is F1 on its knees
Discussion
revrange said:
Spankie also thought that cost control would have come in with it, controlling the expenditure
yes, and no.Spankie wanted std engines, ie. one supplier bid for engine supply (much like we have now for crappy tyres)
once he had achieved this, then cost control would have been almost possible as a large chunk of intangible 'support' costs would have been eradicated (ie. manufacturers subsidising engine programmes for their teams).
Problem was, F1 is not like GP2 with fixed cars/engines, nobody was interested in std engines, hell Ferraris historical stance has been F1 is all about the engine!
what then happened was the watering down from the std 1.5L 4pot to several makes, then again to V6 1.6L and thus what we have now.
The problem is that no matter what the engine is, the development of a completely new powertrain is eye-wateringly expensive if your then competing in open competition.
This is what scuppered Renault, they complete underestimated the costs both in time and money to do the job, even Ferrari underestimated the time it would take to get competitive.
Merc on the other hand saw the challenge and committed very early to HUGE investments at Brixworth both in facilities and people, they spent millions in both £ and man-hours so that when they turned up for testing last year, they were 100% ready, leaving their teams to concentrate on testing their chassis and systems.
in the long run, I suspect by the end of next season, Merc outlay will actually have worked out to be cheaper than both Ferraris and Renaults over the 3 years as their level of spend in years 2-3 are significantly less than the other two trying to play catch up.
the problem comes when Berni and all talk about changing the regs yet again.
Scuffers said:
yes, and no.
Spankie wanted std engines, ie. one supplier bid for engine supply (much like we have now for crappy tyres)
once he had achieved this, then cost control would have been almost possible as a large chunk of intangible 'support' costs would have been eradicated (ie. manufacturers subsidising engine programmes for their teams).
Problem was, F1 is not like GP2 with fixed cars/engines, nobody was interested in std engines, hell Ferraris historical stance has been F1 is all about the engine!
what then happened was the watering down from the std 1.5L 4pot to several makes, then again to V6 1.6L and thus what we have now.
The problem is that no matter what the engine is, the development of a completely new powertrain is eye-wateringly expensive if your then competing in open competition.
This is what scuppered Renault, they complete underestimated the costs both in time and money to do the job, even Ferrari underestimated the time it would take to get competitive.
Merc on the other hand saw the challenge and committed very early to HUGE investments at Brixworth both in facilities and people, they spent millions in both £ and man-hours so that when they turned up for testing last year, they were 100% ready, leaving their teams to concentrate on testing their chassis and systems.
in the long run, I suspect by the end of next season, Merc outlay will actually have worked out to be cheaper than both Ferraris and Renaults over the 3 years as their level of spend in years 2-3 are significantly less than the other two trying to play catch up.
the problem comes when Berni and all talk about changing the regs yet again.
No spankies cost control plan was you had £40m to spend on whatever you want. You could spend £38m on coke and hookers, and then the other £2m to build a car and engine.Spankie wanted std engines, ie. one supplier bid for engine supply (much like we have now for crappy tyres)
once he had achieved this, then cost control would have been almost possible as a large chunk of intangible 'support' costs would have been eradicated (ie. manufacturers subsidising engine programmes for their teams).
Problem was, F1 is not like GP2 with fixed cars/engines, nobody was interested in std engines, hell Ferraris historical stance has been F1 is all about the engine!
what then happened was the watering down from the std 1.5L 4pot to several makes, then again to V6 1.6L and thus what we have now.
The problem is that no matter what the engine is, the development of a completely new powertrain is eye-wateringly expensive if your then competing in open competition.
This is what scuppered Renault, they complete underestimated the costs both in time and money to do the job, even Ferrari underestimated the time it would take to get competitive.
Merc on the other hand saw the challenge and committed very early to HUGE investments at Brixworth both in facilities and people, they spent millions in both £ and man-hours so that when they turned up for testing last year, they were 100% ready, leaving their teams to concentrate on testing their chassis and systems.
in the long run, I suspect by the end of next season, Merc outlay will actually have worked out to be cheaper than both Ferraris and Renaults over the 3 years as their level of spend in years 2-3 are significantly less than the other two trying to play catch up.
the problem comes when Berni and all talk about changing the regs yet again.
