Here's the latest from WMSC for full disclosure:


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Personally, I still remember the first time I heard an F1 engine in the flesh, and it's one of my earliest memory overall.

I remember my whole body being shaken around and my chest feeling funny as a very very young kid when we crossed over the track on a pedestrian bridge, I was scared sh*tless but ultimately I think it's probably what pushed me to be a motorsports and F1 fan.

I don't think the kids born around now will have that much of a life-changing experience when they hear the new 2013 lump, which IMO is a shame.

I'm with the engines being quieter, I think a less damaging sound level would be better, but for the quality of sound it needs a six at least I reckon.

I Agree with OP , i just simply would like to add that these eco stuff "heroes" are ridiculus , i simply wonder how its gonna help if one big airplane from Asia to Europe , shipping F1 cars / teams burns more fuel that f1 cars in a whole season. its a very bad direction , they should reduce pollution outside that track , in pit area , in shipping, and then make fuss about it in media , simply to get rid of these people.


otherwise , its gonna be a kill blow for F1 , no point to make F1 greener , its about 10 years too late , F1 is far behind car manufactures in being ECO and i suppose F1 will never catch them.

capped budget is a great idea, something around 150-250 milions a year, would be quite good for F1

Tough one!

The 'green' element of this debate is a complete sham and so is framing rules to attract the likes of VW to the sport.
Nonetheless R&D into I4 turbos has far more value for most manufacturers than into the current V8s.

In my heart, I want unrestricted W16s but my head tells me that we will probably end up with homologated turbocharged V6s or I4s and that everything will be OK.

In terms of the overall technical regulations, I would, of course, prefer MUCH more room for freedom on all fronts. Not sure how you square the circle though - it would be ferociously expensive and budget capping wouldn't work.

Working in a research engineering environment myself, the impression that technology don't go backwards is evident every day. So I'm for the 4 cylinders + turbo + energy recovery systems.

The 4 cylinders are fine by me. And I really enjoy the new technologies such as kers and any form of energy recovery. Don't get me wrong, just like any petrolhead I do enjoy the raw visceral sound of the old V12s. And those beasts were glorious, but so were spitfires. But they sure as hell aren't better than a Eurofighter.

In short, any step forward in technology and efficiency will always get my approval.

With regards to the budget, I like the idea of a limited budget without as much restrictions. Again efficiency. Nevertheless, I don't know how it would be possible for a team spend on powertrain, if they don't design their own one. I mean, Merc can't develop one powertrain for customer X because they get 10mil a year from them and another for customer Y because they get 20 mil from them.

But on paper I like the idea nevertheless.

More than half the experience of going to a grand prix, at least for many people, is the noise.

Let's keep it that way.

You added so many stupid things to your poll answers. I don't mind the new 2013 regulations, but they're not perfect. You could have condensed it to Yes/No and "Keep the current specs"

For me its a simple choice...

Engine should be at least a V8 - Size of V8 no less than we currently have..

Remove the current technical restrictions and open up the regulations to allow innovation (in all areas), but restrict the total budget.. Teams that work smarter will shine - as they should.

O/T: I'm of the opinion that the engine/tech you would find in a supercar should be most similar to the engine/tech you would see racing in F1.. And further to this, IMO the "road relevancy" aspect of F1 should be most applicable to supercars first. If a normal 4 door family car, or 2 door town car ever starts to become technically equivalent to a F1 car, one has to wonder about the impact this would have on the "value" of F1.. Similarly if the average car has a larger engine capacity than an F1 car - where is the value for engine manufacturers in researching and developing F1 engine technology - I simply can't see a future where all cars have the same capacity engines..

go back to v10s, limit aero dependance .... I can dream can't I?
PS also kill snowplough front wings and those silly little rear wings, it's been two years and they still look as ridiculous as they did in 09. F1 cars should look like F1 cars, the current crop is fugly and not imposing at all.

............. and how is that going to be policed/monitored?

At best you have the championships heavily influenced by who has the smartest accountants, at worst you have blatant cheating.

The great thing about the open engine regs was that each engine had its advantages and disadvantages - the V8 was very efficient but not quite as powerful, the V10 was the perfect all-rounder and the V12 was powerful but thirsty.

Around a circuit like Monza or the old Hockenheim, a V12 would be the engine to have, but circuits like Monaco would reward a V8. It was more interesting than the current system.

I think that there is a case to meet in the middle - (I know it's more complicated than this) but you could lop-off a couple of cylinders of the V8's to create high revving 1800cc V6's. You could then suppliment the engine with a more "juicy" KERS - to not only make up for the lost power - but also to improve economy further. Who's to say you couldn't add a couple of light pressure turbo's too?

