FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[darwin dali]

it's also not practical if there's a newer spec engine and a team saved an early season engine to use later on. It makes the early engine obsolete, again money being thrown away by the customer teams. There was a valid reason the teams all agreed to do this in the first place.

Uh, no! That's where the term 'smaller' teams should come to play. If I was to run a customer team on a shoestring, I'd be very happy to run what you call an obsolete, but also cheaper engine. Mercedes and its top (speak posh) customers can go ahead with the latest and greatest engine, maybe run into trouble with reliability while I use up the trusted old engines that I know work (if they weren't working, then I wouldn't have any left/saved to begin with ).

[racechick]

Maybe they should give some of the 90 mil that goes to Ferrari just for being Ferrari ( did I read that figure right? The table was confusing) to Merc as compensation for the extra engine costs that would be incurred unnecessarily for Merc. Or use it to fund engines for poor teams.

[CookinFlat6]

Its such a big joke when you hear those that moan about lack of competition because 1 engine maker is better than the others.

Simple solution, buy Merc engines, Ferrari and RBR should simply refuse to compete with their 'uncompetitive' engines and demand only a competitive engine, then to ensure competition Merc would be forced to sell them engines

Simples, its only uncompetitive if you are not allowed to be competitive

[CookinFlat6]

it's also not practical if there's a newer spec engine and a team saved an early season engine to use later on. It makes the early engine obsolete, again money being thrown away by the customer teams. There was a valid reason the teams all agreed to do this in the first place.

Uh, no! That's where the term 'smaller' teams should come to play. If I was to run a customer team on a shoestring, I'd be very happy to run what you call an obsolete, but also cheaper engine. Mercedes and its top (speak posh) customers can go ahead with the latest and greatest engine, maybe run into trouble with reliability while I use up the trusted old engines that I know work (if they weren't working, then I wouldn't have any left/saved to begin with ).

I think its in the regulations that all engines supplied must be picked randmly from a pool. This is to prevent the manufacturer knowingly giving the customers second rate engines. There is a case for testing update on selected engines but again I believe these must be made available to all customers. Soright now there is no scope for a and b spec engines, if there was to be such a provision, then it would make sense to actually produce a set of regulations to cover B spec cars i.e fully fledged 2 tier series.

It wouldnt work without a whole new set of regs. For example if ferrari have the latest engine and Sauber the previous then the chances are that any software tweaks or mods to comply with changes in the regs or requests by stewards - the chances are these tweaks would only work with the new spec and not the older, so who would pay to produce a parralel tweak for the older spec.

Simple in concept but in reality would be a new set of regs more akin to 'customer spec'

[What's Burning?]

Its such a big joke when you hear those that moan about lack of competition because 1 engine maker is better than the others.

Simple solution, buy Merc engines, Ferrari and RBR should simply refuse to compete with their 'uncompetitive' engines and demand only a competitive engine, then to ensure competition Merc would be forced to sell them engines

Simples, its only uncompetitive if you are not allowed to be competitive

Lotus done just that.

[racechick]

Its such a big joke when you hear those that moan about lack of competition because 1 engine maker is better than the others.

Simple solution, buy Merc engines, Ferrari and RBR should simply refuse to compete with their 'uncompetitive' engines and demand only a competitive engine, then to ensure competition Merc would be forced to sell them engines

Simples, its only uncompetitive if you are not allowed to be competitive

Lotus done just that.

And aren't Lotus really Renault? I've got confused with all the name changes.

[What's Burning?]

Its such a big joke when you hear those that moan about lack of competition because 1 engine maker is better than the others.

Simple solution, buy Merc engines, Ferrari and RBR should simply refuse to compete with their 'uncompetitive' engines and demand only a competitive engine, then to ensure competition Merc would be forced to sell them engines

Simples, its only uncompetitive if you are not allowed to be competitive

Lotus done just that.

And aren't Lotus really Renault? I've got confused with all the name changes.

No, Renault drop kicked them to the curb when Red Bull was too strong to ignore. Red Bull is now the "works" team for Renault. Lotus is just a chassis manufacturer.

Another way teams can save some dinero that's been overlooked by the garden variety F1 fan is the fact that as of next year the only thing a team needs to make to be considered a constructor is their own chassis. They can now purchase suspension components as well.

