FIA allows Honda to upgrade engine during season

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In the round-up: Honda will be allowed to develop their engines after the 2015 season has begun following discussions with the FIA.

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Honda wins F1 engines fight (BBC)

" Friday's ruling will allow Honda to change a given amount of its engine calculated by the average of the number of tokens unused by the other manufacturers by the time of the first race in Australia on 16 March."

V8 Supercars to include grand prix races if TV deal is signed (Sydney Morning Herald)

"For the Australian GP support races to gain V8 title status, the multi-channel subscription TV network would have to be allowed to show them, which would require the approval of Ten for this year and also Formula One Management – the F1 commercial rights holder – until the end of the event's five-year renewal in 2020."

Earlier start for Russian Grand Prix (Crash)

"Formula One Management has taken the decision to move the start time of the Euro-Asian round forward by one hour, to 1400hrs Moscow time."

Esteban Gutierrez: 'I’m keen to learn quickly' (Ferrari)

"I need to get to know the people I will be working with and I hope that my experience with the Ferrari engine will mean I can contribute to the development of the new power unit."

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New Ferrari team mates Esteban Gutierrez and Sebastian Vettel got acquainted at the team’s factory in Maranello earlier this week.

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Nico Hulkenberg will race a Porsche at Le Mans this year but while Fernando Alonso wants to, he has been forbidden from competing by Honda. @Tharris19 would like to see more F1 drivers competing in other series:

I remember reading about Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio and others who raced everything they could. Even though there was no television coverage, one could imagine the skill need to drive a W-196 at Spa then a Maserati 450s at Mille Migla.

I would love to see some of today’s driver take that on. Then we would a much clearer idea as to who can drive and who is mediocre.
@Tharris19

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80 comments on “FIA allows Honda to upgrade engine during season”

  1. To follow up my previous comment, Honda might have an even bigger advantage now. And Marchionne can say goodbye to Ferrari’s only victory of the year.

    1. Also my 1st thought when I saw the headline, Ferrari will likely go from bad to worse due to their own goal in the political machinations handicap event.

    2. While the general public cannnot say for sure how competitive the Honda engines currently are in comparison to those of Ferrari and Renault, one can certainly say that Ferrari and Renault’s whinning and the subsequent rules changes may come back to bite them.
      Both teams may yet be left in the dust by Honda and Mercedes.

    3. @hunocsi I think you are right about the advantage but it may be the case that Honda produces a disastrous engine.
      Now is the real FIA fail, though it is still left to see whether Honda has any token restrictions, which is doubtful. The only unfair bit about the previous consensus was the fact Honda would not benefit from the 2nd year benefits. This is how FIA rewards the manufacturers that pledged to sustain F1 is the tough opening year of the new powertrains. Honda has from a developing point of view a massive advantage, they rightfully claimed hindsight but now they also have unparalel development through their first year.

    4. I’m not sure how this gives Honda a big advantage, it’s only so if they’ve got an unit that’s right up there with the Mercedes unit. Also given that they’re only supplying just one team, that in itself is a negative for them, especially with such new technology, they’ll require a copious amount of data to better develop their engines and they won’t get that with just supplying one team.

      Also lets not forget about their last foray into F1, their engines then were neither cutting edge or fast, so I really can’t see why everyone thinks that they’re going to get it right, just because they came in a year later.

      1. Also given that they’re only supplying just one team, that in itself is a negative for them, especially with such new technology, they’ll require a copious amount of data to better develop their engines and they won’t get that with just supplying one team.

        Not necessarily. Sometimes, with one team it makes easier to co relate data and make a more definitive improvement plan. There are a lot of variables that affect engine performance when every team has it’s own cooling system, tyre management, engine packaging, gearbox etc.

    5. I’ve been saying all along that allowing Honda this flexibility affords them an unfair advantage over the other manufacturers.

      Hell, I think you could consider their one-year deferral with free reign over the design for 2015 to be an unfair advantage on its own.

