139 replies to this topic

[Beri]

KWSN - DSM, on 20 Feb 2023 - 12:50, said:

In the state Williams is and have been for several many seasons teaming with them will doom the project, reflecting on to Honda as not being able to build an engine under the new regulations - McLaren the only sensible team to supply.

 

Considering from how far Williams had to come at a time where the team severely lacked in investment and thus upgrading its facilities, I think they have bounced back in a fantastic way. McLaren will go for RBPT, else the teams would never have opened up about it. Williams is a sound team for Honda to support. I just fear that they might underestimate it all again. And supplying one team doesnt open up nearly as much insight where to improve compared to the Red Bull and Toro Rosso/Alpha Tauri situation.

[KWSN - DSM]

Beri, on 08 Mar 2023 - 08:16, said:

Considering from how far Williams had to come at a time where the team severely lacked in investment and thus upgrading its facilities, I think they have bounced back in a fantastic way. McLaren will go for RBPT, else the teams would never have opened up about it. Williams is a sound team for Honda to support. I just fear that they might underestimate it all again. And supplying one team doesnt open up nearly as much insight where to improve compared to the Red Bull and Toro Rosso/Alpha Tauri situation.

 

I sort of agree, however th situation will be too many manufacturers battling for too few wins and championships, Williams have moved closer and up towards the rear of the field, small sample size, they may b equal with Alpha Tauri and Haas this season, none of those 3 have what is needed to be win and title contending teams, and that is what Honda and any of the other manufacturers need.

 

Audi, Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda, Red Bull, Alpine * 2 = some heavy questions from impatient boardrooms way to early for the project to be successful ==> You need to align with teams who can almost battle from day one.

[Beri]

The problem is that winning these days can be confined into finding half a second somewhere. Look at Q1 at Bahrain; the entire field sat in only 0.9s. Best laptimes of the race were stretched. But looking at the pit window around lap 40 and picking those best times, drivers were only 2 seconds apart from one another. This is a totally different time compared to some decades ago where one could qualify in 1st with a margin of over 2 seconds to the number 5 or 6 on the grid. During the race differences were even greater. Those days are gone. These days the margin is so fine that even the worst team is doing an absolute stunner of a job.

[SenorSjon]

Beri, on 08 Mar 2023 - 09:36, said:

The problem is that winning these days can be confined into finding half a second somewhere. Look at Q1 at Bahrain; the entire field sat in only 0.9s. Best laptimes of the race were stretched. But looking at the pit window around lap 40 and picking those best times, drivers were only 2 seconds apart from one another. This is a totally different time compared to some decades ago where one could qualify in 1st with a margin of over 2 seconds to the number 5 or 6 on the grid. During the race differences were even greater. Those days are gone. These days the margin is so fine that even the worst team is doing an absolute stunner of a job.

 

Then the team wasn't controlled by a mission control base looking at every variable. And new race, new stuff instead of having to use two batteries for the whole season. Also, the liberal use of the SC will increase the need for winning as slow as possible. Not by a minute.

[chrcol]

Have they considered reintroducing mixed engine modes during races or they still want to keep it dumbed down?

[danmills]

Would Aston beating the Works Mercedes team sour the relationship? 

 

Honda works Aston Martin. Delicious. That setup would go places Red Bull have done with LS investment commitment. 

 

I think Toto is too deep politically and financially with AM.

 

Another reason teams should not be invested or influenced across other teams like this. 

Edited by danmills, 08 March 2023 - 22:12.

[ARTGP]

FirstnameLastname, on 08 Mar 2023 - 08:05, said:

All of a sudden, Honda and Aston Martin looks a good bet

I’m not sure how that works in terms of being rivals in the car world… but they could make a mega team there, especially with the new factory.

 

Not happening. Mercedes is an Aston Martin shareholder. 

Edited by ARTGP, 08 March 2023 - 23:47.

[Anja]

Aston Martin + Honda rumours intensify: https://the-race.com...h-aston-martin/

[SenorSjon]

chrcol, on 08 Mar 2023 - 14:55, said:

Have they considered reintroducing mixed engine modes during races or they still want to keep it dumbed down?

 

It was more to prevent the main engine team from getting better engine modes than their customers. And of course the hyperdrive in the Mercs for Q3.

