Martin Brundle and McLaren Technical Director Tim Goss talk us through F1's biggest shake-up for a generation
Power unit: Renault's 2014 engine plus ERS and ancillaries
The 2014 rule shake-up is the biggest since...when exactly?
Certainly it's the biggest since 2009, when KERS first appeared and the majority of the current aero rules were introduced. According to Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle, "It's right up there, I would have thought, with banning turbos in that era". It's now 25 years since the era to which Martin refers passed F1 by, yet the new rules see the sport going back to the future.
But only up to a point. Yes, turbos are back - but not with a vengeance. The 1200bhp fire-belching monsters that Brundle and his contemporaries grappled with back in the 1980s are certainly not on the agenda. Times have changed, attitudes have shifted, and what's to come reflects as much.
In short, F1 is going green. The 'revolution' which started with the introduction of KERS five years ago has been advanced by the 2014 rules, which were originally framed in the summer of 2011. Fuel will be rationed more strictly than ever before and a far greater emphasis is being placed on energy recovery. Further efficiency gains will also be produced due to chassis changes cutting both downforce and drag.
Yet the changes are not as fundamental as they might have been and, as is usually the case in F1, the result is very much a compromise. Haggling has persisted throughout the gestation period, with the engine specification changed (a four-cylinder unit was initially suggested) and cost considerations putting the implementation back a year. In terms of aero at least, what we'll see will be very similar to what we've already got.
The debate about what we'll hear has been more pronounced - with Bernie Ecclestone among those suggesting that the roar of the now departed V8s will be castrated, with slower lap times also having an adverse effect on 'The Show'. Then there's the issue of cost: a lot of teams are finding the going tough enough as it is; change doesn't come cheap.
Such a departure raises other questions too, which Martin discusses in Part Two of our feature while McLaren Technical Director Tim Goss outlines how the changes will affect chassis design.
2014 - The facts
Engine The normally aspirated 2.4-litre V8 engines used from 2006 until the season just gone will be replaced by 1.6-litre V6s with a single turbocharger and rev. limit reduced from 18,000 rpm to 15,000 rpm. The original intention was for four-cylinder turbo engines limited to 12,000rpm but that plan wilted in the face of opposition, notably from Ferrari.
Engine: 1.6-litre V6 turbos will now be used
Fuel Fuel will be injected directly into each cylinder and mass flow will be controlled according to a formula which does not allow the rate to exceed 100kg/hour. Furthermore, the amount of fuel cars will start races with comes down from around 150kg to 100kg, meaning an effective increase in efficiency of approximately 33 per cent.
ERS This is where the additional power will come from. Cars currently use KERS, of course, and the device will remain. However, heat energy will also be recovered from the exhaust turbine (which spins the turbo). The systems are known as Motor Generator Units (MGU-K and MGU-H respectively) and the cumulative effect will roughly be tenfold: whereas KERS in its current guise has given an 80hp boost for 6.7 seconds per lap, ERS will offer 161bhp for 33 seconds. A maximum of 4MJ of energy can be stored per lap.
Engine + ERS = Power Unit This is the term being applied to the combination of hydrocarbons and voltage outlined above, although whether it catches on is another matter. Depending on how good a job Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari do, it is anticipated that overall power will remain in the region of 750bhp.
Something that definitely will be heard next year, however, will be the actual sound of an F1 engine in the pitlane. The FIA's original intention had been for a reliance on electrical power only but this has now been put back to 2017.
Only five power units will be allowed next season (eight engines have been permitted) and any use of an additional complete power unit will result in the driver having to start the race from the pitlane. Meanwhile, any changes of individual elements, such as turbo, MGUs or energy store, will result in a ten-place grid penalty.
They will therefore need to last at least 4,000km rather than the current 2,000km.
As is currently the case, there will be a 'freeze' with power units homologated by the FIA between 2014 and 2020. However, changes will be allowed for "installation, reliability and cost-saving reasons" while manufacturers will also be given the chance to make up any performance shortfall.
Gearbox: Eight-speed and must last for six races
Gearboxes Eight-speed gearboxes will replace the current seven while ratios will be fixed for the season (although they can be re-nominated in 2014 only). Gearboxes must also last for six consecutive races, an increase from the current five.
Chassis Here, too, the changes are intended to boost efficiency, yet the FIA announced in December 2012 that "changes made to bodywork design, originally aimed at reducing downforce and drag for increased efficiency, have reverted to 2012 specification".
Ideas such as reverting back to ground effects - whereby a Venturi tunnel on the car's underbody generates downforce without the drag - were initially mooted but what has emerged carries, in truth, a large degree of compromise.
