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Formula E 2014 - McLaren to provide engines and technology. (split)


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#1 Anonymous

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 10:47

McLaren to power FIA Formula E Championship

McLaren has announced that it will supply the electric engine, transmission and electronics for the FIA's new Formula E series.


That's awesome! :clap:

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#2 teejay

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 11:16

Spend less time designing crap for some crap series no one will care about, more time winning WDC and WCC

#3 Anonymous

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 11:20

Spend less time designing crap for some crap series no one will care about, more time winning WDC and WCC


Damn, you're right! Because they only have one team of engineers.

:stoned:

#4 teejay

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 11:40

Im just upset and lashing out sir :(

#5 maverick69

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 12:24

McLaren to power FIA Formula E Championship

That's awesome! :clap:


"Confidence and commitment from our partner McLaren is a guarantee of quality and reliability"



Sorry...... I couldn't resist :p

#6 johnmhinds

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:20

Im just upset and lashing out sir :(


Upset at what though?
It wont be the F1 team that builds these engines.


Are they still planning on using this design for the cars?
Posted Image

Edited by johnmhinds, 13 November 2012 - 14:23.


#7 MrMontecarlo

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:30

Spend less time designing crap for some crap series no one will care about, more time winning WDC and WCC


:up:

#8 maverick69

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:38

Upset at what though?
It wont be the F1 team that builds these engines.


Are they still planning on using this design for the cars?
Posted Image


A car looking like that's gonna get the crowds.......... Running the other way.........

#9 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:40

A car looking like that's gonna get the crowds.......... Running the other way.........

Only one question, why?

#10 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:40

If teams don't get the opportunity to develop their own powertrains, then what's the point of the series? Get the spectators used to all-electric car racing?

#11 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:46

If teams don't get the opportunity to develop their own powertrains, then what's the point of the series? Get the spectators used to all-electric car racing?

If, as it appears to be, that racing can be brought to inner-cities, then go for it. New designs/technology is the future. Today's cars are nothing like I envisioned when I became hooked on F1.

#12 maverick69

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:47

Only one question, why?


Because it looks horrid. Get the proportions right and I can se some merit in the design.

#13 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:49

Because it looks horrid. Get the proportions right and I can se some merit in the design.

Proportions be damned.

#14 johnmhinds

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:53

I'm a bit confused about what the cars will look like.

The is the team Bluebird design, which seems to be closed cockpit car.

Posted Image

Edited by johnmhinds, 13 November 2012 - 14:53.


#15 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 14:57

Closed cockpit, fine. I don't think it is factored to be a replacement or competitor to F1. Lets see what the scientists can bring to the racing series.

#16 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 15:25

If, as it appears to be, that racing can be brought to inner-cities, then go for it. New designs/technology is the future. Today's cars are nothing like I envisioned when I became hooked on F1.


I agree totally, I just think an open powertrain formula -- with a stipulated zero carbon emissions -- would be a better way forward. Like at the TT. That would be more interesting than Formula One.

As a proof-of-concept demo I suppose this series makes sense. But if it's going to be another Formula Two but without the noise, it's surely going to fail to attract crowds, entries or investment.

Edited by Risil, 13 November 2012 - 15:25.


#17 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 15:28

I think to compare it with any Formula ICE is wrong. Embrace it as the future.

#18 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 15:56

I think to compare it with any Formula ICE is wrong. Embrace it as the future.


I was mainly comparing it to this. If the future is one-make everything then that's not worth embracing.

#19 BoschKurve

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:10

I was mainly comparing it to this. If the future is one-make everything then that's not worth embracing.


F1 is just about at a one-make point in terms of how the cars look.

I wonder when they will just do what IRL did and have an outside company build a chassis for every team.

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#20 Rubens Hakkamacher

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:13

Because it looks horrid. Get the proportions right and I can se some merit in the design.



It looks worse than horrid, it looks glandularly sick.

Again, *how does so many people get in charge of "car racing" that apparently doesn't get it?*.




#21 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:18

I was mainly comparing it to this. If the future is one-make everything then that's not worth embracing.

Are you thinking that all series will converge? I don't think they will. However, I do think that there is a future for technology. Not to replace but to augment.

#22 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:21

F1 is just about at a one-make point in terms of how the cars look.

I wonder when they will just do what IRL did and have an outside company build a chassis for every team.


I think this might be a good niche for the Delta Wing project. People don't have fixed expectations about what an electric racer should look like, the chassis design accommodates a variety of different powerplant shapes and sizes, and the inherently light design should make the cars look racier with lower power outputs.

#23 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:22

Are you thinking that all series will converge? I don't think they will. However, I do think that there is a future for technology. Not to replace but to augment.


I'm thinking that a series where you just arrive and drive what you're given from Mclaren HQ/ART Grand Prix isn't going to excite anyone.

#24 Rubens Hakkamacher

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:37

Quiet is boring.

This is the dichotomy F1 is facing: go electric, or be an anachronism.

One is much more entertaining than the other. Soccer would be really different if the ball was "updated" with the most modern rebounding elastic material, if the pitch was a smooth urethane floor. Boxing would be different, if kevlar vests were allowed and helmets.

But then, that's not really the point, is it? At some point in every sport's evolution, someone has to say "ok, this is entertaining like *this*, we're freezing the concept".



#25 Fastcake

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:40

I'm thinking that a series where you just arrive and drive what you're given from Mclaren HQ/ART Grand Prix isn't going to excite anyone.


Maybe, but this series might just be aimed at getting electric car racing off the ground. Getting people involved in it first before it gets too expensive is probably a good thing.

