New party mode regulation

[jz11]

F1 has not been the pinnacle of technology for a while, with rules regulating all sorts of tiny details, which takes a lot of creativity out of the sport it once was (and attracted technically minded people), and the level of sophistication pretty much makes F1technical into F1anyonesguess because of the secrecy surrounding the development of the cars, and quite a bit of it has taken a lot control over the race from the driver into the hands of strategists in the pits

had they made the rules that at the end of season all development info becomes public domain - it would be different matter, secure them with patents and whatever, but we could actually discuss and learn something, but right now - the most interesting bits that have the largest impact on how cars perform are covered and kept in secrecy indefinitely, and at the same time has pushed at least Ferrari and RB into cheating to have a chance of being competitive, I mention RB because of the fuel flow saga back when this hybrid era started, wasn't a cheat really, the wording of the regulations was lacking back then, and I still think they were perfectly legal back then, but stretching the rules quite a bit

[PlatinumZealot]

The origins of the term "party mode" and the call to ban it by Christian Horner dates back to 2018. Anyone remembers? Lol

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/2302 ... ting-works

Interestingly here, Hamilton also claims that it doesn't make much of a difference.

[Sevach]

It sucks that it was introduced mid season, but long term i think it makes engine development cheaper without going full freeze which is good.

[ispano6]

The FIA should consider reneging on the power unit freeze. If manufacturers have performance updates to bring that have already been developed, they ought to be allowed to. For the sake of the sport.

[Big Tea]

The FIA should consider reneging on the power unit freeze. If manufacturers have performance updates to bring that have already been developed, they ought to be allowed to. For the sake of the sport.

They will all claim to have them, then need 'reliability' updates as they were not ready

[ispano6]

The FIA should consider reneging on the power unit freeze. If manufacturers have performance updates to bring that have already been developed, they ought to be allowed to. For the sake of the sport.

They will all claim to have them, then need 'reliability' updates as they were not ready

To me it's very odd that F1 has turned into a "charity" and is restricting PU performance development. I feel there a is different motive to this, which is to keep Ferrari PU cars from falling back more. I'm not downplaying the seriousness of COVID, but why should PU performance updates be restricted when car updates are allowed? I don't think "being fair" is the right reason as all companies face different and unique COVID challenges in their respective countries, and part of it is coping with COVID. F1 has always been cutthroat and continually bring performance is part of the Formula.

[PlatinumZealot]

The FIA should consider reneging on the power unit freeze. If manufacturers have performance updates to bring that have already been developed, they ought to be allowed to. For the sake of the sport.

Develop all you like. You have to wait till next season. The regs were designed for the engines to be within 3% after the reg period matured then engines were to be frozen. But for Ferrari's
anomaly I believe the performance margin has been achieved, so teams are lucky they still can develop year to year.

[ispano6]

The FIA should consider reneging on the power unit freeze. If manufacturers have performance updates to bring that have already been developed, they ought to be allowed to. For the sake of the sport.

Develop all you like. You have to wait till next season. The regs were designed for the engines to be within 3% after the reg period matured then engines were to be frozen. But for Ferrari's
anomaly I believe the performance margin has been achieved, so teams are lucky they still can develop year to year.

If teams are allowed to develop year to year until the freeze then why prevent them from being INCREMENTAL changes instead of only allowing ONE LEAP per year. We all grow, age and get wiser progressively, we don't just spawn a limb or grow 1 ft or gain 5 IQ on our birthdays.

[PlatinumZealot]

The FIA should consider reneging on the power unit freeze. If manufacturers have performance updates to bring that have already been developed, they ought to be allowed to. For the sake of the sport.

Develop all you like. You have to wait till next season. The regs were designed for the engines to be within 3% after the reg period matured then engines were to be frozen. But for Ferrari's
anomaly I believe the performance margin has been achieved, so teams are lucky they still can develop year to year.

If teams are allowed to develop year to year until the freeze then why prevent them from being INCREMENTAL changes instead of only allowing ONE LEAP per year. We all grow, age and get wiser progressively, we don't just spawn a limb or grow 1 ft or gain 5 IQ on our birthdays.

Three teams went bust in the last two years. Two Mercedes customers. And one Renault customer.
Toro Rosso was hanging on by their fingernails and barely made it through the pandemic. So thats your Honda customer.
Renault works team was one board meeting away from pulling the plug on the F1 programme
Mclaren went with their begging bowls and got some middle eastern government money by goodwill (which they have to payback somehow)
Alfa Romeo.. well.. less to say the better...

