Formula One's Engine Crisis

[Phil]

I have said it before, and I will say it again, the socialist nature (the compulsive need for everyone to be equal) of EU is the problem, that mentality simple doesn't work in a highly competitive sporting environment when hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line.

While I don't disagree that lots of this talk here is very political in nature, I wouldn't quite go as far to suggest that there's a compulsive need for everyone to be equal and that this applies to F1. I never advocated that, not in the slightest. What is important in any sport is the means to be competitive. As I have repeatedly said, I'm by no means a Vettel or RedBull supporter, the 4 years in succession they won the WDCs were personally a pain for me - but I don't fault them. I applaud them, for being better than the competition. Did they do it thanks the genius of Newey? Sure. Did the millions of investment pay dividends for them? Absolutely. Do I have a problem with that? Not at all.

If I ever was in favor for any cost-cap discussions, then solely on the grounds that even before these V6T came about did we have struggling teams and there is a certain danger to allow a competitor to invest a multitude more and gain an advantage of it because ultimately, dominance in those terms could lead to a destruction of the sport. Especially when then those teams get to justify their investments by earning a multitude more in price-money. This is how you make the rich/richer, the poor/poorer. Not because of any compulsive need of equality. That opinion might be around in EU, but I'm not one of them.

The talk and my points have always centered around F1 needing to offer the means to every team to be competitive. You don't achieve this by having rules prevent those behind from catching up and causing serious problems to the teams they supply. Not when these 'engines' are as performance relevant as they are.

Now before this talk turns back into the typical RedBull bashing, lets just look at the customer teams. I highlighted 2 pages ago two teams in particular - Williams and Sauber who went through huge changes due to these new changes and the supplier they were lucky to have. For teams like that, that don't design, develop, manufacture their own engines, why should such a large and dominant factor be completely outside their control? And is it right for the sport to allow an engine supplier, who does have a competitive engine, to nitpick whom they supply that engine in order to gain a tactical advantage and artificially dictate their winning chances?

[alexx_88]

Williams would disagree with you. Simply put, choosing the right business partners is just as important as having the right aerodynamicist, and RBR simply got it wrong.

That's very tricky to do when the supplier is also your competitor. No sane PU manufacturer would accept as customer a team that's strong enough to seriously challenge the works team. Why would they, really?

[turbof1]

For the clear record: I only said to cut out the speculation about chassis performance. It does help to read what's being said and to determine that discussion about the chassis related to the engine is perfectly fine as long as it does not decent into speculation.

[FoxHound]

I never advocated that, not in the slightest. What is important in any sport is the means to be competitive.

Williams, Sauber, Manor, Caterham, HRT, Torro Rosso, Force India, Lotus....All fall well short of this.
Limited budget to be competitive.
Incomparable facilities to be competitive.
Limited staff numbers to be competitive.

As I have repeatedly said, I'm by no means a Vettel or RedBull supporter, the 4 years in succession they won the WDCs were personally a pain for me - but I don't fault them. I applaud them, for being better than the competition. Did they do it thanks the genius of Newey? Sure. Did the millions of investment pay dividends for them? Absolutely.

So it was no issue for Red Bull to outspend the majority, creating a chasm in competitiveness but it is an issue for Mercedes to supply 3 of those teams with competitive engines?

Do I have a problem with that? Not at all.

I just cannot believe what I'm reading.

The only issue here, and I mean the only issue...Is that you are stipulating 1 team be competitive due to engines(2014-), and to hell with 8 teams that cannot match that 1 team in terms of finance, manpower and technical output(2010-2013).
That indicates favouritism... by god it indicates favourtism!

I think the means to be competitive, to not narrowly skew to JUST engines. But to every aspect of F1!

[FoxHound]

For the clear record: I only said to cut out the speculation about chassis performance. It does help to read what's being said and to determine that discussion about the chassis related to the engine is perfectly fine as long as it does not decent into speculation.

It also doesn't help when someone interjects with...

Mercedes only win cos of the engine.

Which is where the discussion arose from. Interestingly, it is factually incorrect, and has been downvoted twice because of that....yet 2 people found it to be correct and upvoted it....

