167 replies to this topic

[Disgrace]

F1 was not in a good place after 2013. Vettel was at the height of his powers, finishing a dominant year with nine consecutive wins. Change was needed. We got it. But was it the right change?

 

Ferrari not good enough, Renault never a factor, Honda floundering. New engine noises, ungainly noses, the loss of the 2010 "new teams", Williams' sink to the bottom, the arrival of Haas.

 

Depending on your view, we saw incredible history being made by Hamilton as the most successful driver in the history of F1, or the consequence of one of the least competitive eras of F1. 

 

2014, 2016 and 2021 saw title fights that went to the wire. Two new champions emerged, Rosberg and Verstappen. Looking at the new generation of talent emerging, the future is bright.

 

But Mercedes came within a one lap of a clean sweep of the entire set of regulations. For me, this is pretty damning. Separately, F1 has gone social and feels very different to the sport we had in 2014.

 

Were the hybrid regulations good for the sport? If not, what should have taken their place?

[Baddoer]

I never liked hybrid engines. So unnatural, so worthless...

But there is one thing I hate more - these oversized bulky cars from 2017 onwards. Just a big   for me.

[GrumpyYoungMan]

The 2021 championship will be forever tainted by the bad and unprecedented safety car procedure!

But Liberty didn’t want another LH or a Mercedes championship — I also don’t think liberty are loosing much sleep over it… as the fans they lost yesterday they have probably gained more…

Edited by GrumpyYoungMan, 13 December 2021 - 06:46.

[Jackmancer]

The worst is that we lost Manor, Lotus, Caterham, partly due expensive engines, and Mercedes has almost won every championship, and so many of the races. 

[RA2]

I think this should be 17 - 21 era not 14 -21 era.

[Dhillon]

Total failure, Too costly and overly comlicated engine. Smaller Teams are relegated to B and C teams of the manufactures.

Mclaren and Williams may never fight for WC/WDC if the things remain same, How about that ?

[masa90]

Horrible timeperiod for the sport. Instead of one or two seasons of total domination we got 7 years of domination with only one closely fought year. 15/16 titles to merc without almost no real opposition and I seemed like some already began to think the title should be their just by turnikg up.

Also costs spiraled out of control, few teams basically "own" the whole sport, teams leading and controversies all around.

During this timeperiod f1 has become a worse product than it was.

[AnR]

Money talks period, didn't really attract any new teams, to costly and overcomplicated.

 

We could see in the last race what a huge advantage Merc have had all this period, noone else couldn't produce that ICE cleanly for 8 years!

[Diablobb81]

Abject failure.

[Arundo]

Failure, very one sided for most part of the hybrid era. We got an amazing fight this year between two teams and i'm happy atleast one title (WDC) went to another team then Mercedes. But in general the hybrid era was too one sided and did not produce the fights we all had hoped for I guess. I hope the new regulations will bring the field quicker closer together and it does not take another 5 or 6 years before we see fights between teams. Hopefully the budget cap, the windtunnel and CFD restrictions will help bunch up the field more.

[vista]

Utter failure. From 2010-2021, only two teams have won world titles and Mercedes have been so dominant beyond belief. The hybrid formula is nothing more than green-washing the entire show.

[goldenboy]

Absolute failure. 

[jpm2019]

Failure.

If you listen to one of the podcast from F1, I think the one with Tom Clarkson with Nico Rosberg as guest, Nico says the first years they just turned down the engine massively to get the FIA and opponents to think they could get close, but in reality have a few seconds margin in the tank.

 

Unbelievable really 

[shure]

Complete and utter failure.  Just about every single aspect of the introduction of the hybrids was a lesson in how not to do a regulations change.  F1 has always been at the cutting edge of technology, but this marked the first time that they introduced regulations effectively forcing teams to come up with something that hadn't even been invented yet.  And they seriously, massively underestimated just how complicated and expensive it would be.  The moment Merc came out with their advantage, the regulations around testing and the ridiculous token system ensured that no-one else could so much as dream of catching up with them.  And the insanely complex PUs all but guaranteed that no-one who wasn't there from their inception could enter with any realistic chance of being competitive, as Honda's experience showed.  The McHonda debacle wouldn't have happened in any other era, because they would have tested the bejesus out of it and caught up much, much sooner than the years it took them to.  