To be honest he went a little vague with the engine side, as you say, very hard for FIA to police and organisation like Merc. Who to say they develop a V6 turbo hybrid for a car, that a load of tech could be bolted onto an F1 engine. He left really before explain that
My thought was that the attempt by Mosley to 'standardise' chassis and engines was more about generating income and control than cost cutting.
The contracts for the manufacture of parts of the car could then be contracted out to companies, and so be a nice little earner for the FIA and any others in the chain.
The problem for the FIA was/is that it gets very little income from F1. They used to but for some reason it would appear that some idiot gave it all away. I wonder who got all that extra money?
Now all they can do is up the price of super-licences every third Wednesday.
The regs can be changed to cut costs and chances of one engine being significantly more powerful than any other, if that's what you want. Even aero is easy enough to fix. Want to do away with DRS, ERS, MRSA and lost of other characters? then change the regs to suit. For instance, DRS allows easy overtakes and overcomes the problem of 'dirty air'. Change the regs to ensure that in a straight line the airflow behind the car conforms to a norm.
There was the farcical situation of the reduction of engine size from 3.5 to 3 litres and then to 2.4, all in the promise of reduction in costs. Yet every team manager and engine manufacturer complained that the changes cost them a fortune. I was chatting to a GT team manager in 2004 about the drop to 2.4 and he listed all the things that would have to change. He said, in short, that the cars would have to be designed anew from the ground up, the software would have to be modified, and more and more.
Change costs, and in F1, change costs a fortune.
The contracts for the manufacture of parts of the car could then be contracted out to companies, and so be a nice little earner for the FIA and any others in the chain.
The problem for the FIA was/is that it gets very little income from F1. They used to but for some reason it would appear that some idiot gave it all away. I wonder who got all that extra money?
Now all they can do is up the price of super-licences every third Wednesday.
The regs can be changed to cut costs and chances of one engine being significantly more powerful than any other, if that's what you want. Even aero is easy enough to fix. Want to do away with DRS, ERS, MRSA and lost of other characters? then change the regs to suit. For instance, DRS allows easy overtakes and overcomes the problem of 'dirty air'. Change the regs to ensure that in a straight line the airflow behind the car conforms to a norm.
There was the farcical situation of the reduction of engine size from 3.5 to 3 litres and then to 2.4, all in the promise of reduction in costs. Yet every team manager and engine manufacturer complained that the changes cost them a fortune. I was chatting to a GT team manager in 2004 about the drop to 2.4 and he listed all the things that would have to change. He said, in short, that the cars would have to be designed anew from the ground up, the software would have to be modified, and more and more.
Change costs, and in F1, change costs a fortune.
revrange said:
No spankies cost control plan was you had £40m to spend on whatever you want. You could spend £38m on coke and hookers, and then the other £2m to build a car and engine.
To be honest he went a little vague with the engine side, as you say, very hard for FIA to police and organisation like Merc. Who to say they develop a V6 turbo hybrid for a car, that a load of tech could be bolted onto an F1 engine. He left really before explain that
you have just blown your own argument out the water!To be honest he went a little vague with the engine side, as you say, very hard for FIA to police and organisation like Merc. Who to say they develop a V6 turbo hybrid for a car, that a load of tech could be bolted onto an F1 engine. He left really before explain that
the whole plan relied on the std engine (and thus costs)
Scuffers said:
you have just blown your own argument out the water!
the whole plan relied on the std engine (and thus costs)
No how so? Mosley point to staidness engine was that the block would be the same for major championship, so a manufacturer could go and race in le mans/f1/wrc.the whole plan relied on the std engine (and thus costs)
Bigger turbos etc would then be applied to the standard block to produce the needed performance, or hybrid tech.
In F1 this was then extended with the cost cap, whereby if you agreed to £40m you could spend say £30m on engine development and £10 on chassis. Or buy a £5m engine from cosworth that maybe isn't so good but run active ride, and great aero.
On paper great idea but getting it to work when multi nationals involved impossible. Also the plan the way spankie wanted to do it, would mean teams would have to lay off hundreds of staff, and this couldn't have been done in the time frame he gave.
revrange said:
No how so? Mosley point to staidness engine was that the block would be the same for major championship, so a manufacturer could go and race in le mans/f1/wrc.
Bigger turbos etc would then be applied to the standard block to produce the needed performance, or hybrid tech.
