2014 engines: inline-fours out, turbo-charged V6 engines in

[prisonermonkeys]

Ferrari (by far the most recognizable team in motorsports) have simply gotten what they would have prefered

That seems to happen a lot. Ferrari get their way. Even when their way is not necessairly for the good of the sport - like in the case of having the team orders ban overturned. The sport had been working for over a year towards "improving the show" and delivering a better experience for fans. And then Ferrari pulled that garbage in Germany last year, and all the fans reviled it. F1 Fanatic runs a 'Rate the Race' poll after every Grand Prix. The average scores were tallied up, and where races like Canada 2010 and 2011, China 2010 and 2011 and Brazil 2008 all scored very highly, Germany 2010 was the worst-scoring event ever since the polls were started. So despite agreeing to the need to "improve the show", Ferrari arguably made it worse - and then got their way when they protested against it.

So excuse me if I seem sceptical. I have a precedent.

it's no ones fault but Renault for jumping in head first trying to get one step ahead on the design.

Because engines take years to develop, Renault had to operate on the assumption that the engine regulations were, at the very least, in the final draft stage when they started work.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Just throwing this out there. I think they should allow up to 2.0 liter normally aspirated rotaries. Get some good development. I'd love to see F1 back with multiple engine types.

 

[Tired Tyres]

Can you image the sound a whole grid of rotary F1 engines would make. It would be pure car porn!

 

[The Outlaw]

That seems to happen a lot. Ferrari get their way. Even when their way is not necessarily for the good of the sport - like in the case of having the team orders ban overturned. The sport had been working for over a year towards "improving the show" and delivering a better experience for fans. And then Ferrari pulled that garbage in Germany last year, and all the fans reviled it. F1 Fanatic runs a 'Rate the Race' poll after every Grand Prix. The average scores were tallied up, and where races like Canada 2010 and 2011, China 2010 and 2011 and Brazil 2008 all scored very highly, Germany 2010 was the worst-scoring event ever since the polls were started. So despite agreeing to the need to "improve the show", Ferrari arguably made it worse - and then got their way when they protested against it.

So excuse me if I seem sceptical. I have a precedent..

I think there are just as many on the side of the fence that agree that the team orders rules was complete rubbish to begin with though - as any rule that you can't enforce with any consistency or clear basis/evidence, is a stupid rule to have in place to begin with. Ferrari got their way because the FIA finally realized team orders is something that is often impossible to police in this 2 car per team sport, and there had been MANY team order incidents in the past that had gone unnoticed and unpenalized (simply because in other cases the team orders were carried out under the radar, or at least in a much less obvious way).

And at the end of the day, winning is just as important to Ferrari as the show itself. If it took the negative publicity in Germany in order to be in contention for the title come Abu Dhabi, I'm sure it was a price Ferrari were more than willing to pay. I will also say that with the incidents between the RBR (Turkey '10) and Mclaren (Canada '11) drivers in the past year or so, Ferrari are looking quite wise in that regard anyway.

Because engines take years to develop, Renault had to operate on the assumption that the engine regulations were, at the very least, in the final draft stage when they started work.

Sorry, but it's not Ferrari's fault that Renault decided to or "had to operate on this assumption".

 

[Alex.]

Well, Ferrari have successfully screwed Craig Pollock.

I hope they're proud of themselves.

You make it sound such a bad thing.


As for Ferrari influencing the decisions and it being unfair; Nobody really wanted the 4 pot turbos except Renault anyway, the majority of fans + Bernie all opposed the idea due to the fact most road cars would have bigger engines than F1 cars. V6 Turbo is a look over the shoulder with potential. I can settle for that.

 

[The Outlaw]

The V6 makes much more sense in terms of packaging anyway (in regards to mounting the gearbox and having symmetry with the exhaust and intake paths). So I'm all for it. Not to mention that the sound will likely be far superior to a 4 banger, and the V6 will also be able to rev a lot easier to due to the V6's superior harmonics and balancing characteristics.

 

[TenEightyOne]

You make it sound such a bad thing.

Darned right. Two things are important for the future of F1.

One of those is the right engine, the other is a complete absence of Craig "Load of Pollocks" Pollock. Job done.

I can understand the manufacturers whose road cars AREN'T Ferraris wanting an engine that's more relevant to their own ranges, I think the V6 is a good compromise as it isn't an unusual engine in lower-end cars in the way that a V8 is.

Ferrari have an interesting conundrum to face in terms of road car legislation; they need to bring the average emissions of their ranges down. I wonder if they always had their collective eye on a V6 compromise?

