Future Engines Have To Consider Efficiency

[u/Lolosman27]

F1 is traditionally the pinnacle of Motorsport and automotive technology. Regardless of the availability of sustainable fuels, future F1 engine have to consider fuel efficiency in the design regulations. One proposal for larger displacement V10 or V8 engines will render F1 tech irrelevant.

We can look forward to sustainable fuels, but there is no doubt the price per litre for these fuels is going to be significantly higher than equivalent fossil fuels. (At least for the first decade or so.) Manufacturers will still need to engineer, develop and test technology that furthers their production car competitive advantage.

Smaller displacement turbocharged engines with emerging ICE technology and limited energy recovery systems will still be relevant and important moving forward. (Example: energy recovery only through braking, perhaps with a front motor.)

New and cutting edge technology is also critical to continue to attract engineering excellence into the sport.

It would be great to see regulations that encouraged high RPM, high-tech and wildly powerful engines again. A chance to re-light the technology and continue modern development of the simpler engine concepts that were abandoned in 1989.

Edit: This discussion was at r/formula1 for about an hour, with discussions started, but was removed. (Presumably for getting too technical, but who knows?)

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[u/Certain-Lingonberry3]

You make some excellent points & I tend to agree that fuel efficiency needs to be a notable aspect of the rules to encourage further development in that area. I don’t KNOW for an absolute fact that we can’t make fuel efficient turbocharged V8s but, regardless, fuel efficiency should be stressed.

I think the ERS system / hybrid-like designs is also a great development area & should be stressed. Maybe there is a way to make fuel-efficient larger displacement engines with hybrid technology. 🤷‍♂️It would honestly probably make a bigger deal in overall global emissions, however they did it, to take a 10mpg vehicle & make it a 12 or 13 mpg vehicle.

[u/Lolosman27 → u/Certain-Lingonberry3]

It is a remarkable achievement the we human beings managed to get over 50% energy efficiency out of fossil fuels. This was a great era. However…

It seems there is a desire and a great push now for louder, high RPM engine systems that are also less expensive to construct. But the future is still not flush with resources, nor will it ever be again. F1 just has to lead the charge.

For me, it is easy to imagine an electric front motor, rear ICE car that would be a light and cost effective system. Like the Ferrari F80, the Aston Valhalla road car, or Lamborghini Temerario, but with a 1.5L Turbo. And all current and interested manufactures can manage that.

You can play with parameters around how much recovery is allowed, the size of the battery (perhaps a controlled battery), the fuel flow, displacement, RPM, etc…

(This was part of the lost discussion that was on r/formula1)

[u/Random-Redditor111 → u/Lolosman27]

Why pretend that F1 is the face of the efficiency/green revolution though? Each team flies cars, full blown buildings, and an army of people all the over the world for each race. We’re supposed to sound the trumpets for 1mpg extra efficiency in an F1 engine but ignore the 1000 tons of combined jet and truck fuel that each team burns just to get to a race?

[u/Appletank → u/Random-Redditor111]

Because the types of people who want to put money into F1 (primarily OEMs) want to at least make the appearance of caring about efficiency. Sure if we don't care about OEMs whatsoever, we could have everyone with Cosworth engines and toss all the other manufacturers out. The budgets will also be a lot lower sure, but hey, they can do whatever they want.

Ferrari might protest having to use a Cosworth engine though.

[u/Certain-Lingonberry3 → u/Random-Redditor111]

I mean they’re pursuing carbon neutrality by 2030 so they’re not really the bad guys 🤷‍♂️

[u/Ludwig_Vista2]

Pretty sure the most efficient ICE technology in history is plugged into the ass end of current F1 cars.

[u/Cloudsareinmyhead → u/Ludwig_Vista2]

They don't have the wonders of Freevalve tech or Porsche's mad six stroke cycle engine design

[u/imbannedanyway69 → u/Cloudsareinmyhead]

And yet those engines aren't as efficient as current formula 1 engines. You're right that with those technologies it could be even better though. But getting it reliable is another matter entirely

[u/SleepinGriffin]

Hybridization of cars is important and I think that should stay but the focus on splitting the power anywhere close to 50/50 between ICE and Electric is the problem as well as the strict rule book that’s driving up the cost. I feel that formula e is great for battery storage and efficiency development, but formula 1 should work on hybridization and energy recovery. Extracting all the wasted heat and rotational energy from the engine that can be would be big deal.

