[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Different markets for sure see different trends, but with some manus recently scaling back EV production due to their high costs and lack of demand, are manus still looking at the same market realities as they were 5 years ago?

It depends upon what "EV" means in those proclamations from car manufactures. I talk to this at the very end of this post. But regardless of what exactly they mean, it is all about some form of electrification and a path from today to some future state. And that path will have some level of hybrid technology. So the new F1 power unit spec can cover flexible talking points that work for most all situations short of ONLY selling battery EV vehicles (which is unlikely within the lifespan of that future power unit spec)

Here is an old article (2021), but I picked this for it's age as it speaks more to what they were saying when they picked this new path...

https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1...onent/6626214/

Quotes from Toto Wolfe...

“The discussion was ‘what are we doing in the future in terms of engine’, because we want to save costs, so we don't want to reinvent the wheel,” he said.

“But we also want to have an engine that is relevant from 2025 to 2030, and we can't be old petrol heads with screaming engines when everybody expects us to be going electric.

“So these engines are still going to be fuelled. We are staying with the current V6 format, but the electric component is going to massively increase.”

F1's current power units feature both an MGU-K and an MGU-H, but there have suggestions the sport may abandon the MGU-H because of its cost and complexity. That would then open the door for a more powerful kinetic component to be used.

One of the core components of the new hybrid generation of engines will be running on sustainable fuels, which car manufacturers believe will be hugely important with cars continuing to use combustion engines for many years to come.

Wolff added: “Why we are staying with the internal combustion engine is that we believe that the fuel is going to be with us for a long time.

“In Europe we may have the ambitious targets of having electrical mobility as part of our daily life by 2030, and I can see at Mercedes how ambitious the targets are, but in the rest of the world, we will have millions of vehicles that would still run on fuel.

“For Mercedes cars itself, we believe that we will have several million vehicles in the world that will still run on fuels. So what we can contribute with our innovation is to help them to develop sustainable fuels: be it biofuels or be it synthetic fuels.

As you can see from above, it fits many marketing narratives. Sustainable fuels, and flexibility on to topic of level of electrification. We are in this period of transition from ICE, to HEV (hybrid electric vehicle), PHEV (plug in HEV) and BEV (Battery EV). We have all four now and will likely continue to have all four a decade from now, but the balance will be shifting to the right. New ICE only vehicle may exist only as niche or specialty vehicles at that time.

But back to the manufacture claims. They mostly are talking about commitment to "EV". So for many that is some balance of HEV, PHEV and BEV with the aggressive and or aspirational goals being only PHEV and BEV at the end of their stated timelines (Circa 2030-2035). I found this interesting article that summarizes the current stances of various manufactures. I think the F1 power unit strategy fits well within most of those from a marketing perspective. Even if they slow the pace of the transition (i.e. slower than expected demands, electric fueling infrastructure issues, etc.), that transition will still happen and again the F1 marketing perspective still works.

https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/automaker-ev-plans/

Richard

[Taxi645]

Some more doubts about the 50-50 split where we touched on earlier from the Red Bull camp:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/r...lems/10563550/

"The problem is that the design time and the development time of an engine are longer than the chassis," explained Wache. "So, to change the concept of the ICE, the battery and the electrical power starts to be very difficult for them by now.
"But the thing is that they didn't think through the full concept [of these new regulations] at the same time. First they defined the engine regulations and now we have to cope with that on the chassis side to compensate for the issue we have."

So there are three different lines of communication:

Red Bull:
The 505-50 split is wrong and not thought through well and we shouldn't have to fix that through the chassis side.

FIA:
No, all is well. This (amount of) drag reduction was planned from the start and not a patch for the power unit regulations.

Larger manufacturers like Alpine (Renault) and Mercedes:
We are not accepting any change on the engine regulations side (sounds a bit like how we ended up with the hybrid 1.6L V6's).

Will be interesting to see how this pans out. No change to the 50-50 split seems likely, but you never know.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Will be interesting to see how this pans out. No change to the 50-50 split seems likely, but you never know.

The cynical view (and I posted this comment elsewhere) is that RBPT is concerned that their solution may lag behind the other power unit manufactures. So they are just arguing for ways to minimize their weakness.

