Why turbo´s in F1?

[WhiteBlue]

I predict that from 2015 you will see the Ferrari, Renault and possibly Mercedes power units in a number of LMP1 endurance racers and people like Audi will need to respond because the energy recovery side will eat into their own efforts in this area with Williams.

Both Porsche and Audi will suffer from a competitive advantage of the Toyota supercap system over the Williams kinetic energy system. My opinion is that they will look at either copying Toyota or go to a mixed supercap/battery system as Red Bull uses in F1. The two companies could even do a common development on that.

[WhiteBlue]

I always wondered why f1 deserted the superior turbo technology so readily. Shame on Enzo and Bernie. Motor racing could have avoided 25 years of inefficient technology. I cannot imagine what it has done to the commercial use of turbos. Road cars could be so much more advanced by now. All for V12 dinosaur gas guzzlers that were gradually replaced by more efficient smaller engines which still did not have the potential of the turbos.

[GitanesBlondes]

I always wondered why f1 deserted the superior turbo technology so readily. Shame on Enzo and Bernie. Motor racing could have avoided 25 years of inefficient technology. I cannot imagine what it has done to the commercial use of turbos. Road cars could be so much more advanced by now. All for V12 dinosaur gas guzzlers that were gradually replaced by more efficient smaller engines which still did not have the potential of the turbos.

Ferrari wanted no more of them as they thought they could dominate via their V12 design...of course as we saw this never amounted to anything outside of the 1990 season. If anything we saw far more interesting things with the V8 and V10 applications with the return of the 3.5L formula for 1989 and onward.

I'm not really sure the banning of them hurt commercial use of turbos. It's not as if turbos suddenly stopped being manufactured for commercial use. If anything, what has driven the commercial use of turbos currently is the need for manufacturers to find efficient ways of combining power with fuel economy. Turbos are the absolute best option for that in today's world. However, the upcoming turbo formula is a disaster due to the fact that they aren't letting the engine manufacturers push the boundaries in any meaningful way with the engine design.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm not really sure the banning of them hurt commercial use of turbos. It's not as if turbos suddenly stopped being manufactured for commercial use. If anything, what has driven the commercial use of turbos currently is the need for manufacturers to find efficient ways of combining power with fuel economy. Turbos are the absolute best option for that in today's world...

We had limited fossil energy resources and an excess of CO2 already 25 years ago. So any effort to get more fuel efficient propulsion would have helped that issue. Unfortunately the beacon role of F1 was not seen as relevant at that time and the FiA did nothing to stop Ferrari and Ecclestone. I'm glad something is done today. Too little and much too late though.

[xpensive]

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I always wondered why f1 deserted the superior turbo technology so readily. Shame on Enzo and Bernie.
...

I think it was more Balestre's doing, he saw how Renault was falling behind on the turbo-development and wouldn't have that.

Fittingly enough, Renault withdrew after the 86 season to return in 89 with a remarkable atmospheric V10.

[WhiteBlue]

...
I always wondered why f1 deserted the superior turbo technology so readily. Shame on Enzo and Bernie.
...

I think it was more Balestre's doing, he saw how Renault was falling behind on the turbo-development and wouldn't have that.

Fittingly enough, Renault withdrew after the 86 season to return in 89 with a remarkable atmospheric V10.

Good point but probably not decisive. I can imagine that Enzo had lobbied the FiA already at an earlier time and the final resistance did not come from there. Ferrari was very influential as a leading manufacturer in that time. Balestre was aligned with the manufacturer teams against FOCA. The decision by Renault could have anticipated what later happened. Only the FOCA was putting up resistance I understand from the Rehal story.

For a long time after that decision very few automotive companies promoted petrol turbo technology in the market place. One of the few exceptions being Porsche. The turbo model was always their premium label. Very contra Ferrari in that regard and the sound wasn't bad either.

[GitanesBlondes]

I'm not really sure the banning of them hurt commercial use of turbos. It's not as if turbos suddenly stopped being manufactured for commercial use. If anything, what has driven the commercial use of turbos currently is the need for manufacturers to find efficient ways of combining power with fuel economy. Turbos are the absolute best option for that in today's world...

We had limited fossil energy resources and an excess of CO2 already 25 years ago. So any effort to get more fuel efficient propulsion would have helped that issue. Unfortunately the beacon role of F1 was not seen as relevant at that time and the FiA did nothing to stop Ferrari and Ecclestone. I'm glad something is done today. Too little and much too late though.

I would be more appreciative of the return of the turbo engines if they had been done proper. I still believe they should have been allowing for total output with the energy recovery systems somewhere in the range of 900-1000HP as that would be more relevant for manufacturer R&D purposes.

[GitanesBlondes]

...
I always wondered why f1 deserted the superior turbo technology so readily. Shame on Enzo and Bernie.
...

I think it was more Balestre's doing, he saw how Renault was falling behind on the turbo-development and wouldn't have that.

Fittingly enough, Renault withdrew after the 86 season to return in 89 with a remarkable atmospheric V10.

Balestre had that Daily Double with banning Group B and then the turbos from F1.

Was there ever a more misguided decision?

[GitanesBlondes]

I doubt very much that was the reason, why would the "F1 comission" and the manufacturers object to more freedom, if Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and now Honda are to spend money, the would surely have liked the opportunity to xcel?

