Tost wants F1 to keep current engines until 2025

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In the round-up: Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost wants Formula One to extend the current power unit regulations to reduce costs for teams.

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As always the Driver Rankings has provoked some interesting point of discussion on how we should assess the performance of different drivers. For example, should we take mitigating factors into account?

I am also very impressed by Verstappen, but fact of the point is, you use “at 18 year’s old that’s something we can accept”. But then should we say of Hamilton “from an unprivileged background that’s…” or of Werhlein “from somebody who comes from DTM, that’s…” or of Alonso, “for somebody in the twilight of his career, that’s…” etc… (those are just examples, please don’t read much in them).

Verstappen has to now be judge as a F1 driver and only that, and I believe it’s the best show of respect of his talent and quality that we should regard youth induced mistakes as… mistakes.
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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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59 comments on “Tost wants F1 to keep current engines until 2025”

  1. ColdFly F1 (@)
    20th August 2016, 0:27

    I agree that a Driver Rating should disregard age and prior racing career.

    That’s why I’am flabbergasted that Vettel (more mediocre weekends) and Hamilton (poor start and disastrous Baku weekend) rate above Verstappen. IMO He does not have the champ status (yet) but he had a more consistent and impressive season so far.

    1. Flabbergasted? You’re really SO shocked that two drivers with SEVEN championships between them rate higher than Verstappen? Right

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        20th August 2016, 8:13

        And now I’m ‘SO shocked’ that you 1) did not read/understand my comment (hint: ‘prior racing career’) and 2) do not understand a Driver’s ranking.

        The ranking is for this season only; the SEVEN championships are irrelevant. @sjzelli

    2. I tend to agree, Hamilton for example, championship leadership or not, can not be placed on the top three on light of his Baku weekend.

      1. @faulty, would you then say that Verstappen should not be placed in the top three either in light of his performance in Monaco?

    3. Yeah, I don’t understand how COTD actually works against Verstappen but somehow it does apparently

      1. Trust me. It is not intended to be against him :)

      2. If you don’t understand thát, then your driver rating can be ignored at all.

    4. @coldfly that’s got to be the most ignorant comment ever.
      The 2 previous world champions and current championship leader out rating Max and your surprised!
      Even disregarding time in the sport, Lewis has demonstrated a tremendous ability to overcome huge setbacks including the collisions with his team mate and problems with his car to claw his way back into the lead. Max has had a great season but has enjoyed top support from RBR to win that first race that should have been Dani’s and they have both been proper team players supporting each other on track to gain max points for the team even to the detriment of each other’s scores.
      Max in Lewis or Sebs shoes would not be shining so brightly.
      The experience of dealing with tricky team mates and, especially in Sebs case, taking every opportunity to gain a point is what is keeping them at the top of the rankings.

    5. @Coldfly F1

      The same Verstappen who crashed 3 times in Monaco or the Verstappen who with a fit of anger, nearly took himself and then teammate Sainz out of the Australian GP?

      Every driver on the grid this, in the past and in the future will make mistakes, it’s a given.

    6. Even if you ignore the fact Verstappen is so young, he still deserves 1st place IMHO. He scored more points than his hugely successful team-mate and only made one big mistake in the first 10 races.

      1. One? I count at least two: The spin in Melbourne, the crash(es) in Monaco.

        1. He didn’t lost a place in Melbourne, doesn’t count. Monaco is his only low point.

          Compare that to:
          – Hamilton: crappy starts at the start of the season, awful (even ridiculous) performance in Baku
          – Vettel: also made a mistake in Melbourne, sloppy, mistake-prone (Canada and Silverstone) and not that fast in recent races
          – Ricciardo: qualifies high, only to bottle it during the first lap or to lose out to Verstappen due to a general lack of pace

          Verstappen was the best driver in this first half of the season, that’s just an objective fact.

          1. Agreed, Verstappen only messed up Monaco, Hamilton was allower the place in several races…

            But differences are small. Riciardo was better than both, but has worse results,…

          2. That’s not actually true. He was so angry he couldn’t get by his teammate who couldn’t get by the Renault, resulted in him running into Sainz, nearly taking them both out of the race.

