New V6 engine formula agreed for 2014

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: V6 engines, last used in F1 in 1988, will return to the sport in 2014.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Formula 1 delays introduction of ‘green’ engines until 2014 (BBC)

“The change in cylinder numbers and the one-year delay are the only significant changes to the new rules to have been agreed, according to sources at the FIA.”

Trulli frustrated by steering issues (Autosport)

“The real problem is with the power steering, because it carries on troubling me. If I don’t have clear feedback from the steering, as is always the case nowadays, I can’t adapt: my driving is very precise and I can’t make up for it nor I can feel the limit. It’s like driving blindfolded.”

The moving picture show (Grand Prix)

“F1 opinion seems split (so what’s new?). Some – Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren – says F1 should remain free-to-air, just as it is with the BBC. Others – Adam Parr of Williams – says F1 should be examining a total restructuring of the sport’s coverage to line up with new media and the idea of using just one global broadcaster rather than dealing with a bunch of different networks around the world.”

Local lawsuit filed against state’s Formula One subsidy (Austin-American Statesman)

“The lawsuit, filed in state District Court in Travis County, claims [state comptroller Susan] Combs promised the money to F1 promoters illegally, and asks for any payment from the state to them to be halted.”

Crash tr??s insolite Promosport Magny-Cours (YouTube)

Motorbikes aren’t really my thing but how could I ignore a crash of such balletic grace?

Costs Worry Ex-F1 McLaren Boss (Sky News)

“I’m very nervous about the long-term economics of motor racing, the ability for teams to sustain – there’s 107 Formula 1 teams come and gone since 1966.”

Dennis was speaking at the opening of McLaren’s dealership in Hyde Park, London, where it will sell its new MP4-12C road car.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were present – here are some pictures from the event:

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

Steve is concerned about the forthcoming changes to engine mapping rules:

I’m not sure I like the rule changes happening mid-season.

You could say it will make the championship more exciting if Red Bull/Vettel lose a big part of there advantage, however you could also argue that the championship is been unfairly manipulated as a result.

Rules should not simply be altered just because fans, the FIA or whoever want a closer championship battle, that’s not what F1 or any world championship should be about.
Steve

From the forum

An unusual question from Ned Flanders.

Site updates

There will be a change to the post-race analysis articles for this weekend’s race.

The race analysis which appears shortly after the race will now focus on the data from the race. The interactive charts will each get their own page, meaning they should be more responsive to use, easier to navigate and will each have their own space for discussion.

Here are the charts for the Canadian Grand Prix as an example:

The team-by-team reviews will continue as before, however some may now be published on Sunday instead of having all of them appear on Monday.

I hope you find the changes an improvement. Please post any feedback on the complete race round-up which will appear on Tuesday as usual.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Logan00si!

On this day in F1

Jackie Stewart won the 1968 Dutch Grand Prix on a soggy day in Zandvoort.

He shared the podium with Jean-Pierre Beltoise, who climbed up from 16th on the grid in his Matra, and BRM’s Pedro Rodriguez.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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113 comments on “New V6 engine formula agreed for 2014”

  1. Michael Griffin
    23rd June 2011, 0:07

    If these V6 engines are powerful, frugal, environmentally friendly-ish, loud and devilishly fast, I’m sure the majority of F1 fans will be very happy indeed.

  2. reddevilandy10
    23rd June 2011, 0:14

    If they sound anything like they used to in the 80’s… God yes!!

    I still miss the sound of the 2004 BMW engine in the back of Montoya’s Williams at Monza during qualifying. That was an awesome noise.

    1. Modern F1 cars are supposed to sound high-pitched. I dont want low-pitched engine noises.

  3. Good move, as you say turbo V6s have a history in the sport and I’m glad to see they will remain about as powerful as the V8s.

    And wow, just when I thought the site couldn’t become more user-friendly. The new pages are a great idea!

    Shame I didn’t know about the launch, I could have got the bus down there and stalked!

