-10's, and last year Indycar ran 2.2L turbo V6's that could easily be tuned for more power than the V8's, while with higher efficiency.

Advanced as you may think they were, they are/were not even better than CART/Indycar spec series motors, hardly a "pinnacle" series. Turbo's destroyed the NA's back in the 80's, so when they were banned for '89 F1 automatically put themselves in a lower category, at least on the engine side.

Thankfully they are finally back to a more technologically advanced(and greener) path.

[Powershift]

As far as I am concerned, F1 stopped being a relevant technological breeding ground when it turned into the Bernie and Max show.

Seriously, consider when F1 began to stagnate from a technical perspective first - 1998 with the introduction of the narrow track cars riding on 3-grooved tires...this coincided with Max determining he was the only one qualified to make technical rules and also had to save F1 from itself in his effort to implement his fascist way of thinking upon the sport.

F1 was already gearing up towards an aerodynamic arms race by the mid-90s once everyone figured out raised noses were the way to go for speeding up airflow underneath the car. Though one could potentially make the case that F1 began the stagnation in 1994/1995 when things like the minimum ride height rule were established, and the banning of active suspension took effect, and the end of the V12 engines.

The way I look at it is, if green engines were needed, the engine regulations should have been left open all these years as we likely would have seen the value of pursuing engine configurations beyond the V10 powerplants.

No, this is all a marketing con job that has nothing to do with the fans, and never did. F1 is one of the most amazing sports because of how little fan input even matters any longer. Sure the teams go through all of the hoops with social media marketing, but when it comes to the actual rules, the FIA gives not one crap about the fans. Todt is proving to be quite as useless as his predecessor did.

The rules work best in F1 when ideas are allowed to blossom, not when they are continually stifled year after year. The best rules also engage the fans' imagination, as well as stimulate the visceral experience of attending a grand prix. Stifling the rules just results in the same tired formula where refining what exists is the only key to success, and to refine it requires ungodly sums of money.

That's why the proposed budget cap is a sham, because it still doesn't address the issue that the best ideas come from creativity, and do not cost a penny to think up.

Green F1 engines are an exercise in pissing money away with no real benefit to anyone on this planet. Any technology from these engines that happens to make it into a road car, rest assured, it's going to be in either a McLaren or a Ferrari...you know, cars that a whopping 1-2% of the global population can afford.

The pollution from those batteries alone negates any green benefit that might have been had.

As that the great quote goes, "there's a sucker born every minute"...and the fans, media, and sponsors, are the suckers here.

You are so wrong it is comical, does your hatred of Max blind you so much or is it just pure ignorance of history? Your post is completely ass backwards, but as you said "there's a sucker born every minute", you must have been looking in a mirror when you typed it.

[Cold Fussion]

I think F1 having a green and friendly image helps them market to sponsers, as that is very much the way the world is going. I think it's also part of the engineering ethos to do things more efficiently, the problem seems to be that it's at odds with what the spectators want.

[JimiJams]

I think F1 having a green and friendly image helps them market to sponsers, as that is very much the way the world is going. I think it's also part of the engineering ethos to do things more efficiently, the problem seems to be that it's at odds with what the spectators want.

The number one thing sponsors care about is the exposure per dollar their sponsorship will bring.

[GitanesBlondes]

As far as I am concerned, F1 stopped being a relevant technological breeding ground when it turned into the Bernie and Max show.

Seriously, consider when F1 began to stagnate from a technical perspective first - 1998 with the introduction of the narrow track cars riding on 3-grooved tires...

I would argue that this actually started sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, by which time everybody had more or less gravitated towards the same basic configuration.

The way I look at it is, if green engines were needed, the engine regulations should have been left open all these years as we likely would have seen the value of pursuing engine configurations beyond the V10 powerplants.

But it's not needed, at least not for grand prix racing, though endurance racing is another story.

No, this is all a marketing con job that has nothing to do with the fans, and never did. F1 is one of the most amazing sports because of how little fan input even matters any longer. Sure the teams go through all of the hoops with social media marketing, but when it comes to the actual rules, the FIA gives not one crap about the fans. Todt is proving to be quite as useless as his predecessor did.

