Carlos Sainz Jnr, Ferrari, Singapore, 2024

Four power units a season still the “right limit” despite 24 rounds – Vasseur

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In the round-up: Frederic Vasseur still believes four power units for a full season is enough.

In brief

Four PUs the “right limit” – Vasseur

Despite there being 24 rounds in this year’s world championship – the longest ever F1 season, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur believes that the four power units limit per car, per season is still at the right level.

“I think each case is different, but if you have a look now, we are at race 18 and I’m not sure that a lot of drivers took a penalty just for the comfort or for performance interest for the future,” Vasseur said.

“We are all on our path to do the season with four engines. Perhaps we won’t achieve it, but it’s the right limit.”

Fairclough ends season with 14th win

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British F4 champion Deagen Fairclough completed a record-breaking season with victory in the final race of the season in Brands Hatch.

After the first race of the day was abandoned after only four laps due to an crash involving Jack Sherwood, Fairclough won in wet conditions in the last race of the weekend and the season, leading home Saturday race winner Leo Robinson.

It was Fairclough’s 14th victory of the season – a record in the British F4 championship. He ends his campaign with 534 points – 216 more than nearest competitor Alex Ninovic.

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Comment of the day

After RaceFans asked you whether you approve or disapprove of FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s performance so far, here are extracts of two different takes from Ideals and MichaelN…

I struggle to find many positives in his run so far. He seems overly controlling, he seems to want to consistently place some kind of morality clause on the sport, based mostly on antiquated beliefs that most of the world does not agree with. I can’t help his crusade against jewellery was inspired by his personal beliefs rather than “safety”. And his latest crusade on bad language seems in the same vein less about “the children” and more about the “Ben Sulayems” in the world, after all he comes from a place where it’s literally against the law.
…
Finally, I’ve also noticed just how much he wants to be spotlight, more than I’ve ever noticed with Todt. For instance, I’m pretty convinced that the new-ish ‘medal’ that Ben Sulayem normally hands out on the podium is less about ‘giving the driver something to take home because the teams keep the trophies’ and more about ‘I need a reason to be on the podium on camera’ for Ben Sulayem. I don’t see [F1 CEO] Stefano Domenicali hanging around parc ferme after qualifying just to make sure he can shake hands with the pole sitter every race.

All this to say, the evidence points very much to this being more of an ego trip for Ben Sulayem than a job. He wants to be important and whenever he feels slighted in that objective, he’s immediately in the media asking where his respect is.
Ideals

I couldn’t begin to pretend to know everything the FIA does, but in terms of F1 the signs are overall quite positive.

While I’m no outright fan of Niels Wittich, he’s a much better race director than either Charlie Whiting or Michael Masi were. This has led to more predictable, consistent and generally better officiating at the race weekends. Save for the Las Vegas free practice fiasco, the sport hasn’t had major issues with its events.

The process to let in new teams has been great. F1 should, as per the rules, have a grid of 13 teams. It’s failing its fans who pay good money for either TV or trackside viewing by only showing up with 10.

Ben Suleyem was right to warn about the detrimental effects of overvaluing F1 in a potential sale of the Formula One Group. It’s of course no coincidence that this painted a bull’s eye on his back. But he was right: saddling the sport with a massive debt is not going to be good for anyone. It would likely lead to a new push to recoup the investments, leading to higher prices and more ‘sportswashing’ venues on the calendar to the detriment of traditional hosts.
…
MichaelN

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Alexandre Carvalho and Renate Jungert!

On this day in motorsport

  • On this day in 1984 the ‘new’ Nurburgring held its first F1 race, which was won by Alain Prost. Ayrton Senna and Keke Rosberg collided at the start.

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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6 comments on “Four power units a season still the “right limit” despite 24 rounds – Vasseur”

  1. gogathejedi
    7th October 2024, 4:42

    For a calendar of 24 rounds, the only sane limit is no less than 48 engines for every car.

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    Jere (@jerejj)
    7th October 2024, 6:51

    Four as the penalty-free limit for Engine, MGUs, & TC (with two for ES & CE) may be tight with 24 rounds but still manageable.

    I doubt the Singapore GP’s future is under threat, even though the Vietnamese GP project was abandoned altogether because of a corruption matter involving a high-profile individual involved in the project.

    I like the dark-time sight of Monaco in the background.

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      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      8th October 2024, 18:30

      @jerejj Singapore’s advantage is that it has had time to build up an evidence base that does not depend on the arguments of any particular politician. If the Singaporean government is content with that evidence base, it will likely be pleased to handle the matter as a good idea that either didn’t need or shouldn’t have needed acts of corruption to make into a reality. (Which of course makes any people who engaged in corruption even more foolish, since they could probably have made it worked without resorting to crime).

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    Maisch (@maisch)
    7th October 2024, 9:06

    I wish they had more engines available, so they could lean on them more, and not retire the car at the slightest deviation in the data logs, to add a little bit of uncertainty. And also to mitigate the mess with the starting grid in the end of the season, which makes the qualification round/starting order confusing.

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      EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
      7th October 2024, 14:26

      @maisch

      I wish they had more engines available, so they could lean on them more

      First I must emphasise that I do essentially agree with you that if they are required to do less races, then the drivers would undoubtedly be able to lean on the engines “more”.

      However, in this day and age I wonder if we would really perceive the difference. The teams would still have the ability to push the limits of a power unit to breaking point even if it were only required to do one race, which combined with the monitoring and telemetry would doubtless still result in us hearing about the need to lift and coast or otherwise reduce the punishment being dealt to the power unit over the course of the race.

      I do believe that the levels of reliability we see nowadays are not just about improved production standards, but also ‘caring’ for the PU in the race. Once upon a time a DNF or two had a reasonable chance of being offset with similar fates befalling your competitors. This really isn’t the case anymore. So again, I would see the PU as having a certain amount to give whether that be over one race or six, which would need to be meted out appropriately in either case.

      And this is without taking into account the tires.

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    EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
    7th October 2024, 14:49

    Re: COTD

    I’m not a big fan of MBS myself. In fact I have similar views to the first opinion provided, though I do not necessarily gel with the manner of the criticisms. For example the hyperbole in the use of the term ‘crusade’. Suggesting that ‘evidence’ points negatively against him, when most examples are of him being places he probably should be.

    Though I am not saying it is the case, it would not surprise me if the poster disliked him for similar reasons as myself, and I admit that I could not articulate those feelings very well. (But as an attempt I feel it is fuelled by some of his prior comments that included misogyny, but beyond this I just get a negative feeling about him).

    Ultimately all the accusations of ego and agenda may be true, but I don’t believe it is necessarily as demonstrable as the comments suggest.

Comments are closed.