The Hybrid Engine - Is it road relevant or just a market stunt

The suggestion that F1 hybrid engines are not relevant to road cars would probably make some of us frown with doubt. But Adrian Newey asked a very sticky question, he says if they were, engine manufacturers in the formula should be five years ahead of their commercial competitors.

Makes you wonder if Mercedes can be said to be fives years ahead of BMW's road hybrid engines for instance. Is Honda ahead of Toyota or Renault ahead of Ford or Opel.

Of course if you are behind you would find reason to complain of those ahead. But he argues for a restriction in resources to reduce the advantages of larger teams over the midfield teams. This, he suggests would make the formula more open and unpredictable. I think l see his point, the smaller teams cannot compete with their small resource base on the innovation front compared to the army of resources that the big teams can throw at it.

I have to say, Newey thinking is the clearest anyone in the F1 world has offered to combat the problem of spending. That said, it would be a nightmare to police effectively without steeping on a few corporate toes.

The hybrid engines are more relevant to F1 and everyday motoring than the wings.

Newey's career will forever be immortalised due to his creativity and being a specialist in something fundamentally irrelevant.

He is biased.

It the wings were removed and the sporting regs weren't tight. F1 would closer resemble the pattern of racing MotoGP has.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

Makes you wonder if Mercedes can be said to be fives years ahead of BMW's road for instance. Is Honda ahead of Toyota or Renault ahead of Ford or Opel.

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Why would Honda be ahead of Toyota considering that the TS020 was raced in 2012? Formula One adopted hybrid engines two years later?

Is Honda ahead of GM and Ford re hybrid engines? Yes.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

I think l see his point, the smaller teams cannot compete with their small resource base on the innovation front compared to the army of resources that the big teams can throw at it.

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This is mostly irrelevant to the argument. Formula One has almost always been like this. What the current rules have done is frozen the advantage.

[QUOTE=Rollo;1118348]Why would Honda be ahead of Toyota considering that the TS020 was raced in 2012? Formula One adopted hybrid engines two years later?

Is Honda ahead of GM and Ford re hybrid engines? Yes.[QUOTE]

But how much of the formula 1 knowledge on hybrid engine has translated to readily available or noticeable benefits on the current road car offering from these manufacturer teams?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

This is mostly irrelevant to the argument. Formula One has almost always been like this. What the current rules have done is frozen the advantage.

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I probably would not go as far as to call it irrelevant. Particularly since this has been an issue that has had several attempts to bring a closer level of parity between the customer and manufacturer teams. The question that Newey asked was "should F1 be about man and machine or solely about the machine", which unfortunately the current state of F1 is more slanted towards a machine formula [engine formula to be specific] where the driver is there to demonstrate the superiority of the machine rather than their relative strength as a driver.

If we look at the 2016 season, l think any driver that finished the season in the top ten would have won the 2016 title given Rosbergs Mercedes car and Hamilton having the reliability issues that he had. Mainly because of the sheer superiority of the Mercedes engine compared to the competition. That said, F1 is also a formula of technology competition. This aspect is the costly aspect of F1 which freezes out the customer teams from the chance of mounting a meaningful attack for the constructors championship. As they lack the resources to compete with the richer manufacturer teams.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

If we look at the 2016 season, l think any driver that finished the season in the top ten would have won the 2016 title given Rosbergs Mercedes car and Hamilton having the reliability issues that he had. Mainly because of the sheer superiority of the Mercedes engine compared to the competition.

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That exactly proves my point. Because of the engine freeze, that "sheer superiority of the Mercedes engine compared to the competition" was locked in place.

Average Place in the Constructors' Championship (hybrids)

M-B: 3.75, 3.75, 6.75 (4.38)
Fer: 7.66, 6.66, 7.00 (7.10)
Ren: 7.00, 5.50, 5.50 (6.25)
Hon: NA, 9.00, 6.00 (7.50)

The reason why M-B fell off the cliff in terms of the Average Place in the Constructors' Championship in the hybrid era, is because of Manor finishing 11th in 2016. Remove them as a statistical anomaly and their worst average performance is better than the best average performance of any other engine.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

I think l see his point, the smaller teams cannot compete with their small resource base on the innovation front compared to the army of resources that the big teams can throw at it.

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Ferrari can not compete with the Mercedes-Benz engine and I'd hardly suggest that they have a "small resource base" or lack an "army of resources".

The rules as they stand, lock in the advantage and that's it.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

The question that Newey asked was "should F1 be about man and machine or solely about the machine", which unfortunately the current state of F1 is more slanted towards a machine formula [engine formula to be specific] where the driver is there to demonstrate the superiority of the machine rather than their relative strength as a driver.

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Err yeah... That's the point of a race/test driver. That's the point of motor racing.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Ferrari can not compete with the Mercedes-Benz engine and I'd hardly suggest that they have a "small resource base" or lack an "army of resources".

The rules as they stand, lock in the advantage and that's it.

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I think you would find that the Ferrari engine is as good as the Mercedes engine. Where Ferrari has been weak in 2016 was in the chassis and aerodynamics department. Redbull was able to beat them with a Renault engine that was not quite as good as but close to the Ferrari engine because the Ferrari chassis was not as good as the Redbull chassis.

Hence the small resource base argument still holds.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

Hence the small resource base argument still holds.

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Ferrari has a small resource base?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Ferrari has a small resource base?

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I was referring to the smaller teams. Ferrari probably designed into farrow where the platform had a narrow window of setups which were not usable at all tracks. Engine-wise, they were there about the Mercedes.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

I was referring to the smaller teams. Ferrari probably designed into farrow where the platform had a narrow window of setups which were not usable at all tracks. Engine-wise, they were there about the Mercedes.

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Well, they certainly closed the gap to Mercedes engine wise but I wouldn't say they were there with them. Seb still ended up 20 seconds down the road from a cruising Nico Rosberg in a very much Engine dependent Monza. Ferrari have the same old problem they have always had except in the Schumacher era. They will nearly get there but never quite there. I will be gobsmacked if they are ahead of either Mercedes or RBR next year. Ratatouille needs to go. I don't like the comments he made about Vettel during the year. I may not be a huge fan of Vettel's but any driver that works as hard as he does and wants to move the team forward deservers credit and not criticism from the team boss. There are plenty of drivers whom are just happy to show up at race weekends and do something else for two weeks e.g. Lewis Hamilton. A hard working driver like Vettel that wants to integrate himself into the team and push everyone forward deserves support. I find it odd that Ratatouille criticized him for this and didn't criticize him for the one think he should have i.e. his behavior in Mexico.

Ferrari are in a bit of disarray and it looks unlikely that will stop any time soon with the current management structure. I wouldn't be surprised if Williams or another team over takes them either next year.