      1. Exactly.

        Although this compromise is slightly less of an advantage than what they demanded before. Now they only get the number tokens that the other manufacturers will use since the start of the season. Instead of the full 32 tokens added on top of their advantage of being able to design a new engine.

        So now they are only advantaged in the sense that they can start with a brand new 2015 engine and be competitive from the first race and still introduce a new engine later on in the season.

        Apart from the fact that they already got a head start learning from the mistakes Renault and Ferrari made and no doubt learning a lot from McLaren about the Merc engine. Although that is slightly reduced by not running a whole season with their engine yet.

        Still, all in all it’s a huge advantage for Honda.

    6. Let’s not forget they still need to go through the teething pains of running their brand new engine in anger. The other engine manufacturers all have had a year of working the kinks out of their power unit, and while some components/ideas are universally considered to be “good”, each engine is still unique and has its own gremlins that need to be sussed out.

      Reliability will be a huge factor for them, especially at the beginning of the season. Also, they only have 4 power units allotted for the entire season while last year the other manufacturers had 5. There’s a good chance we see McLaren drivers losing a lot of grid positions in the second half of the season.

      In their favor, they certainly have the advantage of using the best ideas of current power units. Also, since 2012 they have supplied about half the IndyCar field with V6 turbos, engines that sustain speeds of 220+ mph for 30-45 minutes at a time for 3 hours, with only a pit stop between stints. In 2013 a Honda turbo powered team won the championship. In the 2015 IndyCar season they will also be producing their own aero kits, though how that can parallel with F1 I’m not sure.

      They certainly have the pedigree, and it only remains to be seen at the beginning of the F1 season whether or not they come out of the gates with Mercedes-like or better reliability, or if they have the disastrous start like Renault.

      1. @pastaman they’re allowed updates for reliability anyway. In any case most of the development is in the software which is unrestricted.

        The wearing parts are a turbo and a low-revving V6 so 4 units shouldn’t be a problem. They’ve seen what happened when Renault didn’t develop the components together in a car mockup, so if they make that mistake they deserve to fail. They won’t though. Likewise they saw Ferrari’s undersized turbo. They saw how crucial Merc’s cooling solutions were.

        Extra tokens on top of a free copying/development year is a big unfair advantage for Honda. Great opening win for Arrivabene lol.

        1. I disagree.
          There were always pros/cons, advantages/disadvantages to coming in a year late.

          Honda was always working to the 28th Feb date. They assumed that all other teams had to have their 2015 spec engines for that date as well. What changed was the FIA allowing the other teams to use the tokens during the year. Honda did not envisage nor expect that.

          I think the new solution is a good compromise.

          1. But Honda get to field their 2015 engine against rivals’ 2014 engine, that’s great! Now they also get to develop it.

            It’s not so much a compromise as a bonus

    7. I don’t agree with that statement. The problem with the rules is that Honda enters the compitition between the periode of the engine lock. As long Honda lock the engine when the season starts it should be no problem. After that they can make modifications with the other engine manufactors.

  2. I am still confused about the engine development and what can and can’t be done.

    Both articlessuggest that some tokens can be used before the season starts and then the remaining tokens can be used throughout the season. Does that mean that more than one interation of the 2015 engine can be homologated?

    Again, this seems contrary to what I have thought and read; that only one version of the 2015 engines can be hologomated at some point during the season.

    Have we got a clear answer on what can and can’t be done with engines yet?

    I for one think this is a good compromise for Honda. Still concerned about the four engine rule but they knew this would be the case, so lets just hope it is reliable!!!

    1. Confused, me , you betcha !

    2. I too am confused. We get comments like;
      “The teams can only use homologated engines”
      Therefore Honda must homologate their engine before season starts.
      The engines can only be homologated once.
      These statements to me indicates, the teams must use the 2014 engine or once it has been homologated the 2015 engine.

      I see nothing that says an updated 2014 engine can be used, because that would make it non-homologated, or after the 2015 engine has been homologated, with some or all of their tokens, a modified 2015 engine, using the remaining tokens.

      We need clarification on exactly what and what can be done to the engines, before and during the season.

