8 replies to this topic

[mariner]

Reading al Wuzak's info. on the new F1 engine regs. stared me thinking about innovation versus optimisation throughout F1 history.

 

The rules makers are always trying to achieve three things, slow the cars down, make it safer and keep people interested - people to include mfrs. and sponsors.

 

It is not new. In the 1930's a 750kg MAXIMUM weight limit was introduced as it was obvious that such a light car couldn't be very powerful so slower and hopefully cheaper. racing  Auto Union and MB soon proved that wrong by getting 600 bhp into 750kg , using huge budgets and getting 200 mph top speeds.

 

After WW2 the 2.5 litre F1 from 1954 to 1960  was long enough  and light enough on  technical rules  to allow convergence, i.e optimisation and   disruptive innovation. 

 

By 1958 al F1 cars were 4 or 6 cylinders and mostly de dion rear end. Then Cooper changed everything by winning with a rear  engined car. 

 

The 1.5 litre 1960's formula only lasted 5 years and the only big innovation happened in 1962 t with the lotus 25. By 1965 the cars were all copycat v-8's except Honda. 

 

The 3 litre formula lasted from 1966 through the 1980's and soon optimised on a slim monocoque like the Lotus 49 until three innovations occoured , wings, turbos and above all ground effects. 

 

The point is that given about 5 yrs of a formula it settles on a single solution but if over 5 years an innovative disruption happens.

 

Today the FIA has deliberately changed this process by deciding not only the WHAT of design, dimensions , engine size, power approach  but gone down a journey of defining HOW every bit of the car has to be designed, crank height and material, weight distribution, suspension frequency, gear ratios etc, etc. 

 

I am not sure if this new found micromanagement will actually save money , keep sponsors or spectators - its only obvious function will be to limit speeds but at enormous expense 

 

To emphasise the point the announcement of GM joining Andretti Racing in F1 is very welcome but since GM has made it clear they have no intention of doing an engine but rather just buy one in , it sounds like they have seen F! as purely entertainment and not technical.

Edited by mariner, 06 January 2023 - 16:27.

[Nathan]

What more can be developed from an IC engine?  We now have a 100 year technology that is refined by hundreds of thousands if not millions of engineers every year.

 

Prior to EVs, had the modern passenger car seen any design/theory revolution over the past 40 years?  That's when unibodies, contemporary styling profiles and packaging, disc brakes, electronic control all became the norm and has since mostly just evolved.  There hasn't been some new suspension concept, we just add new technology to concepts that go way back.  Gearboxes still look the same, they are just controlled differently now.  Turbochargers are still the forced induced means.

 

So sure, prior to 1990 racing could produce meaningful R&D, but the road car is developed now.  The relevance between top end racing cars and a road car has never been narrower.  The advent of computer processing has sped up development has changed how car companies test and develop. 

 

I really don't see how the sport can still be producing meaningful R&D, and I think for some time now most tech development now is just entertaining engineer types rather than contributing new ideas to the automobile.  I've yet to see pneumatic valves, hydraulic control systems, beryllium components, J-dampers, blown diffusers, coanda friendly bodywork or tuned dampers reach mass use in modern road cars.

[Greg Locock]

We went through this in detail on another board and the only thing F1 did first was 100% carbon monocoque. Everything else was inspired or preceeded by some earlier non F1 system. Frankly that's not surprising, true invention research and development of a reliable system takes time $ and people. 

[desmo]

Maybe this isn't a relevant or significant innovation, but who first did the pneumatic sprung valves? Carbon monocoque is hardly any more production car relevant.

[Greg Locock]

Not a bad suggestion

1962 

US3120221A

Edited by Greg Locock, 08 January 2023 - 03:06.

[mariner]

I think I have done a very poor job of trying to pose my question!

 

It wasn't about whether F1 truly innovated on an absolute scale - When the  Lotus 25 came out most road cars including Lotus's own Elite where monocoque. Similarly, turbos were on diesel trucks for years before Renault brought them to F1.

 

The question I was trying to pose was the triangular relationship in racing between optimisation, innovation, and regulation. Regulation did not, per se , exist to limit innovation it was about safety, costs and hope of closer racing. 

 

I think, that if you leave a formula alone long enough it will optimise towards  a single solution unless a disrupting innovation occurs. Racing is littered with innovations that didn’t work so didn’t disrupt but logically if you leave a formula alone long enough one should arise.

