What will come after the 2.4 V8?

[agip]

We won't have new engine manufacturers if they keep the V8s with just adding a turbo. So I dont like this idea. But allowing both N/A and turbo engines would be cool.

[xpensive]

Finally some sensibility seems to have arrived to F1, what everobody involved need is stability, available engines is key.
Mercedes and Ferrari are probably happy as it is, while Renault and Cosworth has no interest in financing anything new.

This "green" nonsense is a legacy of MrM from the age of corruption, ego and pure evil, please ditch that KERS as well.

[Pingguest]

Initially the engine manufactures pushed the GRE forward, but now they've turned their backs to it? I thought they wanted Formula 1 to be more road relevant, eco-friendly and cost-efficient?

Well i've a soft spot for BMW.
I wasn't watching F1 back then either, but with what i've seen, the gobs of power sure as hell makes up for the lack of downforce.
I don't want to see an F1 that lacks horsepower and lacks downforce, that's a lose lose situation.

That's why I think Formula 1 cars should lack grip, but not necessarily the power.

However, recently I watched some footages of the BTCC in the 1980s. Those cars generated about 500 bhp (!), lacked downforce but were awesome to watch.

[segedunum]

Most of the engine manufacturers would probably like their F1 engine development programmes to be more relevant to them in terms of research and development. At the moment they have zero relevance to anything else they do. However, that all depends on whether they have the appetite to invest in something more relevant upfront and it looks as if they're not as keen as they thought they were to start large investments.

In addition, I think existing manufacturers are getting cold feet about it because they've seen what VW have come in and done with other racing formulas and their regulations (diesels amongst other things) when they've waltzed in and dominated. The nightmare scenario for everyone is if VW partners with Red Bull as they have done in lower single seat formulas...... For VW to come in and potentially start winning like that would make Mercedes look like right tossers.

There's a large dose of self-preservation going on. It has absolutely nothing to do with being 'green'.

[WhiteBlue]

Some good thoughts by Tim Routsis and Ulich Baretzky.

http://www.gordonkirby.com/categories/c ... no228.html

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft22602.html

Q: Looking ahead to the new engine regs in 2013, how much of an investment does that involve?

The investment needed for 2013 is going to be dependent on the shape of the regulations but from what we can see at the moment it is certainly going to be a quite reasonable eight figure sum needed to develop the new engine or, more accurately I should say power train. From our point of view it will depend a bit on the relevance of the technologies. If the structure of the rules is such that everything was point designed for F1 and we wouldn't see any applicability outside F1, then we'd have to be pretty hard-nosed and say that if the teams can't afford to pay for it, then we're not going to do it. If we can see more relevance in terms of creating technology that we can move into other areas, obviously we could take a more wide-ranging view of the finances but, generically, I would say most engine manufacturers would want to see three teams as a steady state going forwards. If it drops below that you have to be looking at a quite different model.

Q: 2013 is not finalised but there's a good idea of the direction. As things stand, are they regulations you're happy to work with?

Firstly, the whole process has been led by the FIA and they are the one that have to declare the outcome of that process, which has been running now for nine months plus. From what we can see they are a relevant and technically exciting set of regulations. I think the piece of work that we've still got to do is to make sure that we don't inadvertently trigger a financial arms race. The one thing that's very clear to me after discussions with all of our colleagues in the manufacturers working group is that big or small, nobody can afford to contemplate an out and out spending race. And that is going to take some wrestling with, I think.

Q: How are you going to avoid it?

There are a number of approaches. One is to constrain areas where we know you can spend a great deal of money for very little gain and just keep the development focused on areas which are relevant to the future. The other is to look at the amount of resource that each of us deploys on the job. It is very much work in progress but everyone is committed to finding an answer.

Q: What do you mean by constraining certain areas - a freeze like today?

Not an engine freeze. I think we have to recognise that the internal combustion engine has been around for about 100 years now and there's an awful lot of areas that are very difficult to improve. We know, for example, that if we were to allow completely free bore and stroke ratios - for a given capacity you can do what you like - we would spend a huge amount of money doing sweeps to find the ultimate bore/stroke ratio and will it actually make any difference at the end of the day? No. There's a whole bunch of things like that when we can say, just fix it. Whereas, if we are going to look at getting a lot of efficiency out of the fuel, the way that we can make the engine exchange gas and getting better thermal efficiency out of it is where we need to be putting our development effort. By looking at that kind of a trade-off is how we can keep costs under control.

