Ecclestone outlines dramatic F1 engine plans

[Scotracer]

Next year they are testing the budget limit (not enforcing it). That makes more sense than having a semi-homologated car.

[ESPImperium]

The sports turning into a one make series.

Standard ECU
Standard Engine
Posibly Standard Suspension on the horizon
Posibly Standard Gearboxes on the horizon
Posibly one chassis to last 2 seasons

What next, standard drivers???

I aplaud the idea, cost cutting and going green, but IMHO, i recon that teams should have some freedoms, Engine is one area that shouldnt be tampered with, but i would introduce a "Success limiter" for drivers that win races, say every race you win your RPM limit goes down to 17000 for the rest of the season. But id also make engines last 4 races, and be paired with their matching gearbox. Start from there and move on, even if a drivechain was to last 5 races and the season was 20 races long, you would then have 4 race drive chains, with the posibility of each team having another 6 for testing and race backup, that would be 10 in total a year.

Thats what id do. It would cut costs enough to allow teams into the sport, but also allow the teams the freedom to produce the most powerful, but relyable engine and gearbox package they can.

Id also allow cross team development, not customer parts, but say for instance Red Bull would help Renault with their engines, and Williams would provide the gear boxes for Toyota etc...

The sport needs to be made simpiler, but for the good reasons.

Id also make engine manufacturers support 2 teams, like Ferarri with STR & FIF1, and Renault with RBR. But they should only support a maximum of 1 other team out side their own.

[tarzoon]

Limiting budget is complicated. There's always a cost-benefit of things. My question here is: if you limit the budget, what will teams like Ferrari, Toyota and McMerc to with the spare money?

My suggestion is this: instead of drinking krug and eating caviar and truffles every day, those two nutters should return a good percentage of the money that they got from F1 back into the manufacturers' pockets, especially those in need.

Stop being greedy and let the engineers do the best they can! It's very frustrating when you are 10 quid too short to try a great idea.

[The FOZ]

The sports turning into a one make series.

Standard ECU
Standard Engine
Posibly Standard Suspension on the horizon
Posibly Standard Gearboxes on the horizon
Posibly one chassis to last 2 seasons

What next, standard drivers???

Yes, and they'll all be clones of Lewis Hamilton. That way, nobody will care when he cuts himself off/forces himself off the track/runs into himself/cuts the corner and goes on to beat himself.

Really, it's better for everyone...far fewer appeals, less work for the stewards, I think it makes sense!

[timbo]

The sports turning into a one make series.

Standard ECU
Standard Engine
Posibly Standard Suspension on the horizon
Posibly Standard Gearboxes on the horizon
Posibly one chassis to last 2 seasons

What next, standard drivers???

Yes, and they'll all be clones of Lewis Hamilton. That way, nobody will care when he cuts himself off/forces himself off the track/runs into himself/cuts the corner and goes on to beat himself.

Really, it's better for everyone...far fewer appeals, less work for the stewards, I think it makes sense!

Thants boring.

I have a new idea that would save F1. Lets choose WDC and WCC by SMS voting!

[donskar]

Well, if approved, F1 will be emasculated, a capon. It will no longer exist in a form any true fan will recognize.

Let us all agree: saving the environment has NOTHING to do with all this Machiavellian activity. If Bernie and/or Max wanted to save energy, there would be no night races, right?

And another point I think we (many of us, anyway) can agree on: true racers (as opposed to marketing shills) will always seek more performance. They will spend every penny they are allowed - and then will try to bend the rules to go a little further.

As an American, I'm beginning to like all this self-destructive behavior: IndyCar could very well come out the winner.

Really, I know many of you are younger then me (61 today!), but surely you agree that auto racing has as a key element the competition to create better and better engines, more effective brakes, suspension systems that more closely achieve the ideal compromise? If I read Bernie/Max accurately (and I admit I can not care enough about those two creatures to parse every statement and regulation they make) it appears they want nothing more than to create ANYTHING that will make money. My assumption is that somewhere in their fetid swamp of a brain they look forward to teams spending LESS , so Bernie and or Max can begin charging the teams exorbitant amounts in order to merely compete. First bleed the tracks, then bleed the teams.

