[jfxavier]

Formula 1 is set to reintroduce mid-race refuelling as part of a package of changes to make the cars faster and more dramatic from 2017.

Following yesterday’s F1 strategy group meeting, the FIA have issued a carefully worded statement that a “comprehensive proposal to ensure the sustainability of the sport has emerged”.
They say that the sport will look to introduce faster cars with the 2017 cars with higher revving and louder engines and changes enabling them to lap five to six seconds faster than the current generation of challengers, which means the fuel flow limit has to be scrapped or raised because the FIA say the “maximum fuel race allowance is to remain”. This will be achieved by "aerodynamic rules evolution, wider tyres and reduction of car weight". The engine rules, which saw the introduction of turbo hybrid engines and will remain. Re-fuelling must be part of the plan to lighten the cars.
The 2017 will also be made to look more aggressive.
The statement however does conclude, “All parties agreed to work together with an intention to firm up these proposals and submit them to the approval of the F1 commission and the World Motor Sport Council of the FIA as soon as possible for implementation.” Now there’s a challenge.

There is to be an exclusive commission comprised only of the big teams to further the cause of customer cars.
Adam Cooper reports that, “Lotus, Sauber, Force India and Manor will be given ‘first refusal’ on whether or not they want to switch to using customer cars", which is misleading. It is not a veto of the concept, these teams will be offered – but ‘first refusal’ on customer car allocations the big teams will be offering.

There appears to be no efforts planned on reducing aerodynamics that deliver turbulent air behind which halts the progress of quicker cars attempting to overtake.

For 2016, it has been proposed that teams are given a free choice on the two dry tyre compounds they use during a race weekend. It is unclear how far in advance of a race weekend this would need to be.

The changes still need to be approved by two further legislative stages.
As the details of these proposals unravel in the coming weeks, it will be fascinating to see what is left of it by the time it comes out from the F1 commission.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/32751118

[jfxavier]

FIA's statement after the meeting.

The Strategy Group members have debated a number of levers aimed at improving the show. An initial series of measures has been voted:
For 2016:
- Free choice of the two dry tyre compounds (out of four) that each team can use during the race weekend

For 2017:
- Faster cars: 5 to 6 seconds drop in laptimes through aerodynamic rules evolution, wider tyres and reduction of car weight
- Reintroduction of refuelling (maintaining a maximum race fuel allowance)
- Higher revving engines and increased noise
- More aggressive looks

A few other measures have also been discussed but require further investigation before they can be implemented:
- A global reflection on race weekend format
- Measures to make starts only activated by the driver without any outside assistance

Furthermore, in light of the various scenarios presented by the independent consulting company mandated by the F1 Strategy Group, at the initiative of the FIA, to work on the reduction of costs and following a constructive exchange, a comprehensive proposal to ensure the sustainability of the sport has emerged. The Strategy Group member Teams have committed to refine it in the next few weeks, in consultation with the other teams involved in the championship.

On the engine side, it has been decided that stability of the rules should prevail in consideration of the investments of the manufacturers involved in the sport and to give visibility to potential new entrants. The allowance for a 5th engine to be used during the 2015 season has been rejected.

This constructive meeting between the FIA, FOM and the Teams has allowed paving the way for the future of the championship. All parties agreed to work together with an intention to firm up these proposals and submit them to the approval of the F1 Commission and the World Motor Sport Council of the FIA as soon as possible for implementation.

Jean Todt/ Bernie Ecclestone
FIA President/ Formula One Group CEO

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-...n-in-2017.html

These measures will be submitted to the F1 Commission and the FIA World Motor Sport Council , whose next meeting will be held on July 10 in Mexico City.

[jfxavier]

It's no surprise that Ron Dennis was the main man behind the move towards customer cars in the meeting with Honda in dire need of a second team with which to get track mileage, it makes sense more than ever as the ART GP2 outfit is co-owned by Nicolas Todt, son of Jean Todt.
It would be logical to suggest that ART would be able to step forward and run McLaren customer cars in the future, should be the opportunity arise.
McLaren also has an ongoing relationship with Manor, although the team's difficult financial position is a potential hurdle.
The ART GP2 cars ran in full McLaren replica livery in Barcelona last weekend, while the Manor cars look like the McLaren Hondas of the 90s.

