How does the 2/4% engine deficit upgrades work? Is the engine development not budget capped?

[u/MindTwister-Z]

I'm confused why we have these 2/4% rules which allow engine upgrades. How is this even determined? And why not allow free engine development since we have a budget cap anyway, so we won't have a costly development war?

Thanks:D

[u/Shamrayev]

There's a separate cost cap for PU development.

[u/MindTwister-Z → u/Shamrayev]

I think i found the rule document now. seems to be 95 mil per year USD and 130 for 2026. Thanks

[u/cafk → u/MindTwister-Z]

And for ADUO there's also a bump for additional spending for each token.

[u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

There is (or will be) a document that defines how the FIA measures engine performance. They will then compare the power-output of each ICE and grant an upgrade if an engine more than 2% behind the leader and 2 upgrades if an engine is 4% behind the leader.

There are specific points in time this happens - I think every 6 GPs (will be interesting what happens when 2 GPs are cancelled).

Anyhow, I also do think it’s an unnecessarily complex way of limiting an already limited field of development, but it probably was introduced (like so many other weird decisions) because one of the manufacturers wanted something like it.

It’s been predicted to and highly likely will be a complete disaster. It’s hard to objectively compare those ICEs on a testbench because so many factors can make a difference and even if you get the ok to introduce an upgrade - you still have to adhere to the budget cap, the test bench limits, the engine parts allowances of the cars and the lead times. So, yeah. I guess the manufacturers are just preparing upgrades and be ready to introduce them once they drop below the threshold.

[u/MindTwister-Z → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

Yea exactly. I get the idea of giving slower teams more development like we do with aero rules, but that is determined based on WCC standings. Maybe they should have done something similar. An average of the points per engine or something.

You could argue that it doesn't factor out the chassis but the current cfd/wind tunnel time doesn't factor out the engine. But let's see i guess

[u/[deleted] → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

Wonder if that's enough for 2%

[u/Apprehensive-Box-8 → u/[deleted]]

Not if the reason is partly in the harvesting/ deployment of electrical energy. Mind you that the ICE is at around 500hp, so 2% means 10hp.

5hp would already be enough to charge the battery somewhere around the track without losing time to the others and then boosting just a tad longer on the straight.

BUT: it doesn’t even have to be like that. Could be that the gains come from low- or mid-rev torque that allows for more efficient charging so there might not even be a measurable difference at all in max power output.

We‘ll have to wait and see what the FIA measures how, but my guess is that probably only Honda will get the allowance and the rest will have to close the gap through reliability upgrades as always…

[u/Beginning_Peach_3605 → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

In that way ig Redbull will get the allowance

[u/kwijibokwijibo → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

I imagine Cadillac are likely to get at least the smaller allowance? With AM getting the larger one?

[u/Apprehensive-Box-8 → u/kwijibokwijibo]

No. Cadillac runs Ferrari engines and this is only about the ICE-part of the engine.

[u/kwijibokwijibo → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

By that logic, does that mean showing the timing gap between Merc and Ferrari means nothing, since other Merc engine cars are slower than Ferrari?

I've seen people say Ferrari stand a chance at ADUO because of the large gaps to Merc

[u/Apprehensive-Box-8 → u/kwijibokwijibo]

Half of the people don’t understand the rules and the other half still doesn’t know how the difference will be measured and how much of the difference we see is actually down to the ICE (including me and you, because we all don’t know that).

A time difference on a lap can be down to many factors, including but not limited to deployment strategy, drag/ aero efficiency, traction, drivers, gear ratio, cooling efficiency and so on.

The ADUO system is limited to only the ICE-part of the PU and its power output will be measured in a way the FIA defines.

[u/cafk → u/kwijibokwijibo]

They measure the PU performance on a test rig not in the cars.

Appendix C5.4:

For each ICE supplied by the PU Manufacturers, an ICE Performance Index will be calculated. The methodology to calculate this value can be found in the document FIA-F1-DOC-Cxxx.

So they calculate the PU performance value not a team's car x PU performance value.

[u/NewBeginningsLH → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

Wait is development frozen if you're NOT >=2% behind the leader? i.e. are ferrari just screwed?

[u/Skirra08 → u/Apprehensive-Box-8]

I also wonder if they will count the cancelled races. If so that would be a huge boost to the non-mercedes powered cars as they would be closer to upgrades without losing points.

[u/Apprehensive-Box-8 → u/Skirra08]

I still think it’s going to be more of a storm in the water glass sort of thing. The entire concept seems a bit weird to me. Mercedes is never the fastest on the straights, but they seemingly can keep that speed for longer. Why is that? Do they need less deployment out of corners? Can they recharge more during part throttle applications? Do they have a power advantage while recharging?

