Discussion
Please can someone enlighten me about the engine token situation.
Plan A was for 4 engines to last 20 races, but we now have 5 engines for 19 races. Once the engines are finally holomogated for 2015, are they able to retrofit the new bits on to part-used PU's?
I had assumed everyone would holomogated their engines for the European season i.e. the next race, but CH was talking about being on his last PU allocation and Renault unlikely to have significant improvements until mid-summer.
Honda a clearly doing something for the next race as ALO was confident that yesterday was the last time that they would be out of the points, but Honda's situation actually looks worse than Renault's.
If Mercedes still have lots of tokens to use then they could be back to monstering everyone, unless Ferrari have something very special up their sleeve.
Does anyone know exactly where each engine spec is currently, when it will be holomogated, and how tokens have been used / saved?
Or, as usual, it is a case of the FIA haven't a clue, so why should anyone else?
Plan A was for 4 engines to last 20 races, but we now have 5 engines for 19 races. Once the engines are finally holomogated for 2015, are they able to retrofit the new bits on to part-used PU's?
I had assumed everyone would holomogated their engines for the European season i.e. the next race, but CH was talking about being on his last PU allocation and Renault unlikely to have significant improvements until mid-summer.
Honda a clearly doing something for the next race as ALO was confident that yesterday was the last time that they would be out of the points, but Honda's situation actually looks worse than Renault's.
If Mercedes still have lots of tokens to use then they could be back to monstering everyone, unless Ferrari have something very special up their sleeve.
Does anyone know exactly where each engine spec is currently, when it will be holomogated, and how tokens have been used / saved?
Or, as usual, it is a case of the FIA haven't a clue, so why should anyone else?
I can't say I fully understand the token / engine situation, however my understanding is:
1) In a masterly bit of oversight, nobody thought to specify a homologation deadline (date), therefore one would assume that nobody is going to homologate (fix) the engine spec until about the last race of the season.
2) Changes can be made despite the homologation / design freeze and without using tokens for 'reliability' reasons.
Without bothering to look up who it was, I seem to recall racecar engineering quoting one of the engine manufacturers saying that effectively there wasn't any practical limit on their ability to develop the engine this year.
ETA: As for engines, I think it's fairly clear; exceed the allowed number and you incur a penalty. As to how much you can change before it's considered a new PU, no idea. Should be in the rules somewhere..
1) In a masterly bit of oversight, nobody thought to specify a homologation deadline (date), therefore one would assume that nobody is going to homologate (fix) the engine spec until about the last race of the season.
2) Changes can be made despite the homologation / design freeze and without using tokens for 'reliability' reasons.
Without bothering to look up who it was, I seem to recall racecar engineering quoting one of the engine manufacturers saying that effectively there wasn't any practical limit on their ability to develop the engine this year.
ETA: As for engines, I think it's fairly clear; exceed the allowed number and you incur a penalty. As to how much you can change before it's considered a new PU, no idea. Should be in the rules somewhere..
Edited by upsidedownmark on Monday 20th April 18:02
noell35 said:
If Mercedes upgrade their engine do all the mercedes powered cars get the new version or is that at mercs discretion?
I think Merc have been open in saying that they are all the same engine as it's in their interest to get as much track/race data as possible. Clearly they have a data advantage through a vertically integrated design process.Vaud said:
noell35 said:
If Mercedes upgrade their engine do all the mercedes powered cars get the new version or is that at mercs discretion?
I think Merc have been open in saying that they are all the same engine as it's in their interest to get as much track/race data as possible. Clearly they have a data advantage through a vertically integrated design process.As I understand it it that if a Mercedes releases a new spec of engine it has to be available to the other teams, but they don't have to use it. Why would they not use it? If a customer has only run one event on a PU at spec A, they would not have got enough use out of the PU, so by taking the newer spec B they would probably have to revert back to spec A later in the season as there will not be enough life in spec B or subsequent spec C engines later in the season.
For the first year of the regulations, 2014 each team had 32 tokens to use at the end of the season, before the homologation deadline for the 2015 season. But as pointed out, there was no date specified, implying that homologation is to take place on the last race of the 2015 season. The use of tokens is limited to specific components and weighted between 1 and 3 dependant on the component.
Prior to the start of the 2015 season, Renault used 20 of the 32 available, Ferrari 22 and Mercedes 25, leavening 12, 10 and 7 remaining to be spent. Honda was allocated and average of the tokens remaining (rounded down) so they have 9 to spend. Seems a bit tight to me!
