2013 engine changes approved, but postponement possible

Huh?
I believe it was 1000bhp in race trim and 1500bhp in Qualifying? 1000bhp sounds like alot :p but I it was alot more than 600bhp in race trim that's for sure.
The turbo engines of F1 were some of the most powerful powerplants ever used in circuit racing. But today teams are not allowed to freely develop their engines, so I am not keeping my hopes up. :|
 
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The extreme power output of the 80s turbos was only during qualifying, in actually race trim I've been lead to believe they only ran around 600hp or something.

Around 1984 maybe, in '86-'87 they ran pretty well beyond 700 in race trim as well. Probably bordering on 800-900 on overboost. In '88 they definitely ran below 700 due to the pop-off valves. It was all a matter of balancing power and fuel consumption with ever-reducing fuel allowances.
 
Huh?
I believe it was 1000bhp in race trim and 1500bhp in Qualifying? 1000bhp sounds like alot :p but I it was alot more than 600bhp in race trim that's for sure.
The turbo engines of F1 were some of the most powerful powerplants ever used in circuit racing. But today teams are not allowed to freely develop their engines, so I am not keeping my hopes up. :|

The maximum power for the FW11B (1987 honda engine) was 1000hp at 4 bar, but this is what they would have ran in qualifying and not in the race. What we have now is a fuel limited formula where the engineers appear to be pretty free in designing their engines.

Around 1984 maybe, in '86-'87 they ran pretty well beyond 700 in race trim as well. Probably bordering on 800-900 on overboost. In '88 they definitely ran below 700 due to the pop-off valves. It was all a matter of balancing power and fuel consumption with ever-reducing fuel allowances.

In 1985 there was a 220L limit, in 86-87 it was 195L and in 88 it was 150L. The power of these engines is related really to how much fuel they were allowed to have. We will have engines with somewhere around 650hp and use 110L of fuel, pretty remarkable if you ask me.
 
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The maximum power for the FW11B (1987 honda engine) was 1000hp at 4 bar, but this is what they would have ran in qualifying and not in the race. What we have now is a fuel limited formula where the engineers appear to be pretty free in designing their engines.

Engine development has been frozen since 2007 in order to reduce costs.
I fear the FIA will not lift this ban. Teams will not be permitted to achieve the maximum they can from their V6 engines.

For 2007 the engine specification was frozen to keep development costs down. The engines which were used in the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix were used for the 2007 and 2008 seasons and they were limited to 19,000 rpm. In 2009 the limit was reduced to 18,000 rpm with each driver allowed to use a maximum of 8 engines over the season. Any driver needing an additional engine is penalised 10 places on the starting grid for the first race the engine is used. This increases the importance of reliability, although the effect is only seen towards the end of the season. Certain design changes intended to improve engine reliability may be carried out with permission from the FIA. This has led to some engine manufacturers, notably Ferrari and Mercedes, exploiting this ability by making design changes which not only improve reliability, but also boost engine power output as a side effect. As the Mercedes engine was proven to be the strongest, re-equalisations of engines were allowed by the FIA to allow other manufacturers to match the power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_engines
That's how anally retarded the engine rules are today.
And I don't think it will change when the V6 engines come. Instead the FIA is focusing on adding "energy recovery systems" and other "technology wich can benefit road cars".
The benefit road cars get from F1 tech is marginal at best.
 
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How can the engines be frozen if they a) have to do develop a new engine and b) progressively re-design the engine to use less and less fuel in the forthcoming seasons?
 
That is for the FIA bureaucrats to figure out.

However I think the same will apply to the V6 engines. The development will be frozen early on and whenever the teams want to change something in their engine they will need the permission from the FIA along with the blessing from other teams. This will happen because the FIA is interested in keeping the costs down (and performance). Having small displacement turbo charged engines in F1 is not a bad thing by any means but I fear with the current concerns about costs (and keeping performance down) the teams won't get anywhere close to the maximum of the future powerplants.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
But I am sceptical.
 
