Ferrari team boss also calls for F1 engine penalty rule re-think
Sep.23 - Mattia Binotto has called on Formula 1 to consider a change to the sport's long-life engine rules.
After Monza, where the grid order was once again shaken up by a spate of grid penalties for engine component changes, Alpine driver Esteban Ocon called for a re-think.
"Obviously no manufacturer is able to provide engines that can withstand so many races," said the Frenchman. "We want too much. There are too many races."
Esteban Ocon (FRA) Alpine F1 Team. Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Saturday 26th March 2022. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The chaos is likely to be repeated in 2023, with F1 adding yet another race to its already bloated current calendar of 23 grands prix.
"I think the rules for next season need to be revised to slightly increase the number of power unit elements that we can use," said Ocon.
Interestingly, Ferrari boss Binotto agrees, declaring that the delay between the end of qualifying and the declaration of the official starting order was also far too long in Monza.
"It took that long because there are different interpretations and the regulation is not clear enough," he said.
"That's something we need to address certainly for the future. I think not only how we decide the grid position based on the penalties, but the amount of penalties we've got is too many as well."
Binotto agrees with Ocon that expanding the component allocation per driver would help.
"Maybe the three PUs per driver is too little for what we have achieved," he said. "Maybe it needs to be reconsidered for the next seasons."
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, however, said it's unrealistic to try to improve the situation simply by dropping the grid penalty rule altogether.
"If there were no grid penalties, we would have qualifying engines and not just five but 20," he is quoted by Italy's Autosprint.
"The big teams would spend at will to have an advantage and so we need a factor to avoid that. That's why we have the penalties.
"Certainly they have become too complex, but we have to bear in mind that whatever freedom is granted, we will take it and use it in an even more strategic way.
"If the penalty is only 5 or even 10 positions, we would still break an engine for the race because we would have a 3 tenths advantage. So there needs to be some deterrent."
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No, increasing the PU element allocation upper limit would contradict the sustainability approach & besides, teams would continue gaming the system nevertheless & by using more components, so giving more leeway would be a wrong solution.
If F1 allowed one engine for the season and penalized a new engine with a two-race suspension, the teams could bring an engine that lasted all season. It is not a technology problem, it is a predictable result of teams taking aggressive trade-offs between engine power, and engine longevity. If you allowed ten engines, most, or all, manufacturers would build a more aggressive engine that wouldn't last the season. Only harsher penalties will alter the trade-off between engine power, and engine reliability. F1 rumors suggested that one recently yellow team opted last winter to build a super aggressive engine that closed the power gap by sacrificing engine reliability which they hoped they could increase during the engine freeze. That same teams now seems to be asking F1 to be more forgiving on those that abused engine power versus engine longevity decisions.
There was a time when Formula 1 had skinny tires and fat drivers. Rules were few and most of them were gentlemen's agreements and a hand-shake. Which defines one end of the spectrum. Today's Formula 1 is heavily regulated by a bloated organization that has lost sight of it's purpose. There are some checks and balances, but teams and drivers have little opportunity to moves the upper or lower limits. Toto is many thing's I dislike about people of his nature, but he is at least blunt and to the point about seeking an advantage at any cost. Which today defines the other end of the spectrum.
Ah i think i read somewhere i think it was Marc Priestly said during his time at Mcl , they'd go through 50 engines a year, i wonder during Senna/Prost era how many Honda engines they used in a season , id guess even more than that, Ah Petrol, the drink of Champions
The teams race
Ergo they chase speed at any cost
Except for those rules getting in the way
Those cheaper all mechanical (disposable) engines aren't around anymore
There's not enough money in the world to churn out these current engines at the old one per use rate
The bits and bobs are just too pricey as the years and technology move on
Ferrari should build a better engine and stop being whinging bumholes
The World has it's eyes 👀 on F1 as a destroying force of the environment
Costs need to be capped to maintain it's viability
Cap driver salaries and invest the money in better equipment
If anyone in the sport needs or deserves to be overpaid millionaires it's the drivers
They risk their lives every time they sit in one of those rockets no matter how good the safety belts are these days now that they've installed and use them
There was a time when they were extremely under paid and raced purely cause their grey cells were jumbled up and assembled in the wrong way and they paid for it with their lives and we all called it bravery it might one day be reassed as stupidity
But the bravery still applies today even with safety being as resolute as it is and continues to grow and continued praises to sir Jackie
But other than lower ticket prices coming at the expense of the billionaires filling their pockets
Drivers getting their due is tops in my book even if you have to use the shortened life of a sports persons career as an explanation or argument and include the expense of arriving at a chance at a formula one drive without the support of RB for example there's got to be a method of paying the bank of family back in some manner
A few years of million dollar salaries sure helps
Ocon can now help prop up his dad's garage till he retires or have him or his parents retire all
together
Some people deserve things like that
There's a lot of sacrifice to completing a circuit of the annual calender
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