As for Leclerc Stroll, racing incident, typical lap 1 stuff, nothing to deserve a penalty. If anything, Stroll’s line changed rather rapidly at the exit of the turn – possible blocking manoeuvre?

He was trying to obey track limits on the exit of the corner (as they’d all be heavily instructed to do…) but especially on that corner, it ends in a wall less than 100m ahead.

Leclerc has the racing line going into the corner, but Stroll does get alongside and even ahead at which point he’s then visible to Leclerc, but Leclerc is no longer visible to him, Stroll then guns it and either Leclerc doesn’t or can’t due to the angle and they hit. It’s near identical to Hamilton/Albon, but where Lewis maintains full lock, Leclerc actually starts to unwind the steering. Stroll and Albon know the risks of trying to go around the outside especially on corners with little to no run off. I’d place the blame on the overtaking car in both circumstances as by the point they’re alongside, the defending car on the inside, there’s very little that the defending driver can do – they’ve already picked their braking point and started to turn in. Good drivers don’t leave a lot of meat on the bone when it comes to picking their braking/turn-in point. In the Leclerc/Stroll example, the only real blame i’d put on Leclerc is the slight slackening of the steering angle, but then, he may not have seen Stroll…

If anything, Stroll’s line changed rather rapidly at the exit of the turn

🤷🏻‍♂️

Lance Stroll’s Onboard Start P12 to P7 on medium tires and incident with Charles Leclerc from formula1

Fair enough.

Let’s be honest, the 2019 Italian grand prix is a case of the stewards bottling it, disqualifying a ferrari driver at monza and leaving the track in one piece??

Honda leaving f1 as engine supplier after 2021 season

So who does Horner go grovelling to next?

Bit of a shock that one – but Honda have form for pulling the plug just as they are getting good! 🙂

Is this the start of the end of F1 as a combustion engine formula? Got to be a few more thinking that chucking millions into old-tech isn’t what they need to do right now.

So who does Horner go grovelling to next?

That conversation with Renault is going to be a good one! 🙂

Wow! My guess is that Hass sign with Renault and then Renault insist that Red Bull have to use Ferrari engines, but they’ll agree to supply Alpha Tauri.

or Red Bull just leave F1

…just what I was thinking.

TBF there’s been talk about Matteschitz wanting an exit from F1 for a while.

or Red Bull just leave F1

As a sponsor, maybe, but those two teams will be worth quite a bit now that there’s a cost cap and a big surcharge for new entries. I’m sure Merc or Renault would be willing to supply engines if Marko and Horner were gone, but my guess would be Horner setting up backing to buy the team if Red Bull want out, so Renault would probably not be interested.

Under the new rules Renault will be forced to offer them engines won’t they? As they are the engine supplier with least customer teams.

eta
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/124056/fia-can-compel-manufacturers-to-supply-teams

Wow. That is a shocker. But probably sensible decision in finiancial terms for s a global car maker. I wonder how much the pandemic has hurt their car sales?

that’ll be interesting on two points. The PU supplier also provides a siginficant sum of money into the teams, and the PU sponsorship is often linked to one of the major oil co’s, im not sure how you would effectively force a sponsor to put up more money, into a team they don’t want..

Under the new rules Renault will be forced to sell them engines won’t they?

Yes, but it’s quite likely that Hass will want to ditch Ferrari engines so will switch to Renault for 2021. That will leave Merc with four teams, Ferrari with two and Renault with two. Renault would then be able to offer an engine supply to Alpha Tauri and refuse to supply Red Bull.

Another thought is that Red Bull might be able to put together a consortium of independent teams (McLaren, Williams, Aston Martin, Hass) and try to buy the rights to the Honda engine, then commission Cosworth or someone to build it for them, with each team badging it as their own. The FIA and Liberty Media would probably welcome something like this because it’s not clear how long car manufacturers are going to want to keep promoting ICEs, so having an independent engine maker would be good insurance.

That’s certainly flung a spanner in the works.

There will be a big grin on Cyril’s face for sure

Cosworth were trying to do something directly about 5 years ago, they were close but couldn’t close out the deal they wanted. It’s a good point, though im not sure Honda would give up the rights to the engine they are very protective over their IP. I wouldn’t rule out another manufacturer, there is a lot at stake in the ICE world and Motrosport is a platform for new tech especially fuels of all types!!

