Anyone else wish that they'd leave the dang engine rules alone for '06?

[mp356a]

Jeepers. What a season we're having in '05. And after all these years of waiting for a truly competitive grid, the engine formula will be switched and we're back to a crap-shoot with regards to which drivers are lucky enough to land a decent ride.
Oh well, I guess I'll just enjoy '05 and prepare for the next drought.
Mike

[Logrence]

I think it will be interesting to see how the teams react and cope with a new set of challenges and problems.

[Adam43]

I like major changes in the rules. Let us see how they can all cope. I must admit generally I prefer 3l V10s to 2.4l V8s generally.

[BootsOntheSide]

I'm looking forward to seeing how it adjusts the order, and how different the aerodynamics and overtaking potential will be as a result. A reduction in engine power has been eneded for a long time,a dn V8 engiens can sound fantastic.

[mp356a]

Yeah, I don't mind the change but I wish it's come later than sooner.
Right now we've got such a terrific mix of great engines, no lemons really and I like that very much.
Mike

[dsg]

As long as they keep the new regs for several seasons and don't fiddle if one team are a bit dominant in the first season. Stability should enable all the engine manufacturers to obtain some parity.

[Kicking-back]

The V8 2.4s are intended to be the engines for a good number of years.

We've had 3l V10s for 11 years now.

[BootsOntheSide]

With any luck this type of engines wiull prove enduring and be ran for a long time - the 3.5litre V8s which rpeceded the change in 1995 were in use for 30 years, and the turbos which ran alongside them for a decade.

[TomS]

Was the main reason to cut speeds or costs?

[Don K]

Originally Posted by mp356a

Jeepers. What a season we're having in '05. And after all these years of waiting for a truly competitive grid, the engine formula will be switched and we're back to a crap-shoot with regards to which drivers are lucky enough to land a decent ride.
Oh well, I guess I'll just enjoy '05 and prepare for the next drought.
Mike

Do you mean leave them alone as in "have engines last 4 races in 2006", like they promised in 2003?

Or do you mean leave them alone as in "change to V8 engines", like they promised in 2004?

Or do you mean leave them alone as in "suddenly decide to use the 2005 rules for engines in 2006", thereby punishing all teams who already started working on the new engines according to the 2006-rules that were published in 2004?

[Mr V]

I like the current engine rules, and hope they keep them as they are (not that they will).

My biggest objection to the V8 rule is that the FIA say it's to cut costs, b*****ks, it's going to cost more to develope, plus, i don't like the idea of slowing the cars down, but give it a season or 2, and the engineers will be back to current speeds.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I like the current engine rules, and hope they keep them as they are (not that they will).

My biggest objection to the V8 rule is that the FIA say it's to cut costs, b*****ks, it's going to cost more to develope, plus, i don't like the idea of slowing the cars down, but give it a season or 2, and the engineers will be back to current speeds.

Isn't that the truth, what a load codswallop this cutting costs scenario is.

[GP Racer]

The changes do seem rather meaningless. As has been said, the engineers will have these V-8 engines back up to current speeds quickly enough. They made these changes in the IRL last year, and the car's are already back to their old speeds.

It maybe nice to hear a different engine note though...

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Personally I wish Bernie, Tony George and the FIA would sit down and hammer out an engine rule that could be almost universal (I know it's been tried before). If they want to cut costs simply find a way for more people to buy the engines.

We'll soon have 4-5 GP life engines which in theory should be cheap compared to what teams have now. In an ideal world we'd have Ferrari, BMW and Mercedes blocks in the back of an IRL spec chassis aswell as in the back of their own custom F1 chassis.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with the FIA changing the engine regulations providing they have a legitmate reason for doing so, something I don't believe they've achieved yet. Cutting costs has been proven to be false with people like BMW trying to develop three engines simultaneously at one point and it will never slow the cars down when the aerodynamics still allow them to take corners at incredible speed and brake super late.