Q: Can Cosworth take on the might of a big car manufacturer?

I'm minded to the fact that this is our 40th year in F1 and we've never had the biggest budget around and have usually managed to make a creditable showing.

Q: We've had small capacity turbos before. What do you see as the main differences this time around?

I think the big difference will be the amount of fuel we can pour into it over the course of a race. It's going to be very, very restricted. We've got some engines in our museum which gave over 1500bhp, not for very long I have to say, but they guzzled fuel at a rate that would be completely unacceptable today.

Q: Will that apply to qualifying as well?

I think the regulations are being crafted so that we won't see anything wild in qualifying. The intent is that what you qualify is what you race.

Q: What sort of fuel-efficiency?

It's got to be a marked improvement. We are looking at numbers which are going to sit somewhere between 35 and 50% less fuel than we are using today. For a car that's got to do fundamentally the same sort of lap time and distance, so it's a big change.

Q: How will they sound?

It will be different but if you go back through F1's history we've had just about every configuration known to man and they've all sounded different. There's no doubt at all that a turbocharged engine will always be a little quieter than a naturally aspirated engine running open pipes. But I've never seen a really good racing engine that sounded bad. Are there things we can do? Yes, there are. Playing around with firing order does actually make a remarkable difference but if we are going to have less cylinders the amount that you can actually play with that is reduced. They will sound different. They will sound quieter but I don't think they'll sound bad. They are still going to be pretty high-revving by any normal standard.

Q: Is the idea a set amount of fuel or a fuel-flow metre, or both?

We are going to try and do both - a given amount of fuel allocation and also to restrict the fuel flow to stop wacky qualifying engines. If you are given fuel flow you are not going to be able to get stupid amounts of power out for a short period of time. And I think you are going to find that the integration of the waste energy recovery systems will become much more relevant in the future. We have to be mindful of the amount of waste energy that we put down exhaust pipes at the moment. And that is a very fertile ground to look at getting marked improvements in efficiency.

Q: A lot of manufacturers have disappeared recently. Do you feel they will return sooner rather than later or is it going to take a long time?

I think there will always be a cycle of manufacturers coming and going and I think what will be good for the sport is if we see a steady level of change. While F1 is still around, on balance of probability there will always be a Ferrari. But I think among the other manufacturers we will always see a level of change and turnover. What we've got to try and avoid is a situation where they all leave at once or come back at once because that is very destabilising for the sport.

Q: Could 2013 be potentially explosive as some manufacturers do a sensational job while others don't?

It's certainly one of the questions that has been asked in the manufacturers working group. Because of that, some of the more esoteric thoughts that we had have been set aside because arguably they pose too much risk of exactly that. For the sport to attract the most important people, the folks who want to watch us, we have to have unpredictability. If we had a situation in 2013 where anybody just drove off into the distance that would actually be very bad for the sport, so we've got to be very sure that the regulations have opportunities for some to be just a bit better but the ideal is that we get to the point we are today where, frankly, if you took the winning car and put more or less anybody's engine in it, I suspect strongly it wouldn't change where they finished. And to some degree that's where we have to get to.

Q: Is that harder to achieve with engine rules than chassis rules?

If you look at the sheer quality of engineering in F1 and how quickly everyone gets back to an optimum solution, I don't see any reason why that won't be the case in 2013. Somebody might have a very short lead but I don't expect to see anyone disappearing or anyone being massively embarrassed.

Q: We have a freeze now. Are they thinking about doing that with the new regulations and, if so, how far in?

The intent is to homologate for a year and that the basic architecture will be locked down for probably a period of five years.

The FiA and most players in the Engine Working Group are looking at race fuel levels of 75-90 kg or 16-20 g/s max fuel flow rate at constant lap times and performance figures. I would say that those targets exclude the continuing use of the current V8 engines. If the fuel load goes down to 90 kg from 150 kg today the car would carry an average weight of 30 kg less during the race.