    1. If memory serves me right the BMW four cylinder turbo was the first turbo engine to win a drivers championship and was way more powerful than most or all engines to have ever raced in F1. I once read where it produced in excess of 1,100 horsepower. Piquet ( the real one ) described the engine as when the turbo kicked in , it was like walking off the edge of a ten story building blind folded. Imagine the feeling of the sudden power, then imagine again what it took to control that generation of car.

      1. HounslowBusGarage
        23rd June 2011, 10:08

        Those were the days when teams were allowed to change engines between qualifying and race. The qualifying engines were completely explosive devices and sounded incredible. The race ones were just a bit less powerful and incendiary, theoretically lasting the full race.
        Brabham BT 50 springs to mind.

    2. I’m not happy about this bit though:

      The decision to limit the engine configuration to a V6 rather than stipulate a six-cylinder maximum and leave it up to individual manufacturers to decide the number of cylinders and layout, was made in a bid to keep costs under control and as a way to ensure engine performance remains as equal as possible.

      Cut costs and equalise performance? You’re designing new engines which will probably then be frozen!

      1. I’m not so sure about that, either, although I already think the rules are too restrictive.

        I would have said 6-cylinder max, 1.6l max.

        Renault would likely choose a straight-4, Ferrari a V6. They would then be stuck with that, although free to make changes.

        As they will probably force the teams into 4-cylinder engines eventually, this is just a stepping-stone, which will cost more in the long run.

      2. Absolutely with you there.How can forcing a manufacturer to develop a V6 save that manufacturer money, what if Subaru or porsche wanted to enter F1 with Flat 4 or Flat6 engines which they have extensive experience with. No the real reason is in the last few words, the FIA want the engines to be equal in performance, in fact they would like to go to a one-design car like NASCAR and INDYCAR where identical cars have a paint scheme that pretends the cars are different makes.

    3. About the site updates; would it be possible to perhaps group all of the team race reviews into one article (like the complete race review), but from within this article, we navigate to the separate articles (for each team)? This way, every team gets an article to itself, but they don’t show up on the homepage. That way we can just find the article that contains the links to the race reviews. I like the team race reviews, but they fill up the home page in minutes, often meaning articles from earlier are forgotten more quickly.

      I probably could have phrased that in a less confusing way, but it’s 2:21 am and I should get to bed. F1 tomorrow! :D

  4. not the first time rules changed mid season

    I remember the tall air intakes were banned halfway through 1976

    That required HUGE redesigns of the cars

    1. Usually things seem to get banned citing safety as a concern. This time round I can only think it is to do with being ‘green’. Off-throttle EBD uses plenty of fuel, approx. 40% for the RB7 in qualifying mode.

      Unless anyone else has any suggestions?

      1. Remember that ridiculous bit of skullduggery used to ban the tuned mass dampers in 06?

        It’s that rule, but legit. As the teams are using their engines in a role outside of their normal role, they are essentially turning them into downforce fans. Which is cool as hell, specially the Renault, but actually illegal. As well as being very inefficient and irrelavant outside of f1.

        1. That last sentence is true, but the whole point of F1 is to have the fastest car. Not to have the most road relevant car. All things that have come onto road going cars out of motor sport were developed because it made racing cars faster/better.

          1. The fastest car by the rules though. The throttle is a butterfly flap that affects air flow by moving. When it is used off throttle to blow the diffuser this is abnormal operation compared to the engines norm with the explicit purpose of affecting air flow, hence it is a movable aerodynamic device.

            The only problem I see here is how long it took them to clarify it, should have happened well before the start of the 2011 season.

        2. I didn’t follow F1 in 2006 but I have heard the mass damper thing mentioned before.

          Care to shed any light on it for me? :D

          1. https://www.racefans.net/2007/05/31/banned-tuned-mass-dampers/

            Great article from Keith, explains the whole thing.

          2. So apparently any technical ingenuity they don’t like and want to ban gets called a moveable aerodynamic device.

          3. Sure looks like it US_Peter. Good thing McLaren got one over on them with the F-duct as it was not a moving device, but the driver.

            But it got banned (or reinterpreted) more or less on the same basis, didn’t it?

