F1 2014 Australia

[Harrison]

Simple answer to that is Bernie Ecclestone. His greed is what drives the decisions on where F1 races. No one wants to race in the middle east, but that is where all the oil is coming from and where a handful of oil barons with a passion for fast cars live. Bernie gets a lot of money and they get their own personal race track and event.

Regarding this years cars, I actually think it was exactly the right thing to do, and the right direction to take. V12, V10 and V8 engines are dinosaurs of the old world. They sound great, but they consume a lot of fuel to produce their power. We need modern engine and car technology to move in exactly the direction F1 is taking. To achieve the same performance, but with much smaller engines, producing a lot less CO2 emissions and consuming a lot less fuel. It is amazing to think that this year's 1.6 litre F1 engines are producing the same BHP as last year's 2.4 litre V8s were. But due to the turbo's, with a lot more torque.

We have been seeing similar ideas for engine development in new cars recently too, but F1 will be developing the future road cars energy saving and recovery systems far faster than manufacturers could hope to achieve themselves. It won't be long before we will start seeing the Kers style energy recover on more standard road cars, I'm sure. And I think the way the new F1 engines completely eliminate turbo lag is brilliant (they utilise the turbo energy recover battery to spin up the turbo's turbine when a gear change occurs so it is already up to speed before the revs and exhaust pressure can do it naturally).

Regarding watching F1. The same is true in the UK. If you are a Sky TV Satellite subscriber with the HD package you get a dedicated F1 channel, as I do. But if you don't have Sky then you can't watch it. Instead the BBC channels broadcast a highlights program later in the day showing you the best bits of the race. I would hate to only have access to that. The BBC used to broadcast every race live, but to save money they sold their F1 rights to Sky a couple of years ago. Mad. Although I will admit Sky's F1 coverage is brilliant, and far better than the BBC ever managed.

[Tiago]

producing a lot less CO2 emissions

but look, emissions are a nice move to production cars, not F1. I don't give a s*** if 20 cars put a lot co2 into air, i want to see 200 every day car million doing that. Not 20 top sport cars...

12, V10 and V8 engines are dinosaurs of the old world.

I don't agree with that mate, top performance series cars, Like Ferrari, Lambos, Martins, use V8 or V12 Engines. They have a great tradition of that kind of big engines.

this year's 1.6 litre F1 engines are producing the same BHP as last year's 2.4 litre V8s

Well not quite the same, 2013 they had around 750, this year around 650. only with kers they should have more power. But overall less then last year. Bit still impressive how a V6 1600cc can do that. More impressive is top Speed, in tests they went to +330 km/h in same circuit that last year only went to 315...

DRS has a bigger area on wing this year that will give bigger top speeds and acceleration.

I do understand the tech point of view that you talk about, but you have to spend a lot of money in that. In the other hand one pf the reasons they say engines are smaller is to be less expensive for lower teams. So we have 2 ideas that crash each other.
Tech = more money
small engines = less money

but changing engines every 1 or 2 years is not a solution... since you have a new engine you should keep then for longer time
If you already had good V10 engines, why change them? You spent a lot of money with that. To reduce Speed? There are other ways to reduce it.

And look at the noise the engines do.... looks like a 125cc bike...

[Harrison]

They actually have slightly more power than last year thanks to the battery recovery system within the turbo, allowing the turbo to spin up before the exhaust gas pressure is high enough, eliminating turbo lag, and giving up to 180BHP more power than the engine alone. Very impressive and hard to get your head around for a 1.6 litre engine.

Regarding emissions. It is the main focus of cars these days, as well as better fuel consumption. F1 has always pioneered, invented, developed and used new technologies before any other. Safely especially in the past with ABS being invented for F1.

[Tiago]

you're right, F1 has always pioneered. But every people i talk to, they miss the old power, the raw force of 3500/3000 cc with v12
the sound. Most of people, and F1 is getting old in fans... would like to see manual transmission... that's not much tech in manual gears... but some stuff is cool being just "raw". if this go at this rate, in same years you will have F1 100% electric...

[Harrison]

I personally think 100% electric cars is the wrong direction, but hybrid cars are the correct way forward because petrol cars waste a lot of energy which in a hybrid can be harvested and turned back into useful energy to improve the car's performance. This is why F1 is going this route, because it is the future of road cars, as well as super cars, and F1 is the perfect platform to develop this technology and be the place to showcase exactly what you can do with this technology at the highest level of motorsport.

Look at the new Porsche 918 and the McLaren P1, for perfect examples of the current pinnacle of hybrid technology,. With electric only you only have a limited range before the batteries need to be recharged, and with petrol only you are wasting a lot of energy. Combining these 2 technologies originally just meant extending the range and making a more economical car, such as the horrible Prius, but now with the P1 and 918 we can see how it really can improve and benefit a car. Think of the electric part of these new hybrids as ways to extract the wasted energy from the petrol engine and use it to increase the output even more.

Taking the Porsche 918, you have a 4.6 litre V8 developing 608 horsepower, and also 2 electric motors developing 279 horsepower, combining to produce 887 horsepower, translating to a 0-62MPH time of just 2.6 seconds!!! but more impressive than anything else is a MPG of 94!!! WOW! That is impressive.

You can drive the 918 on electric alone through a town for a silent pollution free journey, or you can drive in V8 mode alone if the batteries are low, but in hybrid mode you can make the V8 recharge the batteries, taking just 2 litres of fuel to fully recharge them. That is really impressive. You can also plug the car in to recharge. On a standard EU 110V supply it takes 7 hours to recharge, which is similar to more common electric cars available such as the Nissan Leaf, but with a dedicated charging dock installed it can take just 2 hours. However, using an "optional DC Speed Charging station" can fully restore the battery in just 25 minutes! This is a recharge time I think anyone would accept as realistic in the real world. If real world electric cars could be recharged in just 25 minutes I think we would see a huge shift in the type of cars being used, especially for those living in cities.