planetf1.com

Can we have the V10s back please? Thank you.

"F1 is pretty good at being self-destructive," Whitmarsh says. "Every other weekend we say, 'Shall we really go with the V6? Shall we stick with the V8s? Do we really want turbo-charging or shall we stick with the normally aspirated?'
"If I was facing the board of Hyundai or Toyota and saying, 'Come to F1 (as an engine supplier)', they'd say, 'What are the rules?' And I'd say, 'Well, they're published like this'. And they'd say, 'I read yesterday we're not going to do these V6s'.
"We've created an unstable environment and we're very good at that because we like arguing publicly and debating these things in an unhelpful way. "Manufacturers need to see it happen now. Even in the last few weeks, people have been saying, 'Oh, should we really go V6 next year?'.
"Christ, we're committed to it. Good, bad or indifferent, we've got to do it now. We've been saying it for long enough, we've delayed it long enough. "If I was on the board of a big OEM (original equipment manufacturer who was considering entering F1), I'd be saying, 'Let's wait a couple of years and see whether F1 actually does what it says it's going to do for a change'."
"The majority of the teams are in survival mode," Whitmarsh says. "So having longer-term strategic discussions, they glaze over. (They are more concerned about), 'How are we going to pay our freight bill to Australia?'."

Thing is, is it really the teams that don't want it or is it just Bernie pushing his own agenda...

I remember reading some interesting quotes in the following article (expansion of some included in pitpass article) - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21469518



Doesn't sound to me like the teams don't want the V6's... In fact Whitmarsh is pretty much saying "enough, let's just do it already"


Personally, I hope they confirm them - go through with them and then allow the teams some latitude to play around with the V6's to develop some performance gains through them, rather than locking them down tight for too many years like they have with the V8's.

I think that if the team were allowed to develop choose whether to chase aero or engine performance, we'd see some variety in how the teams develop...

Too late to change anything now.

When you digest that article in it's totality Bernie's agenda begins to reveal itself. He wants to shuffle the FIA out of the picture.

V12 with a flux capacitor.

I think the hope is that the increased cost of the engines would be offset by the resulting increase in sponsorship revenue. Wasn't that the whole point of the new engine regs, to improve F1's image to non-motorsport fans and therefore making it more appealing to sponsors?


Anyway I suspect that the one thing the teams really don't want is Ecclestone.

And I would rather have new V6 turbos at this point with Freeze on current V8 engine development.

That'll be even less exciting if Vettel won yesterday

Moving to V6s with turbos coupled with more (K)ERS use will place more emphasis on powertrain development and see some diversity between teams innterms of how it is interpreted.

I recon 2014 will be a total wreck havoc. Huge unreliability issues and never mind the smaller teams, they're already toasted, let alone introducing something so radically sensitive. Bigger teams might have better chances like McLaren, Ferrari, Merc & Red Bull (maybe Lotus). As for the others, they're toast. Time differences will be huge (so I reckon).

May I just point out that one of the most successful cars in the history of F1 was the McLaren MP4 1998, & guess what what - that was powered by a V6 Turbo!

So to say that changing to the V6 is wrong because the engine will sound different is ludicrous! I watched F1 in the 80s & it was a hell of a lot more exciting than F1 in 00s

Makes no sense to me. The engine formula is set in stone either way and just like the V8's, everything related to the max HP and Revs will be frozen equally in the V6's as well as the boost settings. Some will argue that it's how, when and where the boost is applied that will make the difference but that's no different than all the timing and mapping with the current engines. Everyone reaches the same max Revs in different ways and times and the same will apply to the V6 Turbos.