[timbo]

Really, I know many of you are younger then me (61 today!), but surely you agree that auto racing has as a key element the competition to create better and better engines, more effective brakes, suspension systems that more closely achieve the ideal compromise? If I read Bernie/Max accurately (and I admit I can not care enough about those two creatures to parse every statement and regulation they make) it appears they want nothing more than to create ANYTHING that will make money. My assumption is that somewhere in their fetid swamp of a brain they look forward to teams spending LESS , so Bernie and or Max can begin charging the teams exorbitant amounts in order to merely compete. First bleed the tracks, then bleed the teams.

Hey! Happy birthday!

[Scotracer]

Happy birthday donskar (and damn I feel young now ) =D>

If they were really sincere about saving the environment they would have no nightraces, they wouldn't request the construction of £100m monstrosities in countries that don't care about F1 and they wouldn't request that teams use disposable batteries next year for KERS.

What a joke F1 is now. I'm off to watch DTM

[woohoo]

Happy birthday donskar (and damn I feel young now ) =D>

If they were really sincere about saving the environment they would have no nightraces, they wouldn't request the construction of £100m monstrosities in countries that don't care about F1 and they wouldn't request that teams use disposable batteries next year for KERS.

What a joke F1 is now. I'm off to watch DTM

DTM is not on for another two weeks.
And if DTM is not a spec series, I dont know what is!

[Scotracer]

Happy birthday donskar (and damn I feel young now ) =D>

If they were really sincere about saving the environment they would have no nightraces, they wouldn't request the construction of £100m monstrosities in countries that don't care about F1 and they wouldn't request that teams use disposable batteries next year for KERS.

What a joke F1 is now. I'm off to watch DTM

DTM is not on for another two weeks.
And if DTM is not a spec series, I dont know what is!

Yes but at least it's not pretending to be something it isn't

Also: I was watching some races from earlier in the season. Tin Tops are the best

[panchito401]

If this series goes any more spec anything, i'm friggin out.

Seriously, even the new tracks are all starting to look the same. They look like ---. They have no character. The lines even look similar. And they all seem to be in the middle of someplace where 10 years ago 95% of the citizens couldn't afford to own a car.

Yah, im pissed about the canadian gp.

Spec engines? I will never watch another F1 race or buy another F1 team anything. Ever.

I hope Tony George takes that indycar series puts a nice product out there. Otherwise its sportscars and nascar (theres a spec car for ya) for this guy.

-f

[WhiteBlue]

a lot of this moaning is sour grapes. F1 has been pronounced dead by the doomssayers so often you cannot count it. despit all cars driving with uniform tyres and uniform McLaren electronics and with a rev limit we are having a classic season as actual racing is concerned. we have many winners, thrilling races, a fight going to the wire and good entertainment.

It will not hurt to put the emphasis on the new technologies and stop the waste of money they spend for gear boxes, brake ducts and brakes. Even the teams agree that it makes no sense and they all order basically standard stuff from suppliers who bleed them for the honor.

The engine standardization could have easily been avoided and can still be avoided if the manufacturers agree to supply the customers at manufacturing cost. obviously they do not want to do this because they want to use their higher budgets to make sure the customers will not beat them. the best way for this is to take as much money from them for the engines so that they cannot allocate those funds to resources helping with competitiveness.

