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[CookinFlat6]

Seems that we are gonna have an exciting and competitive season afterall. We should all applaud the unfreeze of the enhine regs because it has galvanised the competition into fighting talk and thankfully away from the moaning and b!tching

Renault have said they are up for the challenge and ofcourse Sergio has reminded us about the big strategic boost his team has from the unfreeze and from hiring Allinson from Lotus and Arivabene from Marlboro. So before the end of the season we will see Seb back to his old self of pole to victory whitewashes dusting everyone else by a second or 2

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne believes his team has a chance to make up for a late start to its 2015 car thanks to the FIA's Formula 1 engine freeze ruling.

With the governing body accepting Ferrari's stance that F1's technical regulations failed to dictate when engine changes had to be homologated, the Italian outfit can now introduce updates to its power unit when it wants.

It is that boost, allied to the dramatic overhaul that Marchionne has overseen at Maranello in recent months, that has left him optimistic that progress will come before the end of the campaign

"We're starting the season a bit late because the design of the new car was started late," said Marchionne, speaking at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit.

"But we don't have to freeze the engine by the first race, so it will be a very interesting season.

"I think the car will get better as we go through the year."

Marchionne also believes that in new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene and technical director James Allison, Ferrari has exactly what it needs to move forward.

"We have a new guy, a team principal, who has been involved in racing a long part of his professional life - Maurizio Arrivabene. And he's busy now.

"We've got a technical guy, Allison, who's taking over the technical side of the business. So we've got the team."

You can only give this maximum credence because Sergio has already turned around sicker giants of the auto sector, and so when he says they will be kicking butt before the end of the year, its enough to want to go out and buy some red bags and hats. But F1 is not the same as abolishing 4 day weeks for employees and requiring proper clock in and out monitoring

Should be a real hoot

[racechick]

https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/mo ... 24953.html
Some quotes from Noble's article in Autosport........


In theory, the move gives Mercedes' opposition the extra time they felt they needed to be able to close the deficit that was exposed throughout the 2014 campaign.

In practice it's unlikely to work out that way, for the simple reason that last-year's also-rans are not chasing a stationary target. Mercedes were head-and-shoulders above the field last season, but the brains at the team believe there are still plenty of development avenues that it can pursue to lift the performance of its power unit.

As Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell said last year: "None of us will make changes to make the car worse. Every change is to make Lewis [Hamilton] and Nico [Rosberg] lap the circuit quicker.".............


Williams technical director Pat Symonds believes that the impact of the engine unfreeze situation has been overplayed in some quarters, while Mercedes' scope to do better is being underestimated.

"In reality very little has changed," Symonds told AUTOSPORT. "The unfreeze has always been there.

"So the only thing that has changed is that the freeze doesn't start again in March, it starts a bit later.

"But it also allows Mercedes more time - and believe me these are clever guys.........


The full impact of the new interpretation of the homologation rules may not even be fully felt until 2016, with Mercedes perhaps able to exploit freedoms this year to make a big leap forward longer term.

While it will be introducing an updated engine for the first race of the campaign in Australia, it will not be using up all its tokens.

And one strategic option that Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has talked about is playing the longer game, and using tokens as late at September for early introduction of 2016 components that could give it a big step forward longer term. Given the huge performance advantage the team had last season, it's conceivable that they could remain at the front of the pack with minimal changes - and then late in the season introduce their latest innovations to see them take charge of F1 for a second season running.


Like we said on this forum, it doesn't look as though finding this loophole has done any favours to Ferrari and Renault. They weren't behing Merc because Merc "wouldn't allow competition" they were behind because Merc did a much better job and are planning to continue doing that.

[CookinFlat6]

Its a bit strange that we heard so much about this January meeting where Bernie was 'going to do something, and force changes, old V10s, unlimited blah blah and blah' things have suddenly gone silent on here about it. Surely its now the tail end of January, we should be hearing about the return to V10s in 2016 by now???

Ah, hold on we have a winner, NO CHANGE, only an agreement for 1000 bhp using the exact same engine we have now. Aww shucks, no standard Kers?, no v10, no V8 - just to increase the power to where Mercs 2015 engine is already close to producing after the new ability to use more boost that Merc have.