Force India has expressed its frustration over the push for third cars and ultimately customer cars that was voted through at yesterday's F1 Strategy Group meeting.
“There was no interest at all from the manufacturer teams in discussing anything to do with cost controls or more equitable income distribution,” Fernley told Motorsport.com. “It was completely abandoned in favour of the customer cars".
“In some ways it makes things abundantly clear where F1 is going. We've suspected that customer cars were wanted for quite some time, but this is the first time that it's really moving through as the only alternative as far as the manufacturer teams are concerned. It's not finalised as to what the package is, but there's a clear process that's going to happen now. If any teams fail, the manufacturer teams will run a third car, and in the meantime they will get on with putting together a proposal and a format for customer cars".
“However there will be significant downsides to that, as you can imagine. But the devil will be in the detail. In the mean time we've got to determine the direction that we want to go on in and look at how we protect our position.”

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fo...-customer-cars

[jfxavier]

The F1SG meeting looks like a lost opportunity and it appears that the only meaningful agreement taken at Biggin Hill was to “improve the show” by actually raising costs via the reintroduction of refuelling.
In April 2009 and under the previous FIA regime of Max Mosley, when refuelling was outlawed for 2010 and beyond, the World Motor Sport Council gave its reasoning as “It was confirmed that from 2010, refuelling during a race will be forbidden in order to save the costs of transporting refuelling equipment and increase the incentive for engine builders to improve fuel economy.”
These proposals must still be voted through by the F1 Commission, but by re-introducing refuelling the message the decision of the Strategy Group sends out is that neither of these objectives are of importance to the sport.
If the maximum fuel allowance will not be removed, the ability for drivers to push beyond the levels at which they currently do will only marginally be increased as they will still have to conserve fuel to make it to the end of the race assuming that the safety implications that a return of refuelling creates is taken care of by the technological advances since 2010.

Another decision taken last week by the F1 Strategy Group was to begin a customer car study and it borders on the redundant, as members of the F1SG have had the relevant data to hand since the McKinsey & Company report into F1 cost reduction was circulated in the pre-season. While the original McKinsey report made no specific mention of customer cars, one of its key objectives was to propose a viable cost reduction plan that relied heavily on an increased list of standardised parts, and which included proposals for a standardised chassis.
McKinsey identified that the difference between income and expenditure for a smaller team was in the region of £25 million to £30 million, and so targeted savings in that region – a sum, incidentally, that is roughly equivalent to a team’s total spend on the car minus power unit.
As for the big guns, the report points out that these options risk a “lack of public interest in smaller teams with similar cars”, something that would have a negative impact on team budgets as sponsors also showed little to no interest in the look-a-likes at the back of the pack.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/re...-customer-cars

When Jean Todt was originally elected to the Presidency of the FIA he promised that he would appoint an F1 Commissioner, who would take responsibility for the sport and be more effective but he never did that. He abandoned the idea in 2011.

[GTO]

So basically, the FIA admits they were stupid & silly to change a proven Formula? They have single-handedly ruined the sport to such an extent that even diehard F1 enthusiasts miss races on a regular basis. Main reason they are proposing a return to the ol' Formula is declining viewership. The 2015 races hardly have any ads in between the races. No one wants to advertise in an F1 race .

That said, it's best to stop the bleeding and make F1 more exciting. Will be awesome to have the fuel pitstops back. Not so sure about the sound though, as a 4-pot will never sound as good as a 8 / 10 cylinder engine, how much ever they try. That red screaming F1 Ferrari is a thing of the past.

The FIA should also aggressively pursue & bring onboard a second tyre manufacturer. The fight between Michelin & Bridgestone on track was epic .

[Octane_Power]

Fuel pit-stops. Sounds sweet! Will be one factor that will add a lot of excitement. And how are they planning to make the cars louder?

Request the mods to change the title from 'more noise, faster cars....' to 'louder music, faster cars....' or 'louder and faster cars.....' because its definitely not noise for us, is it?