[Pingguest]

I think the rules were conceived with the best interest at heart. As I said, the tokens, the PU limit per year, the fuel flow limit and fuel race limit were all here to encourage engine parity to some degree. If they had been, the token system would have a brilliant means to limit development costs and control in what ways how quickly these new power units would develop. Control is important. You can't have an engine manufacturer go for a size-zero concept (like Honda) where the car is built around that concept from the chassis to the aero philosophy and then have that engine change completely mid year forcing the car to be rebuilt around any new concept. So tokens in itself were important and a good idea.

The token idea were initially meant to limit off-season engine development, as the legislator intended to homologate engines annually and thereby outlawing any in-season engine development any way. A loophole discovered by Scuderia Ferrari unlocked the possibility of in-season engine development; a drafting error enabled engine manufacturers to use the tokens mid-season.

Having said that, the idea of engine manufacturers showing up with an entirely new engine mid-season, seems to be rather theoretical. It simply takes too much time to develop an entirely new engine. One should also bear in mind that the chassis is homologated annually since a couple of years. Before that, teams introducing an entirely new chassis was not completely uncommon, but such was mostly regardless of engine development.

[dans79]

While I don't disagree that lots of this talk here is very political in nature, I wouldn't quite go as far to suggest that there's a compulsive need for everyone to be equal and that this applies to F1.

I wasn't directing my comments at you, it's just a general undertone I have seen from many posters here. Most I don't even think are fully aware of it. To me it's very obvious, as I'm a complete outsider to the political & social norms of EU.

What is important in any sport is the means to be competitive.

First you have to quantify how we are going to measure competitiveness.

[Andres125sx]

the socialist nature (the compulsive need for everyone to be equal) of EU is the problem

So in USA people don´t want equality?

In USA people is happy when someone with power takes advantage of his influence and/or abuse of the average joe because of the resources differences?

I´m sure you aren´t


Please the debate is already biased enough to now add political/cultural stereotypes. If someone can´t cope with his own failure that has nothing to see with EU mentality, nor demostrates anything about europeans as a whole, it only proves that individual´s mentality.

BTW, if you think europeans have similar mentalities you know nothing about us. We spaniards are too different to germans, who are day and night with italians, and none of those is any similar to british people. Generalizing is the best, fastest and more secure way to be wrong. I´m sure there must be some saying to express it better, but my english sucks, sorry

[dans79]

In USA people is happy when someone with power takes advantage of his influence and/or abuse of the average joe because of the resources differences?

Using your money to get ahead, or deciding to not supply someone is not taking advantage of, or abusing them! Freedom of will is a big part of it.

Please the debate is already biased enough to now add political/cultural stereotypes. If someone can´t cope with his own failure that has nothing to see with EU mentality, nor demostrates anything about europeans as a whole, it only proves that individual´s mentality.

We will have to agree to disagree then.

[turbof1]

In USA people is happy when someone with power takes advantage of his influence and/or abuse of the average joe because of the resources differences?

Using your money to get ahead, or deciding to not supply someone is not taking advantage of, or abusing them! Freedom of will is a big part of it.

Please the debate is already biased enough to now add political/cultural stereotypes. If someone can´t cope with his own failure that has nothing to see with EU mentality, nor demostrates anything about europeans as a whole, it only proves that individual´s mentality.

We will have to agree to disagree then.

Other top teams or manufacturers have money too. The issue is that spending money is not getting them back on equal foot.

I agree with Andres too: nothing to do with national/continental mentality. The only mentalities there are in this biotope, are company mentalities, entity mentalities. Please don't think we are advocating some sort of socialism in F1 (that would cause an allergic reaction ). Rather, I feel we should advocate a ruleset, doesn't even have to be hugely different from what we have now, that applies to everybody at the same time that supports competition and development. I feel this can be solved by allowing EVERYBODY more development oppertunities in the form of tests, tokens, PU jokers, etc. Teams like Renault and Honda should be able to close some of the gap atleast due diminishing returns this way, while Mercedes gets the same opportunities.

[dans79]

Other top teams or manufacturers have money too. The issue is that spending money is not getting them back on equal foot.

As the saying goes, money can't buy happiness, somethings only come with time & experience. Time is what Merc has on the rest of the field, as they started the PU development process long before the rest of the teams.

I feel this can be solved by allowing EVERYBODY more development oppertunities in the form of tests, tokens, PU jokers, etc. Teams like Renault and Honda should be able to close some of the gap atleast due diminishing returns this way, while Mercedes gets the same opportunities.

You realize this isn't fair to Merc, or Ferrari right? Mercedes developed The PU106A, without tests, or jokers. Ferrari made the gains this year, based on what they learned last year.

