Did F1 need a greener engine formula?

[iotar__]

So this it where all those winglets, front-back wings, coke-bottle shapes, engine mappings, paddle-clutches, floors, engine cooling and internal flow all packed into F1...

It seems you've confused utility for relevance. If road cars required "all those winglets, front-back wings, coke-bottle shapes, engine mappings, paddle-clutches, floors, engine cooling and internal flow all packed into F1," they would have them. But, they don't need them, so they don't have them.

Search through any technology shared between road cars and race cars, and 99% of the time, you'll find that it originated in road cars.

So it is "four wheels and engine" technology transfer? You made a claim of its direction, if you go absurd enough you can find it, but the combination of elements (randomly listed in previous post) that constitute F1 and level of detail in minor elements to gain hundreds of seconds to beat other car on a race track is no nowhere to be found in road cars.

I frankly don't understand a point nor a reason for this line of thinking. Manufacturers lying about technology transfer because everything "advanced" according to your criteria is on road cars - photos followed? There's technology and there's application of technology. Yes KERS was on buses but putting it on F1 car it it's current or previous form is not technology transfer. Unless again you want to steer towards absurd.

[Richard]

So this it where all those winglets, front-back wings, coke-bottle shapes, engine mappings, paddle-clutches, floors, engine cooling and internal flow all packed into F1 came came from. I saw them every day on road cars but didn't make a connection.

Facetious comments like that work both ways - where is the cigarette lighter on an F1 car?

The point is that when technology transfer takes place it tends to be from road to track more often than the other way.

[thedutchguy]

That is the way it's always been. Technology transfers from road cars to F1; not the other way around.

So this it where all those winglets, front-back wings, coke-bottle shapes, engine mappings, paddle-clutches, floors, engine cooling and internal flow all packed into F1 came came from. I saw them every day on road cars but didn't make a connection. If you go absurd enough - it took four wheels from road cars too. I also swear I saw a Fiesta when they put small rear-mirrors and shaped them to gain 0,001 s on 5 km distance. It had f-duct too, loser was pushing his knee against the hole (moveable aero is against the law on a Fiesta )

You're actually reinforcing his argument, you know that right? None of the 'innovations' from F1 mentioned above have any relevance for road cars so no, you won't find them on road cars.

But I tkink we can agree that over the years technology has gone both ways. I think is fair to say that things like traction control, ABS and active suspensions originated in racing and have transferred to road cars.

Nowadays, technology from road cars is shoved down F1's throat in order to keep it 'relevant', or at least to market it as such. The Toyota Prius hybrid car for example has been on the market since 1997, a full 12 years before F1 started with KERS. It's an image that's being sold. Green F1 is BS. Cars doing 300 kph aren't green by default. Let's stop pretending that they are.

[bhall]

So this it where all those winglets, front-back wings, coke-bottle shapes, engine mappings, paddle-clutches, floors, engine cooling and internal flow all packed into F1 came came from. I saw them every day on road cars but didn't make a connection.

Facetious comments like that work both ways - where is the cigarette lighter on an F1 car?

The point is that when technology transfer takes place it tends to be from road to track more often than the other way.

Indeed.

I have zero problem with the idea of actually transferring technology from race cars to road cars. In fact, I wish it could happen more often, because it would provide a utilitarian excuse for auto racing. Instead, all we're really left with is, "because it's fun." Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But, the wildly disparate nature of the environments encountered by race cars and road cars means it just doesn't happen that way.

[Sulman]

Nowadays, technology from road cars is shoved down F1's throat in order to keep it 'relevant', or at least to market it as such. The Toyota Prius hybrid car for example has been on the market since 1997, a full 12 years before F1 started with KERS. It's an image that's being sold. Green F1 is BS. Cars doing 300 kph aren't green by default. Let's stop pretending that they are.

I think the 'green' label is unhelpful. It's about money, not ideology; it's reality. Oil is becoming more and more expensive, the developing world's energy use is about to rocket. We need efficiency, everywhere.

Look at aviation for a parallel. The drive towards composites and higher & higher bypass or geared turbofans for percentage gains in economy are constant. It's because fuel is only getting more expensive.

It is Formula One that has been slow to capitalise. Even going back as far as the V10 era, we should have been into this stuff. Energy recovery and efficiency are not the future. They are the present.

We can still have extremely fast racing; quicker than before in fact. But the screamers are gone, and they're not coming back. Ever.

[FoxHound]

The problem is F1 regulation is too stringent. This is the biggest stumbling block for any innovation to be going from track to road.

Look at the early 90s. Active suspension etc etc...there was technology available for which rules had yet to be written. And, some of it found its way onto the road.

[Sulman]

The problem is F1 regulation is too stringent. This is the biggest stumbling block for any innovation to be going from track to road.

Look at the early 90s. Active suspension etc etc...there was technology available for which rules had yet to be written. And, some of it found its way onto the road.

