58 replies to this topic

[Risil]

Thought I'd start a new thread because I don't think we have one recording actual, concrete examples of F1's new engine regs doing what they were supposed to, i.e. be a sport that's relevant to the big car engineering challenges of the 21st century.

 

Here's UK Guardian economics correspondent Larry Elliott, whose readership is one that I'd argue would have the most problems with Formula One. At least, it's probably not a paper that Bernie Ecclestone reads.

 

For some reason, a Formula 1 grand prix ends up with the winner being drenched in champagne and it is the motor racing industry that provides the second example of how economics works. This time, though, the lesson (provided courtesy of John Llewellyn of Llewellyn Consulting) is about how regulation can prompt innovation.

 

Three years ago, the F1 authorities announced big changes to the rules governing engine size and fuel capacity. By this year, 2.4 litre normally aspirated V8 engines had to be replaced by 1.6 litre turbo-charged engines – a one-third cut in capacity. Simultaneously, fuel consumption – hitherto unlimited but averaging 160kg per race – had to be reduced to 100kg.

 

Lots of smart technologists and engineers work for the F1 industry and the new regulations forced them to find ways of making cars more fuel efficient without any loss of power. They started by recognising that in an internal combustion engine only around one third of the fuel used actually propels the car, and went about recovering some of the lost energy.

 

[...]

 

This is not just a matter that should interest petrol heads. Llewellyn says applying this technology to everyday motor vehicles could cut global oil consumption by 2% or more per year. "But this F1 experience has a deeper significance: it shows what clever people can do when motivated."

 

Sometimes the motivation is money. Sometimes it is just plain curiosity. But quite often, clever people have to be pointed in the right direction. "This typically requires that government be involved: to identify the problem; specify it; corral key people; offer the prize; provide funding. Witness the Second World War, which on that basis produced radar, radio navigation, the jet engine, rocketry and nuclear energy," Llewellyn says.

Edited by Risil, 23 March 2014 - 15:26.

[JHSingo]

I think I'm going to collapse from the shock. A positive thread on this forum! Never thought I'd live to see the day.

[eronrules]

good read ... thanks 

[chipmcdonald]

An oil company "consultant" saying something is green isn't the real world.

[Lazy]

I think I'm going to collapse from the shock. A positive thread on this forum! Never thought I'd live to see the day.

 

Can't have that

 

An oil company "consultant" saying something is green isn't the real world.

[Fastcake]

That is essentially what some of us have been saying for years.

 

No, by itself F1 is not going to revolutionise automotive technology. But by adapting similar engines and showcasing that technology to the world, something good can come out of it as the article describes. Which is exactly why the manufacturers pushed so heavily for new regulations - the old frozen V8s didn't benefit anyone. It's also worth considering how much better these new engines are for attracting new sponsors to the sport. An ever increasing number of companies are paying more attention to environmental issues, and in return will not want to be associated with a sport that refuses to move with the times. F1 has trouble enough attracting sponsors as it is. There are so many other places to spend their marketing budgets, the last thing we need is another reason not to get involved.

[AlexS]

Where is evidence that F1 is more "green"?

 

Batteries are everything except being green, heavier cars are less green, etc etc...

 

They are only green in sense that CO2 is the green mantra for a political project like socialist The Guardian. Nothing else.

Edited by AlexS, 23 March 2014 - 16:51.

[pup]

It's a nice article.  If we're honest with ourselves, though, we have to admit that the new engines - while certainly cutting edge - aren't necessarily innovative, at least not to the degree that the article encourages us to believe.  There's little, if anything, that the current engines do that you won't find in a McLaren P1, for example.  

 

Obviously, these technologies aren't commonplace, but they existed and they'll find their way into mainstream cars soon enough (assuming full-electric doesn't get here first).  

 

What F1 can do for these technologies is to make them more robust, and to make them desirable to the public.

[redreni]

I agree that the only way to get anything whatsoever done in F1, including reducing per-car fuel consumption over a race distance, is through regulation. The same would apply if, at any point, F1 were to develop a taste for anything other than tokenism when it comes to green issues and try and do something about the overall environmental impact of its operations.