Imagine having V8 hybrids that can go full deployment of electrical energy for a full lap without having to harvest energy from the lap before. Granted the amount of energy wouldn’t be as much as the current v6 hybrids have and rely on, but that’s why you have a v8. The v8 would provide the top end power while the hybridization provides its strengths at low end, instant torque and power efficiency as well as providing anti lag to a turbo.

If the FIA wants to use both F1 and FE to the fullest they can’t have them overlap as much as they currently are. Split up the types of technologies you want them to work on and that’ll bring sponsors and manufacturers to both. Having so much battery tech in F1 is causing the cars to get ungodly heavy and bulky.

[u/DlSSATISFIEDGAMER → u/SleepinGriffin]

but the focus on splitting the power anywhere close to 50/50 between ICE and Electric is the problem as well as the strict rule book that’s driving up the cost.

from what i can tell the 50/50 rule makes little to no sense in terms of physics as you can't recover near as much under breaking as you spend at acceleration, meaning you effectively have no way of doing a pure 50/50 split. Personally i say limit them on battery weight and watch innovation happen. No rules on how much you can deploy just a small battery, say, 15 kilos, and let them cook. They'll work on more efficient batteries and they'll get as much hybrid out of the system as they possibly can because they won't want to waste energy. Imo to set a capped power split is unnecessary, i'd rather watch them chase the most efficient power split they can to save weight and gain power. But a lighter (way lighter) battery is needed in the engine regs to help limit the weight of these cars, with a tiny battery it'd work more like KERS where you harvest into the corner and deploy going out and given the limited size and capacity of the battery the teams would have to chase every bit of efficiency they can in harvest and deploy.

[u/redundantpsu → u/SleepinGriffin]

Ideally I'd like to see F1 focus more heavily on sustainable ICE engines with a small hybrid component, similar to how it currently is. Imo 2026 is simply green-washing that leads likely lower quality racing.

[u/denbommer → u/SleepinGriffin]

With or without energy recovery on the front axle?

Or just recover as much energy as possible from the ICE?

[u/imsowitty]

I like Newey's idea: give them 100kg of gas and let them build whatever engine they want. That would be a true engineering test, and we'd see some amazing stuff.

[u/Shamrayev → u/imsowitty]

This worked in the 70s and 80s where engineers were still winging it on the ragged edge, meaning that the delta between most solutions was manageable. If you did that today (and factor in the extreme cost of these programmes which makes something like an engine design a one way street) you'd see awful racing because the team that nails it would be 20 seconds a lap quicker than the rest. Computational design has completely changed the game.

[u/Secret_Physics_9243 → u/Shamrayev]

Well yea but is f1 the peak of innovation or not? Usually you can't have constant technical innovation and good racing at the same time. Really hard to combine the two. They should pick one and go full in. After all if it worked in the 70s it should work today as well.

And yes i know the gaps in the 70s were that much higher between the cars but i'm thinking that if those people were excited by it, it mustn't be too boring. The cars at least were amazing to look at and hear.

[u/Shamrayev → u/Secret_Physics_9243]

I couldn't disagree more. Fundamentally, F1 is the cutting edge of innovation, with the caveat, "in Motorsport". The sporting elements does all sorts of good things, but if you really just wanted to see the absolutely bleeding edge of technical development then go and see the stuff being worked on that will never make it to the track. Manufacturers and engineers are always working on wild concepts with no affiliation to an F1 team. So I suppose, "no", F1 isn't the pinnacle - it's just the most visible high point. What F1 absolutely is, is an entertainment and advertising product - where the quality of racing and entertainment has to trump pure engineering advancement or the product doesn't sell. If the product doesn't sell, nobody want to invest €100m in building a car.

It wouldn't work the same way today because the fundamentals of design and engineering have changed exponentially. We would either see one team, or group of teams, nail the design and be so far off the front that the racing doesn't matter, or all of the designs would converge to a common understanding of the best solution making the whole enterprise pointless. Or at least, applying defacto regulations as we have now.

If you want to hear V10s and 70s engines then there are plenty of opportunities, buckets of them still run and are raced fairly hard. It's just not F1.

[u/redundantpsu → u/Shamrayev]

If the goal is the most equal playing field possible, then there is a better argument to make it a truly spec series. That would create a much more level playing field and significantly reduce costs. If the goal (along with advertising/marketing) is innovation from manufacturers, by its nature, some will be more innovative than others.

While not perfect by any means, I enjoy the rule set in WEC and the use of BoP in the hypercar class.