    2. No, it’s not the first time rules have been changed mid-season, and in my view this was one of the very few good calls from FIA this season.

      I suspect we’ll see a very great deal more of ‘public perception/public image’ rule changes on an ad hoc basis as FIA wrestles with the strongly ingrained perception in most of the worlds media that F1 is a money-no-object, spend-whatever-want world of super-rich men indulging their power to impress.

      They’ll all mostly wrong about F1 in the 21st century, but that sort of reporting never troubled any bright, ambitious, unscrupulous young journalist did it ?

  5. It will be VERY interesting come 2014. As much as it pains a lot of people, F1 must have some degree of road relevance, especially with constructors. I have every confidence we will retain the level of F1 we are used to. Efficiency cannot be under-estimated.

    The MP4-12c is a great looking car. Next time i’m in London i’ll have to keep an eye out!

    1. I do wish they’d let ground effect back in though, simular downforce levels but generated underbody would have been great for the racing, and the looks.

      1. I’m right there with you on that one Scribe! I like the direction they are going, but ground effect would have been so much better!

      2. I was pretty disappointed when I heard ground effect was shelved I must admit.

        I guess that, KERS. and turbo was just too much fun!

      3. Now they have pushed the engine changes back a year they should add ground effects back in too.

        1. Ground effects were dangerous, a bump in the road or from another car could stall the flow and break downforce completely, a bit like the plank on a modern car aqua-planing on a puddle.

      4. why ground effect? i dont understand the whole hype around it.

        first of all there is no guarantee that it will improve racing. i dont know where people get this from.

        second, opening up the rules on the aerodynamics of the floor will result in teams spending million of pounds on something that nobody will see. what is the point of that? at least now we can analyse new upgrades, wings sidepods etc. its one of the hotest topics each weekend. ted Kravitz runs around the pitlane each weekend spoting new aero parts. with ground effect we will probably never see what all the money is going into. (unless a car flips over on the track) its just another confusing element added that you will have to explain to every new viewer. the comemntators will have to do this every weekend. plus i believe the teams will be able to eak out massive amounts of downforce which is not the dirrection we want to go i think.

        third, what makes you think the looks will improve? looks are subjective and to me, the functionality of the cars is beatiful in itself. i dont think the ground effect cars look any better than non-ground effect cars. and i dont understand the obsession with the past. lets not bring back technology just because we feel nostalgic about it.

        what i think this season has demonstrated is that great racing is more about tyres than aero. why overhaul the aero rules?

        1. I think the idea is that ground effect produces less turbulence and is less susceptible to turbulence when closely following another car. With more down force being created by ground effect devices the aerodynamic devices which do create lots of turbulence can be reduced. This will improve the show and the racing without resorting to push to pass type artificial racing stuff.

          1. in theory yes. but as i said in my comment. the tyres alone can provide great racing. we dont need to reduce turbulence. also as mentioned already, all the developpment will be done under the car which would be a shame. also if you watch reces from the ground effect era, they were not as spectacular as people might like to believe. it might have been because of the dominace of certain cars but i still dont see a reason to revamp the whole rulebook if we already have great racing that works. get rid of DRS and KERS and thats it.

        2. Hmmm I doubt the teams care that much about us actually being able to see their upgrades…we can see it out on track and how one car behaves compared to another.

          Personally, I love F1 the more complicated it gets.

      5. I am disappointed as well, with the teams having dumped that.

    2. Now if McLaren could slip a version of that 1.6l V6 in F1 spec in to replace the current one, I would not mind at all :-D

      1. It does pose and interesting possibility. Will McLaren start developing their own engines to this new spec, once their Merc supply comes to an end.

        1. We were discussing that a while ago over in the Forum. Seems plausible enough.

      2. Well, it was 1.5 liter V6 if I remember correctly…

    3. Yes, it’ll be interesting.

  6. We knew the engines were going to change, I’m glad it’s V6, I always believed it was essential that the new engines remained a V block simply because it sounds more sporty than I4, which reminds many of standard car engines.