 

It's irrevocably changed the entire landscape of F1, and I can't see a single positive to have come out of it.  The hybrids, the push towards prioritizing durability and economy over performance, and the moronic cheese tyres have all contributed to making arguably the most soulless period in the history of F1.  This year we finally got a real fight, but that was arguably only because Mercedes got complacent and didn't pay this year's regulations enough attention, otherwise it would have undoubtedly been more of the same.  But was waiting for the 8th year of the hybrid era worth it?  Not in my book.  Failure seems too small a word.

[Clrnc]

This 7 years were not successful. Firstly the sound is not great, secondly the racing is not great bar these 2 years. 

 

Lastly the car design was not attractive too. 

[baddog]

Horrible disaster. A car formula that meant:

 

Huge barrier to new entrants

Hugely expensive development

Huge difficulty in improving when behind

 

Resulting in:

Entrenchment of advantage 

One team winning effectively everything in the entire formula's existence

 

Is a horrible formula.

[baddog]

The 2021 championship will be forever tainted by the bad and unprecedented safety car procedure!

But Liberty didn’t want another LH or a Mercedes championship — I also don’t think liberty are loosing much sleep over it… as the fans they lost yesterday they have probably gained more…

 

What on earth has that to do with the hybrid engine formula?

[Muzzyf1]

In my eyes a failure.

One engine manufacturer got the jump and no one could ever catch up until 2021 and even then the where still behind in power.
They sound terrible

They look stupid with all the aero rakes.

You literally had 1 driver win all the championships with apart from 1 year 0 opposition.

The previous cars where better

[Scotracer]

Very odd to use 2014 to 2021. The 2022 cars carry on in the same theme as the 2014 cars, with regards to the powertrains.

 

What you really should be doing is separating the chassis rules from the powertrain rules. 

 

1) 2009-2016 chassis/aero rules

 

2) 2017-2021 chassis/aero rules

 

3) 2014-xxxx powertrain rules

 

For 1) I think they were reasonably successful - they were ugly as sin, and made the cars quite slow, but the racing generally could be quite close. The tyres were the overriding factor in this era though.

 

2) Very very fast cars, and me so happy we saw a return to 2m wide cars - what F1 cars SHOULD be - but the racing wasn't brilliant. What the 2019-2021 rules did (very strange thinking back how they changed them so quickly) was create an era where the tow was very powerful due to the huge drag the cars had. Made defending very difficult.

 

3) As a powertrain engineer, I love them, but as a fetishist for engine noises, I do not. In person, they sounded pretty great, but don't go watching a video of a V10-era car. Note, for those kiddos that don't remember the V10s - the V8s were absolutely crap in comparison. Torqueless, noisy hedgetrimmers. I hated those engines. 

[Knowlesy]

I don't know really.

I quite enjoyed them on balance. The racing was pretty good. Some good title battles. The 2017-21 seasons were surprisingly great despite the cars ramping up considerably in speed. 2015 and 2016 were bad, but the rest I really enjoyed.

Although for a bit of context: I found the V8 era extremely uninspiring and dull.

On the other hand everyone else seemed pretty angry about these years, so something probably had to change.

I am not hugely excited about the next generation of cars I must say. But I don't know if I will be watching so enthusiastically anyways if certain people aren't removed from their positions.

[prty]

Not sure they were introduced in a fair way, but rather it looks like the intention was to give Mercedes an advantage:

Mercedes has willingly sandbagged during the hybrid era so that their ridiculous advantage was not clear, while engines are frozen and nobody could catch up:

https://www.racefans...e-in-idle-mode/

Got a secret tyre test, so they had crucial early information about the tyres that no other competitor got:

https://www.reuters....E95K0JL20130621

or they first made an V6 engine and then the rules were written to use that engine:

https://www.motorspo...it-more/517030/

Edited by prty, 13 December 2021 - 08:37.

