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General Editor, F1
Formula One teams are meeting in Paris on Tuesday to discuss what engines the sport will have when the current V6 turbo regulations end in 2020.
F1's existing engines have been controversial since their introduction in 2014. In an attempt to future-proof the sport by making it relevant to future automotive technology, the current regulations were designed to promote fuel efficiency above all else. In that sense alone they have been an overwhelming success, with the class-leading Mercedes hybrid achieving a staggering thermal efficiency figure of over 50 per cent. That means more than half of the potential energy within the fuel is transferred to the rear wheels, compared to less than 30 per cent from the naturally-aspirated V8 engines that went before. What's more the hybrid power units are now more powerful than any F1 engine of the last two decades and produce significantly more torque.
On the downside, the quest for ever-leaner combustion has proved expensive and the electric turbo (known as the MGU-H) has been difficult to master. The turbocharged engines have also resulted in a muffled exhaust note, dulling the shock and awe of watching F1 from trackside. Those criticisms have been compounded by Mercedes' utter dominance of the first three years of the current regulation cycle, one which was only challenged this year by a resurgent Ferrari (albeit unsuccessfully).
A blueprint of the next generation of engines will be presented to teams at the Paris meeting on Tuesday. Rectifying the problems listed above is one priority, but equally important will be finding an engine solution that encourages, rather than deters, new manufacturers to enter the sport. Honda is the most recent company to do so and its abysmal record since 2015 has roots in the complexity of the power units and the restrictive development rules that initially came with them.
The solution
A broad agreement was reached at the start of the year with simple priorities: cheaper, louder and less complicated engines which retain current levels of power. The initial discussions aligned on four points:
• A desire to maintain F1 as the pinnacle of motor sport technology, and as a laboratory for developing technology that is relevant to road cars
• Striving for future power units to be powerful, while becoming simpler and less costly to develop and produce
• Improving the sound of the power units
• A desire to allow drivers to drive harder at all times
Since those targets were set out, Formula One's management and the FIA have held several meetings with existing and potential F1 engine manufacturers to shape a new way forward. One of the key cost savers is likely to be more standardised parts, with the MGU-K -- the part of the power unit that harvests and deploys energy from and to the rear axle -- a possible target.
The complex MGU-H units -- which recover heat energy from the turbo and can be used to control the speed of the compressor -- remain one of the most contentious topics. Critics of the current set of regulations have called for the MGU-H to be removed completely in favour of a simpler twin-turbo layout. However, those in favour of the current regulations point out that that would result in a 60 per cent reduction in electrical power, reducing the power unit's overall efficiency significantly.
One suggestion to find a middle ground is a front-axle MGU-K, capable of making F1 cars all-wheel drive while plugging the loss in efficiency of removing the MGU-H. The danger is that a front axle MGU-K would continue to add to the already hefty weight of modern F1 cars while opening up another expensive avenue of development.
"Technology is important," Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said when the prospect of all-wheel drive F1 cars was raised recently. "If there is an emphasis on maybe not having the MGU-H any more -- the heat recovery any more -- how do we compensate for 60 per cent of electric energy that is being lost?
"There are various possibilities and front motors is one possibility. It's not that we are absolutely stuck on implementing front motors but we have to discuss all possible technologies that can compensate for the lack of power."
F1 is not expected to leave the Paris meeting with a new set of rules set in stone -- a full set of regulations is thought to be at least one year away -- but, as Christian Horner explained after the Mexican Grand Prix, the teams will gain a better understanding of what the next set of rules will look like.
"It is not really a technical discussion it is a presentation as to what their plans are," he said. "The process after that is a lot of filibustering! It is more of 'this is our intention', no details because they don't want people to start committing development expense. They will propose the direction where things are heading in 2021, and the parameters that they are looking at."
The politics in the paddock
The challenge for F1's rule makers is to find a path that makes it viable for independent engine manufacturers to compete while keeping the sport relevant for large road car manufacturers. The two sides of the argument are fairly well defined, with one option being a modified version of the current technology under which performance will naturally converge and another being an all-new cheap, powerful, low-tech engine that automatically levels the playing field. The eventual outcome is likely to be something in between, but weighing up and balancing the strong arguments on both sides is not an enviable task.
