Debate: 2.2-litre V6 turbos for F1?

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A turbo F1 car with a 2.2-litre V6 engine running on bio-ethanol, limited to 10,000 rpm and 770hp with traction control, four wheel drive and 13 seconds of power boost per lap.

Does this sound like a realistic vision of the future of F1 to you?

This is what FIA President Max Mosley has cooked up in an attempt to introduce more environmentally friendly and road-relevant technologies to Formula 1.

It raises a hell of a lot of questions.

Like, are they really going to bow to public pressure and ban traction control next year, only to reintroduce it three seasons later?

Is there any point in trying to make an inherently un-green sport more environmentally friendly?

Will the proposed measures to do anything to address the dearth of overtaking in Formula 1?

Will the smaller teams like Spyker and Williams be able to cope with the enormous costs of such a wholesale change in the regulations?

Could it even scare some of the under-performing manufacturers (Toyota, Honda) away? Or might it attract the likes of Volkswagen that are clear targets for Mosley?

And lastly, is it right for the governing body to try to mandate technological progress in the sport. Or should the designers be given a smaller rule book and a freer rein to express their engineering talents?

The next battle for the future of F1 starts here.

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Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “Debate: 2.2-litre V6 turbos for F1?”

  1. 2.2 litre v6 turbos, the turbo part i like but why are the engines getting smaller in a few years they will be running 800cc matiz engines WITH traction control.
    ban all driver aids then we will get a true champion.

  2. If they are going to have 4 wheel-drive then why have traction control. The boost idea is great for passing but I’m sure it will somehow be tampered with.

  3. Ah, now I see where they’re going. In 2013 it’ll be 1.5 litre fire pump engines, no wings and skinny tyres, driver aids amounting to a steering wheel and a brake pedal, a ban on carbon fibre.

    It’s the only thing that makes any sense out of all this…

  4. Incidentally, Keith, your server is a bit flaky these days, isn’t it? It was down this morning again and, even when up, quite often gives a blank page and smugly informs me it’s done. Might be my machine but I doubt it, since it copes with other sites okay.

  5. We’re working on the servers – normal service will be resumed!

  6. Is Max wrong in the head or something, or has he been smoking too much weed? I think there are going backwards with these ‘over-the-top’ engine changes. If they made engines last five races, then there would be much, much, much less overtaking because the drivers would just preserve the engines.

    And whats the point of bringing traction control back if that f***ing retard has just banned it, and also, stability control would just kill the entire sport.

    10,000 RPM, you can get that in a Honda S2000. Road Technology is for road cars, not racing cars

    Max, just leave F1 alone, or I’ll leave F1, you sick ba**ard.

    Sorry about my language but I really hate these engine proposals, and I would stop watching F1 if this happened.

  7. Max needs to keep his Fascistic little fingers out of it. He’s a bloody fool who thinks he has vision, but his vision is always at odds with what the fans want.

  8. Max has a great sense of humour!
    I’m sure he has started May fools instead of April, isn’t it about this time of year we get these ideas thrown into the ball park?
    13 seconds boost per lap? well, I suppose you’ll get tuggers at the back to the front in one overtaking manouvre.
    I can see it now, Albers saying to Hamilton: “I’ll get you next time”

  9. It’s odd that I’m the only one that finds smaller engines (in compromise for more technology in the cars) though I wonder if these changes will cause the cars to become cheap enough to bring in the extra teams Max is probably looking for.

    (Albeit recently absorbed) history lessons have shown that Formula 1 used to be a motorsport where the drivers were instructed to drive to the edge of their equipment’s capability to prove who was best. Deliberate brake lockups, cars that catch air on the crest of hills, and so on, were the norm, but sometime through the 80’s the cars became stronger than the people driving them, and that’s where Formula 1 is stuck. Then again, if the teams wanted to run cars that are only allowed to have two wings and small motors with push-to-boost, they’d be running teams in A1GP or ChampCar instead of Formula 1.

    This level of motorsport seems to be more about the talk in between the events than the events themselves, and I suppose that has normally been the case.

