Engine Equalization and Why have an F1?

[dafeller]

From GP Week.Com: "Coming as part of the World Motor Sport Council’s statement following their meeting to discuss the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix scandal, the FIA decreed that engine output would be reviewed at the end of the season. “Following suggestions that there is a differential between the performance of engines used in Formula 1, the World Motor Sport Council has decided that should this be the case, and should the teams wish to eliminate this performance differential, they may be allowed to do so by reducing the performance of the more powerful engines. However, no engine upgrades will be allowed.”

I have long thought that the beauty of F1 was in everyone trying to catch up to people in front of them; this forum's emphasis on overtaking would seem to evidence the same principle. So what is the freakin' value in making F1 a spec series? It's not supposed to be only about drivers, is it?

I miss the Can Am series.

[dirty boy]

I think it's odd as it certainly devalues 'Formula 1'.

Parameters should be set, engine capacity X, no forced induction...off you go

[andygo]

And then they moan about lack of overtaking.

Oh, I know, put kers in.

Except that if everyone uses kers, they will all use it at the same place, so it becomes yet another pointless techno dead end.

Put cast iron brakes on and reduce the aero.

[paulmurr]

I thought it was brought in as a 'cost cutting' measure?

I hate it. By now there would likely be engines revving past 21k rpm.

Edited by paulmurr on Monday 28th September 12:46

[skinny]

yep cost cutting - to stop them spending shedloads on chasing power. only, max's flawed logic was simply to freeze the engines a few years back. they were frozen at different levels of performance, and no teams have stood still (except renault did for a little while, and then were allowed to bring their engine up to the level of everyone elses).

of course, probbaly hundreds of millions £/$ have been wasted in developing these V8 engines, making all the new bits and then squeezing every last drop out of them, when they could simply have put a rev limit on the existing V10's, so the cost cutting arguement is a load of balls.

truth is, max having wanted the manufacturers with their money, to guarantee the stability of the sport, suddenly didn't. instead he wanted the drivetrain to be a 'spec' item, as the average racing fan apparently didn't care about engines, he wanted to save money and give the manufacturers no way of demonstrating their technology and skills, and giving them little reason to stick around apart from the 'prestige' of the F1 brand. what F1 *should* be doing is to restrict aero development because in the real world, it doesn't mean sh@t and also costs a bomb, and instead they should open up engine development to provide manufacturers incentives to look at the best way to get the most power (which goes hand in hand with the optimum efficiency), and this then has a chance to filter down to road cars and make a difference. instead, teams are wasting money dicking about with double diffusers.

[Thurbs]

andygo said:

Put cast iron brakes on and reduce the aero.

Why would that help? Ok it would increase the unsprung weight but that's about it. Iron brakes work just as well as carbon ones.

[BigBob]

Give then an 'cage' the car must fit inside, a limit on the amount of fuel they can use during the race, the option to use KERS as often as they like and keep the 'safety' rules of drivers' cell, hans etc.

Then see F1 engineers/designers start to earn their corn and push the envelope.

Never could see the relevance of a KERS system that you can only use for a few 'squirts' a lap. Much more effective, and relevant to road use in future, would be a system that can be used as soon as it is charged up.



BB

[CampDavid]

Thurbs said:

andygo said:

Put cast iron brakes on and reduce the aero.

Why would that help? Ok it would increase the unsprung weight but that's about it. Iron brakes work just as well as carbon ones.

metal brakes don't get close. Steel disks would drastically increase braking distance and cut costs. Current carbon disks require 6 months of heat treating and cost around £10k, with pads that's £100k a car for a race weekend. Nice

[ZeeTacoe]

CampDavid said:

Thurbs said:

andygo said:

Put cast iron brakes on and reduce the aero.

Why would that help? Ok it would increase the unsprung weight but that's about it. Iron brakes work just as well as carbon ones.

metal brakes don't get close. Steel disks would drastically increase braking distance and cut costs. Current carbon disks require 6 months of heat treating and cost around £10k, with pads that's £100k a car for a race weekend. Nice

I'm sure i've read a quote from an Indy team who claimed the only difference between steel and Carbon composite disks is that the carbon ones last 5 times longer than the steel ones(and are lighter).

[SamHH]

CampDavid said:

Steel disks would drastically increase braking distance

Why do you think that? I've read that it isn't so.

[CampDavid]

ZeeTacoe said:

CampDavid said:

Thurbs said:

andygo said:

Put cast iron brakes on and reduce the aero.

Why would that help? Ok it would increase the unsprung weight but that's about it. Iron brakes work just as well as carbon ones.

metal brakes don't get close. Steel disks would drastically increase braking distance and cut costs. Current carbon disks require 6 months of heat treating and cost around £10k, with pads that's £100k a car for a race weekend. Nice

I'm sure i've read a quote from an Indy team who claimed the only difference between steel and Carbon composite disks is that the carbon ones last 5 times longer than the steel ones(and are lighter).

My understanding is that Carbon composite and carbon brakes are vry different. Carbon composite are a different matterial and can't take the same heat as full on carbon brakes. They work at the same sort of temperitures as steel disks and therefor give similar results.

I thought that with the carbon brakes on an F1 car you gained much better performance than a steel brake due to the temperiture the brakes can run at, which is higher than steel efforts can opperate at. Certainly the stopping distances are insane in an F1 car.

I may well be wrong, I remember Alex Zanardi ran steel disks in 1998 for a while, however I think the technology may have moved since then

[skinny]

cheese isn't ideal tho... but yeah, the only reason that stopping distances in F1 are so short is the downforce. just backing off the throttle from high speed decellerates (i can never spell that) the car by over 1g from the drag that the downforce incurs. take away the downforce, you take away the grip, and there's no way that you'd get 5g braking without the wings. hence why any supercar can't get close despite having much bigger disc outer diameters than F1

Edited by skinny on Monday 28th September 14:56

[TheStig44]

Bring back Tobacco advertising.

Cost saving will be a thing of the past.

[skinny]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

dirty boy said:

Parameters should be set, engine capacity X, no forced induction...off you go

BigBob said:

Never could see the relevance of a KERS system that you can only use for a few 'squirts' a lap. Much more effective, and relevant to road use in future, would be a system that can be used as soon as it is charged up.

The whole KERS thing has been a massive waste of time and energy - pardon the pun.
Sure, I can see the original thoughts to make F1 green (yeah right) but importantly for the F1 teams to engineer / prove systems are workable that could filter down to mainstream.

To stifle it, and limit its ability really was a ham fisted thing to do.
Let the Engineers go wild on it - use it as much or as little as they want - in any form they want IF SAFE TO DO SO.
I loved how Williams went it alone on the Flywheel approach (IIRC) as opposed to everyone else's batteries (rightly or wrongly).

to say use it - but to a limited maximum value made it utterly pointless from an engineering and breakthrough technology point of view.

F1 should have some of its restraints removed. Yes the championship has been interesting this year, but it was last year too wasn't it?

Like the UK - stop dumbing things down.

actually, the regs were only like that for one year so that teams who didn't want to invest wouldn't automatically be uncompetitive. storage capability and usage per lap were due to be increased for next year, possibly also with the KERS powering the front wheels. to me, it should either never have gone ahead, or it should continue. makes absolutely no sense stopping it at this stage, and i hope that Williams' publicised continuation into looking into using it next year, plus the finally good performance of a KERS car, means that it is used (to its full potential) in 2010 and the research isn't wasted.