New engine regs for 2021
Discussion
rdjohn said:
El Guapo said:
I don't understand the thinking behind getting rid of the MGU-H. It seems at odds with making the drivetrains as fuel-efficient as possible.
...but, It is also at odds with making PU’s road-relevant. They are just way too expensive to be used in a car that the average family can afford to buy. It is as relevant as Concorde was; its a clever bit of history.
El Guapo said:
I don’t agree - small capacity turbo petrol engines are commonplace and becoming more so. The next logical step (race or road) would be to eliminate the mechanical connection between the turbine and compressor. The turbine would just generate electrical power to be stored in the battery, while the compressor would be electrically driven and controlled by the ECU. This would provide much greater flexibility, both in terms of component placement and boost control, at little additional cost.
You cant get more efficient than a direct physical link of the turbine and compressor with low friction bearings. So in a race environment it wont improve overall performance compared to using pure electric drive, there are obvious gains from having all three elements in one, which is why we have these expensive MGU-H units. In a less flat out all the time environment you could have some major gains in response and battery charging, but you are talking about quite an investment in technology costs into the car, which i don't see as paid back compared to a cheap conventional turbo. You would have to show a study of how the costs of the car market generator compared to the current methods employed would work to see if they have any chance of being used in practice. You would also have to show there is some benefit from having the reduction in airflow efficiency and increase in fuel consumed through the engine that would be seen when driving a loaded turbine even when the engine isn't demanding this for its current vehicle speed.
Doink said:
And is woefully under powered for a 9.3 litre ha ha, it never ceases to amaze me how little the Americans know about engine design, give 9.3 litres to a European or Japanese designer and you'll get 10000hp
Indeed you are correct, but they do give a 50,000 mile warranty with it 
F1 might as well go back to thundering V10s and ditch all the electrickery.
Why?
Look at the future of road cars. It's full electric. It might take a little while, but full electric it's going. If manufacturers want to associate their track achievements with their on-road vehicles, F1 with an ICE is going to become irrelevant in the foreseeable future. Will people flock to watch near silent track cars compete to see who can eek the most from their batteries? Who knows? Let's watch what happens to Formula E and see if it gets a large following to rival F1.
If the powertrain in F1 is going to be so far removed from the road technology as to make it irrelevant, why have the pretense at all?
V10s all the way.
Why?
Look at the future of road cars. It's full electric. It might take a little while, but full electric it's going. If manufacturers want to associate their track achievements with their on-road vehicles, F1 with an ICE is going to become irrelevant in the foreseeable future. Will people flock to watch near silent track cars compete to see who can eek the most from their batteries? Who knows? Let's watch what happens to Formula E and see if it gets a large following to rival F1.
If the powertrain in F1 is going to be so far removed from the road technology as to make it irrelevant, why have the pretense at all?
V10s all the way.
They need to understand what they are. Until they do, they will keep making expensive mistakes.
They need to ditch the road car link pretence and make a wow product, it's entertainment and sport to use as a PR exercise, as soon as they started following the green agenda they lost the plot of what they are and the costs escalated massively.
They need to ditch the road car link pretence and make a wow product, it's entertainment and sport to use as a PR exercise, as soon as they started following the green agenda they lost the plot of what they are and the costs escalated massively.
Ferrari threaten to quit F1 (so whats new) over the engine rules, I'd say off you go then, more money in the pot for the smaller teams, I certainly don't watch F1 because of Ferrari, I watch in the hope of getting good close racing, bit of rubbing and the odd crash, hope LM stand their ground and do what's best for their brand not Ferraris, like Horner said 'here's the rules, here's the entry form, if you don't like it go and do Formula E'
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02...
MartG said:
I'd suggest the less prescriptive the rules, the more innovation we'd see.
Give them an energy allocation of, for example, 5200 MJ ( current 110 kg of petrol gives approx 5038 MJ ) - and leave it up to them how they supply and use it.
Just specifying total energy would allow use of various alternate fuels like diesel, methanol etc. and a wide range of engine designs
In one regard, that is a fabulous idea and one that I too have mentioned in the past. The problem is, with modern F1, it is just not economically viable.Give them an energy allocation of, for example, 5200 MJ ( current 110 kg of petrol gives approx 5038 MJ ) - and leave it up to them how they supply and use it.