In F1 this was then extended with the cost cap, whereby if you agreed to £40m you could spend say £30m on engine development and £10 on chassis. Or buy a £5m engine from cosworth that maybe isn't so good but run active ride, and great aero.
On paper great idea but getting it to work when multi nationals involved impossible. Also the plan the way spankie wanted to do it, would mean teams would have to lay off hundreds of staff, and this couldn't have been done in the time frame he gave.
EH?Bigger turbos etc would then be applied to the standard block to produce the needed performance, or hybrid tech.
In F1 this was then extended with the cost cap, whereby if you agreed to £40m you could spend say £30m on engine development and £10 on chassis. Or buy a £5m engine from cosworth that maybe isn't so good but run active ride, and great aero.
On paper great idea but getting it to work when multi nationals involved impossible. Also the plan the way spankie wanted to do it, would mean teams would have to lay off hundreds of staff, and this couldn't have been done in the time frame he gave.
the point about std engine is only valid if every form of motorsport agreed to it, and let's face it,the only part of the motorsport that has any tie with manufacturers is the engine/powertrains.
so, if you remove them from Motorsport, what exactly does that leave?
if you take a team like Merc, more of their staff work on powertrain than on everything else.
Scuffers said:
EH?
the point about std engine is only valid if every form of motorsport agreed to it, and let's face it,the only part of the motorsport that has any tie with manufacturers is the engine/powertrains.
so, if you remove them from Motorsport, what exactly does that leave?
if you take a team like Merc, more of their staff work on powertrain than on everything else.
Well that was Mad Max's vision.the point about std engine is only valid if every form of motorsport agreed to it, and let's face it,the only part of the motorsport that has any tie with manufacturers is the engine/powertrains.
so, if you remove them from Motorsport, what exactly does that leave?
if you take a team like Merc, more of their staff work on powertrain than on everything else.
Basically his idea was to sell it to manufactures on the following basis.
1) Have an F1 team with that costs you £40m a year to run, you may well even turn a profit from it.
2) With your massive saving, you can use the same block and go and race in Le Mans or WRC.
As you say having a standard engine would cut costs, but his idea was these costs are cut, not only to help F1 survive but also to encourage the manufactures to enter into other forms of motorsport.
Remember this was 08-09 when the world had stopped turning, BMW/Toyota/Honda had all walked from F1. Merc nearly went as well.
You must remember for motorsport, motor manufacturers are the main backers, so keeping them involved is key.
Reducing cost, whilst giving them the option to compete in lots of FIA events was a great selling point.
You must also remember Max ran the FIA very differently from now, back then he was the law with Bernie, and well if he wanted F1/le Mans/WRC/F3, whatever running 1.6 turbos he normally get it.
Problem is he misunderstood why those manufactures are in F1 in the first place. They love being able to spend £100m and show off their tech & win. How happy were BMW when V10s got banned, just as the M5 came out?!?! Also massive restrictions on engine development stopped BMW being able to play its strongest hand, of building a great engine. Hence Mercedes right now love F1, as every other sunday their cutting edge tech is kicking ass and taking names.
d if the engines were all the same, as in the same manufacturer etc etc etc.
Nobody was going to go for that.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Honda/Renault racing with an engine made by somebody else?
As soon as you have multiple manufacturers, then you have competition, and, obviously, when that happens, they will spend what they can to come out with the best.
Fundamentally, the whole concept was flawed.
Nobody was going to go for that.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Honda/Renault racing with an engine made by somebody else?
As soon as you have multiple manufacturers, then you have competition, and, obviously, when that happens, they will spend what they can to come out with the best.
Fundamentally, the whole concept was flawed.
I think that the notion that Mercedes cars could transfer technology to Brinxsworth is fanciful. Just as the technology going the other way is. This also applies to the current PUs.
Road car engines are about longevity, emissions and unit cost etc.Race engines are the complete opposite. Hopefully they have market perceptions benefit to teams like AMG and Ferrari. For Honda and Renault, I think it is different.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Renault are even playing this game. They sell sensible cars to sensible people. Their racing credientials are derived from their considerable efforts in FR 3.5, FR, Clio Cup etc this is probably all the marketing effort that hey need to shift the cars that they actually manufacture. There is unlikely to be a hybrid Twizzy any time soon.