[MattK9]

Anja, on 10 May 2023 - 07:56, said:

Aston Martin + Honda rumours intensify: https://the-race.com...h-aston-martin/

 

Does anyone really believe Honda wont just leave again in 2030 when they havent won anything with Aston Martin

[KWSN - DSM]

MattK9, on 10 May 2023 - 12:33, said:

Does anyone really believe Honda wont just leave again in 2030 when they havent won anything with Aston Martin

 

I am close to 100% certain Honda will as usual not stick around.

[Laster]

MattK9, on 10 May 2023 - 12:33, said:

Does anyone really believe Honda wont just leave again in 2030 when they havent won anything with Aston Martin

Ah but then in 2031 Aston Martin will win the championship.

[lustigson]

ARTGP, on 08 Mar 2023 - 23:47, said:

Not happening. Mercedes is an Aston Martin shareholder. 

 

But the Formula One team is a separate entity that's not even owned by Aston Martin, or is it?

[William Hunt]

Aston Martin with Honda makes the most sense. If Aston Martin wants to beat Mercedes in the long term they need to have another factory engine.

 

Teams like Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Red Bull actually need more teams in F1: to place their junior drivers but also to have more votes on rules issues so Horner & Wolff in particular are stupid to try to block new teams because they would benefit from it and they don't need the tiny litle more income (tiny for them, not tiny for teams like Williams or Haas).

 

Let's look at the current and potential new teams possible engine deals:

 

Red Bull - Ford

AlphaTauri - Ford

Ferrari - Ferrari

Haas-Ferrari
Mercedes - Mercedes

Sauber - Audi (will the name Sauber still be used? don't know)
Alpine - Renault

 

Aston Martin - Honda

McLaren - Mercedes  or Audi?

Williams - Mercedes   (they have a former Mercedes guy as team boss now with Vowles)

 

Andretti - Renault    (later, '27-'28, possible Cadillac manufactured engine, Andretti might join in '25)

Formula Equal - Mercedes or Honda    (Pollock has ties with Honda as former BAR-Honda team boss)

Lucky Sunz - Honda or Hyundai or Nissan badged Renault (This is the former Panthera project, they will surely prefer an Asian engine, maybe Hyundai also commits)
Hitech - Ford    (Hitech is currently running Red Bull Juniors so they have a relationship with Red Bull and they would like a customer)
Rodin Carlin - Ford or Mercedes     (Carlin has been running Red Bull Juniors too in the past, Mercedes will want another customer if they lose Aston Martin)

Monaco - Renault  (this seems the least serious project to me, they plan to run the team from the Campos F2 base I believe)

 

If we assume that 2 new teams will be added then I believe Andretti will be for sure amongst them. Up to 3 teams may even be added. 

 

Right now AlphaTauri & Haas seem the only two teams that certainly will run with a second engine from a manufacturer (AlphaTauri the Red Bull Power Train Ford and Haas the Ferrari). Andretti, most likely to join, will run a second Renault engine then (that could change in a factory Cadilac engine later). AlphaTauri running Ford is off course logical since it's a Red Bull owned team so it's not an independent customer team paying for the engine.

 

With Aston Martin looking more and more likely to become a Honda factory partner that only leaves McLaren and Williams as potential customer engine teams. And McLaren & Williams most likely won't be running junior drivers from bigger manufacturer teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault (Alpine) or Audi (Sauber) since Williams have their own Junior program and McLaren is starting one up (they have Ugochukwu and IndyCar drivers O'Ward & Palou now but plan to expand that program, they hired Emanuele Pirro recently for that).

 

So conclusion is that the big teams really need more, new, smaller teams in F1 to supply them a customer engine ( = more engine data + income from selling the engine), to be able to place juniors there (Alpine could already place 1 junior at Andretti if they are allowed in) and to have more influence in F1 on rules voting.

 

Where are teams like Mercedes, Ferrari (Haas may prefer an experienced driver instead of a Ferrari rookie), Red Bull (if AlphaTauri is filled up) or Audi (surely they will expand Sauber's current junior program) going to place their junior drivers in the future?

Mercedes has a massive talent, Max Verstappen - Charles Leclerc level of talent imho, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli but... he is currently in F. Regional Europe and of everything goes according to plan he should do F3 in 2024 and F2 in 2025. So he could already be ready for F1 in 2026 but Mercedes (like Ferrari) never hires a rookie, they always want their junior to gain at least one year (like Leclerc at Saube) or more years (Russell at Williams) at another, smaller team.

