2025/2026 Hybrid Powerunit speculation

[Jolle]

What is the average power of an F1 car for a lap?
I don't think I ever saw a number for this. With series hybrids or fuel cells it would be the most relevant value to design for.

Energy you mean?

just google it, they use on average around 1.7/2 kg of fuel per lap. With a 50% efficiency it's easy to look up the amount of J's they use

[mzso]

What is the average power of an F1 car for a lap?
I don't think I ever saw a number for this. With series hybrids or fuel cells it would be the most relevant value to design for.

Energy you mean?

just google it, they use on average around 1.7/2 kg of fuel per lap. With a 50% efficiency it's easy to look up the amount of J's they use

No. Generation should provide the average power through the whole lap, and batteries would be the buffer. If it's less the motor will be constantly low on power, if it's more than generation is oversized. Making it variable power would also mean over-sizing as well as efficiency impairment.

[Jolle]

What is the average power of an F1 car for a lap?
I don't think I ever saw a number for this. With series hybrids or fuel cells it would be the most relevant value to design for.

Energy you mean?

just google it, they use on average around 1.7/2 kg of fuel per lap. With a 50% efficiency it's easy to look up the amount of J's they use

No. Generation should provide the average power through the whole lap, and batteries would be the buffer. If it's less the motor will be constantly low on power, if it's more than generation is oversized. Making it variable power would also mean over-sizing as well as efficiency impairment.

I think you need to read up some basic physics. Especially the differences between power and energy.

[mzso]

I think you need to read up some basic physics. Especially the differences between power and energy.

An interesting suggestion, since you're the one lacking comprehension.

[Jolle]

I think you need to read up some basic physics. Especially the differences between power and energy.

An interesting suggestion, since you're the one lacking comprehension.

you want to know what it takes to do a certain distance (lap) over a specific time (comparable to lap times now), this will give you an amount of energy you need. Or even, you can take the race distance, 305 km, in 1:30 hours and the current amount of fuel uses (110kg), you have energy (the 110kg fuel), the time (1:30 hours) and you have the generator you need. Or batteries, or whatever.

[gruntguru]

Average Power = (Energy per lap)/(Lap Time)

[NL_Fer]

Nice new piece from AMuS on the next-gen PU's:

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/f1-motor-2025-infos-daten/

Main new points seem to be:

• Improve fuel efficiency at full load by 10%
• Combustion engine will lose power and electric drive will gain power
• Slightly larger, but more powerful batteries
• Competition set to take place mainly on the electric side
• Cost reduction on the combustion engine through measures like open-sourcing components
• Allowing a more liberal relationship with electric energy management (may still cap power, but allow more freedom on energy within that limit)
• Prescribed battery technologies (for cost reduction) but permitted freedom of design within that limit.
• Bring back active driver decision over deployment with push-to-pass type features

10% more efficient, 10% less sound and how are they going to double the amount of recovered energy from a smaller engine?

[Rodak]

Yeah, the only energy available is the energy of combustion of the fuel X the efficiency. All the braking system et al does is recover some of that energy that would vanish as heat.

[mzso]

I think you need to read up some basic physics. Especially the differences between power and energy.

An interesting suggestion, since you're the one lacking comprehension.

you want to know what it takes to do a certain distance (lap) over a specific time (comparable to lap times now), this will give you an amount of energy you need. Or even, you can take the race distance, 305 km, in 1:30 hours and the current amount of fuel uses (110kg), you have energy (the 110kg fuel), the time (1:30 hours) and you have the generator you need. Or batteries, or whatever.

No. I want to now what power an engine needs to run at continuously to serve the energy generation needs. Which would obviously be the optimization target, efficiency wise. In a series hybrid you'd want to continuously run the engine at peak efficiency, obviously.

I wonder what would be the most efficient combustion engine. (I was mocked for mentioning gas turbines, among others..)
And what would the ideal fuel be. Why was toluene better before it was banned?

[mzso]

If we're heading towards electrification. I wonder if it would make sense to allow cryo-cooling, or whether it would be prohibitively expensive and complicated to sustain, or have any real-world relevance for the foreseeable future.