Before Mercedes went became a shareholder in McLaren budgets were massively lower. non manufacturer teams were very viable and clever engineering and management allowed teams like Jordan to come from lower formulae and get to the upper ranks of F1 in just a few years. But such competitiveness is only possible if there are means to use 80-90% competitve machinery as a customer. we see this situation with Toro Rosso and Super Aguri. I believe that F1 has a tradition in that kind of openess. A team like Williams started with a purchased chassis before they build up an engineering staff. if we want action and movement in the ranks we need to make the playing fiel more level in terms of available resources. letting teams with 1200 associates (incl. power plant operations) compete with teams of 30 people makes no sense. you cannot expect that to work. so something has to go off the top and end up at the small guys.

an F2 car will be very close to F1 in terms of safety and basic components. It will cost 0.3 mil € for one season. a Ferrari or McLaren drive costs 300 mil p.a. Surely it isn't right to increase cost by a factor of 1000 while performance goes up 15%? It have been the rich teams that have always blocked proposals to make F1 more affordable and more ope to new comers. something has to be done and hopefully they will agree an engine deal that will allow for efficiency developments.

[flynfrog]

a lot of this moaning is sour grapes. F1 has been pronounced dead by the doomssayers so often you cannot count it. despit all cars driving with uniform tyres and uniform McLaren electronics and with a rev limit we are having a classic season as actual racing is concerned. we have many winners, thrilling races, a fight going to the wire and good entertainment.

It will not hurt to put the emphasis on the new technologies and stop the waste of money they spend for gear boxes, brake ducts and brakes. Even the teams agree that it makes no sense and they all order basically standard stuff from suppliers who bleed them for the honor.

The engine standardization could have easily been avoided and can still be avoided if the manufacturers agree to supply the customers at manufacturing cost. obviously they do not want to do this because they want to use their higher budgets to make sure the customers will not beat them. the best way for this is to take as much money from them for the engines so that they cannot allocate those funds to resources helping with competitiveness.

Before Mercedes went became a shareholder in McLaren budgets were massively lower. non manufacturer teams were very viable and clever engineering and management allowed teams like Jordan to come from lower formulae and get to the upper ranks of F1 in just a few years. But such competitiveness is only possible if there are means to use 80-90% competitve machinery as a customer. we see this situation with Toro Rosso and Super Aguri. I believe that F1 has a tradition in that kind of openess. A team like Williams started with a purchased chassis before they build up an engineering staff. if we want action and movement in the ranks we need to make the playing fiel more level in terms of available resources. letting teams with 1200 associates (incl. power plant operations) compete with teams of 30 people makes no sense. you cannot expect that to work. so something has to go off the top and end up at the small guys.

an F2 car will be very close to F1 in terms of safety and basic components. It will cost 0.3 mil € for one season. a Ferrari or McLaren drive costs 300 mil p.a. Surely it isn't right to increase cost by a factor of 1000 while performance goes up 15%? It have been the rich teams that have always blocked proposals to make F1 more affordable and more ope to new comers. something has to be done and hopefully they will agree an engine deal that will allow for efficiency developments.

why would they sell an engine for manufacturing cost when they spent 20 times that developing it

[WhiteBlue]

to avoid having to use spec engines? buying your way on the podium isn't particularly interesting to anyone. what people want to watch is heroic stuff by the underdogs.

there are always conflicts in political issues. why should anybody pay sales taxes from money that has been taxed already by income taxes?

the freedom of spending as much money as you want in F1 finds a limit in the practical requirement for a balanced grid of a suitable number of cars with a sensible performance spread. If that isn't possible action will be taken.

[donskar]

WHiteBlue wrote:

a lot of this moaning is sour grapes. F1 has been pronounced dead by the doomssayers so often you cannot count it. despit all cars driving with uniform tyres and uniform McLaren electronics and with a rev limit we are having a classic season as actual racing is concerned. we have many winners, thrilling races, a fight going to the wire and good entertainment.

Easy to characterize anything you do not agree with as "sour grapes." I'd expect something better than a thoughtless cliche from you or any other poster. You sound like a Bernie/Max apologist.

The portion I quoted IS correct. You are right, SO FAR. The question is "how much more? how much longer?" You are acting as a mouthpiece for the forces that are undermining a sport most of us love. The changes proposed will continue to ensure that F1 is a good marekting tool and a money machine for a few corrupt men. But it will not be the sport many of us love. Just MHO, of course. . . .