Imminent F1 shakeup?

[ScottB]

Ultimately the manufacturers, certainly Mercedes and Renault anyway, are keen for F1 to be something more to them than pouring billions into something with a potentially negative image. Now whether the innovation from KERS and the later ERS will ever really filter into their roadcars, or if it just is some good PR to push their hybrid offerings, it's ticking their corporate boxes. To the layman F1 sounds like it is at the forefront of green car technology, which is reinforced by all the supercars running KERS or hybrid systems launching on to the market. Suddenly the expense starts to make some sense, much more than any further investment in archaic V8s.

Ferrari are complaining because they aren't winning. If they were no doubt they'd be doing like Merc are and advertising the link between the 'green' systems in their F1 car, the La Ferrari and it filtering down the range in future. But instead they've dug their heels in and started moaning about wanting something back that is never going to happen. Perhaps LDM is looking for yet more extra money to be given to them just for turning up each year...

[ScottB]

A lot of people don't understand the notion of carbon footprint. As a consequence, if next year they see a hybrid Mercedes driving down their street, they'll just think the pollution is lower and won't care that the pollution is probably greater, but moved elsewhere. Politicians and environmentalists love this kind of ignorance.

A lot of people don't understand that by moving it elsewhere, we're still making progress. It's a lot easier to optimise the process of building batteries and the process of making electricity than it is to optimise the process of turning a crank shaft in a car.

You can trivially (though expensively) replace power plants with solar arrays, and wind turbines... You can't trivially make 1,000,000,000 cars run on something that doesn't involve burning.

I would go a step further and I present and excellent exmaple of how F1 could have solved some of their whoas.

In Lieu of Money, Toyota Donates Efficiency to New York Charity

The Food Bank for New York City is the country’s largest anti-hunger charity, feeding about 1.5 million people every year. It leans heavily, as other charities do, on the generosity of businesses, including Target, Bank of America, Delta Air Lines and the New York Yankees. Toyota was also a donor. But then Toyota had a different idea.

Instead of a check, it offered kaizen.

A Japanese word meaning “continuous improvement,”

Toyota did more for this charity than any cheque could have done. Amazing thinking. Perhaps some of F1's troubles can be answered in here?

Didn't Mclaren do something along those lines with Great Ormond Street Hospital? Making patient transfer post surgery more efficient or something like that.

[Cam]

Ultimately the manufacturers, certainly Mercedes and Renault anyway, are keen for F1 to be something more to them than pouring billions into something with a potentially negative image. Now whether the innovation from KERS and the later ERS will ever really filter into their roadcars, or if it just is some good PR to push their hybrid offerings, it's ticking their corporate boxes. To the layman F1 sounds like it is at the forefront of green car technology, which is reinforced by all the supercars running KERS or hybrid systems launching on to the market. Suddenly the expense starts to make some sense, much more than any further investment in archaic V8s.

Ferrari are complaining because they aren't winning. If they were no doubt they'd be doing like Merc are and advertising the link between the 'green' systems in their F1 car, the La Ferrari and it filtering down the range in future. But instead they've dug their heels in and started moaning about wanting something back that is never going to happen. Perhaps LDM is looking for yet more extra money to be given to them just for turning up each year...

I like this bit:

Ferrari adapted a Formula 1 racing technology to produce a hybrid supercar that uses a bit less fuel, emits fewer grams CO2...

Let's put this in some more context:

Environmental gains are modest: LaFerrari emits 330 grams of CO2 per kilometer in the European emissions testing cycle, about 10% less than a current Ferrari V12. A prototype that can run on battery power reduces LaFerrari’s emissions to 220 grams per kilometer. Ferrari says LaFerrari isn’t an active hybrid (Prius-like) because that’s not part of the car’s mission, currently . There’s a lot of complaints about pollution from supercars, although it’s also limited by small production volumes and limited driving. Many Ferraris see only 3,000 miles a year added to the odometer.

If that's what the 'new F1' has achieved..........

[xpensive]

4 MJ of battery discharge per lap should be compared to gasoline, which holds 38 MJ per liter.

There's your savings, about 0.25 liter per lap if you consider the higher efficiency in the MGU-K.