 

There is a nice theory that, by improving the fuel economy of the cars, this will spur improvements in road car engines and therefore save more energy than F1 wastes. I think we have to be realistic about that. It assumes that motor racing is at the forefront of R&D and road car R&D follows, but it's the other way around. The current rules were demanded by the manufacturers so that their F1 engines would reflect their road car engine technology, not the other way around. In a big company like Mercedes or Honda, there is always the possibility either that the F1 division will discover something that happens to have an application in the road car division or vice versa, but it doesn't happen very often and they could just as easily discover something that has an application in a seemingly unrelated technological field.

[917k]

An oil company "consultant" saying something is green isn't the real world.

 

https://encrypted-tb...TzbuVBiJXEcmaIQ

[AlexS]

There is a nice theory that, by improving the fuel economy of the cars, this will spur improvements in road car engines and therefore save more energy than F1 wastes.

 

I think you and most people should learn of this, called in my opinion erroneously, paradox:

 

http://en.wikipedia..../Jevons_paradox

 

 

Note this is great, that same energy can do more. It just doesn't mean that we spend less energy.

Edited by AlexS, 23 March 2014 - 18:08.

[4MEN]

Why don't use diesel engines then?

[Timstr11]

I agree that the only way to get anything whatsoever done in F1, including reducing per-car fuel consumption over a race distance, is through regulation. The same would apply if, at any point, F1 were to develop a taste for anything other than tokenism when it comes to green issues and try and do something about the overall environmental impact of its operations.

 

There is a nice theory that, by improving the fuel economy of the cars, this will spur improvements in road car engines and therefore save more energy than F1 wastes. I think we have to be realistic about that. It assumes that motor racing is at the forefront of R&D and road car R&D follows, but it's the other way around. The current rules were demanded by the manufacturers so that their F1 engines would reflect their road car engine technology, not the other way around. In a big company like Mercedes or Honda, there is always the possibility either that the F1 division will discover something that happens to have an application in the road car division or vice versa, but it doesn't happen very often and they could just as easily discover something that has an application in a seemingly unrelated technological field.

Not correct Redreni. The current PU technology with heat energy recovery from the turbo is new and not yet applied to road cars.

It's since a long time that F1 will be back at the forefront in terms of technology. It's actually the reason Honda gives for their return to the sport.

 

I don't have a cynical view about F1 going in this direction.

It's what the engine manufacturers wanted and they are I think the biggest investors in the sport. To justify their F1 expenditure they proposed a win-win situation, namely F1 research for the benefit of not only F1 but also of future road engine technology. 

F1 had completely lost that moniker as it was only about Newey's bendy front wings.

Edited by Timstr11, 23 March 2014 - 18:50.

[redreni]

Not correct Redreni. The current PU technology with heat energy recovery from the turbo is new and not yet applied to road cars.

It's since a long time that F1 will be back at the forefront in terms of technology. It's actually the reason Honda gives for their return to the sport.

 

I don't have a cynical view about F1 going in this direction.

It's what the engine manufacturers wanted and they are I think the biggest investors in the sport. To justify their F1 expenditure they proposed a win-win situation, namely F1 research for the benefit of not only F1 but also of future road engine technology. 

F1 had completely lost that moniker as it was only about Newey's bendy front wings.

 

I'm not against F1 going in the direction it's going, nor am I against listening to the manufacturers when they ask for a rule change. But the very fact that they ask for a rule change that requires a certain technology to be developed (e.g. recovering heat from the turbo or, for that matter, KERS) tells you at the very least that they had thought of it and were interested in developing it for road car use before it was developed for F1. The fact that it hasn't yet made it onto the road doesn't mean it wouldn't have done so whether the same technology was used in motorsport or not. F1 lead times are much shorter than for mass-produced road vehicles, for obvious reasons. Also, with ERS, there's no guarantee that it will be worth recovering, storing and re-using the energy from a road car's turbo, and because youre not required to fit such a device to a road car you would only do so if it was worth it in terms cost-benefit i.e. energy recovery vs. weight, and also in terms of the impact on the cost of manufacture and servicing over the life of the vehicle, reliability etc. In F1 it's always going to be worth it because the rules are made that way, and it's compulsory anyway, but in the real world you have to get the technology good enough that it's worth using and it pays its way before you roll it out on the production line.