But that's not to say the changes are insignificant. By the sound of it, the most fundamental change comes at the front of the car, where a narrower front wing and lower nose will significantly alter the airflow. So, starting there and working back:
Front wing: Will be narrower significantly altering the airflow
The front wing width will be reduced from 1800mm to 1650mm Tim Goss: "Probably one of the most significant changes is the front wing, the span of which has been reduced, moving the endplates in. That, in terms of the airflow across the car, is quite a major design challenge because the front-wing endplates are now sitting more directly in front of the tyres."
The nose, which has been raised for many seasons now as designers seek downforce by pushing as much air as possible underneath the car, will be lowered from a height of 550mm to 185mm. Also, the 'step' seen for the last couple of seasons will be a thing of the past. Tim Goss: "The rules stipulate that you must have a lower tip to the nose. One of the reasons for that is to try and prevent cars launching off the back of other cars - if a following car was to hit the rear tyre of a car in front then it would get kicked up in the air, but a lower nose would prevent that."
Nose: Will be lower in the interests of safety
The chassis height will also be lowered. Tim Goss: "There's a regulation on the chassis height that's dropped by 50mm. The chassis height towards the cockpit, the limits there are the same. So essentially, the chassis will have to drop down as you go forwards and then the nose tip continues to drop as well. The days of a high chassis and high nose tip are gone."
Side-impact structures will be made standard. Tim Goss: "The crash tube that sits within the bodywork here will be a standardised tube. It's being developed by Red Bull and the idea is two-fold: one to reduce costs and, two, the current regulations mean that the tubes aren't particularly good in a lateral impact. They're very good at taking an end-on impact but in a lateral impact they're not particularly good. There's a longer, more triangulated tube that all teams will have to run and that will dictate the amount of freedom you've got in terms of shaping the forward sidepod and floor. All the teams at the moment tend to do slightly different things with their side-impact tubes."
Rear wing: Will be flatter while beam wing will vanish
No rear-wing main plane while the wing itself will be slightly flatter Tim Goss: "There's no rear-wing main plane allowed. The lower wing is not allowed at all, there's an exclusion zone that sits there.
"Then the rear-wing box as we call it, which is the height of the rear wing from top to bottom, has been reduced. Both of them take downforce off the rear of the car."
A central exhaust exit Tim Goss: "The final significant change at the rear is that you have to have a central exhaust exit rather than exits at the sides of the car. So all exhaust systems will be exiting rearward of the rear-wheel centreline. The whole idea of moving the exhaust to that position is to prevent their use in creating extra downforce."
Exhaust: Will exit centrally at the rear to minimise aerodynamic side-effects
Weight Engine capacity might be reduced but the additional ancillaries will actually push the minimum weight of the car up from 642kg to 690kg.
This is without fuel but includes driver weight and there is a feeling that it's actually still too low - hence the debate over whether heavier drivers might be penalised.
Tyres Pirelli has long been working on a new tyre - indeed, last May's controversial test with Mercedes was in part undertaken with next year in mind.
As a consequence of the rule changes, Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery has promised "very dramatic changes" given that electric motors produce more torque at lower revs. For example, it's been speculated that 2014 cars will be capable of generating wheelspin when changing from fourth to fifth gear.
Although the new tyre will have the same dimensions as the current model, the profile will be different while the structure is also being changed to cope with the greater forces unleashed.
Some talking points that arise from F1's biggest shake-up for a generation
In Part Two of our look at the rule changes which will be introduced for the 2014 F1 season, Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle discusses talking points that might arise.
Strategy What effect will management of limited amounts of energy from different sources have on race strategies?
Martin Brundle: "I think the way that they'll run the races with this new 100 kilos of fuel - whereas now they start the race with 150 to 160kg - makes a hell of a difference. And how it's all going to integrate; I think that will also translate into how the races play out and how complicated they are to follow: whether the teams use their energy at the beginning; what strategies they're going to use. I think it's going to be hugely complex and new - and quite changeable as it unfolds.
"Something I'm keen on is that we have is the right graphics on the TV, so we can understand the race and how it's unfolding."
Testing The rule changes might be the biggest seen in a quarter of a century but teams will still have only three pre-season tests in which to fine-tune their new cars. The recently-announced return of in-season testing is sure to be appreciated but will it be enough to ensure reliability?
Martin Brundle: "With a big change like this in the past, they would have had all winter to try and sort it out, or they could have had a test mule out with their test team working on it. But they don't have that facility anymore. They've got the normal pre-season tests, which we know are a challenge anyway for the teams, to get this lot up and running, understand what they've got and how to make the best out of it.