[ForzaGTR]

If we'd had seasons like 2021 all the way through, everyone would be saying the hybrid era was a resounding success. That's the deal really.

[baddog]

If we'd had seasons like 2021 all the way through, everyone would be saying the hybrid era was a resounding success. That's the deal really.

 

Yeah but we didnt so they arent.

[Scotracer]

Not sure they were introduced in a fair way, but rather it looks like the intention was to give Mercedes an advantage:

Mercedes has willingly sandbagged during the hybrid era so that their ridiculous advantage was not clear, while engines are frozen and nobody could catch up:

https://www.racefans...e-in-idle-mode/

Got a secret tyre test, so they had crucial early information about the tyres that no other competitor got:

https://www.reuters....E95K0JL20130621

or they first made an V6 engine and then the rules were written to use that engine:

https://www.motorspo...it-more/517030/

 

That first link begs the question - if Mercedes were doing that, and it was such an advantage, what about McLaren, Force India and Williams? Surely the cat would be out the bag as those teams didn't have the luxury of coasting around, and weren't likely to accept "Please use it in it's lowest setting" for Q3.

[ForzaGTR]

Yeah but we didnt so they arent.

 

Here's hoping the likes of McLaren, Ferrari and to a lesser extent, Red Bull do a better job in the new era, otherwise it'll be deemed a failure because Mercedes are going to be super quick again.

Edited by ForzaGTR, 13 December 2021 - 09:02.

[prty]

That first link begs the question - if Mercedes were doing that, and it was such an advantage, what about McLaren, Force India and Williams? Surely the cat would be out the bag as those teams didn't have the luxury of coasting around, and weren't likely to accept "Please use it in it's lowest setting" for Q3.

Well, I don't think it stands to question whether they were doing that or not, since Paddy Lowe explained in detail in that link that they did. So they likely just told the customers that the detuned mode was the maximum available power, or something similar.

[Bleu]

The biggest mistake was the immediate development restrictions. Clearly Mercedes did the best job initially and therefore they deserved the success they got in 2014. But as it was more difficult to develop power units early on, this made advantage to last longer. And as we've seen Ferrari caught it only around 2018-19 with some dubious things, Honda just this year.

 

Of course, the number of units available without penalties has reduced changes to development too. So in general there's now off-season upgrade available along with two in-season upgrades.

[Szoelloe]

A failure. Paired with the tyre regs + Pirelli, the falure is spectacular. If you take into account the effect of Mercedes' technological superiority over the rest of the grid, it was a crushing failure. It just became a freak show. Stopped watching 2-3 years ago.

[CoolBreeze]

Most useless period in F1. 

[flyboym3]

The rules are the same for everyone and they all signed up to it.

The fact that one team did a better job doesn't mean it was a failure. It's not mercedes fault the others are not as good as them.

In terms of the topic title it needs to change. Still the same pu for next year.
2017 there was a massive rule change throw of the dice when they made cars able to lap 5-7 seconds faster. Again with that rule reset mercedes did a better job, albeit Ferrari got alot closer.

[Dhillon]

The fact that one team did a better job doesn't mean it was a failure. It's not mercedes fault the others are not as good as them.
 

 

Right now it is an engine formula.If you have an engine that is 20-30 HP more than anyone else and option to turn up the wick, then aero superiority doesn't matter as much.

[Scotracer]

Right now it is an engine formula.If you have an engine that is 20-30 HP more than anyone else and option to turn up the wick, then aero superiority doesn't matter as much.

 

Which F1 has been for most of its existence. It was only during the 2009-2013 period that it wasn't. Remember that - at least for road cars - HALF of the spending of the total vehicle goes in to the powertrain. All the rest added up cover the other half. Powertrains are hugely important, and should remain as such.

[Chmielinski]

Massive failure. The cars became incredibly ugly, sounded much worse and made the sport way more expensive, as well as unnecessarily copmlicated for the average viewer. Remember when the proposed 2010 budget cap was €30 million? Is that enough for a years' engine supply these days? All the charge laps, engine modes and rules on component limits just make the whole thing harder to follow for someone who just wants to sit down on Sunday and watch a race, which I suspect is the majority of viewers.

