A meeting was held at the International Automobile Federation (FIA) headquarters in Paris, France, where FIA representatives gathered with current power unit suppliers, automotive manufacturers and Formula One’s new commercial rights holder Liberty Media to evaluate the direction of future F1 power units.
A report last week by German webisite Spox said that Audi – having recently departed from the World Endurance Championship series – was to attend this meeting. The meeting concluded with the attendant parties agreeing that it was important to maintain F1 as the pinnacle of motor sport technology, as well as a laboratory for developing road car-relavant innovations.
The focus of the meeting then turned to increased outputs for the new-generation power units, while keeping an eye on reducing cost and complexity. Sound – an key component of the Formula One spectacle – is also said to see an improvement with the new power units, which will also allow drivers to push harder at all times.
“I was very pleased with the process, and the fact that so many different stakeholders were able to agree on a direction for the FIA Formula One World Championship in such an important technical area,” said the FIA president, Jean Todt.
Audi R18 (2016) #8 (Audi Sport Team Joest), Lucas di Grassi, Loïc Duval, Oliver Jarvis
“Of course, now we must sit down and work through the fine details of exactly what the 2021 power units will be – but we have begun on the right foot, and I am looking forward to working through the process to come up with the best decision for Formula One into the future,” he added.
A greater emphasis on sound is required for the next generation of F1 engines, said Mercedes-AMG motorsport chief Toto Wolff. “If we look into a future generation of engines, I think in the past there wasn’t enough emphasis on the sound. So if we can combine great, affordable technology with a lot of horsepower and a good sound, that would really tick a box.”
Currently, the premier open-wheel single-seater racing series employs 1.6 litre turbo petrol-electric hybrid power units, and this configuration appears set to remain until the end of the 2020 F1 season.
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Good time to race Lotus F1 with 1.6 litre turbo power unit.
The complexity of the current F1 hybrid system need to be significantly reduced to help reduce the cost and to entice more manufacturers (Audi,BMW?..). And to enhance the noise spectacle of the F1 cars, the maximum no. of engine cylinders should be raised from 6 to 8 cylinders.Engine downsizing is good from technical achievement point of view but bad from spectators point of view. At the end of the day, F1 is a form of entertainment to please the audience!
Cars racing competition is just alternative modernised version of horses racing; camels racing; canines racing etc which emphasise heavily on betting aka sports of gambling… Some win some loose
F1 is pinnacle of road tech. Any dumbing down of F1 just to make it cheaper, and it will make F1 pointless.
F1 is the pinnacle of road tech, but with more and more viewers turning away each year then what’s the point? It’s all about entertainment – track action and noise. More and more people are watching MotoGP than F1 these days..
F1 founders din gip a F about paying spectators then, only racing with the best machines they have. Its Bernie that made marketing supercedes tech & pure racing in F1. Its time F1 go back to its roots.
Turbo sitting in exhaust will always muffle combustion noise that we used to hear on the glorious era of naturally aspirated V8 and V10 engine. Other force induction choice is centrifugal supercharger, low parasitic loss, no lag, and work brilliantly at high rpm without affecting exhaust noise. If still want to use turbo, other alternative is one sided turbo, only one side of vee engine exhaust spool the turbo, other side exhaust is free flowing just like a supercharged engine. There will be more lag but at high rpm maybe the lag not soo bad.
Turbo engine noise will never sound as glorious as the N.A engine. But interestingly back in the 1980s, the sound of the turbo engined-F1 and Group-B Rally cars are very loud, even though it was a 4-cylinder engine.