 

These aren't F1 innovations as such because the scope to innovate in F1 is not wide enough to enable manufacters to incorporate this kind of technology into their engines without first changing the rules to allow or, in this case, require it. And I'm not, by the way, saying any of this is wrong or that engine or chassis development should be free. Engines have always, of necessity, been regulated in some way in F1 and quite rightly so - the cars used to be dangerous enough as it was without allowing people to run 6 litre engines or some such. All I mean is F1 needs to be a bit careful in claiming to be at the forefront of technologies that were not devised for F1 and are mandated in the regulations because the manufacturers asked for them to be made compulsory. Almost by definition, those technologies don't have their origins in F1. They have been developed and refined for F1 but the applicability of the solutions the F1 designers and engineers come up with for their cars to any kind of road vehicle can't be guaranteed.

[Risil]

Barring the rear-view mirror, how many road car innovations emerged from motor racing? I think not many.

 

Honda's attitude has always been the sensible one that motor racing is less the birthplace of new technologies, and more a place where its engineers can work in fast-moving, risky projects where bad decisions lose comparatively little money and failure only means failure on the track. It's also fantastic PR when things go well, obviously.

[redreni]

Barring the rear-view mirror, how many road car innovations emerged from motor racing? I think not many.

 

Honda's attitude has always been the sensible one that motor racing is less the birthplace of new technologies, and more a place where its engineers can work in fast-moving, risky projects where bad decisions lose comparatively little money and failure only means failure on the track. It's also fantastic PR when things go well, obviously.

 

I agree with this, too. I'm not saying there ever was a golden era where motor racing R&D truly led the way in terms of road car development. Audi might claim an exception with its introduction of four wheel drive to the WRC, but even then, the reality is that to this day not that many people buy four wheel drive cars because you don't need them on the road.

 

And of course there is all the work around safety cells, crash testing and so on that did so much to improve racing car and road car safety over the last 20-odd years. That was an example of the FIA using regulation to incrementally improve things in motor racing, and governments (particularly the EU) doing the same with road cars. So just as an F1 car has to pass the crash tests before it can go racing, so the road car manufacturers, if they wanted to sell cars in the EU, had to submit their cars to the EU's crash tests and tell their customers what star rating they achieved. And if they didn't meet the minimum standards the cars couldn't be sold as new in the EU. But it's important to remember that what the EU got from F1, and specifically from the FIA, was the concept of the testing regime and of making the tests more stringent over time, and some of the technology around the mechanics of crash testing. The actual work of making the cars safer and getting them to pass the tests was done by the teams in F1 and by the car manufacturers for road cars and, since the cars are nothing alike and made of totally different materials and are of completely disimilar construction, there wouldn't have been much overlap between those endeavours.

 

I just think that since it has never been the case, and still isn't, that motorsports technology makes a big difference to road cars, F1 is therefore onto a bit of a loser when it tries to say that because it has knocked a little over a third off the amount of fuel each car uses in a race, it is therefore "green" even though it will still quite happily charter I don't know how many cargo planes and fly an absolutely enormous tonnage of cars and equipment from England to Canada for one race and then come straight back again. I'm all for preferring positivity over cynicism but, as educated people, we can't ignore the fact that F1 isn't green and has a very modest record of driving innovation in the wider automotive industry.

[BRG]

And of course there is all the work around safety cells, crash testing and so on that did so much to improve racing car and road car safety over the last 20-odd years. That was an example of the FIA using regulation to incrementally improve things in motor racing, and governments (particularly the EU) doing the same with road cars. 

Wasn't Volvo the first to really use and publicise crash testing?  Previously the car industry wouldn't mention the c-word  or indeed any safety issues for fear of scaring off their customers. And I suspect that the FIA followed rather than led in this area.

[redreni]

Wasn't Volvo the first to really use and publicise crash testing?  Previously the car industry wouldn't mention the c-word  or indeed any safety issues for fear of scaring off their customers. And I suspect that the FIA followed rather than led in this area.

