FORUMula1.com

[bud]

hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe isn't it?

I just stated that above, honey

so you did

[What's Burning?]

Tony Fernandes of Team Lotus is quoted here as saying that the new engines are great news. He also reckons it makes F1 relevant to the environment and relevant because everyone has a 1.6 engine.

Relevant to the Environment:-
I've read some ridiculous stuff, but, if some Spanish and British press are biased sometimes, that stupidity is completely blitzed by how stupid any statement claiming F1-2013 is green. Lets be clear, F1 isn't green now, and, F1 with the new KERS engines will be far less resource efficient.

Even after you put on the table how bad the new engine is itself, look at the other pure energy wastage of F1 - could someone tell me how many gazilawatts are used lighting up a small country for three nights? Could someone give us again the fuel used to fly the F1 circus around the world. You want to go greener than we are now, put back the old v10/12 and cut out the night races and put more races in Europe (where people actually turn up to watch). That will save quadtillions more resources than the pissy 4 pot 12K F1-family car engines.

F1-family car is relevant:-
I can't believe how many people swallow this garbage. Lets get a few facts on the table. One of the "relevance" claims is that engine is somehow similar to the family cars we drive. Read that last line one more time and tell me you're not laughing. Does anyone for a moment believe that however many pots the new F1 engine will have that it will bear any resemblance to their family car? Not even a GP3 engine (4 pot) is in anyway like a family car. The similarities begin and end with they are internal combustion engines.

Another fact - we are going to make a new F1 engine, that is less "green" than the current one, produces less power and will have no similarity to family car engines. Big question is why, answer is obvious really. Nothing to do with green or family car like, the answer is why Fernandes is all excited about it. Because it's cheap and easy. F1 started down the road of becoming mediocre when it wanted to become easy for "mom and pop" teams to enter. No more need to prove yourself in the feeder classes. No need to prove you have the resources to become a leading edge superlative team.

So this engine change is for one reason and one reason only - take us away from leading edge because that is expensive, and, quite frankly the other wanna-be's lining up know they can't compete with the big-boys as it stands now. Make F1 like GP2 or GP3 because we can have hundreds of teams all dragged down to the current back runners level.

Why is it only Ferrari asking? Because it's inconvenient for them and they stand to lose the most out of the new specs, LDM throws out statements as this; “Four cylinders…that sounds a bit pathetic for the top class. Couldn’t we have decided for a V6 turbo?" But the reality is they're not going to build a 6 cylinder turbo for their cars either.

I agree with you that it's farcical to claim anything in F1 to be green, but F1 is just the show, the business of selling cars is the reason the show exists and to Ferrari... the business model is reversed, they're in the business of racing, selling cars is just how they pay for the racing. So anything this dramatic where it doesn't directly translate to their business model, I can see why they'd be vehemently against.

[texasmr2]

So anything this dramatic where it doesn't directly translate to their business model, I can see why they'd be vehemently against.

I understand and tend to agree with you but lets take into consideration Ferrari's V6TT F1 engine, how did it correlate too their business model, it didn't but they still used them. No matter how many tears Luca sheds Ferrari will be racing in 2013 with a 4 pot, hell they already have one (see the pic I posted) so it's really not that difficult for them to dust off the old reference material and build from there.

[What's Burning?]

So anything this dramatic where it doesn't directly translate to their business model, I can see why they'd be vehemently against.

I understand and tend to agree with you but lets take into consideration Ferrari's V6TT F1 engine, how did it correlate too their business model, it didn't but they still used them. No matter how many tears Luca sheds Ferrari will be racing in 2013 with a 4 pot, hell they already have one (see the pic I posted) so it's really not that difficult for them to dust off the old reference material and build from there.

That's why I don't understand the resistance... OR Ferrari should build a small econobox with said 4 pot and revolutionize their market and have every Ferrari owner, now have a car they can get their 16 year old daughter.

[texasmr2]

That's why I don't understand the resistance... OR Ferrari should build a small econobox with said 4 pot and revolutionize their market and have every Ferrari owner, now have a car they can get their 16 year old daughter.

and

[JackMaster]

I think we are merging a lot of things in here. A hydrogen car, if possible, should begin his development with some prototypes because it would be at the beginning of its life. I mean, you can’t send a baby directly to F1 (except in same especial cases that everybody knows). Nonetheless such a car would find an enormous opposition from the powerful economic interests linked to the petrol industry, some people says that such a thing is actually happening since a lot of years.
KERS may be counterproductive at this stage of his development but in longer terms could be very effective, because it recovers the kinetics energy. With time, it will be smaller, more efficient and greener. I hope.
I suppose that fuel reduction isn’t only limited to the use of KERS. Engineers will use all the possible means to get it.
I believe that Ferrari is a Fiat company and they massivelly built and sell four cylinders cars.
In my opinion, all the engine changes proposed for 2013 come from the teams and car makers and only the F1 owners are truly opposed to them. These changes will probably suppose a cost increase in the short term but they will give back a big economical reward in the longer term, to the teams, not to the F1 owners.

