For 2018, the engine rules have changed slightly, particularly around how many engine parts
each car is allowed to go through. For comparison, let’s quickly remind ourselves
of the 2017 engine – or POWER UNIT, as we’re supposed to call it – rules with regards
to parts and penalties. So, each power unit is made up of six ELEMENTS.
I’ve got a whole video on how these elements work together, but just quickly, these elements
are: ICE – internal combustion engine. The main
bit that you feed petrol and produced most of the power.
TC – the turbo charger – uses waste gas to drive a fan that feeds more air into the
engine for more power MGU-H – the element that recovers heat energy
from the turbo MGU-K – recovers kinetic energy of the car
under braking and charges the battery ES - Energy Store – basically a big battery
to store the recovered energy CE – control electronics. Does the tricky
business of connecting the AC current from the ICE and MGUs and the DC current of the
battery In 2017, every car had 4 of each element to
use for the whole season. I.e. Each car had to make those four units of each element last
for 20 race weekends. So, each unit had to last about five races. You could swap out
the units whenever you wanted – between races or even between sessions You’d find
drivers using their old engines in practice sessions, for example. The only time you couldn’t
swap engine parts scott-free was after the car was locked down in parc fermé after qualifying.
It’s a fine art balancing when you’ll use engine parts throughout the season. Italy,
for example is intensive on the power unit so you don’t want to rock up with a bunch
of half-worn pieces. If you used up all four of one element, through
wear or breakage, and had to use a new unit, you had to take a penalty. The penalty system
last year worked like this: The first time you take a 5th unit of any
element, you get a 10 place grid penalty. The next time you take a fifth unit of any
element you get a five place grid penalty. The first time you take a 6th unit of any
element, you get a 10 place penalty. Again, any of the next 6th units gets you a 5 place
penalty And so on, and so on.
What’s changing for 2018? This year, each car has EVEN FEWER units of
each element to use for the whole season. And this year there are 21 races, not 20,
so this is quite the stretch. Now, each car has 3 units of each ICE, TC
and MGU-H and TWO units each of every ES, MGU-K and CE
So each ICE, TC and MGUH has to last about 7 race weekends and the ES, MGUK and CE has
to last about 10-11 weekends. For the cars that manage this, that would be an incredible
achievement considering in the 2000s, cars would go through 2 or 3 engines PER WEEKEND!
The penalties have slightly changed too. This time, the FIRST new unit of each element (i.e.
the 4th ICE, TC and MGUH and the 3rd new ES, MGUK and CE) lands you a ten place penalty.
Each new unit after that costs you just 5 places on the grid. A little bit simpler to
follow, I think. Don’t forget, of course, that a penalty of over 15 places will send
you straight to the back of the grid! The reason the number of available power units
was decreased was a matter of cost. The hybrid engines are still very expensive and amount
to a significant chunk of customer teams’ budget. The easiest way to bring this down
was to try to force them to use fewer engines. The price-per power unit has also been reduced
for 2018. But WILL this bring down costs? Simply saying
they’re only allowed 3 engine parts a year doesn’t make those engine parts last the
whole year. And if a car has to use a new engine, they have to use a new engine. There’s
no getting around it. Let’s look at last year’s power unit use.
as you can see – only ten cars (half the field) managed to make it through the season
without going over their allowed number of power unit parts. Poor Stoffel Vandoorne actually
used 3 times as many turbo and MGUH units as he was allowed to. The actual engine construction
rules aren’t changing (in any real way) for next year so manufacturers have their
work cut out trying to make fast but reliable engine parts for 2018.
We will see how easily this quite dramatic tightening of the economies of engines will
affect racing. A quick note here: the engine parts are assigned
to the CAR, not the driver. So even if drivers are swapped, as particularly with Toro Rosso
last year, the car maintains its power unit history.
Another minor rule change – the FIA are clamping down on oil burning. Some teams were
feeding engine oil into the combustion system for a boost of power and this is no longer
allowed and will be regulated. What do you think of these rules? The FIA
have a lot to juggle with these engine rules: costs vs efficiencies vs power vs spectacle
vs keeping things simple. It’s no mean feat to keep engines modern, cheap and reliable.
The ideas are on the table for the next generation of power unit for 2021 and I’ll be covering
them soon. I look forward to reading your thoughts on the matter!