Formula One with ten-year-old engines
Discussion
The latest FIA brainstorm was first reported a month or so ago - comprehensive freeze (much more so than extent of current freeze) on engines and ancillaries, with all to remain fixed for a decade.
I myself find it hard to believe that fans will be much interested in watching races with cars which have engines that are as much as ten years old. What does anyone else think?
The argument in favour of this sweeping change has been made in the following interview, which was published today on www.autosport.com:
Purnell: engine freeze good for F1
By Jonathan Noble Monday, November 26th 2007, 13:53 GMT
FIA technical consultant Tony Purnell is adamant that Formula One's manufacturers will be better off thanks to the introduction of a 10-year engine freeze in the sport.
Although the sport's car makers are still pushing for their own 'Fuji-proposal' to freeze engines from 2010 to 2013, Purnell believes that the 10-year freeze regulations recently rubber-stamped by the FIA will actually be better for the sport's participants.
Purnell believes that the car makers will benefit not only in seeing a dramatic reduction in budgets, but also in being freed up to focus their efforts on environmental technologies like Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS).
"Car manufacturers are already working flat out to develop optimal low-emission engines and there is little that engine development programmes in F1 will add to this effort," Purnell said in the FIA's Automotive publication.
"However, in five years or so, their attention will turn more and more to subsidiary devices incorporating energy recovery. By opening up this area now, Formula One can make a real difference to this important facet of future car technology."
The FIA estimates that the 10-year engine freeze could cut budgets by half, especially now that manufacturers will no longer be allowed to spend money on fine-tuning minor items on the engines.
"Some manufacturers had project groups spending extravagant sums working on such minor areas as water pumps, exhaust pipes, inlet snorkels, the things around the engine that you were allowed to change.
"So we looked at that and saw that the only way to stop spending with finality is to prevent any changes whatsoever. Freeze the engine, freeze the peripherals as well, and do this long-term so there are no thoughts about retaining a department to develop future engines. This may seem brutal, but to contain spending, it delivers."
Although some manufacturers think the 10-year engine freeze goes against the quest for technological excellence, Purnell thinks that the introduction of KERS from 2009 will more than counter those feelings.
"KERS is something the public can understand quite easily. The technical challenge is huge and there will be very little constraint on it. This is very different to the current engine or chassis regulations, which are massively constrained. As a project it is one of the freest areas of development in F1 for the last 15 years."
And he thinks that success with KERS will open the way for different types of energy recovery systems to be used in the longer term.
"There will be technologies that will begin to become attractive to put on the car. For instance, researchers are developing a type of silicon that simply converts a heat gradient into electricity.
"Today they are very inefficient and bulky. But in future we can imagine such devices removing the need for an alternator and delivering significant amounts of power. Some 30 per cent of the energy available goes straight out of the exhaust pipe, so there's a lot of potential."
But Purnell adds the FIA is insistent that the manufacturers design their KERS around the current F1 engines, and not the other way around.
"Obviously if the teams were to redesign their engine blocks they could incorporate KERS in a much neater way. But this is hardly necessary. And as recent experience has shown, any opportunity to touch the engine is opening up a Pandora's box full of potential expenditure."
I myself find it hard to believe that fans will be much interested in watching races with cars which have engines that are as much as ten years old. What does anyone else think?
The argument in favour of this sweeping change has been made in the following interview, which was published today on www.autosport.com:
Purnell: engine freeze good for F1
By Jonathan Noble Monday, November 26th 2007, 13:53 GMT
FIA technical consultant Tony Purnell is adamant that Formula One's manufacturers will be better off thanks to the introduction of a 10-year engine freeze in the sport.
Although the sport's car makers are still pushing for their own 'Fuji-proposal' to freeze engines from 2010 to 2013, Purnell believes that the 10-year freeze regulations recently rubber-stamped by the FIA will actually be better for the sport's participants.
Purnell believes that the car makers will benefit not only in seeing a dramatic reduction in budgets, but also in being freed up to focus their efforts on environmental technologies like Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS).