To give a flavour of the strength and direction of opinion, below is a list of some of the recent comments from F1 team bosses.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner: "For me, these [current] engines have done nothing but damage Formula One. They've done nothing to contribute to the sport; they've taken away the sound; the passion; they've added too much complexity; they've become far removed from road car technology; they're effectively turning into diesel engines in some cases -- and I can't see anything that they've contributed that's been positive, so the sooner it goes, the better.
"Unfortunately there's a contract between the existing manufacturers and the FIA that guarantees the engine will be in place until 2020, and I can't see there being sufficient motive amongst all the manufacturers to get rid of this technology and this power unit before 2021."
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene: "I've said many, many times that our vision of the future on the engines after 2021 is very simple. It's reducing the costs, it's keeping the same engine architecture and keeping the performance, improving the performance.
"Now, it's very very simple. Normally you have the simple equation: what and how? What we want to do? We want to cut the costs or to reduce the costs. We want to enhance the show. How to do it is something that we are going to discuss in the next few days because everybody, they have their own ideas and for sure it's not Ferrari or Mercedes who is driving the show. But for sure, they are the people who are manufacturing the engines."
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff: "I think we are in a pretty good position at the moment because we have multiple manufacturers engaged in the sport, committed to the sport, contrary to many racing leagues where manufacturers have exited so we mustn't forget that this is a solid pillar of Formula One.
"We're pretty easy with whatever rules come in. We believe that what the studies have said that technology is important as part of the USP of Formula One, so we shouldn't make it low-tech, but equally making it possible for an independent manufacturer to come in, such as Aston Martin for example, would be good for the sport.
"The more brands we can attract, the more interesting it will be. The way we tackle the situation is we are very interested to hear what the FIA and FOM's position is going to be and then go with whatever they suggest."
Renault Sport F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul: "I think we have all agreed, including with Red Bull, about the what, the objective of the future engine regulations. Hopefully we can also agree on the how and I don't think that moving backwards would be an acceptable and sustainable thing, no sense to all the people investing in Formula One and not just the manufacturers.
"If you look at all the sponsors who are currently financing Formula One, moving backwards would just be completely inappropriate and quite certainly turn them away from Formula One; including manufacturers like Aston Martin who are big believers in the fact that automotive needs to go in one direction and that direction has to be the electrification route.
"So there is no doubt. Maybe the ratio between the internal combustion engine and electrification can be revised. We are open for the discussion and clearly Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Honda, we are all open to the discussion and that's what we are looking forward to doing next week."
McLaren executive director Zak Brown: "Very much looking forward to seeing what the new engine rules are going to be. We've all heard snippets of what that might look like. I think everyone is in agreement. We need less expensive engines in general. We need less expensive racing budgets and certainly power units are an element of that. I think manufacturers in the sport are critically important, always have been, but at the same time it would be great to have an independent engine or two, that if you weren't in a situation where you had a manufacturer or you had other options, would be healthy for the sport, as it has historically been.
"So hopefully rules will be put in place that will allow both manufacturers to continue to enjoy the success and benefit of Formula One, while allowing some independents to come in and provide some maybe more economical but yet competitive situations for engines for teams to choose engine partners from."
Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe: "When you look at Formula One, although there's a lot of discussion about problems with engines it's not really the biggest problem in the sport. It's seen as the biggest problem between the top three teams as they fight to be on the top step. The biggest problem at the moment is the huge disparity to the remainder of the teams, and that's not around engine choice. Go and look at the race in Austin and the performance split between the top six and the rest. It's two different races. That's not split on engine grounds."
Haas owner Gene Haas: "We've heard a lot of different technical variations on what the engine will be, so it's hard to speculate. I think it's certainly going to be simpler, they'll probably drop the heat generating unit and I think that's good but I kind of agree with the other voices here that we need to have a specification that allows a major manufacturer to come in an design an engine -- and not only the engine but also the transmission -- as just having the engine without the transmission really does limit your choices. So it would be nice to have a specification even for the transmission, so that you could get the entire package from the one vendor. These days the engine and transmission really are integral to one another and it's difficult to separate them and make them work smoothly."