The Official F1 2021 silly season *contains speculation*
Discussion
TheDeuce said:
It's very impressive, and as a result of being a key supplier of PU's to the sport they were heavily involved in the formulation of the hybrid spec - F1 has to consult with those it hopes will develop and supply the new spec units and I imagine during those discussions Renault had a lot of clout - they're certainly a supplier that F1 would not want to lose..
But then Mercedes absolutely nailed the new hybrid PU - hit the ground running. Renault were left playing catch up and for whatever reason never really have caught up (taking in to account usability/durability in addition to peak power).
Maybe it's as simple as them not investing heavily enough in the new spec PU program at the beginning, perhaps they misjudged the complexity/cost, or the level of investment Mercedes put in to their own hybrid development.
Renault F1 engines are designed and built in France. They have to stick to the EU working time directive which limits working hours.But then Mercedes absolutely nailed the new hybrid PU - hit the ground running. Renault were left playing catch up and for whatever reason never really have caught up (taking in to account usability/durability in addition to peak power).
Maybe it's as simple as them not investing heavily enough in the new spec PU program at the beginning, perhaps they misjudged the complexity/cost, or the level of investment Mercedes put in to their own hybrid development.
In a competitive environment like F1, that's not going to help you catch up when your competitor is free to work as long as they need.
jsf said:
Renault F1 engines are designed and built in France. They have to stick to the EU working time directive which limits working hours.
In a competitive environment like F1, that's not going to help you catch up when your competitor is free to work as long as they need.
Thanks - I wasn't aware of that particular hurdle for them.In a competitive environment like F1, that's not going to help you catch up when your competitor is free to work as long as they need.
Why don't they just build their engines in the UK as others have done over the years?
Isn't Italy subject to the same working hours restrictions?
TheDeuce said:
jsf said:
Renault F1 engines are designed and built in France. They have to stick to the EU working time directive which limits working hours.
In a competitive environment like F1, that's not going to help you catch up when your competitor is free to work as long as they need.
Thanks - I wasn't aware of that particular hurdle for them.In a competitive environment like F1, that's not going to help you catch up when your competitor is free to work as long as they need.
Why don't they just build their engines in the UK as others have done over the years?
Isn't Italy subject to the same working hours restrictions?
thegreenhell said:
Italy will have the same restrictions, as did the UK pre-Brexit. However, as with most EU directives, there are individual differences and opt-outs in different countries. I remember signing opt-outs to that when starting new jobs in the past, but it's possible that the way France enforces it doesn't allow that. They have always been quite militant about working hours over there.
They have indeed - normally ending in some form of strike action in France.. I asked about Italy chiefly because of Ferrari who make their own PU... But also because twice I've been hassled by the cops over there about my crews working hours plans... Naturally as we're all British we don't really tend to think about such things. Either stuff needs to get done in a hurry or it doesn't... One shoot I was on out there we got shut down due to it being a Sunday. One has to wonder why the Italian police are themselves so hell bent on working on a Sunday if it bothers them so much
I remember an episode of Top Gear (which is obviously a factual documentary) where they were stopped by police in Italy a told they couldn't film on a Sunday. It also possibly depends on the type of work. In Italy, Ferrari have almost the same status as the church, so they can probably get away with it.
thegreenhell said:
Italy will have the same restrictions, as did the UK pre-Brexit. However, as with most EU directives, there are individual differences and opt-outs in different countries. I remember signing opt-outs to that when starting new jobs in the past, but it's possible that the way France enforces it doesn't allow that. They have always been quite militant about working hours over there.
There is no opt out in France at all, they have to apply all the EU WTD rules, Italy allows a slightly longer day but they still have the limit on hours/week as set by the WTD. UK did opt out as EU members and obviously those conditions apply now.TheDeuce said:
They have indeed - normally ending in some form of strike action in France.. I asked about Italy chiefly because of Ferrari who make their own PU... But also because twice I've been hassled by the cops over there about my crews working hours plans... Naturally as we're all British we don't really tend to think about such things. Either stuff needs to get done in a hurry or it doesn't...