 

Now regulation has shifted towards non racing , and purely internal  commercial ,goals. Nobody needs hybrid V 6 engines and batteries to produce 900 bhp and it would be difficult to argue having a 800V battery capable of bursting into flames as well as a hydro carbon fuel helps safety, and since you can get 900 bhp in cheaper ways it is not for cost reduction either.

 

I think one way to test the question is to compare two ways of getting 900 bhp so allowing lots of downforce as well as top speed. 

 

You can go the F1 route of highly prescribed turbo/battery/ brake by wire , cylinder and engine weight specified V6 engines which must last 5 or 6 races OR go to the US Sprint Car route of an engine limited to 8 cylinders , 410 CI and pushrods. Both give 900 bhp and both will last  6 races or more and  both are used to haul "draggy " downforce shapes thru the air. 

 

The difference is that the F1 is surrounded by vast regulation, but the Sprint cars have about 10 pages.

 

Now I will throw in my own two cents worth -the  FIA has got itself trapped by wanting big OEM's and the money they bring in  to F1. Since their budgets are almost unlimited, they could afford to try lots of innovations and throw most of it  away. So the FIA micromanage the rules to block that risk.  Then OEM's can ,as they do , grind away at tiny optimisation improvements, aero  as well  as engines to gains fractions, which also costs millions.

 

In summary regulation has moved from, safety, cost and close racing to doing whatever it takes to keep the OEM’s in F1. The influence of VAG on the 2026 engine rules supports that

argument.

[Nathan]

He who holds the gold makes the rules.  Its a competition for designing and building racing cars, how aren't company's that design and build cars natural bed fellows?  From 1950 the rules were fit for them.  The auto makers impart credibility and do a massive amount of promoting.  They attract big $'s from the fuel sponsors because of the B2B.  Who else is going to make engines for the sport?  If all F1 became was a league of independent chassis and engine makers then it isn't really searching for the best because their resources will always be limited.  The outside world doesn't open its wallet enough.  It becomes sprint car, something more accessible and fun to watch but not a global phenomenon viewed as the pinnacle.

 

If we look at the cost now to go racing globally, even if you took the complex PU part out of it, it was already a $100mln/yr affair back in the 90's. You literally need a small spacecraft factory and research facility.  So even if we went back to a 3 liter V12, who is funding all of this?  Are billionaires the better alternative?  Let Merc and RBR sell customer cars? There is no going back to your average ambitious Joe starting a Formula 1 team with a phone in hand.

 

It still goes back to my first post.  The issue is many people became fans at a unique and special point in the sports history, but it was just that.  A unique point in time that can't be paused, or imitated, or replicated today.  Unless you go to the grassroots level.

Edited by Nathan, 08 January 2023 - 16:06.

[mariner]

I agree that Sprint cars are unlikely  to become global but I do  think   F1 has regulated  up a dead end. because it has become obsessed with pleasing  the OEMs' - or loving their money.

 

F1 is increasingly popular due to Netflix etc. but you would have to seriously question whether the obscure elements of PU design set by the FIA set is of any interest to the new fans?

 

I am not eulogising  sprint cars but they don't use fossil; fuels, and they achieved non fossil HC fuel years ago, whereas the FIA is still writing  future rules about it - so to defend the FIA's rules as essential to going green doesn't really hold up.

 

None of this would matter to anybody but people like us except for the  fact that all OEM's will be nearing 100% EV new products by 20230 then alt eh current F1 technology will probably become of zero interest to the manufacturers.

Edited by mariner, 08 January 2023 - 17:14.

[Magoo]

Mariner, I completely agree that  "that if you leave a formula alone long enough it will optimise towards  a single solution unless a disrupting innovation occurs. Racing is littered with innovations that didn’t work so didn’t disrupt but logically if you leave a formula alone long enough one should arise."

 

Looking back, it seems that most of the cars that produced the wonderful  variety in racing were failures -- or at least not as competitive as the status quo. The only sure way to test an idea was to build it and try it, so we had all those wonderful freaks to gape and wonder at. Now the rules are so prescriptive that nothing terribly earth-shaking is permissible. 

 

I suspect that if, today, they came up with a clean sheet of regs, we still might not see much variation due to all the simulations and analytics available now. The single solution will be in view before they build the cars.