[jfxavier]

A nice article giving the state of play WRT oil burning strategy during quali & race.

http://gptoday.com/full_story/view/6...l_on_the_fire/

I remember Craig Scarborough mentioning about the various smells that the exhaust of the cars give out in one of the forums.
Apparently Honda was the only engine without any "peculiar" smelling exhaust.

Anyway, as with all loopholes FIA is playing catch up and for 2018 the foll. are proposed pending approval from the World Motor Sport Council.

• Teams will have to supply oil level measurements in the main LO tank at any time to the FIA, while the quantity of oil in other tanks will have to be declared to the governing body one hour before the start of the race.
• Active control valves between any element of the power plant and the air intake will be outlawed.
• Only one specification of oil may be used for any given power unit during an event.

By the time all the loopholes are closed and the performances are at par, it will be time for the next Engine formula which is rumored to be advanced to 2020 instead of 2021.

[jfxavier]

Ferrari's Chief Engineer for the PU program Lorenzo Sassi has left the project.
Apparently he did not like the idea of involving with the FCA Hybrid Engines program and had a fallout with the boss Sergio Marchionne.
It is unclear if he has left the company completely, or has been moved to another role within the Fiat group.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...signer-927191/

[Hatari]

Something has happened behind the scenes at McLaren Honda. All Honda criticism has suddenly stopped, inspite of the new Spec 3 PU failing.

I wonder if Honda have pumped in another $50 million to compensate McLaren for loss of earnings, and added a line to keep mum.

All talk of a temporary switch to Mercedes power, a Plan B or Plan C has evaporated.
Alonso too has become more positive, inspite of Ferrari and Mercedes publicly mentioning there is no slot in their respective teams.

There was a lot of speculation that his future has been decided post Baku, he seemed happier, can only be Renault now, if at all. Im sure we will see Honda come out ahead of Renault by end of this year, so shifting makes little sense.

[jfxavier]

Ferrari has been hunting down Mercedes on and off the track systematically.
The latest campaign against pre-heated suspension systems and FIA's prompt action in banning them from Baku on wards is another example.

AMuS reports that five teams (Mercedes, Force India, Red Bull , Toro Rosso and McLaren) are supposed to have gone away from classic shock absorbers and stabilizers on the rear axle and fitted hydraulic actuators, with which the up and down movements of the car and its rolling behavior are controlled.



They are usually within the gearbox housing and almost all of the teams with hydraulic suspensions preheated the oil in the hydraulic actuators under Parc fermé conditions on Sunday afternoon in the garage. The purpose of the exercise was either to bring the oil temperature up to the optimal chassis characteristics for the race or to bring the ground clearance to the desired level at the start of the race.

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/f...-12222370.html

[swissknife]

Now, this is a bit of a shocker!!! This appears to be some chirps heard from the birds!

Stranger things have been known to happen. If there is a mutual will, there will be a way...

Ferrari being considered as an engine supply to McLaren!

http://en.f1i.com/news/273278-273278.html

[avdhesh15]

Honda out of Formula 1?

Link

It remains to be seen what impact the collapse of the Sauber deal will have on Honda's wider plans.

The Sauber arrangement guaranteed Honda a presence in the 2018 F1 field even if there was a split with McLaren, allowing it to continue to develop its engine in racing conditions.

But being committed to Sauber would have meant Honda could not make a clean break from F1 by ending its deal with McLaren, or take a 'sabbatical' and spend a season or two developing its engine away from the spotlight of a racing season.

[Hatari]

Doubt they will quit, Sauber was a backup option in the event McLaren quit. I dont think its possible to develop an F1 PU without track testing. Thats the biggest problem with Honda, little correlation from factory to track.

The new Sauber owners most likely have changed their stance on a few things.. not to keen on a Japanese driver perhaps?

[shibujp]

Extremely bad form by Lewis to miss the F1 Parade at London. The fact that it appears to be a retaliation for Mercedes chumming up with Vettel makes it even worse as by doing this he is disrespecting the fans more than anything else.

http://www.planetf1.com/news/hamilto...ade-in-london/

Drive on,
Shibu.

[shibujp]

Originally Posted by jfxavier

Attachment 1654741

Ferrari's Chief Engineer for the PU program Lorenzo Sassi has left the project.
Apparently he did not like the idea of involving with the FCA Hybrid Engines program and had a fallout with the boss Sergio Marchionne.
It is unclear if he has left the company completely, or has been moved to another role within the Fiat group.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...signer-927191/

Would be interesting to see what effect this has on the engine development in the rest of the season.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[jfxavier]

Some pictures from the London Road show.
With or without Lewis, the showcase was a success.
The ball is in Silverstone's court now.

[shibujp]

Originally Posted by jfxavier

Some pictures from the London Road show.
With or without Lewis, the showcase was a success.
The ball is in Silverstone's court now.

An excellent initiative by the current F1 owners to popularise the sport.

The BRDA, owners of Silverstone have been roundly criticised for pulling the plug. Again they may be using this to take a negotiating stance more than anything hopefully.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[deetjohn]

A very interesting infographic I saw in the BBC.

F1 Champions and the rest mist!



source

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

A very interesting infographic I saw in the BBC.

F1 Champions and the rest mist!

Attachment 1657235

source

Must have crushed Benson's Hamilton-worshipping soul to put his GOD on that list, but he made sure to only accuse him of minor transgressions.

That man has single-handedly turned BBC F1 into a fanboy page. These days I hope for controversy just to watch this idiot squirm

[jfxavier]

The below article published in the Honda racing website gives a good insight into the state of play with regards to the Honda PU.

http://en.hondaracingf1.com/newsroom...velopment.html


The article confirms what has been said in the various forums, that this year Honda has in earnest got in the ring for a fight with the TJI type (Flame ignition, instead of spark ignition) of engine concept.
As to why it took them so long, it's still baffling. But hey, better late than never.

Will quote the relevant parts below.

2017 started with frustrating reliability issues. Completely changing the concept over the winter was a major undertaking and left the team at the Sakura headquarters in Japan with a race against time to be ready for pre-season testing.

After resolving these smaller elements, we started to test the full concept at the start of this year - call it Spec Zero as it was the initial one - and before the first winter test we confirmed that it ran on the dyno. But of course at that moment we knew that the power was not delivering to our target. Then, at the Barcelona test, we found more issues on the car, such as the oil tank issue. It was a car-related issue. This is not a complete engine issue, but of course it is very important.

With Spec Zero starting pre-season testing, Spec 1 was the first version raced in Australia. Spec 2 was then introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix in Spain - where Fernando reached Q3 - and Spec 3 had its first run in Baku before being raced in Austria and taking Stoffel to Q3 for the first time at Silverstone.
Each specification has closed the deficit to the front-runners a little further, and taking a proactive approach means there is no time to wait for the latest upgrade to run before starting on the next development.

While work continues on the Spec 4 power unit, development is simultaneously ongoing for 2018, as Hasegawa believes the current concept holds major potential for the coming seasons.

[a*ed]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Must have crushed Benson's Hamilton-worshipping soul to put his GOD on that list, but he made sure to only accuse him of minor transgressions.

That man has single-handedly turned BBC F1 into a fanboy page. These days I hope for controversy just to watch this idiot squirm

Not surprising to see him publishing something like this.
I believe Benson must be the least respected F1 journo.