Edited by Chmielinski, 13 December 2021 - 11:19.

[flyboym3]

Right now it is an engine formula.If you have an engine that is 20-30 HP more than anyone else and option to turn up the wick, then aero superiority doesn't matter as much.

No it isn't otherwise Lewis would have lots more pole positions this year.
You cannot take the motor out of motorsports.
Don't confuse drs+slipstream with engine formula. Qualifying Saturday max was pulling ahead on the straights.

[messy]

Pretty Godawful. Awful sound, driving to deltas, technically more and more complicated, more and more expensive, on rails, gaping hole opening up between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' to the point where people started calculating 'class B' championships, diminished spectacle, bulletproof reliability, questionable penalties and race control decisions, so much carrying over from season to season to eradicate unexpected changes in the competitive order, one team and one driver utterly dominating every single year. Pros? Saved the best for last, I suppose. 

Edited by messy, 13 December 2021 - 11:25.

[JimmyClark]

Well the hybrid rules aren't changing until 2025/26 (can't remember which?), so this thread is probably more valid for then. We had a big aero change in 2017, and then another huge aero concept change next year. 

 

I don't like the hybrid engines personally, and F1 since 2014 hasn't been that great. One team dominating much of it has pretty much wasted the careers of some great drivers from this period. 

 

The hybrids have taken away one of the essences of F1 - the sound. However, it has maintained the techonlogical marvel aspect of the sport - these engines are amazing in terms of what they are, but I still don't like them in F1. However, they are a necessary evil given the way the world is going. 

 

So my verdict is that it's probably the best it could have been so far, but man I wish we had V10s still. 

[Cliff]

That first link begs the question - if Mercedes were doing that, and it was such an advantage, what about McLaren, Force India and Williams? Surely the cat would be out the bag as those teams didn't have the luxury of coasting around, and weren't likely to accept "Please use it in it's lowest setting" for Q3.

 

Well that's easy. The engine guys that work for the customer teams are all Mercedes employees. Matthew Carter came out a while back on Missed Apex Podcast that once at Lotus at Spa they got an engine setting they hadn't known existed before that point. It turned the car in a monster. That was the only time they were allowed to use it and they never heard of it again.

 

Rosberg saying they held back. And there's an interview by a Mercedes engineer from the beginning of the hybrid era that said the same.

 

If anything I still believe they have a massive engine advantage over everyone else. We saw it at the end of this season, where suddenly they were WAY quicker than Honda. The only reason they want to hide it is because the engines are about to be frozen for the next few years. No manufacturer ever got close in this era, except Ferrari, which ended up to be illegal. 

[Scotracer]

Well that's easy. The engine guys that work for the customer teams are all Mercedes employees. Matthew Carter came out a while back on Missed Apex Podcast that once at Lotus at Spa they got an engine setting they hadn't known existed before that point. It turned the car in a monster. That was the only time they were allowed to use it and they never heard of it again.

 

Rosberg saying they held back. And there's an interview by a Mercedes engineer from the beginning of the hybrid era that said the same.

 

If anything I still believe they have a massive engine advantage over everyone else. We saw it at the end of this season, where suddenly they were WAY quicker than Honda. The only reason they want to hide it is because the engines are about to be frozen for the next few years. No manufacturer ever got close in this era, except Ferrari, which ended up to be illegal. 

 

Fair enough, but I would have expected the engineers in teh customer teams to have been prodding and probing just what was possible with their new shiny toys. Sounds like they took a true "blackbox" approach.

[OneAndOnly]

Definitely failure. 

Sheer idea to have major rule change regarding PU and then freeze development is insane. What they thought would happen? After every big change someone gets it right better than others. Basically you reward one manufacturer and punish others. 