I would absolutely like to see active suspension back in F1. It was the technology I missed the most, and it was banned just as teams were in a position to sell it on, too.

[Just_a_fan]

I think is fair to say that things like traction control, ABS and active suspensions originated in racing and have transferred to road cars.

Not sure about that. ABS originated in aircraft I think. Active suspension was being developed on road cars first I think and might even have been seen on military vehicles before that (I seem to remember an active system being developed for a tank/tracked APC). Traction control was on a road car back in 1971 - long before F1 thought about using it.

F1 does not introduce technology - it borrows it from elsewhere.

[MOWOG]

Several thumbs up to The Dutch Guy for a such a well thought out and presented post. =D> And brickbats to those of you who admit that you didn't bother to read the lead post because you ASSUMED it was going to say things you didn't want to hear. You have just pleaded guilty to willful ignorance. How embarrassing for you. If you can't be bothered to read what someone else has written, you have no business foisting your bogus opinion off on others. Shame on you. :-"

I especially related to the emotional excitement the scream of the V-10's had. I had a similar experience at Indianapolis in 2000.

As for F1 technology that transferred to road cars, I would credit racing with introducing the road going world to aluminum engine blocks and heads, double overhead cams, 4 valve per cylinder technology and 5 speed transmissions. Bear in mind that we are taking about the 50's here, when the height of American technology was the all new cast iron Chevrolet pushrod V-8 and three speed transmissions with the shifter on the steering column. Perhaps you can add "bucket seats" to that list!

The lowliest Hyundai today offers engines that owe a lot to Ferrari and BRM and Cosworth and Lotus.

It's too early to tell, but I think F1 may have shot itself in the foot with this new power unit package. I see fans and advertisers bolting for the exits in droves. The sport pays far too much attention to its vaunted technology prowess and far to little attention to maintaining its fan base. With so many entertainment choices available in the world today, I envision lots of people spending their entertainment dollars elsewhere.

My son lives in Australia and we have been talking for years about going to Melbourne for an F1 race. But after last weekend's race? No way in hell. We would prefer to see a V8 SuperCars or other event at Bathursrt,

[thedutchguy]

It is Formula One that has been slow to capitalise. Even going back as far as the V10 era, we should have been into this stuff. Energy recovery and efficiency are not the future. They are the present.

Well, that's debatably imo. Racing is nevery eco friendly in the first place. It's a show and we should stop pretending that its otherwise. Reducing fuel consumption from 160 kilo's per race to 100 kilo's and then claiming that F1 is green is just nonsense. It's nonsense as long as the entire F1 circus is flown around the world in six jumbo jets just for the cargo every two weeks. Nonsense as long as 100.000+ spectators travel to the track by car and nonsense as long as hundreds of millions of people turn on their 100+ Watt televisions to watch the show. I'm sure it helps to sell cars and keep sponsors interested to portray a green image, but it's just bull...

We can still have extremely fast racing; quicker than before in fact. But the screamers are gone, and they're not coming back. Ever.

I'd welcome it if F1 were faster than before. The trend of the last decade however has been to make cars slower and heavier. The fastest race lap - not qualifying but actual race lap - in 2004 at Albert Park was 1:24.125. Last sunday the fastest lap was 1:32.478. That's a full eight seconds slower.

[Agenda_Is_Incorrect]

Really good post! +1!

+2

That is the way it's always been. Technology transfers from road cars to F1; not the other way around

This is not true for the top racing class (GP racers) in a true historical context. The first three decades of GP racing were a hot bed of technology that found its way much later into road cars. As an engineer I'm not at all interested in the sterile years since the last turbo era. 2014 could not have come soon enough for me.

You always base your opinion on an axle to grind. The V12/V10/V8 era did as much technology transfer as it was possible and as much as any era except for the first years of F1 (when road cars were precarious and racing was the place available for more complex/expensive technology). Paddle shifts, variable intakes and all came to road cars from that era. And not much more, just like it will remain being so at the vast majority of the time

The current era will also have the same small technology transfer as any, you could not have waited more for it because you ideologically defended this kind of engine. It is a small scale disaster, just like anything that has politics stuck into it when it should steer clear out of it. As usual, many "truths" will be made up to justify it (like "having" to consume the least fuel possible or being "relevant") and just like anything going down this route time and facts will put things in place. Audience is going to drop, sponsors along, manufacturers after it and magically all those "truths" will disappear and more proper decisions will be made

At the moment I'm thinking FIA will allow a lot of development into those engines. The freeze will be disregarded, either officially or not, to attempt to reach higher revs and improve the sound. Which means another development war, much expenditure and something not very green. Hurray for that!

I think the 'green' label is unhelpful. It's about money, not ideology; it's reality. Oil is becoming more and more expensive, the developing world's energy use is about to rocket. We need efficiency, everywhere.

