85 replies to this topic

[Jimisgod]

I'm going to take offense on this

 

This has become one of the biggest on-going myths in F1 history - that the Peugeot V10's were garbage and that McLaren was somehow reduced as a contender. 

 

Yes the engines certainly did explode, however McLaren scored 8 podiums between Brundle and Hakkinen over the course of 1994.

 

The switch to Mercedes Ilmor power (because they were just Ilmor engines with Merc valve covers) was horrendous for results. They had 2 podiums for the whole year. Ron's been disingenuous about the whole McLaren-Peugeot thing for the last twenty years and somehow the media along with the fans still buy the idea that there was no success to be had with the Peugeot V10's. I'd wager any amount of money that had Merc not come calling with a large bag of Deutsche Marks that trumped the large bag of Francs, McLaren would have been running the Peugeot engines for 1995, and would have scored a win. Instead they suffered through many more Mercedes engine explosions for the next decade.

 

Now set to be repeated with Honda.

[BoschKurve]

Now set to be repeated with Honda.

 

Indeed.

 

The big difference is Honda got those engine plans for free from Gilles Simon and PURE, which makes it all the more ghastly that this is going to cost them big time financially to fix.

 

The Honda engine is crap because well, Honda spent all that time last year with little understanding of what was going on with the Mercedes engine, and basically made a colossal mistake in even getting involved in F1 again.

 

Here's the bigger thing too, Honda sucks at building F1 engines.

 

Let me repeat, Honda sucks at building F1 engines.

 

The last good F1 engine they built was the RA121E in 1991.

 

Everything they built after that was underpowered and/or unreliable.

 

Sure maybe they'll figure out something with the current engine, but they've had no real success under the Honda name in 24 years. Amazing how marketing makes everyone think they can just recreate 1988 again.

[Dan333SP]

I've always wondered why the Peugeot V10s in F1 were so bad. At least from a reliability perspective, you'd think they would have been fairly solid given the experience of running similar motors for 24 hours at Le Mans in '91-'93. I guess increasing the revs to F1 levels added a whole new dilemma.

[thiscocks]

I'm going to take offense on this

 

This has become one of the biggest on-going myths in F1 history - that the Peugeot V10's were garbage and that McLaren was somehow reduced as a contender. 

 

Yes the engines certainly did explode, however McLaren scored 8 podiums between Brundle and Hakkinen over the course of 1994.

 

The switch to Mercedes Ilmor power (because they were just Ilmor engines with Merc valve covers) was horrendous for results. They had 2 podiums for the whole year. Ron's been disingenuous about the whole McLaren-Peugeot thing for the last twenty years and somehow the media along with the fans still buy the idea that there was no success to be had with the Peugeot V10's. I'd wager any amount of money that had Merc not come calling with a large bag of Deutsche Marks that trumped the large bag of Francs, McLaren would have been running the Peugeot engines for 1995, and would have scored a win. Instead they suffered through many more Mercedes engine explosions for the next decade.

Agree. The engine also performed pretty well in the 905 with two Le Mans wins before 1994.

 

Although I do remember an article where Brundle complained about the engines lack of flexibility in the Mclaren. Whether this was something they sorted or not I dont know.

[thiscocks]

 

Here's the bigger thing too, Honda sucks at building F1 engines.

 

Let me repeat, Honda sucks at building F1 engines.

 

The last good F1 engine they built was the RA121E in 1991.

If you have won 72 F1 races and 6 F1 titles you hardly 'suck' at bulding F1 engines.

 

The 3.0l V10s and 2.4l V8s were not the best, but also not the worst. Their lack of success during those periods was more down to the rest of the cars they were in.

[chunder27]

Tyhe Peugeot V10 was not a bad engine at all, it was actually one of the most powerful V10's initially.  Perhaps the issues came from its endurance past, but i guess the F1 versions were rather different.

 

Who can remmebr that Renault V10 with a weird v angle? That was not much of a success either, considering the millions no doubt thrown at it.

 

Another contender?  The Zakspeed 4 cylinder turbo engine?  Awesome basically turbo BDA!  Great in Schanches Escort and a few prototypes but a miserable engine.

