Exclusive: FIA Requires F1 Teams To Lodge '07 Engines In Japan

[narain fan 0]

EXCLUSIVE: FIA Requires F1 Teams to Lodge '07 Engines in Japan

Written by: Adam Cooper RACER Magazine

Nice, France – 8/10/2006 The engine spec raced at this year's Japanese GP will last F1 teams for the next four seasons. (LAT Photo)

SPEEDtv.com can reveal that the FIA’s Charlie Whiting has informed the F1 teams of the engine homologation procedures that have been put in place for the end of the season, and they will now have to deliver a definitive engine after either the Japanese or Brazilian GPs.

Following a meeting in Nice on Monday between Max Mosley and the GPMA it was finally agreed that the engine freeze will be brought forward to 2007, and in return the teams were given until October to come up with a definitive engine spec that will last for the next four seasons. The units they submitted in June will now be returned.

A detailed procedure had to be put in place to ensure that all engines submitted are genuine race engines capable of doing two meetings. This will prevent teams from rushing through developments over the next two months which are not yet capable of lasting the distance. The only way round that would be to push the technical limits and then require the driver to run the minimum mileage through the two weekends, at very low rpm.

Whiting’s technical directive number 27 requires every team to hand over an engine for sealing on October 8, at the end of the Japanese GP, the penultimate race of the season. It must have completed two race distances, ie including the Chinese GP. If the team is out of sequence and is unable to provide a two-race engine at that point, it will have to supply one at the end of the Brazilian GP that raced for the first time in Suzuka.

The two-race requirement means that teams can’t get away with handing over an engine at the end of the final race in Brazil which was built especially to do one race – something Renault was able to do last year when Fernando Alonso’s change sequence meant that he had a new engine with one race to go.

Just in case failures or retirements mean that a team is unable to satisfy either of the above requirements, all engines coming to an end of a two-race cycle in Italy and China will also be sealed and kept as back-up. If they are not subsequently required, the teams will get them back. The onus is clearly on a reliable run over the last two or three races, or a team could be stuck with a design that first raced as early as Turkey on August 25-27.

In effect the latest anyone can put an engine into a car and complete the procedures properly is the Japanese GP weekend on October 6-8. Allowing for the obvious logistical problems the engines will have to be built and ready to go some days before that. Actual development and construction of parts will in turn be pushed back.

The one team that could gain a tiny advantage is Honda, since its engines are made in Japan and could arrive at Suzuka at the last minute (Toyota’s engines are built in Cologne). Indeed their best bet could be to put a brand new unit in a Super Aguri on Sunday morning – forcing it to start from the pitlane – and then hope that the driver gets to the end of both that race and Brazil!

Of course European makers could fly a latest spec engine out at the last minute and do the same thing…

[dribbler 6]

All seems unnecessarily complicated to me.

[ykickamoocow 0]

All seems unnecessarily complicated to me.

Sounds like a average F1 plan too me.

[Autumnpuma 0]

So it begins.....

[F1 FANatic 1]

All seems unnecessarily complicated to me.

doesnt sound complicated enough to me. I would have expected the teams to have to run the two races in reverse orsomething, maybe while having the team bosses walk on a burning tightrope over a cage of hungry bears and only those teams where the boss made it out alive would have been able to race next year.

somethings fishy, i dont quite understand the reasoning for it, but the plan makes sense of having to hand over a race tested engin.

I bet though that the bears will have a part in it when a team looses its engin in Japan or Brazil.

[ecapdeville 0]

This is NOT F1

The sport is dying...

[Autumnpuma 0]

F1

Eduardo, people like us are a dying breed...I'm giving the new rules a fair shake and we'll see where this all leads. I'm not very hopeful, but we'll see........

[bajo39 0]

This is NOT F1

The sport is dying...