    7. And yet you just disregard Verstappens dire Monaco weekend.

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        21st August 2016, 8:02

        When/Where/How did I ‘disregard Verstappens dire Monaco weekend’?

        1. Because you couldn’t otherwise say Verstappen deserves to finish in front of Hamilton.

          Verstappens Monaco was much worse than Hamiltons Baku, he planted it twice in the wall, DNF’d, collected no points. Hamilton, despite his 1 qualifying error, and subsequent engine issues in the race outside of his doing, still walked away in the points.

  2. Would be quite pleased if they kept the current engines for a lot longer, but with some sort of development plan to push the hybrid technology along further. And some work on reducing the number of engine modes… give them no more harvesting and deployment options than the owner of a high-end road car would have.

    1. This comes as a shock to me to say but I am slightly concerned about the future of our sport giving the kind of attention that Formula E has been getting recently. Major auto manufacturers and global companies have it seems turned their attention to the racing series that so many F1 fans derided when they commenced.
      From such global giants as Sony currently competing for contracts to expand their battery technology know-how to the entrants of new companies such as Volvo, Formula E is beginning to look like the new frontier for auto sports development.
      Whether we like it or not, Formula 1 in the long run will not be sustainable unless the sport changes.
      Being one of the few who supported the switch to the hybrid system and also Formula E, (which I sadly can no longer watch after its 1st yr since it moved behind a pay wall carried by a different cable provider than the F1 provider where I live ), I am glad to hear the FIA are going to stick with the hybrid system for a longer period.
      But I am afraid they might already be late. Auto development is fast moving away from what we are currently being entertained with in F1. Let’s face it, the ICU, as we know it, is coming to an end. And when its affair with autos end, what then is the use or need of F1?
      Is Formula E the future?
      The clock is ticking..

      1. Oil will run out soon. Formula E is the future. I am enjoying the racing that Formula E has to offer at the moment much more than F1 so I wouldn’t mind it surpassing F1 in the next 10-20 years.

        1. They said that when I was at school that by 2010 there would be no more oil. Funny that they keep finding huge deposits almost everywhere. Also did you know that most closed oil wells are not actually empty, just uneconomical. As soon as oil does start to run out and the prices rise those old wells will suddenly be economical again.
          Anyway oil (and its derivatives like gas) is the main fuel used in generating electricity in many countries especially the developing world.
          Most of the U.K. Electricity is generated by gas
          http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

          Need to burn a lot more oil to power the electric cars of the future.

          1. @9chris9, whilst there may be some individual large finds, the rate of discovery for conventional oilfields in recent years is not as positive as you might believe.

            According to the Financial Times, despite the fact that the period from late 2009-early 2014 saw oil prices reaching historical highs and an increase in exploration budgets, discovery rates during that period actually went into decline.

            Despite exploration budgets still being unchanged in 2014 (most projects having already been funded and underway before the recent decline in prices), 2014 saw the worst performance on record for 20 years (2015 has seen the worst results since 1954, but given most companies have now cut exploration budgets heavily, that is less representative).

            As for the huge discoveries, by the standards of the oil industry most recent finds have not been what they would consider to be “huge” – the long term rate of discovery of “giant” fields (fields with an estimated volume of more than 500 million barrels) has been in decline for decades, and records held by IHS show that no new “giant” class oilfields have actually been discovered for at least three years now.

            Now, that is not to say that oil will run out in the near future, which is not a true statement – oil production is likely to be continuing for many years yet, and the introduction of what have been termed “unconventional” oil sources, such as oil sands and or shale oil, has created a short term glut in production.

            However, whilst oil production may remain high, what will begin to decline is the availability of relatively inexpensive oil – a point you allude to when referring to uneconomic wells. Production may even rise due to unconventional sources and oil will still be widely available, but at a price – current prices may be depressed (although they are already steadily rising – the expectation is that prices will increase by around 50% by the end of 2017).

