Formula 1 2020 - General Discussion Thread (See MOD warning on first post)

Listening to an f1 podcast and they're talking about Vettel and they began by saying something to the effect of "obviously ferrari has treated Vettel absolutely terribly". But I still don't buy the narrative that ferrari has treated Vettel terribley. Certainly not so terribly that it justifies throwing his toys our of the pram and not really trying.

We know they haven't given him championship challenging car (except 2018 and maybe 2019) and we know they didn't enter into formal contract negotiations with him beyond saying they would expect him to take a pay cut which he said he wouldn't do. And they promoted a ferrari young driver who's faster than him on about 7% of his wage.

Beyond those things, what has ferrari actually done to Seb to justify the narrative that they've treated him terribly to the extent that he can't be expected to perform well?

An interesting Youtube video on Toto

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Do you know what car group owns Ferrai?

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.how-f1-technology-has-supercharged-the-world.6Gtk3hBxGyUGbNH0q8vDQK.html

Here na article that should answer some of your questions.

Mercedes has a v6 hybrid supercar. But the real technological advances are in other fields. Kers used in urban busses. Flywheel used in wind energy, McLaren's electronics technology in 5G networks, commercial refrigeration units. Not to mention the simple fuel efficiency gains which trickle down into road cars.

But I'm sure none of that is what you were looking for.

The project car from Mercedes is not near being released yet, with the v6 hybrid drivetrain.

Do you even know who owns ferrari? It's publicly traded, not part of FCA for at least 3 years now.

Hasnt been under fiat ownership for years though

ELM327 wrote: »

Hasnt been under fiat ownership for years though

Less than 40% of the shares are publicly traded, FCA still owns a majority share. John Elkann is chairman of both FCA and Ferrari

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

1 I was responding to a poster who wanted f1 to be the pinnicle of motorsport technology and it is the pinnicle of motorsport technology. The technology demands aren't the same as they were in the past. Raw power has been done, it's boring now. Only old people want to hear about a 10L v20 engine. Now the pinnicle of motoring is about other things such as thermal efficiencym and reliability.

2 so we're agreed that the cars are faster now and setting lap records most weeks?

3 the new technology is always going to be expensive. If it wasn't new, innovative and rare, the it would be easy and cheap to make.

The notion that f1 was cheap back in the old days is a total fallacy. With all that cigarette and booze money flowing, Ferrari were bringing multiple disposable engines to each weekend and using disposable wheel nuts supposedly at $12,000 a pitstop. It takes a lot of rose tint in your glasses to suggest they were cheap days in f1 terms.

One of the reasons why we have Merc away at the front.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Because they have a big budget, are more innovative and produce difficult advances in their car that other teams can't match? That's what they're supposed to be doing. Mercedes is just too good compared to its competition. .

Because they have a head start and now the budget cap will just make that worse as others wonty be able to spend to catch up

ELM327 wrote: »

Because they have a head start and now the budget cap will just make that worse as others wonty be able to spend to catch up

They didn't have a head start. They just did a great job by started designing their engine before the rest which was perfectly within the rules. The rest were equally entitled to start their prep earlier than they did.

They are playing by the same set of rules as everyone else, aren't they? And they are coming out ahead of everyone, aren't they? And they're producing more innovative and useful designs that they competition cant keep up with, aren't they?

The budget cap will be phased in gradually so i wouldn't expect any major changes for a few years or even a decade as a result of it. But I but guarantee there will be people who claim they should be allowed to race and spend what they want (the same sort of thing that people were saying a couple of pages back when they complained about the hybrid engines being both too technologically advanced and not the pinnacle of motorsport)

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

They didn't have a head start. They just did a great job by started designing their engine before the rest which was perfectly within the rules. The rest were equally entitled to start their prep earlier than they did.

They are playing by the same set of rules as everyone else, aren't they? And they are coming out ahead of everyone, aren't they? And they're producing more innovative and useful designs that they competition cant keep up with, aren't they?

The budget cap will be phased in gradually so i wouldn't expect any major changes for a few years or even a decade as a result of it. But I but guarantee there will be people who claim they should be allowed to race and spend what they want (the same sort of thing that people were saying a couple of pages back when they complained about the hybrid engines being both too technologically advanced and not the pinnacle of motorsport)

They are, but they had at least a year when they were not subject to the same rules (like Honda a couple years later) and money to throw at it.


A rule freeze or a spending limit has the effect of freezing things where they are now. There should be less interests and time being devoted to silly over engineered useless spec (1.6 V6 turbo hybrid) engines or cost cuts, and instead go back to cheaper engines that can be produced and used for road cars too. V8 and V10 engines. Plenty of v8 and v12 NA engined cars being sold today. More than 1.6 V6 turbo hybrids anyway

ELM327 wrote: »

They are, but they had at least a year when they were not subject to the same rules (like Honda a couple years later) and money to throw at it.