Another point is the proximity in design to the global racing engine. I believe there is little chance that F1 will run a specification inside the GRE. The engines would be too heavy and the CoG would be too high. But there is a good chance that F1 will be prepared to use the geometric basis of the GRE (84/72 bore /stroke) without the minimum weight of the individual components and a significant reduction in weight like 65 kg. German source for GRE figures and Competitive spec for L4 turbo race engine

A weight reduction of 30 kg of the engine and another 30 kg of the fuel would give some room for adding waste energy recovery technology. The primary source of waste energy should actually not be braking energy but exhaust gas energy. In fact both sources need to be tapped and if electric energy is recovered the power should be added at the front wheels. Performance increases by all wheel drive vs downforce generated performance must be one target.

[747heavy]

it is all nice&good from an engineering point of view, and I´m all fine with that.

but I highly doubt, that AWD drive/KERS incl. torque vectoring etc, and ground effect
aero will be good from a spectator point of view, sure AWD will not make the racing more exciting, unless they plan to race on any form of "loose" surface.

[Pingguest]

Q: What do you mean by constraining certain areas - a freeze like today?

Not an engine freeze. I think we have to recognise that the internal combustion engine has been around for about 100 years now and there's an awful lot of areas that are very difficult to improve. We know, for example, that if we were to allow completely free bore and stroke ratios - for a given capacity you can do what you like - we would spend a huge amount of money doing sweeps to find the ultimate bore/stroke ratio and will it actually make any difference at the end of the day? No.

This sounds like a contradiction to me. Companies usually keep an eye on the return on their investments. If finding the ultimate bore/stroke-ratio won't make the manufactures have a great return on investments, they why wasting huge amounts of money instead of investing it on something better?

[WhiteBlue]

Q: What do you mean by constraining certain areas - a freeze like today?

Not an engine freeze. I think we have to recognise that the internal combustion engine has been around for about 100 years now and there's an awful lot of areas that are very difficult to improve. We know, for example, that if we were to allow completely free bore and stroke ratios - for a given capacity you can do what you like - we would spend a huge amount of money doing sweeps to find the ultimate bore/stroke ratio and will it actually make any difference at the end of the day? No.

This sounds like a contradiction to me. Companies usually keep an eye on the return on their investments. If finding the ultimate bore/stroke-ratio won't make the manufactures have a great return on investments, they why wasting huge amounts of money instead of investing it on something better?

To give you a feeling for the kind of numbers we are talking you can compare the current F1 engine bore/stroke of 98/38.9=2.52 to the GRE spec of 84/72=1.17 and the MZR-R of 90/78.4=1.15

You immediately see that the turbo charged small engines run almost square ratios compared to the high rpm naturally aspired engine. It means that thermal losses will be much reduced in the new engines compared to the old V8s. The manufacturers could be spending millions to optimize the new geometries between 1.2 and 1.0 but it isn't going to have a similar effect as going away from the unsuitably large ratio of 2.5 that we see today. This is why it would make sense to use the GRE geometry without much further ado.

The L4 format of the GRE is motivated by being able to fit the engine transversal into front wheel driven race cars. They have already signed off on the concept for Rally and Touring cars. So using this concept for F1 would probably mean lower cost for manufacturers that want to compete in several racing categories. Personally I would shed no tears if F1 uses a V4 with the GRE geometry.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

.In addition, I think existing manufacturers are getting cold feet about it because they've seen what VW have come in and done with other racing formulas and their regulations (diesels amongst other things) when they've waltzed in and dominated.

Audi and Bentley only dominated LMP1 due to their being NO Manufacturer opposition of note. What happens when Peugeot turned up? 23 races and 16 wins with 21 poles and 20 fastest laps. That is domination, and Audi still cannot match the pace of the 908 HDI FAP.

The nightmare scenario for everyone is if VW partners with Red Bull as they have done in lower single seat formulas

Really? Whats to say Newey hasnt got bored and decided he wants a new challenge or a bigger pay cheque? There is precedent and History will indeed repeat itself. With Williams dominant, he left to join McLaren, Mclaren win their first back to back championships since Senna, and a couple of years later Newey is at Jaguar/Red Bull.
He may not be there if Red Bull win a couple of WDC's between now and 2013. Speculation WITH Historical precedent.

