For years, Formula 1 teams have been required to close their factories for a fixed period during the summer to give their workers a much-needed break.
Previously this did not apply to the manufacturing operations of the sport’s four engine suppliers. However, following the unprecedented shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, things changed drastically.
The chassis factory shutdown was brought forward from summer and extended. And, for the first time, the engine manufacturers also had to down tools, albeit for a slightly shorter period of 49 days instead of 63.
This worked out differently for some teams compared to others. Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto drew attention to it recently when explaining the problems the team faced in recouping the performance lost from its engine during the off-season. “We had the long shutdown period before the start of the season,” he said, “which has not been the case for all the power unit manufacturers, by the way.”
When the full effect of the pandemic became clear, Italy was one of the first countries to be seriously affected, prompting it to impose a ‘lockdown’. The timing of this was potentially less favourable for Ferrari than other manufacturers, notably Honda, whose shutdown came later.
However they were able to work on addressing reliability concerns, Tombazis explained. “A number of people wanted to do reliability improvements in the engines because we don’t want all this homologation to mean that people that have a reliability issue have retirements.
“There’s a very specific process to get the reliability upgrades approved, which involves even other manufacturers knowing about it. So therefore you can’t exploit it and sort of say you’re doing it reliability change but in the meantime change your compression ratio and your combustion chamber or whatever and get another 20 kilowatts or something like that.”
While each manufacturer had to shut their operations for the same length of time, Ferrari had to do so earlier than the likes of Honda.
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“The shutdown for Honda was a bit different to the shutdown for the rest of the manufacturers,” said Tombazis. “Not in terms of duration, but in terms of when it happened.
“The reason for that was when we first of all committed, and all teams and power unit manufacturers accepted, that [in] this extraordinary condition in the lockdown no team or manufacturer would get added lockdown compared to others because they happened to be in a particular country which was worst-hit by Covid and therefore had to be at a disadvantage.“That was mainly relevant for example when Italy went into early lockdown and the UK were behind and we said ‘all the lockdowns have to be equal’. There cannot be a team or a manufacturer that has an advantage or disadvantage there.
“Obviously, a lot of the Honda development takes place in Japan, and Japan is in another continent that had a completely different evolution of Covid and the lockdown situation. And we didn’t know when we agreed these rules in early April whether Japan would have a lockdown conceivably in the summer, and how hard the Covid would evolve in Japan.
“So we had to give some flexibility for Honda to have the shutdown a bit later. We didn’t want, if there was a legal requirement to go to lockdown say July in Japan, to then have to go back to the European teams to say, well, by the way, you now need to lock down another month because Japan is looking down.”
While the total amount of development time each manufacturer has had over the course of the year will not differ, Honda was able to do more work on its power unit earlier than Ferrari. Tombazis confirmed they are now aligning with the other power unit manufacturers.
“So that’s why Honda did some work while the Europeans were in lockdown and they’re recovering this around about now. It’s not perfect because you can’t produce a regulation which is exactly equitable when people are in different circumstances. But that’s the best we could do to get it as fair as possible.”
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F1oSaurus (@)
28th July 2020, 11:54
There is just too much repetitive and unrelated text in these articles. I guess the attempt is to present an “in depth” analysis, but it really just comes across as an incoherent bunch of text.
From all that text (or rather because of it), it’s still not clear how Honda had an advantage or Ferrari a disadvantage.
Silfen (@silfen)
28th July 2020, 12:42
The Ferrari factory shutdown period was the earliest of all engine manufactures, because of the lockdown in Italy, which started in the beginning of March. Hence the disadvantage to the other manufacturers who could still develop until their respective countries went into lockdown later. The Honda factory shutdown is happening now in Japan as there wasn’t a lockdown period in Japan.
F1oSaurus (@)
28th July 2020, 13:55
@silfen Well that is sort of the only thing the article is vaguely hinting at yes, but it doesn’t offer any basis for this being the case.
In fact the linked article claims that all manufacturers had to shut down for 49 days
.
With the first race starting in July, they would all have had their 39 days of shutdown before the season started. So all would have had their lockdown “pre-season”
Either way, the point is, lately there seems to be more emphasis on quantity of (random) text in articles rather than actually making a coherent point. While it used to be very much the opposite before. You have a title, the content needs to make this clear.
Silfen (@silfen)
28th July 2020, 22:07
@f1osaurus That period was for teams, not engine manufacturers.
As far as I know (and is mentioned in this article) Honda is now in shutdown, after the season started and engines are frozen for this season.
F1oSaurus (@)
29th July 2020, 8:34
@silfen Well the article states:
So that was for engine manufacturers.
The article does NOT mention that Honda is in Shutdown now. Although I could have missed it in the heap of repetitive nonsense.
It only mentions that Honda would shutdown later about half a dozen times.
Anyway, crap article.
Silfen (@silfen)
29th July 2020, 9:44
@f1osaurus I interpreted this quote as that Honda was now in its shutdown period.