            Schlumberger, one of the major oil exploration giants, are already predicting that the current shortfall in oilfield replacement rates means that, some time between 2020-2025, we are probably going to be heading back towards a production deficit. You’re probably going to end up seeing much more violent variations in oil prices over the next few decades as you go between having production gluts caused by sudden spikes in unconventional oil, followed by periods of rising prices as there is an overcorrection in production declines – you’re not going to necessarily run out, but the price you can buy oil at is unlikely to remain steady for long periods of time.

        2. WillOfTheSupremo
          20th August 2016, 9:44

          I am torn in this, ever since FE’s inception.

          I really really really want to love FE. I really do. But there is ONE thing i can’t tolerate, and that is Fanboost.
          I don’t mind crappy rides/drivers (which we don’t have much so far), i don’t mind car switching mid-race and i love opening up the rules, as it allows for the exact progressiveness F1 refused to allow itself. And, usually, the on-track action is awesome.

          But.. really, fanboost kills it for me. I just…can’t… I’ll just quote Keith here from an article last year: “It has reduced drivers to beggars in twitter from some extra votes”. That’s pathetic.

          1. @WillOfTheSupremo Totally the same for me. I was really gonna get into FE as my second motor sport, but after hearing about fanboost I went from super interested to not at all. It just killed it dead.

        3. – Oil will run out soon.

          Frankly, I don’t think engineers and the people pushing the new mobilty technologies are any longer bothered about the future of oil. They used to be in the past but currently, they seem to be moving ahead with or without oil and rightfully so.
          @9chris9 I don’t see oil as being completely ditched. It’s continued application will remain in certain areas long after cars no longer require it. But who knows, the loss of the millions of barrels that autos consume would lead to a cleaner world, less corruption, less regime changes and wars, dictatorships and their corporate supporters and the list goes on.
          Frankly, the business of natural mineral extraction is a very dirty one that I wish would have ended yesterday already.

    2. @neilosjames, the thing is, in most production cars the majority of the adjustments that would be required to manage the variations in harvesting and deployment modes between different engines setting would be automated by the on-board computer systems. The large number of engine modes that are presented to the driver is a consequence of the insistence that the driver should manually adjust something that would normally be automated on a production vehicle.

      1. Thanks anon for clarifying this. People usually don’t know how complex their everyday car is. Or how the rules makes F1 difficult to drive.

  3. Ah Alonso, Alonso, Alonso. Promising to play nice if Mercedes give him a seat? You need to stop doing your talking on the track then because snipey little remarks like after a bad pit stop, or comments about the engine made over the radio for all to hear don’t tell the story of someone who can still play nice when things get spicey.

    I can’t argue the guys talent. But I’d take Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo and Verstappen over him in a team any day, and I certainly wouldn’t put him in a team with any of those drivers.

    1. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
      20th August 2016, 3:57

      @philipgb yeah it also sounded to me as an open letter to Mercedes, asking them to throw Nico and hire him. But Mercedes doesn’t need to risk the current balance, they will get WDC and WCC comfortably again, and Alonso has proved to be a disruptive character more than once before.

      1. It’s funny some people think alonso called up ESPN one fine day and said he and Hamilton would make a great team.. he was asked a question and answered the best he could … I’m sure he knows he has zero chances of driving for Merc ..

      2. Dear mr. Wolf,

        It is long since I last wrote, but situation is dire. I would be grateful for one of your F1 positions.

        I can drive, deliver flamboyant overtakes, have marketable looks, will watch my language over radio and don’t mind working weekends.

        Details can be arranged, please consider me for 2017.

        Can be yours,
        Signed, Fernando Alonso

    2. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
      20th August 2016, 9:18

      @philipgb Alonso would be great for Mercedes. Rosberg doesn’t push Hamilton, he just lunges at him when he gets the chance. With Alonso Mercedes would have two genuine number one drivers who would be able to fight cleanly: that would be great for the fans, which in turn would be great for the team. Both drivers are much more mature than they were in 2007, I think the pairing would work well.