Furthermore, VW will need to start its F1 Programme from scratch expensive and very smokey to begin with. ALL teams go through this phase, even the great Cosworth are struggling. Unless you can name me a manufacturer that entered the sport after Decades out and instantly win titles! Its pure fantasy.

For VW to come in and potentially start winning like that would make Mercedes look like right tossers.

How does losing make you look like a "#'#''#"? If they start winning it will be because they deserve to, but it certainly doesn't make anyone a "#'##'#'". Very disappointing rhetoric.

There's a large dose of self-preservation going on. It has absolutely nothing to do with being 'green'.

Yea sure, ask any Manufacturer where engines are going for the next 10-15 years (possibly more in some quarters)and they will all to a man say the same thing. Small Capacity Turbo charged engines. It has everything to do with being pertinent for our times, in addition to "being seen to be green" as F1 will never truly be green!
Can you point to me where this self preservation is going on? Was the engine freeze going to be your citation? As that was FIA enforced it on the manufacturers.
Its a monument to Max, not a preserve for Renault Mercedes and Ferrari.

The way you put it, Maranello, Brixworth, Northampton and Enstone should'nt turn up against the VW Juggernaut. I can tell you it will be a different story trackside and out of dreamland.

[Pingguest]

@ WB

But if finding the optimum ratio won't make much difference, then why would the manufactures want to spend a thus unnecessarily huge amount of money on it? If finding the optimum ratio is not that necessary, why don't they spend their money on something more relevant? It rather looks very illogical to me.

[strad]

two words...
Piston speed

[WhiteBlue]

The ultimate design objective for the 2013 engine will be different to any other F1 engine ever build. In the past it was all about making more power out of the restricted engine formula with unlimited fuel. With the next engine formula you want to make more power out of a given amount of fuel. So every additional horse power will come from avoiding friction, throttle losses, heat losses, incomplete combustion and unnecessary exhaust gas energy.

If they do not regulate 4 cylinders someone will surely try three cylinders to avoid more friction. But it would upset the apple cart for the teams if one engine was much better than the other. So the teams have no interest to see totally free competition. They want similar engines which leave it to the chassis designers to determine which car wins races. Hence engine configuration and geometries will be largely fixed to prevent spending money on optimization in such areas.

IMO it is important to restrict engine manufacturers to a certain level of spending that can be charged to their customers. The Cosworth V8 was developed for $15m in 2006 and the 2013 Cosworth development is budgeted at $20m. This kind of cost level should be mandatory for setting prices to customers. Engine prices should not exceed $5m per team and year. With three customer teams manufacturers can recover the development cost in two or three years. If they spend more money like Ferrari or Mercedes did they should be aware that the costs are not recoverable.

[Pingguest]

Assuming a fairly free set of regulations would always cause a spending competition, I'm not sure a price cap would prevent it. If manufactures are prepared to run with deficits, there will still be a spending competition.

[SiLo]

Why can't they just leave it? Most of the money goes on developing the engine, so if they freeze the engines long enough they will stop spending such obscene amounts of money on them, and we will eventually have a very level playing field engine wise. By changing it all the time it just incurs more expenses.

[747heavy]

I think, one of the issues with the proposed 2013 engine is the fact, that the engine manufacturers, are expected to pick up the tap, for the development of it.
And by the look of it, they are not interested to fork out xxx Million $ and on the same token are ask / or forced to sell/lease out their engines for ~5 Million $ a year.
I think some sums, don´t stack up, especially for on "only" engine supplier like Cosworth.

I think one possible line of thought would be to make the situation a bit more interesting for an engine supplier.
I don´t think, it will ever happen, but IMHO it would be sensible to consider a split of the FOM price money between the teams (chassis constructors) and the engine suppliers. It does not need to be 50/50, but there should be an incentive to produce a "good" engine, and some reward for it.
As it is now, the engine suppliers have a limited "upside" (the leasing rate * the amount of customers) but a by far greater "downside" to their business.

In the current situation it makes sense for somebody like Mercedes to have there own team, so they can (at least try to) recoup a greater share of there expenses.
What is the business for VW or XXX to come and be an engine supplier, apart from the PR aspect, but even this is very limited.
It would be still the team that wins, the engine is an afterthought.
Only if one blows up in front of packed grandstand and xxx million TV viewers, there is some (in this case very negative) PR.