-Bhargav

[jfxavier]

FIA will never admit any part in dragging F1 to the present lows. But Todt is well connected with the teams & therein lies the "conflict of interest" that some scream about. How can FIA be tough and toe the line of "efficiency & safety" when those are the exact things that Bernie and the big boys think as hampering the show. Wonder what Mr.Mosley has to say about the proposals.
He wanted the introduction of an optional cost cap in Formula 1, which would then subsequently open up the regulations for those who choose it. The idea of a cost cap has been an argument in Formula 1 for several years, with the many parties not agreeing on the terms that would please larger teams with big budgets and the smaller outfits. The most recent proposal of its kind was in last year.

Originally Posted by GTO

Not so sure about the sound though, as a 4-pot will never sound as good as a 8 / 10 cylinder engine, how much ever they try. That red screaming F1 Ferrari is a thing of the past.

Its a V6 now a days, but the sound of the exhaust after the Turbocharger will never be so loud unless they introduce a bypass gate, which will not be so efficient. Any other amplifying devices will look stupid.
Interesting to see how the proposed 6 seconds can be found without increasing the fuel limits. See the approx. fuel loads for V8 engined F1 cars given below.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/01/1...ghest-f1-rule/

One thing's for sure. F1 need to pick up the speed. Some of the F1 cars are as slow as the GP2 cars.
Other forms of racing are all getting faster, while F1 is desperately trying to make cars slower. They have company though. Indycar authorities had to reduce turbo boost this weekend after three incidents of cars getting airborne at over 200 miles per hour.

This weekend the Belgian WRT team won the 2015 Nürburgring 24h using the all new Audi R8 LMS, after 24 hours of hard racing in a record time breaking the old record from 1993 by 53 seconds.

Interesting to see where these proposals will take F1 to.

[Fullrevs]

I am not entirely sure that refuelling will come back to F1 because of the costs involved. This is still up for debate. Many complain about FIA downgrading engines to a meager 1.6 litre 4 cylinder, this was done a lot because of the pressure applied by engine manufacturers such as Mercedes and Renault and also not to forget the environmental groups and even circuit owners. Another reason was because of an old fox called Max Mosley.

Another thing I find slightly dubious is the third car concept as this would just mean the main manufacturers demanding for a fatter percentage of the revenue which is why Fernley had a bit of an issue with the outcome of the meeting as there wasn't much discussed about smaller teams earning a fatter pay cheque.

The Bridgestone vs Michelin battle days had its positives and negatives. The farcical Indianapolis GP with Michelin pulling out due to safety reasons, that was a bad day for the sport. The focus did fall a lot on the tyres and I am not too sure that's the way to go. It should ideally be one teams Aero and engine versus the others.

The concept of teams selecting their compound does seem like an interesting idea. Fatter rear tyres being suggested does hint at Michelin coming back. It was their proposal initially to increase diameter and width of the tyres.

There is to be an exclusive commission comprised only of the big teams to further the cause of customer cars.
Adam Cooper reports that, “Lotus, Sauber, Force India and Manor will be given ‘first refusal’ on whether or not they want to switch to using customer cars", which is misleading. It is not a veto of the concept, these teams will be offered – but ‘first refusal’ on customer car allocations the big teams will be offering.

This is a interesting comment. I failed to understand why any of the above mentioned teams would opt for a customer car when they all have spent and continue to spend lots of money on maintaining and operating their own wind tunnels. Saubers wind tunnel is known to be second to none.

My personal feeling is that the FIA and Bernie need to really coax Audi/VW and BMW to get into F1. Losing the big names has certainly made F1 lose value.

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by Fullrevs

This is a interesting comment. I failed to understand why any of the above mentioned teams would opt for a customer car when they all have spent and continue to spend lots of money on maintaining and operating their own wind tunnels. Saubers wind tunnel is known to be second to none.

My personal feeling is that the FIA and Bernie need to really coax Audi/VW and BMW to get into F1. Losing the big names has certainly made F1 lose value.

At the request of the FIA, McKinsey & Co. did a study and proposed a lot of cost cutting measures, and noted that a 25% reduction of budget cost could be feasible.
While no specifics have been published, from what information is available in public domain 35% of the cost could be cut from the design and production process, 15% cut from Grand Prix activities. 20% reduction in testing costs etc. was reported by Motor und Sport correspondent Michael Schmidt.
Williams finance director Alan Kinch has revealed that costs went up by about £20m at the change of rules in 2014 and the most significant was the increase in costs in the power unit. One of the key objectives of the McKinsey report was to propose a viable cost reduction plan that relied heavily on an increased list of standardised parts, which included proposals for a standardised chassis.
Now with the renewed push for customer cars, the said study looks like a move to encourage the idea on the "prospective customers" for the big teams.

