0Paul Ruggeri

Looks like F1 will be running 1.6L 4 cyl. engines starting in 2013. They will be limited to 12000 rpm and you can only use 4 engines a season. Boy, that sounds excitin'

Jason

Moronic. I hope this is just some Bernie BS bluff to get something else he really wants.

BrianCunningham

so, F1 and Indy going back to CART rules???

the sounds we'll miss

drivinhard

engines should be "open", with only "X" amount of spec fuel given to run the race

think that would spark some efficient designs?

gkmccready

We'll be watching the World Formula F Championship! Was Ford, now Fit... http://www.autoblog.com/2009/11/05/s...for-formula-f/ ;-)

sperkins

Can't believe they would do that to appease tree huggers.

SIK02SS

I hope this is some sick twisted joke. Is it April in Europe or something??

jcosta79

That pretty much covers what I think of the proposed engine change. I hope this change doesn't lead to F1 becoming

John Shiels

the last racing I have been watching and looks like I will tune that out next.

Solofast

The engines will be turbocharged, so the potential for big power is always there, remember that the BMW 1.5 liter turbo motors made close to 1500 hp in qualifying trim...

Unfortunately these motors won't have nearly as much boost as those old turbo motors, so there isn't really a comparison.

I always thought that the V10's never had the voice of the V12's, or sounded as good as the DFV V8's, so they are simply going from bad to worse as far as I can tell.

F1 is so AFU that it would probably be better to put it out of its misery, but then there's so much money involved that that isn't going to happen.

0Paul Ruggeri

Some day the little man with the bad hair cut will die

grantar2

Great video. Almost makes me want to switch from Chevron.

Zoxxo

There is some real misinformation being displayed here.

Bernie Ecclestone does not control the specs of the cars. The FIA does. Bernie has a say but his job is really the marketing end, not the technical end. The "world engine" concept is something that many of the world's auto manufacturers have been pulling for.

For those of you who weren't born then, or who weren't paying attention to F1 at the time, the old 1.5 liter turbo cars were monsters and mega fast. Did they sound like V12/V10/V8 motors? No. Did they sound quite excellent? Yes. The multi-billion dollar industry of Formula One in not built around the sound of the motor

And this has nothing to do with "tree huggers" getting their way. The fact is that the vehicles of the world's auto fleet are getting ever smaller, cleaner, and more efficient. The manufacturers want their racing/marketing dollars to be spent in ways that reflect that development. They do NOT want to be seen as supporting old school tech that much of the modern world sees as wasteful, damaging, and pointless.

CART ran turbo V8 motors. The new F1 motors will have one thing that the old CART motors had - the ability to adjust the boost (the FIA, not the drivers) so they can make sure that there is enough juice underfoot to make the things fly. The turbos should also make the cars more difficult to drive fast which will make them more fun to watch and show who are the best drivers.

If you allow "open" engines, the costs go through the roof which is exactly what they are trying to cut down on so that the small teams can continue to exist. Without those guys you wouldn't have F1.

Formula One is *huge* around the world so "putting it out of its misery" seems a very odd concept. The money involved:

http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/35234.html

http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/36119.html

Z//

drivinhard

the 2013 regs have the fuel rate limited to 27.8 g/s (unless I'm reading it wrong). that will support nothing like the 1,500 hp qualifying handgrenades of the late turbo era. Hard to calculate turbo efficiency and dynamic VE, but 27.8 g/s is something ~600 hp.

It's F1, the cost is already through the roof I agree the cost would go up, but the big budget teams will spend it somewhere else anyway, and what do you think it cost them to dump the V10 and run the 2.4L V8? And then dump that and develop an entirely new engine program?

not picking a fight, just saying

Zoxxo

I didn't mean to imply that the new regs would mean revisting those awesome, nutso-horsepower days (if only ) but a lot of folks seem to have the idea that the modern F1 car gets it's amazing performance from the motors when, in fact, it's been the tires and aero that have been the major advances over the past 15 years or so and have been what has made the cars as fast as ever even with hp reductions. I expect that will continue. F1 understands that it has to maintain the spectacle factor or a good number of folks will tune out. They have been tweaking the rules every year for the past X years to "make the show better" and despite F1's stunning ability to get it wrong three times before stumbling onto "a good one" (see the evolution of the current qualifying format as a good example) they do seem to eventually get it "right" (whatever that means in this context.)