    3. There were some different interpretations of what the previous decision meant. Some argued that it merely allowed Mercedes/Ferrari/Renault to delay the introduction of the 2015 power unit, using the 2014 unit in the mean time. Others said it meant they could spread out the development work and introduction of the updates across the season.

      This latest ruling definitely settles that issue – the calculation of Honda’s allowance of tokens relies on the three incumbent manufacturers doing some work pre-season, leaving other work for later. So yes, that’d mean they can introduce several iterations of the 2015 power units. The Sporting regulations (Appendix 4) states they can only homologate one specification of power unit. So does that mean one per season? That’d clash with this latest ruling, and we’d see a clarification and alterations for next season. Another interpretation is that they refer to the power units homologated Feb 28, 2014 (that’s the date that’s still in the regulations). That specification power unit is the one that is homologated, and the changes made since and going forward are part of the power unit development scheme (laid out in the Technical regulations, Appendix 4). For Honda, as a new entry, the homologation date is Feb 28, 2015, but otherwise the same rules apply.

      1. That makes sense, thanks Andrea.

      2. ColdFly F1 (@)
        18th January 2015, 2:22

        The Sporting regulations (Appendix 4) states they can only homologate one specification of power unit.

        That one is used to make sure that there is only one version of the engine at any time (all cars and customers teams have to use the same engine).
        It does not state how often they can homologate (within a season).

        1. No that means they can homologate only one engine spec per season. FIA never changed their stance on that. Only that the homologation date for the 2015 spec is not fixed because they forgot to add that this needs to happen before february.

          So the Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault might start the season on the 2014 engine and then later on produce a single 2015 spec engine. Not multiple 2015 specs.

          If the loophole allowed multiple homologations during the season then Honda could do this as well.

      3. ColdFly F1 (@)
        18th January 2015, 2:26

        The explanation by FIA clearly implies that there can be only one upgrade for each item/’token’ during the season.

        However that is not stated in the regulations. I (and others) thought that the 32 tokens only defined ‘which’ items were to be upgraded during the year, not ‘when’ (which is now confirmed) nor ‘how often’ (not clear in the rules).

        1. Just when I thought I understood it. {;-( , thanks @coldfly, sigh.

          1. Yes, only thing clear is that the simple and straightforward case of 1new engine per year isn’t what we get @hohum,@coldfly,@mach1, FIA doing what it is good at.

          2. Yeah, the one thing that is sure, is that the rules now are overly complicated, riddled with holes and loopholes and could be protested by anyone at any time. And they have already changed, what 4 times? since the off season started @hohum, @coldfly, @bosyber.

            IF I understand it right, then what happened is that Honda told the FIA that they would protest any update brought to the existing, 2014 homologated engines until everyone would be in a complete mess.

            YEah, Ferrari claimed a victory a couple of days ago, and already it shows what quality to expect of them this year.

        2. The tokens are not tied to any specific items. Each item on the list (which you’ll find in Appendix 4 of the technical regulations) is weighted – some things cost only one token to change, while others cost two or three – and you can “spend” at total of 32 tokens for 2015.

          The list also tells you which items are available for updates for the various seasons. At the moment, most items are available, while in 2019-2020 almost all are frozen.

    4. Does this means that manufacturers can modify their engines all year and introduce 2015 specificwtion at the end of the year just for the formality? And does Vettel asks Gutierrez on that picture: “do you fill screwed to mate?”.

      1. Does this means that manufacturers can modify their engines all year and introduce 2015 specifications at the end of the year just for the formality? And does Vettel asks Gutierrez on that picture: “do you feel screwed to mate?”.

    5. The part that confuses me is that will be able to use the average of the unused tokens by the other manufacturers at the start of the season. Surely if they can only homologate the 2015 engine once during the year, they will all have 32 unused tokens at the start of the season. Granted this is assuming they all delay homologation of their 2015 spec engines, which I don’t think many people expect anything else. So this must mean Honda will also get 32 tokens, no?