But which other team is willing to "prepare" a driver for a rival (top) team? Williams not anymore, they have their own Junior program now. Haas maybe for Ferrari (but Haas prefers experienced drivers) and Andretti maybe for Alpine. McLaren doesn't prepare drivers for other teams.
Conclusion: Mercedes has a problem there. Ferrari possibly too and Audi certainly.

Edited by William Hunt, 11 May 2023 - 02:15.

[Joseki]

If Honda wants to come back in F1 the options on the table are the following:

 

- 11th team

- Aston Martin

- McLaren

- Williams

 

Realistically Aston Martin is by far the best bet. The money, facilities and top quality staff is there.

[ARTGP]

lustigson, on 10 May 2023 - 13:13, said:

But the Formula One team is a separate entity that's not even owned by Aston Martin, or is it?

I stand corrected on that. It’s just a heavy sponsorship agreement and Stroll has shown more signs that he doesn’t really care about the minuscule Merc investment.

[HistoryFan]

Haas stays with Ferrari until 2028.

 

so current contracts:

 

Red Bull with Ford until ???

Ferrari with Ferrari

McLaren with Mercedes until 2030

Mercedes with Mercedes

Aston Martin with Honda until ???

Racing Bulls with Ford until ???

Haas with Ferrari until 2028

Alpine rumoured to Mercedes

Williams with Mercedes until 2030

Sauber with Audi until ???

 

So we'll see 4 engine manufacture changes in 2026

Red Bull to Ford

Aston Martin to Honda

Racing Bulls to Ford

Sauber to Audi

 

perhaps we'll see a fifth with Alpine to Mercedes.

 

So half of the field could change the engine manufacture. What was the years with the most teams changing their engine supplier?

 

1991 had 9 teams changing:

Tyrrell (Ford => Honda)

Arrows (Ford => Porsche)

Minardi (Ford => Ferrari)

Scuderia Italia (Ford => Judd)

Ligier (Ford => Lamborghini)

Larrousse (Lamborghini => Ford)

Lotus (Lamborghini => Judd)

Leyton House (Judd => Ilmor)

Brabham (Judd => Yamaha)

[sterlingfan2000]

Rosberg just said Mercedes Engine for 2026 has an advantage to other Engines, and not just a small one, a very big one. He said it's similar Situation when the Hybrids were introduced.

He thinks Verstappen will switch just because of that Engine

[KWSN - DSM]

How does anyone outside the various engine lairs have any idea what is going on in the other lairs?

[sterlingfan2000]

KWSN - DSM, on 21 Jul 2024 - 15:31, said:

How does anyone outside the various engine lairs have any idea what is going on in the other lairs?

The teams probably knows the power levels, there are always some leaks among the teams which then spread into the Paddock.

Mercedes example already knew 2 years before the hybrids that they are going to win WDC

Edited by sterlingfan2000, 21 July 2024 - 16:31.

[Clatter]

sterlingfan2000, on 21 Jul 2024 - 16:30, said:

The teams probably knows the power levels, there are always some leaks among the teams which then spread into the Paddock.

Mercedes example already knew 2 years before the hybrids that they are going to win WDC

And those leaks could be misinformation.

[sterlingfan2000]

Clatter, on 21 Jul 2024 - 16:33, said:

And those leaks could be misinformation.

Of course, but these rumours are spreading across the Paddock and even Christian Horner said that Mercedes is ahead

[KWSN - DSM]

Until the cars and engines run in anger I will not believe any rumors, and 2 years out is way to early for anyone to have a substantial advantage over the others.

[pdac]

sterlingfan2000, on 21 Jul 2024 - 21:46, said:

Of course, but these rumours are spreading across the Paddock and even Christian Horner said that Mercedes is ahead

 

That's because someone starts a rumour and everyone whose agenda is enhanced by that rumour will spread it as truth.

[Brawn BGP 001]

sterlingfan2000, on 21 Jul 2024 - 21:46, said:

Of course, but these rumours are spreading across the Paddock and even Christian Horner said that Mercedes is ahead

Hardly the most reliable source that, lets wait and see.

[William Hunt]

Nobody can know which engine is ahead with development for 2026. That's truly impossible. And we will only know the true level of each engine once the 2026 competition starts. How many teams have we not heard manufacturers boasting how good their engine will be and when they finally showed up with their engine in the races, it turned out that their engine was a massive flop.