      1. I agree @thegrapeunwashed. With Alonso in the other car there wouldn’t be the need for all these threats from Toto.

        I don’t see the benefit to Mercedes either, having a not-really-German with few fans being beaten predictably and letting himself down. I so wish Alonso -> Merc had happened, from all points of view.

        1. Only thing better than Ham and Alo would be Ham and Vet.

          I would love to see what other masters of F1 could do in them cars…

          But atleast Nico is good enough Hamilton cannot just slack and beat him.

          On a rare day Nico is genuinly faster.

          But maybe Alonso would be faster every race? Or maybe he is just old and will never be fastet than Ham ever again..

          F1 fan can always dream.

        2. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
          22nd August 2016, 9:06

          @lockup Agreed, I’d feel pretty sick if Rosberg won this year – which is still quite possible. He’s had a lot of luck on his side, but not made a great showing against his teammate in terms of either speed or sportsmanship. With Alonso in Mercedes I reckon whoever won would be deemed a worthy winner.

          @jureo Vettel would be a fantastic choice too, I think there really would be fireworks with those two as teammates. :-)

  4. Unless they were going to free up engine regs to allow different types of engines to be used by different teams, I’d rather they kept the current type. The only significant change I’d want to see would be to the recovery and storage systems, if and when the technology develops.

    1. Agreed. F1 gets itchy feet if something hangs around for more than a few seasons and I’d rather see the sport progress with what it has rather than look to change so soon. Look what happened last time we had a major engine change – Mercedes domination. Nothing against Mercedes but just domination in itself. Let the field equalise both through natural development cycles and only bring in caps if necessary for the entertainment and financial aspect of the sport. There WILL always be one team that benefits more than others from huge reg changes but lets try and keep that as few and far between as possible.

    2. I don’t see any need to change anything, they could continue on exactly as they are. There is plenty of room for improvement right now with the current restrictions. Already these engines are far more efficient than any of the other standardised engines they’ve had in the past, and efficiency will increase, meaning race times will come down.
      I did comparative check for the winning times from 2014 and 2015, and 2015 with 2016. In 2015 10 of the 18 races that were run both years had a faster time than the previous year. This year, of the 10 races that were run both years, 6 have a faster winning time from the previous year. I guess that suggests the improvements aren’t dramatic, and indeed they aren’t, but it does show things are improving.
      One flaw in my statistics is races are based upon country, not upon track, so some races would be on different tracks.

    3. I agree with that @beneboy. For now they are still nicely developing these engines, they will only get closer together and cost will come down within the following years.

      Maybe they can start making some parts standard (but certainly NOT the electrical parts like the RBR/STR guys have been proposing for over a year now but rather the mechanical part) and open up to more heat recovery, maybe more freedom in brake energy recovery (allowing things like the Audi regenerative dampers for example? and small motors in the front wheels – there would be space in those wide tyres) in a year or 2-3 to keep having somethign that can be done to make for variant behavior of cars on the tracks.

      1. @bascb Yes, I think it is becoming more apparent they could do with something like a 4 wheel drive capability. It isn’t uncommon to see a driver press the accelerator just a bit to much and suddenly the car spins out of control. I think having some motors driving the front wheels would help reduce the chances of this happening. Of course, the downside is more weight, and possibly more fuel consumption.

  5. Ok, it is official. I am a fan of Danny.
    Dude is actually rapping to a beat of Monica and Missy Elliot’s “So Gone”. I used to like that song when it came out in the early 2000s:)
    And congrats to him by the way on being FiFanatic’s 2016 mid-season champion.
    Keep moving up dude.

