Formula 1: Turbo era never ends

(Inspired by the AH title thread)

What if, instead of banning turbochargers in response to the increasingly dangerous nature of F1 races, regulators decide to remove nearly all restrictions on technology, but with the caveat that cars are required to survive nearly any possible crash scenario at their maximum speed.

What would F1 cars look like in 2011?

Fireaxe888 said:

(Inspired by the AH title thread)

What if, instead of banning turbochargers in response to the increasingly dangerous nature of F1 races, regulators decide to remove nearly all restrictions on technology, but with the caveat that cars are required to survive nearly any possible crash scenario at their maximum speed.

What would F1 cars look like in 2011?

Click to expand...

epic asphalt stallions


Ayrton Senna lives!

and it's Senna versus Schumacher, Senna has six championships, Schumacher has five, and it's Renault-Williams versus Ferrari as the constructor titans


the highest speed recorded on the track so far is 280 miles per hour, achieved last week by Nigel Mansell in a McLaren-Chevrolet, baring sharp challenging fangs under that 'stache


edit

The top turbo motors crank out over 1600 hp easily, sporting exotic materials including ceramics and various alloys.

with the overbuilt safety measures, the minimum vehicle weight is 1800 pounds, the better to keep the missiles on the ground, some say.


edit2

A precious few carp about the safety cell almost but not quite surrounding the driver, but, the cars are usually moving too quickly for fans to notice.

Between the apocalyptic power and the high-ish weight, tires are kind of gigantic.

a couple teams are rumored to be discussing a retry of the iconic Tyrell-pioneered six-wheel format to further keep the cars in line in the turns.

The series would have to regulate fuels and boost levels at some point if the turbos continue to race. Some of the stuff guys were using for fuel in the late 80s they were getting in hazmat suits. (No exaggeration. The EPA was shitting bricks at the USGP in Detroit seeing guys in hazmat suits handling the fuels, because they had no clue what was in them.)

The costs of turbo development were getting out of hand in the 80s, and while cost control is something of an oxymoron in Formula One, they needed to get things a bit under control. The fact that the top turbo cars in 1986-87 on maximum boost were making in excess of 1500 horsepower out of 1500cc engines is a bit terrifying, especially considering that chassis and aerodynamic technology is not as advanced then as it is now.

Bar the limiting of boost and fuels, I can't see the turbo era going much further than it did. If it goes on without limits, the top cars will probably be comfortably past two thousand horsepower by 1991-92. Combine that with Williams' active suspension cars and the aerodynamic advancements, by the mid-90s you'd have missiles fast enough that the cars would be unsafe on many tracks, particularly fast ones like Hockenheim, Spa, Suzuka, Monza and Silverstone. You'd be looking at all-out speeds being about the same as now, but truly insane levels of acceleration, and probably the chassis being beefier to handle the heavier impacts. Think more like 90s/early 2000s Champ Cars than 90s Formula One cars.

Going further on, the grooved tires used by F1 in the late 90s and 2000s would disappear, being wholly inadequate to handle the levels of power on hand. The FIA would want there to be an ability to run with naturally-aspirated motors to run with the turbos, so bet on the NA formula being boosted from 3.5 to 4.5 or 5.0 liters. Toyota's awesome F1 V12, which sadly never raced (FU Mosley) would probably be used, and V12s would be the most common motors, matching bigger displacement with more RPMs, and probably even V16s would be on deck. The cars have engine power in the 1500-horsepower ballpark in race trim, limited more by fuel consumption and traction under acceleration than anything else. Yes, they would need to be bigger and heavier to deal with the massive growth in straight line speeds, and the lap records at fast tracks like Monza reaching average speeds of nearly 300 kilometres an hour.

Well, If I had been in charge of F1 at the time, I wouldn't have tried to regulate with boost or fuel induction limits directly, instead, I would have mandated a maximum tank size limit, longer races over all, and depending on the length of the race, either a sealed tank, or a maximum refuel limit. Let's see if we couldn't limit the number of reserve engine blocks per team per season to, say, 1/2 the number of drivers (minimum of one).

Then, let's see if the major manufacturers couldn't leverage the resulting fuel effeciency gains in the real world.

My father bought auto magazines in the 80's - still have them in my attic.

I remember Niki Lauda telling the journalist how it feel to be driving in Monaco narrow streets with a good 1000 hp in the back... scarying.