"Car manufacturers are already working flat out to develop optimal low-emission engines and there is little that engine development programmes in F1 will add to this effort," Purnell said in the FIA's Automotive publication.
"However, in five years or so, their attention will turn more and more to subsidiary devices incorporating energy recovery. By opening up this area now, Formula One can make a real difference to this important facet of future car technology."
The FIA estimates that the 10-year engine freeze could cut budgets by half, especially now that manufacturers will no longer be allowed to spend money on fine-tuning minor items on the engines.
"Some manufacturers had project groups spending extravagant sums working on such minor areas as water pumps, exhaust pipes, inlet snorkels, the things around the engine that you were allowed to change.
"So we looked at that and saw that the only way to stop spending with finality is to prevent any changes whatsoever. Freeze the engine, freeze the peripherals as well, and do this long-term so there are no thoughts about retaining a department to develop future engines. This may seem brutal, but to contain spending, it delivers."
Although some manufacturers think the 10-year engine freeze goes against the quest for technological excellence, Purnell thinks that the introduction of KERS from 2009 will more than counter those feelings.
"KERS is something the public can understand quite easily. The technical challenge is huge and there will be very little constraint on it. This is very different to the current engine or chassis regulations, which are massively constrained. As a project it is one of the freest areas of development in F1 for the last 15 years."
And he thinks that success with KERS will open the way for different types of energy recovery systems to be used in the longer term.
"There will be technologies that will begin to become attractive to put on the car. For instance, researchers are developing a type of silicon that simply converts a heat gradient into electricity.
"Today they are very inefficient and bulky. But in future we can imagine such devices removing the need for an alternator and delivering significant amounts of power. Some 30 per cent of the energy available goes straight out of the exhaust pipe, so there's a lot of potential."
But Purnell adds the FIA is insistent that the manufacturers design their KERS around the current F1 engines, and not the other way around.
"Obviously if the teams were to redesign their engine blocks they could incorporate KERS in a much neater way. But this is hardly necessary. And as recent experience has shown, any opportunity to touch the engine is opening up a Pandora's box full of potential expenditure."
The way I see it is that he is foreseeing that the interest in engines will be overshadowed by technical advancements in KERS/etc, equally the significance of the engine will be decreased aswell.
He must be privvy to the FIA's plans to phase in this stuff via loosening of regulations.
He must be privvy to the FIA's plans to phase in this stuff via loosening of regulations.
TVR moneypit said:
Personally, I think the way to go is to remove vast amounts of downforce, remove ALL driver aids, all circuits must have at least half a dozen overtaking spots, and whilst we are on the subject of old engines, bring back the 1500bhp 1500cc turbocharged handgrenades 
I'm not so sure, the steering wheel and pedals are quite useful. TVR moneypit said:
Personally, I think the way to go is to remove vast amounts of downforce, remove ALL driver aids, all circuits must have at least half a dozen overtaking spots, and whilst we are on the subject of old engines, bring back the 1500bhp 1500cc turbocharged handgrenades
Aargh can we please have a thread where somebody doesn't say this?!zac510 said:
TVR moneypit said:
Personally, I think the way to go is to remove vast amounts of downforce, remove ALL driver aids, all circuits must have at least half a dozen overtaking spots, and whilst we are on the subject of old engines, bring back the 1500bhp 1500cc turbocharged handgrenades
Aargh can we please have a thread where somebody doesn't say this?!
If the 10 year freeze goes ahead I can see the best engine supplier dominating the field (like the DFV in the 70's) and the rest quickly dying out. I can understand the desire to keep costs down but I thought all the big money went on aero?
I can't see how its workable over such a long timeframe, what happens if for instance Mercedes decide to pull out 5 years down the line (or run their own team in house as mentioned as a possibility in another thread), or Renault / Toyota decide to up-sticks and withdraw their customer engines as well?
Can a team butter up VW / GM etc to buy in and develop a new engine, one which will be 5 years advanced on the current crop of powerplants?
Can a team butter up VW / GM etc to buy in and develop a new engine, one which will be 5 years advanced on the current crop of powerplants?