  6. Having recently heard a 2.4 V8 in a Red Bull RB7, I’ll keep the current engines thank you very much.

    The V8 is loud, yes, but it doesn’t actually sound that nice. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

    I love watching the drivers having to deal with the torque the hybrids produce, no longer can they just floor the throttle and get away with it

    1. Agreed @nvherman. The 2009-2013 V8 never sounded particularly interesting to me. Quite boring. It’s loud, but that’s pretty much it. The V8 in 2006 sounded brilliant though with no rev-limiter, and the 2007-2008 V8 still sounded quite good with the 19000 RPM limit. However, the 18000 RPM limit in 2009 just took the thrill out of the sound. V12s and V10s are my favourite. The current V6 sounds similarly boring in my opinion. It doesn’t give me a thrill. I really want these engines to rev higher. 11000-12000 RPM is just too low for an F1 car. I reckon that these current engines would sound great if they revved at least 5000 times quicker.

      1. The impression I get is right now engines aren’t pushed to their maximum RPM limit. Last year I had the opportunity to watch the onboard camera videos, and hardly anyone went above 12000 RPM. I don’t think I saw anyone go as high as 13000 RPM, even though the limit is 15000 rpm.

        1. The current engines are built to work at about 12 k rpm, because above that the fuel efficiency would drop down sharply @drycrust.

  7. I think it’s dawned on Kvyat that he might not be in the sport next year. Sure, he’d love to retain the seat at Toro Rosso, but the chances of it are really slim right now. Honestly, I think he’s a little fortunate that red Bull don’t have another star in the making under their wing.

    If he needs to hold on to that seat, he’d have to turn his season around big time, starting in Spa itself. I’m rooting for him though, as I wouldn’t want to see him off the grid next year.

    1. pretty sure he knew his racing career was over as soon as RBR threw him out to live out his contract with a team that has no financial interest in him.

      As for him being fortunate that he didn’t completely get sacked, well he would probably have more money in the bank, I would imagine for being dismissed like that. He has as much chance as holding that seat as does someone besides Merc winning more than a couple races next year. He’s not turning anything around, hes just chilling till the end of the year. Why do you actually think he has any more opportunity in F1, he knew he was done as soon as he got the call on the phone. He was fired, but hes taking a demotion before the end of his contract.

      1. * or rather, RBR would have lost more money canning him completely (RBR’s loss either way).

  8. Thanks Keith for COTD. This one came from the heart

  9. GP4 – What a choice, Keith.

    I played the living hell out of GP2 back in the day (I didn’t actually discover it til about 2000) on the keyboard. Ended up downloading some nifty editors which allowed me to not just crudely edit the liveries in Paint, but also change names, numbers, reliability options, and my favourite – the damage settings! You could wind the damage right up to the point where if you touched someone, part of your wing would come flying off in true to life fashion. Some of the pile-ups created were monstrous!

    But then I remember solely buying a PC magazine because it had a feature on GP4. I was absolutely amazed. Unfortunately, my PC struggled a little with it, but I could tell it was a wonderful game.

    Once I get my steering wheel sorted (lost the power lead during a move), i’ll give it another go!

    Honourable mentions go to the excellent F1 ’97 on the PSX, and the EA F1 titles on the PC. They looked absolutely stunning at the time. And the handling wasn’t bad, either..

    1. While we could discuss endlessly about driver-rankings, the game-ranking is simply and undoubtedly just right.

    2. Including the 2015 McLaren/2009 Williams in iRacing, 2013 & 2015 Ferrari/1957 Maserati in Assetto Corsa, and F1 2016, sounds like we have a top ten :)

    3. If you don’t want to limit yourself to PC/Console games, I just got “Formula D”, a racing board game which comes with two tracks, Monaco and a city street track on the flip side. The game is really, really clever and does an outstanding job of replicating a Grand Prix in a dice driven board game (I know, I didn’t think you could do it either). My family played for the first time last night and both my 9yr old daughter and 7yr old son were able to play along with my wife and I, and we all had a great time with my kids demanding to play again asap. There are “basic” and “advanced” game play options which encompass everything in a typical GP race: pitstops, gear selection, braking, damage, and car set up among others; or you can flip the board and have “outlaw” racing in street cars through a city center. Booster packs are sold with additional tracks like COTA, Hockenheim (sorry, new layout only), Sebring, Signapore, and Buddh among others. If you want to get out of the typical first-person driver video game, this is it.