How much of a shame is it then when you actually think about it F1 cars are losing ground to gp2 and indy cars at least in terms of power output. I hear indy cars produce about 650bhp but then again they are heavier and gp2 cars a bit less. No wonder drivers can come into F1 these days directly from GP2 and be competitive. Frankly I think its a shame that this gap between Formula 1 and other series is diminishing and this trend looks like to continue. Only until a few years a go we saw many young drivers having very short racing careers because they simply weren't good enough to cope with the pressures of F1 and I think you need that in order to ensure we have the best drivers out there.
 
Okay its simple, We agreed on a previous chat on this thread that F1 cars were much faster in 2004 prior to the introduction of V8 engines.
At the Barcelona Qualifying session that year the fastest time was 1:15.022 set by Michael Schumacher. In the first year of GP2 (2005) the time set for Barcelona qualifying was 1:25.486 set by Nico Rosberg. Thats a 10 second gap which of course as we know in motor racing is a life time. In 2010 the fastest F1 qualifying lap was 1:19.995 set by mark Webber thats almost 5 seconds slower or 6.2% slower to the 2004 time. In 2010 the GP2 qualifying time was 1:27.727 set by Jules Bianchi compared to the 2005 qualifying time that is 2.2 seconds slower or 2.5% slower.
So since 2004 F1 cars have got 6.2% slower where as GP2 cars only 2.5%. The difference between F1 in 2004 and GP2 in 2005 was roughly 10 seconds. The difference between Formula 1 and GP2 in 2010 was 7.7 seconds.
Its simple the trend is that F1 has slowed down so the difference in speed between F1 cars and GP2 cars is also considerably slower. I put it to you in another way, the fastest GP2 car in 2010 was only 0.6 seconds slower than the slowest Formula 1 car the HRT. Whick I can confirm was within the 107% rule in the 2010 Barcelona qualifying. In the same qualifying session the time set by Bianchi would only be 0.12% outside of the 107% rule.
Is that enough proof?
 
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Also I don't understand WHY Formula 1 needs to be "more enviromentaly friendly".

Yup, it's been accepted as some sort of un-questioned premise that nobody asked and nobody answered. All talk of it starts with weasel words along the lines of "It is clear that F1 needs to be more green". Is it? To who? Why?

Why on earth would racing cars have to be relevant to road cars? If I wanted to watch something relevant to road cars I could watch rally, touring cars, or even stand at the end of the street and watch actual road cars go by. There are so few F1 cars running so few times that the emissions output are negligible. There would be more emissions from a single mile long stretch of motorway in a rush hour afternoon than in an F1 race. Yet nobody seems to have had the balls to question that.

We're already on the slippery slope. Switching from V8s to V6s to be "green" is hardly going to satisfy the zealots. They'll just demand a switch to I4s in 5 years, then the next thing down. So why give in at all?
 
For a start lets use a track that hasn't changed. In 2010 the pole time for the f1 Hungarian gp was 1:18.773, in 2005 it was 1:19.882. The 2005 gp2 time was 1:32.457 and the 2010 was 1:27.864. The difference between gp2 in 2005 was 15.7%, in 2010 it was 11.5%. The difference is not much and the sample size of 2 has no meaning. Compile some real statistics and we'll talk.

There would be more emissions from a single mile long stretch of motorway in a rush hour afternoon than in an F1 race.

Where are the figures? For a flyaway race there atleast 12 cargo planes flying across the globe, the race itself, qualifying, practice, the crew transport etc etc.
 
