The Resource Restriction Agreement, or RRA, is still being kicked about and with the teams, suppliers, commercial rights holders and regulatory body of Formula One all vying for more money and tighter controls. It’s no wonder that Renault Sport and McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh are wondering what the new engine will look like for F1 in 2014.
As mentioned last week, Renault Sport are looking for a relaxing of the regulations allowing them to supply more than four teams in F1 and now Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team boss, is seeking a path forward with new engine regulations telling AUTOSPORT:
“If you introduce rule changes – all for good reasons to make the sport socially relevant and to make the technologies appropriate, there will inevitably be a cost of so doing. And that is something we have to be balanced about and very cautious about.
“If I was one of the teams further down the pit lane I would like my engines for free and I would like my tyres for free, but at the same time hopefully the sport benefits from evolution. No sport, and especially no technical sport such as ours, cannot change and not reflect what people perceive.”
No question that a new engine format would be very expensive initially and Renault Sport suggested a long-term regulatory freeze on the new engine format to off-set the costs of development. Whitmarsh also agrees that it is expensive but feels that the sport needs to continue its development if only to be perceived as socially responsible.
The ACO, as the regulatory body for Le Mans series racing, is set to overhaul the regulations and focus on what we here at F1B have been saying for several years…reduce the amount of fuel flow a team’s engine can have. If you want to reduce the impact of racing on the environment, then reducing the fuel used will accomplish that but also spur innovation in engine development.
If a team can make an engine deliver 850hp with half the fuel flow they currently have, then bring it. If it has 12 cylinders, 6 cylinders, a turbo or not, that would be a direct knock-on technology for the road car world. A combination of hybrid, combustion or electric could be used and that would open the door to innovative thinking that could benefit humanity if that is truly what F1’s goal is (which I am not convinced it is so much as a racing event for pleasure and bragging rights).
The issue with open format development via a starved/reduced fuel flow rate are numerous, however, as development costs would be high and this is what Whitmarsh is speaking to…the cost of developing engines and paying for them. However, Martin is in favor of moving forward and I tend to agree with him but not on socially conscience terms rather sporting and technological innovative terms. I am not one who believes that F1’s mission and burden is to be the paragon of LEED certified racing or “Green” conscience. I believe that F1’s impact on the environment is certainly real but minuscule compared to many other forms of commerce that have a far greater impact and much less sensitivity to it.
Let the engine development begin and hopefully Whitmarsh is right, if for differing reasons.
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