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Old 21 May 2014, 15:23 (Ref:3408719)   #1
Mike Harte
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2014 Power Units

An interesting list has been compiled by Pitpass ( http://www.pitpass.com/51620/Monaco-...-Unit-elements ) and an even more interesting interview with Rob White of Renault ( http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/114033 ) on the Autosport website, both of which throw a spotlight on the F1 power sources for this year.

I must admit that I do find myself in a bit of a quandary here, because I do approve of F1 costs being controlled, but at the same time I am turned off from the "pinnacle" of motor-sport because I abhor the use of artificial regulations/rules that seem, to me certainly, to have been introduced to either spice up the racing or control the costs.

We now have the prospect of probably Kobayashi and Vettel being penalised because they are likely to exceed the 5 elements that are allowed per season, with Kobayashi being on his 4th Control Electronics and Vettel on his 3rd, and we are only 20% through the season.

But then you read what White has said, and then you realise that maybe the picture is not so clear-cut as the statistics seem to suggest. He hopes/believes that they may be able to salvage some of the used components and recycle them so that they can still claim that they are only using 5 of each element for the year's racing.

My view is if that is going to be allowed, then surely they should allow power-units to be rebuilt, providing that it is done to exactly the same specification as before it was stripped. After all, and I know that this was 50 years ago and things have moved on considerably since then, I used to renew the head-gasket on my race engine after every meeting, and completely strip it down after every other race, replacing all the bearings and piston rings, valve springs and all gaskets, plus re-bed/grind the valves into their seats. So, as far as I was concerned, I finished the year with exactly the same engine that I had started out with.

My question is, therefore, why can't they allow the same in F1? My thinking is that this could mean that they could cut the number of power-units down to, say, 3 per car (if the teams were really canny, that could possibly be reduced to possibly 5 units per two car team). This could be achieved by each team having one complete unit in the chassis for each car, and one spare unit in case it needed replacement, whilst the 3rd unit was being re-fettled back at the supplier.

Ah, but how would they police it, I hear you cry? Dead easy, I respond! Each time the unit is re-furbished, it will be chucked on a dynamometer and it will have to be certified that the power output is exactly the same as when it was first supplied, with allowances made for updates that have been sanctioned by them whats in charge.

Discuss at your leisure!
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Old 21 May 2014, 19:20 (Ref:3408778)   #2
miatanut
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All these rules are very artificial and address symptoms without actually addressing the disease.

Just tell them the max they can spend (that a majority of the field can raise) and let them decide how they want to use it. If they want to rebuild after every race, they can. If they want to bring three different front wing designs (and spares) to every race, they can. They just have to save some money in other areas relative to what the other teams are doing.

I suppose it's not just F1 over-specifying things. ASCE 7-88 Minimum Design Loads for Buildings was about one quarter inch thick. ASCE 7-10 is one and a quarter inches thick. Five times the thickness! The laws of physics have not changed in 22 years. The code is just over-specifying how to apply them.

It's a rampant disease!
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