I want turbo, but I also want wing cars, turbin cars, six-wheeled cars. 1978 - 1988 was a hell of era for Formula One.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Emblem:_Hawk_of_the_Grand_Prix

Todoroki special ! http://www.smcars.net/forums/attach...80d1197153885-todoroki-special-todoroki24.jpg

limiting F1 perfomance

Turbo technology on F1 cars in the 80's was not as advanced as it is on the latest multi turbo variable vaned diesel road cars today. They relied on very high manifold pressures (upwards of 60Psi), ultra high octane fuel (often spiked with toluene) and high fuel consumption. To bring back or limit performance whilst retaining exciting racing one should prevent the introduction of Carbon fibre brakes. Braking horse power on a car is typically upto 5 times greater than engine horsepower. Eliminating brake fade has allowed cars to delay braking to a point before the bend that is so close even between cars of differing horse power performance that overtaking and hence entertainment is virtually impossible. Re introduction of steel brakes would mean the driver has to preserve his braking performance in the way he must preserve his fuel and tyres. It might seem a dangerous approach but lower approach speeds to corners would give the opportunity for the braver driver or the driver who has preserved his brakes better to dive past

with turbos the death toll would be higher... i think around 1-2 pilots per year would die...

turbos have to much power, modern technology easily could reach 2000-2500hp, with less weight... you can´t build the cars save enough for this.

it is not a smart idea - with more risks more people will follow it, but only to a certain point.

Fuel would be the best way to limit unlimited turbo cars, keep the fancy shit like tolulene out of the fuels and boost won`t be too ridculous.

I think that we would have seen even more deaths in Formula One. Think about it, the early 90's were an era in F1 where "anything went". Combine this with 1000 BHP cars, and you get uncontrollable cars, which are prone to accidents. Especially if driving aids are still banned ITTLs 1994.

I would have suggested that F1 and IndyCar unify their engine regulations, but this would have never happened with Bernie Ecclestone. Then again, the thought of F1 teams like Ferrari or Mclaren racing the Indy500 thrills me. Kinda like Ganassi or Penske doing the Indy500 in early 2000's, while they were still racing in the CART series.

The World Sportscar Championship would also continue to exist, since there wouldn't have been the stupid 3.5l engines, which FIA enforced upon the WSC in the early 90's.

I would have suggested that F1 and IndyCar unify their engine regulations, but this would have never happened with Bernie Ecclestone. Then again, the thought of F1 teams like Ferrari or Mclaren racing the Indy500 thrills me. Kinda like Ganassi or Penske doing the Indy500 in early 2000's, while they were still racing in the CART series.

The FOCA would love to be allowed to race at Indy, for their cars would dominate. The Indy authorities have always tried to prevent the euro Teams taking over, usually by manipulating the rule book. Lotus won at Indy, then McLaren built the M16 and ruled indy. When Chaparrall built their Lotus 79 clone 2k it won, etc. After the Porsche debacle, when Indy changed the rules at the last minute to make the Porsche Turbo engine uncompetitive the europeans only went back to Indy in force once, and it was with Mercedes OHV sneak attack in 1994 that demolished the oposition, and got rule book banned for 95...
If the engines had been standartized at 1.5l turbo or 3.0l atmo for F1 and Indy in 1980, a Indy preped Renault RE20F1 would have won Indy by miles and sent the US TV audience running for their remote controls...

F1 teams versus Indy teams would become a battle of the budgets.

And somehow I think the top F1 teams with budgets in the hundreds of millions would win, assuming of course that the two classes have similar restrictions on cars.

How fast would an F1 car be if the FIA slowly released the ban on 1-2 items each year?

[Indy preped Renault RE20F1 would have won Indy by miles

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A Renault RE20 at Indianapolis would have ended up like this..

To quote Tom Carnegie..

"And Jean-Pierre Jabouille's slowing down the backstretch!"

Renault RE--Any number is French for

"I'm fast enough to maybe win, but certainly fragile enough to have something break."

Just ask Alain Prost and Eddie Cheever about the RE40. That car's mechanical issues cost both of them the '83 season.

Call me one of the few who liked things the way they went. I enjoyed the Turbo era, but it much prefer to see basically a set of basic regulations and from there let the Postelwaites, Murrays and Ducarouges fight it out.

Well, if we're gonna throw off the turbo lid, might as well go whole hog: eight wheels, four in front, four in back!

But really, keeping the turbos but moving to a common fuel, plus banning refueling could have been really interesting. Then, despite the turbo (or big-block NA), they can't get to really ridiculous acceleration without risking being out of fuel by the end of it.

with no restrictions on the motors (or on fuel, muhahaha) and full-speed-ahead on trick suspensions... wow.


I'm thinking 1200KG minimum weights for the cars to accomodate the mother-of-all safety cells, with state of the art energy-absorption structures between the driver area and potential impact areas.

as for attending fans, we can hope fervently that the fancy suspension tech (and, unleashed variable wing tech, ground-effect plumbing, variations of the incredible Chaparral 2J "vacuum" car, etc.) keeps cars from flying into the grandstands



so, yeah, as per the POD, making the car dramatically heavier (with I think nearly all that extra weight taken up with safety structure) and including aggressive development of tech that'll keep the cars on the ground will perhaps make the drivers invincible in these road-borne rockets.

maybe teams will combine with major computer or software makers at a certain point, the Ferrari-Microsoft special anyone?