  3. Sean (@spaceman1861)
    18th January 2015, 0:30

    So much racing in Melbourne :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
    Do you think that people will complain more now (if the v8s go the same weekend) about the sound of the v6s?
    I have only seen the v8s(f1) and the v8s(v8 champ cars) so i cant tell but would the v8 champ cars be louder then the f1 v6s? the v8s are pretty loud.

    1. They are louder than current F1.

    2. The v8 super cars supported the f1s last year (it didn’t count as a championship round due to the tv rights, channel 7 covered the v8s and 10 the f1s) so I can definitely confirm that the v8s are considerably loader than the v6t

      1. Pretty much everything was louder than F1 last year :) Which in my view did not make any difference as I like watching stuff without wearing ear plugs.

      2. Aaron – it may not count as a championship round this year unless if Ten and Fox can agree a Formula 1 deal from 2016 before Albert Park Friday practice and allow Foxtel to air the V8 races live (Foxtel can’t air all day coverage as it would be against broadcasting rights). The V8s sounded like european according to the commentators (Greg Rust and Greg Murphy). I am glad that the V8s are back on 10.

    3. The new Generation V8SC’s are much quieter than the old ones we had, but in my opinion they sound even better, more refined. At Albert Park you can hear the faint roars of a pack of V8SC’s across the lake and whilst walking over a bridge the cars would send tingles down your spine.

      The new V6 Formula 1 cars on the other hand were absolutely pathetic.
      I remember arriving at Albert Park on Friday, galloping through Gate 10 and charging towards the soccer oval area where the final turns are as Practice 1 had just begun, to witness the new cars for the first time.
      It was extraordinarily eery experience, I couldn’t hear anything other than helicopters hovering above the track and the dopey Greg “Rusty” commentator over the P.A. and then there it was, mid way through the corner, a Ferrari F14T.
      A quiet phwoosh and it was gone. It was that moment, I knew something had died inside of me.

      The Old V8’s would echo across the whole entire park, even when a single car was on track, the atmosphere and excitement it created was unbelievable. And a full field of V8’s would resinate through the whole of Melbourne, bouncing off the concrete jungle. Don’t even get me started on the V10’s… I could hear them crystal clear from my house, 10kms away from the circuit. Magic.

      But, to your original question: They’ve always had the V8SC race at the Melbourne GP, except for a couple of years in the early 2000’s. They have just never been able to televise it, nor does the race contribute to official championship points in the V8SC calendar. And yes, huge contrast between the V8SC and the F1 cars at last years event, even the Porsche Cup and Historic demonstrations were louder.

      1. I feel exactly the same about the noise, people underestimate its importance as they may not have been to a race, but when you’re sat in your seat, you can’t easily follow the action on track because of the single vantage point so the racing quality isn’t as important, but the look and sound of the cars is. The sound is the main feature when you’re watching from the side of the track, and in 2014 (while sounding nice) they weren’t nearly loud enough.

      2. You’ve put such a longing in my heart, as a teen I remember walking to the Indianapolis F1 races and hearing the scream from 2 1/2 miles away. Here is something for us both:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHaN1tg8fEw#t=102

    4. Back in 2013, when I went to the Australian GP, I needed ear protection for both F1 and V8s, in Singapore 2014, I didn’t need it except for the Masters races.

      I enjoyed not having to wear headphones, I also understand the allure of the noise though it did get annoying having to wear my headset for a whole 30 minutes in the humidity.

  4. Complicated it might be but this new ruling would seem to be fair to both Honda and MB, SF, Renault customers. Time to re-run that poll Keith ?

    1. It’s actually quite clever – since Honda’s allowance of tokens are calculated from the amount of tokens the other manufacturers decides to push forward, it will act as an incentive for them to finalise their 2015 power units as early as possible. Or at least for them to leave as little as possible for later. Either way, we should end up with a situation far closer to what the FIA initially wanted (all power units are finalised before the first race). I bet Ferrari didn’t see that coming when they pushed for the development loophole… :-)

  5. I do see one slight problem in the teams pushing to use their tokens before the start of the season… What if one manufacturer doesn’t, let’s say Merc decided to not use any tokens and Ferrari/Renault use all theirs Honda would get 1/3 of the tokens that Merc has but still have some, the 3 manufacturers are really going to have to trust each other or 1 could have a very big advantage and hand Honda an advantage over the other 2… Just a thought… Would like to add I am in favour of the news Honda can now develop with everyone else.