A rule freeze or a spending limit has the effect of freezing things where they are now. There should be less interests and time being devoted to silly over engineered useless spec (1.6 V6 turbo hybrid) engines or cost cuts, and instead go back to cheaper engines that can be produced and used for road cars too. V8 and V10 engines. Plenty of v8 and v12 NA engined cars being sold today. More than 1.6 V6 turbo hybrids anyway

Backwards, that's the way forwards. Right?

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The teams always get to decide the rules for F1. They have to agree on major rule changes. That's always been part of the sport.

The mercedes team won't be there forever. There's talk of Wolff leaving in the next few years and they will lose other key people. The budget cap will hopefully ensure that nobody else can invest crazy money to get this far ahead again.

I am with you on this. It should stop the big teams just throwing money at anything and everything and reward teams with clever engineers and so on. Let's hope it tightens things up.

ELM327 wrote: »

They are, but they had at least a year when they were not subject to the same rules (like Honda a couple years later) and money to throw at it.


A rule freeze or a spending limit has the effect of freezing things where they are now. There should be less interests and time being devoted to silly over engineered useless spec (1.6 V6 turbo hybrid) engines or cost cuts, and instead go back to cheaper engines that can be produced and used for road cars too. V8 and V10 engines. Plenty of v8 and v12 NA engined cars being sold today. More than 1.6 V6 turbo hybrids anyway

Jesus that's some waffle
Sales of V8 outside the states are well well down and as for V12?? I think that Aston Martin Valkyrie is the only one coming to market. But there plenty of hybrid engines out there

tipp_tipp_tipp wrote: »

Renault, Ferrari and honda all signed up this this engine formula. What is your opinion of them? Are they incompetent for signing up to an engine formula that they never had a hope of competing in? Should they simply have pulled out of F1 (or in honda's case not rejoined).

Ross Brawn mentioned that in his biography, that those teams pushed the development to far out as they thought they had plenty of time. Even with the Mercedes advantage you might assume the teams are eager to change the regulation but as Audi didn't join agreed to even freeze it and keep the engine design.

tipp_tipp_tipp wrote: »

Renault, Ferrari and honda all signed up this this engine formula. What is your opinion of them? Are they incompetent for signing up to an engine formula that they never had a hope of competing in? Should they simply have pulled out of F1 (or in honda's case not rejoined).

My opinion of them is that if Merc had their way, they would never have been allowed to make performance changes to their PU's at all, don't forget Merc were actively against lifting the engine freeze in 2014, which would handicap any other manufacturer from the get go. I wonder why they would do that? :rolleyes:

All the mentioned makers did, eventually, slowly catch up to a degree, it took Ferrari a few years to make theirs competitive, Renault were a tad quicker with their 3 wins in 2014 (wins that came when wither weather, reliability or a clash took Merc out of the picture). Honda only got their act together last year really.

As for the manufacturers you mentioned, Honda rejoined far too early, their struggles with McLaren show this with how utterly hopeless they were in terms of power and reliability. It has taken them this long to be even remotely competitive with RB and AT.

Ferrari did what Ferrari always do and make a mess of things. Look at where they are now. They were always against the intro of smaller engines from the get-go. This has nothing to do with regulations, it has to do with leadership, or lack of in this case. Once it was clear their car for 2014 was a mule, heads rolled, as they always do at Ferrari.

You seem to try and shift the status of F1 to the lack of understand or implementation to the other manufacturers, despite the evidence that Merc had been working on the rule changes for years before others were, and used that threat very cleverly to get its way, then try and block engine development to hold onto that advantage.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Backwards, that's the way forwards. Right?

Faster cars removing the silly heavy batteries , yeah that's backwards alright

duploelabs wrote: »

Jesus that's some waffle
Sales of V8 outside the states are well well down and as for V12?? I think that Aston Martin Valkyrie is the only one coming to market. But there plenty of hybrid engines out there

No hybrid turbo v6 engines though.
You can still buy many many cars with a V8. Plenty of supercars and hypercars with v12 engines too.


In fact, here's a listicle with a number of cars available to buy today with a v12.
https://www.thethings.com/new-cars-powered-by-v12-engines-in-2020/


A v8 comes in too many cars to list, from the most popular car in the US (a ford F150), to a Mercedes E/S class, BMW 7 series etc. You don't even have to spend 100k to get a v8 power in a brand new car.


Here are some of the best V8 powered cars that you can buy today. Some below 40k
https://www.car.com/buying-guides/the-best-v8-sedans-10662/


You could even go back to the screaming V10s, if the criteria were road cars using the engine config:
https://www.grandtournation.com/cars/there-are-only-three-cars-still-in-production-with-a-v10-engine/



I again point to the question, if I wanted to buy a turbo hybrid 1.6 v6 tomorrow, where can I buy one?