So, engine, transmission, suspension, electronics can all off the shelf purchases. So if there's a fair rethinking of how the distribution of money is done, smaller teams will have quite a bit more capacity for competitiveness starting in 2015.

[CookinFlat6]

Formula 1 teams have failed to reach an agreement on a lifting of the engine freeze after talks collapsed in a meeting at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Saturday.

The championship-winning Mercedes team had spent the last week evaluating whether to accept a one-off relaxing of the homologation rules to allow a mid-season upgrade next year.

But after analysis of the implications of the rule changes on its overall costs and the impact on its customers, Mercedes decided it could not go ahead with the proposal to allow 13 development tokens to be used next July.

Instead, it offered a compromise deal that would allow just five tokens to be used in July - something that its rivals rejected as not enough.

The matter means that for now the engine freeze rules are staying in place for 2015, and there is now only limited time to find a deal before an F1 Commission meeting takes place later this month.

Speaking about the outcome of the meeting, Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said: "We offered a slight compromise, which we think we could afford to not change the specifications and the price for the customers.

"We think what is essential in the current environment is not to increase the costs for anybody - the smaller teams or the customer teams. But that was not accepted."

makes sense, try to help your competitors become more competitive, but not if it will cost more for you or your customers who dont need to be more competitive

[racechick]

So . No change. Mercdes played hardball. Toto looks like a big softie but it seems he isn't . Well the point was to stop expense spiralling out of control. Two teams have gone already and others struggling. So it's the right thing.
If the freeze came off ( or they could spend more tokens) Mercedes have a massive amount of extra power they can unleash, so the teams would likely pay loads more money, cause more smaller teams to go under and still be way behind Mercedes.

[CookinFlat6]

yes, somehow it didnt seem to make much sense, having a meeting to try and spend more by unfreezing when 3 teams who are only just still in business are having a meeting threatening a boycott if costs are not reduced

Luckily F1 has Toto to protect it from itself, whats the point of everyone spending 20% more to end up at best the same distance behind Merc?
Ferrari are increasingly looking like losing the plot as the only solutions they seem to have to improving their performance is been allowed to try and outspend a monster car firm, and at a time when they need to be practicing how to compete on a much much smaller budget

It sounds like Horner and MnM tried a spot of coercion or blackmail along the lines of - 'you relax the rule for 2015, or we will go the other way and vote in unlimited spending and zero restrictions for 2016, as that only needs majority vote not unanimous consent' A stellar bit of threatening to cut off their own noses because Merc wouldnt want to see them bleeding.

One option that has been suggested is for Mercedes' rivals to agree on even more relaxed rules for 2016, because majority support among the Strategy Group and F1 Commission would be enough to get the regulations changed.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner hinted that he did not believe the matter was completely finished.

"Nothing is changing, for the moment," he said.

Wolff added: "I am not sure it is the end. Maybe there will be new discussions, or follow up discussions."

However, Wolff urged against any move to get rid of engine development restrictions completely as it could theoretically be pushed through for 2016.

"That would be irresponsible to the sport and disrespectful of the teams who went out," he said.

"As Mercedes this would be not something that we think is an intelligent way forward."

Empty threat, unlimited spending would kill every team bar Merc and McHonda and maybe RBR depending on whether they can expand the market for horrible tasting energy drinks to babies and children

[Jabberwocky]

Sky are reported that mercedes has 60 brake horsepower extra already for next year

[CookinFlat6]

Just the increase in boost pressure could probably deliver that. The good thing about this for the others is they already have a precedent for what happens when we hear rumors that Merc are way ahead of the others. The German press and manufacturers have the kind of relationship that means most things they report or 'leak' are true

[Jabberwocky]

Isn't the boost pressure limited? Or am I thinking of the turbo r pm?

[CookinFlat6]

I think they were running short of the max permitted

[What's Burning?]

Everyone could make more power, the issue is the 100 liter per hour flow. You can't just turn up the boost to make that power, you have to flow more fuel and that would defy the laws of physics. So it's turned into a self imposed cap. The same applies to the engine RPM. The max it 15k but again that would require a higher fuel flow. It's we've never seen the high RPMs in the graphics.

It's amazing to me that we're matching the performance of previous seasons (today's Q times was a track record) even with the imposed limitations. If the fuel flow was raised to say 120 liters per hour, we'd be seeing these cars trounce the times put up by the V10s.