Homologated engines?

[f1.redbaron]

Sorry, what I mean is that without a fundamental change in regulations to maybe include hybrid technology, there is nothing left to transfer because even if the F1 regs were free, what else could be implemented on a road car? I can't think of anything.

Neither can I...and that is one of the reasons why I'm not an F1 engineer

But all jokes aside, you do bring up an interesting point...the hybrid technology. This is a recurring topic in F1 - should they go hybrid or shouldn't they? Whether that happens or not, we have to face the reality - hybrids are already a part of an automotive industry. Toyota, a leader in that sector, is looking to offer all of their models (in N.America) with hybrid technology within the next couple of year. So it is not as though Formula 1 would be introducing anything. But introducing a new technology is one thing...improving it, is completely different (sorry for sounding so philosophical)

The truth is, the current hybrid technology is very, very limited. It saves gas, yes, but not as much as a consumer would like. The price of a hybrid model is about 7,000-8,000 dollars higher than the sister car with a standard engine. Unfortunatley, a consumer will never be able to make those 8,000 dollars back in gas savings. As a result, the demand for some models (with Toyota, it is the RX400h) has dropped significantly.

But to return back to my point - I belive that it is necessary for Formula 1 to seriously consider implementing this hybrid technology. With the brains that are commonly found in that sport, I'm sure that this technology can be improved to the point were people will gladly be switching from the standard engines, to the hybrid ones.


Cheers.

[Scuderia_Russ]

I agree with pretty much everything you have said there f1.redbaron. The truth is we love a sport that within the next few years will face increasing pressure from many quarters as the energy crisis deepens and the greenhouse effect (which we still don't really fully understand!) reaches critical points, leading to the worlds climate being pushed to further extremes. Motorsport will struggle to exist, let alone grow, being seen as a frivilous exercise in wasting the worlds resources unless it starts to embrace this sort of technology soon in my opinion. Now forsight and trend forcasting isn't exactly something I give much thought to but I think we need these incorporated sooner (ten years?) rather than later.
The AUDI R10 is of course a step in the right direction but it still uses fossil fuels... just a little bit less than its petrol counterparts.

[DaveKillens]

There's very little technology that directly transfers over to the road cars directly. But there is such a thing as trickle down technology. Mirrors and fuel injection were first tried on race cars.
And bright, young engineers entering a large company such as Honda get to intern in their racing programs, to learn practical engineering, hard time schedules, in a fast paced, competitive environment, so they can learn, make mistakes, and develop into the lead engineers responsible for such things as the Civic we see today.
But if something has not been tried, that isn't to say it doesn't have a future. That's where racing can be a fertile ground for engineers to experiment, and develop concepts that may hopefully be used in future production vehicles. My opinion is for the FIA to mandate the direction and goals they wish racing too develop.. diesels, alternate energy, hybrid technologies, and then just stand back with a very loose and flexible set of rules, and allow the race car engineers to experiment and try more things.

[f1.redbaron]

I would like to clarify one thing I mentioned.

When I said that the technology has found its way from an F1 car into a road car, I didn't mean in a sense that an engineer would say "OK, our F1 engine is amazing, let's put it in our mass-produced, say, Honda Civic". What I meant to say is that certain parts of that engine can, somehow, be incorporated into that same Civic...maybe an engineer will find a way to use technology from that engine, mix them with the standard, cheap-to-produce parts and make the engine last longer, maybe more efficient, etc. I know that I'm using a very wierd example, but I use it for an illustartion purposes only.

In my opinion, as I already mentioned, hybrid technology should somehow be incorporated into F1. Right now, only 2.5 manufacturers in F1, offer hybrids. Toyota and Honda are leading the pack, and Nissan (partially owned by Renault), had bought a licence from Toyota to build hybrid engines for their Maxima models.

But the following article mentiones how other manufacturers in F1 (BMW! and Mercedes) are, also, interested in developing hybrids:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/automot ... ogy/19427/

BTW, it is interesting how many people are against this engine idea. Just check out the poll results conducted by ITV - 94% of fans are against it!

http://www.itv-f1.com/Home.aspx