Honda leaving F1.

[zeph]

Sweet revenge: RBR knocking on Renault’s door with their tails firmly tucked between their legs.

[Chicane]

Toro Rosso, alpha tauri now blamed Renault that they were servicing them with second hand parts while Marko and Horner did not let an opportunity go by to take a dig at Renault. Renault are growing as a team now. Even if they are forced to supply Redbull , they will give two hoots to Redbull's inputs on engine integration. not only that this time they will make sure that it is in the contract that Redbull cannot utter a word against Renault.

Redbull once ditched Renault prematurely and then crawled back to them and now for the second time they have to go pleading for engine from Renault. The biggest loss for Redbull would be Max who for sure would not be confident about Redbull designing their 2022 car without knowing what engine is going to be at the back of the car. Redbull have burnt far too many bridges and consequently find them between a rock and a hard place. I would love to be a fly on the wall when Horner/Marko have to dial up Cyril for an enginr.

[coaster]

Cyril is not Renault and everything is for sale at the right price, it will happen.

[Big Tea]

Hmmm. Red Bull Bugatti?

[zeph]

I just know Abiteboul is gonna savor this! The irony is delicious.

Honda pulling out is really a writing on the wall for F1. As the automotive industry transitions to electric propulsion, F1 runs the risk of becoming a historic racing series. Great fun for the die-hard fans, utterly irrelevant for everyone else.

[LM10]

Huge news, just read now. I'm shocked! Big question marks around RBR and AT now.

[Manoah2u]

Tag Heuer back.........

[gshevlin]

The fundamental parameters of f1 are upside- down. Right now for powerplants, the regulations are restricted but suppliers can spend what they want.
Mercedes invested more money more smartly at the start of the hybrid era and gained a lead that they still have (ironically, Ferrari's dubious ICE solution, banned with their agreement, forced Mercedes to improve even more in 2019, so Honda are further behind now, with their 2020 innovations frozen).
The pu regulations need to be made simple based around a fundamental like energy budget, and then the development cost should be capped. This will emphasize innovation at low cost rather than the current "arms race" where suppliers are spending tens of milions just to find 5 more hp somewhere.

[gshevlin]

BTW, although Renault are cheerfully saying they are happy to supply AT and Red Bull after 2021, you can be sure that there will be conditions.
One condition may be that Renault will not have to deal with either Helmut Marko or Christian Horner...

[rscsr]

BTW, although Renault are cheerfully saying they are happy to supply AT and Red Bull after 2021, you can be sure that there will be conditions.
One condition may be that Renault will not have to deal with either Helmut Marko or Christian Horner...

It could also mean more expensive. Since they only have the works team, there is no team to compare. Or for the expected negative comments as a negative ad value.

[nzjrs]

Sweet revenge: RBR knocking on Renault’s door with their tails firmly tucked between their legs.

That's not really how it works, but ok buddy.

[ispano6]

HRD Sakura will be continuing to develop the PU until the last possible moment. They have a new entity that will focus on power unit and ERS technology based on their learnings from this hybrid era.

HPD has restructured and is gearing towards hybrid power units for Indy and another Championship winning operation with a different budget stream and excellent engineers.

Mugen is not the only other brand under Honda's umbrella.

The team Acura Motorsports will power in DPi, Meyer Shank Racing, has just had a minority stake acquired by Liberty Media. Honda North America has kept Honda alive and as HRD Sakura turns to BEV, HPD could carry the baton for the next leg. Alpha Tauri Acura has a nice ring to it.

Although very few people know about this, I learned a year ago or so that Japan has secured a source for an estimated 300year supply of cobalt and allocating 88years of supply demand for BEV vehicles. Japan has some of the best consumer battery technology (Energizer rechargeables) and they are gearing up for BEV now that the bottleneck is gone.

It's only recently that non Japanese news has found out about this. No more blood cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

https://batteryindustry.tech/japan-disc ... -88-years/

[PlatinumZealot]

Ok you didn't mentionthat the Cobalt is from Japan!
Until I read the article it didn't seem that big of a deal as it really is. Deep sea Cobalt from Japan. That is a big deal. To all the automotive companies there. Good news.

[Edax]

Here’s a thought. Mercedes has been rumored to sell their F1 team.

I doubt that deal would include engine dev. That is too close to Merc core technology. Not having a team affiliated to their name would mean they can be less picky about who they supply to.

Mercedes now supplies to 3 teams, 4 next year. 5 and 6 have just become available.

The step to a semi-spec series based around a single engine has suddenly become very small.

[Rodak]

I'm not sure why hydrogen as a racing fuel is brought up so much. There are several problems with it; energy density/volume is pretty awful and the cryogenic nature of the fuel would make for difficult tankage. Gasoline has about 4 times the energy per liter of hydrogen, so to fuel for the same energy would require a hydrogen tank about four times the volume of a gasoline tank, with the added requirement of dealing with pressure and cryogenic temperatures. Refueling would be a bitch. This does not bode well for racing....