Imminent F1 shakeup?

[mrluke]

The trick to keeping the FIA out is not letting your competition be called a motorsport, then you can do all of the above

[Moxie]

One issue that needs to be resolved here is the question "Why worry about making a 'green' F1 car?" The answer is simple really, but seems to have been ignored in the conversation. Shareholders. Why on earth would a publicly traded company dump that much money into developing an engine for bloody good fun. Shareholders demand profits abhor unnecessary risk. Mercedes, Renault and Fiat had better have a damned good reason for participating in the F1 circus, and bloody good fun is not a good reason. I don't really think the current cars are actually "green", except for Caterham of course, but if the line of BS pacifies the investors...roll with it.

[Cam]

Shareholders. Why on earth would a publicly traded company dump that much money into developing an engine for bloody good fun. Shareholders demand profits abhor unnecessary risk.

Agreed. But with falling interest in F1, failed Stock Exchange floats, teams ready to collapse - with the blessing of the promoter and a sport in disarray amid fan backlash - you'd call that risk, wouldn't you?

All the while the sport doesn't know what it is supposed to be, the rest us won't know either, fans included. That's not confidence building.

Why would anyone invest in F1 when you have a 4-way (and no, not a good 4-way) happening? It needs fixing - a 'shakeup'. But, the fact 3 manufacturers are here and one more is coming proves I have no *&%^% idea why they are in F1 at all. None of it makes rationale sense. But what does anymore?

Maybe that's the point?

[autogyro]

As long as the manufacturers see F1 as the peak of vehicle technology they will invest.
When this is no longer the way they see it, they will not.
Simple really.

[Greg Locock]

"As long as the manufacturers see F1 as the peak of vehicle technology they will invest" Nonsense. It is Marketing that pays for F1, not Engineering.

You really have swallowed the Kool Aid.

[Cam]

As long as the manufacturers see F1 as the peak of vehicle technology they will invest.
When this is no longer the way they see it, they will not.
Simple really.

I'm sorry. Nothing personal, but it's only you and a handful of others that still believe this. If it were really true, we'd have a very different grid.

Edit: autogyro, when your long term hardcore fans don't believe it.....

[Edax]

Shareholders. Why on earth would a publicly traded company dump that much money into developing an engine for bloody good fun. Shareholders demand profits abhor unnecessary risk.

Agreed. But with falling interest in F1, failed Stock Exchange floats, teams ready to collapse - with the blessing of the promoter and a sport in disarray amid fan backlash - you'd call that risk, wouldn't you?

Look at the flipside. What is the opportunity?

Mercedes is launching its hybrid C-class this year. What do you think that this years performance will do for the way it will be received. Even if you have no interest in F1 or racing whatsoever, you would have to live in a very dark part of Africa to have escaped news of Mercedes dominance and that they have build a very reliable hybrid system.

I think we can do away with the myth that F1 is the breeding ground for innovation. It is not and has never been. But that does not mean that the technology we see on the cars today is not or will not be relevant. Though I'm quite skeptical about the hybrid hype, I think the chances are pretty big that in 10 years time we'll be driving with some form of energy recovery system.

Of course a racing series does not have to depend on manufacturers displaying innovation. Nascar is doing quite well in its uber-conservative 4 speed, pushrod, steel block kind of way.

But every manufacturer (except Ford) which has ever won the Nascar championship went bankrupt.

So as a manufacturer where would you put your money?

[Psoz]

I think it's important to look at the history of f1 regulations to find out what has caused this decline. It's quite clear that the rules people use to demarcate the beginnings and ends of eras are the engine rules. F1 was primarily dictated by engine formula. Despite the enormous emphasis on aero today, the fans of all non-mercedes teams find themselves complaining about having the wrong engines (granted this importance is for predominantly different reasons).
I propose that we return to a freer formula that rewards multiple solutions to problems by way of manufacturer variety. We have seen this in the past: in the late 70s Lotus had ground effects, Tyrrell had the dry sump gearbox, Ferrari had the flat 12 engine. Close racing was possible organically. Each team had a comparative advantage in their own thing and their strategy would be tailored to that.
Let's have a 3.5 liter formula (of any cylinder configuration) with provisions for boost regulated 1.6 liter turbocharged engines (possibly even allow reworked engines from the current formula). Let's either remove the minimum weight, or set it low enough that most if not all teams cannot reach it. Let's ditch the hybrid restrictions and allow a number of engine and part manufacturers (customer chassis allowed) to join in by way of easier homologation.
Competition, like in any other field will bring the price down, and those savings (coupled with the benefits of rearranging prize money payout, and/or having racing in countries that care about it instead of going to the next oil rich tax haven, and/or limiting transportation costs by having the racing occur in a pattern where the races that occur after one another actually occur near each other).
F1 since the beginning (and even before if you consider prior grand prix racing) has not been about advancing technology, but the lessons learned on the race track still benefited the road despite their differences. Innovations in safety technology have come from NASCAR, and that's a spec series.
Anyway, there's more to be said here but I implore the commenters here to consider that there are enough spec series on earth, and that F1 should not go the way of CART.

EDIT: I wanted to clarify that my attack on minimum weight is to allow for progress in efficiency in the most obvious way, and to note that any safety it is thought to provide is already covered by crash testing and other programs

[Cam]

So as a manufacturer where would you put your money?