Just specifying total energy would allow use of various alternate fuels like diesel, methanol etc. and a wide range of engine designs
In years gone by, the engine manufacturers would have picked the route they thought was best and go with it. Somebody would come up with something better and they would all follow that. Now, they would all set research projects off on everything and the end result is everybody ends up with the same answer and has spent the GDP of a decent sized country in the process.
janesmith1950 said:
If the powertrain in F1 is going to be so far removed from the road technology as to make it irrelevant, why have the pretense at all?
Because major car manufacturers have no interesting in building engines for a racing formula where they can't claim relevance to their road cars. Ultimately I think F1 is going to have to forget about competitive engines being built by big car companies and go for a spec engine, but they're inevitably going to drag out the manufacturer connection for as long as they can.kambites said:
Because major car manufacturers have no interesting in building engines for a racing formula where they can't claim relevance to their road cars. Ultimately I think F1 is going to have to forget about competitive engines being built by big car companies and go for a spec engine, but they're inevitably going to drag out the manufacturer connection for as long as they can.
And therein lies the question- does F1 need to be a playground for full manufacturer teams? Is it about entertainment and piggy-backing marketing on the back of it, or is it a marketing exercise for large-scale manufacturers that happens to provide some entertainment?Ferrari and McLaren are racing teams with road car divisions. Of the two, only Ferrari 'needs' to be powered by a Ferrari powertrain. Red Bull is a racing team without a road car division and, like McLaren, could be powered by anything.
Mercedes and Renault are the only works efforts as large-scale motor manufacturers where they realistically need the benefit you describe above. If either or both disappeared, it would not be catastrophic for F1 and whatever came out from it could be powered by whatever powertrain was available.
Arguably if you removed F1s reliance on those two manufacturers the sport would be much more nimble and able to set the rules and commercial landscape with far less politicking. It would also become far more attractive for independent powertrain suppliers, who simply cannot afford to spend half a billion pounds to develop something that'll finish 30 seconds or more behind Mercedes 20 weekends a year under the current system.
janesmith1950 said:
Look at the future of road cars. It's full electric. It might take a little while, but full electric it's going. If manufacturers want to associate their track achievements with their on-road vehicles, F1 with an ICE is going to become irrelevant in the foreseeable future. Will people flock to watch near silent track cars compete to see who can eek the most from their batteries? Who knows? Let's watch what happens to Formula E and see if it gets a large following to rival F1.
If the powertrain in F1 is going to be so far removed from the road technology as to make it irrelevant, why have the pretense at all?
^^^ ThisIf the powertrain in F1 is going to be so far removed from the road technology as to make it irrelevant, why have the pretense at all?
Doink said:
Ferrari threaten to quit F1 (so whats new) over the engine rules, I'd say off you go then, more money in the pot for the smaller teams, I certainly don't watch F1 because of Ferrari, I watch in the hope of getting good close racing, bit of rubbing and the odd crash, hope LM stand their ground and do what's best for their brand not Ferraris, like Horner said 'here's the rules, here's the entry form, if you don't like it go and do Formula E'
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02...
Was about to come and post this.... I agree, call their bluff. Let them walk. Certainly not the reason I follow the sport. I wonder also, who or how many others would be up for taking their place if Ferrari did flounce. I suspect there are some who see Ferrari's special treatment and think, nah, not gonna bother. But if they were cut to size or disappeared all together?https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02...
jsf said:
You cant get more efficient than a direct physical link of the turbine and compressor with low friction bearings.
That's a rather sweeping statement, jsf, possibly true if you were only analysing the energy losses within in an integrated turbo + generator + compressor, but you have to look at the overall efficiency of the PU.jsf said:
So in a race environment it wont improve overall performance compared to using pure electric drive, there are obvious gains from having all three elements in one, which is why we have these expensive MGU-H units.
There are also obvious downsides, the most significant being heat management and compromises required with component placement. AFAIK the design of the F1 MGU-H is closely defined by the regulations.jsf said:
In a less flat out all the time environment you could have some major gains in response and battery charging, but you are talking about quite an investment in technology costs into the car, which i don't see as paid back compared to a cheap conventional turbo. You would have to show a study of how the costs of the car market generator compared to the current methods employed would work to see if they have any chance of being used in practice.
There would obviously be a need for R&D investment, but car companies have been doing that anyway as they move towards hybrids and EVs. My assertion is that adding heat recovery to an existing turbo hybrid would not require enormous investment and would yield substantial benefits.jsf said:
You would also have to show there is some benefit from having the reduction in airflow efficiency and increase in fuel consumed through the engine that would be seen when driving a loaded turbine even when the engine isn't demanding this for its current vehicle speed.