    1. Prbably the best thing the other teams could do was homologate all their engines before the original February homologation date. This would strip Honda of the advantage they now have obtained.

  6. I do hope the 5pm AusGP start time is remaining for this year only due to limited time to re-arrange a busy and diverse program, late starts are just another Bernieism to deflect blame for F1s critical case of anorexia.

    1. @hohum it is staying at the same time this year according to Andrew.

  7. This is one of the most sensible decisions the FIA has made recently. I guess they realise how utterly stupid it would have been to disadvantage a new engine manufacturer to the sport thus deterring other potential companies.

    Regarding the Sydney Morning Herald article:
    Network 10 has only one year of its contract left to televise F1! This is possibly great news for Australian fans. Reading what fans have to pay in the UK and Europe I appreciate that we are extremely lucky to be able to watch F1 coverage on free to air tv but, believe me, the coverage is barely adequate. I fervently hope that FoxSports gets the rights from 2016 and gives us the standard of coverage we want!

    1. Arki, it is hardly good news, the coverage we receive on 10 network is in fact the UK Sky TV race broadcast, albeit interrupted with commercials, we will have to pay heavily to see the same broadcast without commercials although this price will hopefully include additional F1 related programming.

      1. I understand what you are saying but I would rather pay for less ads and hopefully more coverage. (And being selfish, I already have full FOXTEL contract so won’t be paying anymore.)

        1. Same here. Sometimes it’s more like watching commercials interrupted with F1 ;) I don’t have FOXTEL as I don’t watch much TV but if they had commercial free F1 on it I would definitely went for it.

        2. I fervantly hope Channel 10 keeps the rights or at least that Foxtel doesn’t get them. I’ll put up with a few ads if I have to, but there is no way that that evil bastard Murdoch is getting any money from me.

    2. @arki – Ten will televise all 3 day coverage of Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix including all races shown live from 2016. While Foxtel will have qualifying and pre/post analysis package exclusive to the subscription service (except for AusGP).
      @hohum – at least we still see every race live, however its not confirmed as to what the broadcast deal is

  8. ColdFly F1 (@)
    18th January 2015, 2:50

    This decision now opens a very nice strategic option for Honda.
    – Develop their engine as best as they can (as planned) before 28Feb;
    – race and learn during the season;
    – use the ‘free tokens’ to introduce an upgrade as late as possible in the season (use it as the improved base for 2016).

    As the regulations do not stipulate that a homologated engine has to be used in a race, they can maybe upgrade/homologate after Abu Dhabi. Then they will not get an engine penalty if they already used their 4 units, and easier to coordinate.

    1. @coldfly – Yeah, I think you’re onto something there. Whilst the regs do say you can only use a homologated PU at an event (FP/Q/Race) it seems they can homologate as many times as they want during the year so it doesn’t really make a difference. It would be the best use of tokens to save them till the end of the year with all the data accumulated over the events and then use the tokens they got as additional tokens for the 2016 engine. They only have to submit the engine with those tokens used in 2015 so they could even do that in December! I guess they will see how competitive they are at the start of the season and decide then.

  9. Maybe it’s just me but with all these issues with the power unit rules this year it’s brought F1 back to a place I love because I am all for teams being able to upgrade and fight in every way possible. I missed the days of teams being free to upgrade more parts of the car. Does anyone agree? This is great to see teams engineers being able working their magic on more then just aero upgrades.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      18th January 2015, 6:35

      I agree!
      However, we should not forget that the other consequence of all these poorly defined rules, and the disaster FIA has proven to be, is that 2-3 teams are not expected to make it to Melbourne this year.