One shoot I was on out there we got shut down due to it being a Sunday. One has to wonder why the Italian police are themselves so hell bent on working on a Sunday if it bothers them so much
When working in France at the circuits, apart from one circuit which Bernie owns (it's his own world in there) they kick us all out in the evening and we cant return till they reopen in the morning. If the car needs an all nighter to repair, tuff. It's the only country in the world i have had this.One shoot I was on out there we got shut down due to it being a Sunday. One has to wonder why the Italian police are themselves so hell bent on working on a Sunday if it bothers them so much
I was on an install in France on a Friday afternoon, there were three of us there, and the customer was hammering us hourly for a working machine "as promised" on Monday Morning. This was because their sparky turned up two days late.
OK, we can work tomorrrow and Sunday and we should be able to acheive that.
"For Sunday, we'd have to ask the Mayor of the town if he would permit you to work and he'd tell us to f
k off, plus it's my nephew's birthday on Saturday so I can't let you in then"
Cool story Bro etc.
Surely you just employ more people for 40 hours a week, rather than letting the people you have do 60 hours if it's a man hours thing.
OK, we can work tomorrrow and Sunday and we should be able to acheive that.
"For Sunday, we'd have to ask the Mayor of the town if he would permit you to work and he'd tell us to f
k off, plus it's my nephew's birthday on Saturday so I can't let you in then"Cool story Bro etc.
Surely you just employ more people for 40 hours a week, rather than letting the people you have do 60 hours if it's a man hours thing.
So the thing holding the French back in terms of F1 success is actually institutionalised bone idleness 
Tbf I think the Renault PU is probably mostly hamstrung by investment when and where it mattered - the board always seem reluctant to 'be bold' in the current era. Perhaps a loss of confidence because the early results simply weren't as great as expected? I can easily believe they were feeling fairly confident until they saw what Merc had in 2014.
Tbf I think the Renault PU is probably mostly hamstrung by investment when and where it mattered - the board always seem reluctant to 'be bold' in the current era. Perhaps a loss of confidence because the early results simply weren't as great as expected? I can easily believe they were feeling fairly confident until they saw what Merc had in 2014.
Kickstart said:
Given the huge loss and big redundancies just posted by Renault combined with the need to pour money into elec road cars I would think there is a quite a risk of them pulling out or cutting back the program
The same was said about Mercedes - and the winning wisdom in the end was that you don't help a struggling business by cutting off the blood flow via marketing. That's not 'saving money', it's losing much needed sales. The fix is to reduce production costs etc, to make the sales count.However... that only applies if the marketing in question actually is bringing results. As per my previous post, it's really tough to see how Renault's recent exploits in F1 make their cars or 'Renault Power' look great. I expect that moving the team over to their sub-brand is something of a response to that situation - detaches it from the Renault name until it can be restored to greater success - essentially the new PU specs if Renault are still to be a PU supplier then (I think they will be). They can also save a huge amount in terms of EU emissions fines if they shift their hotter (less clean) cars to the Alpine brand, which as a lower volume manufacturer faces far lower fines for excess Co2 generated per car sold. Same reason others are creating or restoring sub-brands as independent companies to produce their more polluting cars.
Net result: I think the Renault F1 team is effectively being side shunted to Alpine to continue to exist and serve some sort of purpose, probably with a keen eye on pushing the FIA to accept more achievable PU specs for the upcoming change at which point they might be able to do something more impressive again. Detaching from the Renault brand probably also makes the staff culling more palatable too..
Just yet another chapter of Renault in F1, eventually to return again as 'Renault'. They've been in the sport in some form or another since the 70's, not always as a works team.