 

Maybe in the early days, but I think they stepped up their efforts quite considerably after 1994 and, as I say, there was definitely some well documented cooperation between the FIA Institute and Euro NCAP on crash testing in particular. There was a history in this field before that, of course, both on the road car side and the racing side. And the benefit of regulation in this area is that rather than having crash tests as an option that car makers like Volvo would take up because they were trying to sell cars to risk-averse parents of young children or whatever, we ended up with all new cars standing up well to accidents.

Edited by redreni, 23 March 2014 - 22:28.

[whitewaterMkII]

Oh. yeah. F1 is green alright. Considering it probably takes 10 heavy lift jets, and countless private jets burning tons of kerosene directly into the atomsphere getting them to wherever they want to race on thousands of tons of fresh oil laden asphalt, they are waaaay green. Lets not forget the unobtanium metals and again, tons of complex chemical packed tires 

If f1 wants to be *green*, a misnomer in itself, they would quit racing altogether and the sponsors would take the billions they spend there every year and spend it on land reclamation programs.

Racing, of any kind, and green, are a whimsical feel good exercise.

Puleeeze...

Edited by whitewaterMkII, 23 March 2014 - 23:17.

[PayasYouRace]

No worldwide sport is green using that logic, and it's important to maintain F1 as a worldwide sport, and therefore travel round the world. The Olympics and football World Cup are probably just as environmentally unfriendly, because the difference 22 cars running for a few hours on the weekend makes to the damage caused by building the infrustructure and flying everyone round the world probably averages out about the same. But what you do once you get there is particularly important, and to the general public, image is everything.

 

If F1 is seen to be doing nothing progressive, relying on old technology, it will go nowhere fast. OK a few purists might enjoy the niche, Western European sport which would surely result from that, but it wouldn't be the best for all parties. On the other hand if F1 does like it's doing now, and embraces new technology, it will be seen as making an effort to be progressive, and it will survive for longer.

 

It's not F1's job to take care of other industries, like the airlines, but if it does the best job it can of taking care of itself, then it should have a solid future. I don't think F1 has to necessarily innovate, supplying new technology for road car manufactureres, but it must not fall behind and become a dinosaur.

[ReeVe]

It's not F1's job to be green ... F1's job is to produce the fastest cars possible. If they FIA needs a green facade they can always launch Formula Hybrid alongside Formula E. And no, it's not F1's job to be road relevant either

[PayasYouRace]

It may not be F1's job to be green or road relevant but it must remain real-world relevant, at least in outside perception. If it lacks that, it cannot remain a major world sport.

[ReeVe]

When was F1 real-world relevant? When they run hand-grenade one lap engines or when they run ground effect cars? Or maybe when 90% of the car performance comes from aero? Oh I know, DRS, that's freakin real world relevant, go on the motorway with your BMW, deploy DRS, overtake bus

 

It's just marketing bull Mosley thought would bring manufacturers to F1. Well not manufacturers, Audi specifically, and it failed. And yeah I know, Honda woop de woop, my bet Honda would have come back even if V8s stuck around, they already had an engine and only pulled out cause they couldn't justify the cost of F1 in recession. Playing with ERS isn't what brought them back IMO, it's the economy slowly turning around.

[uffen]

I agree that the only way to get anything whatsoever done in F1, including reducing per-car fuel consumption over a race distance, is through regulation. The same would apply if, at any point, F1 were to develop a taste for anything other than tokenism when it comes to green issues and try and do something about the overall environmental impact of its operations.

 

There is a nice theory that, by improving the fuel economy of the cars, this will spur improvements in road car engines and therefore save more energy than F1 wastes. I think we have to be realistic about that. It assumes that motor racing is at the forefront of R&D and road car R&D follows, but it's the other way around. The current rules were demanded by the manufacturers so that their F1 engines would reflect their road car engine technology, not the other way around. In a big company like Mercedes or Honda, there is always the possibility either that the F1 division will discover something that happens to have an application in the road car division or vice versa, but it doesn't happen very often and they could just as easily discover something that has an application in a seemingly unrelated technological field.

redreni is correct. Automakers could do all this far more efficiently and cheaply by staying out of F1. The F1 angle is marketing, not R&D. Paying all that money to fly around the world is not necesaary for the breed to improve.

