747heavy wrote:from what is said in the article you quote, a volumetric fuel limit seems to be more likely. The fuel/oil companies involved in F1 will have a field day, trying to produce fuels with a higher energy density. We better of, waiting for another week, before we go to far ahead of ourselfs with speculations what they may or may not do.
Will be interesting to see, how a company like Cosworth will be able to foot the bill for the developments needed, if the price for the engine lease will remain at current levels.
It is a question of who you trust to be more accurate in the reporting. I agree that the sources are not consistent. I think that Craig Scarborough is very diligent and reliable. And a mass flow limit makes more sense than a volume flow limit regulatory wise because mass is invariable to temperature changes of the fuel. I trust the experts to see the advantage of picking the physically better dimension for their definition.
The Cosworth position was explained in a
GP.com interview by Tim Routsis some time ago.
Tim Routsis interview on GP.com wrote:Q: Looking ahead to the new engine regs in 2013, how much of an investment does that involve?
The investment needed for 2013 is going to be .. a quite reasonable eight figure sum needed to develop the new engine or, more accurately I should say power train. From our point of view it will depend a bit on the relevance of the technologies. If the structure of the rules is such that everything was point designed for F1 and we wouldn't see any applicability outside F1, then we'd have to be pretty hard-nosed and say that if the teams can't afford to pay for it, then we're not going to do it. If we can see more relevance in terms of creating technology that we can move into other areas, obviously we could take a more wide-ranging view of the finances but, generically, I would say most engine manufacturers would want to see three teams as a steady state going forwards. If it drops below that you have to be looking at a quite different model.
Q: 2013 is not finalised but there's a good idea of the direction. As things stand, are they regulations you're happy to work with?
The one thing that's very clear to me after discussions with all of our colleagues in the manufacturers working group is that big or small, nobody can afford to contemplate an out and out spending race.
Q: How are you going to avoid it?
One is to constrain areas where we know you can spend a great deal of money for very little gain and just keep the development focused on areas which are relevant to the future. The other is to look at the amount of resource that each of us deploys on the job.
Q: What do you mean by constraining certain areas - a freeze like today?
We know, for example, that if we were to allow completely free bore and stroke ratios - for a given capacity you can do what you like - we would spend a huge amount of money doing sweeps to find the ultimate bore/stroke ratio and will it actually make any difference at the end of the day? No. Whereas, if we are going to look at getting a lot of efficiency out of the fuel, the way that we can make the engine exchange gas and getting better thermal efficiency out of it is where we need to be putting our development effort.
Q: Is the idea a set amount of fuel or a fuel-flow metre, or both?
We are going to try and do both - a given amount of fuel allocation and also to restrict the fuel flow to stop wacky qualifying engines. If you are given fuel flow you are not going to be able to get stupid amounts of power out for a short period of time. And I think you are going to find that the integration of the waste energy recovery systems will become much more relevant in the future. We have to be mindful of the amount of waste energy that we put down exhaust pipes at the moment. And that is a very fertile ground to look at getting marked improvements in efficiency.
Q: Could 2013 be potentially explosive as some manufacturers do a sensational job while others don't?
For the sport to attract the most important people, the folks who want to watch us, we have to have unpredictability. If we had a situation in 2013 where anybody just drove off into the distance that would actually be very bad for the sport, so we've got to be very sure that the regulations have opportunities for some to be just a bit better but the ideal is that we get to the point we are today where, frankly, if you took the winning car and put more or less anybody's engine in it, I suspect strongly it wouldn't change where they finished. And to some degree that's where we have to get to.
Q: We have a freeze now. Are they thinking about doing that with the new regulations and, if so, how far in?
The intent is to homologate for a year and that the basic architecture will be locked down for probably a period of five years.
The Cosworth V8 was developed for $15m in 2006 and the 2013 Cosworth development is
budgeted at €25m. German original source
Mark Gallagher, Cosworth wrote:Q:How much will it cost to develop the new engines?
“A manufacturer is made between 20 and 30 million € to spend on development. Can we spend 100 million for a motor? Of course we could do this, but we are not going to at this time. Cosworth especially not because we are dependent on the teams we are supplying with affordable engines. This is our business.”
I think Cosworth has convinced the other guys to aim for such a budget by resource restriction. They are obviously thinking in that direction. They decided to tackle the core engine in 2013 and focus on the very important aspect of turbo compounding in 2014. It all points to some seriousness in cost containment.
