Its Official: F1 Engine Homologation Rules Are A Farce

[philipbain]

So the FIA have acknowledged that the engine homologation rules for 2015 are a complete farce, with no date set for homologating the 2015 power units it gives Ferrari, Renault & Mercedes Benz the opportunity to develop their power units into the season and homologate their engines mid season when they can introduce an updated specification. This will mean starting the season with hardware in 2014 spec, though development in software integration of the different elements of the power unit can be updated from it's end of 2014 spec as this is not homologated. Whilst this gives a slight break to Renault & Ferrari to try and make ground on Mercedes Benz it leaves Honda in the lurch, as a new manufacturer they have a definite date by which they must homologate their engine - 28th February and will therefore have to use the same spec of hardware throughout the season. In light of this ludicrous situation and the ill-thought nature of the engine homologation rules it seems to me that the only sensible course of action is to drop engine homologation altogether. Previously homologation was used for power units that were based on technology that had been fully developed over many years and therefore there was reasonable parity between manufactuers, but when the formula has changed to a whole host of new technologies it is ridiculous to try and impose such homologation at a time when the manufacturers need to rapidly evolve and develop the hardware and systems, which not only benefits F1 but also the wider development of hybrid systems which will become more and more common in road going products as pressure to reduce emissions and fuel consumption mounts even more on the automotive industry. This is the justification for manufacturers being in F1 in the first place (along with marketing benefits obviously) so can't the FIA see that engine homologation is counter-productive to this at this stage of the development cycle. In a few years time when the technology has matured and the returns on investment in development diminish it will once again become appropriate to homologate hardware to control costs, but for the reasons previously stated I believe that the current rules do the sport a disservice and are more likely to drive manufacturers away rather than attracting them to the sport.

[pob]

It's blatantly unfair on Honda to insist they homologate their PU at the end of February when that isn't specifically in the regs but allow other manufacturers to homologate their 2015 PU whenever they want. (Honda should have been allowed until the first race in March.)
However it's not as big a deal as some in the media are making out as there would be huge disadvantages to delaying homologation, e.g:

• the competitive disadvantage of running old spec PUs;
• the difficulties of having to introduce the 2015 spec to all teams/drivers at the same time as once the 2015 spec is introduced the 2014 spec can't be used even in practice;
• the effect on aero development by the chassis having to suit both 2014 and 2015 PUs, possibly resulting in a b-car being needed.

I think it will only happen if Renault or Ferrari make a major mistake that they only find during preseason testing or if they concede that they are so far behind that they are better giving up on 2015 and effectively rolling over the tokens for a year by delaying homologation until December.

[Rollo]

Who actually owns McLaren's M-B engines? Were they forced to give them back?

Would it be techincally possible for McLaren to keep them and make changes on them, themselves? Or would that be a violation of IP?

[pob]

McLaren had to return them after each race weekend in 2014, so they won't have any now.

[Tazio]

I don't think it will be a devastating blow to McLaren-Honda if they concentrate on building as powerful a PU as they can, as upgrades for reliability are allowed to all teams.

[Doc Austin]

I think they need to scrap the whole system and come up with something simple. I'de like to see them lay down a normally aspirated displacement limit and be done with it.

We should be talking about racing more and rules less, but right now F1 is all about the rules and the racing is secondary.

[Rollo]

I'd like to see them lay down a normally aspirated displacement limit and be done with it.

Would that include rotaries? I have a feeling that a 1.5L Rotary would produce more power than a 1.5L four-pot.

[The Black Knight]

I'm not at all surprised that this happened. When Ferrari James Allison mentioned the loophole a couple of weeks ago it was pretty clear that like most rules in F1 they had found a way to circumvent them. What a bunch of idiots the FIA are. They keep making the same blunders over and over again.

An FIA spokesman said: "It was always envisaged, although not explicitly stated in the rules, that manufacturers would have to deal with modifications on the engine within the constraints of the rules, and then submit their 2015 engine [at the first race].

"It is simple, but when you read it [the rule book], it doesn't say that unfortunately."

I mean this is just simply embarrassing. Someone's head should roll for this.

On the bright side, at least now it might finally stop Christian Horner throwing the toys out of the pram requesting the return of v8's etc. He has his wish, now maybe he'll be a man and work hard to catch up instead of bitching when things aren't going his way.

[Mark]

I don't think it will be a devastating blow to McLaren-Honda if they concentrate on building as powerful a PU as they can, as upgrades for reliability are allowed to all teams.

Agreed. Build it to be powerful and then worry about reliability later. So we might see a lot of McLaren failures in 2015 but that would be expected.

[AndyL]

It is a bit unfortunate for Honda that the homologation of new designs is the one part of the engine regs where the FIA gave themselves "absolute discretion."

There are going to be some tricky judgments for the other manufacturers to make - whether to deploy a new component and get the benefit sooner, or continue developing it to potentially get a bigger benefit later on. Given how long they've already had to work on their 2015 modifications, I suspect most of their changes will appear sooner rather than later anyway.

There is a distinct lack of text in the rules to explain the tables in Appendix 4 of the technical regulations. This may not be the last debate on the matter. Now that the cat is out of the bag and the "common sense" interpretation based on the FIA's original intent has apparently been rejected, all sorts of other reinterpretations are possible.

For example, can you spend your 32-point modification budget on the same item more than once? E.g. the complete turbo system adds up to 6 points; to take it to the extreme, could you introduce 5 completely different turbo designs for 30 points? There could even be an argument that having chosen to spend 6 points on a new turbo, you could make an unlimited number of changes to that component during the year - the rules don't explicitly say you can't. They also don't explicitly say that allowed modifications have to be relative to a 2014 engine, so Honda could argue after their engine is homologated in February that they should be allowed to make 32 points worth of changes during 2015.