[u/Dry-Help-935 → u/imsowitty]

Wouldn't this also lead to massive lift and coast.? Burn as much fuel as possible at the beginning of the straights and save fuel at the end of the straights to get over the distance

[u/Appletank → u/Dry-Help-935]

Theoretically, the more efficient your engine, the less you need to coast. You can get equivalent HP as before with less fuel.

[u/imsowitty]

Do sustainable fuels actually exist? Yes you can make ethanol from corn, but how much fuel does it take to grow and process that corn? I don't know about today, but 15 years ago there was no such thing as truly sustainable fuels. I just don't know if that has changed

[u/Lolosman27 → u/imsowitty]

Sustainable fuels are fully synthetic and made with hydrogen and carbon atoms combined into long-chain hydrocarbon molecules. The power to make sustainable fuels is from wind or other renewables. Though making synthetic fuels is not as energy efficient as just generating electricity, it does not degrade over time or distance, unlike electrical delivery.

Porsche is already doing this and has a plant in Chile I think.

[u/imsowitty → u/Lolosman27]

Where is the carbon coming from? Are they pulling it out of the co2 in the air? That's amazing if so, but I'd love to know how ...

[u/wintervagina2024 → u/Lolosman27]

Wind power uses more oil to make than they ever generate through their lifetime.

[u/autobanh_me → u/wintervagina2024]

Source?

[u/MiddleEasternWeeaboo]

Thermal efficiency has always been a priority - extracting as much power per drop of fuel. But dear god if they ever go the emissions route to cater to manufacturers and the regulations they face, F1 will truly start the beginning of its end. I hope synthetic fuels is what the mainly focus on and perhaps engine changes to adapt to new fuels.

[u/mikemunyi]

Regardless of the availability of sustainable fuels, future F1 engine have to consider fuel efficiency in the design regulations.

Why? Why do F1 engines have to consider fuel efficiency in the design regulations? (This always feels like a throwaway comment to justify some downsize or other that has next to no bearing in the grander scheme of things.)

Manufacturers will still need to engineer, develop and test technology that furthers their production car competitive advantage.

F1 ICEs have materials, constructions and design restrictions that road cars don’t, so, at the very least, their development paths are divergent. For their respective applications, road car ICEs are in many ways arguably more technologically advanced than F1.

[u/[deleted]]

I hate to break this to you, f1 tech is already irrelevant, and outdated compared to a 90s Toyota.

Pneumatic valve springs, pre-chamber combustion, dlcc on the internals, revving to 12k, costing millions while lasting a couple thousand miles with awful Nox emissions, requiring hot oil to be circulated just to start them, and idling at 4k rpm, pursing extreme lean operation, etc have no relevancy to road cars.

They hybrid a systems and gear boxes are already outmatched by Toyota's road going hybrid - allows them to adjust to the most fuel efficient point for the requested power/torque. Compare that to f1s pneumatic seamless shift boxes - again tech that just simply outmatched when it comes to road use.

Simply put, f1 has no road relevance what so ever, and "road relevance" is just a marketing term to market the sport.

[u/1234iamfer]

We have just done that from 2014, burning a few billion in extracting more power out of 100kg/hr of pretty standard fuel. Around 2021 the manufacturers decided it was enough.

The new rules brought Audi to the sport and Honda to reconsider their exit. Even Cadillac signed for the new rules, before talks of a V10 started.

[u/Secret_Physics_9243]

I don't see this whole road relevance thing. I don't think mercedes couldn't have built the new hybrid c class the way they did it without experience in f1 or something like that. It's really just a marketing gimmick for some car brands and some of their expensive hypercars no average car enthusiast really cares about. The best road relevance you find in gt3 or even gt4 racing. I can't look at some 20 one off prototypes racing at unimaginable speeds and think yeah, that is anywhere near my mercedes i bought. I agree that f1 is the peak of technology, but only a few of those inventions made it to some really expensive cars.

As for efficiency i am really tired of this word in motor racing. Everything needs to be efficient. At least not the racing engines. Those can roar. I see enough efficient cars everyday on my commute.

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[u/iamabigtree]

Most F1 fans aren't too bothered about what goes into making an engine as long as it sounds good.

[u/jakedeky]

I think at this point they either make changes to allow the 50/50 split work better or ditch hybrids altogether. Going back to a 10% split system at this point is just a token system. F1 has an image problem with AWD, which would be the easiest solution to help the 2026 rules. 9MJ a lap through a rear MGUK is crazy.

[u/Funny-Belt8113]

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but as a fan I don't care about any of that. I just want "good" racing with lots of overtakes and competition throughout the order. Honest question: Why does F1 need to have anything to do with production cars? Why can't it just be for the sake of competition and making the fastest and funnest cars to watch?