[Fullrevs]

Seems like an indirect way of asking teams like Sauber and Lotus to dump their existing facilities and move into office spaces (not literally). This to me would really hurt the sport, the beauty of F1 was to see the big ones and mid level teams come up with their own cars. Examples are teams like Benetton, Brawn GP and even Williams when they just came into the sport. They made championship winning cars without spending too much. If the customer car concept goes through, we would no longer see this happen and that would be a shame.

It could so be that Mclaren make a good car and eventually cover the top 4-6 spots of the grid and then second best line up at the next 6 slots. This is eventually going to happen.

[Hatari]

I think the sport as a whole is over reacting these past 18 months on costs.
The sole reason for this has been the doubling of the costs of the new power units, from I believe from GBP 10m to 20m. This year it will only go up due to the allowed in season upgrades.

CVC should find a way to subsidise this and take the onus onto themselves.

Refueling is a convenient way to allow the drivers to push more in each stint. But im sure it will result in more fuel saving as the cars will be traveling a couple of seconds faster on average thus using up more fuel! So catch 22?

Therefore, fuel limit of 100Kg must be done away with if this is implemented I assume.
Have not read any of the pundits view on this

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by Hatari

Have not read any of the pundits view on this

Many people have dismissed the outcome of last week’s meeting and suggested that many of these things will never become regulations.

James Allen seems to be getting fed up with the frequent changes in the rules to spice things up.
He says "Did any member of the F1 Strategy Group view some videos of races from the refuelling and high downforce era before attending the meeting last week? Or reflect on why an Overtaking Working Group was needed at the time?"

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2015/0...g-groups-work/

The Overtaking Working Group was made up of Paddy Lowe, Pat Symonds and Rory Byrne, with input from other well known engineers.
There is a lot of re-engineering required to achieve the measures proposed by the Strategy Group, costly work which the teams who receive the least amount of money from F1 had no say over. The discussion on customer cars has been poorly received by the smaller teams who are afraid that it will reduce their value as they will end up with no manufacturing capability.

[sgiitk]

I will be all for a meatier note (sometimes they sound like glorified lawnmowers) as well as refuelling. Last year was worse, many times I thought I was hearing a turbo-prop engine. I will give anything for my dream dodeci-cilinderi!!

[Fullrevs]

Originally Posted by jfxavier

Many people have dismissed the outcome of last week’s meeting and suggested that many of these things will never become regulations.

James Allen seems to be getting fed up with the frequent changes in the rules to spice things up.
He says "Did any member of the F1 Strategy Group view some videos of races from the refuelling and high downforce era before attending the meeting last week? Or reflect on why an Overtaking Working Group was needed at the time?"

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2015/0...g-groups-work/

The Overtaking Working Group was made up of Paddy Lowe, Pat Symonds and Rory Byrne, with input from other well known engineers.
There is a lot of re-engineering required to achieve the measures proposed by the Strategy Group, costly work which the teams who receive the least amount of money from F1 had no say over. The discussion on customer cars has been poorly received by the smaller teams who are afraid that it will reduce their value as they will end up with no manufacturing capability.

James Allen is spot-on here. I remember the Overtaking Working Group and with that came KERS, DRS and cleaner rear aerodynamics on the cars to aid overtaking.

With regards to customer cars, reducing Sauber and Lotus to just customers would be a sad end to their companies. Imagine the amount of employment being reduced as well. The customer car idea would work well with new teams looking to enter F1 as they would not have any infrastructure and it is almost unthinkable to start constructing one. As for the old mid-field teams, they would still like to construct/manufacture/build. At least I would think so.

There was a time when F3 cars would run with F1 cars back in the 50's and 60's. Maybe a parallel championship that could also run rookies in these customer cars would be interesting. That way the big manufacturers can rope in drivers from their young driver programs.

[gtonsing]

I myself have missed several races this season. The lack of interesting overtakes and fights is one if the major causes. Increasing noise, re-introducing fuel pitstops and possibly multiple tyre vendors would greatly increase interest and drama.

I do not understand the "first refusal" statement above. What does it mean, anyone can enlighten me please?