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

[Nitrodaze]

[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?

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.