So essentially you have the following:

1) Decent cost savings and acessability because much of the existing archetecture of the engines and chassis could be retained.
2) It fits the "image" of supercar makers such as Ferrari, McLaren, and to a degree, Mercedes who do not really want to be associated with I4 engines.
3) It outwardly fits the "green" agenda.
4) High revving V6's sound bloody fantasitc.

In this day and age, there would only be one optimal solution and everyone would gravitate towards that.

This is basically what Ferrari are now proposing.

Are they? Well. For the first time in my life - I'm with them!

One thing I forgot to say..

Compared to the current engines, it seems to me that the 2013 regs is just too big a step towards not having an internal combustion engine at all...

It's kinda like they're ashamed and trying to hide the fact F1s have internal combustion engines, they keep adding all sorts of gizmos around it while severely limiting it's core potential and true effectiveness (rpms) in the same stroke.

It's unfair and confusing in a strange way...

see:


they're both women (allegedly), they both can dance, they're probably both vegans, etc.. which one is the 2013 engine?

(that's lady gaga with a.. huh.. a hat apparently, on the left)

But the great thing was that some teams were willing to do something a little bit different in order to get an advantage at certain races. When everyone does the same thing, the racing suffers.

As for the V6's skip to 2:10 for the full monty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcS48NX9YuA...feature=related


Expect this and more

They were willing to do different things because the decisions were being taken by humans and there was a lot of "I think" involved. These days the decisions are being made by optimizers on a supercomputer so everybody gets the same answer ;)

If you have two computers trying to beat each other, then it will always end in stalemate. The only way for one to win is to do something illogical.

They are not trying to beat each other ... they are simple optimizers, you feed them data they give you the optimal solution based on the data you gave them

If I was the boss of a smaller team, I'd design a car specifically for either low or high downforce circuits. One or the other. I'd rather win a race or two and be nowhere the rest of the year than midfield everywhere. If I went for the "optimal" solution, I'd never win a race.

Totally agree. Well put.

The problem is nowadays you'll most likely only be marginally more competitive at the chosen circuits, then hopeless for the rest of the year. The top teams are simply too good everywhere for a small team to overhaul, circuit differences only give a small amount of change among themselves. Same goes for the engines, having a different engine which is slightly better at Monza won't be worth the performance deficit the rest of the year.

As for the question, the poll answers don't really cover it for me. I'm fine really with the new engines, as long as they can be developed far more than the current V8's, which do need to go. Turbos and energy recovery systems are the way to go, even if we could do better than a I4.

The whole engine philosophy must change.

What about this wild regulation:

1. Free to use any energy source that is available for normal road cars in 50% of the countries that hold a GP
2. For a race, they can use $X of energy, price calculated before March 1 previous season and is the average price for the specific energy source in the countries where it is available (maybe a percentage here to get rid of extreme pricing in some countries)
3. Amount of dollars (or euros) spent for energy over a race distance is adjusted each year

From that, let them build what they want, use any KERS they want.

Since i heard the GTI24, I have no worries about the sound anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMytT4Sokew...feature=related

What about making it "any combination of energy sources" to open it up even more?

Agreed, its a huge part of the experience for me.

I like the cars to be absolute beasts, but I'm not concerned about the sound. Yes, we'll lose the high pitch, but that's not equivalent to great sound, at all. And apparent volume might even increase since the human ear is far more sensitive to medium frequencies then those approaching 20k RPM, which is close to the hearing threshold. (I might be wrong here)

Re the 'bonus question', the 'drivetrain of the future' direction as I call it, is absolutely fine in my book. Considerably more so than the countless aero "innovations" which contribute nothing to technology, are actually detriment to excitement, and basically just a waste of capable engineers.

I'd actually like all KERS restrictions to be lifted. Or is that done in 2013 already?




And finally, some tangentially relevant thoughts that occured to me a long time ago but remembered only now:

That huge money is spent by F1 teams isn't the problem in itself. The problem is that

A) Huge money is spent on meaningless micro-optimisations, exploiting loopholes, copying other teams' ideas, etc.
B) And you _need_ to do all of that horseshit to remain competitive and survive as a team.

My rather controversial solution is compulsory cooperation. All teams are obligated to release all blueprints and technical information on their car at the end of the season. Result:

1) Not nearly as much meaningless/redundant research work is done (see A)
2) Small teams will always have the possibility to build a clone of the championship winner car if things get tough for them. No innovation, but at least they'll survive and be reasonably competitive.

This would make F1 a perfect vehicle for automotive research. Thoughts?

Big engines, bring back engine development, maybe homologate some aero for me.
Equalizing engines and letting aero decide everything is stupid.

And after that they complain that aero influence is killing racing, no shit sherlock.

10cc beetroot juice powered engines, that woul be perfect (hopefully KERS won't be too noisy).

Go green.