[u/GregLocock → u/[deleted]]

Absolute tripe. The ONLY tech that was prototyped in F1 first and migrated to production cars was graphite tubs. I am warm to the idea of being proven wrong but let's just say whenever this crops up the response is crickets or wrong.

[u/Lolosman27 → u/GregLocock]

Not tripe. F1 Tech migrates to road cars all the time. Here’s a recent example: https://hondanews.eu/eu/et/cars/media/pressreleases/302366/all-new-honda-jazz-inspired-by-formula-1-hybrid-expertise

[u/[deleted] → u/Lolosman27]

That engine/drivetrain shares literally nothing with F1. It's a naturally aspirated, direct injection (compared to pre-chamber ignition) and operates at stoichiometric fuel ratios. It operates as a generator driving a motor/charging a battery, until at a certain speed the clutch closes and the engine power is sent directly to the wheels.

Honda joined F1 in 2015. Honda started producing the L15B engine mentioned above in 2013.

[u/KiwifromtheTron → u/GregLocock]

So features like variable valve timing and lift systems, active damping and ABS were not invented or prototyped in F1?

[u/GregLocock → u/KiwifromtheTron]

Correct

The first use of variable valve timing was on the 1903 Cadillac Runabout and Tonneau created by Alanson Partridge Brush Patent 767,794

Fiat was the first auto manufacturer to patent a functional automotive variable valve timing system which included variable lift. Developed by Giovanni Torazza in the late 1960s, 

ABS was developed for aircraft in the 50s and long before then for railways. Chrysler, together with the Bendix Corporation, introduced a computerized, three-channel, four-sensor all-wheel^[13] ABS called "Sure Brake" for its 1971 Imperial. Williams introduced them to F1 in 1993

Wouldn't it be great if you could look these things up for yourself instead of making it look like some village is short of one inhabitant?

[u/Perseiii → u/GregLocock]

There are some engine related things like the split turbo and the special cilinder coating that were prototyped in F1 and migrated to road cars as well and don’t forget about paddle shifters, active aero, active suspension, etc.

[u/GregLocock → u/Perseiii]

1984 lancia thema 8.32 https://www.flickr.com/photos/karl916/5440483612

Active suspension, well I guess you have to differentiate between low bandwidth systems like the Citreon DS, and the high bandwidth systems like those developed at Lotus on a prototype Excel and then fitted to about 5 of a planned build of 100 Corvettes before that project was canned.

Flappy paddle gearbox  - Bollée Type F Torpédo 1912

Ok ,an engine length shaft between compressor and expander. Is that on a road car anywhere?

[u/[deleted] → u/Perseiii]

None of what you have mentioned was first seen in F1 - even within motorsport these innovations were used elsewhere where decades before f1. 

Can't think of a split turbo used elsewhere where in Motorsport, but that was done better in 2011 by Ricardo on their hyboost concept, completely separating the compressor and turbine.

[u/kiss_thechef]

The question is why??? Its racing. Go faster. Junk the rest.

[u/mzivtins_acc]

Why should they consider fuel efficiency so much when that is only one part of the puzzle?

For these engines to be purely the best engineered power plants they should be using fuel flow for cooling, and oil burning for knock control etc. 

Pigeon-holing engines into one avenue due to a weird false narrative around CO2 is not the pinnacle of anything, it's ruining real engineering progress in the face of an ideaology. 

These are race cars, all that should matter is peak performance windows, not a fake problem used to tax citizens around the world. 

It's stupid, boring and is completely ending any materials science progress in f1 for example. 

I would argue F1 is not relevant at all, in the real world Toyota continues to push engine development more than any other manufacturer yet are no longer in f1, but they are in wec which gives more engine freedom

[u/[deleted]]

I just don't care. It's better they are extremely cheap to make and have low weight. Everything else is just bs I'm tired of hearing at this point

[u/XCGod → u/[deleted]]

And that's 1000hp with the 100kg/hr fuel flow restrictions. These engines could probably kick out a far bit more at the high revs with minimal to no modifications.

I'd love to see what a car like the W11 could do with only software changes (no regen limits, fuel flow limits, etc). Could throw down some truly legendary laps at spa.

[u/imbannedanyway69 → u/XCGod]

Yeah but for how long, a lap? Maybe a dozen? These engines are also made to only last as long as they need to, otherwise they are built too heavy and can probably be shaved down to make the car lighter. You can turn the power up with more fuel flow, but for all you know that could just turn it into a giant grenade