Here's a great piece on Cosworth's view of the near future for race engine tech:
http://www.gordonkirby.com/categorie..._is_no260.html

The Le Mans folks are also insisting upon power reductions and increased efficiency. Here's a detailed look at the new Audi R18 for next year's Le Mans (3.7 liter single-turbo V6 TDI.) A very cool car.
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...he-audi-r18/P1

If you allowed an open design engine then what would happen is an arms race that woud eventually settle on the same answer anyway but only after all the teams and engineers spent quadrillions of dollars disproving every possible tweaky idea that might offer a nano-horsepower of improvement. There's lots of money and then there's LOTS of money

I have always thought that there's a good argument to be made that the very thing that people like about F1 is that it is *not* relevant and that it is totally nuts and expensive and rude and politically incorrect, etc. But history has shown that "unlimited" racing series have very short lives because the only sources of that kind of money are sources controlled by shareholders and boards of directors (see departures of Honda, Toyota, BMW, Renault.)

I have this argument with my engineer friends pretty regularly. They think that the best series would be one that eliminated the drivers altogether and just made "ultimate" machines that cost a bazillion dollars and went so fast that a human couldn't focus on them. They can't seem to grok that the point of the exercise is a *human* competition that humans enjoy watching and rooting for. And that old adage "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" is *still* in play.

Nor am I. I just think that basing one's interest in a racing series on the sound the engines make over the TV is kind of weird (at best.) I used to go to the F1 races in the old turbo days and they were quite spectacular - even in race trim

Z//

Wayne O

IMO "smaller, cleaner, and more efficient" is not necessarily what most racing fans would like to see in Formula 1. Trying to contain costs is often mentioned but new and expensive changes are imposed every year.

drivinhard

It would probably be impossible to put an exact number on, even from a participating insider, but wonder how much it "cost" them to dump their 3.0L V10 programs, and start fresh with their V8 programs, and then run them from '06-'12. I bet the $$ they "saved" from the techno freeze over the years, was washed by what they poured into it initially.

Zoxxo

When it comes to Formula One fans, what "most" want to see is (a) good racing and (b) Ferrari winning. I suspect that most F1 fans around the world really don't give a fig what the motor is as long as it's fast as hell and they can root for their favorite teams, drivers, and countrymen. Those turbo 4-bangers back in the 80s didn't hurt the popularity of the sport one bit. They won't this time, either. F1 keeps growing no matter what lump they put in the back. V12->V10->V8 changed diddly re: fan support. Engine format is the least of their worries. Keeping the huge amount of money flowing is #1.

As for the costs of the engines, the relevant cost (as far as the FIA and Bernie are concerned) is the cost to current and NEW engine makers to produce a competitive engine for the series. In other words, how much does it take for a NEW player to get into the game and how much does it cost for current engine makers to stay in the game. Given that the likes of Cosworth (a business that seeks to *profit* from it's F1 engine program) can play the game once more, I'm guessing that the cost of developing a new F1 motor today isn't anything like it used to be maybe 10 years ago when the R&D might - and budgets - of the world's manufacturers was being brought to bear. And that's precisely the goal - multiple engine makers that can produce competitive engines at a price point the small teams can afford.

The relatively few U.S. F1 fans are not representative of the world's fans, either. For many (most?) of the rest of the planet the thing is more related to World Cup Soccer (national pride, etc.) than it is a grand technical exercise which is what many (most?) of us here in the U.S. see (with no American' drivers we're not blinded by nationalism.)

F1 is a business that has to keep *everyone* happy with a ton of diverse and competing interests at play. The fans are an important part, of course, but it should be noted that despite all the lip service being paid to "what the fans want" and "improving the show" very little of real substance is actually being done on that front. Ever. Ditto "the important American market" BS that gets thrown around all the time. If the teams and the FIA and Bernie and the manufacturers *really* believed that a U.S. GP was big time important then they'd invest the time and effort and money to MAKE SURE that the U.S.G.P. is a success. But they aren't. And they won't. Bernie will still insist that Austin stand or fall on Austin's budget and efforts and will throw Austin under the bus in a quick second in favor of the "Djabouti Grand Prix" if they offer him enough $$$.

Just in case you actually thought that F1 cares what the fans think or want

Z//

jcosta79

jcosta79

Steve Matchett said it best when he said that F1 has always been (and should continue to be) a sport about engineers trying to build the most extreme cars possible using the latest cutting edge technology.

The trend in the past 2 decades to limit the use of this technology and banning exotic materials due to "cost" reductions, has limited F1's appeal (at least it has to me). I enjoy watching and reading about engines and chassis built with rare "unobtanium" as much as I enjoy the actual racing, and I don't think I am alone in this.

The fact that in the past this type of "unrestricted" engineering resulted in some teams being much more competitive than others was part of the "racing" itself! In F1 the engineers have (or at least used to have) as much if not more to do with the outcome of a race as the driver himself. That's part of F1's charm.

If I wanted to watch racing that was strictly regulated so that the drivers would be the only determining factor of the outcome of a race, I would watch NASCAR or better still, German Touring Cars. These are both great series in their own right, but they are not F1. The fact that F1 has been slowly changing its rules to "tighten up" the racing is taking away a lot of the charm that makes F1 like no other racing in the world.

Just my 2 cents.