 

Also, if F1 is now so environmental then why are there no catalytic converters on the exhausts to clean up the smog-causing emissions? After all, they go to places like India and China and the TV feed shows these places are chocking on smog. No, they cherry-picked the issues, settling on CO2 and it's all about that. Never mind end-of-life issues (recycling, e.g. batteries), smog, circuit impact, etc.

 

Racing is not about the environment, unless its marketing.

[PayasYouRace]

I don't think you quite get it ReeVe. Part of F1's ethos is that they employ modern technology. As I said, image is everything. Imagine if F1 had never adopted disc brakes, or fuel injection, or data logging and telemetry? F1 is not NASCAR, where much of the appeal is in the traditional technology employed.

 

To address your list, one lap engines were an extreme use of the same engine technology that is common everywhere (petrol ICE reciprocating piston), and ground effect has been used in sports cars to improve their road holding at high speed, though not to the extent we saw in F1. DRS is a sporting aerodynamic aid, but you can shop around and find a number of sports cars in showrooms with active aero. Same technology, different applications.

 

What would F1 be like without manufacturer support? I'm not talking full of works teams like a few years ago. I mean with no support at all. Even in the "golden era" of the DFV, Ford was behind that, and big companies still got involved because it was good for their image. That's why Honda, Renault and Mercedes are in F1. Maybe they'd hang around for a few more years of NA V8s, but as the world moves further and further away from , they'd struggle to justify their involvment.

[EthanM]

F1's major selling point for decades has been it's real world irrelevance. Suddenly we have a bunch of fashion victims telling us how important it is for F1 to be real world relevant. Lol is all I have to say. It's a fad, it will go away, nobody cares about F1 cars burning 100kg of fuel per race instead of 130kg, nobody will marvel about the engineering wonder that is MGU-H/I/J/K/L/M/N in 6 months, all that will be left is the spectacle F1 provides. And the current spectacle is abysmal. 

Edited by EthanM, 24 March 2014 - 13:44.

[slideways]

Option A: Channel development rate towards irrelevant technology.

Option B: Channel development rate towards relevant technology.

 

 

 

Difficult to justify option A.

[Boing Ball]

This thread is hilarious. As long as I remember, fans of all kinds of motor sport and the industry in itself have justified racing with transfer of technology from track to road. Now, the loudest voices arguing against using racing to develop road-relevant technologies are disgruntled F1 fans, who want to take the sport into hostage, threatening to execute it if their demands for loud engines are not met. 

[wepmob2000]

It may not be F1's job to be green or road relevant but it must remain real-world relevant, at least in outside perception. If it lacks that, it cannot remain a major world sport.

I fail to understand why it cannot remain a major world sport with or without relevance, the deciding factor is popularity and nothing else. No sport is relevant to anything, sport may have political or social consequences, but these are side effects.

[wepmob2000]

F1's major selling point for decades has been it's real world irrelevance. Suddenly we have a bunch of fashion victims telling us how important it is for F1 to be real world relevant. Lol is all I have to say. It's a fad, it will go away, nobody cares about F1 cars burning 100kg of fuel per race instead of 130kg, nobody will marvel about the engineering wonder that is MGU-H/I/J/K/L/M/N in 6 months, all that will be left is the spectacle F1 provides. And the current spectacle is abysmal.

I agree 100% The whole point of F1 is almost superhuman people driving to the limit in cars most of us could never even control. Its awe inspiring because of that, because of the spectacle.

[PayasYouRace]

I fail to understand why it cannot remain a major world sport with or without relevance, the deciding factor is popularity and nothing else. No sport is relevant to anything, sport may have political or social consequences, but these are side effects.

 

F1 needs entrants and investment, and it won't get that if it becomes too anachronistic.

 

You mention relevance. Most sports are relevant because anyone can play them themselves. Ball sports or athletics or whatever are easily relatable to the general public. Motorsport is different because it relies on automotive technology, so if it is to remain popular, it has to have some connection to the real world. At the moment, performance through efficiency is the name of the game. It would be absurd for F1 to not reflect that.

[wepmob2000]

F1 needs entrants and investment, and it won't get that if it becomes too anachronistic.
 
