And I thought F1 was supposed to be about racing.

[tank slapper]

Seems not - according to Max, it has to be a developmental forum for the motor industry.

Click

Max said:

Formula One should be road car relevant. The car industry has a big challenge in improving the efficiency of cars and to reduce CO2. With a move towards more hybrid and eventually electric cars, energy storage is the most important development process which is taking place in the car industry at the moment. F1, with the introduction of KERS and heat recovery devices, is therefore at the leading edge.

Raising engine speed from 19,000 rpm to 20,000 rpm is not relevant for the car industry. But KERS and heat recovery are relevant and I can tell you that Formula One has made a step to the leading edge of technology. It is driving this process forward.

Why is he obsessed with this? This is an artificial political agenda and nothing to do with racing. If the car manufacurers got nothing from F1 then they wouldn't be there. Who is he to determine what is and is not relavent to the manufacturers - they should be able to find that out for themselves.

All they need to do to promote innovation in this field is provide the right conditions for the engineers to try out new things: If they derestricted the engine regulations completely, you would see new ideas emerging. The way to control the power is to regulate the amount of energy available for a race by restricting the fuel supply. The more they restrict it, the more efficient the engine will have to be to finish the race and perform.

[kenthardy]

You don't think Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Honda and Renault are in it for fun do you?

[tank slapper]

kenthardy said:

You don't think Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Honda and Renault are in it for fun do you?

No of course not. There must be a business case for them to be there otherwise they would not bother. Apart from the kudos of partaking in F1, the technical nature of it must add to their collective knowledge about the behaviour of components under extreme conditions. What appears to have passed Max by is that they are perfectly capable of innovating and coming up with new ideas without being told to, if the regulations allow them to.

At the moment, the engine regulations are already very tight and so what Max says about them being fully developed may be true, but only in the context of the current regulations. Instead of doing the logical thing and allowing looser guidelines to stimulate new ideas, they have totally closed off an avenue of development. One FIA chap whose name escapes me said that the idea behind the 10 year freeze was to totally kill the teams engine development capability - this is surely counter-intuitive if they want new technologies to be introduced.

[zac510]

There are a certain portion of fans that think F1 should contribute to road cars too, but I expect that Max is just looking to give manufacturers more bang for their buck. They're now quite integral to F1's success and commercial superiority (compared to other racing series) by virtue of their spending. If a couple dropped out it would change F1 quite a bit.

Personally I think he's right though. Recent engine innovations in road and racing have only been minor variations on the same old concepts (ie different fuel, variable timing, etc). Derestricting engines would not change that.

Edited by zac510 on Wednesday 5th December 23:09

[flemke]

Formula One spec engine is an oxymoron.

[clonmult]

tank slapper said:

The honest truth

Thats absolutely bang on. How can F1 be helping to push the boundaries of motoring technology when they're putting a freeze on engine development, and have a book of guidelines so bleedin' tight that you need a top lawyer to find a way round it?