      PS – just decided to go to the race in Melbourne in March – happy me. I had to cancel my Jerez trip and gave myself this as a make good present ;-)

    2. In principle I totally agree, it is in practice that there seems to be a problem however I well recall the era of massive sponsorship that allowed constant development when every race was anticipated with the same excitement as the season opener because you never knew which teams car would be faster than it was last race, I also remember the days before Bernie when the “Garagistas” would finish a season with a car that was entirely different from the one they started the season with, if they could do it then they should be able to do it now, of course in those pre B.E. days all the revenue from staging the races stayed with the tracks and teams unlike today.
      “To B.E. or not to B.E. , that was the question”.
      @racerdude7730, @coldfly

  10. Since FIA can arbitrarily decide to rewrite the rules for Honda, they’ve made it a bit obvious they could simply have put in the date they forgot, that led to all this bickering.

    Could have, but didn’t.

    1. I rather think this is about Honda showing the FIA clearly what trouble they would be able to make over the homologation rules forcing the FIA to allow Honda to use a loophole as well, so that more or less everyone is in breach of the original rules and therefore they hold eachother in limbo but nobody will be in a position to stop the others as they are in it themselves as well @lockup

      1. Well I don’t know @bascb. The stewards are on the panel by invitation, if they upset Bernie Charlie won’t ask them back.

        Though I daresay Charlie wanted to appease Honda. But it’s probably just lack of forethought that’s ended up giving Honda more tokens than anyone else. Hard to tell really. Maybe Bernie rated McLaren Honda’s chances of challenging Hamilton higher than Ferrari’s?

        1. That is just complete nonsense. If Honda protested a rule like this the stewards would most likely either have to agree on reading the rules, or just refer the case to the FIA WMSC right away if they did not want to judge on the matter. But that would make every race have its results be in limbo until a ruling can be finialized. And even then, its likely Honda would be able to take it to real world courts after that.

          1. You’re being unrealistic @basc. The stewards operate within the bounds they’re given. It’s a club. They have plenty of scope to interpret the rules, so they’d rule and then it would be up to Honda to appeal to the ICA. Honda cannot afford to fall out with Bernie. Remember their fuel tank last time? Compare that with Ferrari’s prebuckled stay or Red Bull’s array of transgressions. That difference would be nothing compared to the fallout if Honda took FIA to court. The history of F1 is littered with the bodies of people who took Bernie on and regretted it. Adam Parr, for example…

    2. All the teams have to agree on changes like this though.

      Honda threatened to protest the teams starting on a 2014 spec engine. So apparently they did agree to this compromise when they couldn’t agree on changing the 2015 homologation date.

      1. Yes, this looks like being an agreement of sorts to make everyone be acting against the rules, but agreeing not to act because everyone has more to lose than to gain from that.

    3. @lockup
      IMHO the only plausible reason for them not to have just closed the original loophole once it was spotted (ie just fixing the homologation date) starts with a capital F

  11. I’m really confused about what is going on at the FIA. So Ferrari/Renault discover a loophole that allows them to homologate later in the year, giving them more development time, but requiring them to run the 2014 engine till the 2015 engine is ready. Fine – dropped ball by FIA, but them’s the rules.

    Except how the hell have we now got continuous development allowed piecemeal throughout the season? How is this going to help costs? Why have the rules been changes? Why is Honda receiving special treatment?

    Basically why isn’t the FIA able to club together and get a functioning spine between them?

    Combining this with the super licence points idiocy, the hope of going 6 months without them doing something totally moronic has evaporated.

    1. @fluxsource – There is nothing in the regs that say only one PU can be homologated per season just that only one can be homologated at any one time. There is also no date specified in the rules for engine homologation during 2015 so an engine can be homologated at any time. This allows the PU manufacturers to homologate a PU for the first few races with a few of the development tokens used, then another PU with more tokens used for the next few races and so on up to a maximum of 4 PUs used (without penalties) in the season. The FIA has clarified that the tokens can only be used once, so when a PU is submitted for homologation those tokens used become homologated too and no longer available for development in 2015. This all means that it is very doubtful anyone will use a 2014 PU at the start of 2015. More likely is that they will use a few of the tokens where they can make the most gains and then develop the other areas more for later in the season.