The answer X is very simple because all constructors and in particular Red Bull have a great fear of a manufacturer team gaining a significant competitive advantage that they have no access to. They also fear the cost of more intensive research and spending on power trains because it will always show up in their customer bill somehow. Todt is no Mosley and his personal style is compromising on non essential to achieve the primary goals. His goal in this case was getting the fuel flow regulation in place and setting the flow as low as 25 g/s. He obviously made some compromises there as well because now we have 27.6 g/s.

I don't think Red Bull fears cost. Mateschitz has gobs of money to spend for F1 and has done just that.

The Red Bull deal with Infiniti/Renault pretty much has them as a manufacturer team. Not really sure what they would fear as they are currently the Renault works team. One gets the feeling Renault would rather supply engines than to foot larger bills for another factory team again.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm not really sure the banning of them hurt commercial use of turbos. It's not as if turbos suddenly stopped being manufactured for commercial use. If anything, what has driven the commercial use of turbos currently is the need for manufacturers to find efficient ways of combining power with fuel economy. Turbos are the absolute best option for that in today's world...

We had limited fossil energy resources and an excess of CO2 already 25 years ago. So any effort to get more fuel efficient propulsion would have helped that issue. Unfortunately the beacon role of F1 was not seen as relevant at that time and the FiA did nothing to stop Ferrari and Ecclestone. I'm glad something is done today. Too little and much too late though.

I would be more appreciative of the return of the turbo engines if they had been done proper. I still believe they should have been allowing for total output with the energy recovery systems somewhere in the range of 900-1000HP as that would be more relevant for manufacturer R&D purposes.

Excuse my ignorance. But what kind of road cars do you have in mind with 900-1.000 hp? That figure is excessive even for F1. F1 does not need more than 750 hp. Actually if there is more progress on aerodynamic efficiency power requirement for equal performance will be reduced as it has over many years. F1 also does not need more performance. The consequential costs for track safety would be astronomical as run offs would have to be upgraded. I hope that we will be saved from unreflected changes that would only create problems. Chances are good with the fuel flow formula that future problems with excessive performance will be resolved by flow and race fuel budget reduction.

[GitanesBlondes]

Excuse my ignorance. But what kind of road cars do you have in mind with 900-1.000 hp? That figure is excessive even for F1. F1 does not need more than 750 hp. Actually if there is more progress on aerodynamic efficiency power requirement for equal performance will be reduced as it has over many years. F1 also does not need more performance. The consequential costs for track safety would be astronomical as run offs would have to be upgraded. I hope that we will be saved from unreflected changes that would only create problems. Chances are good with the fuel flow formula that future problems with excessive performance will be resolved by flow and race fuel budget reduction.

What kind of road cars had over 1000HP, let alone 1200 or even 1400 circa 1986 when the qualifying engines were producing that sort of output? What road cars even had 900HP-1000HP circa 2004/2005 when the V10's were at their peak for power?

F1 does need more than 750HP because it is entertaining to see high horsepower cars breaking loose around any given circuit. Remember, F1 is entertainment at the end of the day. If no one watches, there is no use for it. Safety has also improved quite tremendously. There is no need for any further runoff areas.

Don't forget, part of developing new things for auto manufacturers is to subject them to extreme conditions...what can be more beneficial than having an engine sustain high power levels? This isn't 1985 any longer, and the engineering challenge involved to let the cars reliably make that sort of power would be quite entertaining.

[Tim.Wright]

Excuse my ignorance. But what kind of road cars do you have in mind with 900-1.000 hp? That figure is excessive even for F1. F1 does not need more than 750 hp. Actually if there is more progress on aerodynamic efficiency power requirement for equal performance will be reduced as it has over many years. F1 also does not need more performance. The consequential costs for track safety would be astronomical as run offs would have to be upgraded. I hope that we will be saved from unreflected changes that would only create problems. Chances are good with the fuel flow formula that future problems with excessive performance will be resolved by flow and race fuel budget reduction.

What kind of road cars had over 1000HP, let alone 1200 or even 1400 circa 1986 when the qualifying engines were producing that sort of output? What road cars even had 900HP-1000HP circa 2004/2005 when the V10's were at their peak for power?

This constant need for people to link road and race cars is starting to send me nuts...

To me, half the allure of F1 and motorsports in general is because they are doing crazy things you don't see on a road car. I liked having V10s and V12s in F1 because are ridiculous and make no sense for anything other than going as fast as possible. I liked that they were so highly strung that they would pop once in a while pissing fire and conrods everywhere. I liked that they used to bin the engine after qualifying and use a different one for the race.

The manufacturers and the FIA are slowly killing this with their road relevance agenda. If F1 cars stop being bat---- crazy, no-one are going to be interested in watching them. I fear that in 10 years they will have closed wheels and a ford mondeo badge.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm not forgetting anything. I'm just reminding you of the standing safety policies of the federation. There will only be a certain performance in terms of cornering speed and straight line speed allowed with the current level of run offs. Your expectations are way beyond what will be tolerated before a power cut will be made by fuel reduction. F1 will never have power like the 80ties again. Simply because the aerodynamic efficiency and the tyres would allow too much performance. My view. You are entitled to disagree of course.

[ringo]

Here's a basic power and torque graph.
This assumes turbo is spooled from the get go.

[WhiteBlue]

If F1 cars stop being bat---- crazy, no-one are going to be interested in watching them. I fear that in 10 years they will have closed wheels and a ford mondeo badge.

That is exaggeration. Cars with close to two tons of downforce cornering at 5g lateral acceleration are pretty special. The objective must be performance and not how to reach it. The required performance should be reached with the lowest possible use of resources. F1 has been exciting at times when power and performance was a fraction of what we have now.