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Honda quits F1, invests in carbon-free tech instead

arstechnica.com

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

#311

Post by oarsinsync »

hvidgaard wrote: post #198
btian wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Engines is the least of concerns. Mercedes win, not because they also produce the engine, but because they pour nearly half a billion euros into the car, with engines being a vanishingly small amount of that. They have a car with superior aerodynamics and mechanical grip. Making the engine standardized will not change that.

> Mercedes win, not because they also produce the engine, but because they pour nearly half a billion euros into the car

It takes more than just throwing money at the problem to win. Otherwise, Red Bull (paying for two teams in full) and Ferrari would be doing a lot better right now.

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

#312

Post by hvidgaard »

Qwertious wrote: post #305
hvidgaard wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teams use less than $50 million on engines yearly. The remainder of the budget is spend on the cars chassis, aero, suspension ect. That cost would not go away with a switch to an electric power train.

Q: Are chassis/aero/suspension innovations relevant to ICE cars? If so, would they still be relevant to EVs given that EVs have different constraints (e.g. EVs have a different weight distribution to ICE cars, as batteries are heavy and non-moving, whereas (SPECULATION) fuel tanks have fuel sloshing around inside like a bathtub)? Formula 1 chasses are way different to standard car chasses so presumably yes, but it re…

Disclaimer: The following is my own speculation, and not to be taken as hard facts! I don't think it's the technology in the cars that are relevant, as much as the tooling around developing the car is. For instance advances in CFD simulations will help in developing cars, ICE and EV. In any case, road relevance is an odd reason to do racing, as rarely do anything directly trickle down to the road car division.

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

#313

Post by smcl »

bosie wrote: post #304
rogy wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Tennis isn't dictated on who has the most billions to invest in new technologies, its pretty limited to the amount of money you can spend on coaching.

kind of. coaching is probably peanuts compared to the rest. physios (and all other folks) that fly with you. first class and private flights (hilarious that the top players are flown on the tournament dime to the tournaments), perfect nutrition (potentially with personal chefs), nutritionists, drugs or drug therapies, surgeries, preventative medicine etc. staying in a topnotch hotel for two or three weeks prior to a…

Cool, now take ALL of those things you listed and now include the fact that in F1 they have to develop and build an entire car as well

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

#314

Post by jabl »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #279
TylerE wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit more than that, but LS motors are light for their power. Full street dress is about 210kg. I’m sure you could shed quite a bit of that right a way (you don’t need things like power steering or an alternator.)

My initial response to that was to snear at the idea of F1 engines with push rods. But in all honesty, you have to hand it to the old American V8, it is at a hell of a local maxima.

Limiting max rpm might also be one way to reduce F1 engine expense. A naturally aspirated engine with, say, a 10k max rpm limit.

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

#315

Post by user5994461 »

bosie wrote: post #292
michaelt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F1 teams have severely unbalanced finances. There's a small number of teams that keep winning and have most of the fans. Having the fastest car this year gives you a leg up next year, having the fastest car attracts the fastest drivers, and having the most fans gives you negotiating leverage over the governing body. For example, Ferrari have so many fans and so much negotiating leverage they get given $100 million ev…

Isn't F1's unbalanced finances nothing compared to other sports though? i.e. tennis. federer has completely different opportunities compared to a top 75 player. did it kill the tennis sport and/or is it killing the sport? you could argue that way given that it is always the same folks winning the big tournaments

Any tennis player could get the best racket and shoes from any sponsor, or buy it themselves.

The costs to have a F1 is incomparable. Any single part alone is astronomical and many have to be changed between races. Having a car at all for training is a miracle!

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

#316

Post by bosie »

smcl wrote: post #313
bosie wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kind of. coaching is probably peanuts compared to the rest. physios (and all other folks) that fly with you. first class and private flights (hilarious that the top players are flown on the tournament dime to the tournaments), perfect nutrition (potentially with personal chefs), nutritionists, drugs or drug therapies, surgeries, preventative medicine etc. staying in a topnotch hotel for two or three weeks prior to a…

Cool, now take ALL of those things you listed and now include the fact that in F1 they have to develop and build an entire car as well

i was talking about the ratios though. the unfair advantage for the top guys in a winner-takes-all system is just that. top guys/teams always snowball themselves into the next big thing easier than lower rated guys.

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

#317

Post by gregoriol »

bosie wrote: post #292
michaelt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F1 teams have severely unbalanced finances. There's a small number of teams that keep winning and have most of the fans. Having the fastest car this year gives you a leg up next year, having the fastest car attracts the fastest drivers, and having the most fans gives you negotiating leverage over the governing body. For example, Ferrari have so many fans and so much negotiating leverage they get given $100 million ev…

Isn't F1's unbalanced finances nothing compared to other sports though? i.e. tennis. federer has completely different opportunities compared to a top 75 player. did it kill the tennis sport and/or is it killing the sport? you could argue that way given that it is always the same folks winning the big tournaments

Many sports have regulations to prevent huge money from stealing the sport from the humans competing: thinking of swimsuit regulations in swimming, budget for football teams, ...

Sport should be more about individual qualities of the sports-man/woman than about money buying them some more advanced technology.

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

#318

Post by rdxm »

Honda has committed big time to the Indy series where they are one of two providers of crate motors.

It all comes down to this: the F1 racing "product" sucks. Indy racing is night and day more entertaining. That's also why Liberty Media (who owns F1) just invested big time in an Indy team.

I do not think it's more complicated than that.

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

#319

Post by _where »

DC-3 wrote: post #188
W-Stool wrote: 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 unrelated to the OP because Honda exclusively supply engines and do not have a works Grand Prix team. When the sport was awash with tobacco money about 15 years ago, the big teams all had an entire testing team, completely divorced from their race team, which would spend most days of the year simply hammering around the racetracks of Europe, at astronomical expense. Such things are illegal now because if they…

> When the sport was awash with tobacco money about 15 years ago, the big teams all had an entire testing team

So, we just need companies with a lot of money that are interested in technical advances and advertising and don’t care about RoI like banks might? What about Google, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, ... any takers?

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

#320

Post by davewritescode »

gonzo41 wrote: post #101
mhh__ wrote: 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…

Shouldn't F1 cars be about finding the peak of a X engineering problem. For electiric's it's not as much about speed but battery. Maybe having hyper-miler distance races that aren't speed oriented is the sort of pivot F1 should be doing? I know it's not sexy like a fast car moving nimbly among the pack but if car companies can get their tech focused on getting the most distance from a battery then there's the cross o…

I watch Formula 1 and Formula E and in some ways Formula E is better racing. It's more accessible, the cars are all a lot closer in performance and nobody seems to run away with the points.

The problem? The lack of straight line speed means you have to build smaller tracks and a lot of the drama of Formula 1 is missing. You don't feel like you're watching the fastest cars in the world and it feels like a major compromise. If you put those cars on a track built for current Formula 1 cars it's going to be a complete snooze-fest.

What makes racing so attractive to fans is the perception (hopefully not that reality) that these drivers are defying death and/or major injury in pursuit of victory. Even if they're relatively safe, the speed itself triggers the lizard brain inside all of us that keeps most of us from attempting to travel at 200+ MPH.

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