And yet, the model works because people still pay to watch the races.

The rules work best in F1 when ideas are allowed to blossom, not when they are continually stifled year after year. The best rules also engage the fans' imagination, as well as stimulate the visceral experience of attending a grand prix. Stifling the rules just results in the same tired formula where refining what exists is the only key to success, and to refine it requires ungodly sums of money.

That's why the proposed budget cap is a sham, because it still doesn't address the issue that the best ideas come from creativity, and do not cost a penny to think up.

First, the best ideas may not cost a penny to think up, but they will cost a penny to validate, manufacture and refine.

Second, I'm not so sure about what you're saying. When you open up the rules, it could just become a matter of who has the most money, who can hire the most engineers, etc. because, as always, you know that there are, say, 20 things you know you can do to make your car faster, but you only have the time/money to pursue, maybe 10 of those items, and the engineering challenge is to choose which ones offer you the most improvement for the time/money spent. If you open the ruleset, then it becomes maybe 200 things, of which you can still pursue only 10. But the bigger, richer teams will be able to pursue more. Except now, these things may be worth not .2 or .3 of a second, but 1 or 2 seconds. It may just end up increasing the gap between the top teams and the midfield.

And it's not like a small team can just come up with a clever idea and run away with the championship, because the big teams are likely to immediately copy it and have the same thing on their car in a few months at most, and then your advantage is gone. An open formula may well turn out to work much better in the good old days when the largest teams did not have such large budgets.

Green F1 engines are an exercise in pissing money away with no real benefit to anyone on this planet.

Absolutely. The money spent on the development of these engines could have been better spent if your goal is to reduce CO2 emissions.

As that the great quote goes, "there's a sucker born every minute"...and the fans, media, and sponsors, are the suckers here.

So what does that make us?

I don't feel like breaking up your post into quotes so I am just going to do a straight reply.

As recently as the late-80s and early-90s you were still getting fresh new ideas. Take a look at what Harvey Postlethwaite did with the 1990 Tyrrell 019...it was the first of the raised nose cars. John Barnard quickly copied this with the Benetton B191. One also cannot underestimate Barnard's influence with his designs at Ferrari in the late 1980s. All game-changers frankly.

I agree with you that green engines as it pertains to F1 were not needed. Le Mans was always the area for those sort of ideas, F1 never should have gotten involved with it. They should have focused on being a proving ground for the most durable, powerful, and impressive engines a manufacturer could design.

Yes people pay to watch the races, but the thing that has to be remembered is, you can only farm the same plot of land with the same crop so many times before you can't do it any longer.

Here is why I would argue against hiring the most engineers as being the key to success...

How has that been working out for all of the teams currently not named Red Bull?

I would always argue that a true chief designer at the head of the table will trump any team who hires a bunch of big names. Ironically the best cars ever created in F1 all were designed by one man, not a team of chefs. Ferrari had all the money in the world to spend, and it took them 21 seasons after Jody Scheckter to even have another driver win the championship...and one could debate the virtue of it all given the help they had from the FIA with the rule changes. Having all the money in the world to spend means nothing...if it did, Ferrari would have been unbeatable since the 50s. There are so many more factors that go into building a winning team beyond just money.

I agree it's not as if a small team can just come up with an idea and win everything.

But I think sometimes people forget part of the magic of the F1 of yesteryear...it was focusing on the lesser teams to see if they might score points. It was always novel to see that happen. Hell, even the pre-qualifying was exciting as could be to see who would round up the 26 car grid. Sure it was unlikely his team was going to amount to much, but watching guys like Guido Forti try to field a team was always intriguing to see. You couldn't help but not root for the underdogs. Then Max ruined that too with his 107% rule BS.

Well it makes us all suckers on some level for continuing to follow F1 (myself included) when it's clear the fix is in.