[Knowlesy]

I'm not looking forward to the V8's for a number of reasons.

The main thing for me, as obscure as this point is, is the sound. Anyone who has attended an F3000 race will know that the sound drives you to contemplating suicide.

Having said that, the old Ford V8's sound alright. But it will be a shame to lose those shrieking V10's much as it has been a great loss to lose V12's.

The cost of a V8 will be enormous. Revs are what everyone tries to find and revs are costly. Even more costly when the engines are of a smaller capacity and a lower cylinder count.

[ralf fan]

I think they need to keep mixing the rules because with technology so advanced the teams basically can master a set of rules in a year or two....
changing engine regs is a big change and like this year with the tyres it will be fascinating to see how the teams adjust...

[Raglanparade]

Just let the teams use the one engine block for the season !

Any team that is forced to change the engine block is docked 10 championship points.

[GP Racer]

Originally Posted by Silk Cut Jaguar

Personally I wish Bernie, Tony George and the FIA would sit down and hammer out an engine rule that could be almost universal (I know it's been tried before). If they want to cut costs simply find a way for more people to buy the engines.

We'll soon have 4-5 GP life engines which in theory should be cheap compared to what teams have now. In an ideal world we'd have Ferrari, BMW and Mercedes blocks in the back of an IRL spec chassis aswell as in the back of their own custom F1 chassis.

I'd have to agree with that.

It's the escalating cost of all open wheel racing that is stunting its growth, and engines are the biggest and most expensive component in that. New teams joining the open wheel ranks are hard to find, whether your talking F1, IRL, or CC. This would be a good way to bring down the costs across the board, and give us the variety that is now lacking, at least in American open wheel.

God, a Ferrari in the Indy 500, wouldn't that be something!

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by BootsOntheSide

With any luck this type of engines wiull prove enduring and be ran for a long time - the 3.5litre V8s which rpeceded the change in 1995 were in use for 30 years, and the turbos which ran alongside them for a decade.

I've come a bit late to this thread and I'm only joining now to clarify, with Boots approval I hope, that for most of that 30 years those V8s were 3 litre cars, and, of course, that during that 3 litre formula, there were engines of other configurations as well.

Personally, although the current 3 litre formula is great, a change is probably due. The 2.4 litre V8s will hopefully sound superb and woth the pace of technology development, they'll probably not be slowerb than the current cars for long. Mind you, I've never been happy with the fact that F1 engines have to all have the same cylinder configuration.

[Logrence]

Originally Posted by Silk Cut Jaguar

Personally I wish Bernie, Tony George and the FIA would sit down and hammer out an engine rule that could be almost universal (I know it's been tried before). If they want to cut costs simply find a way for more people to buy the engines.

That would work, the engines have completely different requirements in all the different race categories.

[LampCord]

Its just mind blowing to me that no matter what they do to slow down these cars they just get faster and faster!

Take away slicks, limit downforce, smaller engine, add chicanes, it just doesn't seem to matter, lap times keep coming down.

And I predict, it will only be a couple years before we see the same or better lap times from the 2.4 liter V-8's.

They are already speculating about 22,000 rpm!

If you do the math (I know this isn't exact but its close):

(22,000 rpm * 2.4 liters) / (19,000 rpm * 3.0 liters) = .926

This means the new engines should be capable of about 92.6% of the old engine hp.

So we're dropping from 900 hp to about 833 hp.

Plus the engines will weigh less so it will mean either the car will get lighter or more robust parts will be used elsewhere to take up the extra weight.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out IMHO.

[Logrence]

Cosworth are already claiming 900bhp

[JAG]

While we are talking about rule changes I think we need to remember that the really big changes are yet to come.

The engine is only the first step, in the next few years (IIRC 2008) we will see dramatic changes to the chassis with a massive drop in downforce and a likely returen to slicks and/or wider tyres.

The recent chassis changes have just been slight, even meanigless tweaks.