One would think now would be the time for the moaners and b!tches to start boycotting F1 instead of continuing to watch till 2017 for Merc to allow the losers to change things

Formula 1 has moved a step closer to the return of 1000 horsepower turbo cars, following a meeting in Geneva this week by key figures to discuss future rules.

As part of a push by F1's Strategy Group to make grand prix machinery more challenging, it asked F1's engine chiefs to get together this week to discuss ways of giving cars more power.

The belief is that by ramping up engine power above the 1000bhp level that proved so spectacular in the past, F1 cars will be harder to drive - and therefore more attractive to fans.

AUTOSPORT has learned that the discussions between the Power Unit Working Group and the FIA were positive, although it is unlikely that any of the changes being talked about will come in to force until 2017.

However, there is a belief that the 1000bhp target could be achieved without the need for a total redesign of the current turbo V6 engines nor a complete new engine formula - which would be expensive.

Instead, an increase to the fuel flow rate, higher revs, minor design tweaks such as to crank firing, plus increasing the maximum fuel allowance beyond 100kg, would be enough for the current engines to hit the 1000bhp target.

The ideas have now been put forward for further discussion by F1's technical directors later this month, and will also be tabled at the next meeting of the Strategy Group, in a bid to get the green light for more detailed work.

One issue that the engine chiefs want to know from F1 team bosses is whether the priority is for simply more power, or if engine noise should be a factor in modifications too.

Changes to the engines are also likely to go hand-in-hand with tweaks to F1's car rules to make the cars faster and harder to drive.

The FIA is already discussing with teams the possibility of ramping up downforce, having bigger wheels and more aggressive-looking cars for as early as 2016.

COSTS ON AGENDA

The engine manufacturers also discussed ways of making the current engines cheaper, amid concerns that the high costs of the power units are hurting smaller teams.

One idea that has gained traction is for a standardisation of many of the ancillaries surrounding the current V6 engine - such as the energy recovery systems.

Such an idea was proposed by Red Bull boss Christian Horner at the end of last year amid a push by him to change F1's engine rules because they were too expensive

[racechick]

A bit more about how Mercedes proposes to use the loophole exposed by Ferrari.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117536

[stonemonkey]

Seems that we are gonna have an exciting and competitive season afterall. We should all applaud the unfreeze of the enhine regs because it has galvanised the competition into fighting talk and thankfully away from the moaning and b!tching

Renault have said they are up for the challenge and ofcourse Sergio has reminded us about the big strategic boost his team has from the unfreeze and from hiring Allinson from Lotus and Arivabene from Marlboro. So before the end of the season we will see Seb back to his old self of pole to victory whitewashes dusting everyone else by a second or 2

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne believes his team has a chance to make up for a late start to its 2015 car thanks to the FIA's Formula 1 engine freeze ruling.

With the governing body accepting Ferrari's stance that F1's technical regulations failed to dictate when engine changes had to be homologated, the Italian outfit can now introduce updates to its power unit when it wants.

It is that boost, allied to the dramatic overhaul that Marchionne has overseen at Maranello in recent months, that has left him optimistic that progress will come before the end of the campaign

"We're starting the season a bit late because the design of the new car was started late," said Marchionne, speaking at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit.

"But we don't have to freeze the engine by the first race, so it will be a very interesting season.

"I think the car will get better as we go through the year."

Marchionne also believes that in new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene and technical director James Allison, Ferrari has exactly what it needs to move forward.

"We have a new guy, a team principal, who has been involved in racing a long part of his professional life - Maurizio Arrivabene. And he's busy now.

"We've got a technical guy, Allison, who's taking over the technical side of the business. So we've got the team."

You can only give this maximum credence because Sergio has already turned around sicker giants of the auto sector, and so when he says they will be kicking butt before the end of the year, its enough to want to go out and buy some red bags and hats. But F1 is not the same as abolishing 4 day weeks for employees and requiring proper clock in and out monitoring

Should be a real hoot

Sounds like they're in a real mess from last year, why on earth did they start this years car late?

[What's Burning?]

Sounds like they're in a real mess from last year, why on earth did they start this years car late?

Duh, because Mercedes is stifling competition.

[stonemonkey]

ah ok, so they had everyone so busy trying to figure out what they could do about the engine that they forgot about the rest of the car.