What annoys me is that the well clued up FIA Technical consultant thinks that freezing the engines will "cut team's budgets by half". Of course it won't. Everyone with half a brain can see that Ferrari/McLaren et al will still have their budget. If they're not allowed to spend it on the engine, they'll just spend it on something else to make the car faster.
The only way to cap the budget teams can spend is simply to cap the budget teams are allowed to spend. Why not just do that, and be done with it? Why all these stupid 2 races per engine, proposed 5 races per engine, proposed engine freeze rules to try to drive down costs when they obviously won't reduce costs one iota?
The only way to cap the budget teams can spend is simply to cap the budget teams are allowed to spend. Why not just do that, and be done with it? Why all these stupid 2 races per engine, proposed 5 races per engine, proposed engine freeze rules to try to drive down costs when they obviously won't reduce costs one iota?
said:
"So we looked at that and saw that the only way to stop spending with finality is to prevent any changes whatsoever. Freeze the engine, freeze the peripherals as well, and do this long-term so there are no thoughts about retaining a department to develop future engines. This may seem brutal, but to contain spending, it delivers."
So he wants to kill engine development for the future. I just don't see the point - the cost argument just does not wash. If a team does not have to spend £x million on an engine then they will just spend it on wind tunnel time, or some other developmental facility.The only real way to control costs in F1 is to cap the budgets - if they are not allowed to spend more than a certain amount, then they can't do so. There would obviously have to be measures in place to prevent hollywood style accounting, but it would be doable. This would give the engineers free reign to use their imaginations and come up with innovative designs.
What the FIA do not seem to get, is that for many people (including myself) the technical and engineering aspect is at least as important as what happens on the track.
They talk about restricting speeds for safety reasons, but they only need to things to control this - the amount of fuel (and therefore energy) available in a race, and the tyres. These two things are all that should be required to maintain speeds at a safe level - cars get too fast? Reduce the amount of fuel available, or restrict the tyres a little. By keeping the other regulations relatively free there would be much more scope for new ideas to be tried, and these would if necessary include ecnomy.
Dr JonboyG said:
What I can't work out is how this applies to new manufacturers who want to enter the sport. Are they now banned? If not, then surely the first new engine maker to turn up in 3 years will walk it, since their engine will be far newer than the lumps everyone else has to use.
Yes, it is severely flawed or very poorly communicated logic.GavinPearson said:
Dr JonboyG said:
What I can't work out is how this applies to new manufacturers who want to enter the sport. Are they now banned? If not, then surely the first new engine maker to turn up in 3 years will walk it, since their engine will be far newer than the lumps everyone else has to use.
Yes, it is severely flawed or very poorly communicated logic.The freeze seems more like FIA admitting they can’t police engine development (after all they just admitted they can’t even measure fuel temperatures consistently… ) and adopting a policy of burying their heads in the sand for 10 years.
Budgets are at the level they are in F1 because the teams and their backers deem the reward of world wide exposure of the sponsor’s brands to be worthwhile. Only way to cut budgets is to devalue the attraction of F1… hmm maybe FIA are onto something the freeze…
As a passing thought, if the freeze happens today, which team currently has the best engines and is hence in a position to potentially dominate the next 10 years?
Jonathan Noble said:
Some manufacturers had project groups spending extravagant sums working on such minor areas as water pumps, exhaust pipes, inlet snorkels, the things around the engine that you were allowed to change.
If you can't redesign or alter anything related to the engine such as intakes/exhausts etc, isn't that also going to have an impact on your ability work on the design of the rest of the car since these things may be made to work with a certain car layout or body shape? How literal are they planning to be with this?I suppose that this will decrease costs not for existing teams but for new teams for whom spending money on engine development or aerodynamic development is completely optional.
If you only have to buy 20-30 engines instead of 150 then your costs are indeed lower. And they can still qualify, run around the mid-back of the race while still breaking even financially.
I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can see how it would assist new teams.
If you only have to buy 20-30 engines instead of 150 then your costs are indeed lower. And they can still qualify, run around the mid-back of the race while still breaking even financially.
I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can see how it would assist new teams.
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