Other than that:

- tires that go away after one lock up

- tire manufacturer not being able to make proper racing tire and changing tire spec mid season

- terrible sound

- trying to cut costs while actually increasing them and almost destroying independent teams

- related to previous point: 3 teams owning all other teams except Renault

- from 2017. onwards cars bigger than SUV

- greenwashing whole sport for the purpose of PR and nothing else

- making this period of almost no competing on the front longer than any other era

 

On top of all this I cannot shake this feeling that Mercedes/Toto had somewhat privileged position within the sport. Especially if rumors about Mercedes having headstart with PU development were true. That would explain advantage they showed up with in 2014.

[Chmielinski]

Fair enough, but I would have expected the engineers in teh customer teams to have been prodding and probing just what was possible with their new shiny toys. Sounds like they took a true "blackbox" approach.

 

Don't teams get a bunch of engineers from the engine supplier and they handle everything related to power units (minus mounting of course)? I don't think customer teams have their own guys dealing with engines.

[PayasYouRace]

I think it’s a bit soon to judge because these hybrid regulations aren’t ending this year.

But I’d say they’ve generally been a failure. Too expensive or restricted ti develop leaving Mercedes with too much of an advantage. Only a single season has gone down to the wire between drivers of different teams.

Though it must be the only set of engine regulations where every engine has won races. Still, that’s not enough to generally call them a success.

[goldenboy]

At least the dick noses didn't stay till 2021. 

[Chmielinski]

At least the dick noses didn't stay till 2021. 

 

Except they did. They werent as massive as in 2014, but the likes of Haas, Williams, Ferrari still had them.

[OneAndOnly]

At least the dick noses didn't stay till 2021. 

Forgot about that one. Catheram was especially terrible. With that Airbus ad it looked like it will take off. 

[Augurk]

Surely this will be known as the hybrid era, but technically that era is far from over, isn't it? 

[Misk]

Failure.

If you listen to one of the podcast from F1, I think the one with Tom Clarkson with Nico Rosberg as guest, Nico says the first years they just turned down the engine massively to get the FIA and opponents to think they could get close, but in reality have a few seconds margin in the tank.

 

Unbelievable really 

If you saw how quick the Mercades suddenly became in the final thrid of this season, despite supposedly no car upgrades, I suspect they are still doing it now to a lesser extent. Also felt the same in 2017 and 2018 to a degree.

Edited by Misk, 13 December 2021 - 12:44.

[goldenboy]

Forgot about that one. Catheram was especially terrible. With that Airbus ad it looked like it will take off. 

I remember finally convincing some friends to watch an F1 race and the first thing they saw was that Caterham peen nose. Never lived it down.

[Cliff]

Don't teams get a bunch of engineers from the engine supplier and they handle everything related to power units (minus mounting of course)? I don't think customer teams have their own guys dealing with engines.

 

This.

[FortiFord]

Mercedes nearly got a clean sweep through this set of regulations - that is true. 

 

Same applies to Red Bull in 2009-13 set of regulations. That is just the nature of the sport. 

 

The rules of the hybrid era were not well thought out:

 

- Initially it made the cars heavier (too heavy) and drivers complained it was too easy to find the limit and the cars were generally too slow as a result.  This led to the aero changes in 2017 which made the cars faster, at the expense of ability to follow each other. This sequence of events was a massive own goal for F1. 

 

- The hybrid engines were too expensive. Honda's bad experience dissuaded any other teams from entering. Why enter when it costs so much and you will be the laughing stock for the first few years? 

 

- Related to the 2nd point, because we only had 3/4 works teams, it meant these were the only teams that would be capable of winning a WDC. The customer teams were left to pick up the scraps, and it led to us having effectively 2 formulas. 

[IrvTheSwerve]

Are we not still in the Hybrid era?

 

I think it's just the 2017 aero regs that are coming to an end - were they a success? Well, they were brought in to make the cars quicker and more aggressive, which I think they accomplished pretty well - the racing was always going to suffer a bit, but I think we've had a pretty entertaining couple of years.

 

As for the 2014 V6T hybrids - I don't think I'll ever get to like them. Extremely expensive technology and it's ruined the spectacle at the actual track (maybe not 'ruined', but it's changed the spectacle completely).