What I am going to say, is that when I find myself agreeing with Flavio Briatore of all people on how stupid the formula is, you know there are some serious problems with the sport.

[MOWOG]

when I find myself agreeing with Flavio Briatore of all people on how stupid the formula is, you know there are some serious problems with the sport.

Amen. =D>

[thedutchguy]

A little shortsighted aren't you? V8's may have been 95kg, but they also had the KERS system that was another 25kg or more, plus the extra 50kg of fuel they carried and burnt... so with KERS & Fuel the V8 is at least 270kg whereas the new PU(which includes the KERS & TERS(145)) plus fuel is 245kg... So then which one is really lighter? At the start of the race, full of fuel the V8's may have actually been heavier, and only got lighter(through the race) then the V6's because they were less efficient and burned more fuel, nothing special.

No need to be rude my friend. Good point about the race weight including fuel, even though that's irrelevant for the all out speed of the car (in qualifying). I did indeed forget about KERS, although is was not mandatory under the old regulations and its impact on performance was quite limited. Speculations that Red Bull ran a KERS-light have been well documented, so teams had a lot of freedom in that respect and were not forced to carry extra weight.

Like I said, updated DFV's with pneumatic valves, late 60's design updated with late 90's engineering... sounds like the recipe for NASCAR. The turbo cossie's were more powerful and more efficient than the V-10's, and last year Indycar ran 2.2L turbo V6's that could easily be tuned for more power than the V8's, while with higher efficiency.

Well, all 4-stroke engines are basically updated 1867 Otto-motors if you put it that way, right? Comparing the 2.4 Liter V8's (320+ hp per liter) with the DFV (160 hp per liter) is really apples and oranges, even though they share the same combustion principles and basic layout.

And what do you mean by 'late 90's engineering'? As far as I know, Mika Hakkinnen won the 1999 championship in a McLaren MP4/14 car which was powered by a Mercedes FO 110H engine. Even though that 3.0 liter engine had no rev limitation and far fewer restrictions on the use of 'exotic' materials than the V8's, it was only about 40hp more powerful, with an output of about 800hp. Sounds like engineering did actually come quite a way since the late 90's right?

To me - and I guess to most engineers and drivers - race car engines needs three basic factors:

-High Power
-Low weight
-Good driveability

Of those three, the new V6 power units arguably offer only (reasonably) good driveability, on the other two aspecs the 'old' V8's were either on par or much better. According to BMW, the weight of the V8's could have been as low as 69kg's had there not been a mandatory minimum weight, which would would paint an even better picture for the V8's. And let's not mention the near 1000hp, 82 kg V10's of 2005 which make the power to weight ratio of the new power units look like a complete joke:

2014 V6 power unit: 760hp (part of the lap) at 145kg = 5,2hp per kilo
2013 V8 engine + KERS: 820 kp (part of the lap) at 95kg +25kg = 6,8hp per kilo
2005 V10 ICE engine: 980hp (whole lap) at 82kg = 11,9hp per kilo

Having low fuel consumption is only relevant if the rules are tweaked in a way which makes it relevant, which F1 sadly has done since the ban on refueling. Great idea for WEC, but a load of crap for a 300 km Formula 1 race IMO.

[la stradale]

Where is the proof the new F1 is any greener? Show me the environmental impact study proving a 30% increase in petrol economy offsets the environmental damage to be caused by mining and manufacturing and eventual discarding of all the toxic materials used in constructing turbochargers and intercoolers and dry cell batteries and supercapacitors. I'm not buying it.

F1 at present has 11 teams, 22 cars, 19 races (call it an even 20). Each race is ~305km in length (excepting Monaco), and the 2014 formula PU is mandated to get a minimum of ~0.45km/litre. Even if they were to drive twice the race distance in free practices, and even if they were to drive a distance equal to all races and all free practices combined in testing (which is absurdly high), that still only comes to about 350,000 litres of petrol used over the season. Of course that's down from what it would have been on the previous season by near abouts 30%.

So F1 have saved 100,000 litres of petrol, give or take, over the previous season. Admirable, eh wot? Except they won't drive to all those races, will they? No, they'll fly.