Fear not. We may suffer in the short term but artificially limiting technological advancement at the pinnacle of motorsport is unsustainable. You have only to look at the once-glorious, now-defunct, IMSA series for proof. Eventually, if F1 does not get its act together, a competitor series will emerge with faster cars, more daring drivers and better racing. This may seem out of the realm of possiblity at the moment with CCWS and IRL management at loggerheads but things can change quickly. I'm hoping they do

[Autumnpuma 0]

Fear not. We may suffer in the short term but artificially limiting technological advancement at the pinnacle of motorsport is unsustainable. You have only to look at the once-glorious, now-defunct, IMSA series for proof. Eventually, if F1 does not get its act together, a competitor series will emerge with faster cars, more daring drivers and better racing. This may seem out of the realm of possiblity at the moment with CCWS and IRL management at loggerheads but things can change quickly. I'm hoping they do

You give me hope.

Perhaps I'll start calling F1 'GP1' from now on

[nojvnof1 0]

We'll well probably have to find a new name as it won't be F1 as we know it that's for sure.

[UrKo 0]

So it begins.....

....the end of F1

[bajo39 0]

....the end of F1

It would not make me unhappy so long as there was a substitute that could provide at least the same quality of technology and racing. I suspect your loyalty is likewise to racing and technology itself not to the commercial entity known as Formula 1.

[Autumnpuma 0]

It would not make me unhappy so long as there was a substitute that could provide at least the same quality of technology and racing. I suspect your loyalty is likewise to racing and technology itself not to the commercial entity known as Formula 1.

My loyalty is also to the historic entity known as Formula 1...

[dribbler 6]

My loyalty is in supporting the future entity known as Formula One

*runs up to bajo and 'Puma, shouts out the above and runs away whilst they hurl Brabham conrods and Lotus 79 wings at dribbler*

[bajo39 0]

My loyalty is in supporting the future entity known as Formula One

*runs up to bajo and 'Puma, shouts out the above and runs away whilst they hurl Brabham conrods and Lotus 79 wings at dribbler*

Why, you a fan of Bernie?

[Fed up 0]

It would not make me unhappy so long as there was a substitute that could provide at least the same quality of technology and racing. I suspect your loyalty is likewise to racing and technology itself not to the commercial entity known as Formula 1.

There is already a substitute for you old romantics...

the GP Masters series

Slick tyres, minimal aero mods and very little FIA interference.

[Autumnpuma 0]

There is already a substitute for you old romantics...

the GP Masters series

Slick tyres, minimal aero mods and very little FIA interference.

And becoming far more exciting and popular than current F1

[dribbler 6]

And becoming far more exciting and popular than current F1

More exciting? maybe. More popular? er, i don't think so.

[QWERTY 0]

I was hoping to see the come back of 3.0L now we have to watch 4 more seasons of lawnmower with wings. i really enjoyed during the 90s but after 2000s all went downhill.

[Autumnpuma 0]

More exciting? maybe. More popular? er, i don't think so.

I can dream, can't I?

[dribbler 6]

I can dream, can't I?

I thought your dream would consist of a bunch of old codgers driving wingless, slick tyred V12 beasts at The 'ring, Max being sacrificially burned and Senna returning to earth for the second coming to put them all in their place.

Come to think of it, even i wouldn't mind that. (As long as Ayrton didn't beat Michael. But then Michael had Ayrton beaten anyway).

There is an irony in Formula One. The average man on the street who tunes in to watch a F1 race moans about the lack of spectacle because they do not truely understand the sport. The reason they tune in though is because their perception is that it is the pinnacle of motorsport.

[Autumnpuma 0]

I thought your dream would consist of a bunch of old codgers driving wingless, slick tyred V12 beasts at The 'ring, Max being sacrificially burned and Senna returning to earth for the second coming to put them all in their place.

Ah....religious passages from the first Epistle of the Apostle Senna. Amen.

[MSR 0]

Sorry for asking the stupid questions but who cares if it has done 2 races or is a new engine.

If it is a one race special then they are kinda stuffed for the next 4 years.

Or did I miss something?????

[Autumnpuma 0]

Sorry for asking the stupid questions but who cares if it has done 2 races or is a new engine.

If it is a one race special then they are kinda stuffed for the next 4 years.

Or did I miss something?????

They would get the chance to work on the reliability of the one race special over the winter. Making them submit an engine that has gone two races ensures against that.

[MSR 0]

They would get the chance to work on the reliability of the one race special over the winter. Making them submit an engine that has gone two races ensures against that.

I thought once they submit it that was it no more development. Reliability or otherwise. Surely if they want to make it more reliable then they would have to modify something.