It’s not hard to see that both Ferrari and Renault have failed to live up to the benchmark set by Mercedes with the 2014 power unit. As always there is nothing to stop manufacturers from trying to make up ground, with both Ferrari and Renault making strides since the start of the season. Ferrari have defiantly improved their pace since the summer break. One of their cunning tricks from Maranello was to wrap the exhaust. They have wrapped the exhaust in a heat insulating material to keep the heat inside and stop it from escaping, like a polystyrene cup with your coffee. The benefit is quite simple – more power.
This is how it works: The engine produces Carbon Dioxide which is extracted by the manifolds to the tail pipe and out the car. From internal combustion a lot of heat is produced, the teams use this to turn the fan in the tail pipe for the MGU-K unit. So the quicker you turn the fan the more power you will have. If teams are able to keep as much heat internally, then they will gain more when the MGU-K is diploid. So teams like Marussia and Sauber have been developing their systems from the start of 2014 to help move up the grid however Ferrari have only started recently. Their system is 20% more effective than before and should be a notable difference. If there is any way that teams can gain a power boost then it should be seized with every opportunity.
Secondly I would like to discuss that many teams would like to have free engine development from their engine supplier. Sauber, Caterham and Marussia are all strapped for cash and have had financial help from Bernie Ecclestone to help develop their engines. A rule for 2015 has been put forward to the FIA and Bernie to make engine developments free for teams which are struggling financially – but this has not been implemented by the FIA or Bernie at this moment in time. I think that this should be a rule for 2015, as teams will be able to be more creative on aerodynamics of the car without the issue of no money, unless the team overspend. Maybe there should be a rule that teams with less than 30 million can have free engine developments but teams over cannot as their budget is bigger?
In other news, reports suggest Infiniti (the luxury car brand from Japan), are looking to buy Renault F1 and to build engines for Red Bull Racing. As we know many teams have called their Renault power units “unacceptable” by all teams who use them. Meanwhile if the sale does not go through then they will work in partnership with Renault F1 to construct the power units. The engines will still be built-in their Viry base in southern France and Milton Keynes in England, which does seem to break the homologation rule which is in force by the FIA, which means a possible re-brand which would be disliked by rival teams. An idea to get around this was to be in a joint partnership with Renault, Red Bull (RBR) and Infiniti as posed by Matt Somerfield (@somersF1). This could end up not supplying engines to teams like Caterham, Lotus and Toro Rosso leaving them with no power unit. But we know Lotus will run the Mercedes engine from next year and Honda are back to power McLaren. Maybe they get more business then they first anticipated? Also Matt Somerfield tells us that a re-brand is more than likely to happen and all they will be doing is ” changing the name above the door” to what the new re-branded company is. But this is still early days, so anything can happen.