 

[Grand Prix]

Why are you guys worried? V6 turbos would sound awesome. In fact some marvelous sounding V6 engines have been made over the years, both turbocharged and naturally aspirated. Alfa's 3L V6, the Ferrari Dino V6 (that also powered the Stratos). And last but most certainly not least, these:




"But GP, with new engine technology the new V6 Turbos won't sound anything like that!"

I'm just showing that there is potential for the new V6s to sound good.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I'm not sure people are as worried as they were about the straight-4s...

 

[Grand Prix]

I'm not sure people are as worried as they were about the straight-4s...

Excellent.

Then they'll probably introduce the 4 cylinders in 2020 or some crap, and by then they won't seem so bad...

FIA are geniuses.

 

[DK]

I wouldn't mind turbocharged 6-cylinder engines. If Nissan enters, they could use "RB" for straight-6s and "VR" for V6s.

 

[Ardius]

Well, Ferrari have successfully screwed both Renault and Craig Pollock.

I hope they're proud of themselves.

Really ludes?

I continue to be amazed how you read every situation the complete opposite to basic common sense.

Why are you blaming just Ferrari? Cosworth and Mercedes were also against the I4-Turbos too. And so what if Renault are screwed? Why should F1 pander to Renault and ignore the other 3 engine manufacturers?

Also, why assume Renault isn't going to stick around with V6 Turbos?

As for Craig Pollock...I guess you weren't around the last time he was in F1...I don't see why we should feel sorry for him.

I don't really care too much for trying to appease Renault, Ferrari or any other particular car manufacturer just for engines. F1 should choose an engine design that encourages the most manufacturer or engine supplier interest and allows cheap or more "road relevant" development. If it doesn't fit into Renault's plans, then so what? Renault have already been slowing leaving the sport anyway and what guarantee is there that they would stay?

F1 shouldn't pander to car manufacturers too much because they are rarely in the sport for the long-term and have other priorities. Better to design the rules around keeping a good amount of engine suppliers and allowing new engine suppliers to come in just in case the car manufacturers leave.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Why are you blaming just Ferrari?

Because the article specifically mentions them as being the ones to shoot the proposal down.

 

[Ardius]

Because the article specifically mentions them as being the ones to shoot the proposal down.

Sure, Ferrari are the main opposition and the most vocal, but they are not the only ones. Its widely reported that only Renault seemed to have been in favour of the I4s.
Quit with the crusades against Ferrari, its rather tiresome.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Quit with the crusades against Ferrari, its rather tiresome.

No.

 

[Peter.]

No.

Yes, please.

 

[Moot]

No.

Vader: [searching for Interludes in Bernie's motor-home] You cannot hide forever, Interludes.
Interludes: I will not fight you.
Vader: Give yourself to the Ferrari. It is the only way you can save your friends. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... [pauses] Renault! So, you have a twin Renault. Your feelings have now betrayed them too. Jean Todt was wise to hide them from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Ferrari, then perhaps they will!
Interludes: [revealing himself] NEVER!
[Interludes attacks Vader ferociously, eventually backing him onto a railing and cutting off his arm. He stands over Vader for a moment.]
Bernie: [laughing] Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!
Interludes: [Notices Vader's detached hand is bionic, like his own, has a realization, then turns to face the Emperor, throwing away his lightsaber] Never. I'll never turn to the Ferrari. You have failed, Your Highness. I am an FIA Marshall, like my father before me.
Bernie: [angrily] So be it... Marshall!

That's a satirical combination of F1 opinion and Star Wars.
Could be refined.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I honestly think most V6s sound better than most V8s. Especially flat-plane V8s which I think sound awful.

 

[Hun200kmh]

I find interludes crusades against Ferrari very entertaining. Would be a bit annoying if we were to read them seriously but it only takes this quote:

.

Also, Ferrari cannot make beautiful cars. They're all hideous.

or this quote ...

The only good Ferrari is one that is broken down by the side of the road.

... to understand.

I'll add my voice on this matter, only to say to Ardius that his own crusade against manufacturers needs some balancing. They come and go, true. But they also make engines. And long gone are the days when a good low-tech low-priced Ford engine would be more than enough to go up against fully backed manufacturer operations.

It's funny how history evolves and revolves. First, Grand Prix racing was all about some french unpronouncable names afterwards joined by a few italians and later some british car&engine makers.

Then came fully manufacturer (and politically) backed germans ... the french sunk into oblivion, brits tried to hang on but in reality only the italians could - barely - race the silver arrows.

After the war, all returned in more even grounds but in the fifties we still had mainly big german companies fighting small italian companies (Maserati, Alfa and the smallest of all ... Ferrari). In time British cars, however, became a force to be respected and when we reach the sixties Formula One saw an era where the germans had vanished (for sad reasons) and the fight was mainly brits vs italians ... and some french (Matra being the most important IIRC).