The FIA say that the F1 circus flies 160,000km every season travelling to/from races. People, cars and cargo together, I'd say that takes near as makes no difference five (5) Boeing 777s to haul. At least, possibly more. A 777 burns about 16 litres of jet fuel per km flown (that's actually low but I'm being deliberately conservative).

Five jets x 16L/km x 160,000km comes to almost 13 million litres of jet fuel. Just for flying to/from races.

I haven't forgotten that every team doesn't fly to every race. The British teams, for instance, don't need a 777 to get to Silverstone. But let's not overlook that more than a few F1 personalities travel to every race by personal jet, which consume dramatically more litres per passenger kilometer than a commercial jet. And some of them live in Los Angeles, or Antarctica. And I was deliberately conservative with my jet fuel figures, so I'd say it all balances.

But wait, there's more.

The F1 circus weighs more this year than last. The cars are heavier, 49kg each, and the new systems require new test equipment, and new spares. Engine suppliers send new technical staff with new specialities to each event. And a heavier aeroplane burns more fuel. Rough numbers, I'd calculate that if each team ships 1000kg more than they did last year, that paltry 100,000 litre race fuel savings will be wiped out by the increase in jet fuel consumption. And the cars alone account for 98kg of each team's 1000 (and the weight of Lewis' hair care products alone finishes off the Mercedes account).


So let's take off the rose-colored glasses and be REALISTIC, shall we?

F1 already were chockablock with exotic materials and heavy metals, but the new formula goes all in. Turbochargers and intercoolers thrive on exotic materials, such as Ferrari's rumoured titanium microtube heat exchangers. It's built from the sort of stuff that only comes from countries where the human rights record makes Abu Ghraib look like a summer's day at Blackpool beach, and where they often wage genocide to secure mineral mining rights.

And the heart of all rechargeable dry cell batteries and supercapacitors is heavy metals, which also tend to be highly toxic. And since the 2014 PU's Energy Store has 10x the potential for storage as did the 2013 KERS bettery, it stands to reason is also has 10x the amount of heavy metals in it, does it not? Or at least thereabouts. Heavy metals, I might add, that F1 pays the Chinese to process into batteries, because no other (manufacturing) country's environmental standard enforcement is so lax as to allow them to do this and make a profit.

And thanks to F1, all these exotic materials have been disturbed from their four billion year slumber, safely hundreds or even thousands of feet underground, and introduced into our living space. Fortunately, these racing cars' historicity likely will prevent any large bits of them ending up in a rubbish dump, but no matter. Most of the damage already was done in the mining, the shipping half-way around the world, and the refining and processing.

So what it boils down to is, thanks to the new V-6 turbo/hybrid formula, F1 can thump its chest and crow about how green it is, but that's all the good comes from it. The planet is no the better of for it, and they've not saved ANY fossil fuels, not a single drop.

[Powershift]

Where is the proof the new F1 is any greener? Show me the environmental impact study proving a 30% increase in petrol economy offsets the environmental damage to be caused by mining and manufacturing and eventual discarding of all the toxic materials used in constructing turbochargers and intercoolers and dry cell batteries and supercapacitors. I'm not buying it.

F1 at present has 11 teams, 22 cars, 19 races (call it an even 20). Each race is ~305km in length (excepting Monaco), and the 2014 formula PU is mandated to get a minimum of ~0.45km/litre. Even if they were to drive twice the race distance in free practices, and even if they were to drive a distance equal to all races and all free practices combined in testing (which is absurdly high), that still only comes to about 350,000 litres of petrol used over the season. Of course that's down from what it would have been on the previous season by near abouts 30%.

So F1 have saved 100,000 litres of petrol, give or take, over the previous season. Admirable, eh wot? Except they won't drive to all those races, will they? No, they'll fly.

The FIA say that the F1 circus flies 160,000km every season travelling to/from races. People, cars and cargo together, I'd say that takes near as makes no difference five (5) Boeing 777s to haul. At least, possibly more. A 777 burns about 16 litres of jet fuel per km flown (that's actually low but I'm being deliberately conservative).