TheDeuce said:
So the thing holding the French back in terms of F1 success is actually institutionalised bone idleness
Tbf I think the Renault PU is probably mostly hamstrung by investment when and where it mattered - the board always seem reluctant to 'be bold' in the current era. Perhaps a loss of confidence because the early results simply weren't as great as expected? I can easily believe they were feeling fairly confident until they saw what Merc had in 2014.
That's just certain posters pandering to the, erm lazy stereotypes of the lazy French, productivity in France is better than the UK. Tbf I think the Renault PU is probably mostly hamstrung by investment when and where it mattered - the board always seem reluctant to 'be bold' in the current era. Perhaps a loss of confidence because the early results simply weren't as great as expected? I can easily believe they were feeling fairly confident until they saw what Merc had in 2014.
The major reason why the Merc engine is better is purely down to the processes that were put in place to develop it, the ethos being that you aren't penalised for coming up with an idea that doesn't work, fail fast and learn from it.
This allowed them to steal a march at the beginning of the hybrid era which none of the other engine manufactures were able to quite catch up with.
I imagine in Renault there was a lot of budget decisions as well, allocating more money to the PU department probably meant less money for the racing department.
Craigyp79 said:
That's just certain posters pandering to the, erm lazy stereotypes of the lazy French, productivity in France is better than the UK.
The major reason why the Merc engine is better is purely down to the processes that were put in place to develop it, the ethos being that you aren't penalised for coming up with an idea that doesn't work, fail fast and learn from it.
This allowed them to steal a march at the beginning of the hybrid era which none of the other engine manufactures were able to quite catch up with.
I imagine in Renault there was a lot of budget decisions as well, allocating more money to the PU department probably meant less money for the racing department.
The more likely reason is they simply have better engineers and ability to call on huge technical resources. The major reason why the Merc engine is better is purely down to the processes that were put in place to develop it, the ethos being that you aren't penalised for coming up with an idea that doesn't work, fail fast and learn from it.
This allowed them to steal a march at the beginning of the hybrid era which none of the other engine manufactures were able to quite catch up with.
I imagine in Renault there was a lot of budget decisions as well, allocating more money to the PU department probably meant less money for the racing department.
The working hours culture certainly should help when there are limited brains capable of the work which cant be substituted by another body, with both doing equivalent hours.
I'm all for people doing less hours as its more productive overall for most environments, but in motorsport and war, there is often no substitute for hitting a problem with lots of hours work outside normal practices.
To add, I've never met as unhelpful a nation of people as the French when dealing with an institution such as hotels, they are arses often. The local small business owners are often the complete oposite.
The fact its almost impossible to be fired from any business of decent size cant help.
Macron was supposed to come in and do a Thatcher on them, they burned that idea rather rapidly.
The fact its almost impossible to be fired from any business of decent size cant help.
Macron was supposed to come in and do a Thatcher on them, they burned that idea rather rapidly.
I think the whole hybrid era has been a disaster, primarily because of the regulations surrounding it, and not necessarily due the tech within it.
Mercedes gambled and got the initial concept right - although if you listen to Andy Cowell talking about it, it was touch and go as to whether they had chosen the right route.
All credit to them. However, the regs were daft surrounding restrictions and tokens, which pretty much baked in any advantage if one engine started with a better concept. It then became very hard for other manufacturers to pivot, respond and redesign. Remember, Renault were keen for this engine formula but soon found themselves on the back foot.
Controlling costs was the mantra, but the sport needs competition. IIRC Cosworth were initially interested in developing a hybrid. Perhaps the test should have been a formula and rules that were viable for an independent engine supplier to be incentivised to remain involved.
Mercedes gambled and got the initial concept right - although if you listen to Andy Cowell talking about it, it was touch and go as to whether they had chosen the right route.
All credit to them. However, the regs were daft surrounding restrictions and tokens, which pretty much baked in any advantage if one engine started with a better concept. It then became very hard for other manufacturers to pivot, respond and redesign. Remember, Renault were keen for this engine formula but soon found themselves on the back foot.