F1oSaurus (@)
29th July 2020, 12:15
@silfen All he’s saying is that he’s aligning with the other manufacturers on the problem that Ferrari claims exists.
In fact one line up the article mentions the time each of the manufacturers “has had” is the same. Which would indicate, they already all had their shutdown.
Silfen (@silfen)
29th July 2020, 12:46
@f1osaurus and a line below it says that the other manufacturers are recovering from their disadvantage about now.
Which imho means that they can work on the engine where Honda can’t at the moment.
Other sources claim the same. I even read about this around the Austrian Grand Prix.
F1oSaurus (@)
29th July 2020, 16:42
@silfen So the only thing we can really conclude is that the article is an utter mess.
It’s a poor copy of an article on motorsport.com where it actually is explained that Honda would be allowed to go on lockdown during the summer.
synonymous
28th July 2020, 12:45
Ferrari had less pre-season time to develop their engine.
Now, after the season already got underway, Honda goes into shutdown – so theoretically, Ferrari can make up for that development offset.
Silfen (@silfen)
28th July 2020, 22:03
The engines are frozen for this season. So no, Ferrari can’t make it up.
Asanator (@asanator)
30th July 2020, 10:18
@silfen I think that this is sort of the point of the article. That Honda could continue working on the engine up to the point of homologation, whereas Ferrari couldn’t.
The article is a mess though and hard to read.
Robert
28th July 2020, 21:00
Sometimes yes, news articles ramble on a bit more than they need to. But that is not specific to this site, and most people can scan through a text quickly to find the parts they are interested in and read those more thoroughly. If you don’t like it, just don’t read it.
My conclusion is that Honda’s advantage is that they had more development time before the first races, especially compared to Ferrari. Meaning they get a sort of “under-cut” effect of being potentially quicker through the first few races, up to the point when all manufacturers have had the same amount of shut-down. From that point onward they will all be equal. But only Honda will have had a period of racing when they had MORE development time than the others.
F1oSaurus (@)
29th July 2020, 8:38
Or say somethign about it and hope they stop doing it?
The writing used to be a lot better and more to the point. Ever since Dieter came on board it seems to just drone on and on with
synonymous
28th July 2020, 12:42
I’m so tired of the term ‘power unit’.
If F1 really needs to be so fancy, then call it what it really is – an energy storage and conversion system.
Better still – call it an engine.
F1oSaurus (@)
28th July 2020, 14:03
I have to say I’d rather call it “engine” too. Oddly enough in the article it’s called both engine and power unit. So yeah rather confusing/sloppy.
I guess it makes sense to call the whole “power unit” since “engine” is in general use understood to be what is called the “ICE” in F1. Only part of the “power unit”.
synonymous
28th July 2020, 14:48
A car with an internal combustion engine is known to have an ‘engine.’
A car with a turbo still has an ‘engine.’
A petrol-powered car with an electrical collection and storage system (hybrid) still has an ‘engine.’
A hybrid assisted (or powered) car with a turbo also still has an ‘engine.’
Even a ‘self-charging’ electric vehicle has an ‘engine.’
But an F1 car has a ‘power unit?’
It’s just so ‘F1’ to give everything a fancy technical sounding title. It only makes sense to call it that if you feel the need to over-inflate the perceived importance or complexity of something (or someone).
minnis (@minnis)
28th July 2020, 20:06
@synonymous
A car with an internal combustion engine does indeed have an engine.
A car with a turbo still has an engine, and some of the time it is not appropriate to call the entire package an ‘engine’.
A hybrid still has an engine – and it is often inappropriate to call the entire power train an ‘engine’.
A hybrid powered car with a turbo still has an engine – and it is often inappropriate to call the entire ensemble an ‘engine’.
If your mechanic told you he needed to ‘change the engine’ when in actual fact all he needed to do was change one part then you’d think he was either insane or ripping you off.
The engine in F1 is just one small part of the power unit. To call the entire thing an ‘engine’ is oversimplification at best, downright misleading at worst.
synonymous
29th July 2020, 3:43
ENGINE:
1. a machine with moving parts that converts various forms of energy into motion.
That does seem to describe – in plainly simple terms – what’s in an F1 car. Don’t you think?
If my ‘engine’ has a problem, it needs repair – a ‘part of the engine’ is not functioning correctly. Not the whole system.
Balue (@balue)
28th July 2020, 16:13
I vote for engine too
Patrick (@paeschli)
28th July 2020, 14:59
Why do these engines need to be homologated? Seems like unnecessary bureaucracy to me.
S
28th July 2020, 15:05
So the FIA know if anyone is upgrading them while they are supposed to be locked down, perhaps?
Also so they can be assured to be designed and functioning within the rules, maybe?
Adam
28th July 2020, 20:32
To cut costs. To stop engine manufacturers upgrading their engines every time they introduced a new one.
Silfen (@silfen)
28th July 2020, 22:12
Homologation of these engines started in 2014, when they had to use tokens for upgrades. After they banned the tokens, they still homologated the engines and now it is used to limit/prevent upgrades to the engine during the freeze period.