Look at aviation for a parallel. The drive towards composites and higher & higher bypass or geared turbofans for percentage gains in economy are constant. It's because fuel is only getting more expensive.

It is Formula One that has been slow to capitalise. Even going back as far as the V10 era, we should have been into this stuff. Energy recovery and efficiency are not the future. They are the present.

We can still have extremely fast racing; quicker than before in fact. But the screamers are gone, and they're not coming back. Ever.

So we NEED efficiency in a racing series where 22 cars of the richest people in the world race for 2 hours a week? Is that really comparable to commercial aviation? It's not even comparable to war aviation. In war equipment, mileage at least has some relevance. In a COMPETITION the relevance of it couldn't be smaller

You do realize teams most likely don't pay a cent for their fuel, do you?

Plus you confuse screaming with efficiency and high efficiency (any F1 engine in the past 30 years) with extreme efficiency (current F1 jokes, I mean power units) and you sentence things with a stark opposition to the truth. Most racing series don't even dream about anything close to what F1 is doing and that's pretty much unquestionable. You are saying bollocks

FIA is working hard to make F1 into a playground for 2 or 3 teams and so boring and in fact irrelevant that it may become not anymore recognized as the main racing series in the world. It did that with WRC and the excuses were EXACTLY the same (cost reduction, going green...). WRC today has a fraction of the audience and relevance it had before and became a Citroen/Ford category. Wonder if F1 is doing the same... It all started with the V8s non sense (costs WEREN'T reduced with it)

[el-Magico]

The fastest race lap - not qualifying but actual race lap - in 2004 at Albert Park was 1:24.125. Last sunday the fastest lap was 1:32.478. That's a full eight seconds slower.

That is perhaps even a bigger issue than this current engine sound issue..

Also something I never did understand; if F1 wants to be green... why on earth do they have evening races, where they need to switch on lots and lots of lights, which use a lot of energy.....

Also they fly around the world, use many ships to transport their stuff or use trucks which aren't particulary 'green' or environment friendly..

[Sulman]

Well, that's debatably imo. Racing is nevery eco friendly in the first place. It's a show and we should stop pretending that its otherwise. Reducing fuel consumption from 160 kilo's per race to 100 kilo's and then claiming that F1 is green is just nonsense. It's nonsense as long as the entire F1 circus is flown around the world in six jumbo jets just for the cargo every two weeks. Nonsense as long as 100.000+ spectators travel to the track by car and nonsense as long as hundreds of millions of people turn on their 100+ Watt televisions to watch the show. I'm sure it helps to sell cars and keep sponsors interested to portray a green image, but it's just bull...

How would you describe a forty percent reduction in fuel usage? Is it pointless? Why? Do you believe manufacturers are obligated to develop engines without this consideration? Why?

Likewise, because the logistics of Formula one involve air freight, such an effort is redundant, even though the freighters themselves strive for fuel efficiency? Or that the spectators arrive at the circuit in cars means the cars they watch shouldn't be fuel efficient?

I don't agree. I don't think that F1 should forget about efficiency because it is a show. It is also a showcase, and this is not where the world is going. It is where it is at.

What you're describing is a form of conservatism centred on a very specific vision of F1; namely as entertainment with no other considerations. I personally don't believe it has ever been like that. Commercial and social pressures are real.

[thedutchguy]

What you're describing is a form of conservatism centred on a very specific vision of F1; namely as entertainment with no other considerations. I personally don't believe it has ever been like that. Commercial and social pressures are real.

I'm not conservative for the heck of it. I like innovation, also in cars. I think the Tesla Model S is one of the coolest cars around. But indeed, I think F1 should entertain and be as awesome an experience as it can be for the spectators.

And yes, I do think that conserving 22 (cars) x 60 (liters) for a race is utterly pointless if that race involves all the energy usage (or waste if you like) I mentioned before. Most of all since F1 seems to get more global all the time, which not only means more cargo to be shipped around the world with the fleet of jumbo jets, but also more night races which are run under artificial lighting which consumes huge amounts of energy.

[Tim.Wright]

Also something I never did understand; if F1 wants to be green... why on earth do they have evening races, where they need to switch on lots and lots of lights, which use a lot of energy.....

Also they fly around the world, use many ships to transport their stuff or use trucks which aren't particulary 'green' or environment friendly..

This is the key to the discussion. F1 only needs to appear green. They don't actually need to be green.

The reason they need to appear green (to answer the main question) is because its an industry funded not by the sale of a product or a service but by sponsorship, investors and TV rights (which rely on public interest to be valuable). Sponsors and investors need to keep good corporate images so they cannot be seen to sponsor something which appears wasteful.

This has come about due to the massive budget required to run in F1 competitively. There are only a small number of companies in the world big enough to sustain F1, and they need a good reason to put their money into motorsport instead of funding a children's hospital for example.