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    The Hybrid Engine - Is it road relevant or just a marketing 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.
    Last edited by Nitrodaze; 7th January 2017 at 19:57.
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    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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    Senior Member Rollo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    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.
    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 Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    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.
    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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    [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?



    Quote Originally Posted by Rollo View Post
    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.
    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.
    Last edited by Nitrodaze; 2nd January 2017 at 06:50.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    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 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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    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.
    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.
    The Old Republic was a stupidly run organisation which deserved to be taken over. All Hail Palpatine!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rollo View Post

    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.
    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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    Senior Member Rollo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    Hence the small resource base argument still holds.
    Ferrari has a small resource base?
    The Old Republic was a stupidly run organisation which deserved to be taken over. All Hail Palpatine!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
    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.
    Err yeah... That's the point of a race/test driver. That's the point of motor racing.

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    Regarding the hybrid engines, there is definitely road relevance. The main relevance I've seen if the Turbulent Jet Ignition. Achieving now up to 50% energy efficiency compared to 20-25%% ten years ago is a massive performance improvement. To apply this to road cars would be a huge leap forward in technology and halve the fuel consumption of any car. Now to apply this technology to HEV's or PHEV's would be even better, especially with a HEV. I currently drive a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. My fuel consumption is almost 0 because I have approximately 40km range in my battery and most of my journeys are 30km or less This enables me to get to work, charge my car for free at a charging point and back again using no fuel. Sometimes I have to drive like a granny to maximize efficiency but that's not the end of the world. Last year I topped up my PHEV 4 times. Once every 3 months and I am now approaching 15,000 km. Now applying TJI technology could reduce my costs even further.

    So for a PHEV TJI is probably not going to make a huge diff for my scenario. Now for a HEV it will make a massive difference. Imagine achieving 150 miles to the gallon? Currently Toyota Prius and the like can get up to aorund 72 miles to the gallon. Imagine doubling that? Awesome!

    The same applies for every day road cars really but there is a great balance to be struck for HEV's. F1 is more road relevant now than it ever has been and I think these engines will genuinely contribute to road technology. It may not be exactly the same technology pioneered but it should appear in some form.
    Last edited by The Black Knight; 10th January 2017 at 09:16.

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Black Knight View Post
    I currently drive a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. My fuel consumption is almost 0 because I have approximately 40km range in my battery and most of my journeys are 30km or less This enables me to get to work, charge my car for free at a charging point and back again using no fuel. Sometimes I have to drive like a granny to maximize efficiency but that's not the end of the world. Last year I topped up my PHEV 4 times. Once every 3 months and I am now approaching 15,000 km. Now applying TJI technology could reduce my costs even further.
    This is off topic, but I'd just like to note that all electric cars use plenty of fuel. It's just delivered down a wire and not at a pump. The power plant which creates the electricity uses a lot of fuel depending on the type - coal, fuel oil, natural gas, nuclear. The only ones that don't are solar and wind and there are darn few of those around the world.
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