Engine Unfreeze

[Boost]

Those engine rules increase the likelyhood of a title decided by technical problems... If that is what teams, FiA and FOM want... ok then.

I know there are good reasons for those engine rules. In particular the financial problems of the small teams. Just give them a fair share of the money and let them use 7 engines a season. How hard can it be?...

An 6h WEC race is called endurance*... F1 engines have to last 5races a`1.5h (7.5h) and it isn't called endurance. (Practice session ignored in that calculation)

* I don't want to start the discussion whether 6h is endurance or not

The 5 engines/year for this year when the engines were completely new didn't have much effect on the championship.

As for WEC, I think you've forgotten the race in June when the engines have to manage 24h in one go.

[gary123]

The italian media says that Honda will have the same number of tokens. So for 2015 them would have 32 tokens but they cant use them. So for 2016 they will have 25 tokens. This is not fair, But this is maFIA.

[SectorOne]

Too bad we will never see development like this under the current rules

Comparison engine front view BMW E41 / 4, P80 and P82.

http://i3.8000vueltas.com/2014/01/10-Co ... -y-P82.jpg


Motor BMW E41 / 4, season 2000
BMW P80 ​​engine, season 2001
Motor BMW P82 2002 season

Motor weight
E41/4: 117 kg
P80/1: 105 kg
P82: 86 kg

Height c. gravity
E41/4: 167 mm
P80/1: 145 mm
P82: 125 mm

Too bad it STILL took the competition years to catch up.

edit: which btw is important to think about now when everyone gets to introduce their new engines.
Engines that have been developed throughout the year and now finally will be introduced.
If Ferrari and Renault are behind it makes you wonder what an "unfreeze" would have done.

[Sevach]

Too bad it STILL took the competition years to catch up.

Yet we saw a crappy engine become the most powerfull in months (last race of 2000 to first race of 2001).

[SectorOne]

Which it would have been regardless of engine freezes. Why? Because BMW simply did a better job then everyone else.

So let´s see how good of a job Ferrari and Renault will do. Afterall they have had over a year to develop the engine.

[Sevach]

Which it would have been regardless of engine freezes. Why? Because BMW simply did a better job then everyone else.

So let´s see how good of a job Ferrari and Renault will do. Afterall they have had over a year to develop the engine.

Regardless of the freeze?
How exactly BMW would be able to turn things around in the way they did if they were forced to carry 52% of the E41 into their 2001 design?

BMW had a crappy engine in 2000 and they were able to turn it around because that in no way meant their future designs were forced to carry those bad decisions.

[bill shoe]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117259 F1 teams can develop engines in season after FIA admits loophole.

The FIA is not enforcing the logical interpretation, so therefore modifications (allowed via 2015 tokens) can be introduced later than the first race. Obvious power-play and rule changing by the FIA. OK.

My question is: The rules say there is one new homologation allowed per season. So is the date of the one new spec open (i.e. Ferrari could run 2014 spec from beginning of season until June and then introduce their one 2015 homologation), or is the FIA also allowing multiple updates in simple violation of the "one new homologation" rule? The FIA press release was not clear, therefore I'm suspicious they are trying to get away with the latter.

Mercedes dominance seems obvious in 2015, therefore I don't see any reason for competing manufacturers to rush the new spec into production partway through the season. I anticipate Ferrari and Renault "2015 homologations" will occur on Dec 31, 2015.

This situation is very difficult (obviously unfair) for Honda. FIA edict is locking them into homologating/freezing their 2015 tokens precisely 10 months earlier than everybody else. At least the rule change (reinterpretation, whatever) against Mercedes has some logic on sporting grounds if not fairness. In contrast, there is not even a sporting logic to justify how Honda is getting screwed.

The future has arrived and it's ugly.

[SectorOne]

Regardless of the freeze?
How exactly BMW would be able to turn things around in the way they did if they were forced to carry 52% of the E41 into their 2001 design?

BMW had a crappy engine in 2000 and they were able to turn it around because that in no way meant their future designs were forced to carry those bad decisions.

Yea, regardless of the freeze.

But BMW would not even be able to build a 2000 engine in these tight regulations.
You can´t choose how many cylinders, you can´t choose your cylinder angles,
you can´t choose your CoG, you can´t choose your weight.
You can´t choose your cylinder bore, you can´t even choose your own crankshaft centerline height.

Today´s regulations are more akin to a spec engine rather then a free for all playground.

There is nothing to suggest that under these regulations, Ferrari and Renault can´t catch up to Mercedes.
They just complain about the fact that they can´t introduce the updates right away.
These tight engine regulations actually help making sure no manufacturer gets so far out left field they can´t find their way back.

Then we can look at say Renault. In the beginning of the season the engine was a total disaster, sounding like a tractor in Australia and just generally had loads of problems.
But somehow all of this got fixed throughout the year.
And i would have no problems claiming that the performance of the Renault engine was improved during the season.
Ferrari also managed to improve the performance of their engine throughout the season.

Ferrari technical director James Allison said: "On the engine side, the only changes that you are allowed to make to hardware are for reliability so there is no opportunity for performance there.

"But there is a lot of opportunity to get more horsepower out of the same hardware as you increase your confidence in how hard you can push it.

"As time goes by on the dynos, you learn exactly where you can exploit the performance more, and that brings you confidence to bring new settings at the track that deliver actual horsepower to the wheels.

"That happens continuously and we do have a step in that direction coming in Canada."

Edit: Oh the downvote people is in full swing yet again. This forum....

[turbof1]

The situation is quite perverse so to speak. You aren't allowed to make performance updates (if you have already used up all your tokens), but if reliablity issues hinder you from using the full performance of the engine, you are allowed to make updates so that you can extract the full performance out of the PU in a reliable way.

IMO, that's giving an incentive to create unreliable engines, complain at the fia and make updates anyway throughout the year, even if all tokens are used up. I think Honda is doing just that, based on comments from their camp.

And then I'm not speaking of reliability updates which also improve performance. Ferrari pulled such a move in 2010, gaining 12hp. http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2010/05/1 ... ification/

[Skippon]

Since they are only allowed 4 engines per season that means there can only be a maximum of 3 upgrades!!!

[Andres125sx]

Good point Skippon, but 3 upgrades are more than enough to ruin McLaren/Honda seasson, they´d need to be extremely dominant at the start of the seasson to fight for the championship at the end, and that´s anything but fair

I hope they change this madness, if F1 is missing real competitiveness lately, with this ban for only one team it would become a joke

I can´t think what must be going on into Honda and McLaren´s HQs....

[SectorOne]

Since they are only allowed 4 engines per season that means there can only be a maximum of 3 upgrades!!!

Where can i read about this? I had no idea the amount of engines directly decided how many upgrades they can bring.

[FW17]

Since they are only allowed 4 engines per season that means there can only be a maximum of 3 upgrades!!!

Not necessarily, maybe 3 upgrades per driver

Renault has 3 times 4 engines to play with

Ferrari has 3 times 4 engines to play with

Merc has 3 times 8 engines to play with

And using the 5th or 6th engine is hardly a penalty as they just have to start the race from the pitlane

[bauc]

And we all thought 2014 was a silly season......well here we go again.

It is sad to see F1 falling into abyss

[Skippon]

and Honda would have 2 times 4 engines to play with.

So there you have it - if there is a total unfreeze Mercedes has twice as many opportunities to upgrade than Ferrari and Renault do......