In this era Formula One was all about specialized and not very big chassis makers and engine makers, like (Coventry) Climax, or BRM just to name two british engines.

Then, came the Ford Cosworth. It "erased" all other engine makers from Formula One, up to a point when the only team not running them was Ferrari, last of the old era of small car & engine manufacturers teams.

All went nicely during the long V8 DFV vs. Ferrari Boxer 12 era (I think we had a few Alfa Romeo engines during this era, maybe other also), still engine supply wasn't a problem. Ferrari made their own engines, all other teams could buy DFVs

Then came ... RENAULT and the Turbo era begun.

And never again Formula One ceased to need the big manufacturers for its ... engines also.


(Note: This is the story as I see it, didn't google anything and I may be factually incorrect, so take all this as old man's memories, nothing else)

 

[niky]

I don't see the V6 thing as necessarily being bad for Renault, as they could work it into marketing for their bigger cars...

V6 is a good middle ground, where mass-market manufacturers and sportscar manufacturers can meet.

Still... if F1 had pushed the I4 rule... or even opened up the possibility of a six-cylinder-maximum, anything-goes rule... then we could have seen some interesting developments. As long as all the cars run the same restrictors and are limited to the same maximum power, then this would be good for the sport... make it more interesting, technically, much more relevant to road cars, and much more fun, as engine variety will lead to new strategies in terms of on-track performance versus fuel consumption, or powerband tuning...

 

[Ardius]

I'm just a little tired of seeing the boring old "Ferrari are to blame" argument used yet again for regulation changes people don't like. Especially when in this case its not only Ferrari who are to blame, so its a little inaccurate to say the least.
If anyone is to blame, its the FIA and FOTA for not sorting this out earlier and actually getting a common agreement on regulations. It almost seems like they only asked Renault seeing as they are so happy with I4s.

I'm not against car manufacturers per se, I'm more against effectively trying to keep them in the sport to the point where we drive up costs and we lose the independent or smaller companies only for the manufacturers to inevitably leave due to economics, a change of management or simply because they don't think its for them anymore.

I'd prefer to see car manufacturers simply hanging around as engine suppliers rather than owning and running teams. That way its not the end of the world when they leave because other suppliers can fill the gap.

 

[Korza]

F1 is meant to be the pinnacle of motorsports, not the pinnacle of road car technology. F1 is not meant to be enviromenatly friendly or cheap to enter. By having engine restrictions, budget caps, testing restrictions and aero restrictions is killing the sport. Less people are watching the sport. Also, Renault shouldn't have started developing an engine berfore the regulations were finalized.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

F1 is not meant to be enviromenatly friendly or cheap to enter.

Were you not paying attention during 2008-2010, and the whole global financial crisis? You know, the worst recession that the world has ever seen since the Great Depression? It's a little tough to justify spending four hundred million dollars on a racing team under those conditions. Especially since the high costs of the sport deter new teams from entering. I'd much rather see a Formula 1 with low costs and larger grids where races are won through innovation than a Formula 1 with high costs and smaller grids were races are won by whoever throws the most money at their team.

And considering that there is a big push in the road car market for environemtnally-friendly technologies, and that manufacturers often use Formula 1 to develop new technologies for their road cars, Formula 1 must be environmentally friendly by proxy. There's no way around it.

Also, Renault shouldn't have started developing an engine berfore the regulations were finalized.

Sure, they should have started designing their engine the night before it was due to make its first test. Because you can totally do that. It's not like an engine takes years to develop and costs millions of dollars.

You can bet your bottom dollar that all of the manufacturers had started work on engines to the 2013 spec, even if they hadn't physically built anything. Renault were just more vocal about it because they believed the 2013 specs were essential to their future in the sport.

 

[Moot]

A global recession is not really as devastating as it sounds. Plenty of countries have money to burn. It's just we are so western centric we think the world revolves around us. China has so much money it doesn't know what to spend it on. F1 being global can take money from countries and sponsors that are not hard up. It's just there is some protectionism for some teams and brands. Bernie does the right thing by trying to get GP in as many areas as possible, places with money and sponsors.
Economic hardship and environmental politics is just a game F1 and teams play at. F1 can ignore it and choose other rules of play if it wanted. But they try and strike a balance, I don't see F1 as a slave to society.
It's a bit like a cat, it stays in it's owners home because it suits it and it get's fed, but it doesn't really care, and knows it doesn't have to.
Unless I have got cats wrong, I don't trust cats.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Still, it's irresponsible to go throwing $400 million around on a racing team when large parts of the world are struggling to break even.