    What gets me is that if its the same power, what’s the point in going through all the development needed to create new engines – any fuel saved by efficient engines will have already been used up in the development running of testing new V6 powerplants in the factories, so perhaps it would have been more sensible to keep the current frozen V8s? ;)

    There arent huge rule changes for 2013 anymore are there? More of the same which going by 2011 will be no bad thing if we get two more seasons like what we have now before he big 2014 shake up.

    Finally are the V6 single turbos or just plain naturally aspirated V6?

    1. so perhaps it would have been more sensible

      I have an image of an FIA yokel, cocking a shotgun and saying “you’re not from around these parts, are you?”

      Good point on the timeline. We’ve had so much upheaval with double diffusers, exhaust-blown double diffusers, off-throttle exhaust-blown single diffusers that it would be nice to have two years of stability (once we’ve got the exhaust-blown single diffusers out of the way, of course ;-)). 4 years would have been far too short and an admission of failure of the reforms of 2009.

      And yes, they will be turbos.

      1. And the FIA will control the turbo boost and rpm so they will all have the same horsepower and last forever. BOOOOOOOORING!

  7. James Williams
    23rd June 2011, 0:32

    Funny, a week or so ago I proposed that idea on my facebook page. Now it’s happened. The god of Formula 1 has been listening…

  8. Trulli is becoming like Eeyore.

    1. Love it.

      Why is Heikki not having these problems?

      1. Michael Griffin
        23rd June 2011, 1:03

        Because he’s a Die Hard baddie.

        Seriously, the picture of Heikki in the Team Lotus notes yesterday, he looks SO like the bad guy in Die Hard 3!

        1. Where can I find this pic?

    2. If he’s so close to Heikki with all those problems, you have to wonder what he would do without. But I can’t believe Lotus still hasn’t fixed the power steering after 3 months!

  9. What’s the fuel efficiency of an F1 car, 5 or 6 mpg?

    That would mean, in accordance to the new 35% more fuel efficient 1.6l V6 Turbo engine regs that the 2014 cars would be able to do a whole 8mpg on a good day.

    How’s that for ‘green’!!!?

    1. It’s actually less than 4!

      The actual engines are very efficient. The trouble is pushing all that downforce through the air, a bit like your older brother sticking his hand on your head to stop you from punching him.

    2. No engine is efficient when you take it on a track mate

    3. Maybe it’s not green in an absolute sense. But over a 190 mile race it means an 8mpg car has to carry 14 gallons less than a 5mpg car. That’s a reduction of over 40kg. And that’s got to count for something especially since the power output won’t reduce significantly.

      1. They are extremely efficient when you consider power to weight and physical size.

        That is why the Cosworth engine is being used as a fuel pump on the new land speed record attempt.

      2. Just think how fast they would go if you took all the fuel out.

  10. I was promised on twitter that I would get a free pint if I found that video the funniest thing I saw today. It wasn’t, where do I cash this in?

    1. That is the type of stunt that even the best stunt driver will have trouble doing. I don’t know whether to feel pity or to laugh for those rider out there.

      1. I Like how they throw their hands in the at every piroette…

    2. I believe you need to bring that up with My Toby Moody.

    3. HounslowBusGarage
      23rd June 2011, 10:12

      Those motocycles. They’re mating.

    4. Please post what was.

  11. Others – Adam Parr of Williams – says F1 should be examining a total restructuring of the sport’s coverage to line up with new media and the idea of using just one global broadcaster rather than dealing with a bunch of different networks around the world.”

    has Adam Parr considered the fact that they are dealing with a bunch of different networks because not everyone understand english commentary???

    1. I don’t think he means the exact same broadcast…

    2. Michael Griffin
      23rd June 2011, 1:01

      I think he means one broadcaster gets the rights rather than a broadcaster per country, and then its beamed to countries in their native tongue..

      1. He just wants a shedload of cash without having to go to the trouble of earning any prize money…

      2. It would be nice, if they got the BBC team to make the show but be allowed to offer it worldwide.
        Other good teams could do the same (in different languages), so that the ones making the best TV show get most viewers instead of just being stuck with what you get in your area.

  12. I’m really confused by the “compromise” on engines. They should have either stuck with the V8 or gone with the 4 cylinder. As it is the engine development will be just as costly as it’s from the ground up, but less road relevant, not that I think F1 needs to be, but if that was the argument, then I don’t understand this. Do road cars come with turbo V6s?

    1. TheScuderia (@)
      23rd June 2011, 1:04

      The Nissan GT-R has a twin-turbo V6.

    2. Michael Griffin
      23rd June 2011, 1:06

      No, they don’t, but the work F1 teams will do to make the turbos more efficient, and the engines also, will prove vital to the car industry.

      Well, I think so anyway.

    3. I’ve got one of these – Falcon XR6T

      1. They are inline sixes aren’t they? Now that I think about it V6 turbos are not very common at the moment. Ford and BMW do Turbo straight sixes and Porsche do Boxer configuration turbos but other than a couple of small companies like Noble I can’t think of anybody else other than Nissan that does Turbo V6s.

    4. I guess V6s might become a way to go for sportive models in the next few years though as rules limit a car companies total CO2 average.

      But its sort of a compromise where everyone gets something they want to agree without losing face.

    5. Nobody is ever going to use the same engine from an F1 car in a road car. It is the technologies developed that will be used. The turbos and direct injection technologies are what will be carried over and that is why Renault have agreed to this compromise. They really needed a small capacity high boost engine for engine development within the sport to be relavent. The number of cylinders is really a moot point.

    6. My Golf R32 has a V6. I’ve got a mate who stuck a turbo on his R32…and he now beats Ferrari’s in drag races. :)

      1. Yep, it’s not exactly rocket science, just add boost.

      2. Those are just so cool cars. I had a friend who ramped his old golf up to about 200+ HP. Sadly he put it on the roof on the Ring, but he videotaped that (had to put the passenger seat back in for that)!

        Then he got a newer one with the V6 as well, great set of wheels.

    7. Porsche make a 180 degree V6 turbo. Vauxhall and Opel have a 2.8L turbo V6 made in Australia in their range also.

  13. i am very happy that the i4 finally won’t make it to F1… v6 is the way to go yaaayyy!!!

  14. Sod the V6 engines I don’t care. Because that motorbike crash and the power-ballet that followed is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a very very long time!!! Great find Keith!

    1. Very funny indeed, those bikes where made for each other.

  15. I hope that the new engines will attract more engine manufacturers, like a Volkswagen brand (Audi, perhaps?), GM, Ford, and Hyundai. Even though VW and Hyundai have presently ruled out F1, it would really be spectacular to see McLaren and Renault race against Hyundai and a potential Williams-VW team. But if anything, the next manufacturer to enter F1 will definitely be Honda.
    I know Dietrich Mateschitz has been trying to sell Toro Rosso for quite a while now, and with heavy Arab investment in the team, Toro Rosso could become an evaluation team for interested manufacturers in the future.

    1. I hope that the new engines will attract more engine manufacturers

      The original, planned engine changes had already attracted the interest of two others: Renault and PURE. Renault said their future in the sport depended on the original 2013 regulations being introduced, while PURE had plans to get a 2013-spec engine onto a test bed by the fourth quarter of this year.

      The future of both of them is now in question.

      1. PURE had not sealed an agreement with any team, so they didn’t have an assured future, just only a hope. How do you hope to make a profit from selling engines, when the development costs are almost astronomic.
        If it had been someone else involved other than Pollock, I’d have given them some credibility, but that dude knows how to waste other peoples money.

        Renault can easily make V6, I think they are looking to cut back on F1 and are just looking for an excuse. Everyone knows it will cost far more to develop a new engine than to continue with this current ones.
        And it is too late for Renault to use F1as a marketing tool for their family cars, saying oh, the engine we race in F1 is the same that goes into our hatch backs, isn’t going to move cars out of the show room.

        1. PURE had not sealed an agreement with any team, so they didn’t have an assured future, just only a hope

          Which is significantly diminished now that the’ve been forced to scrap any and all work they’ve done and start again.

          Renault can easily make V6, I think they are looking to cut back on F1 and are just looking for an excuse.

          Renault wanted the four-cylinder engines because they saw it as being relevant to their road cars.

          1. The relevant technology to road cars is primarily low capacity high boost engines with direct injection. The number of cylinders isn’t quite as important which is why they have agreed to the new specifications and time line. It doesn’t make much difference to the general public as in a survey most BMW drivers did not even know they were driving a rear wheel drive car, so I doubt they are bothered about number of cylinders either. The point is the important technologies are transferable between F1 engines and road car engines.

          2. @jimbo you answered my question. thanks :)

      2. surely if they were ok with 4 cylinder turbos, adding another 2 cylinders won’t change anything (development and research-wise) will it?

        1. I suspect Renault may have intended to base their engine on one of their production diesel blocks de-stroked to 1.6l. BMW proved in the 80s that a production car engine-block could become a 1000hp. race engine with forced induction, diesel engine blocks are much stronger than equivalent petrol engine blocks and this rule is going to restrict the power output to much less than 1,000hp.

    2. Toro Rosso could become an evaluation team for interested manufacturers in the future.

      No :'(
      This team will never go anywhere if it’s treated like a test team.

  16. Wow, that bike crash was absolutely hilarious!

    And what music to my ears! I certainly was hoping to see V6 engines coming back to Formula 1.

    1. I find it funny that people dismissed the inline-four engine specs on the basis that they would not “have the right sound” considering that nobody ever actually heard them.

      1. Me too. I was quite looking forward to what it might sound like. With F1 level RPMs, it would certainly have sounded different from most 4 banger turbos we’re familiar with.

        1. And is it really so bad that the engines would sound different? When Arnoux and Villeneuve went ten rounds with one another at Dijon-Prenois in 1979, the cars sounded nothing like what they do today. They were much throatier, much more gravelly than the current high-pitched scream. And yet, it’s held up as Formula 1’s defining moment. If the inline-four concept had held, and we had a race like we did in Canada, would anyone care if the engines were nearly silent? Would we prefer a silent Montreal 2011, or a noisy Barcelona 1999?

          1. HounslowBusGarage
            23rd June 2011, 10:16

            Absolutely.
            I care about the racing, the noise is secondary.

          2. HounslowBusGarage, have you been to an F1GP? The sound is an amazing part of the “show”. I enjoyed the race, but a less fanatic person (my girlfiend) was just amazed by the power, the sound and the smell of F1

          3. HounslowBusGarage
            23rd June 2011, 12:35

            @ Tango, yes I’ve been to several and I agree the noise is amazing. BUT as PM says I’d rather see silent but exciting racing in preference to noisy boredom.
            And have you ever been to DTM racing? It’s even more agressive sounding than F1 and louder too. Great, but it’s the racing that counts isn’t it?
            A bit like saying ‘Go and watch Bayern Munich because the crowd singing is terrific.’ Okay, but if the football is rotten, I’m better of watching Tiny Town United.

          4. I understand what you are saying and agree with you. But just as a casual football fan will most surely find Bayern’s match amazing because of the supporters, same goes with the noise for a F1 casual watcher. (granted, with nowadays ticket price, it’sz hard to believe a casual fan would splkash out over 500€ for a race…)

          5. HounslowBusGarage
            23rd June 2011, 20:50

            @ Tango. That’s the exact point; the ‘casual watcher’ is hardly likely to turn up in the grandstands unless they are a partner to a fan or a hanger-on or a ‘corporate guest’ and I couldn’t give a stuff about the last two.
            The ‘casual watcher’ these days will be doing his/her spectating via the TV screen, in which case the tv production company will have turned the microphones down so it doesn’t matter a jot or tittle about how much noise the cars actually make.
            Did you see the recent race at Pau for electric cars? It was a great race with these identical lightweight beasties zooming around the street circuit. AND the only thing you could hear was the scream of the tyres, the howl of the brakes and the thud as they gave each other real hip-and-shoulder tackles. It was great; no howling engines, just great racing.
            Don’t get me wrong, I love the sound of a wailing engine; one of my earliest memories is listening to the sound of a Matra V12 like a platoon of trumpeters on amphetamines echoing around Spa, I think it must have been. But if I want sound, I’ll go to a concert. If I want racing, I’ll go racing.

      2. It really is quite annoying. From the past engines (BMW) we know that are most similar, you could hardly say them to be low noise!

        And I read someone who had been listening to a simulation by I think Renault of what it would sound like saying its pretty good, but different.

      3. If I may say so, I hoped for the return of V6 engines out of personal preference, nothing logical. If they actually do bring in inline-four engines it’s not going to stop me from watching (and loving) Formula One.

      4. PM, you’r right, sound is a red herring but for the F1 constructors the real reason is that a 1.6L inline 4 would be longer than the current 2.4L V8.

        1. Also, if you want to know what 4 cylinders at 12,000 rpm sound like listen to motorbikes, on the track or even on the road.

          1. That’s an interesting thought.
            I live in a National Park where the roads undulate and twist with almost rhythmic beauty. As a result every Saturday and Sunday we get droves of two wheeled weekend racers screaming over the hills. I reckon that I can hear a Hyabusa (sic) about three quarters of a mile away and know exactly which corner he is taking by the change in engine noise.
            If that’s the blueprint for the future, F1 noise lovers have nothing to worry about.

  17. William Wilgus
    23rd June 2011, 5:11

    F1 was certainly more interesting when the number of cylinders an engine had wasn’t dictated by the rules. I remember V-12s, V-16s, V-8s, H-16s, I-4s, . . . but can’t recall any V-6s.

    1. Honda, Renault and Ferrari turbo engines were V6s. But you’re right. It was more interesting when the V6s were up against turbo V8s (Alfa Romeo), turbo I4 (BMW, Zakspeed) and naturally aspirated V8s (the end of the DFV era)

      1. And also when we had NA varying layout engines.

  18. Nice interview with Ron Dennis there as well. The pictures of the car showroom opening are nice, but Lewis looks so odd with that suit, while Jenson looks absolutely fitting in there.

  19. Will the V6s also be limited to 12,000 rpm?

  20. I think they lost a lot of road relevance with the removal of refueling.

    1. Absolutely incorrect, refuelling made efficiency pointless. Would you buy a car that needed a full tank every half hour?

  21. 1.6 litre 6-cylinders? And how has that ANY relevance to ANY street car whatsoever?

    1. Who cares? but read from the top again.

  22. I’ve never understood why F1 doesn’t set a spending cap and a maximum horsepower, minimum weight rule an let the constrictors donwhat they do best construct! If BMW can make a V10 light enough to compete with a turbo 4 from Honda to compete with a v12 from Ferrari!

    Right now all we have is a glorified spec series. It’s pathetic. There is far more intrigue and innovation in sports cars and sports cars are more relevant to road cars. Let the engineers loose and free up F1 a bit. What sense does an engine freeze on car manufacturers make? That’s what they do. If they can’t create and develop improved technology why are they there?

    Instead we’re stuck with the F-duct as innovation? You’d get laughed at if you had to use your knee or hand to cover an opening in your new McLaren road car to make it go faster.

    Make this year’s blown exhausts more fuel efficient & let’em run. Some days I hate F1. If they keep this up they will over regulate themselves out of existence!

    1. Its going to be interesting to see how small they are going to have make the diesel engine to stop its dominance, that’s a reason to follow a team, that’s a reason to buy Brand A, although Brand P look pretty good as well.

  23. When ever i read on twitter or anywhere about Mclaren being in Hyde Park i got a little bit excited, confusing the Hyde Park in Leeds, next to where i live, with the real Hyde Park in that london. :(

  24. These decisions should be left to the owners of the sports, the fans!

    Do you reckon the fans of NASCAR would let them run 1.6l engines, what next, no punching aloud in boxing!

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