Five jets x 16L/km x 160,000km comes to almost 13 million litres of jet fuel. Just for flying to/from races.

I haven't forgotten that every team doesn't fly to every race. The British teams, for instance, don't need a 777 to get to Silverstone. But let's not overlook that more than a few F1 personalities travel to every race by personal jet, which consume dramatically more litres per passenger kilometer than a commercial jet. And some of them live in Los Angeles, or Antarctica. And I was deliberately conservative with my jet fuel figures, so I'd say it all balances.

But wait, there's more.

The F1 circus weighs more this year than last. The cars are heavier, 49kg each, and the new systems require new test equipment, and new spares. Engine suppliers send new technical staff with new specialities to each event. And a heavier aeroplane burns more fuel. Rough numbers, I'd calculate that if each team ships 1000kg more than they did last year, that paltry 100,000 litre race fuel savings will be wiped out by the increase in jet fuel consumption. And the cars alone account for 98kg of each team's 1000 (and the weight of Lewis' hair care products alone finishes off the Mercedes account).


So let's take off the rose-colored glasses and be REALISTIC, shall we?

F1 already were chockablock with exotic materials and heavy metals, but the new formula goes all in. Turbochargers and intercoolers thrive on exotic materials, such as Ferrari's rumoured titanium microtube heat exchangers. It's built from the sort of stuff that only comes from countries where the human rights record makes Abu Ghraib look like a summer's day at Blackpool beach, and where they often wage genocide to secure mineral mining rights.

And the heart of all rechargeable dry cell batteries and supercapacitors is heavy metals, which also tend to be highly toxic. And since the 2014 PU's Energy Store has 10x the potential for storage as did the 2013 KERS bettery, it stands to reason is also has 10x the amount of heavy metals in it, does it not? Or at least thereabouts. Heavy metals, I might add, that F1 pays the Chinese to process into batteries, because no other (manufacturing) country's environmental standard enforcement is so lax as to allow them to do this and make a profit.

And thanks to F1, all these exotic materials have been disturbed from their four billion year slumber, safely hundreds or even thousands of feet underground, and introduced into our living space. Fortunately, these racing cars' historicity likely will prevent any large bits of them ending up in a rubbish dump, but no matter. Most of the damage already was done in the mining, the shipping half-way around the world, and the refining and processing.

So what it boils down to is, thanks to the new V-6 turbo/hybrid formula, F1 can thump its chest and crow about how green it is, but that's all the good comes from it. The planet is no the better of for it, and they've not saved ANY fossil fuels, not a single drop.

Once again people, it is not a "Greener" engine formula, it is a more technologically advanced engine formula that just happens to focus on fuel efficiency.

[marcush.]

the new regs are here to please the manufacturers and yet only Mercedes is enjoying it .Mateschhitz runs two Teams thats 4 cars and calls the new regs BS and more and more Teams look unlikely to be in this for much longer.
Maybe it´s the extinction of F1 which is making it greener?

[stephenwh]

Yeah I don't get all of the angst myself...I think what they pulled off is incredible...considering what they changed over the winter - the race went pretty damn well. The engine really did need to matter again, and now it does. I think you really start missing the point if you add up the carbon footprint or whatever to determine if F1 is green...the point is the engine tech on some level advances the state of the art, and that is what it does...I think some fans want sort of a nostalgia formula, that part I really don't get...for me F1 has always been about evolving tech, and the engine was far overdue...the fact the the engine is a lot quieter is just a function of more efficiency, it is what it is....to suggest we go back to the NA tech or do something artificial to make them louder to me, sounds ridiculous...I think the benefits of Formula E and Formula One are now pretty obvious, battery tech and energy management become the new focus, and in my opinion that is as it should be...we enjoyed the era of the loud NA engines but let's be honest, once the rev limit was imposed, engine development really didn't matter as much as it did before then...now engine development is very important and that is a good thing...