Basically the whole grid is broke. Who is going to afford developing these engines and why? Why, when the engines are literally within 2% of each other? It's just spending to no end and not sustainable or the sport in the times that we are in.

[Jolle]

Develop all you like. You have to wait till next season. The regs were designed for the engines to be within 3% after the reg period matured then engines were to be frozen. But for Ferrari's
anomaly I believe the performance margin has been achieved, so teams are lucky they still can develop year to year.

If teams are allowed to develop year to year until the freeze then why prevent them from being INCREMENTAL changes instead of only allowing ONE LEAP per year. We all grow, age and get wiser progressively, we don't just spawn a limb or grow 1 ft or gain 5 IQ on our birthdays.

Three teams went bust in the last two years. Two Mercedes customers. And one Renault customer.
Toro Rosso was hanging on by their fingernails and barely made it through the pandemic. So thats your Honda customer.
Renault works team was one board meeting away from pulling the plug on the F1 programme
Mclaren went with their begging bowls and got some middle eastern government money by goodwill (which they have to payback somehow)
Alfa Romeo.. well.. less to say the better...

Basically the whole grid is broke. Who is going to afford developing these engines and why? Why, when the engines are literally within 2% of each other? It's just spending to no end and not sustainable or the sport in the times that we are in.

Well... Thats a bit to dark. Sauber is struggling ever since Sauber bought back the company from BMW, STR is as broke as RedBull wants it to be and McLaren spend money like they had a big sponsor (which they didn't).

There is a lot of money going round in F1, no reason what so ever for a team to go bust except of mismanagement (like overspending) or outside factors (like parent companies changing their perspectives).

[jz11]

when you allow year to year updates - that is not "locking" development, more like the other way around, and will end up costing more in the long run (and not just dollars or euros, but the image of the sport as a whole may suffer), because they'll do whatever it takes(costs) to get the best engine out in the beginning of the season, and if it turns out lacking, will have try extra things on chassis side to compensate for it (which we all know by now is hopeless), or drop it altogether and focus on next year - what Ferrari teams seem to have done, all this reduces the competitiveness of the teams - which is the opposite effect of what they were trying to achieve

I think the 2% or 3% they say the engines are within, is basically a lie (to make people believe that "development lockdown" actually works), it might be true for top figure hp, but it doesn't show the whole picture, one manufacturer might have gotten there sacrificing reliability, the other one - bending the rule book too much, so the year to yearbest one can focus on reliability and efficiency, while the rest will perpetually play catch up, Merc is more reliable, more driveable and more efficient - all of this make the chassis side of development much easier opening up options simply not available to the other teams, I'll remind you again - we're in year 7 of this engine dominance era, and basically nothing has changed since the first year, and FIA/FOM seem too desperate to keep Mercedes in F1 that they don't dare to adjust the rules that would compromise this

I think the technology leap from the kers-V8 to hybrids was just too great, and the gains from getting it right on the PU side were impacting the overall performance of the cars too much, and all those development tokens and lockdowns, that aren't really lockdowns, are not helping this at all

we're in year 7 of this - just think about it... some are so desperate as to protest about copying of brake duct design... when in fact, due to inevitable convergence of design development on the PU side of things, they will all be "copying" Mercedes, because there simply seems to be no other way to achieve what they have done, well, apart from fooling around with fuel flow metering

[PlatinumZealot]

I think the V10's kept on getting more and more powerful even after ten years! So it is not gonna stop until the engines are froze like the V8.

[JordanMugen]

To me it's very odd that F1 has turned into a "charity" and is restricting PU performance development.

It's only until the 2021 season, that's three to five months time -- you make it sound like the specification is frozen forever!

[ispano6]

To me it's very odd that F1 has turned into a "charity" and is restricting PU performance development.

It's only until the 2021 season, that's three to five months time -- you make it sound like the specification is frozen forever!

It has artificially locked Mercedes as the best engine of the season when in previous years developments from spec2 and 3 would have made Honda close the gap and bring a better fight to Mercedes and a better show for Formula 1 without needing to come up with gimmicks like reverse grid.

[63l8qrrfy6]

I think the V10's kept on getting more and more powerful even after ten years! So it is not gonna stop until the engines are froze like the V8.

Like that stopped them