 

Toto Wolff does make a good point that having multiple teams, thus more cars, will give them more feedback and data to develop their 2026 engine once the testing and the season has started. That is an advantage for them and a disadvantage for Alpine if they will keep on using their Renault engine as single team with that power unit. That's why having Andretti as engine customer would have been good for them. They are right now the only engine manufacturer without a customer team and that does hurt them.

 

Williams, so it seems, is making it seem to potential drivers that the Mercedes engine will be the best. And they have absolutely not any argument that proves this. It is just a strategy they use to convince a driver like Sainz to join them. And Carlos seems to be using that argument, that Williams used against him, now to pressure Alpine to switch to a Renault engine. But who knows, maybe the engineers at Viry are actually building an engine right now that could turn out to be more reliable or more performant as the Mercedes or Ferrari engine will be.

What I found very interesting is that the Renault CEO Di Meo did not mentioned performance as the reason why is considering to switch to a Mercedes engine (crazy from a marketing perspective, to drive with a competitors engine as a large manufacturer). Di Meo did explicitly mention his motivation for that: cost saving! He said it would be cheaper to buy the Mercedes engine then to keep all those people in Viry and build an engine themselves without a customer team that partly finances that engine. That is very typical for the line of thinking of CEO's of large corporations: they think in the first place about cost saving, and employees tend up to be the victim of that line of thinking.

But no one, also not Di Meo, has any idea if the Mercedes engine will be better as the Honda or the Ferrari or if the Renault engine will be better as the Audi or Red Bull Ford engine. Nobody knows. Some may think they are going to be ahead but they might be behind once the cars start running, or oposite. Anyone who claims to have an idea of this is either bluffing or a plain liar.

[jwill189]

There were frequent rumours in 2012 that Mercedes was way ahead of Ferrari/Renault with its 1.6L turbo, and it turned out to be true and more. The F1 paddock is very small so information gets leaked easily.

[KWSN - DSM]

jwill189, on 21 Jul 2024 - 23:49, said:

There were frequent rumours in 2012 that Mercedes was way ahead of Ferrari/Renault with its 1.6L turbo, and it turned out to be true and more. The F1 paddock is very small so information gets leaked easily.

 

By now 2012 is a long time ago.

[William Hunt]

I really don't see how one team can know that an engine, that has never run in a car on a circuit, is ahead of another engine in development that never ran installed in a car on a circuit. Makes no sense because they have no way on comparing. And power output is one thing, there is also is reliability and how it fits in combination with the chassis and other parts.

 

Joe Saward recently wrote exactly that in a recent blog post of him. That it is either bluff or lies (likely both) when someone claims to know which engine is going to be better.

 

The Porsche engine was suppose to transfer Arrows-Footwork in a potential top team contender. That was rumoured as well remember. It turned out to be a disaster that engine and a huge PR humiliation for Porsche. The team even dropped the engine quite soon in the season and kicked Porsche out for a Cosworth engine.

 

Some rumours turn out true but people easily forget all the rumours that turn out false.

Edited by William Hunt, 22 July 2024 - 03:19.

[MRX94]

I can't really see where this big performance differentiator will come from. There is no MGU-H, there is no special engine maps. The ICE is basically the same as it is now, except the fuel flow is more heavily restricted. They are already pretty equal and very close to the maximum in terms of thermal efficiency, not much to gain there.

MGU-K obviously becomes more important, but that also is a fairly "solved" technology, can't see major gains happening there. If anything, I'd give a small edge to Audi and Ferrari with their hybrid Le Mans experience.

So the only thing it could be is on the software side, mapping, where to deploy, how to use the ICE to charge the battery at all the optimal moments. And I feel that would be much less likely to leak than some dyno numbers.

Edited by MRX94, 22 July 2024 - 06:36.

[jonklug]

William Hunt, on 22 Jul 2024 - 03:15, said:

I really don't see how one team can know that an engine, that has never run in a car on a circuit, is ahead of another engine in development that never ran installed in a car on a circuit. Makes no sense because they have no way on comparing. And power output is one thing, there is also is reliability and how it fits in combination with the chassis and other parts.