 

[RobGT81]

If Renault want to develop engines for their road car products then they should develop an engine for Le Mans, surely manufacturers have looked at Audi's Le Mans business model and seen that it works?

 

[TenEightyOne]

If Renault want to develop engines for their road car products then they should develop an engine for Le Mans, surely manufacturers have looked at Audi's Le Mans business model and seen that it works?

And maybe they will!

I guess that from Renault's point of view (and Caterham, and Mercedes, and Cosworth) there was a real possibility of cramming a straight-4 turbo engine with direct F1 DNA into a lot of road cars.

That would sell - even I would buy one

The V6 option is a reasonable compromise because it's still not an unusual engine in the Exec versions of many saloon ranges, but it's not as common as straight 4s.

There's still an element of Win-Sunday-Sell-Monday in the road-car producing teams, their brand is in F1 to be advertised. This is/was an important development for those teams.

Privateers will run what they run because they have to, they're there for fun and (chortles) profit.

Ferrari, well... they're unusual in motorsport because they're a race team who manufacture road cars on the side. They've never had less than a V8, even in the staff microwave. They have to contemplate putting a V6 in a Ferrari and it's making them a bit nervous. Of all the road-car producing teams they're the ones who literally see no relevance at all in V6 engines.

 

[RobGT81]

And maybe they will!

I guess that from Renault's point of view (and Caterham, and Mercedes, and Cosworth) there was a real possibility of cramming a straight-4 turbo engine with direct F1 DNA into a lot of road cars.

That would sell - even I would buy one

The V6 option is a reasonable compromise because it's still not an unusual engine in the Exec versions of many saloon ranges, but it's not as common as straight 4s.

There's still an element of Win-Sunday-Sell-Monday in the road-car producing teams, their brand is in F1 to be advertised. This is/was an important development for those teams.

Privateers will run what they run because they have to, they're there for fun and (chortles) profit.

Ferrari, well... they're unusual in motorsport because they're a race team who manufacture road cars on the side. They've never had less than a V8, even in the staff microwave. They have to contemplate putting a V6 in a Ferrari and it's making them a bit nervous. Of all the road-car producing teams they're the ones who literally see no relevance at all in V6 engines.

Very true about Ferrari, another reason why I think we will see them at Le Mans in an LMP1 in the next few years, a screaming Ferrari petrol with KERS up against Audis, Peugeots, Mazda, Toyota and Porsche would be amazing

 

[niky]

Doubt Ferrari would go LeMans. The current rules are still not favorable for gasoline engines, and I don't think Ferrari is quite ready to go diesel yet.

KERS won't do much for fuel economy or reliability in a 24 hour race. In the current endurance formula, diesel is king.

A global recession is not really as devastating as it sounds. Plenty of countries have money to burn. It's just we are so western centric we think the world revolves around us. China has so much money it doesn't know what to spend it on. F1 being global can take money from countries and sponsors that are not hard up. It's just there is some protectionism for some teams and brands. Bernie does the right thing by trying to get GP in as many areas as possible, places with money and sponsors.
Economic hardship and environmental politics is just a game F1 and teams play at. F1 can ignore it and choose other rules of play if it wanted. But they try and strike a balance, I don't see F1 as a slave to society.
It's a bit like a cat, it stays in it's owners home because it suits it and it get's fed, but it doesn't really care, and knows it doesn't have to.
Unless I have got cats wrong, I don't trust cats.

Money to burn? Not really. China is an export economy, and recession in other parts of the world hurt their growth... (though cheap oil during a recession works in their favor...)

It's not just the US that is reeling from the 08-10 recession... a lot of European countries have gone under, too, and developing economies in the east have seen a slowdown in growth.

If you want to ensure a sport's survival, you have to make it worth the sponsors' money. For manufacturers who are sponsoring teams, it'll be more worth their money if they can tie the sport into their road car program. Renault would love it. BMW and Mercedes would be able to tie it into their performance line. Ferrari... well... either way, they have no car with an engine smaller than a V8, but they could potentially do something with an I4 and hybrid assist at the 456 level... akin to the BMW EfficientDynamics concept.

This is why Audi and Peugeot spend millions at LeMans... even though the coverage is more limited than F1, the fact that they're running diesel cars and winning makes it more relevant to their line-up than fielding an F1 team running high-test race gas... even though the diesel they use at LeMans is completely synthetic stuff that costs a mint more than regular diesel... but customers don't know that...

 

[ExigeEvan]

Still, it's irresponsible to go throwing $400 million around on a racing team when large parts of the world are struggling to break even.

It's irresponsible to spend any money on racing cars for entertainment when the majority of the world doesn't have clean drinking water.

But why is it our responsibility?