  10. On topic of engines… What more do we really need? More power, more sound, or better sound…

    Power can be improved a lot, by simply allowing more hybrid performance…

    Idea of having an electrically driven front axle is very attractive to me, simply doubling KERS to the front aswell.

    At same time, most braking happens at the front, why not have front harvesting aswell?

    Keep ICE as it is, maybe raise fuel flow at higher RPM, so they actually use the full 15000 rev range. Most teams never go much beyond 12000, due to fuel flow restrictions. Maybe that would improve engine note…

    But what good major change could happen that would be good for us fans?

    If history thought us anything… Then next step is 1.2l I4 engine with maybe twin turbos… Or even a V4… No idea how that would help?

    Abandoning turbocharging? How do you then get thermal energy recovery?

    Abandoning petrol? Going electric as in formula E? Not likeley…

    So my favoutite option is, just get more and more power, and more revs from V6.

    Maybe make fuel flow rate more linear, to max out at 100kg/h at 15000 rpm. And start out at say 60kg/h at 6000 rpm.

    And while going with wishes… Maybe introduce Le Mans style rules. Let teams race whatever engine they want, but balance performance. So Renault/Honda can do I4, Mercedes theirV6 and Ferari can switch to twin turbo V8… Whatever engine makers want to market.

    Final option would be ideal, and would keep costs down… But likeley will never happen.

    1. “What do we need” is why F1 sucks. Seriously. If you need to be entertained, flip the channel (promote competition), there is more fire in the minds of other people producing other entertainment products. People’s obsessions about rules illustrates F1’s true utility in turning people in to proper subjects vs appreciating real competition. Domesticating the human mind, an interesting subject, hardly talked about, but it’s happening right in front of your eyes. WE NEED MORE RULES !!! YAY :) Competition? not really a necessity, because in the world of political graft, and the centralization of influence, competition is kind of bad for profit margins :) :) The real price of monopolies/oligopolies/cartel controlled markets, is the profit margins afforded by those with no real choice or alternative.

    2. @jureo, I think that, in reality, there would probably be less of a difference in engine format in the longer term than you think.

      I can’t see an I4 engine being used because, in vehicles where the engine is used as a stressed member, the lack of torsional stiffness renders it uncompetitive. Going back in time to the original turbo era, the BMW M12 was only initially competitive because BMW could use a higher boost pressure than their rivals but, had it not been for the parent board vetoing the request for funding, they were going to ditch it and replace it with a V6 design because the lack of torsional stiffness was hampering Brabham. A V8, meanwhile, is unlikely to work in a fuel restricted format – the old Alfa Romeo turbo V8 was notoriously fuel thirsty due to the increased mechanical friction, and performance balancing would remove any potential upsides from adopting that design.

      Equally, I’m not sure that the WEC system of performance balancing necessarily works either – asides from constant arguments over whether the balance is right or not (this year, it has been Audi who feels that they’re not competitive enough – the balance in the GT classes, meanwhile, is so badly broken that there are calls to abandon the current system entirely), the general consensus in recent years is that the current system hasn’t actually done anything to keep costs down.

      The current manufacturers have already said that their current hybrid units and engines are unaffordable for customers – if they were available anyway, as Audi will not consider supplying potential customer teams – and the ACO’s proposed 2017 regulation package does nothing to address the concerns of privateers about cost inflation (in fact, it managed to kill off one privateer entry in the planning stages due to the predicted cost increase for 2017).

  11. STR were looking good for P5 when Verstappen was still there, but they lost out to Force India pretty much right after he left. Rigth now it’s looking more realistic that McLaren will overtake them and they will end up in P7. Last of the midfielders.

    To be honest I’d say that’s their most likely target for next season too. Sainz can praise himself as much as he wants and indeed he has been putting in a few races in a row without making lots of errors, but he did that by taking it more slowly than when he was still trying to stay close to Verstappen.

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