You mention relevance. Most sports are relevant because anyone can play them themselves. Ball sports or athletics or whatever are easily relatable to the general public. Motorsport is different because it relies on automotive technology, so if it is to remain popular, it has to have some connection to the real world. At the moment, performance through efficiency is the name of the game. It would be absurd for F1 to not reflect that.

Its relevance to the real world has always been near to zero though, and I've yet to meet anyone who was drawn to the sport because of its relevance to anything, they were drawn by the sheer spectacle and awesomeness. Its the same reason virtually no-one cares about the constructors championship, its all about the drivers championship. Its been diluted in recent years, but the image of the heroic driver performing superhuman feats in the mould of Moss, Lauda, Senna, etc, is the draw for the majority, not the superiority of one teams tech over another's.

Edited by wepmob2000, 24 March 2014 - 14:37.

[EthanM]

F1 needs entrants and investment, and it won't get that if it becomes too anachronistic.

 

You mention relevance. Most sports are relevant because anyone can play them themselves. Ball sports or athletics or whatever are easily relatable to the general public. Motorsport is different because it relies on automotive technology, so if it is to remain popular, it has to have some connection to the real world. At the moment, performance through efficiency is the name of the game. It would be absurd for F1 to not reflect that.

 

yet F1 managed to survive and even flourish for decades selling the exact opposite of real world relevance. They sold epic cars you couldn't drive, and even if you did they 'd scare the crap out of your, mercurial personalities, Monaco, Glitz and Glamour. That's what F1 thrived on. Not a bunch of engineering groupies getting off on how little fuel the cars were burning and how they can recycle hot gases from the turbo and use it to spin the turbo back up cause somebody told them that's real world relevant.

 

Nobody watched F1 for the technical innovations. Nobody watched F1 for pneumatic valves, carbon fiber tubs, vortices that spin up at the front wing and channel the air behind the rear tyre and whatever else gives engineering groupies wet dreams. Those were part of the show, but they were the sideshow, the main attraction has always been cars you could NEVER drive, much less see in the "real" world, if F1 had limited itself to being an engineering challenge it would become a niche that appeals to a hanfull of anoraks.

[whitewaterMkII]

PAYR, I'd love to subscribe to your points, but i just can't. I believe the whole green movement is a farce, and I'll give you a real world example.

I live in wind farm central, specifically the San Gorgonio Pass, which is outside of Palm Springs and as seen in numerous films, amongst them Mission Impossible.

These things are here, not because they make economic sense, but because they are taxpayer funded by giving massive tax breaks to the huge corporations that have invested in them.

They are +/- 300 feet tall, they comprise of about 30 tons of steel that took mass amounts of power and the desecration of mountains to smelt. They use about 3 tons of copper, which also tore up the earth and used buckets of power to refine. Each one also has tons of petroleum byproducts in it as fiberglass for the blades, housings and so forth. It takes about 60 plus gallons of oil for the various gearboxes on them, which of course the seals on leak like sieves and blow said oil all over the desert. Seriously, when these things are abandoned, and they will be, about half of them are already abandoned here, the 'farms' they are located in will be environmental disaster scenes. All this doesn't even bring into the picture the devastating effect these 'farms' have on migrating birds. They put windfarms in passes, because that's where the wind is, even though for eons, they have also been the paths of migrating birds.

All this because they give a patina of being sustainable clean 'green' energy, and here's the real kicker, they only provide power about 17% of the year, and the power they do provide is usually generated at night when the winds are higher, during a period when the power draw is the lowest.

That's the real world for you.

Corporate welfare, with the addition of appearing to being environmentally sound.

Much like the current F1.

Window dressing for the sausage making behind the curtain.

[PayasYouRace]

Seeing as you guys aren't getting it I might have to go away and think of a better way to put it.

 

For now I'll boil it down to a couple points.

 

1. Spectacle can be provided irrespective of the technology level.

2. Entrants and investors will only make the sport viable if there is some real world relevance to the technology used.

 

It's all well and good saying we want a spectacle. I don't disagree with you there. But have fun finding places to hold your sport and people to take part in it unless you keep up with the times.

