What to replace grid penalties with?

[Jolle]

Well, they could just have the same kind of system like the gear box.
A PU has to last 5 races, not a pool, but 5 races straight. If you fail to finish, you can reset it by installing a new PU. When a PU fails during a weekend, you drop 10 places on the grid.

This way you won't be double penalised (during the GP or Q where the PU fails and the penalty when you have to introduce new elements into the pool)

[Shrieker]

go back to one weekend engines. Blow your engine start form the back of the pack. I always found the pinnacle race series reusing engines from one week to the next to be a farce.

20 engines per season ? Great. Now you've easily tripled the cost(maybe even quadrupoled).
No problem for the big teams; how will the minnows pay for it ?

[Emil_Kyulev]

I agree,
Instead of having ridiculous grid penalties, there must be a subtraction of points from the championship standing. Grid penalties shouldn't become part of the staregy, where teams choose where to take them like what Red Bull did in Monza

[void]

Grid penalty is not bad at all, if teams are free to use the five items.
You have five ICE, MGU-H, MGU-K, TC, ES, etc per season, you could change it at your will without penalty, when you use a sixth item then you get a grid penalty or if lost points in season.

[eyalynf1]

I like the penalty points idea, but applied to the constructor's table alone. It could even provide and opportunity for midfield teams to make steady progress through the table. For example if a top team gets a points penalty, but wins the race, lower placed teams could still make progress against them in the constructors table. Also, a strategy could be to provide latest spec engines to customer (typically lower in table) to test. If it works, they get an early performance boost that spices up the racing. If it fails, a top team has minimized the risk of a failure hurting their championship bid.

For this to work, the penalty has be be meaningful and simple enough for fans to understand. So let's say an engine replacement makes a first place score like a fourth place, or perhaps whichever the highest placed non-works customer team scored. So if Lewis finished first but replaced Lewis's PU, and a Force India finished 6th, Mercedes gets 8 constructors points instead of 25 from the win.

Now if a Williams was testing the latest spec unit from Mercedes and it didn't fail they could perhaps jump Force India in the race, or if it did fail, Mercedes dodged a bullet to the tune of a 17 point swing. Its a gamble but it enhances the chances for the mid-field teams to qualify well race with the top teams depending on the performance increment of the upgrades. You could maybe even increase engine allotments for non-works teams to enhance this dynamic, or minimize/eliminate the penalties for non-works team engine failures.

[flynfrog]

go back to one weekend engines. Blow your engine start form the back of the pack. I always found the pinnacle race series reusing engines from one week to the next to be a farce.

20 engines per season ? Great. Now you've easily tripled the cost(maybe even quadrupoled).
No problem for the big teams; how will the minnows pay for it ?

Go back to simpler power units. Think how much cheaper a non electric turbo would be compared to the current unit. Reduce or eliminate the hybrid drive and the engines would be pretty affordable. It worked fine for years

[Gerhardsa]

The only problem with limiting points going to the team or taking them away would affect the smaller teams much more. The bottom 3 teams last year had less points than a race win. With Haas not many more. The top 5 teams could survive a punishment of 25 points and it not affect there positions. You take points away from the lower teams and it could really affect the money they would get. while the big teams have the gaps in points to take the hit and can afford more engines as they get more prize money

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So change the way prize money is distributed.
I agree with Sevach although I think the penalty points might be different.

[Gerhardsa]

go back to one weekend engines. Blow your engine start form the back of the pack. I always found the pinnacle race series reusing engines from one week to the next to be a farce.

20 engines per season ? Great. Now you've easily tripled the cost(maybe even quadrupoled).
No problem for the big teams; how will the minnows pay for it ?

Go back to simpler power units. Think how much cheaper a non electric turbo would be compared to the current unit. Reduce or eliminate the hybrid drive and the engines would be pretty affordable. It worked fine for years

And then all the manufacturers starts to cry again about road relevance and such nonsense

[Manoah2u]

If i'm not mistaken, Mazda's SkyActive and the now following newest 'active' engine system where a gasoline engine is able to work like a diesel engine is enormeously efficient and powerful without even the slightest influence of F1 technology whatsoever.
Same for Ford's Ecosport technology, boasting amazing horsepower figures out of 1 litre-turbo engines, without being stressed to even remotely the figures F1 engines get to.
Then there's Nissan's 1.5 litre 88-pound DIG-T R engine producing 400 hp.

production engines that are amazingly advanced and work like a charm, producing incredible power outputs without even being remotely under the stress levels F1 engines endure.

The problem is the world of F1 is vastly restricted due to the 'budget' restrictions or lets say resource restrictions , as if it works. F1 engines are complex and very advanced, but they bare no resemblance to the real world, and the automotive industry does not need F1 racing for electric turbo development. They can do that without F1 just as much, all they need is the idea.
So hundreds of millions of dollars get invested in engines that make no connection to the real world.

It looks like most relevant technological advancement has been gained in fuel science, where somehow Petronas for example is able to make a fuel / gasoline / oil mixture that gets a vastly better result with the engine it is developed for compared to other market leading lubrificants like Mobil1, Esso, etc.

There is still an amount of road relevance technology in F1 that gets translated to the real world, but the engines itself per sé are not in that category at all.

The misplaced idea that forcing working on engine wear is road relevant is a huge mistake as the teams are not now getting engines that live longer, they're simply taking the penalties for not being able to deliver, so there's literally no progress.

[marmer]

If i'm not mistaken, Mazda's SkyActive and the now following newest 'active' engine system where a gasoline engine is able to work like a diesel engine is enormeously efficient and powerful without even the slightest influence of F1 technology whatsoever.
Same for Ford's Ecosport technology, boasting amazing horsepower figures out of 1 litre-turbo engines, without being stressed to even remotely the figures F1 engines get to.
Then there's Nissan's 1.5 litre 88-pound DIG-T R engine producing 400 hp.

production engines that are amazingly advanced and work like a charm, producing incredible power outputs without even being remotely under the stress levels F1 engines endure.