Chipperback said:

A Renault RE20 at Indianapolis would have ended up like this..

To quote Tom Carnegie..

"And Jean-Pierre Jabouille's slowing down the backstretch!"

Renault RE--Any number is French for

"I'm fast enough to maybe win, but certainly fragile enough to have something break."

Just ask Alain Prost and Eddie Cheever about the RE40. That car's mechanical issues cost both of them the '83 season.

Call me one of the few who liked things the way they went. I enjoyed the Turbo era, but it much prefer to see basically a set of basic regulations and from there let the Postelwaites, Murrays and Ducarouges fight it out.

Click to expand...

They only broke down when racing FW07 williams. Racing at Indy they could dial down the pressure and cruise to win.

What do you call a Renault Turbo engine dialed down? Blown

Heavier cars more power and more turbo development is awesome, but then you run again into the two problems that hurt a good period in Formula 1 to begin with.

1. You raised the development costs so high to the point where only a few could play.

2. You eliminated a lot of good solid mid-field teams that could make it interesting enough to where you have competitive, and a real platform to develop talent.

That's the balance that made Formula 1 interesting. You had the superteams, and the factories, but you also had the "Uncle Ken" Tyrrells who could make it interesting...or the Frank Williamses who turned their cottage team into a superteam over time.

Granted, the upside to unlimited "Formula None" is that it does flush out the Andrea Modas of the world, and God Bless it. But I'd love to see F-1 flourish in a multilevel world where you had the turbos and a the normally aspirated cars battling it out with 16 or so solid teams that had to fighting it out. A cross between the business, technology and safety of the 1980 and 1990s with the seat-of-your-pants sexy fun of the 1960s and 1970s. Now that something I pay to see.

And lets change the TV contract so that everybody can get some Murray Walker experience worldwide...even if he gets things wrong sometimes.

TheMann said:

The series would have to regulate fuels and boost levels at some point if the turbos continue to race. Some of the stuff guys were using for fuel in the late 80s they were getting in hazmat suits. (No exaggeration. The EPA was shitting bricks at the USGP in Detroit seeing guys in hazmat suits handling the fuels, because they had no clue what was in them.)

Click to expand...

Holy crap! What were they feeding into those engines, hydrazine and nitrogen tetraoxide?

Chipperback said:

What do you call a Renault Turbo engine dialed down? Blown

Heavier cars more power and more turbo development is awesome, but then you run again into the two problems that hurt a good period in Formula 1 to begin with.

1. You raised the development costs so high to the point where only a few could play.

2. You eliminated a lot of good solid mid-field teams that could make it interesting enough to where you have competitive, and a real platform to develop talent.

That's the balance that made Formula 1 interesting. You had the superteams, and the factories, but you also had the "Uncle Ken" Tyrrells who could make it interesting...or the Frank Williamses who turned their cottage team into a superteam over time.

Granted, the upside to unlimited "Formula None" is that it does flush out the Andrea Modas of the world, and God Bless it. But I'd love to see F-1 flourish in a multilevel world where you had the turbos and a the normally aspirated cars battling it out with 16 or so solid teams that had to fighting it out. A cross between the business, technology and safety of the 1980 and 1990s with the seat-of-your-pants sexy fun of the 1960s and 1970s. Now that something I pay to see.

And lets change the TV contract so that everybody can get some Murray Walker experience worldwide...even if he gets things wrong sometimes.

Click to expand...

each event could have an "opening event" with F1 "retro" cars, and then the main event with the full-on stallions

jaybird said:

Holy crap! What were they feeding into those engines, hydrazine and nitrogen tetraoxide?

Click to expand...

No idea, but I know the fuel base was mostly toluene, which is highly toxic. Getting a thousand horsepower fer liter of engine displacement isn't easy, and I doubt its even possible with any reliability on straight racing gasoline.

Chipperback is entirely right about the problems with the end of the turbo era. The last year the turbos raced (1988), McLaren won 15 of the 16 races and finished the year with three times the points of the team in second place. They dominated so utterly that there was talk of banning them late in the season. I'd like to see the turbos survive too, but you'd have to put limits on the power to allow NA engines to run, and the early 90s saw some success for the smaller squads, something which should be allowed to happen.

Silver arrows or can am

There were two race formulas that pretty much allowed anything goes cars within workable limits. The under 750kg 30s F1 that gave us the mercedes vs auto union battles with the bimotore alfas adding colour and the 66 to 73 Can Am that gave us the wonderful Papaia orange McLarens and ended with a 1300HP porsche.
A modern day 750kg F1 could lead to seriously wonderful monsters. Or we could all just watch the speed racer DVD...