Has anyone figured out how the engine fund works? Is it 88 million, or 40 million or what? How is going to be distributed if there are several "independent" engine manufacturers? Is it designed only to help Cosworth?
from what i've been reading ciro, its suppposed to go into a fund to help the fia supply a customer engine. This fund as i understand it is to cover the costs of development for an independant engine supplier, where the privateer teams buying this customer engine would just be paying for the fabrication costs. It's the proposal the GPMA put forward to try get the FIA to stop the engine freeze regulations comming in in 2008.
Are there accountability mechanisms in place? What's to prevent Cosworth from, to some degree, just pocketing the money and selling the same backmarker engines? A backmarker is still a backmarker, even if one is a tiny bit faster than the other.
nothing that i've read but i'm assuming its just pride in themselves and the contract will keep the company going, it's worth alot of money. i'm sure those teams that use the engine could ban together and get the fia to change the negine supplier but if the engine R&D freeze comes into effect it will mean all they have to do it keep pumping out the same engines. thats why i'm sure they're gonna go for this engine freeze BS. And btw, cosworth's V8 is actually among the most powerful, well it was in the begining of the season when i read on article on it. beat toyota for horse power. pretty amazing.
Its just another socialistic nut-ball scheme by Max, son of Oswald Mosley. Let the strong survive. Cosworth didn't need any outside assistance when they started. They had the power of ideas. The problem is with the regs. How can you "build a better mousetrap" when your cylinder spacing, the number of cylinders, V-angle, camshaft locations, CG height, metalurgy, etc. is all spec'd? Open the regs up. Lets allow rotary valves, electro-servo poppet valves etc.
Lets allow the CVT to be developed. Imagine an engine running at a constant RPM under max torque load and the car accelerating solely as the drive ratio is increased? A more powerful engine could increase the ratio faster than a weaker one without dropping revs. The whole engine could then be optimised for the given rev range. The exhaust pipes could be tuned harmonically without compromise as could the intake trumpets. There would be no need to search for a wide powerband with all the compromises and challenges that requires. This would have tremendous effects on economy although its exaust note might sound weird being almost constant.
Think of the "green" potential here. F1 could be seen as the seed bed of a new breed of hyper effecient enviornmentally friendly cars that whoosh down the road.
Let F1 be F1 and stop strangling innovation. Then there will be plenty of vitailty for the smaller teams because they are less hindered by engineering bureaucracy and able to think laterally better. Even the larger teams will quietly let the smaller teams develope some of their unproven technologies seruptitiously as sort of a "skunk works" project. In DTM is is no shame if the AMG-mercedes get show up by their "junior team" brethrem. What matters is that they beat Opel, Audi et. al. So it would be no big deal if a Williams Toyota with a CVT beats the "made in Cologne" Toyota if they beat Ferrari, BMW and Mercedes. If they make enough of a name for themselves, then Toyota simply uses it as a marketing angle for a new offering of products like the Shelby GT, Roush Mustangs, the AMG mercedes, the McLaren "F1" BMW road car, the "M-Sport" BMWs etc. So Toyota could start a new line of cars using the "F1 derived CVT". All that really happens is that the main manufacturer assimilates the junior team (for a price) or licenses its name (for a price) and gains another marketing angle. But the main issue is that, properly done, there is no risk of reputation dimunition or loss of face for the manufacturer team.
And if you think of it panoramically, this "freedom to innovate" is ontologically harmonious with the whole history of mankind as a creature. If Max Mosley's thinking had prevailed in Henry Ford's day we would still be riding horses with a fixed saddle height/material pulling carriages made of specified woods with gas lantern lighting and mandatory equine retirement funds for smaller horses. That is the logical end to Max's restrictive thinking. Open up the regs in F1 Max, or better yet, retire.
Everyone wins with open regs. The small teams survive because of the power of ideas, the big guys benefit by farming out risky projects. The automotive world gets trickle down products like a properly developed CVT etc. And F1 gets a great PR boost as the seed bed of automotive innovation and hi-tech cache instead of legal bickering over brake duct size.
Innovation over refinement is the prefered path to performance. -- Get rid of the dopey regs in F1