 

When you consider how well Brian Hart did with his engine, the Zakker was a pile, but then it was only ever in a Zakspeed chassis!

[ensign14]

From a stat perspective, I think the Tecno and Serenissima engines are the only power plants to have scored precisely 1 World Championship point.  Which is still loads better than e.g.Chiti's Motori Moderni, which I assume was named ironically as it was the absolute least reliable engine ever created in the history of humanity. 

 

For some asinine reason Subaru then got Chiti to revamp it for their own engine for Coloni. 

 

It's one of those wtfs of Formula 1 how Chiti was continually employed; pretty much everything he engineered after 1961 blew up within about six seconds.

[Christbiscuit]

 McLaren would have been running the Peugeot engines for 1995, and would have scored a win. Instead they suffered through many more Mercedes engine explosions for the next decade.

 

That 95 McLaren chassis wouldn't have won even if it had a rocket in the back.

 

The 97 Jordan Peugeot was a decent effort, though.

 

Another nomination here for the 1992 Yamaha in the back of the Jordan, a shockingly bad piece of kit.

 

 

 

Here it is in it's typical state.

 

Edited by Christbiscuit, 23 April 2015 - 11:00.

[Henri Greuter]

From a stat perspective, I think the Tecno and Serenissima engines are the only power plants to have scored precisely 1 World Championship point.  Which is still loads better than e.g.Chiti's Motori Moderni, which I assume was named ironically as it was the absolute least reliable engine ever created in the history of humanity. 

 

For some asinine reason Subaru then got Chiti to revamp it for their own engine for Coloni. 

 

It's one of those wtfs of Formula 1 how Chiti was continually employed; pretty much everything he engineered after 1961 blew up within about six seconds.

 

 

 

I have always wondered how much of the Alfa Romeo flat-12 of the 70's (another Chiti brainchild) can be found within the Subaru-Motori-Moderni

 

 

Henri

[Dan333SP]

I have always wondered how much of the Alfa Romeo flat-12 of the 70's (another Chiti brainchild) can be found within the Subaru-Motori-Moderni

 

 

Henri

 

That wasn't a bad engine for its time. Maybe not as powerful as the equivalent Ferrari unit, but I think it had more HP than the Cosworth of the era. I guess taking a 70s era desgin, boring it out a bit to 3.5Ls a decade later, and badging it as a Subaru isn't a recipe for success...

[chunder27]

Interesting point that

 

Talking of bike racing, I remmeber Harold Bartol talking openly about a Yamaha engine he designed for them when they were racing 125's with Youichi Ui in the mid to late 90's. Yamaha then pulled out.

 

Then Derbi made a comeback, and let Gilera use their bikes too letting Poggiali win the title, Bartol, was the engineer, Ui was the Derbi rider, and the aforementioned engine turned up in a Derbi!  All designed and done by the rather argumentative and moody Bartol!

[Henri Greuter]

That wasn't a bad engine for its time. Maybe not as powerful as the equivalent Ferrari unit, but I think it had more HP than the Cosworth of the era. I guess taking a 70s era desgin, boring it out a bit to 3.5Ls a decade later, and badging it as a Subaru isn't a recipe for success...

 

 

You know the biggest disaster of that Alfa engine? None of them were identical!  Brabham had to create different subrames for jut about each individiual engine because the had no equal mounting points that were the same on all engines!  The brabham mechanics had always to sort out which subframe had to be used with which engine when installing them in the cars!

Now that was certainly a good practice that made life easy....

 

As for how good it was. read the list of retirements in 1978 for Lauda.

On one occasion he had retired but Chiti proclaimed to the press that the engine was fine so Lauda insisted on opening the engine to inspect it, a broken valve spring was found.

later on in the year Lauda told that he carried a dollar banknote in his racing overall because when he had retired yet again and was wondering why he went through all of this and accidentaly put his hands in his pockets he would feel the paper of the banknote again to remind him for what he did it all.