Controlling costs was the mantra, but the sport needs competition. IIRC Cosworth were initially interested in developing a hybrid. Perhaps the test should have been a formula and rules that were viable for an independent engine supplier to be incentivised to remain involved.
The hybrid engines are locked now until 2025 aren't they? With new regs in 2026. By that time, the synthetic 'e-fuel' like what Porsche are developing should be available, and it's supposed to be up to an 85% reduction in CO2. I'd be fine with F1 going that way, and leaving EV and hybrid tech to Formula E and other series.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news/p...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news/p...
ajprice said:
The hybrid engines are locked now until 2025 aren't they? With new regs in 2026. By that time, the synthetic 'e-fuel' like what Porsche are developing should be available, and it's supposed to be up to an 85% reduction in CO2. I'd be fine with F1 going that way, and leaving EV and hybrid tech to Formula E and other series.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news/p...
Locked after this season is over, expect big development spend this year.https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news/p...
I have listened to Andy Cowell on the birth of their hybrid PU, I have no doubt that the end result is largely down to some very clever working and thinking - along with epic amounts of £££ to realise the potential of what they could imagine.
I also think that it's likely mercedes did an excellent job of courting F1 regards what the new regs could/should be and probably managed to achieve a final spec agreement that they were fairly happy they could do a good job of - again, subject to funding to do the job properly, which was the case.
I agree that the complexity and efficiency targets set are frankly insane, it make modern F1 PU development extremely expensive to get right and also very easy to expensively get wrong enough to have no real chance of a title fight. That's hardly an attractive proposition for anyone new looking to get in to the sport and develop their own power unit is it? And sort of played out in the worst way possible by having Mercedes do so well off the line with their PU... triggering years of toil and further large investment from their competitors to catch up.
It's also a bit of a problem for the future surely... Where can they go with the next spec? They can hardly target lower thermal efficiency than at present, that would be seen as a backwards step, but it's the efficiency targets along with durability that make these PU's so challenging, in addition to the mechanical complexity of the hybrid system. Ironically the sport has ended up with a stupidly expensive PU dependency at a time when it's supposed to be reducing costs.
Other than further electrification (essentially PHEV tech) It's going to be very difficult to meaningfully reduce PU cost/complexity whilst maintaining the same efficiency. They've gone down an awkward road and are kind of stuck with it now. Although further electrification as a solution could be argued to be due for reasons of relevance in addition to cost saving. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if that is in part the solution to 'where do we go from here'.
I also think that it's likely mercedes did an excellent job of courting F1 regards what the new regs could/should be and probably managed to achieve a final spec agreement that they were fairly happy they could do a good job of - again, subject to funding to do the job properly, which was the case.
I agree that the complexity and efficiency targets set are frankly insane, it make modern F1 PU development extremely expensive to get right and also very easy to expensively get wrong enough to have no real chance of a title fight. That's hardly an attractive proposition for anyone new looking to get in to the sport and develop their own power unit is it? And sort of played out in the worst way possible by having Mercedes do so well off the line with their PU... triggering years of toil and further large investment from their competitors to catch up.
It's also a bit of a problem for the future surely... Where can they go with the next spec? They can hardly target lower thermal efficiency than at present, that would be seen as a backwards step, but it's the efficiency targets along with durability that make these PU's so challenging, in addition to the mechanical complexity of the hybrid system. Ironically the sport has ended up with a stupidly expensive PU dependency at a time when it's supposed to be reducing costs.
Other than further electrification (essentially PHEV tech) It's going to be very difficult to meaningfully reduce PU cost/complexity whilst maintaining the same efficiency. They've gone down an awkward road and are kind of stuck with it now. Although further electrification as a solution could be argued to be due for reasons of relevance in addition to cost saving. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if that is in part the solution to 'where do we go from here'.
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