Xpensive liters that, but how much the MGU-H is sending direct to the MGU-K is unknown.

[langwadt]

4 MJ of battery discharge per lap should be compared to gasoline, which holds 38 MJ per liter.

There's your savings, about 0.25 liter per lap if you consider the higher efficiency in the MGU-K.

Xpensive liters that, but how much the MGU-H is sending direct to the MGU-K is unknown.

those 0.25 liter should of course be seen in relation to the less than 2 liter used per lap

[langwadt]

Here's a question:

Would F1 be greener if downforce was reduced and a maximum drag coefficient was introduced?
You could offset it with I dunno, something crazy like mechanical grip and tyres.

in my opinion no, how much fuel F1 cars use to complete a race isn't really important, it's dwarfed by the power
used to drive the TVs watching anyway

what makes it "greener" is that the rules makes getting more power out of a fixed amount of gasoline part of
the competition

[Cam]

Here's a question:

Would F1 be greener if downforce was reduced and a maximum drag coefficient was introduced?
You could offset it with I dunno, something crazy like mechanical grip and tyres.

in my opinion no, how much fuel F1 cars use to complete a race isn't really important, it's dwarfed by the power
used to drive the TVs watching anyway

what makes it "greener" is that the rules makes getting more power out of a fixed amount of gasoline part of
the competition

I think any claim of being 'greener' needs to be validated clearly by F1. At the moment we have no idea really. As an exmaple, the Australia V8 Supercar series initiated a "V8 Racing Green" strategy to offset claims of carbon polutions by big V8s. They hit trouble.

"If businesses want to make claims that planting trees will offset carbon emissions, they must explain that this will only occur over the full life of the trees," ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said. "Further, when seedlings are first planted the amount of carbon that they absorb is likely to be very small. It is not until the trees are fully grown that they can maximise carbon absorption."

V8 Supercars acknowledged the ACCC's concerns that the claim that the emissions would be neutralised and completely offset by the tree planting may have been misleading or deceptive and therefore may have breached section 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

Now this is an example of how a racing series got it wrong. Does that mean they were wrong to try? F1 probably needs to do a better job about exactly what they're trying to achieve.

[xpensive]

4 MJ of battery discharge per lap should be compared to gasoline, which holds 38 MJ per liter.

There's your savings, about 0.25 liter per lap if you consider the higher efficiency in the MGU-K.

Xpensive liters that, but how much the MGU-H is sending direct to the MGU-K is unknown.

those 0.25 liter should of course be seen in relation to the less than 2 liter used per lap

There you go, 10% energy savings, 10 liter per race, earth-shattering indeed.

[langwadt]

4 MJ of battery discharge per lap should be compared to gasoline, which holds 38 MJ per liter.

There's your savings, about 0.25 liter per lap if you consider the higher efficiency in the MGU-K.

Xpensive liters that, but how much the MGU-H is sending direct to the MGU-K is unknown.

those 0.25 liter should of course be seen in relation to the less than 2 liter used per lap

There you go, 10% energy savings, 10 liter per race, earth-shattering indeed.

the 10 liters that the F1 car saves doesn't matters, but if it in anyway helps make all the worlds cars to be 10% more efficient then it would be earth-shattering

[alexx_88]

If they were really interested in innovation through F1, why not do this: "F1 teams, here's 100kg of fuel / race, you are allowed to have a max flow of 100kg/hr, get the most out of it". Any recovery system imaginable, any engine configuration and so on. Instead, the FIA basically spec'd the energy recovery system and the only place from where you can actually gain anything is the ICE and even that is partially locked. What improvements in efficiency can we see over the next years in F1? 1%, 2%?

The carbon footprint of the F1 cars themselves is not significant. A 30% efficiency improvement for 22 cars that race 20 times per year doesn't mean anything. The only way in which it could make a difference is if these 22 cars create road-relevant technology that can be applied to 2 million cars afterwards. Sorry, but in a formula where rules limit most innovation directions, I simply can't see this happening. It was very rare even with the quite open regulations from the past decades.