The only manufacturer groups I can think of that would take over the Honda setup would be the VW Group or Hyundai. VW could supply a few teams rebadging the engine as an Audi, Skoda or Porsche to fit in with the team identity but they’ve ruled out entering a few times now so I doubt that will happen. Hyundai could be a possibility though as they are a big company and have a presence in WRC that they want to expand.

Be very interesting to see how this one pans out that’s for sure!

Wasn’t VW’s reluctance related to one of their big wigs who left under the Dieselgate cloud? Sorry for the lack of proper detail…

<edit>

here

and here

I thought one of the bigwigs at VW had a real dislike for Helmut and were quoted as saying they’d never enter F1 whilst he was involved, or something like that?

It was antipathy between Eccelstone/Piech who was then implicated in the diesel engine testing scandal.

Seen as they’re both history, mebbies there’s potential for the VW group in F1…?

I can’t see any new manufacturers entering after seeing how badly Renault and Honda struggled to catch up to Merc. You’re realistically talking 3 years to be remotely competitive with a new engine. Honda won’t sign over their IP to another manufacturer having seen what happened with Brawn, but it’s remotely possible that they might sell it to Cosworth or someone on the stipulation that it’s never branded as another manufacturer’s engine. I imagine you’d be talking about hundreds of millions for the IP.

Yes I wondered about Cosworth. They did say a while back that they wanted to get involved again.

I still think this engine formula is too complex though. Just KERS and a (relatively) small capacity engine is fine, we don’t need the super complex MGUH.

With KERS and unlimited energy recovery it would drive the PU suppliers towards development of lighter/more energy dense batteries which would be an easy way to make it road car relevant.

Whereas I don’t think any mainstream road vehicle is using MGUH. Merc did have a supercar engine in development with it, not sure if it’s still happening.

I must say that I couldn’t help smiling when I saw this news and wondered what Christian Horner’s first response was! Supposedly Red Bull are committed to F1 until 2025 so I suspect they won’t pull out. I also can’t see them going back to Renault after their recent, friendly relations. I would expect zero chance of them getting a Merc engine which leaves Ferrari or, as suggested above, some sort of consortium / private engine deal. Or maybe VW coming in. Although, if you were VW would you come into a sport where one of your big commercial competitors is busy scooping up everything in sight knowing that it will take a chunky investment and time before you could compete effectively? Although, how much does F1 performance and reliability actually translate into customers buying their products or even how they reflect on the brand? For me, it wouldn’t matter how dominant Renault are in F1, I would still be highly unlikely to ever buy a Renault road car for my self.

It’s not a massive shock, Honda have bailed from F1 before in the wake of the banking crisis in 2008 and the recession at the beginning of the 1990s but it does leave Red Bull in a bit of a quandary for 2022.

Another thought is that Red Bull might be able to put together a consortium of independent teams (McLaren, Williams, Aston Martin, Hass) and try to buy the rights to the Honda engine, then commission Cosworth or someone to build it for them, with each team badging it as their own

It’s possible – see the Benetton Mecachrome & Williams Supertec arrangement back in 1998/9, in both cases the arrangement was a holding pattern until Renualt bought Benetton outright and Williams’ partnership with BMW was ready. Honda may not be willing to surrender intellectual property, so there may be an opportunity for a semi-works Mugen type operation to maintain supply, but the lack of works funding doesn’t bode well for power unit development.

As much as I’d like to see Porsche/Audi/Lamborghini/etc in F1, I highly doubt that the VW group would be ready to jump in for 2022 with a year’s lead time to design, prototype, dyno test and manufacture a highly complex powertrain and hope to have any degree of competitiveness compared with Renualt, Ferrari and Mercedes who’ve seven seasons of engine development behind them. If I had £1 for every article that postulated a VW F1 engine, I’d have a fiver – I recall reading that VW had a prototype 3 litre engine “on the bench” as far back as 1999, with rumours dropped at regular intervals that came to nought. Remember that VW too is going to be hamstrung by post-Covid economic difficulties and is likely to face continuing legal costs in respect of dieselgate.