True, but this has always been the case with turbos. Separating the turbo from the compressor would also enable the load on the turbo to be much better managed.janesmith1950 said:
And therein lies the question- does F1 need to be a playground for full manufacturer teams? Is it about entertainment and piggy-backing marketing on the back of it, or is it a marketing exercise for large-scale manufacturers that happens to provide some entertainment?
Ferrari and McLaren are racing teams with road car divisions. Of the two, only Ferrari 'needs' to be powered by a Ferrari powertrain. Red Bull is a racing team without a road car division and, like McLaren, could be powered by anything.
Mercedes and Renault are the only works efforts as large-scale motor manufacturers where they realistically need the benefit you describe above. If either or both disappeared, it would not be catastrophic for F1 and whatever came out from it could be powered by whatever powertrain was available.
Arguably if you removed F1s reliance on those two manufacturers the sport would be much more nimble and able to set the rules and commercial landscape with far less politicking. It would also become far more attractive for independent powertrain suppliers, who simply cannot afford to spend half a billion pounds to develop something that'll finish 30 seconds or more behind Mercedes 20 weekends a year under the current system.
Agreed - the whole manufacturer / road-relevant thing is the biggest load of crap that has infected the sport over the last 20y. There never has been anything road relevant about an F1 car other than it has 4 wheels - the whole concept is idiotic. LM should set the rules so as to make it as unappealing to mainstream manufacturers as possible, then we have the sport back as a competition between fairly equal racing teams.Ferrari and McLaren are racing teams with road car divisions. Of the two, only Ferrari 'needs' to be powered by a Ferrari powertrain. Red Bull is a racing team without a road car division and, like McLaren, could be powered by anything.
Mercedes and Renault are the only works efforts as large-scale motor manufacturers where they realistically need the benefit you describe above. If either or both disappeared, it would not be catastrophic for F1 and whatever came out from it could be powered by whatever powertrain was available.
Arguably if you removed F1s reliance on those two manufacturers the sport would be much more nimble and able to set the rules and commercial landscape with far less politicking. It would also become far more attractive for independent powertrain suppliers, who simply cannot afford to spend half a billion pounds to develop something that'll finish 30 seconds or more behind Mercedes 20 weekends a year under the current system.
Doink said:
And is woefully under powered for a 9.3 litre ha ha, it never ceases to amaze me how little the Americans know about engine design, give 9.3 litres to a European or Japanese designer and you'll get 10000hp
I managed to cobble this together, it's quite American in origin, and should make an honest 3200 horsepower and around 2500lbs/ft, from little over 400 cubic inches, with a cam in block, pushrods, OEM valvetrain geometry and a standard helix GMC based 6/71 blower and old-school mechanical fuel injection. I think that's alright for an engine design from the mid 1960's. The point is that crate motors are designed to make effortless power with a long service life. Forgiving the weight penalty, the old way of doing things still produces power without having to scream the nuts off it. There's some excellent developments from Europe and Japan in terms of engine technology, but they answer the horsepower equation in a very different way, there's no right or wrong, but there are caveats with both.
Back to F1, it's a tricky situation at present - viewers want something more akin to the good old days, teams have to be seen to be keeping it relevant to the real world, while being at the forefront of automotive engineering. A lot of money was thrown at the V6 hybrid solution, and it seems sensible not to deviate from that course completely, to keep one eye on costs - Toto seems to think they'll have to start again, which seems a bit drastic - lose the MGU-H, allow some extra RPM, the basic V6 design would remain unchanged?
It seems unlikely we're going to have V8 / V10 / V12's, with or without hybrid systems, even if the teams want it. The halfway house might be a N/A V8 with some sort of hybrid assistance, but it seems that Liberty and co have already decided what they want and the 'consultation' phase is more them telling the teams what's happening, rather than asking them what they'd embrace and happily approach.
CraigyMc said:
Something Bernie never did.
It'll be interesting to see what Liberty do here. I suspect they'll ensure Ferrari are happy.
There will be 12 months of ever stronger rhetoric first.It'll be interesting to see what Liberty do here. I suspect they'll ensure Ferrari are happy.
Before somehow it all gets saved heroically at the final moment.
WWE/F1
On a more serious note, I wonder if Liberty have made a promise to RedBull/Aston Martin that might be hard to keep ?
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