For once I am in the mainstream. Large, meaner, and without restrictions.

anything, with power limits, but thats it.

and cap the budget to prevent an arms race, so we see who is the most ingeniuous, without some stupid rules to hamper that ingenuity.

I agree with the power limits, limiting these engines to about 600 bhp is murder, the cars will be slower/on par with current GP2 cars and I reckon Indycar would give F1 cars a run for their money, especially the new cars coming in 2012, maybe some other series too. Yes the KERS will be stronger, but it'll still be limited

i would say, no more than 1000bhp, as it may be unsafe with too much power. but then according to situations, increas or decrease the power limit, but make the rest unlimited.

Why not. But there would need to be some regulations around that to avoid advanced chemistry.

Problem with power limits is that it is very difficult to say how much power a engine really have. The power will definitely change from measuring to "live usage" and a rule saying "max XXX bhp" would simply be as useless as the current "max XX mm of flex" rule.

true, but say, you are not allowed to go more than this amount above the max. and it depends a lot on the type and condition of the fuel, does it not?

Let everything develop freely with very few exceptions:
1) maximum car length and width.
2) cockpit minimum resistance to crashes and driver minimum protection.
3) power unit maximum volume (not displacement nor number of pistons nor rpm)
4) Aero parts must have a minimum radius (bold aero parts)

If car speeds get too high, either:
1) increase aero parts minimum radius or
1) reduce power unit maximum volume or, if this can't be done too frequently due to costs,
2) add a suitable equal amount of balast to each car.

I realize that it would be very difficult to police, but creative accounting can only get you so far when a total budget is limited (and I mean total, marketing, r&d, everything..)

But basically, anything to free up the innovators again.. The way things are going we are witnessing the slow but steady neutering of F1 into a spec series..

When do you measure? At the exit of Eau Rougue? When KERS and DRS is applied? In which mapping? At what ambient temperature and humidity? At the top or at the bottom of the hill? Problem is that, just as with the wings, you can design so that the engine give exactly the right amount of power during the test procedure while it behaves completely different on the track.

Besides, I think we want differences in power and performance. Part of the game to catch up if you are behind.

Creative accounting would not even be necessary in most situations. There is so many parties involved in development that there will always be a possibility to gain on someone elses research. What if one of you sponsors is a manufacturer of parts that is used on the car? What if they are researchers of new materials? Todt can not tell them to stop spending money.

Exactly!

But unlike the current regulations the teams should have a real opportunity and incentive to catch up.. The current regulations seem to make it too easy for any team with an advantage to maintain said advantage for an entire year/period between regulation changes..

Agreed - but that same loophole exists today.. The only way you could solve such scenarios would be to mandate than no more than x% of the limited budget can be spent on 3rd party products. This would encourage the teams to research, develop and manufacture more of the car themselves.. Its always gonna be a delicate balance, and I completely agree that it would very difficult to implement and police, but we are talking about some of the smartest minds in the world here - surely they could come up with something... Anyway, lets not get bogged down on details and derail the thread - I was simply stating what I would like to see in the future - I accept it would never happen though.. In my ideal world, the limit would be one of "natural selection" anyway with teams spending whatever they needed/wanted/could afford - it used to work this way, and given the right economic climate could happen again..

And how to you police that over multiple companies? Ferrari and Mercedes are both full manufacturer teams, parent companies can easily absorb costs, the McLaren Group contains separate marketing and catering companies, plus different engineering divisions, Renault is owned by god knows who, etc etc. Restraining the engineering budgets are hard enough, trying to constrain all the PR, admin, and other costs are nigh on impossible. All it will achieve is less money for smaller teams, as they can't hide the money.

It would not help much since the actual manufacturing is not the huge problem, the money flow is as most impressive when you search for the know how. If someone else makes the research and then tell you "Just do like this", then you are a happy team owner.

I always welcome change. Standing still or going backwards is the kiss of death.

I don't see any reason why the racing with the new engines should be any less exciting and that's all that matters. People will soon get used to the noise. The SuperLeague cars sound way better than any F1 car yet people didn't flood to that series did they?

The appeal of F1 to the bulk of the audience is little to do with what engines they're running.

I don't understand why so many peoples (fans) push for smaller budget. I mean, they have audience more then ever, they spend less then ever, they have more sponsors, they produce a lot of less parts then in past. Yet, peoples approve that they do more and more cost cutting. Is ticket/merchandise cost less with ever cost cutting measure? Where does that "saved" money go?

The "saved" money is more not spending money most teams don't have, and not watching teams bankrupt themselves trying to compete with the few who have the largest budget.

Yeah I guess people are fed up with the attitude of some filthy rich investors. If you cap budgets every driver, designer, manufacturer, mechanic or even cleric has to decide if he is willing to forfeit some money for the team. We don't want a series that is dominated by the guy who has the most money. We want a series that is won by the best team in a fair competition.