 

Henri

Henri

[Rasputin]

The Motori Moderni V6 Turbo was not at all as bad as the 3.5 Flat 12, which didn't even pre-qualify, let alone race, a hopeless dog it was;

 

Edited by Rasputin, 23 April 2015 - 12:32.

[Dan333SP]

Even the metal they used to cast the block is ugly...

[BoschKurve]

Funny thing Dan, it's the same color as the Alfa flat 12's from the 70s.

 

[BoschKurve]

If you have won 72 F1 races and 6 F1 titles you hardly 'suck' at bulding F1 engines.

 

The 3.0l V10s and 2.4l V8s were not the best, but also not the worst. Their lack of success during those periods was more down to the rest of the cars they were in.

 

Honda's F1 success is concentrated really in the 1985-1991 time period. You could include Keke's win in Dallas in '84 I suppose, but '85 was when it was obvious the engine had something to it.

 

My point is that as far as F1 goes, Honda has been using the PR machine to milk out the 1980s and early 1990s success endlessly because there's no other success for them to talk about.

 

Problem is, this isn't 1985 or 1986 or 1987. It's 2015. It's about what have you done recently, and they haven't done anything recently. It's been almost 30 years since their turbocharged engines were anything worth talking about.

[chunder27]

Really?  The V10 they used wasn't really that bad in the BAR.

 

No worse or better than the Toyota motor that never won anything, at least they won a race with it, led GP's and got poles. No-one seems to be mentioning the Toyota effort as a bad deal, so really tarring Hodna with that brush when they were more succesful is unfair.

 

Anyone without a Ferrari or BMW motor in those days was on a hiding to nothing!! 

[Dan333SP]

No worse or better than the Toyota motor that never won anything, at least they won a race with it, led GP's and got poles. No-one seems to be mentioning the Toyota effort as a bad deal, so really tarring Hodna with that brush when they were more succesful is unfair.

 

I agree with your point on Honda motors being decent during the V10 and even V8 era (although their chassis in '07-'08 was atrocious), but I think people do generally consider the Toyota effort at all levels to have been a complete embarrassment. Yes, they got some points, a handful of podiums, even a couple of poles if I recall, but for the amount of money and time invested in their project I think their results have to be among the all-time worst dollar-to-outcome ratios in the history of motorsports. I don't think there was a single thing that any of their cars excelled at during their time in F1, they were always the definition of mid-pack, even in the year they were supposed to make a breakthrough ('09). No wonder they pulled out. Not saying the engines were to blame, but they certainly didn't help.

Edited by Dan333SP, 23 April 2015 - 14:11.

[KingTiger]

I agree with your point on Honda motors being decent during the V10 and even V8 era (although their chassis in '07-'08 was atrocious), but I think people do generally consider the Toyota effort at all levels to have been a complete embarrassment. Yes, they got some points, a handful of podiums, even a couple of poles if I recall, but for the amount of money and time invested in their project I think their results have to be among the all-time worst dollar-to-outcome ratios in the history of motorsports. I don't think there was a single thing that any of their cars excelled at during their time in F1, they were always the definition of mid-pack, even in the year they were supposed to make a breakthrough ('09). No wonder they pulled out. Not saying the engines were to blame, but they certainly didn't help.

 

Now that same factory team is dominating in WEC.

 

The gap between the two series is larger than people think. 

[chunder27]

This surely does not need to be yet another WEC is better than F1 argument please.

 

Toyota are doing well there coz they have very little competition, they can podium and be 3 laps behind and can throw  a decade of expertise gained in F1 at a series where there are no limits. Other than rallying, its the first thing they have done with any success!

 Same as Audi really!!

[BoschKurve]

Really?  The V10 they used wasn't really that bad in the BAR.

 

No worse or better than the Toyota motor that never won anything, at least they won a race with it, led GP's and got poles. No-one seems to be mentioning the Toyota effort as a bad deal, so really tarring Hodna with that brush when they were more succesful is unfair.

 

Anyone without a Ferrari or BMW motor in those days was on a hiding to nothing!! 

 

I look at it in comparison to what they did from 1985-1991.

 

But I also recognize that I'm also more demanding than most.