 

Edit: You're making my point whitewaterMkII. It's all about image and where the money comes from. Those wind farms may have been a waste, but someone somewhere had to be seen to be doing something green. F1 is in the same situation.

Edited by PayasYouRace, 24 March 2014 - 14:56.

[EthanM]

Seeing as you guys aren't getting it I might have to go away and think of a better way to put it.

 

For now I'll boil it down to a couple points.

 

1. Spectacle can be provided irrespective of the technology level.

2. Entrants and investors will only make the sport viable if there is some real world relevance to the technology used.

 

It's all well and good saying we want a spectacle. I don't disagree with you there. But have fun finding places to hold your sport and people to take part in it unless you keep up with the times.

 

since you don't seem to get it

 

sponsors will only make the sport viable so long as it gets eyeballs to the tv screen

 

F1 has gone through (and can go through) periods of minimal manufacturer involvement. It can't survive a single season of no eyeballs watching it. You can buy engines, you can't engineer money.

Edited by EthanM, 24 March 2014 - 14:57.

[PayasYouRace]

since you don't seem to get it

 

sponsors will only make the sport viable so long as it gets eyeballs to the tv screen

 

F1 has gone through (and can go through) periods of minimal manufacturer involvement. It can't survive a single season of no eyeballs watching it. You can buy engines, you can't engineer money.

 

But those sponsors aren't going to get involved in a product that will put them in a bad light.

[whitewaterMkII]

Seeing as you guys aren't getting it I might have to go away and think of a better way to put it.

 

For now I'll boil it down to a couple points.

 

1. Spectacle can be provided irrespective of the technology level.

2. Entrants and investors will only make the sport viable if there is some real world relevance to the technology used.

 

It's all well and good saying we want a spectacle. I don't disagree with you there. But have fun finding places to hold your sport and people to take part in it unless you keep up with the times.

 

Edit: You're making my point whitewaterMkII. It's all about image and where the money comes from. Those wind farms may have been a waste, but someone somewhere had to be seen to be doing something green. F1 is in the same situation.

1) Case in point, NASCAR, a spectacle using 1950's technology.

2) NASCAR, tons of entrants and sponsors, yet has no relation to real world technology, yet so viable it is really the only other racing series on the economic level as F1.

Hey, NASCAR is green though! They use ethanol!

Racing has always had a poor image as being green, and the window dressing that it is employing to make it seem so, just makes me laugh.

Edited by whitewaterMkII, 24 March 2014 - 15:05.

[EthanM]

But those sponsors aren't going to get involved in a product that will put them in a bad light.

 

Ultra naive thing to say when talking about a sport that was run by the son of the leader of fascism in the UK who was caught in a nazi themed orgy with a bunch of prostitutes. If that didn't cause a mass sponsor exodus I doubt burning 30 extra kg of fuel per race will.

[PayasYouRace]

I mentioned the difference to NASCAR. It's built on the image of traditional technology. That's not something F1 has done. NASCAR works in the US because it appeals to US car culture much more than anywhere else. Who watches NASCAR outside the US apart from the die-hard motorsport fans like us? Even they are begrudgingly entering the 21st century.

 

F1 has always sold itself on being cutting edge. It may not have always been totally true, but it's the image that it sells to the world.

[jimmies]

I know this doesn't make actually F1 green but I worked with a some of teams on their IT for a few years (before I realised the constant travel wasn't for me) and I was told that F1 is fully carbon offset and has been since 1998...ish - they offset everything and I understand this still to be the case

 

So F1 is actually carbon neutral

[EthanM]

I know this doesn't make actually F1 green but I worked with a some of teams on their IT for a few years (before I realised the constant travel wasn't for me) and I was told that F1 is fully carbon offset and has been since 1998...ish - they offset everything and I understand this still to be the case

 

So F1 is actually carbon neutral

 

I think that's McLaren specifically, not F1 as a whole

[PayasYouRace]

Ultra naive thing to say when talking about a sport that was run by the son of the leader of fascism in the UK who was caught in a nazi themed orgy with a bunch of prostitutes. If that didn't cause a mass sponsor exodus I doubt burning 30 extra kg of fuel per race will.

 

Equally naive to think that the only way to retain viewership is by standing still on technology?