    Shrinking the engine isn’t really such a bad thing, and furthermore I think it’s safe to assume that in the first year of legalizing all-wheel-drive, very few will bother with it because it gives no competitive advantage in a single-seat car (unless he lifts the ‘four-wheels-only’ rule too, or if the rules require it. If all-wheel-drive is required, it’s because Max wants to see the end of the nose-up design, by requiring a driveshaft to run along the length of the car.)

    The problem with this direction is that it promotes the one-chassis and one-engine issue that plagues the other single-seat races.

    Limited push-to-boost is a gimmick borrowed from video games and needs to go away.

  10. Nathan Jones
    22nd May 2007, 8:53

    the FIA r an absolute joke!
    y r we banning TC to “bring back the driver skill element” then bringing it back “therefore removing the driver skill element”?
    stability control will kill the sport as stated above, also the races will become economy runs!
    another point of fact, think of the expense of developing this new technology and it will not improve the racing one iota!
    Ayrton Senna will be turing in his grave when he hears this news!
    also, if Gilles Villeneuve drove one of these computers – and lets face it, thats what they are – then he wouldnt be half the legend he is!

  11. captainrush
    28th May 2007, 10:23

    Why do you care about alonso? he doesnt care bout you! why do you care about f1, when hey dont care about you? have u ever stopped and thought ” f1 sucks, theres no over taking dog fights, never! no, never!” why care to watch f1 if you can tell who will win from the three first grid positions..??? isnt it strange that two years ago when ferrari was winning year after year ever so splendidly, suddenly out of no where comes renault and wins, just like that, after having had a crappy years of racing before..? and then suddenly from last year, when renault won the grand prix again, mclaren suddenly rises from the ashes, or the pile of crap if you like, is winning after last year being NO WHERE in the racing results??? im not a conspiracy theoriest but something smells fishy.. i mean vodafone did a really good job in predicting that mclaren would do sooo good this year, no? i mean there wasnt any real incentive to go with mclaren from last year because, well, they sucked! so yeah but the reigning champion was going with mclaren so this made them sure they would be succesful with mclaren…… when is people going to realize that f1 is 90% car and 10% driver(in good times)??? after all where the hell is renault now??? fisichella has always been shadowed… same with barrichello, a great driver but ferrari didnt provide him with the better car, yes within a team thy have one car which is given more attention than the other, but anyways… you make ur own decision about this.. should f1 CHANGE and become f1 “racing”? cuz as far as i can see there is no racing nowadays…

  12. captainrush
    28th May 2007, 10:47

    they only solution to this is the same thing they did with motogp… no more house factories representing theyr cars.. its time to have each brand come up with a car and sell it and its services to any company willing to have a car race in f1.. this way redbull could buy a ferrari f1.. and ing could buy one too or a mclaren or a renault….so on an so forth..

    i read the comments above and some say they will stop seeing f1 if the engines get any smaller.. dude that train left hours ago!! the time is now, why put up with max and his idiotic ideas? in f1 there shouldnt be the necesity to control engines sizes.. wouldnt it begreat if each f1 factory car could decide if they want a 12 cylinder or an 8 cylinder engine? just think about it, take a second..

  13. I strongly think that F1 cars should get back to basics. Something like the McLaren MP4/4 of 1988 or the Williams FW11 of 1986-87.

    Small turbocharged engines,
    slick tyres,
    standard aerodynamics,
    and a ban on all driving aids.

    This way we could really see who’s the best.

    Ever since Mosley has been in charge of FIA, he’s been destroying the sport with all those crazy rule changes and sexual scandals. What’s next Max? Six-wheeled cars allowed again? Flying nuclear cars? Nazi girls around the track?

    Have a nice day,

    a fan who misses the pre-Mosley period.

  14. Well slick tyres are in next year and traction control was banned this year. Wings are going to be cut back quite a lot as well. Of course a lot of this represents reversals of Mosley’s earlier policies.

  15. Mosley doesn’t have policies; he doesn’t even follow his own rules more than a year or two. This guy should crash into a wall just like Senna did. After all, it MAY be Mosley’s ban on active suspension that caused the crash.

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