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Okay its simple, We agreed on a previous chat on this thread that F1 cars were much faster in 2004 prior to the introduction of V8 engines.
At the Barcelona Qualifying session that year the fastest time was 1:15.022 set by Michael Schumacher. In the first year of GP2 (2005) the time set for Barcelona qualifying was 1:25.486 set by Nico Rosberg. Thats a 10 second gap which of course as we know in motor racing is a life time. In 2010 the fastest F1 qualifying lap was 1:19.995 set by mark Webber thats almost 5 seconds slower or 6.2% slower to the 2004 time. In 2010 the GP2 qualifying time was 1:27.727 set by Jules Bianchi compared to the 2005 qualifying time that is 2.2 seconds slower or 2.5% slower.
So since 2004 F1 cars have got 6.2% slower where as GP2 cars only 2.5%. The difference between F1 in 2004 and GP2 in 2005 was roughly 10 seconds. The difference between Formula 1 and GP2 in 2010 was 7.7 seconds.
Its simple the trend is that F1 has slowed down so the difference in speed between F1 cars and GP2 cars is also considerably slower. I put it to you in another way, the fastest GP2 car in 2010 was only 0.6 seconds slower than the slowest Formula 1 car the HRT. Whick I can confirm was within the 107% rule in the 2010 Barcelona qualifying. In the same qualifying session the time set by Bianchi would only be 0.12% outside of the 107% rule.
Is that enough proof?

The older Barcelona times were set with the different track layout (no chicane). You can compare the times.
 
I admit that I hadn't thought of that, so apologies. I am currently working on finding some date to try and prove my point.
 
I admit that I hadn't thought of that, so apologies. I am currently working on finding some date to try and prove my point.

You shouldn't do it that way, you should compile all the data so you can see the trend.
 
Geez I said I apologise, I didn't think people would be so critical as I thought it was obvious that the gap between F1 and GP2 has reduced over the years.
Nonethelss here is what I found

Turkey
2005
F1 qualifying time 1:26.797
GP2 qualifying time 1:38.416
2010
F1 qualifying time 1:26.295
GP2 qualifying time 1:34.860
F1 cars only improved by 0.5s in 5 years, GP2 cars saw a massive 3.8s improvement in the same peroid.
So the gap between F1 and GP2 was reduced 11.8% to 9%.

Monza
2005
F1 qualifying time 1:20.878
GP2 qualifying time 1:33.739
2010
F1 qualifying time 1:21.962
GP2 qualifying time 1:30.269
From 2005-2010 F1 cars around Monza were slower by 0.9s, GP2 cars were faster by 3.5s.
The percentage difference in 2005 was 13.7% in 2010 the difference was 9.2%. Again GP2 cars got closer to F1 cars.

Belgium
2005
F1 qualifying time 1:46.391
GP2 qualifying time 2:14.273
2010
F1 qualifying time 1:45.778
GP2 quialifying time 2:15.661
Obviously we can see that the difference here is minimal, GP2 cars have infact gone slower in 2010 however I have read reports of qualifying and it seems that it was interrrupted by rain.
Nonetheless the percentage here we can see that the F1 cars have increased their gap a little bit from 20.7% in 2005 to just over 22%. But as I said GP2 qualifying was affected by rain so maybe this can be considered as an outlier.

The only other track that can be compared is Hockenheim but I also looked into that and the GP2 qualifying had huge amounts of rainfall where as F1 did not as its qualifying was held a day later.

Now all in all taking Cold Fusions calculations on Hungary as well I think you will find there is actually a trend where the gap between F1 and lower formulae like GP2 has reduced. It seems to me that the pace of Formula 1 cars has probably stagnated since 2005. In fact if there were someway to measure F1 and GP2 from 2004 the reduction of the gap between the two would be a lot greater than that. You state that the difference is not much but the fact is that as I said in my earlier post in the 2010 Barcelona GP qualifying the fastest GP2 car was only 0.6s away from being able to qualify in F1. Surely that is telling.
 
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Formula 1 also has 20% of the power that it did in 2005, which is why it appears to be stagnate when in actuality they have still gotten faster and faster. If you took 20% of the power away from a GP2 car you wouldn't see times competitive to what they were 5 years ago. Perhaps with the new engine formula and technologies such as turbo compounding coming in the future, we will see cars with more power than they have today.
 