If you ignore that it is RB that is saying this. They do have a point. The power unit regulations were set prior to the chassis regulations. The power unit has pros and cons. And the cons are that their performance is lesser than the current solution. And that there are conflicting goals for the new chassis spec. They want to make it simple and lighter, but at the same time they are looking at something like active aero to help save the day. Which will bring it's own weight penalty.

My predictions.

1. Zero changes to the power unit specs. This is settled. Investments have been made. Work is in progress. This is why Audi joined.
2. 2026 cars will have the rumored changes to shrink the cars physically (smaller diameter and width tires and wheels, smaller other dimensions)
3. 2026 cars will have both front and rear active aero. DRS is already rear active, so we will get something similar for the front.
4. There will be some minimal weight reduction, but borderline token amount.

and the big one...

5. There will be some issue with the solution that will not provide what the fans want. I think there are unrealistic expectations from the fans that things like the weight and size reductions are going to have significant impacts on the quality of racing and that we will see "Good Racing ®" because of all of this. I am extremely skeptical. I also wonder if "some" of the recent FIA exodus of technical people (including some around the 2026 technical regulations) are leaving as they also are not happy with how this is going and that this might be a train-wreck in the making.

Richard

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Richard C

...this might be a train-wreck in the making.

Richard

I can't see how they could be any slower or less impressive than the ponderous cars in 2014, so we will see!

[Tourer]

Sprint race weekends to be re-scheduled in 2024. Sounds like a good plan to me. Get the sprint qual and race done, open up Parc Ferme after the sprint race, then qual and the Grand Prix under parc ferme conditions.

Also, an increase in the season-long engine allowance.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Sprint race weekends to be re-scheduled in 2024. Sounds like a good plan to me. Get the sprint qual and race done, open up Parc Ferme after the sprint race, then qual and the Grand Prix under parc ferme conditions.

Also, an increase in the season-long engine allowance.

how much time between the sprint race and the race quali?

or rather, if your car gets busted up in the sprint, will the team have enough time to get the car ready in time for race quali?

feel like this might be a controversy in the works?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

how much time between the sprint race and the race quali?

or rather, if your car gets busted up in the sprint, will the team have enough time to get the car ready in time for race quali?

feel like this might be a controversy in the works?

Suspect that they'd viewed the possibility as the lesser of two (or multiple) potential evils. The revised schedule has come from the F1 Commission, which includes the teams.

Remains to be seen on the time gap though - may well be that they've stretched it out somewhat.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Suspect that they'd viewed the possibility as the lesser of two (or multiple) potential evils. The revised schedule has come from the F1 Commission, which includes the teams.

indeed, sounds like the inability to adjust setups/stuck in parc ferme after FP1 being the greatest of the evils...makes sense as there were some silly moments last year due to inability to set up the cars correctly.

as to the time between the the sprint and race quali...autosport suggesting some rule changes/relaxing of the rules about having a spare chassis set up.

To that end, talks are ongoing about allowing teams to have their spare chassis built up and ready to a greater extent than was previously allowed under the rules, thus giving them a chance to fully prepare it for qualifying in the short time available.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/th...rmat/10572895/

thats cool. always liked the T-cars/seeing drivers sprint back to the garages to jump into another car. costly and time consuming for the crews of course but still i felt it always added something.

[Richard C]

Stoking the flames of how big the cars are today vs. recent past. Red Bull has a video (link below) of the RB1 next to RB20. Even knowing the cars have grown, the size difference is shocking. Image from Reddit and I don't think it has been altered, but could be wrong.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCaDOdHFWY4

Richard

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Stoking the flames of how big the cars are today vs. recent past. Red Bull has a video (link below) of the RB1 next to RB20. Even knowing the cars have grown, the size difference is shocking. Image from Reddit and I don't think it has been altered, but could be wrong.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCaDOdHFWY4

Richard

Wow - that difference in size really is telling isn't it? The current cars, whilst impressive in some respects, are simply WAY too large and WAY too heavy (similar wight to Group C cars).

[bjohnsonsmith]

The front tyres on the RB20 look bigger than the rear tyres of the RB1.