 

Though I imagine that Max's antics didn't really reflect badly on that many sponsors themselves. What I mean is if they were, say, funnelling cash into a sport that is seen as more and more environmentally careless when many countries and markets are becoming more concerned about that very issue.

[Tenmantaylor]

1) Case in point, NASCAR, a spectacle using 1950's technology.

2) NASCAR, tons of entrants and sponsors, yet has no relation to real world technology, yet so viable it is really the only other racing series on the economic level as F1.

Hey, NASCAR is green though! They use ethanol!

Racing has always had a poor image as being green, and the window dressing that it is employing to make it seem so, just makes me laugh.

 

You're missing the point.

 

- NASCAR doesn't claim to be the pinnacle of automotive technology, F1 does.

 

- Due to the construction of the rules NASCAR doesn't attract world class technical and automotive partner's on the basis of the technical challenge, F1 does.

 

- Racing is never green as an act in itself (and no one is claiming that it ever will be) but F1 has the potential talent pool to take automotive technology to the next curve and that is no more or less a marketing technique as sending 40 cars in a circle in a hick-crash-fest. It's just a more educated approach.

 

People need to accept that F1 is as much about technological progress as spectacle. Indeed the progress is part of the spectacle.

[whitewaterMkII]

You're missing the point.

 

- NASCAR doesn't claim to be the pinnacle of automotive technology, F1 does.

 

- Due to the construction of the rules NASCAR doesn't attract world class technical and automotive partner's on the basis of the technical challenge, F1 does.

 

- Racing is never green as an act in itself (and no one is claiming that it ever will be) but F1 has the potential talent pool to take automotive technology to the next curve and that is no more or less a marketing technique as sending 40 cars in a circle in a hick-crash-fest. It's just a more educated approach.

 

People need to accept that F1 is as much about technological progress as spectacle. Indeed the progress is part of the spectacle.

A 'hick-crash-fest'

You destroyed your entire post with that bit of ignorant bias...nice job.

[jimmies]

I think that's McLaren specifically, not F1 as a whole

This says the FIA (F1 + WRC) has been carbon offset since 1997....not sure if it is still the case as the report was in 2007....I left in 2008

 

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/56953

Edited by jimmies, 24 March 2014 - 15:30.

[Tenmantaylor]

A 'hick-crash-fest'

You destroyed your entire post with that bit of ignorant bias...nice job.

 

And you yours by stating F1 makes you laugh for attempting to be green by 'window dressing'. They have actually achieved this without making the cars substantially slower and it's a bloody miracle actually yet it seems to be going over the heads of spectacle seeking philistines by some distance.

 

For the record I enjoy NASCAR just as it is. Not as much as F1 but you just made it an easy target for not needing tech credentials.

[Lazy]

The point is that the stature of F1 was not built on the noise of the V10's, it was not built on the spectacle.

 

It was built on the genius of the Cooper Climax, a totally unspectacular car which blew away all the spectacular machinery of the time. It was built on the magic of the Lotus 78/79, again not loud cars at all, but by some incomprehensible dark art disappeared off into the distance.

 

Then came turbos and active suspension, unheard of voodoo at the time. Then came the aerodynamic wizardry and mind blowing rpm of the V10's. But they are not magic any more and you can't keep flogging a dead horse.

 

F1 has been living off the spectacle for a while and it can only take you so far. You need genuine substance to back it up or it becomes a caricature of itself and drifts into obsolescence.

Edited by Lazy, 24 March 2014 - 17:01.

[growers]

Never underestimate the power of marketing (and by extension, profit).

 

The hybrid V6 was introduced to provide a marketing lever with which to sell more cars. Ask yourself why Honda are returning to F1 after such a recent and costly exit:

 

1) To develop hybrid tech to make the world a better place, or

2) To market their next Accord hybrid as having an 'F1 developed' drive-train

 

As long as F1 remains entertaining I don't really mind the new engine direction (sound aside). But green F1? Pur-lease 

[Lazy]

1) To develop hybrid tech to make the world a better place, because that's what the punters want and

2) To market their next Accord hybrid as having an 'F1 developed' drive-train

 

More like that I reckon.