The problem is the world of F1 is vastly restricted due to the 'budget' restrictions or lets say resource restrictions , as if it works. F1 engines are complex and very advanced, but they bare no resemblance to the real world, and the automotive industry does not need F1 racing for electric turbo development. They can do that without F1 just as much, all they need is the idea.
So hundreds of millions of dollars get invested in engines that make no connection to the real world.

It looks like most relevant technological advancement has been gained in fuel science, where somehow Petronas for example is able to make a fuel / gasoline / oil mixture that gets a vastly better result with the engine it is developed for compared to other market leading lubrificants like Mobil1, Esso, etc.

There is still an amount of road relevance technology in F1 that gets translated to the real world, but the engines itself per sé are not in that category at all.

The misplaced idea that forcing working on engine wear is road relevant is a huge mistake as the teams are not now getting engines that live longer, they're simply taking the penalties for not being able to deliver, so there's literally no progress.

To add to that and as mentioned before by others. Merc got the turbo from the truck team and then developed it. If F1 was road relevant they would have made it from scratch and it trickle down to the sports cars and the like the only think road relevant about the current formula is the fact that it's a V6 with some electronic assistance. But underneath it's far from a road going version until Mercedes make the thing with the F1 engine but it's not exactly a daily driver is it

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[Just_a_fan]

Cost is easy to deal with. One engine design that is supplied to the entire grid. Single supplier making enough units for all of the teams for the season would drop the unit cost to sensible levels.

Problem is that Ferrari will never accept that. And who would want to race a Ferrari customer engine against Ferrari's works team?

Thinking further, just get Ferrari (or whoever is chosen) to make X hundred engines, give them to Charlie and let him give each car an engine on Thursday. The teams then bolt the engine to the tub and go racing. FIA ECU goes with the engine so can ensure no engine is run in a naughty manner. FIA runs the engine pool and retires units as they reach their alloted number of uses.

[marmer]

Just to add some interesting figures to the mix it turns out even with honda madness since the new engines have come in there have been less parts used year on year.

I put a list together based on pu used list from the final races of 14, 15 and 16. Taking out caterham from 14. And Haas from 16. They both had average results. This gives 22 cars for 3 seasons.
2014 total parts used 595
2015 total parts used 577
2016 total parts used 567

This would seem to be a good thing however most of the improvement came in 2015 and for everybody was worse in 2016 part from honda which is quite strange

2015 excluding honda 468
2016 excluding honda 484

Will be interesting to see how this year's figures feature I suspect they are going to be better apart from honda

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[Ennis]

I like the penalty points idea, but applied to the constructor's table alone. It could even provide and opportunity for midfield teams to make steady progress through the table. For example if a top team gets a points penalty, but wins the race, lower placed teams could still make progress against them in the constructors table. Also, a strategy could be to provide latest spec engines to customer (typically lower in table) to test. If it works, they get an early performance boost that spices up the racing. If it fails, a top team has minimized the risk of a failure hurting their championship bid.

For this to work, the penalty has be be meaningful and simple enough for fans to understand. So let's say an engine replacement makes a first place score like a fourth place, or perhaps whichever the highest placed non-works customer team scored. So if Lewis finished first but replaced Lewis's PU, and a Force India finished 6th, Mercedes gets 8 constructors points instead of 25 from the win.

Now if a Williams was testing the latest spec unit from Mercedes and it didn't fail they could perhaps jump Force India in the race, or if it did fail, Mercedes dodged a bullet to the tune of a 17 point swing. Its a gamble but it enhances the chances for the mid-field teams to qualify well race with the top teams depending on the performance increment of the upgrades. You could maybe even increase engine allotments for non-works teams to enhance this dynamic, or minimize/eliminate the penalties for non-works team engine failures.

I don't like it at all. Take this season as a prime example - what if Ferrari decide to throw their weight behind Vettel, knowing that Merc will win the WCC anyway, and just take the constructor's hit? Something about that doesn't sit right with me.

I don't think the current system is too bad. I think perhaps they need to be less aggressive on usage next season and allow more units, but the system itself works.
This becomes a hot topic for 2 main reasons:
1) Honda, the anomaly, who can't produce an engine which lasts
2) Everyone choosing to take the hit together on a track where overtaking is easier

I know this system isn't perfect, but I've yet to see any which offers a better overall solution (IMO, of course). Constructors leads to WDC being prioritised and potentially cheapened in my mind, financial means the richer teams might just decide to take the hit... really the only way to really persuade teams is to influence race results, or hit across both WDC & WCC. I prefer the grid penalty to a points deduction across both WDC & WCC.

EDIT - to clarify, I quite like the idea on this thread of only certain components being penalised or some at least being excused to an extent. But I think the punishment at the end of breaching whichever the rules are needs to be grid penalties, I've not seen an improvement on the "grid penalties" idea although some seem to be coming up with ways to optimise it.

[krisfx]

The only problem with limiting points going to the team or taking them away would affect the smaller teams much more. The bottom 3 teams last year had less points than a race win. With Haas not many more. The top 5 teams could survive a punishment of 25 points and it not affect there positions. You take points away from the lower teams and it could really affect the money they would get. while the big teams have the gaps in points to take the hit and can afford more engines as they get more prize money

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That's even more valid when a failed PU for a customer usually isn't directly their fault. I think this could potentially lead to customers being used for experiments to avoid the big teams hitting issues, causing massive payment/points issues.

[TAG]

Can anyone putting forth alternate penalty suggestions take a shot at explaining why this is all of the sudden a problem?