"I'm concerned about the reliability early on. That could be a huge issue early doors next year, where you get cars stopping going to the grid left, right and centre because they haven't had time to develop them. But they'll quickly get it sorted, I'm sure."
Lap times It's been suggested that, because the rule changes are not as fundamental as they might have been, lap times might be too slow?
Martin Brundle: "I said to a team boss, I'd heard about five seconds a lap slower and their view was that that would get quite quickly eroded - as it always does. They'll find ways of maximising the performance. I don't think it really matters what the lap time is. I mean, look at a GP2 car: they look pretty alive, don't they, going five to ten seconds a lap slower than an F1 car depending on the circuit layout. It's about how they're moving around. Do they slide? Do they go wheel-to-wheel? They'll still look very fast; they'll still be much faster than anything else."
Tim Goss: "We'll do quite a good job of recovering the downforce - all the teams do. I don't think the lap times will be too slow. The characteristics will change because it's a very different engine and the aerodynamic characteristics will change. So you might see a significant change in cornering speeds but then different end-of-straight speeds. But I think all the teams will bring downforce levels, and hence laptimes, back somewhere similar to where they are at the moment."
A new 'greener' sport Is F1 right to place a greater emphasis on recoverable energy, or should it concentrate on simply entertaining the fans?
Martin Brundle: "I think Formula 1 has got to be in the 21st century like that. It's got to be relevant. It's the perennial problem for F1. Is it a show? Is it a technology platform? Is it a sport? What is it? And for me, it's a very easy question to answer: it's a show. We're here to entertain, because if the people don't watch then the car manufacturers and sponsors don't get involved and it doesn't exist. We've got to put a show on so that the fans watch and the TV companies still want to be a part of it - that's what makes it work.
"It needs to be fast, exciting and unpredictable - it needs to be a sport and a show like that. But at the same time it's got to be relevant for a manufacturer. They're not building V8 engines anymore, they're all downsizing. The ERS is going to be twice as powerful for five times longer per lap - it's going to be a fundamental part of making the car work.
"Others will say that's still miles away from where electric cars are going to be, or hydrogen fuel cell cars, or whatever. But I think it's a significant step - Formula 1 had to do something in that direction. Unfortunately, it's going to cost the teams a lot more money.
"I don't think you can put your head in the sand and say, 'Who cares about green issues? We just want to go racing. Does it bother NASCAR?' NASCAR is really agricultural, although people still flock to see it. I think Formula 1 has to be more relevant than that. Honda coming back in demonstrates that it's more appealing to the manufacturer and that there's a relevance to the products they're trying to sell. We have to tick that box."
The sound There have been fears the noise the engines will make won't be quite so appealing. Did the last generation of turbo cars really sound that awful?
Martin Brundle: "They were quite noisy and they used to spit flames, of course, which these ones won't - they won't be able to afford to waste that amount of fuel. But they only revved to about 9-10,000 rpm. These ones will theoretically go to 15 - although I suspect come race day, to save fuel, they'll be more like 12,000 revs.
"What I am nervous about is that, in slow corners, they might not have the engine on at all. They might end up using the electric motor, because of the torque, at a hairpin or something and on the way in you might only hear the gearbox jangling - which is an awful sound.
"Electric motors give their peak torque, pretty much, from just after stationary, so they could well be doing torque management through the slow corners with the main engine switched off. That won't be very exciting, will it?"
The cost As Martin points out, the new rules might place F1 in a more relevant and environmentally-friendly position that's more attractive to manufacturers, but there's also a downside. "There's no good if it breaks the teams financially. That's the problem," he adds. The 2013 season saw frank words from both Marussia and Sauber to the effect that they're already struggling, and the cashflow crisis extends as far up the grid as Lotus.
Putting a figure on the new engine bill is, at best, a speculative exercise but an estimate of $30 million (a three-fold increase) has been mentioned. So if the big car companies do indeed come back in, will it be at the expense of the independents?
In conclusion Are the rule changes a change for the better?
Martin Brundle: "I'm open-minded. In the early days we could have three Championships. Let's say, just for the sake of it, that Mercedes do a better job than Renault, who do a better job than Ferrari - or whichever order you want to put that in. It's such a sea-change; you could have those three engines delivering completely different performance and, effectively, three Championships going on almost.
"Overall I think that, in the end - inevitably - it'll be fine. But I think it could be a little bit painful in the early stages."
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Tue Dec 24, 2013 11:58 am
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