What the current formula achieves because of tight specifications is closer racing and gives sponsors the chance to say that they are winning with a green car. If, like me, you think that F1 should be about pushing technical and human limits all the time, then this situation probably doesn't make you happy. However, I can't see the situation changing dramatically, as the reason for viewership decline is in the sound and the domination of one team and those can be easily fixed through a couple of rule changes. The average F1 fan wants as much overtaking as possible and tight battles. As long as FOM can still market the spec series which F1 is becoming as the "pinnacle of motorsport", their profit margins will increase continuously.

[autogyro]

F1 threw away a huge opportunity when the teams refused to allow regulations to halve down force.
The obsession with aero at the expense of everything else is the factor mainly responsible for F1's now inevitable decline.
Hybrid technology with fuel flow and volume limits was the way to go but with 'spec' series technical limits it means nothing.
I blame Ferrari mainly for this position and if F1 is to survive I see no place for that team in the future unless they radically change their policies. At present there is only one answer to them 'goodbye'.
I have an axe of my own to grind, an alternative transmission system for F1 which I believe would be more efficient.
The teams and power train manufacturers have continued with established technology and modified that to save money and to be fair retain reliability. Innovation in F1 is long dead.
The FIA has gone along with this conservative approach and 'nailed' the results up in regulations so extensively that F1 is now an obvious 'spec' formula.
Whether you are a modern energy conscious engineer or an obsolete motor head F1 is no longer the motor sport you joined up to support.
F1 has GOT to change and soon and radically.

[Pierred]

I don't understand what the FIA wants :
In one hand : They put limits in the energy allowed for a race (100kg), limits in the immediate power (100kg/h), limits in the aero, limits in the testing, limits in the use of wind tunnel, limits in the computing time etc...

In the other hand : they (and we) want races with fights, close racing and a lot of overtakes etc...

But how can the cars be close without testing. If you have at the first design a good solution then you win, if not you loose.
IMO the conclusion is that this year the championship is a mix of luck and money.

I think that only two configurations can work : no testing and very simple cars OR lot of testing and very complicated cars.

My opinion is reinforced by Boullier interview which says that they have to find something to race without testing, and Neweys interview who is pessimistic with the freeze of the engines.

A part from that i like the technology of these new cars, but as the cars are not mature, there is no pilot racing between the teams. I can summaize that like that :
The Pilot race is between team mates
Between teams we have a technological contest !

[alexx_88]

Tighter regulations produce tighter racing as there is no silver bullet to offer big performance gains. It's also cheaper to race like this. This year is a mix because the technical changes were very big and testing is limited. Over time, teams will get closer and closer in terms of performance.

Limiting aero options, energy allowed, immediate power, amount of recovered energy and engine configuration brings the performance of the cars closer together. Limits in track testing, computing time and wind tunnel increases the time it takes for all the teams to converge towards a similar performance level.

[Pierred]

Tighter regulations produce tighter racing as there is no silver bullet to offer big performance gains. It's also cheaper to race like this. This year is a mix because the technical changes were very big and testing is limited. Over time, teams will get closer and closer in terms of performance.
Limiting aero options, energy allowed, immediate power, amount of recovered energy and engine configuration brings the performance of the cars closer together. Limits in track testing, computing time and wind tunnel increases the time it takes for all the teams to converge towards a similar performance level.

7 races and we still didn't see that convergence of performance, a poor championship with no real races the difference between cars is greater than what the pilot can compensate.
I think we all hope this ideal situation with the convergence of performance, but with such complicate cars, and so many restrictions it can last a long time !

[autogyro]

Tighter regulations produce tighter racing as there is no silver bullet to offer big performance gains. It's also cheaper to race like this. This year is a mix because the technical changes were very big and testing is limited. Over time, teams will get closer and closer in terms of performance.

Limiting aero options, energy allowed, immediate power, amount of recovered energy and engine configuration brings the performance of the cars closer together. Limits in track testing, computing time and wind tunnel increases the time it takes for all the teams to converge towards a similar performance level.

How do you know there are no 'silver bullets' to performance gains.
Sounds like a supporter of spec formula and static development to me.
Why do they have to converge to a similar performance level?
F1 is supposed to be about the top end of vehicle technology not an excuse for a safe arcade game suitable for viewing by the current dumbed down spoon fed weedy public.
If you want that watch the current pointless boring grollyball.