[bud]

Hydrogen technology is not in its infancy so to speak, there are cars on the market and there are hydrogen stations in California already.

The thing about F1 is, the quest for winning pushes technology to its limits and at a greater pace than your road car makers vying to out pace each other in terms of sales.

[What's Burning?]

Hydrogen technology is not in its infancy so to speak, there are cars on the market and there are hydrogen stations in California already.

And in cell phone and RC car batteries.

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

That's why I don't understand the resistance... OR Ferrari should build a small econobox with said 4 pot and revolutionize their market and have every Ferrari owner, now have a car they can get their 16 year old daughter.

and

Then you do not understand Ferrari's business model. One of the important benefits of a car like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or a Bentley to their target market is something called "exclusivity." It is a thing of value to certain among the wealthy and privileged as it lessens the possibility they could find themselves sitting uncomfortably next to their opposite number at a stoplight. For instance, I knew a man (now deceased) who sold his near-new Ford Pantera because someone else in the county had bought one. He replaced it with a Lamborghini Espada.

Point of fact, Porsche once raised the price of their cars for the expressed purposed of reducing sales and increasing this so-called exclusivity. They know moving downscale to increase market penetration would be the equivalent of selling their soul and would mark the beginning of the end.

It wasn't so long ago that Ferrari flirted with a less 'super' car but they've abandoned that philosophy to focus on selling true supercars exclusively. In response to this change, over the past decade Ferrari's per annum unit sales have doubled and I can fair guarantee they have no intention of looking back.

[JackMaster]

Hydrogen technology is not in its infancy so to speak, there are cars on the market and there are hydrogen stations in California already.

The thing about F1 is, the quest for winning pushes technology to its limits and at a greater pace than your road car makers vying to out pace each other in terms of sales.

I dind’t know that. Why then car manufacturers don’t produce them for the whole market?

[What's Burning?]

That's why I don't understand the resistance... OR Ferrari should build a small econobox with said 4 pot and revolutionize their market and have every Ferrari owner, now have a car they can get their 16 year old daughter.

and

Then you do not understand Ferrari's business model. One of the important benefits of a car like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or a Bentley to their target market is something called "exclusivity." It is a thing of value to certain among the wealthy and privileged as it lessens the possibility they could find themselves sitting uncomfortably next to their opposite number at a stoplight. For instance, I knew a man (now deceased) who sold his near-new Ford Pantera because someone else in the county had bought one. He replaced it with a Lamborghini Espada.

Point of fact, Porsche once raised the price of their cars for the expressed purposed of reducing sales and increasing this so-called exclusivity. They know moving downscale to increase market penetration would be the equivalent of selling their soul and would mark the beginning of the end.

It wasn't so long ago that Ferrari flirted with a less 'super' car but they've abandoned that philosophy to focus on selling true supercars exclusively. In response to this change, over the past decade Ferrari's per annum unit sales have doubled and I can fair guarantee they have no intention of looking back.

it was a joke on my part... exclusivity is why Louis Vuitton makes iPad cases that are more expensive than the iPad. I respect Ferrari's decision not to soil their perception, but they can't then go and trash everyone else's business model because it clashes with their own.

Wal-Mart and McDonald's make lots of money off the opposite of exclusivity.

[bud]

Hydrogen technology is not in its infancy so to speak, there are cars on the market and there are hydrogen stations in California already.

The thing about F1 is, the quest for winning pushes technology to its limits and at a greater pace than your road car makers vying to out pace each other in terms of sales.

I dind’t know that. Why then car manufacturers don’t produce them for the whole market?

Infrastructure needs to be there, Other states and countries need to follow to have sufficient amounts of hydrogen stations for the market to work.

[spankyham]

Mercedes/Norbert Haug wades in with support for LDM/Ferrari's push to delay the introduction of the new engine spec.

"It would have been better to extend the V8 era," agreed Norbert Haug, with the German engine marque currently leading the field with F1's current engines.

"That (V8) is a low cost engine," he insisted.

[JackMaster]

Maybe they’re thinking about going step by step, but in my opinion the direction is clear, they want to apply the engineering advances in F1 to road cars. Is something related with making big money and that always counts a lot.

[robisf1]

WHY V4 IN F1??? It is Formula1. It must have V38 with top speed 800mph driving 0,009 miles per gallon