WEC and GT Production series.

Manufacturers have never had a 'good time' in F1. They come and go. Ferrari is an anomaly because of it's vested interest and close ties with the FIA and the regulations. It has managed to secure power over the direction of the sport. Any other manufacturer doesn't have that kind of influence (apart from threatening to quit in the press).

F1 has never been about production car relevance. Never. And rightly so. Sure, some aspects you can draw a line to, but overall, the sport was about 'constructors' building race cars - not manufacturers building road car tech.

F1 is not, repeat not, a manufacturers series. The following are:
• WEC
• GT Production
• WTCC
• WRC
• Superbikes
• Moto GP
• V8 Supercars

All of whom have full factory, multi representation, broad spectrum manufacturer teams, with vehicle shapes and lingo that reflect what Joe Average can buy, added with tech that (mostly) flows into next gen vehicles.

F1 does none of that. DRS? Slick tyres? Kers buttons? Open Wheels? Complex front wings? Blown Diffusers? Tyre warmers? 2 sec pit stops? Adjustable on the fly clutch, fuel burn, engine maps etc? F1 is as far from road relevant as you can get while still having 4 wheels.

F1 has only 2 full factory manufacturer teams. All the rest are engine customers. Even Honda is only supplying engines.

Yet we are fed this malarky of "manufacturers" in F1 and the "need" for engines that reflect the new world. It's false. I know it, the fans know it. FOM and the FIA know it - but continue to spruke this tripe in the hope people will finally buy it. Why? Because that's where the majority cash comes from. F1 is money making machine for a select few.

Mutton dressed as lamb.

[Just_a_fan]

F1 has only 2 full factory manufacturer teams. All the rest are engine customers.

And that is why there is the move to "road car relevancy". Without road car makers providing engines there is no F1. If Renault, Mercedes and Honda pull out, that would leave the entire grid buying engines from Ferrari. Is that what you want?

F1 has to play to the manufacturers because they are the only ones able to spend the money necessary to compete, or at least make engines anyway.

[Moxie]

F1 has only 2 full factory manufacturer teams. All the rest are engine customers.

And that is why there is the move to "road car relevancy". Without road car makers providing engines there is no F1. If Renault, Mercedes and Honda pull out, that would leave the entire grid buying engines from Ferrari. Is that what you want?

F1 has to play to the manufacturers because they are the only ones able to spend the money necessary to compete, or at least make engines anyway.

I agree, but I'd like,to be a little more specific. F1 has to play to the board members and the major shareholders of the manufacturers. Green is popular, so that is the lime of BS. The other option is for Formula one to use production based engines, bit I guess that would be sacrilegious.

[Waywardism]

I'd like to see them focus on what really matters. All this talk of the type of engine being used is just distracting from the real issues in my view. Can anyone say they didn't enjoy a race this year because of the type of engine they use or the sounds they make?

I think the real issue over the last few years is that races are increasingly becoming about conservation and less about people driving machines as fast as they possibly can. Increasingly drivers are having to drive slower to conserve fuel and engine parts.

They should scrap limits on engine parts used during the season and go back to engines that only need to last a race. Why do we need engines that last a long time in F1? There's the whole cost saving argument but I'm guessing that the cost of manufacturing an engine is a tiny fraction of the cost of all the R&D that goes into designing it in the first place.

If the engine manufacturers want to produce efficient engines that's fine we can work with that, but let's change the incentives for the teams. As it stands teams seem to gain more by running their cars as light on fuel as possible and then having to save fuel at points during the race. It all comes down to the weight of the car. They should be looking at ways to eliminate weight gains by running less fuel at the start of a race. I would add a minimum amount of fuel a car has to have at the start, not a maximum amount, make it more than these engines can possibly consume in a race so that teams would actually like to burn as much fuel as possible. Keep the fuel flow limit to incentivise the engine manufacturers to keep pushing the boundaries of efficiency if that's what they want to do.

[Cam]

F1 has only 2 full factory manufacturer teams. All the rest are engine customers.

And that is why there is the move to "road car relevancy". Without road car makers providing engines there is no F1. If Renault, Mercedes and Honda pull out, that would leave the entire grid buying engines from Ferrari. Is that what you want?

F1 has to play to the manufacturers because they are the only ones able to spend the money necessary to compete, or at least make engines anyway.

There will always be someone who can supply engines. But, what engines? The FIA stipulate that, so the FIA can change it too. They can write into the rules "off the shelf v8 or v6 turbo". Does it get more relevant than that? F1 uses the same engine I can buy today.

Leave the engine research to others. We don't need every series doing engine research.

[mrluke]

Let's have a 3.5 liter formula (of any cylinder configuration) with provisions for boost regulated 1.6 liter turbocharged engines (possibly even allow reworked engines from the current formula). Let's either remove the minimum weight, or set it low enough that most if not all teams cannot reach it.

Why not just have a limit on the amount of "fuel" that is allowed to be added to the car?

[FoxHound]

I like the fuel idea.

Let em have x amount of litres and how it is burnt will be up to the engine manufacturers.
However, I do not see this alleviating any built in advantages, not with a frozen formula.
There will also be an uproar if, for example, the best way to burn your allocation of fuel is a 4 cylinder turbo mute.
All manufacturers will converge on it eventually.