      1. @jimbo

        My mistake – based upon some of the commentary I’d read I assumed you could homologate only once a year, but they’d just forgotten to say when. I think I’m not the only one with this impression.

        Regardless, my basis of my point stands. The FIA decide the rules, they should start acting like it.

        1. @fluxsource – Yeah I think everyone thought the same and that is what the spirit of the rules intended. The FIA messed up and caved in to pressure from Ferrari / Renault opening up a whole can of worms. Honda deferring for a year just complicated matters further.

  12. So all that Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault have to do, to prevent Honda upgrades through 2015, is introduce their new engines one race later.

    This decision now leaves Honda situation in the hands of the other teams. I don’t understand, how did they not foresee this, or am I missing something? In Hondas shoes, I certenlay would not have agreed to this.

    1. @mateuss

      So all that Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault have to do, to prevent Honda upgrades through 2015, is introduce their new engines one race later.

      But they’re not going to introduce their new power units at the second race of the year because each car can only use four* of them in total during the season. That would effectively leave them with only three engines for the remaining 19 races.

      (*Five if the number of events “as originally scheduled” is deemed to have been more than 20 due to the brief inclusion of the Korean Grand Prix on the calendar.)

      1. @keithcollantine Ahh, I see. Can the official token-upgrade system be read somewhere? I wan’t to see where and how is says that upgrading some part using tokens of one of the “big” parts (engine, turbo, kers, ers, ecu) will count that automatically as a new part.

        That indeed would make it much less likely to happen. But still not unthinkable, because they can reuse the engines later. In the position of the other manufacturers, I would consider coming together and thinking about using the old engine for 1st race, then Monaco and Singapore. Still makes sense to me.

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          18th January 2015, 12:50

          @mateuss, they cannot ‘reuse’ the old engine after a new one is homologated. Only one specification can be homologated at a time, and all cars have to use that PU (specification). Thus the old one becomes obsolete.

          In my previous comment I put a link to all the regulations. Please, read comments as well; I think it is still not clear.

    2. @mateuss – If they used the 2014 PU at the first race of the 2015 season then that would be the currently homologated PU with no tokens used thus giving Honda the full 32 tokens for use during 2015. A token is not used till it has been submitted for homologation. This really is an incentive for the incumbent PU manufacturers to use as many tokens as possible by the first race of the 2015 season.

  13. That picture with Vettel and Guttierez is like Vettel thinking: “Who the hell is this guy?”

  14. Interesting idea for allocating tokens to Honda. The other 3 manufacturers could bank on Honda having a poor engine and use all 32 tokens by the first race, giving honda zero tokens.

    Doubt it will happen, however.

    1. It won’t happen, simply because neither Renault nor Ferrari are able to get their work done that soon, that was the reason they pushed for a change and then wanted to use this loophole @hamilton4496

    2. Mercedes already said they will start with the 2014 engine. Although they might rethink that now Honda has gotten this extra advantage. Probably too late to still change their schedule though.

        1. That’s more like a rumour that the previous rumour was untrue. Although the previous report actually came with quotes from Toto Wolff and this one comes with quotes from some reporter.

          Besides, Wolff was quoted about starting the season with 2014 engines and Omnicorse talks about testing with 2015 engines. Those could both be true.

          As usual we will just have to wait what happens. Like I said, perhaps even the Honda ruling (which came between the two reports) made them rethink starting with their 2014 engine.

  15. For me this is what keeps Formula 1 great, im tired of whinging about tyres, engine noise, DRS and double points. Lets be honest here who is not excited by the unknown of a new engine on the block next year? and then throw in the devlopment rule to add a bit more spice to the off season, things surely have to be looking up.

    The Hamilton v Rosberg duel kept me entertained this year but Id rather not watch round 2 of that next year. Engine races may be costly but im happy to have something to keep me entertained in the off season.

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