Quote:
Originally Posted by wnut
P.S. Richard, the manus were the ones crowing about the road relevance of their hybrid power plants in F1.
Seems like great expense for little economy, wonder how a 250 kg weight saving with a 1.6 litre turbo only, would compare to the current cars in racing terms? No contest!
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I agree with what you are saying, but I don't think it is that simple. For road cars, manufactures are using various methods to make "efficient" cars. I don't want to be drawn into the math around if it makes financial sense as that is a can of worm and (IMHO) off topic for this thread. Anyhow, the primary methods used today include direct injection, diesel, small turbos, hybrid and electric.
If your marketing team (notice this is not about engineering) wanted to tout your road relevancy, you look at that list and think...
DI... not sexy enough by itself, but do it anyhow as it helps efficiency and/or power.
Diesel... nobody really wants diesel F1, so that was a non starter.
Turbo... not sexy enough on it's own, been there done that, but still add it to the mix and match to a low displacement engine to cap power.
Hybrid... really the only thing that is new to F1 and maps to what they are doing in road cars, so make it part of the formula. In fact, make it the centerpiece.
Electric... Like diesel, nobody wants a 100% electric F1, so add it into the mix on the hybrid side.
My point is that they are really looking at this from a marketing perspective and then handing it over to the engineers to build. Not the reverse. Marketing and engineering might have different answers to that road relevancy question. And I don't doubt that the engineers didn't relish the challenge even if ultimately the Mercedes solution crushed them all.
Richard