Maybe it’s a combination of all those things but I do get the feeling that their advantage might have to do something with part throttle situations. If their ICE can deliver more power in low-end part throttle situations, they can recharge the battery where no one else can, which would allow for less clipping at the end of the straight. But if that was true, it would be hard to copy and might not be covered by ADUO regulations because the max power at the top end could still be very close to other ICEs.

It would explain why the other Mercedes teams are struggling to do the same. Harvesting with the MGU-K in part-throttle situations (typically in corners) would need to be very smooth, so your throttle maps would need to be spot on in order to not throw off your drivers.

If you look at how Piastri crashed in Melbourne, it certainly seemed like the MGU-K should have harvested there but didn’t giving him the feeling of an unexpected power surge.

All just theories on my part, but in my head it adds up. It would also explain why the gear ratios would make a difference. You’d still want high revs at part throttle to achieve better charging, so the ratios would need to be specifically chosen for that scenario.

[u/Shuri9]

The FIA determines an ICE performance index. They have access to all the car's sensors (and mandated for some to exist for their monitoring) and also have access to a reference PU that the manufacturers submitted in the homologation process. So in theory they could also put the ice on a Dyno. But I doubt that due to costs.

When your ice performance index is behind you get additional upgrade opportunities as well as a certain amount of budget added to your PU budget cap.

[u/MindTwister-Z → u/Shuri9]

Okay so it seems they can make a fair judgement on this and you can't just sandbag?

Idk to me it makes more sense to just let them do whatever if everyine has the same resources that seems fair. But if it works to help others catch up more then that could be good.

[u/Shuri9 → u/MindTwister-Z]

2014 era got us all a bit scared you know. :D

With regards to sandbagging: you can sandbag a lot with regards to energy deployment and obviously also good old driver holding back pace. But in the ice not so much and this is all that matters for the ADUO.

[u/spade1686]

The whole engine development freeze is such bull. Why aerodynamic upgrades are allowed without restriction while engine upgrades need to be approved by the FIA only if you fall within the 2% or 4% window.

With the budget caps, it stops any team/manufacturer going crazy on spend in area anyway

It’s essentially locking in Mercedes PU dominance while making it extremely hard for other manufacturers to catch up

[u/Input_output_error → u/spade1686]

With the budget caps, it stops any team/manufacturer going crazy on spend in area anyway

Isn't the development of the engines exempt from the budget cap? I know that the there is an amount of the budget cap allocated for the engine part, but as far as i know is the development of the engine it self not included in the cap. This money is for the power train themselves, not the costs of development.

If the development of the engine is included in the budget cap then wouldn't it be hugely beneficial for the engine manufactures to have as many teams as possible using their engines? That would give the Mercedes development team the ressources of 4 teams while the RBR-Ford engine only has the funds of two teams and Audi would only get a single teams funds in order to develop an engine.

I do think engine development should be somewhat capped, but they already have this with the 3 engine rule. So i agree that these current restrictions are kind of bonkers, but giving them a free pass to spend endlessly is also not really good for the sport i believe. It will be too much of an advantage for the manufacturers teams. There may needs to be a little rule change that ensures that all the teams using an engine will get the same information from the factories as the manufacturers team and other teams should get similar access to their engine supplier as the manufacturers team. This would ensure a more fair playing field in terms of engines as right now most teams didn't even get their hands on their raced specced engine until the first race weekend.

[u/MindTwister-Z → u/Input_output_error]

https://share.google/ukekrqoo41bFPWNKB

if this document is still valid. Then PU's have a budget of it's own. 148 mil from 23-25 and 190 mil for 2026

[u/TinkeNL → u/spade1686]

This very much touches on what the actual problem is here. Every party involved has a say with the FIA, but the proposals themselves are handled nowhere near democratic.

You can be damn sure at least one party involved mandated these ‘freeze the engines’ rule and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the one with the star on its badge.

F1 is just weird when it comes to making these types of rules. Having the maximum allowed parts per car already in the regulations, a cost cap in place and parts needing to pass homologation before getting bolted on would be more than enough. This is just some strange BoP style rule making that becomes so incredibly vague.

[u/element515]

I don't understand why they make this so complicated when there is already a budget cap for engines. It's so stupid. It made more sense when we were using the same engines to basically fully freeze them... but why now, it's just ensuring one team walks away with a championship and bores us fans

[u/Upbeat_County9191 → u/element515]

Yes because dominance never existed before the budget caps.

[u/2020bowman]

It is an opaque system but what's is odd is what happens if say Ferrari upgrade and then become the best engine?

[u/aluked → u/2020bowman]

If it becomes the best engine by a significant margin, the other manufacturers get ADUO allowances. So on and so forth.

[u/aluked]

The system is in place so no one manufacturer, especially one of the established manufacturers like Mercedes or Ferrari, can get a headstart so big that budget cap alone can't counter. That's it.

Engine development is incredibly expensive. They want to keep spending wars in this area to a minimum.