[chillibowl]

for sure there are a lot of valid reasons for why the cars have grown in size so much (hybrid engines, safety, aero understanding etc), but it still looks silly to see these cars side by side!

its actually very unsettling for some reason. dont think 10 year old me is putting up a poster of a modern day F1 car up on my wall!

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

its actually very unsettling for some reason. dont think 10 year old me is putting up a poster of a modern day F1 car up on my wall!

Why not, chilli? A ten year old wouldn't know any different or better to how a ten year old knew/felt 10 years ago.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Why not, chilli? A ten year old wouldn't know any different or better to how a ten year old knew/felt 10 years ago.

lol maybe...but there is a reason why little me chose a poster of the bandit and his trans-am over snowman's semi. old me for sure takes the semi cause its full of beer but young me is taking the coolest looking car everytime!

[broadrun96]

Yeah but Snowman's semi might have been as fast as that smogged out TA and cooler painting

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Yeah but Snowman's semi might have been as fast as that smogged out TA and cooler painting

true!

[Richard C]

I sure hope others get the Snowman reference!

Back to size comparisons. You can find other examples online


I think left to right that is 1967 312, 2000 F1-2000, 2018 FF71H

Richard

[S griffin]

Yes they really have turned into monsters!

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Yes they really have turned into monsters!

Now translate that into running around Monaco.....

Is the problem that the circuit is no longer fit for purpose, or that the cars (regulations) have morphed into something more grotesque?

[chillibowl]

From a certain point of view, even those smaller cars had already outgrown places like Monaco?

Being honest, hard to imagine many more than 20 of these monsters on any track all at the same time…while 22 feels doable, getting much more above that amount would be a problem no? More contact, more bits, more SCs etc?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Now translate that into running around Monaco.....

Is the problem that the circuit is no longer fit for purpose, or that the cars (regulations) have morphed into something more grotesque?

It is definitely the latter, and also shows how we can't use the past as the only measure when talking about things such as track density (26 car fields vs. current 20 car fields). The size of the current cars does have some impact on this question (but might only be relevant at Monaco and a few other circuits - not at all circuits).

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Tourer

It is definitely the latter, and also shows how we can't use the past as the only measure when talking about things such as track density (26 car fields vs. current 20 car fields). The size of the current cars does have some impact on this question (but might only be relevant at Monaco and a few other circuits - not at all circuits).

I don't think the size of the cars is actually an issue regarding the size of the cars because there are minimal distances for circuits and it is notable that Mexico under its Tilke revision is shorter than earlier renditions. Some other circuits also vary slightly under their revised status.

But the issues regarding the current cars through the tighter corners at places like Monaco, and Azerbaijan where there are a lot of 90 degree corners, must have a significant effect on the closeness/quality of the racing.

It also explains a lot of things the rule makers are trying to do with the new regulations and why cornering speed is a major consideration.
Giving a longer profile (wheelbase) and allowing greater use of underbody aero was talked up as part of the following cars rationale, but shorter cars with less downforce sensitivity and slower cornering speed would also allow more compressed following distances and closer action on corners.

If F1 is more show than substance compared with earlier generations of car rules then the current car rules are largely responsible for that effect.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Richard C

I think left to right that is 1967 312, 2000 F1-2000, 2018 FF71H

Comparing year-by-year, the actual changes year-on-year are minimal as you would expect.

[Mike Harte]

V8, yes, those pictures show minimal increases year on year. However, have the individual pictures been sized so that they all fit on the same "sheet"?

I fear that they may have been doctored.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

V8, yes, those pictures show minimal increases year on year. However, have the individual pictures been sized so that they all fit on the same "sheet"?

I fear that they may have been doctored.

Yep - it's REALLY obvious that exactly that has happened. Scaled engineering drawings they most certainly aren't.

However, even if the size increases have been minimal year on year, the increases have accelerated in the hybrid era and of course there's the old story of dropping a frog into a saucepan of cold water and then slowly bringing it to the boil, compared to dropping the frog into an already boiling saucepan.

None of which changes the fact that the current cars are big, heavy units compared to their predecessors.