 

100 times this. I was just talking to some real life Ferrari friends and they're convinced Ferrari will have the best PU in the next regulation, and I'm like, ok, it's of course possible, but based on what are you making this assumption? "Well Hamilton had all the data from Mercedes, he knows that Merc won't be great and Ferrari probably showed him some data!". Well that wouldn't happen really and there's no real data that you can see to correctly compare two power units that aren't even finished yet.

 

Nobody knows which PU will be best, it will be a bit of a lottery but I highly doubt we'll have a repeat of 2014 where one PU is in a completely different league. 

[Beri]

Mercedes might think they have a strong engine. But then suddenly Renault, who kept their mouth shut, is coming along with a 1600bhp beast of an engine. You'll never know, indeed. But I, on the other hand, do reckon that there will be one manufacturer who will lead the field.

[sterlingfan2000]

Most of the Engine Rumours turned out to be true in the past.

Christian Horner, Rosberg, Williams. They all know something we don't and all agree Mercedes is ahead of everyone. Williams is even luring Sainz with this engine, join us, we have a super OP engine 2026 unlike other teams

[jonklug]

sterlingfan2000, on 22 Jul 2024 - 07:06, said:

Most of the Engine Rumours turned out to be true in the past.

Christian Horner, Rosberg, Williams. They all know something we don't and all agree Mercedes is ahead of everyone. Williams is even luring Sainz with this engine, join us, we have a super OP engine 2026 unlike other teams

 

how can someone objectively compare any two 2026 PU's that haven't been run together on a track, and without having information about exactly where the others are in development and results of testing them at the factories so far. It's assumptions based on previous results - which can of course be right but there are no guarantees. 

[sterlingfan2000]

jonklug, on 22 Jul 2024 - 07:47, said:

how can someone objectively compare any two 2026 PU's that haven't been run together on a track, and without having information about exactly where the others are in development and results of testing them at the factories so far. It's assumptions based on previous results - which can of course be right but there are no guarantees.

Idk how teams do it but Mercedes knew 2 years ago they are 2 seconds ahead.

Maybe for 2026 theyre only 1 second ahead, we can just speculate but Rosberg told on sky , that Mercedes is ahead and it is similar Situation before the Introduce of Hybrids. And Williams is luring Sainz with this engine. Like Williams is saying hey look we have this monster OP Engine, ur safe speedwise in our team

[pdac]

sterlingfan2000, on 22 Jul 2024 - 20:01, said:

Idk how teams do it but Mercedes knew 2 years ago they are 2 seconds ahead.

Maybe for 2026 theyre only 1 second ahead, we can just speculate but Rosberg told on sky , that Mercedes is ahead and it is similar Situation before the Introduce of Hybrids. And Williams is luring Sainz with this engine. Like Williams is saying hey look we have this monster OP Engine, ur safe speedwise in our team

 

Where was this said? And by whom?

 

I ask because in my mind it is very likely that someone started a rumour, once it became apparent that their PU was leaps ahead, that Mercedes knew 2 years beforehand. It then goes down in history as fact so that someone like yourself can bring it up as such.

 

(or to put it another way, until I see the evidence, I call this bunk)

Edited by pdac, 22 July 2024 - 21:11.

[Anderis]

I don't know 2 years beforehand, but you can easily google "mercedes 100hp advantage" and it will show you articles from August 2013. In 2014 we found out that there had been a lot of truth to these reports, whether someone got it right by accident, or, more likely, people in the paddock had their ways to find out such information.

[Hellenic tifosi]

Anderis, on 22 Jul 2024 - 21:47, said:

I don't know 2 years beforehand, but you can easily google "mercedes 100hp advantage" and it will show you articles from August 2013. In 2014 we found out that there had been a lot of truth to these reports, whether someone got it right by accident, or, more likely, people in the paddock had their ways to find out such information.

 

August 2013 was just a few months before the new engines hit the track, and the rumor was confirmed.

 

Now, July 2024 is almost 20 months before the 2026 cars run on track.

[Anderis]

August 2013 was where the information was leaked to the public. Nobody knows how much and how early the insiders knew.

 

Yeah, 7 months before and 20 months before is a big difference, but the idea is that people seemed to be aware of Mercedes' advantage long before the 2024 season started.

[Wuzak]

Mercedes did have a head start with the 2014 PU and they also spent more money.

 

That can't happen this time due to budget cap and development restrictions.

Edited by Wuzak, 23 July 2024 - 05:07.