#26 maverick69

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:42

It looks worse than horrid, it looks glandularly sick.

Again, *how does so many people get in charge of "car racing" that apparently doesn't get it?*.


:lol:


#27 Koen

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:43

Wait... so Formula E will be a fully spec series, like GP2?
Having many different approaches for designing electric cars was the only attractive thing about this project.
If all cars will be the same, then it's pointless IMO.

Edited by Koen, 13 November 2012 - 16:44.


#28 ForeverF1

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:44

I'm thinking that a series where you just arrive and drive what you're given from Mclaren HQ/ART Grand Prix isn't going to excite anyone.

Is that your best? Who says it is going to be that? Who gives a damn who supplies the technological hardware. Is it McLaren that you have a problem with?

#29 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 16:45

One is much more entertaining than the other. Soccer would be really different if the ball was "updated" with the most modern rebounding elastic material, if the pitch was a smooth urethane floor.


Actually, a lot of soccer equipment is regularly updated and not always for the better (google "Jabulani"). And like motor racing, the updates are pushed and funded by the sports equipment companies, who've historically been the ones paying for the show.

#30 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 17:01

Is that your best? Who says it is going to be that? Who gives a damn who supplies the technological hardware. Is it McLaren that you have a problem with?


Don't be ridiculous. I've got a problem with race promoters who assume that motor sports with no technical innovation and very limited competition are worthy of the name.

If everyone's powertrain has been built and prepared by the same supplier, then the sporting element of the competition tells us nothing about electric cars. It's a gimmick. The essence of sports is the same as the "trial by ordeal" of primitive societies. Is she a witch? Chuck her in the pond, see if she floats. Who's better at building cars? Let Alfa and Mercedes design some machinery and see which wins the race. Who's a better racing driver, Jimmie J or Brad K? And so on.

If no innovation or ability for teams to go their own way on powertrain design exists, then it's not an electric racing series at all. It's a racing series between drivers and race car preparers, which irrelevantly happens to use electric motors. Which battery design is better? Don't know, they all came from Woking. How can transmissions take advantage of the unusual torque offered by electric motors? Don't know, everyone's using the same design. There's no racing element there. I think race fans will notice this, that as an electric car race the competition is hollow, or at any rate the same as usual.

As a proof of concept it makes sense, although we've already had one of those at the Trophee Andros and, for motorcycles, at the Isle of Man TT. It's not like they're particularly stepping into the unknown here.

#31 Slowinfastout

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 17:33

If everyone's powertrain has been built and prepared by the same supplier, then the sporting element of the competition tells us nothing about electric cars. It's a gimmick.


Sorry, had to put the emphasis on this one sentence.

That's Formula E in a nutshell...

It's a marketing exercise where electric cars become lame excuses for various brands being promoted.. the actual technology being used won't be groundbreaking. It'll be reliable known stuff at the service of a publicity stunt in a densely populated area aka. the middle of a city.

Humanity knows how to build race cars and knows how to build electric engines, the war is fought in laboratories at molecular level trying to come up with better batteries. Once such a new battery technology variant gets anywhere near a car that will operate in a downtown area, said technology will have gone through all the ropes, been thoroughly tested and it'll be a finished product that wont need the gimmicky mobile adverts to further advance itself.

Edited by Slowinfastout, 13 November 2012 - 17:42.


#32 sock22

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 17:34

Wait... so Formula E will be a fully spec series, like GP2?
Having many different approaches for designing electric cars was the only attractive thing about this project.
If all cars will be the same, then it's pointless IMO.

This was exactly my thought. I had the idea that the point of this series is to create a platform to develop electric car technology. If it's just going to be a spec series there will be no competition and no development.

#33 pingu666

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 17:37

I dont want another spec series, but i think theres gonna be a specish car avalible, but u can also bring a proper car



#34 alframsey

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 17:45

I am sort of intrigued by this series, I really want to see how this works out. My guess is that it will die a death at some point, but as a platform for development of electric engines, etc. it is going to be brilliant imo. McLaren providing the tech may also give them a head start on any technology which is brought into F1, which is a bonus for us Macca supporters.

#35 Risil

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 17:46

I dont want another spec series, but i think theres gonna be a specish car avalible, but u can also bring a proper car


That makes it unusually free as far as open-wheel series go, but isn't that going to detract from the unusual powerplants? The teams that win will be the ones that get the best performance by "traditional" means, not by clever electric car engineering. At least that's my reading of it. At least there'll be an element of tuning your setups and chassis design to the demands of an electric motor, I guess.

#36 pingu666

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 18:22

i dont know :/. i know they planned to have drivers swapping cars each race, so in theory thats 40 odd cars to build and prep...

#37 CaptnMark

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 18:47

Wait... so Formula E will be a fully spec series, like GP2?
Having many different approaches for designing electric cars was the only attractive thing about this project.
If all cars will be the same, then it's pointless IMO.


Agreed. What we need, is F1 running Qual2 or 3 on electric (not pitlane only).


#38 H2H

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 21:52


Good to see a big team with a deep and broad technical expertise providing the technology. :up:

#39 johnmhinds

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 23:06

I'm not sure what some of you were expecting, it isn't like there are already a dozen electric motor manufactures out there who were looking to the FIA a make the racing series so they can show off their electric racing engines, it's a new technology for racing so it'll take a while for those companies to exist.

I'm sure the series will be able to broaden out to use more engines if it takes off and if other manufacturers want to enter.

Edited by johnmhinds, 13 November 2012 - 23:06.