The engine manufacturers are allowed to make changes for reliability, providing they can demonstrate they do not improve performance. In Hondas case, it is believed they have gone extreme in terms of performance, hoping the reliability can be resolved with FiA approved changes.
For the first year of the regulations, 2014 each team had 32 tokens to use at the end of the season, before the homologation deadline for the 2015 season. But as pointed out, there was no date specified, implying that homologation is to take place on the last race of the 2015 season. The use of tokens is limited to specific components and weighted between 1 and 3 dependant on the component.
Prior to the start of the 2015 season, Renault used 20 of the 32 available, Ferrari 22 and Mercedes 25, leavening 12, 10 and 7 remaining to be spent. Honda was allocated and average of the tokens remaining (rounded down) so they have 9 to spend. Seems a bit tight to me!
The engine manufacturers are allowed to make changes for reliability, providing they can demonstrate they do not improve performance. In Hondas case, it is believed they have gone extreme in terms of performance, hoping the reliability can be resolved with FiA approved changes.
stevesingo said:
The engine manufacturers are allowed to make changes for reliability, providing they can demonstrate they do not improve performance.
This always cracks me up - to quote Murray: To finish first, first you must finish. I know what they mean, but improving the reliability IS improving the performance. Witness the alleged honda approach..As an aside, I've been struggling to find any source for how many power unit components each driver has used. It's becoming more relevant as I seem to recall that was Ricciardo's third V6 that expired over the line on Sunday..
The information is clearly there, as journalists will talk about it in relation to a particular driver when there's a failure, but I can't find a source of all the data.
The information is clearly there, as journalists will talk about it in relation to a particular driver when there's a failure, but I can't find a source of all the data.
Chrisgr31 said:
thegreenhell said:
I think there's also a regulation that states that only one engine specification can be used at any time, so if one team has it then all teams with that engine have to have the same.
Aren't Marussia Manor using last years Ferrari engine? How does that work?However HAAS aren't in F1 yet, but will use the Ferrari engine so would Ferrari be able to run a separate engine development stream for HAAS to evaluate and then have upgrades ready to apply to next years engine?
http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-1-world-cham...
^This page usually has all the lap times, technical reports including PU allocation used etc etc for every race.
Funnily enough, this page after the Bahrain GP, still lists Ferrari as having used only one ICE so far, while we saw a few reports in the media that they were using their second ICE.
^This page usually has all the lap times, technical reports including PU allocation used etc etc for every race.
Funnily enough, this page after the Bahrain GP, still lists Ferrari as having used only one ICE so far, while we saw a few reports in the media that they were using their second ICE.
Appendix 4 (page 47) of the Sporting Regs has the detail of how a PU may be homologated:
http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/...
The teams interpretation of this is that the regs only specify that a supplier may only have one specification of a PU homologated at any one time. This allows them to modify the PU as per the schedule in the Technical Regs (page 88):
http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/...
What this means is that any team that needs a new PU can only use the currently homologated specification. Once a supplier homologates a new specification then when a team needs a new PU they must use that specification. There is no choice for a supplier (apart from the exception allowed for Manor) to supply different specifications of PU to different teams.
http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/...
The teams interpretation of this is that the regs only specify that a supplier may only have one specification of a PU homologated at any one time. This allows them to modify the PU as per the schedule in the Technical Regs (page 88):
http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/...
What this means is that any team that needs a new PU can only use the currently homologated specification. Once a supplier homologates a new specification then when a team needs a new PU they must use that specification. There is no choice for a supplier (apart from the exception allowed for Manor) to supply different specifications of PU to different teams.
The last page in the Tech Regs:
http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/...
Gives you all the detail of how the tokens can be used. The "weight" column tells you how many tokens an item uses and the "For 201x" column tells you if that item is available for modification. Once an item has been modified for a particular year, it may not be modified again for that year. So for 10 tokens you could modify the cylinder heads (2), combustion (3), MGU-H Internals (2), MGU-K Internals (2), MGU-K Power electronics (1), or any combination of items for which the weights add up to the number of tokens to be used.
http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/...
Gives you all the detail of how the tokens can be used. The "weight" column tells you how many tokens an item uses and the "For 201x" column tells you if that item is available for modification. Once an item has been modified for a particular year, it may not be modified again for that year. So for 10 tokens you could modify the cylinder heads (2), combustion (3), MGU-H Internals (2), MGU-K Internals (2), MGU-K Power electronics (1), or any combination of items for which the weights add up to the number of tokens to be used.
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