Formula E
wired.com
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There will probably be ongoing changes in the technology regulations; there always are.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Formula_One_season
The fact that this is run completely on street circuits will hurt it. Over taking is incredibly difficult on street circuits and that will turn most people away from it.
For me, it's exciting, i will definitely try to attend a race in my city :)
The problem with both technologies is that they're artificially limited and their use is subject to convoluted regulations. In the end, Vettel always wins anyway.
I love F1, but I would love to see a truly forward looking series with active aerodynamics and suspension, and where teams can develop and use their own tires, this kind of "unlimited" racing, on the same amazing circuits and with the same level of drivers would be truly exciting. Driver safety and minimum weight limit regulations, (and of course rules against oil slicks and the like) would be enough to keep the sport sane, but also encourage a more diverse and interesting set of solutions from the teams.
I understand that F1 is not this series, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't love to see the same drivers in some more interesting machines duking it out around Monte Carlo.
On street circuits HP isn't the issue. Take the F1 Monaco track. There simply isn't space to overtake. There are maybe 2 viable overtake spots and they're seriously borderline.
It does not seem like the kind of decision that would catalyze innovation feasible for the consumer market.
I wonder if they replaced them with fuel cells, would that be an easier on the swap? Could they then just "fuel up" like a petrol-based vehicle?
I'm not sure what can be transferred to regular cars? How often do tires need to be changed? (I guess more often if you have snow and ice some times of year?)
They want to compete with petrol cars not only on the track, but also in the pits.
Le Mans is really just one big automotive experiment, with a lot of the technology trickling down to the rest of us. That's why I love it.
So, I think is a safety reason. You can get one hell of a shock off these systems. Also, I'm sure the Williams' F1 KERS fire is in the back of many people's minds, even if not directly related.
I'm not sure weight distribution is the real reason since batteries can be shaped and conveniently packaged. They could fairly easily have long thin flat batteries running down the side pods, which could physically be swapped and secured. So, I do think its the disconnect/connect danger.
Swapping cars is clumsy, but I'm sure over time capacity and efficiency will increase leading to no stops for power.
This is not what racing is about. Racing is about making sure you not only go the fastest around the track, but it's about endurance of the car itself. Particularly in what amounts to a manufacturer race where it's all about the car.
I love this idea otherwise. Electric cars are getting better and better each day.
Besides, the car swap is an interim thing to get them going. In time, it will go.
Im very looking forward to this.
Besides, the car swap is an interim thing to get them going. In time, it will go.
Im very looking forward to this.
Dr. Ferdinand Porsche is popularly reported to have said "The perfect race car should fall apart the second it crosses the finish line."
Point is, there is always a trade-off between speed and reliability. If you get to the finish line well within the bounds of your reliability every time, you are sacrificing speed.
But it is less of an issue if the cars are all almost identical.
Agreed.
This also involves a TON of strategy to make sure your car can make it the distance. If you can swap out cars, it would seem a great deal of the strategy goes out the window - no?
Why? Swapping cars isn't that much of a jump from the real world solution Tesla is proposing with the battery pack switches. Remember not so long ago F1 had a team car which was essentially switching to another car in case of emergency too.
By reading article Formula E is going to have similar limitations. It is very sad, we just lost technological race where victory would be won by innovation.
> During the race, the cars are forced into a power-saving mode of 133 kW (180 hp)
> The motor is good for a maximum output of 200 kW (270 horsepower), but that power is only allowed to be used continuously during practice and qualifying.
> Formula E racer can go from 0-60 MPH in three seconds, while the top speed is limited to a rather anemic 140 MPH
Not true at all. If the cars were practically identical Red Bull wouldn't be running away with the championship every year. As important as the drivers are in F1 the car is much more important.
>> "Formula 1 was ruined by restrictions on maximal engine performance, acceleration... even tyres are dictated"
Without some of those restrictions most of the smaller teams couldn't afford to go racing. We would lose probably half the teams. And tyres are what has made F1 so exciting these last few years. Tyres could easily be made to last an entire race taking away the strategy aspect from F1 that makes it so interesting.
It was boring because there weren't any restrictions, and so the best teams were so far ahead the races just became a procession. That and the high downforce setups being badly affected by running behind other cars, coupled with tires that didn't wear out much, made overtaking almost non existent.
In the last 6 seasons, we've had 4 championships decided on the last race, one of those on the very last corner, one with three drivers separated by a single point, one with 4 drivers a chance to win it going into the last race, and another twice having the championship decided by the equivalent of coming 5th instead of 3rd in a single race out of twenty. Not to mention more overtaking and wheel to wheel racing than the past 15 years combined, more world champions competing against each other than at any other point in history and a great mixture of old teams and new teams winning races (5 separate teams won races last season).
And yet, in spite of all that, if you think there isn't technological competition winning the races, you're dead wrong. What about the F-Duct, rear blown diffuser, or the double diffuser which almost single handedly won Brawn F1 both titles in its first and only year in existence? If all the cars are the same, how is the Red Bull six seconds per lap faster than the Caterham at Spa when they run exactly the same Renault engine? It has just changed focus to aerodynamics and car setup, rather than making a better engine.
F1 today is just street race with oddly shaped cars.
Did Caterham forget to turn their engine into fast mode? Or is there maybe some technology somewhere in that Red Bull car to justify their roughly $300 million budget.
Because the FIA limited the placement and size of aerodynamic fins (i.e. spoilers and front lips), the engineers started using other aerodynamic innovations to increase downforce. One of the most interesting things to come out of F1 cars, from an aerospace engineering perspective, is the use of eddies and other circular air motions underneath the vehicle to drop the pressure (and create a corresponding downforce).
Just because the rules stop innovation on something like engine tech doesn't mean innovation stops; it just means it moves to optimizing other pieces of tech.
Prefer that to some of the uneven racing of the Schumacher era.
The cooling ducts in the sidepods are a lot smaller in Formula E than in F1. On the top, there's no airbox where the air intake would be but you need to have a rollover bar above the driver's head.
Watching refrigerators go around a racing track for an hour at a time, with no car endurance, making no noise, doesn't sound like an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.
Hopefully F1 viewership will go up.
I hope they take a different approach with Formula E.