I definitely would mandate direct drive. It would be an added challenge on motor design. But ultimately gears always add unreliability and inefficiency, plus there's nothing to develop there.
Ultimately I would move it forward 4WD as well, with re-gen braking only.

[Jolle]

An interesting suggestion, since you're the one lacking comprehension.

you want to know what it takes to do a certain distance (lap) over a specific time (comparable to lap times now), this will give you an amount of energy you need. Or even, you can take the race distance, 305 km, in 1:30 hours and the current amount of fuel uses (110kg), you have energy (the 110kg fuel), the time (1:30 hours) and you have the generator you need. Or batteries, or whatever.

No. I want to now what power an engine needs to run at continuously to serve the energy generation needs. Which would obviously be the optimization target, efficiency wise. In a series hybrid you'd want to continuously run the engine at peak efficiency, obviously.

I wonder what would be the most efficient combustion engine. (I was mocked for mentioning gas turbines, among others..)
And what would the ideal fuel be. Why was toluene better before it was banned?

Around 600 kW

[henry]

If we're heading towards electrification. I wonder if it would make sense to allow cryo-cooling, or whether it would be prohibitively expensive and complicated to sustain, or have any real-world relevance for the foreseeable future.

I definitely would mandate direct drive. It would be an added challenge on motor design. But ultimately gears always add unreliability and inefficiency, plus there's nothing to develop there.
Ultimately I would move it forward 4WD as well, with re-gen braking only.

Well that would certainly extend the braking distances, which might be no bad thing. I would guess that peak braking effort might be halved at least.

[Jolle]

If we're heading towards electrification. I wonder if it would make sense to allow cryo-cooling, or whether it would be prohibitively expensive and complicated to sustain, or have any real-world relevance for the foreseeable future.

I definitely would mandate direct drive. It would be an added challenge on motor design. But ultimately gears always add unreliability and inefficiency, plus there's nothing to develop there.
Ultimately I would move it forward 4WD as well, with re-gen braking only.

Well that would certainly extend the braking distances, which might be no bad thing. I would guess that peak braking effort might be halved at least.

Good for Le Mans or something, but not racy as open wheel racing. Having a feel for the brakes is one of those perks between drivers, one of the reasons front end re-gen isn’t introduced into F1, the “feel” of BBW is still not the same as an analog system.

[Tommy Cookers]

..... Why was toluene better before it was banned?

toluene is unusually dense so its heat per litre is outstanding (though its heat per kg isn't)
the reason it was used in early submarine-borne cruise missiles

FIA rules attempted to limit the power of turbo engines by limiting fuel volume
they failed because the teams switched to increased toluene content
so the FIA had to start limiting the 'boost' (MAP really)

in heat per kg toluene is inferior to the 95% non-bio part of the current fuel blend

it seems that some toluene will be in the future blend - it's still useful for gaming the ON rules

[henry]

If we're heading towards electrification. I wonder if it would make sense to allow cryo-cooling, or whether it would be prohibitively expensive and complicated to sustain, or have any real-world relevance for the foreseeable future.

I definitely would mandate direct drive. It would be an added challenge on motor design. But ultimately gears always add unreliability and inefficiency, plus there's nothing to develop there.
Ultimately I would move it forward 4WD as well, with re-gen braking only.

Well that would certainly extend the braking distances, which might be no bad thing. I would guess that peak braking effort might be halved at least.

Good for Le Mans or something, but not racy as open wheel racing. Having a feel for the brakes is one of those perks between drivers, one of the reasons front end re-gen isn’t introduced into F1, the “feel” of BBW is still not the same as an analog system.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear at all. I meant that the retardation force would be very much lower. Peak force using conventional brakes can provide 4G retardation with a further 1G from the aero drag. Re-gen braking would likely be half that or less.

As for driver comfort I don’t know how they would manage that. Perhaps they would have emergency mechanical brakes that the drivers pedal pressure would activate but not operate, there in case the re-gen fails. Otherwise it would be brake by wire and could be operated from the steering wheel.