 

I always liked a particular Colin Chapman quote from '73, "If you're not winning, you're not trying."

 

As far as Toyota goes, that deserves it's own separate topic for ineptitude.

[Rasputin]

The Ford Coswort GBA 1.5 Turbo was pretty lame;

 

[chunder27]

That ford V^ was a very good engine, just hampered by being in a turd of a car in the Lola, and then hampered by the regs on the Benetton, those in the know will tell you that if had been around since 83 or so it would have developed very nicely into a Honda/TAG rival/

 

I love watching that show on Equinoz where they detail its development, one of the most interesting shows on F1 I think there has been.

[Rasputin]

From what I understand, the GBA was more than anything hampered by Ford executives denying them from running a competitive boost, for fear of embarrassing blow-ups.

 

There was a wonderful quote by Alan Jones in 1986; "Nice little engine that, for Le Mans."

 

[thiscocks]

Funny thing Dan, it's the same color as the Alfa flat 12's from the 70s.

 

And the Ferrari!

 

[Dan333SP]

From what I understand, the GBA was more than anything hampered by Ford executives denying them from running a competitive boost, for fear of embarrassing blow-ups.

 

There was a wonderful quote by Alan Jones in 1986; "Nice little engine that, for Le Mans."

 

 

Nice looking car, though, wasn't it?

[Rasputin]

Designed but a later rather successful Neil Oatley, Adrian Newey was hired to help with the 1987 car, but the Beatrice support disappeared and Carl Haas closed the shop in late 86.

[chunder27]

Might have been better were it not trying to lug around a rather overweight pension collector

 

Boutsen and Fabi did OK with it against one of the most dominant combos of that era.

[blackmme]

Designed but a later rather successful Neil Oatley, Adrian Newey was hired to help with the 1987 car, but the Beatrice support disappeared and Carl Haas closed the shop in late 86.

I think some chap called Brawn had a hand in the design as well.....

Regards Mike

[Rasputin]

Ross Brawn is the biggest myth ever in F1, he never designed anything and doesn't even have an engineering degree. He started out as a machine operator in Mosley's Bicester workshop.

 

But life is not about know how, it's about know who.

 

As for the fat Aussie in 1986, Carl Haas just hired the only two F1 drivers ever driven for him, except for Jackie Stewart in 1971, Jones and Tambay, both way past their best before date.

[Wuzak]

Really?  The V10 they used wasn't really that bad in the BAR.

 

No worse or better than the Toyota motor that never won anything, at least they won a race with it, led GP's and got poles. No-one seems to be mentioning the Toyota effort as a bad deal, so really tarring Hodna with that brush when they were more succesful is unfair.

 

Anyone without a Ferrari or BMW motor in those days was on a hiding to nothing!! 

 

[karl100589]

No mention of the Lotus Indycar engine poor Simona had to suffer with in 2012?

[Rasputin]

The 500 Hp Pratt & Whitney STN76 in the 1971 Lotus 56B was supposed to be a lightweight car, but the high idling rpm led to terrible fuel-consumption and enormous brakes:

 

[maverick69]

The initial V10 Pug was toilet because they were farting about with the piston rings (or lack of them). It was a powerful engine though.

 

The early 94 Mugen-Honda was pretty rubbish. When they finally upgraded, Lotus went from the back of the grid to 4th at Monza.

 

But yes. That W12 Life jobbie takes some beating. What an absolute pile of turd. 380bhp?! They could have chucked a Lambo road car engine in there and been better off!

[David Lightman]

I'm sure I read once that when JV tried to leave the pits in his BAR Honda a piston went through the floor and fixed the car to the pitlane. Is this one of those F1 myths of true? (Like the story about a McLaren once lapping Silverstone competitively with no driver on board).

Edited by David Lightman, 25 April 2015 - 10:30.

[Rasputin]

The Alfa Romeo 3.0 V8 was a terrible dog, first it came with Andrea de Adamich to McLaren in 1970;

 

 

McLaren said goodbye after less than a full season, but Max Mosley had no problem taking on both of them, plus Nanni Galli, for 71: