Increasing F1 engine power is all well and good, argues EDD STRAW, but it's another example of the easy-answer mentality that ruins most public debate on the direction of grand prix racing
The latest panacea for all Formula 1's ills, be they real or imagined, is a 1000bhp engine.
It's not that 1000bhp is a bad idea, far from it, but frankly the idea that having a couple of hundred extra horsepower will transform the way the cars behave on track is naive.
After all, watch a 1000bhp Toyota LMP1 car fully lit on a qualifying lap and then take a look at an Audi. The latter has significantly less power thanks to the different configuration of its green energy technology, but it doesn't suddenly make it child's play to drive compared with the Toyota.
The public discourse on the subject is painfully shallow. The prevailing opinion seems to be that a very powerful engine means that it's (to use an outdated phrase) a 'man's car' whereas anything with less than about 700bhp could be driven by anyone.
Is a 1000bhp Toyota really more challenging than a less powerful Audi? © XPB |
That view is incredibly reductive and limiting. Yes, there is a very basic correlation between power and driver challenge in that you need a far more cultured right foot to drive a 1000bhp car well than a 150bhp one, but beyond that it's a very simplistic argument.
Far more important is the emphasis on making the cars 'harder' to drive. But even that is a dangerous objective because one person's definition of the term will vary dramatically from another's.
Do you mean physically hard, so you have to have neck muscles the size of your thighs and arms as big as tree trunks to be able to turn the wheel? Do you mean requiring supreme sensitivity to proactively keep the car on the narrowest of knife edges? Do you mean that the car should be very obviously sliding in every corner?
Actually, what I suspect most people mean is that they want the cars to look difficult to drive, irrespective of whether they actually are. Perversely, a car that looks difficult to drive can sometimes be the easier, more forgiving machine, one that offers the progressive grip that permits lesser drivers to correct seemingly spectacular moments.
The real brilliance of the great drivers is that they drive proactively, making the car look like it is on rails. Ironically, this rabid desire to return to a more 'pure' kind of racing car, often by those lamenting the 'artificiality' (a terrible word) of racing, is in itself a demand to try to create a made-to-order set of car characteristics.
And this is the problem with the whole argument. Everything is about outcomes, with relatively little consideration of what needs to be done to get there.
Basic ideas that have been suggested, such as removing the fuel-flow-rate limit and eliminating the 100kg fuel maximum are logical, but that's not the whole story. Multiple factors play into this, and in many ways the demand for much wider tyres, which will make that power easier to put on the road, seems to be working in the opposite direction.
Johansson grapples with the 1985 Toleman-Hart at Estoril © LAT |
Granted, you can argue that the wider tyres can make up for a reduction in downforce, which is another thing everybody wants. But, at the same time, everybody seems to want the cars to go even quicker. Try as you might, adding a few inches to the bits touching the track won't make up for slashing the downforce.
This cognitive dissonance is deeply frustrating. And even if the outcome everybody seems to want is achieved, chances are there will still be complaints.
Last year, AUTOSPORT magazine ran a special retrospective on the turbo years, an era everyone quite rightly looks back on with tremendous fondness. Stefan Johansson, who drove turbo machinery for Ferrari, McLaren, Toleman and Spirit was among those interviewed.
"There was no such thing as mid-corner speed," he said. "You literally had to hug the kerb as late as you could to give yourself as much room as you could on the exit because once the power kicked in all hell broke loose."
If F1 does return to four-figure power outputs, the power curves and the characteristics of the engines would be dramatically more refined than they were three decades ago.
But let's say a driver made that kind of comment today. What would the reaction be?
Many would be up in arms about low corner speeds. The drivers can't push? They are just throttle-jockeys who point and squirt!
Lauda experienced the previous generation of F1 turbos © LAT |
As ever, that would be grossly simplistic, but it's a reminder of how easy it is for everything to be spun as a negative.
F1, like all of motorsport, is dancing a dangerous tightrope between being a sport true to its traditions and being suitably entertaining.
I see grand prix racing's regulations as an ever-changing, ever-shifting thing, with the ethos far more important than the exact detail. Since this form of racing first appeared over a century ago, race lengths have varied wildly, engine formulas have changed, bodywork rules have come and gone... there is no legitimate ideal template.
During recent years, the focus has been on 'the show'. This it not necessarily a bad thing fundamentally, but very often the attempt to achieve certain objectives is the problem.
For those who complained about the lack of overtaking, the DRS is a response to this. You might not like it, but the fan surveys universally highlighted the lack of passing as a problem. The trouble is, the pursuit of such outcomes rarely takes into account the type of overtaking you are creating.
But, inevitably, what really matters is the way you sell the sport. Last week, we had both three-time world champion Niki Lauda and Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene decrying the state of modern F1 cars.
While Arrivabene's comments can partly be interpreted in the context of struggling Ferrari wanting a change, Lauda's Mercedes is flying so would likely benefit from stability. But several things stood out in what he said.
DRS provided the overtaking fans seemed to want, but has been criticised © LAT |
Firstly, he asked for 1200bhp engines "which deliver a steep power curve that becomes very critical at the limit".
Yet Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains would not want to produce an engine with those characteristics. A steep power curve is not conducive to a driveable racing car.
So, in order to achieve that, F1 will need some kind of rule governing the power curve. If you think F1's rules are restrictive now, that's a nightmare scenario.
Lauda also stuck the knife in on the subject of how easy it is to drive the cars.
"Today, you can drive an F1 car like a road car," he said. "I could do it, you could do it."
If Lauda sincerely believes that, he has to do some serious explaining to the Mercedes board as to why they are spending tens of millions to retain the services of its two current drivers...
Granted, he was exaggerating for effect, but again this 'low-resolution' argument creates an environment in which progress is impossible to make.
Current F1 cars are not easy to drive. If they were, there would be negligible performance difference between all drivers. They move around more than they did, and the new-generation engines are harder to deal with than the old V8s, when drivers talk of being able to stamp on the throttle at corner exit without encountering much in the way of wheelspin.
Could they be a bigger challenge? Certainly. And F1 must strive to have long-term strategies in place that ensure the machinery suits the demands of the audience.
But there is no hope of achieving this while the discourse continues in the way it has. To improve your product, first you have to understand it.
Modern F1 cars are still challenging © XPB |
F1 is a long way off understanding where its appeal really lies. And much of the problem is presentation.
Here's an idea: perhaps the teams should start to put some pressure on those producing the television images?
Sports broadcasting has moved on dramatically over the years, but F1's output has been limited to small steps like the thermal cameras pointed at the tyres.
These are nice touches, but until the experience of watching an F1 car on the television comes somewhere close to representing the experience of standing trackside - which I did at every race and test last year - these problems will remain.
The most challenging and spectacular cars, shot in a manner seemingly designed more to ensure the track is covered by the minimum possible number of cameras, will continue to look like they are driven by ordinary mortals.
They aren't, of course. The best F1 drivers in action are a joy to watch. So perhaps it's time that the coverage reflected that?
Solving these problems, some of which are real, some of which are just a question or perception, always requires a more nuanced approach than headline-grabbing soundbites would suggest.
It's time that the soundbites stopped driving the debate.
Increasing F1 engine power is all well and good, argues EDD STRAW, but it's another example of the easy-answer mentality that ruins most public debate on the direction of grand prix racing
The latest panacea for all Formula 1's ills, be they real or imagined, is a 1000bhp engine.
It's not that 1000bhp is a bad idea, far from it, but frankly the idea that having a couple of hundred extra horsepower will transform the way the cars behave on track is naive.
After all, watch a 1000bhp Toyota LMP1 car fully lit on a qualifying lap and then take a look at an Audi. The latter has significantly less power thanks to the different configuration of its green energy technology, but it doesn't suddenly make it child's play to drive compared with the Toyota.
The public discourse on the subject is painfully shallow. The prevailing opinion seems to be that a very powerful engine means that it's (to use an outdated phrase) a 'man's car' whereas anything with less than about 700bhp could be driven by anyone.
Is a 1000bhp Toyota really more challenging than a less powerful Audi? © XPB |
That view is incredibly reductive and limiting. Yes, there is a very basic correlation between power and driver challenge in that you need a far more cultured right foot to drive a 1000bhp car well than a 150bhp one, but beyond that it's a very simplistic argument.
Far more important is the emphasis on making the cars 'harder' to drive. But even that is a dangerous objective because one person's definition of the term will vary dramatically from another's.
Do you mean physically hard, so you have to have neck muscles the size of your thighs and arms as big as tree trunks to be able to turn the wheel? Do you mean requiring supreme sensitivity to proactively keep the car on the narrowest of knife edges? Do you mean that the car should be very obviously sliding in every corner?
Actually, what I suspect most people mean is that they want the cars to look difficult to drive, irrespective of whether they actually are. Perversely, a car that looks difficult to drive can sometimes be the easier, more forgiving machine, one that offers the progressive grip that permits lesser drivers to correct seemingly spectacular moments.
The real brilliance of the great drivers is that they drive proactively, making the car look like it is on rails. Ironically, this rabid desire to return to a more 'pure' kind of racing car, often by those lamenting the 'artificiality' (a terrible word) of racing, is in itself a demand to try to create a made-to-order set of car characteristics.
And this is the problem with the whole argument. Everything is about outcomes, with relatively little consideration of what needs to be done to get there.
Basic ideas that have been suggested, such as removing the fuel-flow-rate limit and eliminating the 100kg fuel maximum are logical, but that's not the whole story. Multiple factors play into this, and in many ways the demand for much wider tyres, which will make that power easier to put on the road, seems to be working in the opposite direction.
Johansson grapples with the 1985 Toleman-Hart at Estoril © LAT |
Granted, you can argue that the wider tyres can make up for a reduction in downforce, which is another thing everybody wants. But, at the same time, everybody seems to want the cars to go even quicker. Try as you might, adding a few inches to the bits touching the track won't make up for slashing the downforce.
This cognitive dissonance is deeply frustrating. And even if the outcome everybody seems to want is achieved, chances are there will still be complaints.
Last year, AUTOSPORT magazine ran a special retrospective on the turbo years, an era everyone quite rightly looks back on with tremendous fondness. Stefan Johansson, who drove turbo machinery for Ferrari, McLaren, Toleman and Spirit was among those interviewed.
"There was no such thing as mid-corner speed," he said. "You literally had to hug the kerb as late as you could to give yourself as much room as you could on the exit because once the power kicked in all hell broke loose."
If F1 does return to four-figure power outputs, the power curves and the characteristics of the engines would be dramatically more refined than they were three decades ago.
But let's say a driver made that kind of comment today. What would the reaction be?
Many would be up in arms about low corner speeds. The drivers can't push? They are just throttle-jockeys who point and squirt!
Lauda experienced the previous generation of F1 turbos © LAT |
As ever, that would be grossly simplistic, but it's a reminder of how easy it is for everything to be spun as a negative.
F1, like all of motorsport, is dancing a dangerous tightrope between being a sport true to its traditions and being suitably entertaining.
I see grand prix racing's regulations as an ever-changing, ever-shifting thing, with the ethos far more important than the exact detail. Since this form of racing first appeared over a century ago, race lengths have varied wildly, engine formulas have changed, bodywork rules have come and gone... there is no legitimate ideal template.
During recent years, the focus has been on 'the show'. This it not necessarily a bad thing fundamentally, but very often the attempt to achieve certain objectives is the problem.
For those who complained about the lack of overtaking, the DRS is a response to this. You might not like it, but the fan surveys universally highlighted the lack of passing as a problem. The trouble is, the pursuit of such outcomes rarely takes into account the type of overtaking you are creating.
But, inevitably, what really matters is the way you sell the sport. Last week, we had both three-time world champion Niki Lauda and Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene decrying the state of modern F1 cars.
While Arrivabene's comments can partly be interpreted in the context of struggling Ferrari wanting a change, Lauda's Mercedes is flying so would likely benefit from stability. But several things stood out in what he said.
DRS provided the overtaking fans seemed to want, but has been criticised © LAT |
Firstly, he asked for 1200bhp engines "which deliver a steep power curve that becomes very critical at the limit".
Yet Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains would not want to produce an engine with those characteristics. A steep power curve is not conducive to a driveable racing car.
So, in order to achieve that, F1 will need some kind of rule governing the power curve. If you think F1's rules are restrictive now, that's a nightmare scenario.
Lauda also stuck the knife in on the subject of how easy it is to drive the cars.
"Today, you can drive an F1 car like a road car," he said. "I could do it, you could do it."
If Lauda sincerely believes that, he has to do some serious explaining to the Mercedes board as to why they are spending tens of millions to retain the services of its two current drivers...
Granted, he was exaggerating for effect, but again this 'low-resolution' argument creates an environment in which progress is impossible to make.
Current F1 cars are not easy to drive. If they were, there would be negligible performance difference between all drivers. They move around more than they did, and the new-generation engines are harder to deal with than the old V8s, when drivers talk of being able to stamp on the throttle at corner exit without encountering much in the way of wheelspin.
Could they be a bigger challenge? Certainly. And F1 must strive to have long-term strategies in place that ensure the machinery suits the demands of the audience.
But there is no hope of achieving this while the discourse continues in the way it has. To improve your product, first you have to understand it.
Modern F1 cars are still challenging © XPB |
F1 is a long way off understanding where its appeal really lies. And much of the problem is presentation.
Here's an idea: perhaps the teams should start to put some pressure on those producing the television images?
Sports broadcasting has moved on dramatically over the years, but F1's output has been limited to small steps like the thermal cameras pointed at the tyres.
These are nice touches, but until the experience of watching an F1 car on the television comes somewhere close to representing the experience of standing trackside - which I did at every race and test last year - these problems will remain.
The most challenging and spectacular cars, shot in a manner seemingly designed more to ensure the track is covered by the minimum possible number of cameras, will continue to look like they are driven by ordinary mortals.
They aren't, of course. The best F1 drivers in action are a joy to watch. So perhaps it's time that the coverage reflected that?
Solving these problems, some of which are real, some of which are just a question or perception, always requires a more nuanced approach than headline-grabbing soundbites would suggest.
It's time that the soundbites stopped driving the debate.