My guess is that Red Bull will buy/lease Honda’s engine IP and have someone like Cosworth, build supply and develop the engine from which they then buy it, at least in the short term.

Hell, an independent engine supplier might also be able to supply to Haas and others. The Honda engine seems pretty darn good, so I doubt it’s going to go away entirely. It’ll be bought by someone and sold back into F1.

Honda don’t want to commit resources to developing a dead end, but if they can generate revenue from existing infrastructure and IP, they’d be mad not to lease it out and recover some of their sunk costs.

Whereas I don’t think any mainstream road vehicle is using MGUH. Merc did have a supercar engine in development with it, not sure if it’s still happening.

This one…

https://www.mercedes-amg.com/en/driving-performance/future-performance/mercedes-amg-project-one.html

simondbarnes
Full Member

Whereas I don’t think any mainstream road vehicle is using MGUH. Merc did have a supercar engine in development with it, not sure if it’s still happening.

This one…

https://www.mercedes-amg.com/en/driving-performance/future-performance/mercedes-amg-project-one.html
Posted 6 minutes ago

That’s it, what a car 😍

Didn’t Honda run a DH MTB team for a few years, including developing some pretty good gear box bikes? Then they left the sport and destroyed the bikes and never shared the designs. If that’s their approach for a niche sport they have no interest in, it seems a stretch that they’d share technology that is pretty fundamental to their main business. Suppose it all depends on the price though.

But they did share knowledge and even resources when they exited in 2008/2009 with Brawn.

Then they left the sport and destroyed the bikes and never shared the designs

Wasn’t it just a derailleur in a box?

I think they felt guilty about doing it with zero notice and wanted to help the team keep going. TBH I think they behaved pretty honourably. This time round it is different.

Wasn’t it just a derailleur in a box?

Shhh! You’ll let the magic smoke out. There’s a video here of inside the box

https://www.pinkbike.com/video/8166/

Huh, hadn’t seen that before. Still quite impressive for their first bike to be good enough to win a world cup on the first go, but then they do make mx bikes, and their riders weren’t bad.

Back on topic then, has anyone checked 2020 Honda engines don’t say Mercedes on them if you take the lid off?

if the petrol engine is a dead end commercially for car companies what is the point of the rules that require the f1 engine to be efficient as the technology has no relevance to the products manufacturers will be selling or to the world at large?

if the engine rules weren’t so complicated more companies could produce competitive engines at lower costs.

why not accept that F1 is an anachronism and embrace the fact that it is pointless and wasteful and make gas guzzling v12’s or whatever? or will they soon be moving to hydrogen fuel cells?

no doubt these are not original questions, but the engine situation seems to make the whole sport even more pointless (aside from providing entertainment, jobs, etc)

Honda didn’t destroy the bikes. Greg minnaar has one in his shop in South Africa.

From about 3:30

john
Free Member

Didn’t Honda run a DH MTB team for a few years, including developing some pretty good gear box bikes? Then they left the sport and destroyed the bikes and never shared the designs. If that’s their approach for a niche sport they have no interest in, it seems a stretch that they’d share technology that is pretty fundamental to their main business. Suppose it all depends on the price though.

Matthew Carter (ex lotus ceo) on Missed Apex podcast said that this announcement wasn’t a shock to the team and was implying RB might take over development of the engine. He also mentioned that Andy Cowell who headed up Mercedes’ engine programme resigned a while back…

Wouldn’t be unprecedented (mechachrome)

why not accept that F1 is an anachronism and embrace the fact that it is pointless and wasteful and make gas guzzling v12’s or whatever? or will they soon be moving to hydrogen fuel cells?

Hydrogen powered V12s. Bring it on.

F1 as a spectacle has been pretty uninspiring for a few years now. The racing in touring cars and rallycross has always been more exciting to watch. Formula E for me is a terrible excuse for a sport, dull as ditchwater. I can see formula 1 having a supplied sealed engine for all teams to keep the costs down and then the teams rely on their chassis, tyre and fuel strategy to try and make a spectacle out of it. To appease the green lobby carbon offsets will have to be done to enable them to still use internal combustion.