I agree with what you are saying completely on the causes of the lack of improvement and I hope that is the case with the new engines. Of course there have been huge areodynamic gains in this peroid that have made up for the loss of power. However going back to what I was trying to say, because the gap between F1 and GP2 is smaller (whatever the reason is) it makes it easier for new drivers to be competitive in F1 and to some extent I think the quality of new drivers has gone down as well.
For example lets take Lewis Hamiltion he was instantly placed into a winning team in Mclaren and was able to compete with a double World Champion and even beat him on several occasions. Compare this with new drivers coming in a few years ago such as Kimi Raikkonen, I believe no one here doubts his speed and raw talent? Now he made his debut against Nick Heidfeld in 2001 for Sauber, of course he impressed but he didn't beat Nick Heidfeld that year. Heidfeld finished in the points in every race except two that he completed and got a podium, where as Raikkonen was out of the points 6 times in the races that he completed and his best result was a 4th place. My point is this, a future World Champion and contender for many other championships struggled to beat his more experienced teammate. Now I hope I can make the assertion that Heidfeld is no way near as good as Alonso is without much backlash haha. This means that either Hamilton is so much better then all the other drivers, that when he came into Formula 1 he was able to compete with the very best instantly, although I doubt this is the case. The more likely scenario for me is that new drivers had it more difficult to adapt to Formula 1 in the past than they do now and as such poor quality drivers are rooted out of the system because the gap between F1 and the lower formulae was much bigger.

To be honest I think there needs to be a peroid in F1 with very stable regulations to gain back some of this advatage lost in the last few years and I am confident engineers would make up the time very quickly possibly in 2 seasons. The gap to other formulae is important for another reason which is related to the identity of Formula 1. We constantly refer Formula 1 as the pinnacle of motorsport, however how can it continue to be the pinnacle if Formula 1 wasn't visibly a lot faster and much harder than other racing series.
 
Two things about these new rules bug me:

1. Noise. I remember back in kindergarten I'd run around and imitate to high-pitched sounds of F1 cars going through the gears and downshifting into corners even if I didn't even know cars had gears or anything else for that matter. The noise was just something special that'd stay in my head. IMO The only good thing about the small turbocharged engines is the turbo noise and most of that is gone with the modern technology anyway.

2. This is a damn hypocritical move IMO. As someone already pointed out, shorter lasting tires have been encouraged just this season and not much is being done to control the indirect emissions of the F1 industry in general (logistics etc). I recall that the engine emissions are around 0.x% of the yearly emissions created by the F1 circus. Since engine emissions are the first thing the public thinks of this seems like a move to keep the crowds happy and to make it look like they're actually doing something. I wonder how much stress to the nature the development of the new engines is going to cause compared to the tiny "green-ness" we get from this rule change.
 
I don't doubt their performance but I do doubt their sounds i am sure they will be fast enough. But it sounds different and alot worse, in my opinion, than the engines F1 runs at the moment.
Even the current V8 engines are tame in comparison to the old V10 engines. Also I don't understand WHY Formula 1 needs to be "more enviromentaly friendly".
I did manage to find a F1 clip wich has good V10 engine sound:
[youtube]gT36kC2pwAc[/youtube]
Maybe it's just me but I miss the V10 era when teams were allowed to take their engines to the limit and beyond.
And they won't be allowed to do it with the new V6 turbo engines. Wich makes me sad in a way.
The new turbo engines won't get even close to the performance of the old 80's turbo engines.

Oh, that just sounds wonderful
 
Okay, so nobody knows why the FIA is so determined to go "green". The thing is why are they so concerned with saving money? Motorsports is where men and women as the best drivers in their respected regions go at with the best of the best in the region... This is why I miss Champ Car, I want to go back to Cleveland Airport and watch that race. Kind of ridiculous and this is the politics involved with the FIA. All I have to say is, please push for a team-owned and manged F1... Which I highly doubt... Teams being in charge of what they want and how it should be done.
 
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