[turbof1]

As the saying goes, money can't buy happiness, somethings only come with time & experience. Time is what Merc has on the rest of the field, as they started the PU development process long before the rest of the teams.

Experience require the oppertunity to gain that. It's very difficult to try out new ideas on track when you are bound to just 4 PUs across a whole season. It's simply terrible to try something different when you are stuck in a situation like Honda is.

You realize this isn't fair to Merc, or Ferrari right? Mercedes developed The PU106A, without tests, or jokers. Ferrari made the gains this year, based on what they learned last year.

Honda and Renault also developed their PUs without tests or jokers. It is as fair as you can get it. You will not be taking away Mercedes their current advantage -which they rightly earned- by changing the development rules; you'll only open up the potentional for Renault and Honda and Ferrari to do so, but Mercedes gets the same development chances.

Also realise that if Honda, Renault and Ferrari stay in F1, they would have eventually gained on Mercedes anyway. Mercedes voted in favour of 32 tokens, no 2016 development restrictions and inseason development. They voted essentially for something you see unfair for them. There's even going to be in season tests if I am not mistaken, with Pirelli having secured current car tyre testing for 2017. Manufacturer will squeeze every bit of oppertunity out of that to put experimental PUs in those cars. So we are actually going to see that to fruition.

[FoxHound]

Also realise that if Honda, Renault and Ferrari stay in F1, they would have eventually gained on Mercedes anyway. Mercedes voted in favour of 32 tokens, no 2016 development restrictions and inseason development. They voted essentially for something you see unfair for them. There's even going to be in season tests if I am not mistaken, with Pirelli having secured current car tyre testing for 2017. Manufacturer will squeeze every bit of oppertunity out of that to put experimental PUs in those cars. So we are actually going to see that to fruition.

Mercedes voted with the sports interest in mind. The taurine peddlers ought to be taking notes here...
To keep 32 tokens will have meant that the opposition will close, and that the cost will also not fall in line with expectations.
The development will appease all of us.

But you cannot have your cake and eat it.

The V8 costs were high for a couple of years and then gradually reduced due to homologation and the freeze. The V6 Turbo's will not have the same decent in costs, and smaller teams will still be complaining about the cost of the PU's.
And then there's the very real possibility that Mercedes may just maintain their advantage.

[dans79]

Also realise that if Honda, Renault and Ferrari stay in F1, they would have eventually gained on Mercedes anyway. Mercedes voted in favour of 32 tokens, no 2016 development restrictions and inseason development. They voted essentially for something you see unfair for them.

Come on Turbo, you know exactly why they did this. The overwhelming response to them winning has been calls to either limit them in some artificial way, or to make it easier for the others to catch up faster. Thus given the option of having the rules thrown out and erasing their advantage overnight, or compromising in the hopes of stretching out the advantage they have, they made the choices that most benefits them.

[turbof1]

Mercedes voted with the sports interest in mind. The taurine peddlers ought to be taking notes here...
To keep 32 tokens will have meant that the opposition will close, and that the cost will also not fall in line with expectations.
The development will appease all of us.

They voted with their own interests in their mind, just like every other team does and would do. Never forget that. The only difference is that Mercedes is now looking at the long term interests, which requires to be more leanent towards the others. If they blocked those rules, chances would be that for 2017 they would had to swallow much more punishing rule changes.

Which for the record is something they realize, which is good. They atleast know that for the long term, they have to cooperate. And so their own interests are in line with the sports interests.

And then there's the very real possibility that Mercedes may just maintain their advantage.

Which is perfectly normal. You have to give the others a chance to make up ground, but it would never be fair to freeze Mercedes in their current position. The competition gets it chance, but will have to work hard for it.

Come on Turbo, you know exactly why they did this. The overwhelming response to them winning has been calls to either limit them in some artificial way, or to make it easier for the others to catch up faster. Thus given the option of having the rules thrown out and erasing their advantage overnight, or compromising in the hopes of stretching out the advantage they have, they made the choices that most benefits them.

Of course I know why they did that. It does not matter: they voted in favour. They had other options like blocking it or even leaving the sport if they felt it was unfair. They choose to play ball, in their own interests. The moment they accepted that, objections went through the window. Foxhound already made it clear that the other side of the story is that it also contains a risk that Mercedes extents its advantage.