Road car engines are about longevity, emissions and unit cost etc.Race engines are the complete opposite. Hopefully they have market perceptions benefit to teams like AMG and Ferrari. For Honda and Renault, I think it is different.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Renault are even playing this game. They sell sensible cars to sensible people. Their racing credientials are derived from their considerable efforts in FR 3.5, FR, Clio Cup etc this is probably all the marketing effort that hey need to shift the cars that they actually manufacture. There is unlikely to be a hybrid Twizzy any time soon.
rdjohn said:
Road car engines are about longevity, emissions and unit cost etc.Race engines are the complete opposite. Hopefully they have market perceptions benefit to teams like AMG and Ferrari. For Honda and Renault, I think it is different.
Race engines are about efficiency. Just like road car engines. Those are the lessons that are learned.MrKipling43 said:
Race engines are about efficiency. Just like road car engines. Those are the lessons that are learned.
By using complex (unaffordable) energy recover the Hybrids are heading towards 40% thermal efficiency. By contrast road-going turbo-Diesels can already achieve 50%.There is very little to be learned. These hybrid engines have been designed to a very tight prescription of known technologies. They are very clever, but offer zero insight into the sort of cars we will be driving in 20-30 years time.
Scuffers said:
d if the engines were all the same, as in the same manufacturer etc etc etc.
Nobody was going to go for that.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Honda/Renault racing with an engine made by somebody else?
As soon as you have multiple manufacturers, then you have competition, and, obviously, when that happens, they will spend what they can to come out with the best.
Fundamentally, the whole concept was flawed.
The idea was never a standard engine though for each team? Merc would produce a merc 1.6 turbo, ferrari etc You would have most likely ended up as now, with one ahead of the others.Nobody was going to go for that.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Honda/Renault racing with an engine made by somebody else?
As soon as you have multiple manufacturers, then you have competition, and, obviously, when that happens, they will spend what they can to come out with the best.
Fundamentally, the whole concept was flawed.
The standard part was that block and components could be used across a number of sports.
Development would have been held back but cost control was the plan.
It was far from perfect, but it was what Mad Max was pushing.
MrKipling43 said:
rdjohn said:
Road car engines are about longevity, emissions and unit cost etc.Race engines are the complete opposite. Hopefully they have market perceptions benefit to teams like AMG and Ferrari. For Honda and Renault, I think it is different.
Race engines are about efficiency. Just like road car engines. Those are the lessons that are learned.RYH64E said:
MrKipling43 said:
rdjohn said:
Road car engines are about longevity, emissions and unit cost etc.Race engines are the complete opposite. Hopefully they have market perceptions benefit to teams like AMG and Ferrari. For Honda and Renault, I think it is different.
Race engines are about efficiency. Just like road car engines. Those are the lessons that are learned.http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
rscott said:
However - here's an example of F1 derived technology being applied to road going vehicles.....
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
except that was never used in F1.http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
nearest is it's use in a 911 race car.
I would argue that both Honda and toyota developed hybrid systems 20+ years ago and were selling them in mass produced cars since 1999 (Honda) and 1997 (Toyota).
revrange said:
Scuffers said:
d if the engines were all the same, as in the same manufacturer etc etc etc.
Nobody was going to go for that.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Honda/Renault racing with an engine made by somebody else?
As soon as you have multiple manufacturers, then you have competition, and, obviously, when that happens, they will spend what they can to come out with the best.
Fundamentally, the whole concept was flawed.
The idea was never a standard engine though for each team? Merc would produce a merc 1.6 turbo, ferrari etc You would have most likely ended up as now, with one ahead of the others.Nobody was going to go for that.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Honda/Renault racing with an engine made by somebody else?
As soon as you have multiple manufacturers, then you have competition, and, obviously, when that happens, they will spend what they can to come out with the best.
Fundamentally, the whole concept was flawed.
The standard part was that block and components could be used across a number of sports.
Development would have been held back but cost control was the plan.
It was far from perfect, but it was what Mad Max was pushing.
rscott said:
However - here's an example of F1 derived technology being applied to road going vehicles.....
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
Perfect, modern F1, developing technology for big, heavy, slow buses. Now it all makes sense...http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
RYH64E said:
rscott said:
However - here's an example of F1 derived technology being applied to road going vehicles.....
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
Perfect, modern F1, developing technology for big, heavy, slow buses. Now it all makes sense...http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/william...
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