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Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

arstechnica.com

171–180 of 403 posts

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#171
post #75

Auto racing will just never be the same. I don’t even think EV racing will evolve the sport. The golden days of auto racing involved real innovation like creating super chargers, turbos, certain efficiencies, and improvements in potting, etc. There was a time when we just didn’t know what could be done to build an engine that could run near the edge without blowing. I don’t think EV will ever have its equivalent. Jus…

There is also another downside. With an EV you never get to “bond” with the machine. You don’t get the sound feedback from the engine, you don’t get to “feel” its struggle to produce work. Same goes for the spectators. 90% of the incentive to watch live a car racing event is to get to hear the roaring sounds. Not sure what can be done in the EV world to approach that.

I saw the Ferrari V12's at the end of straight in Adelaide ('94 I think). I have not heard anything else like it.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really understand this. Who is licensing rules for car races?

The FIA, seeing as they are the main sanctioning body for Motorsport worldwide outside of America-centric series like NASCAR and Indycar.

What are the implications of that exactly?

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#173
post #159
post #84

Think about this scenario for a minute: You are top designer at an F1 team. You've got an idea that will (maybe) make the car go faster. Say it is a different profile rear wing. So you get the lads to build one up (you have your own carbon fibre maufacturing facility on site) and you mount it on the current car and then arrange for the team to rent (say) Brands Hatch for the day, run the new wing, compare sector time…

I am a casual motorsports fan. F1 and Nascar have become boring with cookie-cutter cars. Would love to see a new racing series that allowed real innovation again. Just impose a team budget cap and some basic rules for track safety (no active aerodynamics, fuel load limits, etc). Otherwise do whatever you like whether it's a 16 cylinder engine or all-wheel drive or a giant wing or something totally nuts.

Mercedes this year has a steering wheel that moves vertically to change the angle of the front wheels.

RedBull, Ferrari and Mercedes have different philosophies in their aero, car length, front wing etc.

The cars are far from cookie cutter, and 2022 regs already show different ways people could design the car. That's before we see how the teams do it. It's exciting times ahead for F1 in the shirt term. The 2026 engine reg is what matters.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#174
post #84

Think about this scenario for a minute: You are top designer at an F1 team. You've got an idea that will (maybe) make the car go faster. Say it is a different profile rear wing. So you get the lads to build one up (you have your own carbon fibre maufacturing facility on site) and you mount it on the current car and then arrange for the team to rent (say) Brands Hatch for the day, run the new wing, compare sector time…

"but it has the opposite effect." - so you think the reduction of engine/power units usage from 2 to 3 per race to 3 per season had an opposite cost effect? Or limitation of tire sets that could be used over a race weekend had an opposite cost effect?

Or do you want to remove the regulations and have only 4 or 6 cars (Mercedes, Ferrari and possible McLaren) racing for 21 races instead of 20 to 22 cars for the same amount of races every season?

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#175
post #96
post #84

Think about this scenario for a minute: You are top designer at an F1 team. You've got an idea that will (maybe) make the car go faster. Say it is a different profile rear wing. So you get the lads to build one up (you have your own carbon fibre maufacturing facility on site) and you mount it on the current car and then arrange for the team to rent (say) Brands Hatch for the day, run the new wing, compare sector time…

This is all in the name of reducing expenses of course, but it has the opposite effect. I always thought it was more like, Ferrari will always spend gobs of money and a small player can only spend a tenth as much- the amount of money spent will not change- but how can we narrow the gap between the high budget & low budget teams, such that a really awesome low budget team has a chance of catching a high budget team na…

Budget cap kicks in next year heading into new regs for 2022.

Ferrari and Merc spend $500m approx. Budget cap is $175m with exceptions like driver salary, top leaders salary, PU.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#176
I hope F1 removes the driver completely and changes the rules that it is allowed to fire of rocket launchers, drop land mines and all the other ridiculous military toys Oil money can buy and put it to use. I would like to watch a full on war battle between teams every weekend.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#177
post #160
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all in the name of reducing expenses of course, but it has the opposite effect. I always thought it was more like, Ferrari will always spend gobs of money and a small player can only spend a tenth as much- the amount of money spent will not change- but how can we narrow the gap between the high budget & low budget teams, such that a really awesome low budget team has a chance of catching a high budget team na…

Ferrari is currently #6 out of 10 teams so whatever they're spending it's not working. https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/team.html

For those who are not following - Ferrari "cheated" last year with their engine and have a secret "agreement" with FIA to cut out thr cheat which also meant apparently rebuilding a lot of the PU. They should be back on pace in 2022.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#178
post #167
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla killing F1 is a conclusion too far. The success of electric vehicles makes the calculus less good, but it's just another term in the equation for a company doing business in F1. Honda are still in other ICE motorsports. I think it's worth pointing out that Honda staying this long was a surprise in itself because, to be blunt, they were absolutely awful in their first years and no better than their rivals now. A…

I've been watching F1 since the 70's and I still love every minute of it today. Honda pulling out is completely understandable, and I think F1 should sit up and listen. The dynamic simply won't work with three engine manufacturer teams and the rest being customer teams - especially when Red Bull is a customer team. It might be radical, but I'd prefer to see F1 return to a simpler naturally aspirated V10 ICE only powe…

No niche manufacturer will be able to make a competitive V10 PU.

If F1 is serious about reducing costs, they have to at least standardize PU, like they did to ECU.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is all in the name of reducing expenses of course, but it has the opposite effect. You might not like it, but it certainly does reduce expenses.

Then why the new proposed budget caps? Seems like all these restricted technology rules would have taken care of this.

Because they want to reduce them more.

Re: Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

#180
post #74
post #16

F1 isn't what it used to be last century. Races were nail biting epic contests, cars visibly improved every season, drivers were international celebrities dicing with real life ending risk, and passionate fans filled the stadiums. Modern races are just a procession of the same few people each weekend in global rich social events.

Literally everything you've said is still true. Formula 1 stopped being like that in the 70s at the latest. Mercedes are too dominant, but there is nearly always a dominant team in the history of F1. The MP4/4's records were set in the 80s for god’s sake. A Minardi won a race this year (They're called Alpha Tauri now) Don't look back with rose tinted spectacles.

It was still quite watchable in the '90s, but at some point overtaking got really difficult, and then it got a bit boring.

Its still a great way to spend a couple of hours on a lazy Saturday afternoon though. In the UK at least, TV coverage of F1 benefitted from having possibly the best theme tune (the outro from The Chain by Fleetwood Mac), and one of the all-time greatest commentators (Murray Walker). Paired with the colour, travel, celebrity and danger of the sport, it made a really compelling TV package.

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