Engine Unfreeze

[FW17]

A lot of talk about the engine freeze rule, personally it is very wrong when theoretically you can have only 5 upgrades to the engine a year.

Mattiacci said

"We never worked from the cynical angles and tactical angles to say let's do this softening of the rules so we can catch up with Mercedes, That's totally untrue and probably misleading for my people. The starting point was that in Formula One I cannot wait one year to work on the engine and the power unit. At least at Ferrari we don't believe this is a magic bullet. If someone believes it, they are not at Ferrari. It's a way to talk about innovating and keep working on the car."

Wolff said

"It's a difficult one, because I strongly believe we need stability in the regulations, Personally, I'm not keen on it because more costs will incur. Equally, how can you make sure everybody is on the same spec? It triggers so many consequences and you open up a can of worms by doing that. We are trying to be productive. I think it is [about] not forgetting your own agenda but doing it for the benefit of Formula One."

"The further development of engines is absolute nonsense,"

"If you are not sorted out by the homologation of 28 February for the year, why should it be any different three months later?"

Claire Williams said

"No! You have to enter the season with your race car and, if you haven't done a good enough job, then why change the regulations?" .

Cyril Abiteboul said

"We do not want to over-invest in engine technology,From my perspective we should have a set of regulations that as quickly as possible narrows the bandwidth of performance between the manufacturers, so that we do not overspend on those technologies.
"There is the law of diminishing returns, which means that after some time Mercedes will be limited, and at that point in time we will be in a position to catch up. However, I'm not sure how far we are from the physical limit of the system.
"According to how far we are, we may even be in a worse position with that additional unfreeze than with the current freeze."

[GitanesBlondes]

These are the same idiots who will harp about the need for F1's "road relevancy" on a yearly basis.

Instead, F1 spends more time trying to figure out how to stifle all technical innovation, all while calling for the need to be technically innovative.

Claire Williams is a moron as it was precisely the lack of restrictive regulations, and the adoption of technical innovation that enabled Williams to achieve all of the success they had in the 1980s and 1990s. Had any meaningful development been prevented, all of those championships never would have happened.

The engine freezes and restrictions did nothing but to make F1 worse for the long haul. If you really think about it, had the teams all devoted their energy together, and focused on extracting large payouts for the teams outside of the top 3 in the standings from FOM, those engine freezes/restrictions would not have been necessary as more money would have been available. But as usually is wont to happen when you look for the one-size-fits-all fix to every problem, you create far more problems in the long run.

[Moxie]

I concur wir GB.

I will add that once again FOM needs to employ a couple of economists and a couple of game theory experts, and Bernie Needs to STFU and do what they tell him.

All of these crap rules do NOTHING to reduce costs, increase competition or increase relevance. As much as I espouse my opinions about prize money, I don't actually expect Bernie to pay attention to an übernerd from Ohio. I do wish he would listen to somebody with scientific understanding and economic understanding of how the F1 game is played.

[Sevach]

I gotta say the Ferrari proposal seems reasonable...

They aren't calling for a free for all, they are calling for 8 upgrade "tokens" midseason...
Between the end of the season and 2015 teams will have 48 of those tokens to change things around.

[FW17]

I think time has come for manufacturers to be separated from the privateers as the interests of the 2 are never the same and is being counterproductive to one another.

The current 3 (4 next year) are never going to agree on anything, if Williams want to stick with this crowd it is well and good. But the others if they are seriously interested in participating, having fun and being efficient in spending, then they should pool together and demand for a separate engine formula.

F1 would be a better place if lower teams were allowed to run 2.2 liter Indycar V6 (with ethanol) running them at the 650 Hp range in normal conditions and 35 seconds power boost of 160 hp per lap controlled by the driver. F1 could immediately have 3 or 4 (Chevorlett, HDP, Judd, Cosworth) suppliers at a contract of about $2 million (or fixed by FIA) without loosing any of the character of the current F1.

The above arrangement is purely hypothetical, but it shows that the issues of F1's cost can be solved with very simple understanding without polemic between the teams.

[mclaren111]

This idea of "Unfreeze" is totally absurd.

Ferrari & Renault did not get it right - as simple as that. Now they claim they want to do it for the good of the sport -

Merc got it right and they should be aloud to enjoy their advantage while it lasts.

Just get the sound as loud as possible !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FW17]

Freeze idea may not be absurd, but a freeze on year one of new technology was absolutely a crazy idea. Onder who ever thought of it.

[stefan_]

It would have been interesting to hear what Claire Williams had to say if they had the same car as in 2011 or 2013.

[Sevach]

It would have been interesting to hear what Claire Williams had to say if they had the same car as in 2011 or 2013.

Sadly, that's what it comes down to.

Do you have a Mercedes engine?
(No) engine freeze is unfair.
(Yes) Lol no, deal with it.

Personally i would like an unfreeze because it was stupid to make F1 all about aero in the first place.
And introducing new tech to freeze right away could only result in what we have now...

[SectorOne]

The Mercedes customer teams only care about one thing. That is cost staying the same and if the manufacturers want to go all out it should not affect them.
Ferrari and Renault can think they will have an advantage in an unfreeze but Mercedes won´t stay still during an unfreeze.
I´m sure they have a whole list of things to improve at the end of the year.

Even if you go back to 2001 where BMW built monsters. Completely open formula more or less and it still took 1-2 years for other teams to catch up.

[tomazy]

The problem with unfreeze is, that as far as I know, all the engine manufactures agried to the curent rules? Why change them now, when they all knew what is waiting for them if they mess thing up? I am sure that they could write a rule difirently and make the freeze later.

It would have been interesting to hear what Claire Williams had to say if they had the same car as in 2011 or 2013.

I can't remmember Williams complaining about cold blowing (2011) and coander exhaust (2013) in those years, I think that they even said that they dont know how to exploit those things, and that this is there fault and not the regulations, becouse the rules are the same for everybody.

[Juzh]

Ferrari and Renault can think they will have an advantage in an unfreeze but Mercedes won´t stay still during an unfreeze.
I´m sure they have a whole list of things to improve at the end of the year.

Even if you go back to 2001 where BMW built monsters. Completely open formula more or less and it still took 1-2 years for other teams to catch up.

But they had the option to, which they now don't. This is what it's all about.

[SectorOne]

But they had the option to, which they now don't. This is what it's all about.

It´s not gonna change much whether they were allowed or not.
I think it´s better for them to have a frozen formula. Modify it year by year in a "cheap" controlled environment rather then going all out and being out-spent by the Mercedes powerhouse.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Engine 'performance catch-up' must be allowed. This year (and next one) is all about Mercedes, right? That is so exciting.

This way Cyril isn't going to have to over-invest - Renault will have to invest, if they want to have customers, so will Ferrari and Honda. But a looming engine domination isn't a bright prospect.

[FW17]

It´s not gonna change much whether they were allowed or not.
I think it´s better for them to have a frozen formula. Modify it year by year in a "cheap" controlled environment rather then going all out and being out-spent by the Mercedes powerhouse.

This year's engine disparity has been covered by the exciting teammate battle within the Merc Team. If Hamilton had dominated or if Rosberg was any less of a driver like one of Schumacher's other team mates F1 would have been in a serious crisis. Too much of a domination by a team is never great for a sport, Merc domination with CLK_GTR killed a sport Porsche 917 too killed a sport.